Answered prayers for OUR benefit?

I've always heard that God will answer our prayers in whatever way that will be best for us. And I got to thinking, does God really answer our prayers for our benefit? We aren't living our lives for us, we're living our lives for Him. So shouldn't he answer our prayers for His benefit? Whatever we pray for, He answers according to His will, so that His will will be done. I know that God knows what's best for us, He knows everything. But if we were to ask, for instance, that we wouldn't get hit by a bus and die today, if God answered for our benefit, then He probably wouldn't let us get hit by a bus. But if He answered for His will, and maybe your death would bring many others to Him, then it would have to happen. And getting hit by a bus isn't very good for our health. Now I know that He might work in a different way if He knows that He can and deems it necessary, but it would still be answering it to further His will, not benefit us. If we are supposed to be willing to give it all to God, then we shouldn't worry about our prayers benefiting us as much as our prayers working to do God's will. Not that you shouldn't pray for certain things, like Him helping you on your test or helping you in the next basketball game. But I think that in everything you do, you should be thinking about how it can carry out God's plans, rather than your own. Mark 8:36 says "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" Saying that God does everything to help us just isn't true. Sure He offers us some luxuries: a nice house, some sweet shoes. But our life on this earth is for Him. We need to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking about God and what we can do to please Him.

Prayer...

I was listening to the radio tonight and the host asked us to pray for someone, and it made me realize that too many people take prayer too lightly. A lot of people just say "Pray for me" or "I'll be praying for you" and think nothing of it. They think that it's just kind of something you say. But it's for real. It can make a huge difference. Praying is huge. We're talking to God or asking Him for a favor. That's nothing to sneeze at. Even those who don't pray sometimes ask people to pray for them. They think "Well, it can't hurt." And sometimes that's what we think too. When we pray, we are having a one-on-one conversation with our Creator. So next time you pray, don't just pray because you feel like you have to, because you feel like you might as well, or just because you want things. But do it because you want to glorify God in everything that you do.

Christian Music...

I was listening to Way FM today and I realized that no music compares to Christian music. When you get a shout-out from a friend on the radio you freak out, right? Well Christian music is the only kind of music that is constantly talking about you. It is the only truly uplifting kind of music there is. It is always talking about God and His plan for our lives. What does other music sing about? Certainly not that. Christian music can teach us lessons, keep us strong in our faith, or even just preserve our minds from worldly things. It's the only genre that can help us in the long-run. It's as if listening to any other kind of music is just a waste of time. I'm not saying that I think it's wrong to listen to secular music, I'm just saying that we shouldn't expect to get anything out of it. As much as I love Frank Sinatra, he'll never tell me what I truly need to hear.

Death Scenes...

I was watching a movie the other day and it had a very sad and moving death scene in it and it occurred to me that if a movie has a sad death scene, it makes it seem so much more real. The audience gets attached to the character and when they die, they feel like they've known them and it's like they have lost a friend of theirs. It seems like the movie grabs you even more when you actually see the character die. Watching them breathe their last breath. Some movies are so moving just because of death scenes. People win Academy Awards for dying in movies. At the end of the film "Saving Private Ryan", we see Tom Hanks slowly die as he tells his co-star, Matt Damon, that he needs to live his life to the fullest and earn the sacrifices that his friends made to save his life.That is one movie that can make any grown man cry. One of the saddest cowboy movies isn't actually a movie at all. "Lonesome Dove" was a TV mini series that was made in 1989.In that show, we see many men die. The characters' deaths grab hold of the audience and make them miss the character that essentially doesn't even exist. In the Oscar-winning film "The Untouchables", Sean Connery was shown covered in blood and gasping for air as he bled to death. Connery played a police officer named Jim Malone who gained the love of viewers immediately. As he died, we saw Eliot Ness's (Kevin Coster) pain in knowing that one of his best friends had just been killed. In a way, the audience felt as Ness did watching Malone die.They felt as if Malone had saved their lives countless times. I really don't know if it's a good or bad thing, but all movies seem to be made great by a good death scene.

Christian Reputations...

I like to watch the show "Law&Order" every now and then. It is full of convincing actors and suspenseful stories. But sometimes there are criminals on the show that are "Christians." These murderers claim to have killed because God told them to. Every single episode that I have seen with "Christian" characters ends with the "Christian" locked up in the end. The people say some things that make Christianity look like a disease. They make Christians appear as crazy people who kill others who refuse to follow God's law. I just recently watched an episode where a man killed his mother because he believed that she would be forgiven of her sins by dying. His pastor encouraged this and it was later revealed that the pastor had been telling children to kill those who aren't Christians. I hate to think that this is our reputation. To think that this is how the world sees us.

Summer...

Ah summer, we all look forward to it so. Yet when it comes, it's not as fun as we thought it would be. At least, not for me anyway. I never realized how hard it would be to get a hold of friends. I had plans to stay at my friend's house with other friends, but that didn't happen. One of the friends couldn't go, the other just didn't want to go, leaving just my friend and me. But then my friend got pretty sick, and now I'm left with nothing to do. Waking up at 1:00 everyday is NOT fun. Sitting at home on the computer in front of the TV is NOT fun. Without school, there is nothing to do. My neighborhood isn't exactly flourishing with people my age and I go to a VERY small church. But all is not lost, for I will soon get my driver's license and will be able to drive to and fro to be with my friends. Pray for my friend to feel better so that we can get together and do something soon, before I go MAD.

Twitter...

I've been hesitant to make a Twitter. There has never really been a reason for it, I suppose I was just too lazy. I'm sick of going from one thing to the next just because people are just getting tired of one set website. I had a Myspace, then people shifted to Facebook, and now it's Twitter. I waited as long as I could before I was forced to make one. However, in the first 5 minutes of my Twitter life, Twitter decided to mess up. I had to wait an hour before I could actually start anything. It just wasn't exactly the 'first impression' I was looking for.

Unnecessary Airtime.

After mowing the lawn today, and after my shower, I turned on FOX news (the only news channel I'll watch). It was a LIVE showing of President Obama speaking about Memorial Day. He spoke for quite a while and when he was finished, a soldier came up to the pulpit and began to pray. I remembered that on my way up to channel 37, the channel below, which was MSNBC, was playing the same thing. When the prayer started I wondered if MSNBCwas actually playing him pray on the air. I turned down one channel and sure enough, the host was speaking over the voice of the soldier praying and another video was playing to the side of the soldier which was much bigger. It really got under my skin that this channel would deem that this prayer was just unnecessary airtime. FOX News seems to be the only news station that hasn't lost sight of what's important. So if you watch anything other than FOX News, discontinue your viewing of that station and turn to FOX News.

Car accident, part 2!

Well, I had a car accident a little while ago which I blogged about and I said in that blog that there was little damage. It turns out that there was more damage than we thought. We weren't going to file an accident report since there appeared to be little damage, but we did anyway just in case. It was a good thing that we did because we took the car to the repair shop today and it turned out that what the wheel was on was bent. We had taken the car up to North Greenville about a week before to help my sister move some of her things home. I was sitting in the back watching "A Bridge too Far" and I noticed the car was shaking a lot. Well this seemed normal. I mean, the back had always shaken. I just figured I never noticed it as much as I did that day. It is by God's grace we traveled there and returned safely.

Car Accident...

On the way home from dinner tonight, we were driving into our neighborhood and a car pulled out just about in front of us. My dad proceeded to drive past her (we had the right-of-way) when suddenly she sped into our side, just behind my seat. Our car slid to the side a little bit and we drove to the side of the road. After making sure everyone was okay, I got out of the car and expected to see a huge dint in the side. But to my surprise, the car was left only with a few scratches on the side and the hubcap was destroyed. As people drove by, their cars snapped the pieces of plastic. Even though everyone was okay and I knew it, I was still shaking. My kneecaps were all over the place. A car drove up behind us and a man stepped out and gave us his cellphone number just in case a witness was necessary. After thanking him, my mother was freezing cold. So I gave her my sweater, but then I was freezing. So we called a friend of ours to bring us a sweater for her. The woman who hit us was apparently checking on her child in the back seat when she pulled out. We made sure that she was okay and then the policeman arrived. We moved to the nearest parking lot where, little did I know, would be my home for the next hour. The woman and her baby were both under the weather. I felt bad to see the policeman give her the ticket and then for us to leave her, but I felt good to know that we hopefully made a good impression on her and that we maybe left something with her.
I thank God that the damage was as minor as it was. If the car had hit us just a little bit earlier, I could have been killed.

Medieval Times...

Well, my class had a field trip to Medieval Times on Friday, and we all had a great time. The food wasn't exactly fit for a king, or at least a hungry king, but it was still fun. The actors interacted with the audience a lot and most of them were really funny. We were in the section for the Red Knight. He was cool, until he was killed in the first round. When he fell, suddenly, it was like our section had lost its purpose...not really. It was fun to cheer for the other knights as well. The trip to Myrtle Beach wasn't near as fun as the trip back. I thought it would be opposite, because we would have nothing to look forward to on the way home, but that's the way it was. On the way back, everyone just talked while listening to their iPods. Our music was just quiet enough so that we could hear everyone else. My iPod was on Frank Sinatra, of course, and I had a great time. The windows were rolled down, everyone's hair was blowing in the wind, and our cardboard crowns that we received from the trip were flying all over the bus. I had to put mine under my hoodie to ensure its safety. When we saw the school, everyone was sad that our trip was over, but it was still the weekend. We still had two-and-a-half days of no school left.
Overall, I'd say that this was the best field trip that I have ever been on. As it should be, because we (along with many other classes) have been asking for this trip for years, but we got it.

Driving...

Well, I got my permit in September 2008, so I've been driving for a little while. I'm pretty comfortable in the driver seat, whereas when I first started I was pretty nervous. I still make a few mistakes here and there, usually no more than one at a time. But anyway, most people have one parent that they like to have in the passenger seat more than the other. Mine is my dad. He is always more calm than my mom. Sometimes my mom acts like she is going to die whenever she gets in the car. Which I expected, I mean, that's just how the is sometimes, haha. I love her, but she really makes me nervous sometimes.
She's getting better and will keep getting better until I can drive backwards on the interstate, haha.
I love my mom and my dad both very much.

I saw it...

Well, I saw the movie.
It wasn't exactly how I pictured it would be, but I still enjoyed watching it. Because I have my own techniques for movie-making, my sister's interpretations were not eye-to-eye with mine. Not that she didn't do a good job, she did. It just wasn't how I would have done it. Which, once again, isn't bad at all. She'll probably read this and get mad at me, haha. But it was cool. She has her preferences and I have mine, which I'm glad of.
I'm happy with the movie and I'll enjoy watching it again with my friends. I know they'll get a kick out of it.
Good job, Catherine!

I finally get to see it...

Well, over spring break, which was like two or three weeks ago, my sister had a favor to ask of me. She wanted me to help her make a movie for her class. Well if you knew me, you'd know that I got really excited and jumped at the chance. Little did I know, she hadn't written a script or even the story yet. So after hours of talking and thinking, we had a good start. The movie is a takeoff of David's life (the Bible David). It is set in a modern time and has guns, chases, the whole shebang. Unfortunately, we had to work on it the same week that we got to go Myrtle Beach. My aunt let us borrow her timeshare, so we had a nice room. Being away from home, we had limited resources. So we had to work with what little we had and make it look good. Now I'm not going to lie, the movie gets a little cheesy at times. It had to have at least 28 minutes and that was pretty tough to do, having such little preparation. So we had to fill up some parts with some pretty cheesy stuff, but the rest of the movie is pretty cool and that outweighs the cheesiness. But we pulled it off, thank God. She took it to school and edited it with me at home pacing the floors like a soon-to-be father. I was very anxious to see the final work and I sent her music for it, I even made a DVD case for it. You probably noticed that all the actors have the same last name. Well, that's because my family members were the only actors, haha.
My sister will be coming home this weekend and I am so excited to see the final movie. When she gets home, we are going to work on the trailer for the movie and do the outtakes as well. I'm really looking forward to it and copies will be on sale this Friday...nah, just kidding. That would be sweet though.
The movie should play on TV sometime, but I'm not sure when or on what channel, not kidding about that.
I had a great time working on it, though it got tough at times. I love choosing camera angles and all that jazz. I hope to one day meet Steven Spielberg and give him a great big bear hug...
Haha.

Just made my account.

Well, I'm new to this blog, but I look forward to filling it with all my thoughts.