No house. God evidently didn't want me to have it.

I'm glad, though, since some people I care about (and who needed it a lot more than me) got it. The day after I finally said, "no" in faith that that was what God was showing me.

It's amazing how that works.

So I might be buying a house. The fact that I'm even considering this scares the living . . . something or other. . . out of me.

I mean, I never thought it would come to this. Being a responsible adult is not all it's cracked up to be. It's really kind of boring. I miss the times when I could just stay out as late as I wanted and not have to worry about sleeping in the next morning.

The normal mother/father figure will say "well, you have responsibilities now, so you can't do those things." But for some reason, I feel like life itself is being stolen away from me, and not what the world has come to call "irresponsibility".

There is something painful about the fact that I can't just spend time with my friends as much as I want to, and the fact that, very soon, I may not get to spend hardly any time at all with them. Like a part of life that is supposed to be there is taken over by this material, selfish world that says "you must" and "you should" and "if you had this".

Then there's the whole thing of "providng" for a family in the future. I think, somewhere along the line, we got what is necessary to "provide" a family all screwed up. Some of the happiest, closest, and godliest people I know would come into my below-poverty level apartment and gasp with amazement at some of the stuff that I have.

I am filthy stinkin' rich

Even I make well below "market value" for someone with my education and experience.

Everything professional seems to sour in my stomach lately. I come home to a computer that is, frankly one of the best of any of my friends, and I check my email. Oh, I could (and sometimes do) do more with it, but I'm tired of it.

You know what I hunger for?

Time with my friends. Time with my family. Time with my God.

But instead, I have to sit here and stare at my screen for hours at a time, doing a job that I somehow feel is ultimately pointless.

I guess this is growing up.

So, I'm back from my Spring Break road trip. A destination-less road trip that ended up with a destination. Nashville, TN. The natural have-to for all aspiring musicians and general lovers of music.

Being that it was St. Patricks Day, we had to have the obligatory "green" beer at from Coyote Ugly, no to mention watching the bikini contest at Hooter's. Of course, we had to do that. It was a no-brainer. The fact that we hit another Hooter's in Memphis as well as in Oklahoma City should also be noted.

You'd think a guy my age would be stoked. Raving about the awesome Spring Break trip that I had.

Not that it wasn't fun. It's the last time like that I'll get to spend with my two best friends ever again. One's getting married in a few months, the other's graduating in December and moving. Our cord of three strands seems to be coming apart at the ends; not completely, just loosening.

But you would think that those things would be fun for someone my age. But for some reason, I could not enjoy them. Something just felt inherently pointless about them. There was no lasting enjoyment to be had, only emptiness and vacuum when it was gone.

It made me think about the things that I fill my life with. Do they matter? Do they have any lasting purpose? I'd like to think they do. But how can you be sure.

Since I've been back, everything has seemed a little muted, a little less "fantasic" than it did before. It's like I'm seeing things for what they are worth, instead of what they look like. I don't feel sad or depressed about these things, just . . . empty, like I've been filling myself with nothing, believing it was the most important stuff in the world.

I hope this feeling lasts.

Well, that's annoying.

I just completed a well-worded rant about the annoyances of life and spring break fever. I wanted to end the post with an extremely well-selected Emoticon from the left menu, to finish off today's collective mumblings with a touch of sheer brilliance.

And what, to my wondering eyes does appear . . . but the whole frickin' post just disappears?!?!?!

One more day . . . .  :cry:

Do you ever have those random thoughts that don't seem like they originated in your head?

I do.

Like yesterday. I remember I was sitting in Bahama Bucks, just idly watching my best friend mop up the floor for the people working there, even though he wasn't on the clock, and all of a sudden, this thought just popped in my mind about the Colonnade, my church's work-in-progress youth center. I just started thinking about how awesome it was going to be when it was done, and all the incredible things God was going to do through it. I just started praying for God to move so that it will be able to be completed quickly, and for funds towards that end.

Was it me that came up with that thought? I don't think so.

You see, I think that it is in those moments, the ones where our minds turn so rapidly from what we are staring at to some person, place, or thing, that in that moment is an opportunity that God drops in our lap to make a difference in a way we can't even fathom. It is a time when we could just pass it off and go about our business, but it just doesn't seem right. Something in us cries out in intercession.

The funny thing about these moments is that they come when we lose focus of the world around, and start listening to God. That, right there, is probably the most important point. We, for the most part, don't allow a time for listening to God. We listen to everything else: music, movies, friends; but when do we sit and wait on God?

11 hour days are tiring . . . especially when you come home, and you have to get ready and go to something else with a lot of people around and all you want to do is just crash down on your bed, read a book, have a glass of wine, fall asleep, and dream the night away, all peacefully surrounded by no one.

Too bad that had to be the way today went.

It's one of those days when you find yourself concentrating on everything but God. You know He's there, but everything revolves around getting stuff done . . . for no other purpose than to get it done.

And the prayers that are glossed over, like so much icing on a cake that's too sweet for our taste right now because we want to get down to the nitty-gritty stuff, too busy to sit back and relax in the knowledge of His presense, all the while forgetting that He alone is the reason I even have this job, am breathing at all, and, for goodness sakes, have the capacity to reason.

I'm sorry, God.

xhristos phoreo -  the greek subdivision of the name kristopher.

x(h)ristos - Christ, messiah

phoreo - to bear (in a continual, never-end ing sense)

What a name to be given and taken for granted. So many scoff at the power of the word, the power of the name. In ancient history, your name meant something. Something special about you that was nothing like any other person. Something prophetic about your future, or a story of your beginning.

This is my name, my calling:

To continually bear Christ. For richer or poorer, for better or for worse. No matter what I do, though it tear His heart to a thousand shreds, I bear His name.