i need to write. it's been far too long and i really don't know what to say. i realized last night that i find myself doing entries in my head and never actually getting aroud to typing them out. my mind works a milea a second and never actually works anything out. a lot like my entries, it never says much. thinking to myself is becoming a bad thing. i betray everything that i believe in when i begane to have conversations in my head. there are many things that i'm proud of thinking through, but not many enough. i've come up with different ideas of what my faith is really about and i've been challenged to think that way. not bad. that should happen with your faith. it should make it stronger. if your faith isn't challenged, what is it you're believing in? this goes into many other discussions that i could have, but there's always two thing that i find myself thinking about when it comes to being challenged. i'll just leave it at: i believe i'm a good guy, and grew up that way, and i have musical talent that surpasses a majority of the population (i'm not being cocky, i know plenty of people with as much or more talent than i, but i'm talking world here... they've got other talents i can't touch). believing these two things has been challenged and often times i've not had faith in them. why should that happen if i believe them to be true? i've found recently that this world is all about what you know. but just knowing something is a cop-out and it fails in many ways. i believe that if something is true, you have to believe it's true, not know that it's true. belief comes before knowledge, that's why we test things. i recently heard a story from a friend about how when she first became Christian that she tested God. it's hard for me to identify coz that seems something that you shouldn't do and i grew up learning that somewhat. but i think that there is definitely good merit in that. there's a book i 've read most of (it's short), Prayer of Jabez, which is about petitioning God in prayer. i've never been one to ask people for things. i hate doing it and i think that it makes me faulty as a leader and has caused me stress in other areas. so asking God which above all that and already knows everything is sometimes very hard for me. i know that he has my best interest at heart when ever things happen to me that i don't understand so that keeps me even more distant at times. as i know that He's got control regardless of what i do. this God that doesn't need humanity, but wants to enjoy our lives with us. our simple minds that cannot grasp the concept of relationship. this spills over into our human relationships and doesn't allow for that perfection that He has for us. His example that He had die for us, made it seem simple, but i think the skeptics are right to think that we don't get the whole story in the Bible. though for them this discredits the Bible and what it's saying, i believe that it shows human inadequacy and God's ability to use us through that. the fact is He's made Himself known throughout the world. even in places that have never heard of Him have been able to see and acknowledge His work. the 'good book' helps us to believe with suffecient reason, as opposed to blind belief. but it doesn't give all the answers and it's ben twisted and turned around in so many ways. it must be remembered that though the whole book is truth, the truth is spoken only by God (i.e. those with red-letter New Testaments... it'll be the red-letter). and that's the one thing that i can know. until then---