Instead of studying for my midterm tonite I am sitting at my job at 7:45 am updating my web page. I really didn’t want to come so I could study all morning but since I’ve called in to work twice already I don’t want my boss to start thinking I am a flaky student. The weird /cool thing is that I’m here for about 3.5 hrs each weekday but on average have about 30 minutes of work each day. Last week was really busy and I had so much work. It felt weird to be behind, cuz usually I don’t even have any work. This week things are back to normal.
There’ve been a lot of things on my mind lately. Some of them good, most of them not. But I realize how much my thoughts affect my wellbeing. Like I have to fight every day against the snowball mentality. For me it’s really easy to take a small problem and think about it so much that my entire life seems to lose all hope. Like since I haven’t completed Assignment A, I’m going to fail this class, flunk out of school, never get a job, and pretty much have a bleak future. And it’s so hard for me to pull myself out of these thoughts because for me they are grounded in reality. It’s a constant struggle to focus on who God says I am and where my self worth truly lies. But when I get my life in perspective it’s the most amazing thing. I guess a really cool sense of peace. I feel that I have to fight harder to get there, but I guess it’s a process.
Probably the nicest thing that’s happened to me all week was bible study tonite. Everyone in the group just contributes a lot. There’s a new believer in the group and I love her questions. They really make us go outside of her standard answers and just really think about why God does things the way he does. We were studying Romans 1:18-32. As Paul enumerates man’s sinfulness and wickedness, it seems like a potentially depressing passage. Yet it made us want to thank and worship God because we found that we can choose who we want to worship and that influences the kind of people we become/are. I’m really excited that we are doing the book of Romans cuz it has so much. Ray stedman says that every christian should be able to outline the book of Romans mentally, by studying it’s themes so much that they become a part of us. So I really enjoyed bible study.
It was also good that we did that passage, because of the thoughts I’ve been having lately. And so I realize my problem is that I’ve been allowing my mind to wander too much. Or just think to much about myself and my shortcomings. If somehow I can change my focus or the object of my thoughts, I’ll be so much more joyful and happy.