Sunday, March 24, 2002
10:13 PM, on the computer
What I'm listening to: Worship God, by RSJ
It dawned on me today that it's been over a year and a half since I've truly updated my journal. I honestly wonder if I should repent for it, because I know this is how a lot of friends and family keep track of me. People must have been worried for a while. Oh well, I'm alive and fine. I wonder if anyone will notice that I actually posted an entry. It's funny, I can barely remember HTML now...
-- I found a couple of journal entries that I had never posted: They're under June 8 and 10. I named them "Descent Into Madness" because the events of those days have impacted me til this day. Go read them now if you haven't yet.
A lot has happened since then, so much that I don't really care to write about it. But for the sake of recapping, after my last journal entry the Devil took my fractured mind and went on a field day with it. Instead of growing in my period of brokeness, I actually rebelled against God for a while (although not deliberately). I started getting back into the world a little and did some things that I regret now. I started filling my spiritual life with work, and it got me promoted to my own store at Radio Shack. I was living large for a while, until I realized that I was getting paid the wages of a part-time associate while I had been working about 60 hours a week in a city that was 30 minutes away. I started seeking a way out, and I got a call from Babbage's (a video game store in the mall, also called Gamestop, Software Etc, or Funcoland) and the manager offered me the position as the assistant manager. Without thinking of my convictions, I took the position and got even farther away from Him. The devil was pulling the wool under my eyes big time and I was so heartbroken that I completely wasn't noticing it.
So I started working in a video game store, selling violent video games and trashy movies to people, and basically going against everything I stood for. I started making so much money that I was spending it all on video games. The rest (if any) would go into bills and expenses, and whatever was left I'd eat on and pay back debtors. Oh, I had forgotten to mention: My trip to Dallas made me go into debt because I spent waaaay too much money. Combined with Radio Shack, Sear's, and Sam's Club I was about $3000 in debt. I still haven't recovered from that.
Anywho, I was playing video games too much now, and it was choking out the last of the fire that God had given me. I was at an all time low and I couldn't even see it. I would wake up, go to work, go home, play video games for about four to five hours, and go to bed. I was going to church about once a month, and I was most certainly not tithing.
A week ago I snapped out of it.
I was a chaperon at an Aquire the Fire convention in Nashville, MS and the major portion of the speaking was about the dangers of secular media. They didn't talk about video games once, yet it convicted me so heavily that what I was doing was worshipping violent video games. Later that night, I stood up in front of the youth group that I was chaperoning for and gave a speech that changed my life. I repented to God for putting games first, and said that when I got home I'd be doing a spiritual housecleaning and fasting from video games until my birthday. I wish I could go into other details of my speech, but I can't remember most of what I said. I do know that it made a few people cry, though.
On a side note, it's really hard cramming a year into one teeny tiny page.
When I got home I held true to my word, I weighed every video game I had to the Word of God, and I tossed out every one that didn't meet up. I was blessed to find that I was only getting rid of about 60 games and movies, and I was keeping over 100 of them. I also didn't know that I had that much stuff!
I'm also relieved to know that God's dealt with me on what I think is the last thing concerning every thing I like. I don't watch TV except for maybe more than two hours a week, I'm reading my Bible more, I haven't played a video game in a week (with three weeks to go), and I even quit working at Babbage's. I figured that it'd be really hypocritical of me to work there considering I'm against violent video games.
I'm really gonna catch it for this journal entry. I can already tell.
Aside from that, not much has changed, really. It's going to be hard saving up for CFNI now, but with God on my side I'm going to be leaving this fall! For those of you that are believers and reading this, I'd greatly appreciate prayer (if you're still here, that is).
But some positive news, after qutting my job and tossing out the stuff that had a hold on me for a long time, and can honestly say that for the past week I have been experiencing nothing but the joy of the Lord. It's really quite amazing.