AHHHH!!!

Well,

It's 2:40 am and I feel like writing. A lot has been going on recently (which I really want to share but, I don't think it would be smart for to type out a long blog with an exam in, ohh 7 hours, so I will try to keep it short and sweet and post the big one later (hopefully in less than a month)).

I have really wanted to get my thoughts out on paper or here but really haven't chose to. Not too sure why, it doesn't help when they are always in my head preventing me from focusing on my schoolwork so it would make sense for me to take the time to get them out to make me a better college student. But, that hasn't been the case.

There really has been SO MUCH going on that it has been quite overwhelming for me. I think I've learned that I don't do too well when I need to focus on more than 2 things. Kind of sad but, thats how it has been for the past couple weeks. With classes getting much more demanding, it has really been a struggle to persevere. Luckily, we have this thing called the Bible and it teaches us cool things that we should learn and apply to our lives. As a former track star (4 years, 30 pounds and 4 inches ago) I was reminded of Hebrews 12:1-2 which says, "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing [fn] our eyes on Jesus, the author [fn] and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has satdown at the right hand of the throne of God." (Courtesy of http://www.blueletterbible.org)

I seem to lose sight of the fact that I'm running this race called life and during it, I encounter many obstacles. I am normally one who panics when troubles come but that shouldn't be the case. When I encounter this uphill challenge, I need to adapt and continue on. Running up hills is very hard. It messes up your pace, rhythm and mindset. You need to slow your pace, shorten your stride, increase the rpms and move on. I am called to endure and continue running. Not take a break, or find a way around the course or call off the race. I must endure, casting off everything that weighs me down and strain for the finish. Go hard, or go home.

Yes. I listen to HIp Hop*

* I was informed that this was not Rap, rather Hip Hop. Rap is music with no meaning, emotion or purpose, just a beat, vulgarity and promiscuity. This definition is taken from the exhaustive Paolo's Modern Dictionary.

I have a Confession to make...

Good Morning all,

Well, I have been debating on whether to write this post or catch up with "24" but as you can tell, I'm writing so, good for me! Well, where to start. School has been quite busy and it has been hard to stay on top of all my work. It is rough taking classes such as Engineering and Calc when they don't really apply to my major but, I am somewhat enjoying them, until I get stressed. Ahhh stress. What a wonderful thing you are. It has been very stressful recently and dealing with it has been challenging. Because of said stress, it has started to impact my faith in small ways. I am now almost a week behind in memory verses, I have lost my daily bible reading routine and mostly when I get a free chance, I decide to be lazy or deal with it in a manner that is not focused on giving God the glory. And this is how it currently fits in to story of the week, probably the month.

During this time of year, Michigan Tech holds its annual Winter Carnival. Winter Carnival is a time where students spend a month to build snow statues that pertain to the theme which this year it was games. This is the biggest event that Michigan Tech is known for. Alumni, parents and tourists come to visit well-engineered snow and ice sculptures and statues. What is even more well known for by students is the amount of partying and drinking that goes on. It is insane. The main drinking event is the All-Nighter which is the Wednesday night which kicks off Winter Carnival and the smaller statues that can only be built within the night. I think I missed most what went on last year but I sure saw it in all its "glory" this year. People, (students, locals and even professors) walk around drinking on campus. They carry various containers such as coffee mugs, water bottles, camelbaks, gas cans and even labeled beer and liquor bottles and cans all full of alcoholic concoctions. Cops are right there while it is all going on, only intervening if things get violent or unconscious. At about 3 in the morning, when most everyone is gone, you can just smell the stench of booze and witness the litter of cans all over campus.

Anywho, I did not partake in these activities (nor do I care to) and did something else. Ever read the book Blue Like Jazz? I think that it is a good book that lacks some things here and there but the message of it is being christlike in what seems to be unconventional ways. I would recommend it but, read with caution, he lacks some scriptural foundations of who Jesus was and what he did. Anyways, there is a chapter in the book discussing about his involvement with a small group of Christians at Reed College. During his time there, he felt the need to reach out to his fellow classmates on campus and share his faith with them. At one of their Bible Study meetings he brought up his conviction to the others. Ideas were thrown out and one stood out from the rest, "Lets build a confession booth during Renn Fayre." Some laughed, some were scared but some were serious. After some deliberating they went with the idea to build a confession booth with a reverse confession, they, Christians, would confess and apologize for their short comings of being Christians. They went with it built a booth in the middle of all the craziness and waited. Don (the author) was first up in the booth, dressed as a priest not really knowing what to expect. One guy stumbled in and questioned him, "What's this?" Don explained what they were doing and the guy had a change of heart. "It's really cool what you guys are doing, people need to hear this." It came down to that Don was there representing Christ and standing up in his name. He then describes the impact it had on people, being being drawn into their Bible study and weekly service activities. God truly blessed their ministry and people came to know Christ.

A group of us within Campus Crusade got together prior to Winter Carnival and discussed ways to impact the campus and this came up. We were pretty skeptical at first but ran with it. Myself and some other bought some wood and built some walls and then All Nighter we set it up. Now, I had a pretty crappy day. I was really stressed with all my school work and such so, I was not feeling like I could by any means share the gospel. After some prayer and reading I was ready. Praise God! Still very nervous, thinking that it was going to be a horrible night of ridicule and problems with drunk people. We didn't have any problems other than our electricity kept shorting out which was awkward to talk in the dark but, whatever. So, it was pretty much me and my good friend Alex talking to people with others coming and going. We would stand outside and wait for people to come up to us. Standard procedure was to answer "So, what is this?" and "Are you guys priests?" "No, we are not priests and we aren't affiliated with the Catholic church but we are Christians on campus who would like to confess to you." And then they would either nod, say Ok and walk away or step in the booth and talk further.

Well, it turned out to be a huge success. We were right in the middle of campus, between 2 sidewalks so, you couldn't miss it, prime picken's. We talked to a TON of people. I confessed my shortcomings with people, talked with them about who Jesus was and most importantly shared the gospel with almost every person. AMAZING! Sounds fun and easy right? Wrong.... I, Devin, got all the skeptics, atheists, agnostics, humanists and others that attacked my faith. I talked with at least 3 people for over 30 minutes. It was challenging and I was not prepared at all at the time. I'm not one who is weak in the faith, I know my stuff but I'm also not a scholar. But, for some reason I could not remember scripture, was scrambling for words and was just totally left out to be attacked.

At first, it was pretty heavy. After one conversation with one guy who tore me up, I had to take a break. I wish I could recall what we talked about, their points, my points but due to my awesome memory and just the overwhelming amount of emotion I really can't remember specifics. During my break, as I was walking, I was thinking and praying. "Even though these guys think they ruined my faith God, they haven't. I really don't believe in what they say. They are so far from the truth, blinded, hard-hearted Lord. O God, thanks so much for guiding me, saving me, having grace, mercy, sending your Son, Christ. Wow. I need to read my Bible more with understanding. Make your words mine." It was also great to go to a room where there was constant prayer. Such a blessing.

It may sound weird at first but it was a successful night. Christ was preached and people heard it. I didn't encounter any immediate life changes but how do I know that? I had the opportunity to talk with some of the most hard-hearted, God haters and they got to hear the gospel! There is really NOTHING that I can do to have them believe, that is up to God and his sovereign power. I will say that I prayed for those that I talked to, asking God to change them, work in their lives and reveal himself to them. Before we know God, we didn't want anything to do with him. We enjoyed the pleasures of this world, so lost in our sinful desires. We deserve his wrath because of this. There is nothing good that we have done to "earn" a way out. God, full of mercy and grace, sent his Son to cover our sins, all of them, paid in full for those who repent, turn and live. Our lives should no longer be set on the things of this world rather than God and his glory. Being humans, we loose sight of that, a lot. The most important thing that I can take away from this is that I need to focused on God in everything I do. In class, sleeping, not sleeping, doing homework, reading my Bible, eating, longboarding, driving, you get the point. "It is no longer I who live but Christ in me." I am a new creation, with a purpose and meaning in life.

So, now I ask you to examine yourself. 2 Corinthians 13:5. Where does your allegiance lie? Think about it. I'm always willing to talk about anything. Please be praying for me,

Devin

Prayers Answered

I get asked a lot of questions as a college student. Where do you go to school? What is your major? Why are you at Michigan Tech? What is the derivative of the square root of x? Would you like to go large for just 59 cents more? How are you? I get asked those first three and that last one alot (but taking Calc again this semester I expect a lot of math equations). Answering those four questions in the past couple of months has been quite challenging. I have hit yet another road block in my life where I'm confused as to where to turn next. If you remember, I originally attended Tech as a Mechanical Engineering major and then changed to Sec. Ed. in Social Sciences because of the math well, here I am again with the same problem.

Sec. Ed. in Social Science majors have to have a minor in either a math or science at MTU because it increases hire-a-bility. So, naturally I chose Technology and Design which means pretty much the first two years of Mech. Eng. So, I'm back at this point where I'm struggling to understand the language of love, Calculus. To some, it seems natural, to me it's very foreign. I don't know why but its just freaking hard! Since my path is teaching, I really want to be passionate and knowledgeable on the topics that I would teach. I very much enjoy history, geography and government is... ok. But, at the moment I am not to fond of math. Now, my minor doesn't mean that I would be teaching a math class (scaaaarrryy) rather something like a computer drawing class or intro engineering/problem solving stuff. Still, math is the base of all engineering problems. So, to me it's scary to be pursuing something which I am not too passionate about and that I think I would be a crappy teacher at. I really want to make sure that I can involve my students and engage them and I really want them to understand the material that I would cover. I just don't feel that way about math.

So, how have I been handling these feelings? Well, like any natural Devin Thurston would, worry about it 24/7. Last semester was one of change. I moved off campus, learned (learning still) how to make food for myself, took on leadership roles within Campus Crusade (leading our Service team and also disciple-ing someone) and took all classes that only pertained to Social Sciences which means a lot of reading and writing. And to say the least, I was overwhelmed. And for most of the semester, I felt lost, defeated, confused and bewildered. I did not always turn to God for deliverance and guidance and if I did, most of my prayers were a bit selfish. This made it rough on my grades, relationships with others and most importantly my relationship with my Father.

Winter break came and I was desiring time to relax and get away from most of my troubles and hoping that I could spend more time reading the Word and praying for direction. Even though it was great to be around family and all my friends down in VA, my focus on God was somewhat lost and ignored. (Side note story: Even more proof that I worry too much and don't like events happening the way I want to is the story of the broken Jeep. Long story short, I was planning on leaving VA the last Wednesday of break. But, I had this REALLY bad vibration and rattle under the frame all the way down from MI to VA. I took it into the shop that Monday before hand thinking it would be out in time to leave Wednesday and definitely Thursday. Nope, apparently it takes a long time for parts to get sent to major dealerships. So, it wasn't out of the shop until Friday afternoon (2 days before school starts and I'm still 24 hr.s away from school) Not exactly the most desirable timeframe but I made it up fine.) So, pretty much I lack faith.

As Christians, we know that God has this ultimate plan for our lives. Sometimes we understand what's going on and other times not so much. But why should we worry? Being born again, our sin has been dealt with and we are now justified and named Sons of God, no longer Sons of Wrath. It finally clicked with me the other day as to why my semester was the way it was. I thought back to counseling at Camp Barakel last summer and remembered some prayers that I prayed often. "God, I need more faith in you. God, I need to rely on you." Prayers answered. Last semester was a big lesson on faith and it still is. My goal this semester is to memorize all of Philippians (it's very hard, just like Calculus but actually serves more a meaning in my life) and the verse I'm approaching is Philippians 1:5-6 which says, "... because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident in this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ." God has our best interests in mind even if they may seem troubling and trying.It's kind of amazing how God can turn crappiness into a "huh, so that's what you were doing God....". Thats pretty much the story of mankind, God turning those who are sinful and destined for punishment to righteous and upright through the redeeming sacrifice of his Son, Jesus.

So, I have learned not only to have faith in God in every aspect in my life, trusting that he will guide me but also how to pray, praise him in the good and not so good and the importance of using my time for his glory. What can you take away? Maybe you are going through some painful struggles. I urge you to have an eternal outlook on what might God be trying to show you when you think he is not present. And when we pray, we should pray for a change within, not a temporary fix because most of the time the fix begins with us.

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God."

Philippians 1: 9-11

Ok... Maybe I'll Do a Post

Well,

It has been a crazy busy week (as usual). And of course, I sit here and I'm not exactly sure what to say. I know I built this up as maybe some huge monumental post (it may be) but, I don't know. Well, it all started when I got back from camp. I left camp and immediately drove up to school (meaning my new house that I'm currently living in). Got there around 1 or 2 am, slept and woke up to pack for a Minnesota Boundary Waters canoeing/hiking trip. Did that which was a blast (almost chopped my thumb off) and then got back and jumped right into Cru stuff which turned out to be rough. Yes it was orientation week so I didn't NEED to do anything but of course, I signed myself up to do some events for freshman (oops, i mean first years.... politics...). All I wanted was to first actually move in and not live out of my suitcase and sleeping bag in my own house and more importantly take some time to reflect on my summer (which still has yet to happen). So, relaxing quickly turned into laziness which prevented me from reflection and establishing good friendships with first years in the dorms. This continued throughout mmmm the first 6 weeks of school. Life turned into being centered around sleep rather than God (BIG mistake). I got thrown back into some depression because well, I was just not enjoying life. My grades were slacking, I didn't want to spend any time reading or studying and all I wanted to do was "escape" life through TV and sleep. No doubt I was "happy" and somewhat "content" but obviously, that did not last. Finally, being sick and tired of my laziness and lack of motivation I prayed. I prayed that God would lead me, give me the strength to go throughout my day (all of my classes are in the morning!!! ahh, I'm most awake past midnight!). I prayed that he would pull me out of this "reoccurring cycle of suck" where I would be up late due to laziness in the afternoon, be tired in the morning for class, not pay attention, and then get home and sleep and thus the cycle of suck. My life is not my own. I'm here to live my life and give all the glory to God. Being a slacker is not God glorifying. I'm currently reading through Luke and yesterday I read chapter 4 which depicts Jesus in the desert fasting for 40 days. He is approached by Satan who tempts him to fail, to turn away from the Father, to sin. Jesus prevails and stands strong under the strength and knowledge of God. I'm still struggling with my laziness, lack of effort in school and especially in my prayer life. But it is time to stand up, have faith and live a life for God. What a growing experience.

On another note, I'm going to a new church up here. It started out as a house church with only a couple families attending. It is so great! It feels like home (Fair Oaks Church) because I actually interact with the older members of the church (which is the whole reason of church, to fellowship with the WHOLE body of Christ, Cru is not the WHOLE body). It is reformed theology, which I'm still trying to figure out MY views which is rough where all the guys in the house find that doctrine true. Its really easy to nod your head in agreement. Again, we come back to my laziness and low motivation to actually seek it out deeply. We'll see.

I'm reading two books at the moment (other than my textbooks, one of which I enjoy reading, American History, aren't I in the right major now?). Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper and Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys That Should Be) by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. It is ironic that I've been reading DWYL all summer? I'm almost done though, not too much left then it's on to Miracles by C.S. Lewis or one of Andrew Schwab's books (Project 86 frontman) which should be in the mail!

Also, I calculated all of my classes for the rest of my college years and drumroll please............. I'm going to be here for a full 5 years! I think I have the major with the most credits (my minor is over 30!) but all in the name of teaching kids! SUPER SENIOR!!! And those are actually pretty full semesters averaging 14-15 credits. Crazy, I know. But I enjoy college for the most part. Its so amazing up here at Tech. Hard to put to words...

Another thing I'm hashing out is how to spend my upcoming summer. Do I work at camp again? Try to find some kind of teacher related job? Work down in VA doing tiling? Stay up here and find a job? Do Summer Project? So many directions... I would LOVE to work at camp again, I think thats choice number one unless the Lord leads me elsewhere. Summer Project I've heard is pretty sweet. It would be nice to be down with the folks down in the homeland too. And I've heard summer up here is truly FANTASTIC... Or, I could do something not on my list. Oh man.

I think that I've spat enough thoughts down, I hope you actually understand them cause sometimes I sure don't. Feel free to ask questions and maybe I'll do this more often, no promises though. Although, this took a shorter amount of time then I thought it would. Oh well...

If you learned anything please take this away, How are you living your life? What is its purpose? Ponder that, take care,

Devin

I'm Still Here Cont.

So,

I apologize for not keeping up with this whole blogging thing. I actually want to write a lot of stuff but, I either don't have the time or I choose to do something else... But, a lot has been going on recently and it's just not cool to not* let you in on it. Hopefully I'll have more to write in the next week (this weekend is going to be nuts with retreats, family and school) and I need to study for an exam tomorrow. It shouldn't be too bad, it's American History which is a sweet class but I need to further my understanding of some things. So, be prepared for hopefully a blog of massive proportions. Until then, take care and look for God even in the hard times (hint hint),

Devin

I'm Still Here Pt. 1

Hey everybody,

Wow... It has been a long while since my last post. I don't even know where to begin... Maybe where I left off I guess.

As you all know, or maybe you didn't, I worked as a camp counselor this summer at Camp Barakel in Fairview, MI. I worked from May 26th through August 15th with 2 weeks off in between. It was the most productive summer so far. I was never the kid that worked a full-time summer job and it was totally different and amazing to give my summer to God.

Well with all that time spent at camp I mist have learned something right? You betcha! One thing that I learned about is love. No, not a girlfriend (Bachelor to the Rapture...... for now) but the true love that God demonstrates. I also learned a lot about relying on God for strength, guidance, and my life direction in general. Shoot, I think I learned so much, I just can't think of it all, still need to meditate on it and glean from it.

Something else that God revealed to me has to do with the direction I'm heading in. I'm no longer a Mechanical Engineer, just a Social Science major with intention on Secondary Education. This summer, after one evening chapel God laid it on my heart that I need to have a career focused around ministry. The speaker, who is a missionary in China as a school teacher, was talking about missions. Later that evening I talked with him about it and was looking for some guidance and encouragement. He said that I should definitely pray about being a missionary, if that is what God wants me to do. I should definitely consider finishing school first and getting a degree as most orgs require a college degree. This has been on my mind ever since. Since God hasn't revealed my direction yet to me, I'm really trying to figure out what to do. Whether it be missions work, youth ministry, school teacher or something else, I know that I need to be a witness for Christ. These next years are going to be amazing.

Now that I'm back at school, I kind of got off to a rough start. I'm glad that I'm at least recognizing it but I'm not exactly handling it the best. I was a bit "burnt out" after the summer and I was pretty lazy orientation week and didn't hang out with freshman as much as I planned. And still, my attitude towards school needs improve. I'm definitely better than last semester but still, it's pretty bad. Still putting things off until last minute, not reading my textbooks (its rough when every class demands soo much reading, hooray social sciences, although still better than calc), and I'm still just plain out slacking. If only I put the effort into my schoolwork that I do for Cru, I'd be such a great student.

Cru is going pretty well so far. I'm currently emceeing our weekly meetings, helping out a bit in our bible study (might branch off and lead one if it gets too big), and I'm leading/co-leading our service team. Definitely more involved than last year.

But, I need to stop here for now. Need to do some reading for class. Hopefully I'll finish before the weekend. Thanks for reading and talk to ya later.

Devin

Camp Update #2

Hey Y'all!

Well, I'm currently on my first week off but it wasn't exactly planned. Last week was my 4th week at camp and I was on the West Side of camp which means that I had 3-6 graders. Not exactly my favorite age group but I lived through it. The thing with the younger guys is that they do not listen. Period. I had to repeat myself at least 5 times to get these guys to do whatever I told them. Now, it's not just the "Do this, don't do that" kind of stuff but serious "I NEED you guys to do this". Gets on my nerves... Anywho, it was a really rough week. I had 8 kids total, 2 pairs of brothers, 2 kids that were friends, a cute little 3rd grader that was really chill and then lets call him Bob. Bob was a very interesting kid. Very talkative, the opposite of shy, had ADHD, couldn't eat a lot of what camp was serving and he was my little terror. Bob was very physical starting from DAY 1! He was throwing shoes, whipping towels, yelling, screaming, the whole works. Now, I would talk to Bob and he would realize that he did wrong, apologized and settled down. 5 minutes later, he'd be doing the same exact thing! AHHHHHHHH! Thursday comes around, Bob has talked to some of the staff, lost some privileges and now he's settling down and getting along with the group. Well, Thursday is our cookout in the forest night, so I take Bob with me to get the food so no more fights break out in my cabin while I'm gone. I needed to run back to the room to grab something and then pick up our food. So I grab another kid so Bob can get ready. Bad choice... I come back with my food, ready to throw my shoes on and get going and enjoy an evening in the woods with my boys and I'm greeted by them exclaiming "Bob's spitting up blood!" Great.... there goes our cookout... I run outback and sure enough he's over the bench spitting up some blood. To set up the story, my kids were going NUTS when I left. Almost literally bouncing off the walls. Bob came back from free time with 4 sodas in hand and shared with the whole group.... So, they were playing a game called Free from Prison where some of them would sit in the stalls (prison cells) and bust the doors open, run out the prison (bathroom) and avoid getting shot by all the guards and running to freedom. Well, one of my guys runs out and head-butts Bob right in the mouth, thus causing him to bite both lips and thus spit up blood. I was pretty mad to say the least. But wait! There's more! I finally get all my guys walking out to camp and we get there and I tell my guys to grab some sticks so I can start our fire. Of course, they find all wet sticks and I take 30 minutes to start a good fire to roast our hot dogs. Hooray pine smoke. But wait, there's even more! I get back from our miserable cookout (atleast for me, my guys had fun acting like cavemen) and I take Bob with me to clean up our stuff from the camp out so more blood won't be shed back in the room. I come back and the counselor next to me forgot to pick up snack for his guys so I'm left watching his guys and mine for about 5 minutes. I'm in the other room for about 30 seconds and I hear this " WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" coming from my room. Great....... here we go again. Bob comes out of the shower, grabs a towel and whips another kid right on the lips. 

This was all within 2 1/2 hours of time. 

As you can read, my week was pretty rough. How on earth am I supposed to love these kids when they make me so upset. Well, I learned my third week that kids can bring me from wanting me to pound them into the ground, to bringing me to tears because they want to know how to become a christian. During that week, I almost always wanted to pound some of my kids in the ground. After that night, a staff guy took my guys to chapel and gave me 20 min. to get ready and get my head back in the game. I was thinking. These are God's kids, he sent them to me for the week. They are God's children. I needed to love these kids because he does. Even though I turn my back to God, or do some pretty stupid things that probably puts God in the position I was in with my guys. I needed to love these kids. That night, I had to get on my knees and pray " God, MAKE me love my guys." 

I think I now know why we are called the Children of God. 

So, I sit here in my Jeep in downtown Harbor Springs with people walking by and looking at me because I'm a bit out of place. I did take the week off because I was sick and I was not ready to counsel. It was really a tough decision but I did not want to get more sick and I was not going to be an energetic awesome counselor. I do look forward to the rest of the summer and it's going to be sad when it's over. The atmosphere at camp is truly amazing, it is really where God has blessed.

Not too sure when the next post will be but thanks for your prayers!