And the little mouse said to the crowd of mice:

I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time, I just never did.
After hosting a few years of bible studies I thought I could give out more on the internet now that I've moved away from my college church. I'm not quite sure where to start but consistent with the title, anything's fair game:

Let's start with the bible. Itself. It's a marvelous book, full of intricacies of your life if your open to that sort of thing, I find I can open it up and have my guts spilt on the page or be comforted as never before.

The trick is to apply it to your life, but more so to let God do that and you look for it.

That's the key thing in our modern religious sector I think. I don't know that people's attitude is to go after the path and strike out a direction towards it, of course while in keeping with God's wants for your life and any of His words. I hear a lot of good things about letting God lead the way and having God do for you, but what about frankly getting up and at least holding on to God yourself as well? Aren't two sets of wills acting together better than one? Even if the one is all powerful he made us the way we are for a reason. One of the ways he made us is as beings that can exert towards a goal, such as honesty, or love, or a caring attitude.

I once saw something in myself, it was myself. Nakedly, myself. God peeled back the cover of his grace for my eyes to see something that was pretty well near destined to choose evil if not now latter, and it was myself. I'm convinced when I think of that that I can get nowhere without God, barring the fact that we have devils that tempt us and then below that the news media, or as some more appropriately call it the boob tube.

But there was God's grace, ALLOWING me to CHOOSE what was good, not doing it for me. As far as I can see, that's a big piece of the puzzle. We must choose good, and where letting God work comes in is letting Him do the follow through for us. Of course, as he won't go against our freedom, if we don't continue to choose to let him follow through for us, we'll suit ourselves. Once again.

Now, as you know, you don't just say I'd kinda like to be a saint and there you have it. That's not really a legitimate choice as I've found it, because it doesn't get results. You see, if God is the one doing the work, and legitimate choices are to choose what is good, and God wants what is good (though he'll shoot down our ideas that we can't or WON'T see as being less than ideal or even bad) and honors our legitimate choice (i.e. a good choice, to at times exclude those less than ideal choices that get in the way of better ones [getting 3 Ph.D's instead of just being a Doc that actually does some good]) . . . Let's repeat that: God honors our choices that are good with bringing on the result of the choice, there are no exceptions to God doing something He Wills to do. So he wills for us to choose and thus do, by Him, good. So any good choice, qualified by what I said above and other things, that meets the criteria for God's Will, WILL BE DONE. Here's the kicker: Wishy-Washy 'I guess that's good I wanna be like that but not do anything really to get there' ideas AREN'T Choices because
A) It never works
B) It's not a bad desire
and
C) It's got to be a desire in line with God's Will at some point to be a, say, Saint but see A): It never works to be Wishy-Washy! and God won't deny good choices that are in line with His Will.

What it amounts to is needing to get off your duff, sir.

But what does work, what does satisfy, and bring happiness, is a legitimate choice.
A few things I've experienced about what that is:
#1: Grunt work; nose to the grinding stone, and all that hubbabaloo
2) You need to know what your choosing. Imagine a man that had never seen a stop light, he just fell out of the sky into a car, which he knew how to drive by the way. If he doesn't know what it means, he'll just run right through it and not think twice. A choice is an act of the will now, and he had no will nor care in the matter since he didn't know to care. He couldn't make a choice since he was blind to the options!

So with morality it goes back to the idea of anyone that is thrust into a situation wherein they don't know what they're doing: You know, get hired right out of 4 years of intensive study in a college, or even poping out of someone's belly. If they goof, no decent person would blame them for making a bad choice since they didn't even know what they were doing!

Now, when they know what they are doing 2 things can obviously happen: Good and Bad.
I'll explain this one a bit, Bad: That is, being blameworthy since they didn't do what they knew they should have.
I've even some to say about this,
If they know what they are doing and actually do what they know, good things happen to them because they made the right choice. Now if someone does the right thing accidently, they don't really get the same treatment as someone that knew what to do. You see, good choices bring good treatment (generally) to you in part because you know what your options are and you did the good one.

Which brings me back to effort: Why can't you just know something is good and say ok, I'll do it, obviously that's the wrong way I won't do that, all the way through life? Be the perfect role model, the perfect dad, mom, wife, son, no problems? Well, it just ain't so for one, for another, we need to realize that spiritually I think because knowing the right thing and doing the right thing are two different things, because we can take the easy way out, sin! Not that it works, it just feels good. Well, as you know, that ain't good enough. So we'd best get over it, and start trudging. So we can be happy. Believe it or not. Well, I believe it, I still don't always follow my God, and I'm still here, so there's hope for you too.


Gosh, I feel like an old windbag at 24.
For my (if any) future kid's sake, I really shouldn't take JOY anymore in awaiting my 65th birthday. . . they'd never hear the end of me.