Monday, June 30, 2014

It's a Celebration!

It is a well-known fact among my friends that I enjoy celebrations. I often will joke about how some holidays (such as birthdays and um... labor day!) don't actually make sense, but whoever cares? We need all the reason to celebrate as we can!

As such, I have found one more reason to celebrate. Last week, I hit over 2500 pageviews on this blog! That was something I wasn't quite expecting. Also somehow without marketing this blog much at all, I'm averaging about 10-15 pageviews a day. 

But that is not why I am celebrating today! No, today I am celebrating that this is the 100th post on this here blog. It truly does feel like last week when I wrote the celebratory 50th blog post, but apparently that was almost 4 months ago. Time is weird sometimes (and this isn't even Doctor Who!). 

To celebrate today, I'm gonna do something strange -  talk about myself. Hopefully, this is more interesting to you than I would at first think.

I mentioned in my fiftieth post that I started this blog as a way of keeping myself in the habit of writing while on my financially-imposed gap year. This is definitely true, but only part of the story. You see, as I mentioned in Joseph, Levites, and Vows, the Lord was using this gap year and the book of Numbers to get a hold of my heart during October. I was then stranded between two options: the political track my life was on and the Pastoral track that seemed to be laid before me. 

Silly me thought this blog would be a great way of determining which route I should choose. By utilizing a blog where I posted about politics one day, apologetics one day, and a simple devotional the third, I thought I could see where my talents lie and what interests other people. 

My Gideon tactic didn't quite work out as I wanted. Through this blog, I didn't quite learn that particular area of what God's plan was for my life. He revealed to me through other means that he desired me to enter full-time ministry. What I learned through the blog is that well, different people are interested in different topics regardless of the quality of your writing or where God wants you in life. 

I also learned that within a setting where people are reading or listening to you for your insights (if indeed anyone was doing this), they are more interested in the knowledge you have to impart than how your studies brought you to this knowledge. I could tell you how I learned this, but you just wouldn't be interested. 

As my loquaciousness subsided and worked into short posts, I learned that the Lord would help me write posts succinctly and not ramble on forever and ever. You see, in the past, I would make sure that I made my point by repeating it over and over. Apparently repeating it over and over develops the point further than if you just say it once and then move on. Now I will admit that repetition can very well be a solid tactic to get people to remember what you are saying, but there comes a point where the reader grows tired of reading the same thing over and over again, and you just stop communicating very clearly. For instance, this paragraph should have only been two sentences long...

But these are all peripheral lessons to what I learned through this blog.

I learned first and foremost that I need not show off with the blog. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that I enjoyed writing some posts in order to show off my intellect, writing ability, or just how close I was to God. I learned time and time again (and maybe if I'm really lucky, I will retain that knowledge this time and not have to learn it again) that this blog and any other opportunity to speak needed to have the Lord as the ultimate focus.

In a similar vein, I needed not become so obsessed with how many pageviews certain posts received or how many likes a Facebook link could receive. I needed to rely upon the Lord to use this as He intended, whether in the marketing stage, or the writing itself. (That doesn't mean I stopped outlining, but then I would have had to start to stop...) 

And now my life has come full circle."I'm going on an adventure!" Not really, but it feels like that sometimes. I am going to college at Cedarville University in the fall studying Biblical Studies.

As such, I have the next few years of my life figured out and will soon be writing for classes soon. Therefore, both of the original purposes of this blog are of no consequence. But I greatly enjoy writing it, and I see the Lord doing great things in my life through it. As long as that is the case, even if I never got another pageview, I will continue to write it. 

So hey, today I'm going to celebrate what the Lord has worked through this blog. It will probably be a small celebration. It will start by a decision to go back to sleep before beginning the rest of my day. I may have let myself get a little far behind on that note these last few weeks.

Since celebrations are so awesome, why don't you use this as a convenient excuse to celebrate, too?

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