At work, there is one position that is seemingly easy until you do it: Fries. You get fries for people and you cook more when you need them. Listen to what is called for and you get it. Easy, right? It is unless there are five million people in line... ew.

But there is hope! There is the screen! It comes up with who needs what food and in what order. It even says if it is for dining room or carry-out. Its really useful. I normally put most of my focus on it. And when I lose focus and stop using it, I get lost. I start to fumble. I start to basically suck at my job. Then I get back on track after a while with some help.

It's not too hard to see where this is going... just replace Christ with the screen and life with fries. We need to focus on God to get things done. Without Him, life is pretty much sucky. With Him, it is hard. Not a doubt about that. But it's worthwhile. He will prevail. He will take care of us. He will lead us... if we follow the screen. It's possible to get back in focus when we falter, but it takes some time and lots of effort. Neat!

Want to get your life on track? Follow the screen. Follow God!

Oh what fun Northbay was... I decided to spend some time alone on Saturday morning in the woods. After sitting around for a while, I started to pray that God would show me something really cool. Then some ducks swam by and I was watching them. Then I started thinking about how they were ducking (seriously?) underwater to get something. They weren't just going down a little. They went all out.

I thought we need to do that as well. We should go all out for what we want. We just can't wait for it to show up on the surface of the lake of life. But this was not the thing I really thought about after my time in the woods. This next event would really be on my mind the rest of the weekend.

I got back to the cabin and was really hungry. Breakfast was in twenty minutes, but I really needed something little, so I grabbed my COOKIE DOUGH POP-TARTS!!! (So good!) I looked at my arm since something was starting to bother it, and I see this little black spot. I figured it was just chocolate on my arm and almost didn't think anything of it. But I didn't want to forget about it, so I wiped it off... and it was still there. I kept wiping at it and it wasn't going away. Then I noticed the spot had legs... twas (sweet word) a tick. I was able to get it off and went on my day and got another tick later that later came off. Fun weekend.

So why bother with this story about ticks? It all goes back to that prayer. I wanted God to show me something that I think EVERYONE deals with... it just took me until today to realize He did. Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If we have sinned, we obviously have sin in our life... Sin that we need to get rid of. If we look at our sin and think it's something else, it will become a big problem. Ticks carry disease, and if they get in ya too long you can get very sick. In the same light, sins carry a certain weight to them. It eats away at you. Sin will tear you apart and wreck your life. But if you get rid of it while it's still on top of your skin and barely latched on, you can just pick it off with a little work. You can battle sin easier if you fight it early and acknowledge that it's there.

That's on of Satan's techniques to destroy us. That's one thing he wants. He wants to destroy us because he knows God loves us. And he wants to kill us without us thinking he is there. He will make you think the tick is just chocolate so you ignore it... and then you realize it's a tick later when it's gonna be really hard to get rid of its doing. How can you stop these ticks? Look for the legs when you notice it. If you are questioning something to make sure it's ok, run it down the list. Is it true? Honest? Just? Pure? Lovely? Of good report? Virtue? Praise? (Philippians 4:8) If it's all yes, think about such things. If there is a no, move on. Easier said than done, but saying it is the first step to living it.

If you have a problem and you can still see the tick, try to get rid of it. If it's burrowed in deep, get some help to get it out. If you are absolutely getting torn apart by it, look to the mightiest healer of them all: God. Satan will lead you to believe you are alone. But God is always there by your side. And God is bigger than the air we breathe.

I can't make it clearer, put it any other way/ If you can't see the simple truth I do/ But to know that your forever can be changed/ 'Cause Jesus loves you! -Stellar Kart