A week ago, I attended Winter Jam 2022 in Nashville. Your band, Skillet, was headlining. I've been listening to you guys for over half my life (since Awake and Alive in 2009), and your music has been really influential to me over the years. I've seen you play at Lifest almost annually, and you've always been one of my favorite bands to see live. So it was a bit surprising and hurtful when, as you talked between songs, declared war on... well, me.

I'm just finishing up a book I've had on my list to read for a while called Radical. The book is written by David Platt, pastor of McClain Bible Church in Washington and known mainly for his annual six-hour teaching called Secret Church and for this book. And after reading this book, I'm finding myself more challenged than I've ever felt before.

Recently, God has been revealing to me just how busy I am. I spend so much time on school, work,  and volunteering that I often have very little time in my day. All of those are good things. But what I'm learning is that when we fill our days to the brim, there's no room for God to speak.

This past Sunday, I was playing piano for my church's worship team. We were singing a song that we had played at church many times before, and I was singing along. But while I was singing, I came to a realization: My worship had become a routine.

Well, if you read my post a few weeks ago, you know that I have graduated! It's a strange feeling. Being out of high school and onto bigger and better things is something that I haven't totally grasped yet, but it excites and scares me at the same time. There is a lot I still have to learn, but it can only come with time!

This has been such a crazy week. Not only was it college finals week, but I also had multiple songs to learn for worship, and I got sick for multiple days. Now, the craziest stuff is done, and I'm pretty much all set! However, I still have multiple speeches I need to prepare. One of these speeches is for at graduation.

Last Friday, I attended Secret Church 2017. It's hosted by David Platt of Radical, and it's basically six straight hours of teaching of God's Word. Now I know what you're thinking. "SIX HOURS?? How am I supposed to pay attention for that long?" Well, it's a lot easier than you think. Platt goes through the material VERY quickly, and everything he has to say is interesting! Six hours is a long time for me, a guy who has trouble focusing on things sometimes, but Secret Church is amazing.
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This past month, I've learned one of the hardest lessons I've ever had to learn. It's something I've been struggling with for a while now. I've been stressed and frustrated and it sucked. But as always, God came through, and he showed me exactly what I needed to see.

Earlier in my blogging history, I wrote a blog post called My Fear of Prayer. In that post, I talked about just that: how I was afraid to pray. I was more worried about what people thought of me praying out loud than what God thought of me. I talked about how I felt inexperienced and I never knew what to say. Today, I wanted to talk about some things that have helped me to grow in that!

Another posting lull. Ugh. Like I've mentioned before, I feel that blogging is a way that I connect with God, because my writing is a way to slow down my thoughts and think about the things that I've been learning lately. I know that, so I know I need to be doing this, but I just haven't been doing it, again. I need to get better, and I will. But anyways, today I just want to give you guys a short recap of what happened this week.