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.

I've known this whole week what I'd be writing about today. God has really been making this clear to me... it's cool how he can make an issue that's been hidden for so long, and reveal it right when you're ready to deal with it. Here's my problem: I have had a really selfish attitude.

As promised, this week I'll be talking about some goals I have for the year 2017. I did this last year, and I thought it would be good to do again. Having these in public and in writing will help to keep me accountable! So, without further ado, here are my goals for 2017.

Another new year is here! Last year, my blog started off with a post about my goals for the year. This year, I'm going to start by seeing how I did with last year's goals. Then, next week, I'll list my goals for this year. So let's get started!