Thirteen days before I'm on a greyhound back to California.
Oh, joy.

Also, snakes shed their skin a layer at a time.

I'm not sure what exactly the significance of that is, but I feel like there's something there.

***

I was talking with my friend Chris today, and Christianity came about in our conversation. He was noting that Christians are ignorant. And I had to agree with him. We use church as our medium for hearing from God, expecting the pastor to spoon feed us on Sundays, getting frustrated with the church when our spiritual lives are taking a turn for the worst. Well. That's not what church was made for. We're meant to feed ourselves. Church is meant to be a place of fellowship, of communing with others who share our beliefs. Chris is my age, and we were having this conversation. This generation can see through the Christian religion we've invented in this country. We can see that there's more to it than most so-called Christians are living out. He noticed, too, that some Christians use God as a scape-goat for not dealing with our problems, claiming that we "give them to God" and then walk away from them. Well.. yes, we lay our burdens and our struggles down before the Lord, but that doesn't mean that they're disappeared and we can go on living like they no longer exist. That is simply not the case. Giving them to God means seeking Him for instruction as to how to deal with those things.
It was a really interesting chat.

Chris is on a journey of "spiritual exploration"... Basically, he's searching for truth. He doesn't see it in the Christians he sees around Him. If we're not living our lives according to how the Bible has called us to do so, we're living a lie, and we're labeling ourselves as ambassadors for Christ, misrepresenting Him all the way. This is a problem. We ourselves turn people away from the only true God through our lack of understanding about who we are as children of the King.

I am determined to never be one of those Christians.

I am determined to be the real deal.

I will not be a follower of the American Jesus.

I will be a follower of Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior of all, who calls us to pick up our crosses and follow Him.

I will not misrepresent.

Chew on that.