feeling good about myself...

lately ive been struggling with pride. when i say lately, in this case, i mean for the last 24 years of my life. pride has led me to treat people poorly, take people for granted, make bad decisions, ruin friendships and most recently i have come to realize how it has impacted my relationship with God. i am too proud to rely on him, to see the wonder and otherness that God is, and to put aside my wants and needs for those of others.
its hard for me to admit when im wrong, and even harder to break a poor personal trait, such as this, that has become something of an awful habit.
i have reduced my relationship with God to mathematical formulas and answers to all the questions. my pride has prevented me from being lost in wonder and truly fearing the God of the universe.
its something im working on...

changing it up

playing around on my mac i found a new blog thing that im trying out. as of now it probably will not be a long term thing. but its kind of fun to play around on. see what it can do here http://web.mac.com/jeremyalanolson/iWeb

first post from a real computer

so yesterday i got home from work to see a box from fedex sitting on the table waiting for me. turns out it was a MacBook Pro.
after about 30 minutes on the phone with paul taylor, im hooked up to the wireless internet and running. thanks paul!
anyway, everyone should have one of these. fast, slick and easier to use than an iPod.
in real news...things in yellowknife are going well. lots of cool people and quite a bit of fun stuff to do.
last weekend i skied 12.5 kms at the ski club here. im still sore from it. but it was fun.
thats all for today. stay tuned...

more funny stuff from rick...

well, if you need a good laugh. rick mercer is one of the best ways to get it. go check out this link here and play the "Hand In My Pocket Spoof Ad"
i thought the original ads were funny...but this is even better.

what?

i thought these were funny anyway

"Faithful Companion" by Mark Veldhoven



























by Big Jule ------------------------------->


found both of these on Rick Mercers blog.
check it out. its funny too.

from a wise man in china...

one of the wisest people i know sent me this in response to my post about the apathy and laziness ive been feeling. i believe he found it reading some Madame Guyon...

check it out, its been making me think since i read it yesterday.

"Dear reader, you must realize that God has only one desire. Certainly you can never understand a dry spell unless you understand what His desire is. His desire is to give Himself to the soul that really loves Him and to that soul which earnestly seeks Him. And yet it is true that this God who desires to give Himself to you will often conceal Himself from you—from you, the very one who seeks Him! Now why would God do that? Dear saint of God, you must learn the ways of your Lord. Yours is a God who often hides Himself. He hides Himself for a purpose. Why? His purpose is to rouse you from spiritual laziness. His purpose in removing Himself from you is to cause you to pursue Him.”

one reason to hate march...

in march they already start talking about and showing baseball. i mean, give me a break...they already show all 200 regular season games throughout the year, so do we really need to watch an extra 40 games of out of shape athletes play bad baseball?
even the highlights are boring.
other than that march is a pretty sweet month.

not thinking much lately

other than focusing on the new job, i havent been thinking about much lately.
ive kind of slipped into a state of apathy or laziness or something when other things are called into question. dave's thoughts really challenged me today about apathy and letting sin creep in.
its pretty easy to let that happen. you dont even have to want it to be there, it can find its way through cracks and crevices. small things like the apathy and the laziness i have been feeling when it comes to faith have found their way in like water pouring into a cup full of marbles.
what i really want in those spaces between the marbles is that relationship with jesus that ive been missing for far too long. i need to find the drain, exhaust the water and let the real thing pour in...

day one...

well, a lot of people were interested in how the first day of work went...it was a pretty slow day. i really didnt do a whole lot.
i started at 0830h and we had a meeting at about 0900 so i could meet everyone. at 1000, 7 of us went to tim hortons for an hour.
then the rest of the day i read up on how to run the autoanalyzer to test levels of nitrogen in potable water samples.
thats what ill do tomorrow.
so far so good. good people, fancy machines.

starting monday...

i will no longer be unemployed!
i have accepted the position of Laboratory Technician with the Taiga Environmental Laboratory up here in yellowknife.
so, my three month weekend wraps up a little prematurely, but in a welcome way.
thanks for all the prayers and help from everyone!

quinn and bertuzzi

yeah, so canada lost out in the olympic hockey tournament.
these are the two guys i blame.
what a terrible penalty by bertuzzi that let russia go up 1-0.
and what was pat quinn thinking on the powerplays?
pretty disappointing.
better luck in vancouver boys.

made it

well. after a short flight to edmonton, tim met me at the airport and we started the journey northward.
slept in stony plain and left at 730 wednesday morning.
pulled into the ashbys place at about 1100pm wednesday nite.
some good driving, good music(poison, motley crue, G'n R, trooper...) and some very good conversation.
all that to say im here and ill keep you up to date with what happens next.

next stop...yellowknife

its true. im moving north. the last few days have been filled with more sweet breakfast/supper dates, some good price is right watching and some sad goodbyes.
this city is filled with so many good people and i am going to miss that for sure. to be honest...i wont miss the actual city, or the church building i go to every week, or the soccer facility...but the amazing people that are part of my life. whether it is my soccer team, my church community, my family or my breakfast dates.
so many good people to leave!
kind of shows you what is really important in life...the relationships.
shows me that there is something more to church and soccer and breakfasts than just showing up...
its not the places, its the relationships that are formed there.
so if you are reading this, you are likely one of those people that i am going to miss a lot.
send me an email.

why can't i trust?

serious. its so hard for me to trust. to trust that God is watching out for me.
its weird because i have seen him provide for me so often, and i know that the relationship i have with him can only be strengthened if i trust...
but still, im scared. scared for the future, for next week, for next month.
i dont know whats around these corners ahead, and i am having a tough time
dealing with that.
God, i want to lay my life at your feet, give you total control. but something is holding me back. help me.

check out means

means is featured on the purevolume front page. go listen to their songs.
or see them here .

Proceed with great caution...

From C.S. Lewis' "The Weight of Glory":

I mean this sort of thing. I say my prayers, I read a book of devotion, I prepare for or recieve the Sacrament. But while I do these things, there is, so to speak, a voice inside of me that urges caution. It tells me to be careful, to keep my head, not to go too far, not to burn my boats. I come into the presence of God with a great fear lest anything should happen to me within that presence which will prove too intolerably inconvenient when I have come out again into my "ordinary life". I don't want to be carried away into any resolution which I shall afterwards regret. For I know I shall be feeling quite different after breakfast; I don't want anything to happen to me at the altar which will ring up to big a bill to pay then. It would be very disagreeable, for instance, to take the duty of charity (while I am at the altar) so seriously that after breakfast I had to tear up the really stunning reply I had written to an impudent correspondent yesterday and meant to post today. It would be very tiresome to commit myself to a programme of temperance

which would cut off my after breakfast cigarette...

.

i am kind of in this place these days. scared to give everything to God because im scared of the change i know he wants to see in my life.

update on the job hunt

well, this update won't take very long.
mostly because i still dont have anything to report.
ive applied for a lot of positions, and a few of them have deadlines coming up.
so maybe ill hear from those guys in the next week or two here.
but im still plugging away.
somedays its frustrating, other times i enjoy not having anything to do because
ive had some pretty sweet breakfasts at good old simply delicious.
so if you are reading this, and want to go for breakfast one of these days,
i know a really sweet place, and have nothing to do, so
look me up.
(and if you are sick of reading my blog, go check out rick mercer's cause he is one funny guy...ive definitely had a few laughs thanks to him during the last 2 months of pre and post-election coverage)

too much running

this weekend our soccer team played in a tournament. 5 games is a lot.
my body hurts and im tired. maybe a little grouchy too.
but now im sitting here and i have to help out with our
sunday nite 'worship service'...so its kind of neat
that we are focusing on meditation tonite.
quiet time...
i definitely didnt get much of that in with such a busy weekend, but
i think its important to take time just to listen.
to hear what God is trying to make visible to us, to get the other side of the conversation.
the important side.
i focus on my side so often that its such a onesided dialogue that it often becomes a monologue.

saying goodbye to some good people

ive been up since 2 a.m.
i woke up to watch a brilliant man and his tennis racquet put on
a dance-like performance in melbourne.
roger federer is a genius.
after that i helped pete and chelsey load up the moving truck as they start their journey westward.
saying goodbye is hard.
im gonna miss those guys, their servant hearts, their genuine passion for sharing jesus with people.
so good.
at times like these you realize how important those relationships are.
i have been so blessed with countless amazing people to share this journey with.
these two are on my mind especially today.