true joy

I love studying; I love being in class. I love Michigan football. I love video games. I love competition. I love sports. It's stuff I'm wired to do. I came in freshman year, wide-eyed, longing to explore these things and make the most of the opportunities at this school.

What ended up happening as I started gradually getting more and more "religious," though, was that I ended up suppressing my passions. As twisted as I think, I say... if my love for God is a 4/10, and my love for football is a 7/10, something must be wrong.

But instead of depending on God and trusting in the victory of Christ, I depended on myself. Do you know what I did? I knocked down my passion for football to a 3, instead of praying for God's grace to love Him more.

It's funny, how religious people are. I went Colossians 2:23:

Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Which reminds me that I really want to study Colossians this year. But in any case, I'm having a buttload of fun in my classes this year because I don't have to be someone else to receive God's approval. God made me who I am and God will work in me to know Him more in spite of who I am.