I Don't Know Anything.

It's weird to look back to the beginning of this blog, to see how much I've changed in just 8 short months, and to think that my life is about to radically change once again in about 3 months.

I came here to Michigan, to film school, thinking that I had a handle on life, thinking that since I had been through a year of Bible school, I knew quite a bit about what I life is about, that I knew where my life was going and what it was about. But after 8 months of growing up, I sit here and type all of this out to tell you all one thing:

I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING.


I thought I did. I really did. I got to go through one of the best Bible programs in the country and made friends with some of the best people I've ever known. I got to know the Bible pretty well, and I thought I had finally had the means to become a "good Christian person". HA. The very reason we need Christ is because we aren't good people, because we are SINNERS, because we turn our back on God constantly. Now, I'm not saying that we are destined to stay that way once be decide to follow Christ. Not at all. The second step to following Christ is to allow (yes, allow) God to start changing us on the inside out. All my life, I felt like a good person. I felt that I was doing well and that being a Christian was just logical. Who wouldn't want to be friends with the Creator of the universe? That's what I thought it was all about. you read your Bible, you pray, you go to church. It felt like there was a formula and I was following it well. But it always felt empty. I didn't understand why, but it did. When I went to Ecola, something clicked. God took me by the hand and lead me towards where He wants my relationship to be with Him. Slowly, over the course of those 7 months, He showed me things about Himself, about who He is, about what He wants us to be. And I rode that high, that feeling that God was physically with me all the time, that He wants me to walk with Him daily, that there was no way that I would possibly leave His side.

Then this year hit. Right out of the summer, I felt good. I was still riding the high, still loving God all the time, still wanting to constantly walk with Him. Then school hit. I got busy, distracted. It was easier to watch movies on my down time than to study the Bible or pray. I felt lonely, like I had nobody. I fought with impurity and swearing, and all of the things that entrapped me before Ecola, and even some things that still entrapped me while I was there. I prayed as much as could, but God felt distant, like He didn't want to be with me in Michigan. I had to constantly remind myself that God doesn't leave us, its us who shift our focus from Him.
And I still struggle with all that to an extent, actually to a very large extent. This life is hard. As Christians, we seem to think that our life will be roses and puppies, but it won't. We have chosen a path that is hard, a path that challenges us, a path that is not of this earth. God uses all the times and circumstances to teach us and grow us into the men and women we are destined to be. We may not be able to see what it all means for us right now, but it's building to something huge, whether that thing happens here in our lifetime, or in heaven.


I've also learned that I really don't know anything about myself.

Every time I think I know who I am, I am disproven. This year has been a big time of learning about the ins and outs of how the human brain works, how my brain works. What turns me on, what puts me off, what makes me who I am. And it's a hard experience. It's tough learning about how corrupt you are. If last year was about learning about God and His incredible grace, this year has been about learning where He applies it. And boy does He apply it. We took a test this week in a class about how ethical we think we are. And it was hard because I know where I want to be, but I also know where I actually am, so I gave myself a rough score. Yet, I was thought of by some as one of the most ethical people in the class. That's hard to hear in many ways because I know who I am deep inside, and it sure as heck isn't ethical at all. I know how much work I have to do, how much pain and fire I will have to go through in my lifetime, because I am a sinful man, I am a corrupt man. God has plenty of work to do in me before I'm ready to stand before His Throne.


And then there's film itself.

I really don't know anything about film. We grow up, we see a lot of movies, we read a lot of books. As we get older, we seem to think we know about films and the way they should or should not be made, and we get upset when a movie is terrible or when the right movies aren't made. The whole industry looks manipulated and we are forced to go see things we don't want to see. I am here to tell you that that is all wrong. We don't know how Hollywood works. We don't know what makes a good movie or not. Hollywood is there to make money, pure and simple. And the reason most films get made is because of money. Its all based on whether something will make money or not. I've learned this year that I know nothing about how it all works. And I still don't. I know nothing about Producing, about film, about people. I still have a long journey ahead of me.

I've also learned that the film industry is really really weird. It's such an off the wall industry. Most of the time, I don't even know why it exists. But people want an escape. People don't like the real world. That's why there's film. People want a way not to think about their life. They want their lives to be more exciting than they actually are. So we watch sexy stars save the world and get the girl, because deep inside, that's what we all want.

This all probably seems like I'm lost. Maybe I am. In some ways, it's true. But I think that these are the times that God needs me to go though. These are some of the things God wants me to understand before I go off into the real world next August.

And since God's behind all of it, good. I'd have it no other way.