Utterly Awesome

I arrived back from FLY early Sunday morning on a coach bus filled with youth from my church and various others and I have to say: the convention was probably the greatest, or at least one of the greatest experiances in my life. I won't go into depth explaining each and every day but seriously, it was absolutely incredible. We had two main sermons each day; the morning service, and the evening service and the speakers were spectacular, and I mean move-you-so-much-that-you-go-back-to-your-dorm-sobbing spectacular. They talked and preached with such conviction that pretty much everyone in my youth group had tears streaming down their faces by the end of the first night! One speaker I'd like to point out was named Eric Ludy, and he, was definitely my favorite. This man was SOLD-OUT for Christ. He even remarked during his sermon, "People hate me because of my beliefs, and I love it!" I remember going back to my dorm room that night, sitting down on the floor with my back against my bed, and sobbing. During Eric's message, I realized I hadn't been living all for Christ. Sometimes us Christians just try to slip by, holding on to all these temporary things and making our daily decisions ourselves without God leading us. And I saw that I was one of these Christians, holding onto MY dreams, MY plans, MY ambitions, MY stuff and not letting Jesus come in and take over. I'd been basically putting my goals and things ahead of God, and that night in my dorm I finally said I'd had enough. Enough of plotting out my own course in life, enough of clinging to earthly things. I prayed, "Lord, I can't do this on my own. Please come in and take complete control over my life." And surprisingly, I didn't feel all morose or gloomy about giving these things up. All of those things just suddenly felt so meaningless...
The rest of the week was awesome as well. From 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. all the youth received free-time to spend as they chose. So during this period I had the oppertunity of climbing a massive mountain called Emerald Peak (or something like that), playing tons of basketball, competeing against my friends on this minigolf course FLY has and in ping-pong, and pretty much just hanging out. Oh, and me and Ryan signed up for this archery session the convention provided using recurve bows which was lots of fun. :D
So after going to FLY, I can tell you one thing. If you ever have the chance to go, GO!!! It was utterly incredible and you will NOT be disappointed. I can promise you that.

Well, that's my overview of FLY.
Namarie,
Jake