adam rodrigues
Social
Highschool
Oakland
College
Lee
Interests
Jesus, God, Jesus, God, Church, Friends, hanging out, and writing.
Favorite Music
Christian, I love Third Day and multiple other bands
Favorite Movies
Tommy Boy is the best movie of all time. I also love the Matrix.
Other Websites
www.xanga.com/portugesian
The Judgment
October 26 2006
You guys were SOOO AWESOME. I'm not kidding, it really moved me, very powerful, very effective.
The only thing about the judgment is that both times I've seen it, it leaves me longing to be in church acting again.
I don't know if I can adequately convey the desire kindled in me when I see you guys ministering through scenes to do the same. I want so badly to do it.
I'm not here to fish for compliments, but I think, anyways, that God's gifted me to some extent in theatre, and after leaving the judgment last night, the desire I felt has left me wondering.
I'll put it this way, the only other thing that close to my heart is preaching :which is my calling.
So.. it's an item of prayer now. I guess, am I gifted enough here? And more so, God, are you calling me to theatre, in some extent? (Because I'd really like that! ;-)
Spiritual Warfare
October 24 2006
night that I said I'd post eventually. It's not nearly as in depth as
I could, and maybe should, make it, but this is what I made for my guys
devos.
Guys,
this one's a bit different, more on the philosophical side, but it's
really what God's been doing with me. Also, there's a whole lot
more that I have to say about this stuff, so if you have any
questions, please ask. I hope this benefits you as it now does me.
Why
do we have to wage spiritual warfare?
Why
can't God intervene and stop the devil from attacking us?
And
if God is all powerful, if the devil is attacking us, doesn't that
mean He's allowing the enemy to attack us?
These
are the questions that I've dealt with recently, prayed over, and
really feel like God's given me some insight about.
First
of all, the first two questions go hand in hand, because since God is
all powerful, He could intervene in my life and stop the devil from
attacking me. Which makes me ask “God, why don't you do this? It
seems like you're just letting the devil attack me.â€
Well,
in response to this, let's say God did always intervene. He never
allowed the devil to throw anything at my life to divert me from Him.
But think about that. That would mean all temptation would not
exist, because temptation is of the devil, and if God always stopped
the devil from attacking us, then temptation would not exist.
However,
we know temptation does exist. Furthermore, we know that God created
us for the sole purpose of having a relationship with Him: as can be
proven by Christ's sacrifice on the cross
Which
leads back to the question: “If God wants us to have a relationship
with us, why would an all powerful God allow the devil to hinder that
relationship in any way?
Well,
essentially, the answer to all of these questions is free will.
Because
the only way God “could never allow the devil to attack us†is if
He always intervened. Why? I look at it this way. God
always keeps me from having lustful thoughts, but then there's one
time that He doesn't. Well, that one time is going to be the time
that I have to resist it, quote scripture, pray, wage spiritual
warfare, to overcome it.
So
the only way spiritual warfare doesn't exist is if God always
intervenes and stops the temptation from coming.
Well,
doesn't that mean that I'm never really choosing to serve God? If
every single time there's any type of distraction or challenge to my
faith, God stops it, am I really choosing to serve God? Or is God
keeping me in continuous ignorance to the world, and He's more or
less manipulating me to serve Him?
That's
my opinion. Either God allows us to wage spiritual warfare, or He
always intervenes and renders us as people living a robotic spiritual
life. Never really choosing to serve Him, but only doing so because
we don't know the alternative.
But
the problem with this is, as I said earlier,is that it seems God's
allowing the devil to attack us.
However,
in response to this, I say that God has fully equipped us to wage war
against the enemy. Look at it this way.
Someone
trains his student to be a great warrior. But if every time this
warrior has a chance to fight, the trainer intervenes, would this
warrior ever be as great as the trainer wanted? Furthermore,
wouldn't the warrior begin to get frustrated, and actually want to
start implementing what he's learned, so he could become a better
fighter?
That's how I see it. We live in a
lost world, and the moment we start trying to win them to Christ, the
devil's going to come at us with all he has. And I don't know about
you guys, but I want to be as rooted and trained in the art of
spiritual combat as any, so that when I step onto the devil's turf,
he knows he's facing someone God's fully prepared to achieve victory,
and not someone cooped up inside a life of spiritual ignorance.
Spiritual warfare is a necessity. We need it in our lives as
Christians, for without it, we can never be truly rooted in our
faith. That, in my opinion, is why it exists.
Living for God for God
October 17 2006
puts it in corinthians. He essentially says "I could care less what
you think, GOd is my judge."
Every day I seek to please God, solely
for the reason, of pleasing God. And I pray I can always have that
mentality. Not to be a good evangelist. Not to be a good floor leader.
Not to be "good enough" for some godly woman God wants for me.
But the man of God He wants me to be, and nothing else.
There's just something so good about just seeking God, for God, and just Him, without the concern of what anyone else thinks.
I'm
not saying that's what consumes me, or any of us, but sometimes the
pressures of the world around us, of the church, or whatever else, at
least in my life, begin to press on me sometimes. Sometimes it's hard
to just seek God for God alone, and nothing else.
But when I find
myself, in that alone time with Him, knowing that if it's only me and
Him, for the rest of time, I'd be totally content, that I know what I'm
made for.
Until that time, I'm here to help other people come to that understanding.
Audio A!
October 15 2006
Ahh.. they're just sooooooooo gooooooood :)
Powerful christian messages, with just such.. charisma.. in their presentation of it. Joy honestly just kind of comes up in me listening to them.
Spiritually edifying, most def.
I'm a man. Overboard.
I'm a man. Overboard....
If it wasn't for the light house
where would my life be?
On a ship bound for nowhere,
On an unforgiving sea.
I thank God, for the lighthouse
So many who need Him...
October 14 2006
And then I go on their myspace accounts.. and see their lives.. how they really are.. so lost, without him
Putting their bodies out there for show for anyone to see.
I can't help but think of how Jesus felt when He looked at the multitudes.
36When He saw the
throngs, He was moved with pity and sympathy for them, because they
were bewildered (harassed and distressed and dejected and helpless),
like sheep without a shepherd.
You're worth so much that that! Don't put your body out there to find love.. Christ loves you. He is that missing affection and attention you're missing.. There IS man who has YOU at the center of His universe, and it has nothing to do with how much of yourself you can sell to anyone else. He wants you pure, and just the way He made you.
God is good.
October 11 2006
something, especially in reference to devotions, is something I hold a
strong belief in. I stumbled over this tonight. God is good.
Sinners
seemed to recognize Jesus a lot quicker than the Pharisees, or most
"normal people" for that matter. I think this points to a basic
principle between humanity and Him:
*It becomes a lot easier to see Jesus when we
look through desperate eyes*
FRIGGIN OWNED!!!
October 07 2006
51 to 33
A team who's averaging an allowed 6.8 points per game, and only 34 ALL SEASON.
And we scored 51 points in one game. The only other team to score fifty points in Georgia is FLorida back in 1995, when Steve Spurrier's run gun n fun offense was at its height.
Yeah.
FRIGGIN OWNED!!!!!
Lunch Lady Land
October 01 2006
all the pepperoni pizza was a lookin at me,
It screamed why do you burn me and serve me up cold?!
I said I got the spatula just do what you're told.
Then the liver and onions starting joining the fight,
And the chocolote pudding pushed me with all its might,
And the chopped suey slapped me and kicked me in the head
" It's called revenge lunch lady!" said the garlic bread.
I said "What did I do to make you all so mad?"
They said you got flabby arms and your breath is bad.
Then the green beans said you better run and hide.
But then my friend sloppy joe came and joined me side.
He said, if it wasn't for the lunch the lady the kids wouldn't eat ya
You should be shaking your hand and saying "pleased to meet ya."
She gives you a purpose and she gives you a goal,
You should be kissing her feet and kissing her mole.
Now all the angry foods just leave me alone, and we all live together in a happy home.
Thanks to..
Sloppy Joe, Slop, Sloppy Joe.. ....
Another try at profoundness.. ;)
September 23 2006
So..
Here's a quote from my RA last night in bible study, that I thought was AMAZING.
Proverbs
18:21 The tongue has the power of life and death
We have
the power of life, and death, in our words, and every day, we're
killing people, and we don't even have to put a gun to their heads.
Why is God always worthy to be praised?
September 20 2006
I hope you guys take the time to read this, I put a lot of time into
it ;)
And who knows, I might just minister to you ;)
God is always worth of our
praise.
Now I know that we frequent
this statement in our Christian faith, but for some reason, as I came
across it tonight in Psalm 96:4, I was really compelled to find out,
“what exactly does that mean?â€
Why should I give God
praise? What is it exactly that makes him always worthy of praise?
Before one can delve into
this debate, one must first go to the source of things that we see as
worthy of praise in the first place, or in other words, things one
would declare “good.†Well, acknowledging the numerous scientific
discoveries that have nullified the possiblity of evolution, and
therefore accepting the only other alternative to existence, a Divine
Creator, we can almost instantly discover this source. For if there
was a divine creator that spoke all humanity into existence, more
specifically, a Creator that made us in His image, then every bit of
our natural understanding of what is “good,†comes from Him,
which in turn would mean that He, this Creator, is in fact our source
or standard of good ( or things worthy of praise ).
So, with that stated, one
can see that things we see as “worthy of praise,†( qualified for
verbal or physical actions of thanks )such as goodness, kindness,
love, sacrifice, purity, and the like, are all really just
reflections of the ultimate source of all things good: God. From here
it doesn't take much to understand why God is always worthy of
praise, because with the assumption that humanity's natural knowledge
of “the good†or “what is worthy to be praised†was placed
within us by God Himself, then everything that we see as “worthy of
praise†is thus declared so because it is the God given intuition
within us that leads us to such a conclusion. All of this ultimately
explains the statement “God is always worthy of praise,†because
well, if God is good, and if we have ingrained into us a natural
intuition to praise things reflective of His goodness, then obviously
God is “always worthy of praise,†because God is always good.
Work
September 17 2006
So many many pizzas to cut!!!
So todayI worked from 12-9, it was definitely a pretty long shift. THe one
thing that kinda stinks about CiCi's is that apparently no one "really"
takes their breaks. I mean, sure, I can take mine if I want, but no
one else goes for fifteen minutes and chills. SO I was getting pretty
drained today.
This stinks opposed to what I heard about Dairy
Queen, where they prett much required you to take your break, and be
sure you were off for fifteen minutes. O well, I suppose.
Things
got pretty hay wire today, so many pizzas, garlics, sauces, special
orders, massive take outs, all of which I pretty much single handedly
are cutting putting in boxes, or putting on plates, and handing to
either people for the buffet or to bring the plates to those of special
orders. I'll be honest and say that I was getting pretty stressed, I
think for a handful of reasons:
One, I feel like I still need to
prove myself to my fellow co workers, and my boss especially. Two,
there are still special order abbreviations that I have trouble with,
which in turn slows me down. On top of that, a lot of the time as
pizzas are flying out of the oven, I miss specials, and a couple times
some pizzas got by me, then I realized that they needed to be special
orders. SO that sucked.
But above all else, I'd say the MOST
frustrating thing was CUTTING ITSELF. Why? Because I CAN NOT
CONSISTENTLY CUT A GOOD PIZZA, BY PROPORTION, AND ALL THE WAY THROUGH.
Twice I had one of the bosses say "don't be afraid to push to hard."
And I'm thinking " I am pushing hard, dang it!" Ugh, no I wasn't that mad, and to be honest, I'm starting to get it.
I guess in time I'll master the crust penetration.
So I'm sure this was boring, but this is my life at work, in case you were interested ;)
Contemporary Math
September 12 2006
What is the negation of that?
Class?
"Today is not monday."
All the people in this room are awake.
What would negate that?
Someone would have to....
Class: "Fall asleep."
Would everyone have to fall aslepp?
Class: "No."
This is what I learned today in math.
O, and yes.
I'm in college.
So cutting pizza throws off space time equilibrium?
September 10 2006
A Body clock:
Doused in intense pizza cutting and rendered temporarily.... handicapped...
So
yesterday I learned a decent amount of new stuff at CiCi's, mainly,
cutting pizza. adn then all the other responsibilities that come along
with that. But what was funny is that when I got off work, every time
I closed my eyes I was picturing pizza in front of me, and spinning it
around as I cut it five times. Yes, five, every single time, it's the
way we do it ;)
In my loopy state Lori and Laura happened upon me
at the gas station, and we went to steak and shake, where I partook in
a lovely cookies and creme shake. It made me happy :)
So after that
I came to my dorm and took a nap. What was funny is that when I woke
up, even though I only slept for thirty minutes, I woke up feeling like
it was the next day, and I thought "ahhh man, I missed church."
Then I realized it was still saturday night...
and only eight o clock... yeah... I was THAT off...
So then this morning when I woke up for church, my first thought was "man.. I got to get up and go to work..."
THen I realized, o wait, today's sunday, I'm going to church.
So I don't know what it was, but for the past two days, my body's clock has been..... not.... right....
or.....
Programmed to the Twilight Zone!!!
Ba na na na Ba na na na Ba na na na!
Jew becomes a man
September 07 2006
So anyway, I hope he gets a goood FWC welcome when he comes home. But hopefully his fellow dorm mates can send him off right ;-).
Welcome to CiCi's!!
September 01 2006
So
tonight was my first night at CiCi's, and my first, well, not "real
job" I most certainly had a real job in Knoxville, much more demanding
than this one, but I guess the first job you kind of think as... I
don't know, but anyway.
So it was pretty non stop. Refilling
the salad bar, putting new pizzas out, putting old trays in the wash,
washing the salad bar, going back and forth to the kitchen.
But man, God is good. I loved it and I'm looking forward to tomorrow, and the rest of my days working there.
So yeah, tonight was 5-9, tomorrow's 11-5. Yippee skippee.. i guess.
Visiting, Classes
August 28 2006
So it was good to see everyone this weekend, I had a lot of fun hanging out at the Lewis', as usual, and it was cool to go back to A&W for like the first time in at least a year after church on Sunday.
So I guess you guys can assume that no, Paul and myself didn't die on the way back, in fact, we got back at 12:30 eastern time and I didn't get to bed until 3, having to read... philosophical stuff. Surprisingly, I'm not tired now... though usually my high seeep requirment seeems to get me... but
Today was my first dose of my manic Mondays!
and by that I don't mean the typical stigma that comes with the
word monday, but the fact that I have six classes, yes, one is tennis,
but from ten to twelve I have two classes, and then I have a class at
1, 2, 3, and 4, three fifty minutes and a 75 minute class.
And no, my tuesday thursdays aren't non existent, I have two classes, back to back from 1:10 to four.
SO right now, i'm enjoying a nice caramel latte and lounging in the SU.
But
really, all and all, it's all good. I'm really not "down" about this,
it's what I'm here for, and I'm looking forward to how things are going
to unfold this semseter, but I thought I'd let you guys have a peek
into the weekly Lee life of Adam ;)
And my first night at Cici's is at 5 this coming Friday :)
I got a job!
August 24 2006
Okay,
I don't know how to explain it, but just how awesome of a guy the head
manager seemed to be, how much his employees like him, and really, the
entire environment, I could just tell God wanted me to be there.
For
one, the guy was TOTALLY cool with the fact that I have to go home for
a month during Christmas break, and NOT ONLY that, but he is going to
see if I can work at the CiCi's in McMinville that his boss owns when I
go home.
He was also totally cool with me trying to get more hours
during the week of fall break so that I could take that weekend off.
PURTY SWEET.
So I start next weekend, meaning...
I'M COMING
HOME THIS WEEKEND! Because working mostly weekends, I'm probably not
going to be home until fall break, the middle of October, then
Thanksgiving, then Christmas. So sorry to my friends back home, but I
won't be back as much as last year, but guess what...
God has given me an awesome job!
O, and starting pay is 6 an hour :) better than 5.75 ;)
God is good
August 19 2006
God is good!
So today I went job hunting, needing a job with about 15-18 hours, needing to have the money to pay off school stuff.So
I went to a place that my friend Noelle works, where she thinks she can
get me hired. She suggests I go to a place called Moe's. I almost
didn't, thinking I had the job where she was, but I decided to swing by.
Well
apparently they were desperate for applications, which was cool. And
then while I'm applying, a guy I met YESTERDAY came in, and was like
"Hey! This is a Hughes guy ( my dorm ) you should hire him" So then the
girl asks if he'd vouch for me, and he said yeah, cause turns out he
works there. Talk about awesome timing, I just happened to hang out
where my friend Noelle worked for an hour, headed to Moes, RIGHT when
he showed up to get food.
A big bonus about Moe's is when I turned
in the application, I put 6 dollars an hour, but the girl I gave it to
told me it was more. So I'd definitely want a job there, because the
cafe place where Noelle works is 5.75
God is good!
SO THEN I
go to Cici's, and a long story short, the manager was there, I had an
interview, and he basically worked RIGHT with my desired hours, and
would have hired me right there on the spot, but I told him I just
wanted to wait a couple days cause I had dropped applications around
that day. He gave me his card, and unless Moe's calls me in the next
couple days I'll take the job there.
So yeah, I went to three places, and each place had progressive likelihood. It was AWESOME!!!!
So yeah, GOD IS GOOD.
Floor Leader Retreat
August 17 2006
So it's been pretty cool, I think I've learned a lot, I'm definitely pumped about ministering to the guys on my floor during the course of the next year.
So tomorrow's check in, Paul's coming, and I get to meet all the guys who'll be on my floor!
Woot Woot!
Back at FRIGGIN LEE :)
August 15 2006
morning, got a bunch of his stuff in the room. We even set up DDR and
went ahead and played some... gosh, my calves ALREADY hurt.. Maybe
it'll put me in shape :)
So I've already seen a handful of my
Lee friends, and it's pretty exciting to be back. I'm about to go over
to Thorne's apartment, and tonight his parents are taking me, Jonathan,
and probably the turtle ( Tiffany ) out to eat. Should be "large fun."
Haha... new saying started by an older guy in our church.
So if
you're from Lee, we need to hang out, and if you're in Murfreesboro,
and aren't Paul Chris or Stacy, I'm sad to be leaving you.
But man... OO MAN, Paul and I...
Haha, yeah, we're gonna have some fun ;)
