King of the Blues

So recently, I signed up for a blues guitar competition - It's mostly on a whim and for fun but I really, really hope I make it past the preliminaries and the store finals. I can't really expect to get past the district and regionals but one can dream :]

It's somewhat overwhelming preparing for this as I know I need to practice a whole lot to get up to par...One thing I really wish I could do is to be able to play very fast smooth melodic lines-I suppose a good form of shredding. But I'm preparing to practice everyday for at least 4 or 5 hours and I'll be setting up my practice regimen on this blog...

The competition itself will begin on August 28th

July - 29th (today) - I will start warming up my scale knowledge and start learning the other positions in a more in depth sense. I'm looking through a couple of videos to get some more blues influence upon my playing...

I need to work on:

Speed - Metronome practice up to 160 bpm

Rhythm - Metronome practice up 160 bpm

Licks - 5 new licks mastered everyday

Phrasing - Improvisation

Showmanship - Rockout

Technique - More pulloffs and hammer-ons as well as speed

I believe if I do this everyday for the month of August, I'll have a good solid performance. Some other stuff I need to remember is that I need to try out some pedals to work with and to make an arrangement on either the Texas Blues or Train-beat blues backing tracks, depending on how well my training regimen goes.

Can't wait!

Selfish Pride

Purge me from this madness, of selfish pride

O' Lord

This self-destructive whim,

O' Lord

Cast away the temptation that befalls me

Break the chains that only exist in my mind and heart and

Without You

I cannot-

To be among the humble and contrite, however,

I would be stripped of selfish pride

To You, and You alone

May there be glory

In eternal, unfading light

In eternal, unfading light

May there be glory

To You, and You alone

I would be stripped of selfish pride

To be among the humble and contrite, however,

I cannot-

Without You

Break the chains that only exist in my mind and heart and

Cast away the temptation that befalls me

O' Lord

This self-destructive whim,

O' Lord

Purge me from this madness, of selfish pride

Today, as I played raquetball I felt like everyone was fawning on how great my sister was becoming and I felt at such a loss for no one commented on whether I was improving or not. So, as I always do in my self-depreciation, I felt extremely inferior as I lost yet again to my sister and her parter, Mason.

I hate the feeling of wanting to be the best. It brings the desire to compete, win, and overall bring glory and pridefulness into my life. I want to be the best at guitar, raquetball, etc all for myself-not for God. And today after my bout' with a bit more porn, I come back to something God said to me earlier as I was slamming out my frustrations upon the raquetball. "I shall strip you of selfish pride. It brings you down to the lowest depths." And I felt like crying because it was quite true-God convicted me but I thought little of it and in my apathy I write about it so that I may open my heart even just slightly.

I don't like being broken, and like an alcoholic in pain that turns his pain into drinks, I turn my loneliness and frustrations into masturbation and self-loathing. Sounds a bit dramatic but I think I'm a pretty typical guy, just being slightly more honest than the last one. I mean, I lost my Bible at church-I'm pretty damn annoyed about that. It forces me to read my NLT bible, which isn't my first choice for qts but it's a sentimental book, seeing as it was the one Esther gave me. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to stick to it for awhile.

After a quick prayer for myself, I think I may head in for the night. It's been a bit rough on me for the past few days so I'm trying to get more rest in as I'm headed back for the work-out routine every night. I'm feeling quite healthy, physically...but spiritually I'm basically becoming more bitter and saying screw off to other Christians that piss me off. I'm starting to think it's unhealthy to only have Christian friends. Especially ones that are basically all younger than myself.

Is there a pre-requisite for praise team leaders/bible study teachers? Do I need to be perfectly holy and have complete unwavering faith? The answer is no. But I must strive for it and I believe that I'm so close to a radical change in my Christian life if I only said no to my sins. So am I making a promise right now? Psh, to hell with that. I would try, but I've found that my promises are much too easily broken. If there was ever a requirement for such leaders, it was only if they were willing to serve for the Kingdom. Doesn't matter if you smoke, cheat, steal, drink, curse, etc. Not my problems, but even if they were...

That's why I'm asking God to seriously help. "I just can't fucking do it by myself." Biggest cliche I've ever heard in my life-"Let God take the burden." How? THAT'S MY QUESTION. HOW? Sorry, God-show me cause I've heard you can. I've hit this point too many times and backed off every time. But I am saying no more. I'm sitting right here, in my sinfulness, asking you to show me how you will conquer my sin-making me someone new. Please.

I'm hoping to be freed.

He is my soul

Your heart holds mine

As your words pierce it through

Your spirit pushes mine

As I lift it up to you

Your love instills my own

As the joy it brings me now

Your grace, it shows the cross

As every knee shall bow

Christ's sacrifice brings me home

As it took a heavy toll

And I cry out with angel's songs

Declare!

My soul, my soul-

The Sovereign King, my soul

-Will

Diligence

I have no idea why I would make yet another blog...I mean with facebook, myspace, xanga, twitter, and now blogger. But thinking about it, I feel like every blog had it's own purpose and I'm trying to correlate this blog to my spiritual life, songwriting, and music.

1 in the morning and I've got church to go to in a few hours. It kind of sucks how tired I already feel about my church responsibilities-but I'm guessing that I'm going through the motions. Been there, done that and my lack of diligence really brings some serious damage to my relationship with God. I smell apathy just waiting to latch itself back on to me right when I'm starting to feel close with God again. It's so discouraging to feel like you're making progress and then to have it all cut down by the same mistakes (porn, due to late nights on the computer, maybe I'm trying to replace it with blogging, lol). Also, not to mention the summertime, when the ladies start shedding the clothes-talk about getting attacked from all sides. Give me a break.

Anyhow, I had my first bible study last week with my freshmen boys. I feel like there is a connection, but it's going to be difficult to get close with some of them because I'm already close with a large chunk of them. But I have a plan! I'll be taking out some of the boys out to eat every week-different people as the weeks go on. I'll definitely be posting a lot about my class. Honestly, I have never taught a bible study and it boggles my mind how I have to improvise while waiting for Pastor Jason to come back and give me some direction. Then again, I guess I should ask some of the more experienced teachers. Above all the ministries I'm involved with at church, I seriously hope that I make a positive impact on these guys...

Morbid, really, how I start out with such a downcast position. I should be cheerful or optimistic about the future! Seeing as God has never failed me before, I should just take it into account that I'm going through yet another dry spell in my walk with Christ.

Diligence is something that goes hand in hand with faith. Faith, in itself is diligent-unwavering faith shows a strong will and sense of diligence. Naturally, a lack of faith will point to a lack of diligence. Or I could simplify it and say I have faith or I don't.

In my own personal experience at the moment, I just don't want God enough - and by that so-honest-that-it-hurts statement, it comes to a deeper and more concerning part of my life that I am just so frustrated over! I can't live up to my name and position I have at church but I'm expected to follow Christ...to be like Him, and I know that the real burden falls on God. Shit, I wouldn't want to be the one molding this stubborn, perverted, faithless dude named Will. But wow, at the same time it's not just that authoratative stance where "THE FATHER" strikes me down with his discipline and commandments, but rather God shows some serious love and compassion for me along with his thunderous wrath and discipline.

God never had to place any responsibility or expectations on me. But He has and in a way I really need to take the talents I've been given and show God, NOT the church or my peers that I can be faithful. I don't need the approval of men to be faithful.

Sooo, bottom line, I need to be diligent. God has met me halfway and I need to get off my ass and off this computer and get moving. I swear I've written about this in my Livejournal but I guess I'm still not getting it. Drill it into my head and heart until I've got it then, Jesus.

I'm going to make these posts public. I have no need to look like an overly holy saint to my peers when they know AND I know that I'm totally not. So just to be clear, there will lots of transparency in my posts-Sure, I'd like to refrain from cursing in my posts but I'd rather put some more time into qts and fleeing from sexual immorality. Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial (1cor 10:23) - I'm going to be real. No bullshit Will Kwon in this blog and yet, God still loves me.

Thanks God.

(I will also try to make my posts wayy shorter than this)