So, just a bit of an update on what has been happening lately. Last night Paul, Joshua and I went to the first ever concert of Cloverton, an awesome new Christian band from here in Manhattan. They were celebrating the release of their first EP Into the Beautiful. The concert was absolutely phenomenal, and the turnout was amazing. The little theater where they performed was completely packed from wall to wall. In fact they had to remove rows of chairs so that more people could squeeze in. Needless to say, it totally surpassed everyone's expectations, and the Spirit of God was definitely at work in that place. I am definitely glad I decided to go, and I pray God's continued blessing upon the guys in the band as they passionately work to make Christ known through the musical talents that He has instilled in them.
And today was my first weekly meeting with Carlos. We have been chatting a great deal lately about all sorts of things, and there is just so much that we can learn from one another and what God has been doing and is continuing to do in both of our lives, so we have decided to meet on Saturdays and delve into the Word together and just see what God has for us. Today we met at Radina's and the focus of our discussion was fear. We all have fears that hinder us from truly allowing God's will to be done in our lives sometimes, so we were just trying to get an understanding of what we are afraid of and how to overcome these fears. For me, it has really been knowing what to say sometimes, or knowing how to say it, or whether or not I should, or just worrying that it won't be good enough or silly things like that. I know that God will guide my words through the Holy Spirit, and I know that it is silly and that I shouldn't be afraid of such things, but it can still be difficult to trust God when fear sets in. It's easy enough to say that you will, but when a scary situation actually arises, sometimes you just totally forget. Anyways, in an effort to overcome my fears, I have really just been trying to do a better job of communicating with people about what God has been speaking to me or what He has been doing in my life because you just never know who is listening and may need to hear it. One thing Carlos told me is not to be afraid to speak up, even if I am just agreeing with something someone has already said. You may have something to add that is very meaningful to someone.
Basically, it just came down to turning to God when you are afraid, which I'm sure most people understand, but like I said, in the midst of fear, that can be easily forgotten. Carlos told me he always remembers Psalm 23:4--"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me." Also, Psalm 27:1 reads--"The Lord is my light and my salvation--whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life--of whom shall I be afraid?" I mean seriously, we've got God on our side--He walks with us through death's shadow--why should we fear anything but Him?
Another point that we both came to is that nothing is to small for God. I mean, so often people are told that their situation isn't too big for God to handle, which is definitely true, but I think it is also important to remember that no situation is too small for God either. So often I feel like my needs are minimal in the grand scheme of things and that God should focus on other people who's needs are much greater rather than worrying about me, but the fact is, God is perfectly capable of doing it all, and my not asking is really doubting that ability, and I definitely don't want to be doubting God. I mean how can we trust Him with the huge things in life if we can't trust Him with the small ones. Anyways, when I said this it just kinda jumped out to both of us, so we will be exploring this through scripture next week, so I will let you know how that goes. Anyways, meeting together was very helpful for me, and I am very excited to see how God continues to teach and encourage us both as we continue meeting together.
Oh yes, I also got the game Would You Rather from Sophie today...that was quite a wonderful surprise! She is so lovely! Thank you very much my love!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Just a bit about what God has been revealing to me lately...
Alright, so I've really been making an effort lately to seek God more passionately and really just deepen my relationship with Him and truly be open for Him to work through me to accomplish His purposes. He has been revealing so many things to me, and well, I've never been terribly good at recording things or communicating anything in any sort of comprehensible manner, but I would like to have some sort of reminder of the things I am learning, and well, I figured why not attempt to compile some of these thoughts, feelings, revelations, and whatever else into a blog entry every once in a while. I mean I guess that's kinda the purpose of a blog anyways, and you really never know who else might benefit from hearing something that God has been speaking to you, so I'll give it a try.
So, I've recently started attending a new Sunday School class at church entitled “Experiencing God” and God has really been revealing a great deal to me through this. It is basically about making yourself available for God to work through you. The first week has been over understanding God's will for your life, which is definitely a very applicable lesson to me. So many people want to know what God's will is for their life, and I admit that I have been one of those people, but really the question should be just what is God's will...period. Then once we have an understanding of what God's will is, we can begin adjusting our lives so that we can live a God-centered rather than self-centered life, allowing Him to work through us to accomplish His designs. We cannot accomplish anything for God on our own or by following our own desires, but rather we must sacrifice them to Him and allow Him to mold us into something He can use to accomplish His work. And the truth is that when we allow this to happen and we are obedient to His call, everything works out far better than we ever could have orchestrated on our own. Of course the challenges and obstacles will be many and the sacrifices are great, but it is worth it.
This brings me to another point, one that is often very difficult for me...that God rarely gives you a detailed road map of where He is headed with something, but rather He wants you to trust Him completely to be the guide. I mean look at the way God called most of the people He sent to accomplish His amazing plans. Abram, Moses, the disciples...I mean there are examples scattered all over throughout His Word of God basically saying “Go” without filling them in on any details, and they trusted Him to do it. Of course they had their doubts and excuses just like everyone else at first, but eventually they came to a place where they trusted God totally and completely with their lives.
This brings me to my last point for the moment, probably the one that has impacted me the most, and one that I have known for a long time, but never ceases to amaze me...the fact that God chooses to use us to accomplish His works despite our endless faults and disbelief. I have been reading Genesis lately, and I've read it several times, but I've never noticed just how wretched and unqualified the majority of the people that God uses here, and throughout history really are. I mean just read about Abraham and His repeated distrust in God. He lies several times about his wife saying that she is his sister to escape what he deems to be certain death, and he doesn't believe that God can provide him with a son through his wife, and so on...yet God still uses him to become the father of His people, Israel. And Jacob, he was a con-artist, a huge liar, deceiving nearly everyone around him for his own personal gain, yet God uses Him. Then moving into the new testament, there are the disciples, the most unlikely group of ridiculous and uneducated hooligans that anyone would ever expect to be trusted with anything of importance, especially spreading the Word of God throughout the world. And then there's Saul who would have thought nothing of killing any Christian he met before his experience with Christ, becoming Paul and carrying the message of Christ to the Gentiles. And these are but a few of the instances where God uses people that no one would ever expect to carry out His goals. The truth is that not a one of us is “qualified” for the tasks that God has called us to, but if we trust Him, He will always be successful in His endeavors. Anyways, the fact that God chooses to use us despite our very obvious inadequacies is utterly amazing.
Well, I guess that's all I have for the moment. Like I said, I'm not very good at explaining things in any sort of intelligible format, but hopefully you have gotten some sort of something out of my rambling. Have a blessed and wonderful week!
So, I've recently started attending a new Sunday School class at church entitled “Experiencing God” and God has really been revealing a great deal to me through this. It is basically about making yourself available for God to work through you. The first week has been over understanding God's will for your life, which is definitely a very applicable lesson to me. So many people want to know what God's will is for their life, and I admit that I have been one of those people, but really the question should be just what is God's will...period. Then once we have an understanding of what God's will is, we can begin adjusting our lives so that we can live a God-centered rather than self-centered life, allowing Him to work through us to accomplish His designs. We cannot accomplish anything for God on our own or by following our own desires, but rather we must sacrifice them to Him and allow Him to mold us into something He can use to accomplish His work. And the truth is that when we allow this to happen and we are obedient to His call, everything works out far better than we ever could have orchestrated on our own. Of course the challenges and obstacles will be many and the sacrifices are great, but it is worth it.
This brings me to another point, one that is often very difficult for me...that God rarely gives you a detailed road map of where He is headed with something, but rather He wants you to trust Him completely to be the guide. I mean look at the way God called most of the people He sent to accomplish His amazing plans. Abram, Moses, the disciples...I mean there are examples scattered all over throughout His Word of God basically saying “Go” without filling them in on any details, and they trusted Him to do it. Of course they had their doubts and excuses just like everyone else at first, but eventually they came to a place where they trusted God totally and completely with their lives.
This brings me to my last point for the moment, probably the one that has impacted me the most, and one that I have known for a long time, but never ceases to amaze me...the fact that God chooses to use us to accomplish His works despite our endless faults and disbelief. I have been reading Genesis lately, and I've read it several times, but I've never noticed just how wretched and unqualified the majority of the people that God uses here, and throughout history really are. I mean just read about Abraham and His repeated distrust in God. He lies several times about his wife saying that she is his sister to escape what he deems to be certain death, and he doesn't believe that God can provide him with a son through his wife, and so on...yet God still uses him to become the father of His people, Israel. And Jacob, he was a con-artist, a huge liar, deceiving nearly everyone around him for his own personal gain, yet God uses Him. Then moving into the new testament, there are the disciples, the most unlikely group of ridiculous and uneducated hooligans that anyone would ever expect to be trusted with anything of importance, especially spreading the Word of God throughout the world. And then there's Saul who would have thought nothing of killing any Christian he met before his experience with Christ, becoming Paul and carrying the message of Christ to the Gentiles. And these are but a few of the instances where God uses people that no one would ever expect to carry out His goals. The truth is that not a one of us is “qualified” for the tasks that God has called us to, but if we trust Him, He will always be successful in His endeavors. Anyways, the fact that God chooses to use us despite our very obvious inadequacies is utterly amazing.
Well, I guess that's all I have for the moment. Like I said, I'm not very good at explaining things in any sort of intelligible format, but hopefully you have gotten some sort of something out of my rambling. Have a blessed and wonderful week!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
A Shocking Experience
So, today we started Engineering Physics studios...oh joy! (Can you sense the sarcasm there?) I was rather not looking forward to going to that, but I got to talk very briefly with Sophie before, so I was in quite a joyous mood. Actually, they really aren't all that terrible, just rather annoyingly time-consuming and they can be rather difficult to understand at times. Anyways, I have come to expect the labs to be rather crazy and they never seem to go as they are supposed to; however, today's lab was extremely chaotic considering we haven't yet had a lecture over any of the material, and it was dealing almost entirely with a Van de Graff generator, which is a device that produces loads of static electricity, and can produce some rather shocking results (hee hee) when no one really knows what they are supposed to be doing with it. The lab instructions are always rather vague and assume that you've already seen a similar sample experiment performed in the lecture, but since we hadn't had one yet, we were all quite puzzled, but being engineers, we proceeded to try things until we got the desired results. The first thing we were supposed to do was ground the Van de Graff to kee it from building up too much electricity, but no one, including the lab teachers, seemed to know how to go about this with the provided materials, so we just assumed that it must already be done. So, the first thing we were supposed to do was touch the generator and observe what happens. I volunteered to try first, knowing it would just make my hair stand up, and this was true, and that all went fine. The problem came soon after that when we attempted to turn it off. I touched the power switch and it zapped me. Then, it started attracting everyone's hair towards it. Finally I just flipped the switch to it using my pen. It was really quite comical, except now no one in our group wanted to touch the thing. Our group managed to get through the rest of the lab without any more incidents, but one group did manage to get some pretty large blue sparks shooting from their's, but I'm pretty sure they were doing it on purpose. So, it looks like this semester will be full of plenty more crazy physics studios, but most of these will be dealing with electricity and magnetism rather than liquid nitrogen and catapults. I'm not really sure if that is more or less dangerous.
Oh, and I get to read another Steinbeck book for my U.S. Geography class called Travels with Charley in Search of America. Hannah got a good laugh out of that when she heard. Not really looking forward to it, but at least it is much shorter than The Grapes of Wrath, so I can't complain too much. Really it should be a fairly easy class, and hopefully will be rather interesting as well. The teacher is a bit nuts though, but I guess it'll keep things interesting. I guess there's some big geography conference in Las Vegas after Spring Break, and he's going to that, so he's not sure how classes will work then. He also said something about possibly never returning from that trip and the possibility of free "A's" if that occurred. Anyways, should be interesting. And I'll be starting Differential Equations classes tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. It will be interesting, because that has a lab with it as well, so I wonder how a lab class works for a math class. Probably lots of boring computer stuff, but we'll see I guess. Oh, and Chi Alpha starts tomorrow night, so that'll be exciting! Really, it should be a pretty awesome semester--I'll be done with the math and physics department after this, so that is definitely something to celebrate about.
Oh, I should also add that I successfully fried eggs the other day. They were actually edible this time. My last attempt ended with me running outside with a flaming frying pan, so this definitely went much better. I've been experimenting with some new sandwich recipes recently. The eggs were for my ham, bacon, egg, cheese and pickle sandwich, though my new favorite is cucumber, cream cheese and bacon. Yes, as you can tell, I eat a lot of things with bacon in it...hee hee! It is very delicious though! So is cheesecake...maybe I'll go get some of that soon. Anyways, I guess that's about it for the moment.
Oh, and I get to read another Steinbeck book for my U.S. Geography class called Travels with Charley in Search of America. Hannah got a good laugh out of that when she heard. Not really looking forward to it, but at least it is much shorter than The Grapes of Wrath, so I can't complain too much. Really it should be a fairly easy class, and hopefully will be rather interesting as well. The teacher is a bit nuts though, but I guess it'll keep things interesting. I guess there's some big geography conference in Las Vegas after Spring Break, and he's going to that, so he's not sure how classes will work then. He also said something about possibly never returning from that trip and the possibility of free "A's" if that occurred. Anyways, should be interesting. And I'll be starting Differential Equations classes tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. It will be interesting, because that has a lab with it as well, so I wonder how a lab class works for a math class. Probably lots of boring computer stuff, but we'll see I guess. Oh, and Chi Alpha starts tomorrow night, so that'll be exciting! Really, it should be a pretty awesome semester--I'll be done with the math and physics department after this, so that is definitely something to celebrate about.
Oh, I should also add that I successfully fried eggs the other day. They were actually edible this time. My last attempt ended with me running outside with a flaming frying pan, so this definitely went much better. I've been experimenting with some new sandwich recipes recently. The eggs were for my ham, bacon, egg, cheese and pickle sandwich, though my new favorite is cucumber, cream cheese and bacon. Yes, as you can tell, I eat a lot of things with bacon in it...hee hee! It is very delicious though! So is cheesecake...maybe I'll go get some of that soon. Anyways, I guess that's about it for the moment.
Friday, January 2, 2009
World Missions Summit
Alright, so I've spent the past couple days in Cincinnati, Ohio at the World Missions Summit, and let me just say that it was a completely awesome life-changing experience! I am really excited about everything God is doing around the world and am anxious to be a part of it. I don't really want to write a whole lot at the moment, but I will keep you updated on things pertaining to it as I can. Here is a link to a website with a couple articles about what all has been happening the past couple days <http://worldmissions.ag.org/details1.cfm>. There will also be more stuff posted on the official World Missions Summit site eventually at <http://twms.ag.org> if you would like to check that out. God Bless!
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