Feb. 17th 2013
I sent out my support letters for Summer Project in
Clearwater, FL today. Sending out letters today was different for me than last
year. Last year I had the mindset that "I need money to go on this
trip." But this year, tonight, as I was praying over my letters before
putting them in the mail, I really prayed in Thanksgiving of having an
opportunity like this, in having time and money to write and send letters, in
having these people in my life to send letters to, and that when these letters
reach their destination that people will be filled with joy at an opportunity
to invest their wealth in something eternal. I prayed that God will allow them
to see this as a wonderful opportunity to worship Him through their wealth. I
prayed that the money I get back will be used for his kingdom in bible studies,
outreach in Clearwater, and building me up personally to use for a lifetime of
missions wherever I am at.
If you are reading this and you are supporting me either
through prayer or in giving, Thank you, from the bottom of my heart for
worshiping God with your wealth. You will be blessed.
_______________________________________________________________________
Setting Sea
This semester on leadership we are reading The Prodigal God
by Timothy Keller. When discussing chapter 2 tonight in our meeting, I had a
huge day dream about how as believers we are constantly fighting sin. We were
talking about the parable of this book, The Prodigal Son in Luke 15. Like the
younger son, we are constantly running away from our loving father because we
face sin and then coming back to his unconditional Grace and Love once we
realize what we have done.
I started to think, do we really pick up and move away from
God every time we sin? Do we then travel all the way back to God when we ask
for forgiveness for our sin? If you have not read the parable, this is what the
younger son does when he realizes he has made a mistake, he goes back to his
father's unconditional love for him to be forgiven. But does our life consist
of traveling back to God, away from God, back to God and away from God every
time we make a mistake?
I then got an image in my head of a person traveling and
what this would look like. I then moved my person to be traveling by sea, on a
boat, in a storm. I thought that this would make more since of our lives. We
are not going back and forth from land to land across a body of water (life)
from sinning on one side and being "close to God" on another. But we
are on one single constant journey across life hitting hard waves along the way
but constantly moving to the other side where God resides.
I think this makes more since. Once you realize the purpose
for your life, you get on a boat and set for sea. Your boat might have a hard
time leaving the dock and getting out of the no wake zone but if you truly see
your purpose is to set sea, then that is what you will do. Once you get on sea
with God you will face many many hard waters. You might get stuck for a while,
maybe a year, going against a hard wave but you will break through the waves.
You will never turn around and go back to land if you are truly set on reaching
the other side. You will be discouraged and want to give up but you will not go
back. We do not live on a works based salvation. Our boats keep moving only by
the motivation that God is on the other side of the storm.
I will never travel back to land. I will never have to face
life again without my new heart that knows that I am chosen to set sea for God
and his kingdom. No matter how much I sin, and I will sin, I will know that a
wave does not compare to the Paradise, love, joy, and rest that awaits me on
the other side of this world that surrounds me until I see Jesus' face!
<3
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