Fearing God

In my last post I briefly mentioned that we talked about fearing God during our Journey meeting last Friday. It was a rather lively discussion, with the occasional “God can snuff you out on a whim” comment. I learned a lot, but something struck me during our meeting that I felt I wanted to share. I just haven’t gotten around to it, and Joshua has threatened to “Put the fear of God in me” if I don’t post something soon, so here it is.

I can’t remember who said it or why, or in what context, but someone brought up that we should feel bad when we sin against God. God hates sin and really desires for us not to do it. He wants us to be holy people who are constantly seeking righteousness in our lives. I thought about my reaction when I hurt someone. I can’t think of a good example right now, but as many of you know when I wrong someone or hurt someone or just do something that offends someone I’m just heartbroken. I can’t eat because my stomach is in knots. I get very detached. I want to do anything to make it better. I will go to great lengths to fix a broken relationship because it pains me so greatly.

Not so with God. I sin against God all the time, and I don’t feel bad. I’m a rebel. I say no to God and what he wants for me on a daily basis. Why doesn’t that make me feel bad? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because I’m not as close to Him as I should be. Maybe it’s because I don’t respect or love Him enough. Maybe it’s because I want to do what I want to do, and nothing is going to stop me. Whatever the reason, it’s wrong. I sin against God and I should feel terrible. Yes, I’m covered by grace and Jesus’ blood, but that doesn’t give me the right to do whatever I want. Sin is a very serious thing, something that we don’t take seriously enough.

So what do we do about this? I’m not sure, but I do know that I need to radically change how I think about Jesus as my PERSONAL Savior. If I was worried about how he’d PERSONALLY take it I probably wouldn’t do it anymore.

Quote of the Moment 2

“Because he can snuff you out on a whim!” - Me

In reply to Eric’s question during our Journey Bible Study on Friday night, “Why should we fear God?”

He’ll do it. You better watch yourself. :)

I wimped out

So I had grandious plans to go running this morning. I haven’t been running in a LONG time. I finally pulled myself out of bed after snoozing for a half hour. That was tough. Sleeping in your bed where it’s nice and warm and cozy is so much more appealing than going outside to run. I mean there’s effort involved for goodness sake. :) Anyways, I took a look at weather.com real quick before putting my shorts and shoes on and it gladly reported that it was 30 degrees outside and that it felt like 19. I had figured since yesterday was so nice, today would be similar. Not so. I immediately headed for the shower and opted not to run. I’m such a wimp.

PS. When I did actually get outside it wasn’t that bad. It was cold, but not that cold. :)

Funny German Word

I’m sure there’s a ton of them out there, but we came across this in class yesterday and I had to share.

The word is das Fischerstechen. According to my German textbook it means “fight of fishermen on river.” Who knew you needed to describe that situation so often that it needed it’s own word? I certainly didn’t. :)

God is Faithful

This last weekend was very tough for me. I had to deal with a lot of feelings and emotions that I haven’t dealt with in a long time. Things turned out for the best, but there were times I didn’t feel very in control. I’m not going to write about what happened, but merely relay a message. God is faithful if we look to Him. If we keep our eyes focused on Christ and on who He is and what His will for our lives is, things will turn out just fine. This last weekend has proved to me that I’m not doing that. I’m too focused on me and what I want. I’m too focused on anything but God. Why do I find it so easy to turn away, so easy to run away, so easy to find something that isn’t better, but seems to be? Why am I so afraid, or unwilling to listen to God and do what he thinks is best?

I had a hard time hearing God this past weekend. I really tried to hear His voice and I couldn’t find it. The only thing that reached my ears was silence and that was very distressing to me. Where was God? Why couldn’t I hear Him? I haven’t fully processed it yet, but I honestly think it’s because I wasn’t listening. Maybe I don’t know how. I’m not in the Word as much as I need to be. I’m not in prayer as much as I need to be. I’m not searching after God and what he desires. If I’m ever going to make something of my life, God has to be involved. I cannot do it alone.

God really spoke through this past weekend when it was all said and done. Luckily I have people in my life who are listening to God, so He has a way of getting the message across one way or the other. I know that God is in control. He proved that this weekend. I just forget it sometimes. To quote one of the important things I learned from my time at the Journey (parapharased I’m sure)…”We must remember what God has done, so that we can learn from it.” So hopefully this will help me do that.

Webcam is back up…

My webcam is back up finally after a hiatus of over a month. The software I was using expired, and I just hadn’t gotten around to buying a license. So I did that today. Now everyone can stalk me at work again. :)

Hygienists

I have a dentist appointment every 6 months. It’s mostly just to check up, make sure my teeth haven’t fallen out, and to get them cleaned. This morning was my 6th month checkup. The hygienist that I always get is very nice. She’s really sweet, and she seems to genuinely care about the well being of my teeth. I find this wonderful.

What I find annoying is the fact that she tries to talk to me while she’s cleaning my teeth. This turns out to be really awkward, because she asks questions. This is normal, however she’s got a poker and a mirror in my mouth and I’m expected to keep my mout wide open. So this requires me to remember what she asked and then answer it as soon as she removes the instruments from my mouth.

For Example:
Hygienist: So you went to Bethel?
45 seconds of awkward silence….
Me: Yeah it was great!
Shoves tools in my mouth again.
Hygienist: That’s cool. Did you know so and so?
30 seconds of awkward silence…
Me: Sure, he worked in the comuter cener (as she places the mirror in my mouth while I’m still talking.)

Seriously, am I the only one? Or is this common?

Quote of the Moment

I used to have quotes on my old website, so I thought I’d start that up again, but I’d put them as blog posts. I meant to start this a few weeks ago, and never did, so now I’m going to start.

“Why is there a 2 in front of my numbers?” - Pamela T.

In reference to her score being in the two hundreds when Pam, Suzy, and I were playing Phase 10. At the time Pam was in last place with the worst score. By the end of it, I had lost, Pam took second, and Suzy had destroyed us. My scored ended up with a 4 in the front. :)

Virginia Trip Part 3

My goal was to write this last night, but when I got home I had zero energy. Once I got home, I ended up helping out one of my clients with something, fixing the EC camp database, and heading to bed. I slept pretty well, but this morning I was super tired. It’s probably because the weekend was so tiring.

Anyways, yesterday was the funeral for my grandmother. It occurred at 11am, and took place in the Church she went to for 50 some odd years. It was also the church where my parents got married. The funeral was very nice, though the pastor who presided over the service had only been the pastor for 2 and a half years, so he didn’t know Grandma at all. He told a lot about her history, as well as what she stood for and what she believed, mostly from what people had told him. He did a very nice job of speaking about what it meant to be saved and that Grandma would have wanted all of us to be saved. The pastor made a conscious effort to really try and preach the gospel which I appreciated, because I believe it’s important, and Grandma would have thought it was important too.

After the service we had a small ceremony at the gravesite and then a luncheon. That was pretty cool because I was able to hang out with a lot of extended family I didn’t even know I had, plus spend some time with some of the family I did know I had. I was able to talk with Jay and Paige (who were married about 4 months ago), which was nice, because at their wedding I really didn’t get to talk to them. They were too busy talking to the gobs of people who were there. :) I also found out one of my cousins worked for Staples as a Sales Manager for a couple of years. For any of you that know my history with Staples this ia a big blow. I practically had to cry myself to sleep last night. :)

After the luncheaon I said my goodbyes and headed to Fairfax which is where my last remaining grandmother lives. She’s my dad’s mom and the only grandparent I have left. I hadn’t seen her in about 6 months, and I had some time before my flight, so I opted to stop in and surprise her. She was very surprised which was cool. We were able to visit for about a couple of hours, and then I headed to the airport.

At the airport I quickly made it through check in and security, but found out my flight was delayed. I couldn’t find any specifics on why it was delayed, but I proceeded to the gate anyway. At the gate they announced that my flight which was supposed to take off at 8:20, was actually going to take off at 10:40. That’s right 2 hours and 20 minutes late! Yikes. Luckily, about 10 minutes later they decided to give us a new plane and a new gate. Our new departure time was 8:45. We actually didn’t end up taking off until about 9:45, because we had to wait for 20 or 30 people. That’s actually the reason they gave. My guess is since they had postponed it two hours some people had left the gate and were out and about finding something better to do rather than waiting around. Oh well. When we finally did take off the flight was a little bumpy at first, but that’s because the wind was terrible around DC yesterday. The landing was pretty cool, as we took the scenic route around Chicago once we got there. It was very pretty with all the lights, etc. It’s pretty cool to see the city you live in from that vantage point.

After waiting for my bag for almost 20 minutes I headed to my car and then home. The drive was pretty uneventful which was nice. Anyways, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. :)

Virginia Trip Part 2

Today was the second day of my trip to Virginia. It was Sunday so I wanted to goto church. I had done some checking last night in order to find a church, but the guest book at our hotel was pretty unhelpful. They had a list of Churches, but no service times, so I took my search to the Internet. I guess I could have called around, since I had all the numbers, but I was scared one of the numbers would be a direct line to some pastor that I’d wake up in the middle of the night. That probably wasn’t the case, but I always worry myself. :) Anyways, I found several churches, but again no service times. I was trying to find a BGC (Baptist General Conference) church, since there’s all sorts of different churches these days, and I wanted to make sure I went to a Church with solid teaching. The BGC didn’t have a church in Staunton listed on their website, so I checked the Nazarene website. I found the Staunton First Church of the Nazarene, so I decided to go there. A quick call to the church let me know that they were still having their 6 o’clock services. No help there. So I opted to just go in the morning, and hope I showed up in time.

Fast forward to this morning. I woke up pretty tired. I didn’t sleep very well, but maybe that’s because my surroundings were different, not sure. Anyways, I woke up, got ready, and headed out to church. My plan was to make it to church by 10, figuring that was a good random time to show up. If church had been earlier I’d go somewhere quiet and do my devotions. If it was later I’d sit and wait for it. Seemed like a logical plan to me. :) I left at 9:45, and immediately got lost. By about 10:15 I was hopelessly lost, though I did find a baptist church whose services started at 11, so my new plan was to go there. I opted to get some breakfast at the local 7-11, and then just sit in the parking lot until 11. Once in the parking lot I checked a map on my phone and realized where I had gone wrong. So I decided to try to find my original choice, with the idea that if I still couldn’t find it I’d retrace my steps and head back to the church I had found. By 10:45 I had found First Church and services started at 10:50. Perfect timing.

Church was good. It was nice to not have to deal with any logistics of running a service and just enjoy worshiping God on my own terms. The sermon was all about being still before God and just listening. It really spoke to me because when I spend time with God I’m always talking about my problems, and what I want to say and I don’t do a lot of listening. What am I missing out on I wonder? I’m going to make a concerted effort to do more listening. I think God has some stuff to tell me. :)

After church, I came back to the hotel, met up with my mom and sister, had some lunch and then we headed to the funeral home. We arrived early so we could have a private viewing of my grandmother. That was pretty hard. I hadn’t seen my grandmother in a very long time. She’s had Alzheimer’s for the last 6 or 7 years, and for a long time she hasn’t remembered anyone. Her mind deteriorated rather quickly and when it did Grandma was never the same. She really didn’t remember anyone, so we kind of lost her a long time ago. This time it was her body that failed. I have lots of memories of her from when I was younger, and a lot of those came rushing back. It was cool, but sad at the same time. I also was able to see a lot of relatives that I haven’t seen in a long time. That was pretty interesting, mostly because a lot of people knew my mom, and I was “Shirley’s son” for the whole visitation.

After the visitation we headed to my Uncle Ray’s house and had dinner with most of my extended family. That included two uncles, one aunt, 3 cousins and various wives, 1 toddler, and various other people related via blood or marriage. It was a good time. Homemade fried chicken is the best! It was so good. I’m going to have to find the recipe for that. It was probably the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. After visiting for a little while, we came back to the hotel, and then I composed this post. And now I’m going to bed. :)