Monday, April 27, 2009

Summer already?

Whatever happened to spring? This weather makes me feel like I should be watching fireworks and starting water fights. And watermelon . . . definitely watermelon . . . that would be really good right now! In the summer nothing is quite as good as a good cold watermelon. Even desserts can't hope to compete with that, especially when you're as hot and thirsty as I am right now.

I walked outside yesterday and burned my feet on the pavement. Now I know my feet aren't very tough yet after being crammed into shoes all winter, but even so that's not supposed to happen in April. But besides burned feet there are some fun things about summer. For instance, I get to see a whole new line of hats from my sister who is paranoid of getting sunburned. She has this thing for ten-gallon hats in the floppy women's style. I can't wait to see what she comes up with this year. If you ever get a chance, ask her to show you her collection. It can be quite amusing. Uh-oh, speaking of which I'm getting a very definite signal from her right now that it's time for me to stop talking about her hats and change the oil in her car. Someday I'm going to teach her how to do that herself . . although I would hate to lose it as a bargaining chip. Tonight it got me out of doing dishes which I happen to think is a great deal (and seeing it gets me out of the kitchen, the rest of my family probably does too). This way I get to play with wrenches and get my hands all greasy which is much more fun. After all, everyone knows it's much more fun to make a mess than it is to clean one up. Besides that it's also a good way to impress people who don't know me well enough to know that I don't know anything about cars. If you ever want to look like you know something about cars, pull the car out in the front yard and get underneath it with greasy hands and a bunch of tools scattered around. Everybody driving past will assume that you must know what you're doing . . . that is unless they happen to be the one driving past when you pull the plug out too fast and get hit in the mouth with the drain oil. I did that once and unfortunately Josh was there to see it happen. He's never let me forget it. (Sigh . . . sometimes brothers are cruel that way.)

Monday, April 20, 2009

Closing doors

When it comes to directing someone, sometimes shutting a door works as well as opening one.

I didn't really plan to work at camp this summer. I had a good job as a framer and I planned to work this summer since I got to play at camp all last summer. j/k! (For any of you who haven't worked at camp and might be thinking it's all fun and games, it's not! Not that it can't be fun or exciting, because it definitely can be – especially depending on who you have in your cabin – but there's a lot of responsibility and energy involved. It is definitely rewarding, but you come away from it very tired. . . sort of like a job. About the only difference is that the one pays a whole lot better!)

Anyway, I thought it made a lot of sense to work this summer. Apparently God didn't. The carpentry job went the way of all construction jobs right now – an abrupt nose dive – and nothing else looks much better. I did a very broad search for jobs on the internet the other day and came up with one or two for each of the three categories I thought I might remotely fit in. I found out just how remote when I saw what they were and what the requirements were! Right now the options look like working at camp or sitting around with not much to do all summer – and that's not even an option for me!

I guess I should have seen it coming. When I was asked about working at camp this summer, I made a deal with God that if He wanted me there He would have to take away any job possibilities. Unless something changes drastically and very soon, I would have to say that's exactly what He did. He's faithfully provided lots of very part-time work for me right now, but nothing full time or long term. It's not that I don't want to work at the camp, I worked there once before and loved every minute of it, I just assumed God would see things my way (silly me!).

Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, saith the Lord.”
If I took that verse alone, I might think that God just likes confusing people. However . . .

Jeremiah 29:11 “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” As long as He knows what it is, I guess I don't have to.

Oh well, time to go see if there are any more applications I can fill out . . . just in case. After all, I might have this figured all wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. Who knows, I might find one that doesn't require five years of experience and three years of training.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Thoughts from yesterday

Only when you realize that you are fighting yourself -- that Satan is not creating evil and throwing it at you, that he's only pulling out what's already inside of you (James 1:14) -- then you realize that you are not in complete control. If you are fighting yourself, obviously there is something inside of you that is resisting control. That is when you realize that you need help.

If passion for Christ does not consume me, something else will. It does no good for me to try to quell my own desires if I do not have something better to replace them with. The heart is very much like a vacuum: if you do not fill it, it will fill itself with whatever is closest to it. One way to fight it is to keep trying to pull things out of it, but that only creates more of a vacuum. A better way to stop a vaccuum is to start putting things into it. That is where Christ comes in. He gives us something clean and worthwhile to put in to fight the vacuum of selfish desires. If it were not for Him we would constantly be fighting a battle that couldn't be won. . . a vaccuum that can't be filled. Without Him, we couldn't even fight. Thank God for giving us a fighting chance!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Learning slowly

Prayer is not meant to be merely directed to God, it is meant to be all about God. To many times I say God's name at the beginning to let Him know it is headed His way and at the end to let Him know that I am done. What happens in the middle is mostly about me. Not that God doesn't want to know about me, but I don't think the primary purpose of prayer is to remind Him who I am, it's to remind me who He is.

I have a feeling that sometimes when I pray and it feels like I'm talking to myself, it's because I am talking to myself. I catch myself doing that a lot. Prayer takes on a whole new meaning when I remember to make it less about me and more about Him. Now if only I could do it more often. Oh well, I guess God never said we would learn everything on the first try.