Hey! Where did you go?  Are you not going to post anymore?

I apologize for not having any blogs lately but it has been incredibly busy between Christmas, New Years, and trying to cram a seminary class into one week.  It is good to finally have a chance to sit back and breath, to relax a little bit. It is always good to take time and reflect back. God commanded us to keep the Sabbath day holy in Exodus 20:8.  What does that mean though? While there are a couple different elements as far as worshiping and rest, I think the Sabbath is also a time of reflection. 

We see in Genesis that God declared the Sabbath day holy, but look at what God did before he rested.  He took a moment to reflect upon His work and then declared it excellent in every way. Once God reflected and evaluated what he had done, He was then able to rest.  I think often times we skip over that part.  We work and rest, work and rest, but we never reflect.  We need to look back at the week and take inventory of what we have done. We need to ask ourselves, “Is it good? Is it excellent in every way?  Were my thoughts clean? Are my relationships good? Did I go places I shouldn’t have gone or dishonor God?” 

Through reflection, we refocus our lives. Once we have done this, we can truly rest in the peace of God.

Take a minute and think about a time when you were satisfied.  What made you satisfied? Was it a meal that you ate or maybe it was quality time spent with your kids? What about it made you satisfied? Satisfaction is the fulfillment of a desire or a need.

I ended my last blog with the statement “God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him.” What does that mean? It means that I bring the most glory to God when He is the satisfaction of my heart. The problem is that we seek everything else in the world except God in order to satisfy.

Are we satisfied by God? It is easier said than done. What about when something does not go our way or maybe we lose something or someone. Does God still satisfy us then? Philippians 4:4 tells us “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.” We are called to rejoice even when we don’t want to, even when it isn’t easy.

“Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.” –Psalm 73:25

Read that verse again and just think about it.  Asaph’s testimony is very powerful.  How many of us could reverberate it to reflect our own hearts? Our hearts need to desire God more than anything and He should be our strength no matter what. We try to make it all about us when it needs to be all about Him. Our desires don’t matter; it is God’s desires that do. It is when we figure that out and trade out our desires for his desires that he satisfies them. It’s not about us, it never has been and it never will be. It is about our Lord and Savior. Same goes for Christmas, lets don’t make it about us.

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God.” –Psalm 42:1-2

Thirst for God.

So Christmas is here! The weather would like to prove us wrong, but the endless lines in the stores show otherwise. I tried to return an item to Wal-Mart this morning (figuring that everyone returns things AFTER Christmas) and I had to wait in an incredibly long line. There were only two customer service reps taking returns and one of them was dealing with a lady that looked like she did all of her Christmas shopping and then walked right over to the returns desk to take it all back.  As my frustration was building, I was reminded of a verse.

  “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” –Matthew 6:34 NLT.

 Sounds like a pretty daunting verse.  If anything, this verse vindicated my situation.  “See here, these are my troubles for the day! Jesus told me I was going to have these troubles everyday!”  What this verse, and the verses before it, are saying, is that God provides for our troubles each day.  His mercies are enough for today.  I have to come back for his mercies tomorrow for tomorrow’s troubles.

Let me illustrate it this way.  When the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, God provided manna each morning for their daily needs.  He didn’t provide extra, just what they needed for that day. The Israelites relied on faith that God would provide tomorrow the manna for tomorrow’s needs.  Here is the catch though; we have to come to him daily for that provision. The manna didn’t appear in their homes, the Israelites had to go and receive it daily.  The manna was provided in the morning, before they needed it; not in the evening, after they were hungry and empty.

Each morning we have to go to God and receive his mercies, his strength, his wisdom to face today’s troubles. 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that any trouble we face, there will be an escape provided. Do we look for that escape?  Does that escape require my strength, or God’s strength?  Whose strength am I trying to use?  We have to equip ourselves daily to be able to face those troubles; we have to receive our daily “manna.” Don’t worry about tomorrow, God will provide then. 

God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him.

 “The unfailing love of the Lord never ends! By his mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day.”  -Lamentations 3:22-23

I want to start out by saying that up until about a week ago, I never knew what a blog was. Now that both Brad and Dave have a blog, I figured I would drink the Kool-Aid and jump on the wagon. (Does anybody know where this wagon is going by the way?)

This blog is primarily meant for college students and young singles, but I welcome any and all to read, enjoy, and post comments. I look forward to sharing with you what God has laid on my heart.