Praise You While I Wait

Lately I feel like God has been trying to teach me something and I have not really figured it out till about nowish. Something that does not feel natural for me. Something that I resisted at first; to be honest. God sets all these amazing looking things like graduating college with a BA in Mechanical Engineering, courting and marrying the girl He has for me, or just becoming more than I am now, on the horizon and gives me glimpses of them through other people. Then He says wait on me and the problem immediately comes for me when I desire to be there at that point, doing that and I am not. I get frustrated that I can see it, but can't have it yet. It's like spending the summer staffing with WorldView Academy and getting a glimpse of heaven or watching a young dad take his daughter out for a walk in the fall leaves. I want to be in heaven; If blessed with children when I'm married I want to take them for walks in the autumn. Clash-Clash goes my heart, emotions, and thoughts. How can a good God show me that and say wait? How can my Savior let me feel torn in two directions wanting to please both?

And I decided the best way to go about figuring what Christ wants me to do in the place I am in was to investigate scripture and read what He has written. I found a common thread of praising God while being in your circumstance. In the middle of my hectic college week I found that while it may seem weird to me, it actually works and brings grace. Worrying about my finals looming large ahead I have committed to praising Him everyday. Some days I do not want to. Some days I doubt God and his promise never to leave me or forsake me and it is during my time of praise that He whispers to me that even if there are clouds the sun is still there and shining on me. I see that father walking in the leaves with his daughter and I choose to praise God instead of wanting to be there. It is a conscience choice I must make ever time. God is letting me see different awesome things ahead in life to bring me to Him. He has best in store for me just as a loving father. He shows me and says, wait on me and I will come through for you. But in the meantime I choose to praise Him where I am.

Patience young one.

A friend shared a song with me recently that speaks right on this issue. Dessert Song by Hillsong:

This is my prayer in the desert
And all that's within me feels dry
This is my prayer in my hunger and need
My God is the God who provides

And this is my prayer in the fire
In weakness or trial or pain
There is a faith proved
Of more worth than gold
So refine me Lord through the flames

Chorus:
And I will bring praise
I will bring praise
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice
I will declare
God is my victory and He is here

And this is my prayer in the battle
When triumph is still on it's way
I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ
So firm on His promise I'll stand

All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship

This is my prayer in the harvest
When favor and providence flow
I know I'm filled to be emptied again
The seed I've recieved I will sow

Logistical Update
It is the last week of instruction of winter quarter and things are flying fast and furious. By the end of the week it will all be done and past me! Next week brings finals in CALC 3 and PHYS 201 which will be fun. The calculus final is going to be very hard, based on previous exams. Think of Taylor series for like 40% of the test. (gasp!) I expect the physics final to be really good. My professor loves his topic and it shows on his tests. In other news, I have survived leading CRU for the first quarter and I am looking to next quarter and seeing where God will take us! It is a hard spot to have, but He is teaching me through it and forming me. Praise Him! Lastly, the carboard bike is coming along really well in solidworks!

"Man Enough To Answer"

I came across this poem by Lena Lathrop, entitled "A Woman's Question" and it speaks particularly to guys. It chills me every time I read it and shows me to be the immature boy that is so easy to be. It stops me in my path, halting my tracks, and dares me to be man enough to treat every women right. While this poem may seem a bit outdated and old fashioned , the message is timeless.

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing

Ever made by the Hand above?

A women's heart, and a woman's life-

And a woman's wonderful love.

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing

As a child might ask for a toy?

Demanding what others have died to win,

With the reckless dash of a boy.

You have written my lesson of duty out,

Manlike, you have questioned me.

Now stand at the bars of my woman's soul

Until I shall question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,

Your socks and your shirt whole;

I require your heart be true as God's stars

And as pure as His heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef,

I require a far greater thing;

A seamstress you're wanting for socks and shirts-

I look for a man and a king.

A king for the beautiful realm called home,

And a man that his maker, God,

Shall you upon as He did on the first

And say: "It is very good."

I am fair and young, but the rose may fade

From this soft young check one day;

Will you love me then 'mid the falling leaves,

As you did 'mong the blossoms of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and true,

I may may launch my all on its tide?

A loving woman finds heaven or hell

On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,

All things that a man should be;

If you give this all, I would stake my life

To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot be this, a laundress and a cook

You can hire and little to pay;

But a woman's heart and a woman's life

Are not to be won that way.

I'll be blunt, it's time for me and all you other guys to grow up and put our childish ways behind us when it comes to the women in our life. Yes it is hard. Yes, most times seems unrewarding. Yes, it takes a real man. Yes, God is in your corner. Yes, you can do it with His help. If I can do it, you can do it, if you you can do it, he can do it, so what we doing? Lets start doing it! Leave every girl better off for knowing you by not getting between her and God, respecting her as a child of God, and treating her like your sister, because that is what she is until you marry her. Proverbs says repeatedly not to awaken love until its time. Watch your interactions with girls, are you saying something because it gives you a rush to flirt with her? Are you spending time with her because it gives you a better image with the guys? Do they feel safe and protected around you? Do you spur them on toward Christ? Practically you can have a blast with this! It is fun to serve people and help them. Baking blueberry muffins to send to them as a surprise, Praying for them, Encourage them when they are down and point them to the Word...

relationship principle - "Intimacy is the reward of commitment"

Ladies, do not ever, repeat ever sell out for just any guy out there. You are a treasure and special. God has you in the palm of His hand waiting to bless you with a real man if that's His plan for you, which statistically for most of you, includes marriage at some point. Wait on the Lord and He will come through for you.  As a guy I do not really know whats its like, but I would guess it is kinda scary waiting for a guy. Us knuckle heads are sometimes not even aware of what we are doing, and that would be hard to deal with I think! Become a woman who is running hard after God, and that will catch the eyes of like minded guys. That is really attractive, to see a woman who is pursuing God above me and every thing else!


p.s. My future wife, can't wait to meet you because you will be a amazing gift from the Lord. Oh, wait for my letter to you on Valentines day...

All In His Timing

10^3 happens to be a millennium. 100 years is a century. A score is 20 years. 10 years is a decade. 1 year is, um well, one year. There are 365 days in a year. 31 days in a average month. 14 days in a fortnight. 7 days on a week. 1 day in, um well, one day. 24 hours pass in a single day. Roughly 12 at night and 12 during the day. One hour is 60 minutes exactly. 1 minutes equals 60 seconds precisely. It roughly took you 20 seconds to read that little combination of letters and spaces.

Why all this? Time. Time is the common thread, along with units but that is beside the point. Every one is a measure of time. They convey a meaning and thought to those who know. Time demands a maker in the same way a car demands a manufacturer. For example When you see a Porsche 911 GT3 parked by a curb you don't just assume that this awesome car oozed up out of the pavement. If you do,...well I won't even go there! You know that it was designed, tested, and built by Porsche. The only difference with time is that not everyone acknowledges it's maker, God.

Anyway, here's the point: a lot of time has gone by and more is to come. God is the only one in control of the time. Now that kinda bugs me a little because I get an agenda or schedule of what my plan is and suddenly it changes, doesn't happens, or it gets delayed. My 'time' vs His, and God always comes put on top. I love life and I get excited to see and do the next thing. I stare into the distance looking and wanting the next part of my life to come into focus. I feel that it's the right time for...(blank) and Gods right there saying,

"Yes I have the best for you because I love you. I sent my one and only Son to die for you. Do you really think that I'll withhold good things from you? I am good, it's part of me. It will all come together in my timing."

Drives me crazy most times because I want to know His timing, but Gods timing can't be quantified like our 'time' with units as listed earlier. I've learned that it is quite impossible to find a big enough and strong enough box to try and put Him in. Doesn't work. Don't try it. I am learning bit by bit that where I am in life is where He wants me. I'm to enjoy this season of life and use every year, month, week, day, hour, minute, and second as if it where His because it really is. Our 'time' will march on at 60seconds per minute and I can't fast forward or rewind it. I need to keep my eyes focused on Christ so that I'm in sync with his will and timing for my life. In the end when all is said and done and 'time' is gone His time will be the only one left standing! Tick tock, I can't wait!

Carpe Diem and Trust Him

So here I am, the summer is winding down to a close and my sophomore year of college is looming large ahead.  A lot has been done this summer by God and a little by me.  As I look back on all the blessings and experiences, I have to thank Christ.  Starting out this summer I did not have a good idea of what I would do.  Several opportunities slipped by and it looked kinda bleak.  No worries though, God had bigger plans!

The phrase "Carpe Diem" means seize the day.  That little phrase became one of my operating principles for the summer.  While staffing with World View Academy, If I saw a student looking lonely, "Carpe Diem."  If I saw help needed, "Carpe Diem."  Dishes needing washing, "Carpe Diem."  I realized that I need to spend less time cross checking and researching something before I do it.  Christ wants us to have child like faith where we trust Him completely.  But the problem is deep down I'm kinda a doubter.  Just like Thomas I want proof I can see and touch before I do anything.  But I have to go out on faith and seize the day.  The more I thought about it, the more I found that it was me wanting to direct my own paths.  Deep down I want to be my own master, I want to be in charge.  The Bible is clear about that, You can't serve two masters, so one has to go.  So, every morning I surrender my life to Him.  Doing that keeps it in the front of my mind who I am and who He is.  Learning that has really been interesting, because its a tug of war, me wanting facts, control and Christ wanting trust, obedience.  Thankfully Christ is faithful and is still working on me and sharpening my trust for Him.  I found that Christ can use me more if I just trust him completely and "Carpe Diem." Being ready to follow Him and hear His voice prompting me is really cool!

Logistical update, I start college on the 19th.  I've ordered textbooks and checked my class times.  I will be taking CALC 3,4, Diffy Q, Statics, Physics 201, 202, 203, 208 and intro MATLAB this year with a couple other related courses.  I'm also in charge of the college's campus ministry so prayers for that!

Remember "Carpe Diem" and trust Him!

Tools Are Like Life?

There's nothing quite like restoring old  tools. In fact it's actually a lot of work to do it right. I like to see a parallel to tool restoration and God working in me. (It's a pretty good analogy in my mind) This afternoon I started resurrecting an old double bit axe head that I dug up in my backyard. (I found it a few years ago when as a little boy I was in a digging phase... it was about 6 feet down. Nothing better for boys than excavation of the earth!) When I started work on it, It had rusted, lost its edge and was just in horrible shape. There was a lot of work to be done in this ax's life  First I clamped it up to my shop bench and pulled out my 4 1/2" 10amp angle grinder and proceeded to remove all the rust covering the iron head. This process is a tedious one since it is fatiguing work. To remove all that unsightly rust requires force and time, not to mention the cloud of dust and sparks coming off the surface. The head heats up if you go to much to fast and then you have to squelch it in H2O to bring it's temperature down. If you over heat the iron, the temper will be lost and that makes the head shot. After the rust is removed with the wire wheel and grinder wheel, the ax looks more presentable, it is still duller than dull. Pretty useless right now, but I'm nowhere near finished. An ax is only as good as it's handle, so this next part is special. My handle of choice for this ax is a 26" straight grained genuine hickory piece. When you first get the handle it does not match the inside of the ax head exactly. In order to have a superior ax they need to fit together like protons and neutron in a atom. (One unit, two parts; unbreakable pretty much due to the strong electron attractive forces. Remember I'm a engineer...) This takes rasping with a rasp on the handle head to match the contours. If you take to much wood off the head will be loose and unusable. After many test fits and reworking I achieved a fit that I was happy with. Mounting the handle is really easy now, you have a head and a handle that fits it perfectly. I slid the head onto the handle and pounded it home, as far as my strength would take it. Now I use two wedges, the wooden one goes in first and fits parallel to the length of the head. The little steel one goes at a 30 degree off the wooden wedge. Drive these down as far as possible and the cut the whole deal above the head off flush. The purpose of these guys is to create pressure on the inside of the ax head so that is does not go flying off when used! Boom. Pow, Shazam' Think? Grin! At this point I was well on my way to being complete.

Sharpening an ax is a tricky art. To fine of an edge and It will become dull quickly. To steep of an edge and it won't cut anything except melted butter. Oh well, I've done a wee bit a sharpening, so I forged ahead. Clamped in my shop vise as started work with my single cut mile bastard file. Swish Swish went my file as I worked the edge up to a point. This honing of the edge that time to right and it's best not to rush it. As I filed away my mind came to Proverbs 27:17 "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." I love that verse and my work rely brought that verse to an even clear meaning. My point of spending all this time talking about restoration of my ax was to be able now to point to a more important parallel.

When God first found me, I was 6 feet under and bound for hell. I was nothing by myself. I was rusted and pitted with sin. My handle was gone and rotted. But my great God started working on me. He dug me out through his one and only son, Christ and brought me out into his shop. There he began to grind and cut the rust of me. Those sparks are indeed painful, but necessary. Even though it hurts, it is like a good pain, as if peeling off dead skin. Then he took me all washed clean by the Blood of Christ and handled me with the straight, strong, and genuine word of God. Currently he is still sharpening away at me, which I hope and pray he will never stop. But there I am, once lost, but now a treasured tool in the Masters hand ready to be used by Him. "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6

A thought occurs to me as I wrap this up, and that is even though with a full restored ax; the ax in its self does nothing. Without a master it will just lay there and gather dust and rust and go back to its former past. But with Christ, the Master of Masters, the ax, my life, will not lay there on the bench. He will take up his treasured tool and use it for his glory. Through Him and Him only will chips fly from the ax.

What's the purpose of this here record?

Starting today I begin a journey called bloging. This has always been something I've wanted to do, so without further delay I'll begin if that's cool.

The main purpose will be to blog (hmm) about what Christ is doing around/in me and what I'm learning about. I will throw in logistical updates as well as anything random going on in my life that's relevant... Excited? Good, so am I!