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!