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TheEndIsNear
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Name: Joseph
Country: United States
State: Mississippi
Metro: Tupelo
Birthday: 6/4/1986
Gender: Male
Interests: Climbing, Frisbee, reading, sunny days, rainy days, semi-cloudy gray days, acting, writing (God willing), children, and art of any form.
Expertise: I am not legally able to provide said information at this time.
Occupation: Artist
Industry: Government
Message: message me
AIM:  wellmettrebek
Member Since:
7/4/2002
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| Tonight, Joel preached on Acts 20, specifically on Paul’s
farewell speech to the Ephesian leaders.
The main point Joel focused on was the verse where Paul said that his
life would have been worth nothing if he had not done the work God had given
him. Joel said that Paul was sold out in
an absolutely amazing way because he was totally sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s
leadership and because he had seen God. It made a little jealous, because I very much
doubt I will ever face trials like Paul did and fear that this means I won’t be
that sensitive to God’s will.
To a
degree, that’s probably true. Paul
suffered so much and was so dedicated; I think he might be unique in that depth
of commitment. However, we, too, can
become close to God’s will by the Holy Spirit working in and through our
lives. The problem is, God works at His
own pace, and it’s easy to get impatient with how little we desire God, how
little passion we have for Him. We may
feel sudden impulses of guilt and spontaneously want to, like, drive to a gas
station and start witnessing to the cashier.
While this may be something that comes from God, I doubt it. I think that being a straight-up witness like
that is something that is not only not that effective but is also something
that must come from joy in God.
Witnessing is an act of love to another person that springs from our
love of God, which originated from God’s love for us and His movement in our
lives. I could say a lot more about
witnessing, but that’s not what I started out with. I was talking about passion.
If we seek
God, we will find Him, and finding Him will give us the passion to seek harder
(and, as a result, find more). We may
not always have a passion to seek Him; I don’t know that that always means
something. It becomes hard, when we are
not passionate about prayer or our quiet times, not to get discouraged and worry that
something is wrong in our lives.
Sometimes it may be, but sometimes it may not. It may be that we find God in some other way,
perhaps through a conversation with a friend or a particularly wise book. I believe it is important in those times to
keep seeking, but not to make the seeking itself the focus of our attention. God is not a process, He is a Person. | | |
| I heard John Piper speak tonight. I didn't like it.
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| - John the RevelatorBrian (one of my roommates) and I both got really into old blues this
weekend, which is kinda weird, especially for him, but the music is
awesome.
Christianity is a thing of contradictions. We're free from all
rules, but we're expected to live a life of righteousness. We're
supposed to die to ourselves so we can live and humble ourselves, for
which we will be exalted. Though we strive to live right (knowing
we're going to fail, if we're rational), we've already received grace
to cover every sin we'll ever commit.
All this is kind of a preamble to this: Christianity takes work
on our part, which in practice means giving up and letting the Holy
Spirit work through us. The thing is that it really does take
work. I don't give up my own will/time/stuff/self without a lot
of kicking and screaming or at least making ding-dang sure that God
knows I'm giving it up. The thing is, we're not even supposed to
think about it as our time, but as God's time we're giving back to
Him. We're stewards (I'm pretty sure that's in the Bible).
Until lately, I've been doing just about everything with an ulterior
motive. I started doing a feed-the-homeless ministry at least
partially to impress someone. I tried to be the cool hippie
WordPlayer (which, I will add, I totally am *wink*) at auditions in the
hope that the prospectives would think I was, well, a cool
hippie. Stuff like that, even good deeds, I did calculated to
impress, even acts of humility. I was, in Bible-speak, a
Pharisee. Blech.
How did I change all that? I didn't. God did. I just
asked Him to help me out, and guess what? Yeah. He
did. I'm not saying I've got it all sorted out (I may
never). To be honest, I don't think we ever get it all sorted
out, and the catch is to acknowledge that and love ourselves
anyway. That's what God does, even as He works on us. I
learned that from a friend today.
Lessons I've learned from UCF thus far:
- Wait for God. He'll be there when it's time.
- Though it's easy to ask for God and something, God wants us to be content with Him alone
- Throw yourself on God's grace with just a little faith and He'll make use of it as well as providing you with more and more
God, give me the wisdom to see opportunities to serve you and the
courage to act on them. Break my heart of selfishness and purify
me until Your love is all others see in me. Give me the strength
to deal with tomorrow's temptations tomorrow. Thank you for
making me who I am, Father, and for placing me where I am. You
love me, Lord, and you have redeemed me; help me to love you in return,
to the best of my capacity. Amen.
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| Man, this summer has been busy busy busy and I am ready to do some
serious relaxin'. I've been working (at the Boys' and Girls'
Club) and getting ready for a play (Midsummer Night's Dream- I'm
Demetrius and Matt Hitt is my rival, Lysander; we have fun ; ).
I've been to Knoxville, Tennessee and Mississippi College, and as soon
as I'm done I'm going canoeing on Bear Creek and climbing at the
boulder fields in Birmingham, AL. Let me know if you want to come on
either.
I've seen a lot of movies lately. The last three I've seen were
Wedding Crashers, Wedding Crashers, and, um, Wedding Crashers.
Sad? Maybe.
Saturday by Ian McEwan is very very good. He's an awesome author.
Black kids think i'm funny when i try to talk like them.
Goodnight.
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| IT'S MAH BIRTHDAY AND AH HAVE CHILDREN!!!
So I saw that I've been on xanga for 1066 days. Do you know what happened in 1066?
Time's up. It was the Battle of Hastings!
I am a nerd.
I am now an official leader of children at the Boys' and Girls' Club of Tupelo. I am responsible for the summerly happiness (and a wee bit of education) of approximately twenty-seven eight-to-nine-year-old children, eight of whom listen to me when I'm not raising my voice. I'm not imposing enough, i guess :( Maybe if I was a large black woman....
Anyway, respect or no, the job makes me happy. At least I'm not shelving books all day like SOME *coughbethannricecough* people.
Have a good summer, reader. I love ya. | | |
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