Spurgeon Devotional

"Christ Jesus has no quarrel with His spouse. She often wanders from Him, and grieves His Holy Spirit, but He does not allow her faults to affect His love. He sometimes chides, but it is always in the tenderest manner, with the kindest intentions: it is “my love” even then. There is no remembrance of our follies, He does not cherish ill thoughts of us, but He pardons and loves as well after the offence as before it. It is well for us it is so, for if Jesus were as mindful of injuries as we are, how could He commune with us? Many a time a believer will put himself out of humour with the Lord for some slight turn in providence, but our precious Husband knows our silly hearts too well to take any offence at our ill manners." - Charles Spurgeon

A Little Slumber

I read Spurgeon's evening devotional a little ahead of time. He discussed Proverbs 24:23-24, "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man." His main thrust was that a sluggard is one who only asks for a little rest. No sluggard asks for no work, they only ask for less work; not for all break, just for more break. The diligent has an iron will that is surely able to press forward in the hour of greatest temptation, neither turning to the right nor to the left. So must I.

Beautiful Bike Ride

Got up this morning and went for a bike ride. The weather is just spectacularly gorgeous this time of year. The leaves are incredible and it all culminates in picture perfect scenery while cruising down the Ocmulgee Riverwalk. Ready for a great day.

Productive School Day

11:33am - I just came inside from playing basketball with my brother. That's the first time since last year due to his foot problem. It was fun, I think my sister likes to take breaks more than play basketball. We played to five and he won, I was handicapped by being unable run.

College Funding Decisions

8:41am - This morning I rolled out of bed and read a couple chapters of Genesis. Breakfast was up next... cereal, apple, kiwi, and grape juice. Now I am about to start school, today I have a Latin vocabulary quiz and test. The quizzes aren't bad, but the tests are be brutal 2.5-4.5 hour ordeals. So thrilling.

Future Possibilities

2:41pm - This morning we went over to the [an older couple]'s and celebrated [her] birthday. They have been great adopted grandparents for us, the other guys are over there at least once a week it seems. We gave her a giant poster board card and some other small things, she loved it all.

Dinner for Many

1:45pm - Got up this morning at 6:20 and left at 7:00 with my dad for the [church] men's breakfast. We both woke my brother up, but he said I hurt his toe when I tapped his knee and so he didn't feel like going. We arrived eight minutes late, at 7:38, but were still able to get some grub. [The hostess] made ham, eggs, biscuits, and some sort of bread that covered a cookie sheet and was cut into squares. We ate.

A Day to Recharge

The best of all days in the week, Sunday. I look forward to Sunday all week long, the 24 hour reprieve from my six other days of labor is so refreshing.

Guys' Group: Thyatira

Tonight the guys' group took a look at the church of Thyatira. The study had a ton of information and without realizing what I was doing I taught a 1:45 minute lesson! Glad to have that much content but next time I'm going to make sure that I narrow down the information so that it is more concise. Great to have that much but it needs to be weeded through out broken up. Using powerpoint for the study lesson was a huge hit, that will definitely be continuing. It was very helpful for keeping their attention for that long of a period, that's never happened before.

Complexity

It is amazing how complex the organizational skills of God are! I step back looking at my life right now, and it amazes me that everybody has stuff to work through just like I do and yet God can still keep everything running perfectly and according to His will. My life right now is at such a level of busyness that I even have a waiting list for things to think about. I an thankful that I have such a God to cast my cares upon, He is more than able to manage what I cannot.

Priorities

In Dear Timothy, the first chapter is on setting your priorities straight. It makes a comment towards the end of the chapter about the ability to say no being more important than many others. This is so true. I have struggled lately trying to decide how to manage my time in an efficient manner. I need to step back and arrange the busyness of my life based upon clearly defined priorities. This challenge of deciding between good and best will only get harder, I need to develop my decision making skills now while it is still fairly easy to make the change.

First Friday

Including myself, we were a group of six. Our mission was to evangelize the lost with the Gospel of salvation. Focused on a three by three grid of street blocks, we were located in downtown Macon.

Improvements Ahead!

Last night I brought the first part of the letter in Revelation 2, the perverted church of Thyatira, before the guys’ Bible study. It was a so-so study. The material was good, but I left with a couple of ideas for the future.

Turning Over A New Leaf

Before I begin, I want to let you know that you should grab a drink and get comfortable...

I've been thinking about the direction of the young men's Bible study that I lead. Right now we are working our way through the second chapter of Revelation after having studied through 1 & 2 Peter as well as Jude. When we began Revelation, it was with the intent to go through the entire book, but after self-evaluation and a peek at the calendar, I do not think that that is a feasible option. I do not have enough of a personal background in eschatology (the study of end times subjects and events) to be comfortable leading a study in it. There is too much propensity for error. Also, if college becomes a definite reality this fall, then I will not be around long enough to finish the book of Revelation anyways seeing we're only in chapter two out of twenty-two at roughly four months in.

Because of these two main factors, I've been really trying to think about what I want to leave these guys with. I don't have much time left leading this study, but what time I do have I want to make count as much as possible. Based on these thoughts, I've been leaning towards

Catching Up

Church Tomorrow

      Our pastor is out of town, so one of the elders will be delivering the sermon. Both of the church elders are part of the south Wednesday night prayer group that we attend; and we heard from his wife that he was not able to make it this past time because he had been stung by a bee or something earlier in the day and was home with his eye swollen shut. So, I hope he has recovered and will be able to see both halves of the congregation in the morning! Tomorrow is also fellowship meal at the church so there won't be an evening service, but there will be lunch :) It actually worked out pretty well so that the elders only had one service to take care of.

What Happened To My Life???

     Lately I've been feeling like I'm walking the wrong way on an escalator. This week has been crazy with a big scholarship due, Good News Club ending, and school stuffed into all the nooks and crannies of my schedule. I'm looking forward to next week since everything should be back to normal, generally speaking at least.

A Live Performance & Dead Rituals

     Life has been busy since I last posted! This past Saturday we were able to go and watch a friend of ours, Eric Newsome, perform live at a restaurant in the area. His musical abilities are spectacular; he plays the piano like it's nobody's business and also proved himself to be quite talented with other instruments as well. Throughout the night he played a 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, 6-string acoustic guitar, and bass guitar in addition to the keyboard and performed very well on all of them. He's one of those people who not only knows instruments, but knows music as well. We watched him for a solid two hours of playing and he never looked at a single sheet of music, everything was from memory or created on the spot.

Books & Bowling

     This morning seemed to drag along for quite some time, but the arrival of my textbooks threw a little pep into it. My next set of Latin tests came in, so I took the first today and am now progressing through the subject again after coming to a standstill for a few days. I also got my math and science books, both are a good deal less challenging then the other books I've used throughout high school and that is nice. The math is a business math course and the science is astronomy; they are very interesting and well written, especially the science. Based on today's estimates (50-60 hours a week) I should be able to finish both books about a month sooner than I expected, so that will leave more time for monetarily paid labor this summer which is great!

An Essay & Apple Pie

     This morning I was able to write the essay for the GE-Ronald Reagan Foundation Scholarship application. The outline I prepared last night was great, except that I underestimated the length of the essay. The target size is 500-750 words and I counted something like 966 in mine... way too much English going on. I studied it for a little while, taking out bits and pieces, but then just decided to ditch my weakest point/paragraph on leadership and service in my schooling. It contained some useful information, but the majority of the paragraph was just filler stuff I cooked up to make sure the paragraph was the same length as the rest. The other paragraphs on work, community service, and my future contain the real meat of what I was trying to get across, so I just narrowed the essay a little bit in order to highlight these areas.

3D Slideshow

     This morning I was able to put most of the finishing touches on the slideshow presentation that I've created from photos and footage that I shot while we were on vacation at the beginning of January. All of the video clips, pictures, transitions, titles, background music, and DVD menus are in place and fully edited, the last thing to do is await the arrival of the anaglyph 3D glasses that I ordered online today and then convert the presentation from 2D to 3D. It will be my first slideshow in the third dimension; I have high hopes. I'm going to be sending out a bunch of copies of the DVD to people we saw while on vacation, so I bought two types of glasses today. I got one really good pair (all of them are fairly cheap regardless of quality though) for myself since I'll be using them a lot more often as I compose this slideshow and others in the future, and then I also got a box of 50 cardboard ones like what you would use in a theater for anyone I show it to and also to mail out with the DVDs. Hopefully they will be in the mail sometime towards the end of next week; if not, then two weeks from now.

Sunday Services

     This morning's Sunday School lesson continued our foray into the 1689 Confession of Faith, particularly the section on Saving Faith. There were several main points which helped to flesh out the details of this great power which we possess, this faith. Also, I was able to draw several conclusions or personal applications from it which I will share presently. The morning sermon was in the gospel of Mark, chapter 2 verses 13-22 on the calling of Levi and Jesus' meal at his house with the tax collectors and sinners.

My Poor Arteries

     This morning was the Men's Bible Study & Prayer Breakfast at our other church. It's a great time of fellowship and artery clogging; I think I out-clogged all of them this morning with 4 giant biscuits, 6 or so pieces of bacon, 1 sausage, and 3 helpings of scrambled eggs! Pork is not part of my regular diet, but I make occasionally allowances and also rationalized it with today's work. Each month we all gather together to study and discuss a portion of God's Word. So far we've walked through 1 Samuel, and this was our second time in 2 Samuel.

Friday Fest

     We still call it First Friday (the original name) although now the name is Friday Fest. A fairly large city near us opens its streets to partying and drinking for the first half of the night. It started out as the first Friday of each month, hence the name, but has now been extended to every Friday under the new alias of Friday Fest. On these first Friday's of each month a group of individuals from our last church and myself go out and actively engage in street evangelism. We bring along a supply of tracts provided by one of our senior participants, and spend our time passing out tracts to whomever we can and sharing the gospel with whoever will listen. This evening's outing turned out to be lacking in fruit-ful-ness since neither group (we split up, tonight was groups of 2 and 3) was provided with any seemingly meaningful conversations; but did, however, unearth some rather entertaining fruit-i-ness.

"Susy" & "Bob"

     Good News Club met again today: I was able to talk with two kids, let's call them Susy and Bob. I was sitting on the floor with the 3rd grade making sure that they stayed at a level of mobility below disruptive while the lesson was being presented. During this time I was able to talk with Susy a little bit, she's excited to come to the club and has been showing some initiative by working through her lessons throughout the week between meetings. Both relatively and individually speaking she's well-behaved; today she had a few questions to ask. I didn't have a whole lot of time to converse with her, but it was cool to be able to explain to somebody that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day (I didn't think to mention that it was the same as her grade) and watch her reaction as she heard that story for the first time.

Wednesday Night

     I'm almost finished with my next essay for my writing blog, it is a categories essay entitled "On The Integration Of Electronics." Look for it Friday.
     This afternoon I was able to attend a friend's official signing for college football. He made it into the news this afternoon, I'm really glad for him. He's had an uphill struggle to realize his football dream; being home-schooled for several years and then attending a small, private school throughout high school put him at a "disadvantage" for making it onto a college team. Through it all, he's shown a lot of team spirit, helping to train most of the freshmen that comprised his team during his senior year. But where the Lord wills there's a way, and so he's now on a great college football team! Yahoo!

Prayer Time

     After battling a minor cold and a couple technical difficulties with the alarm clock, I am back on track with my alarm. Life right now is very busy but fruitful, just the way I like it! Yesterday I was talking about some of the changes I've seen the Lord work in my life. One of the more recent, sort of, tools He has used is our church transition. We've started going back to a church that we were attending years ago. It's been years since we've see the people at the church; things have changed a lot and for the better.

Reflections

     Starting school this morning felt great! I was very glad to be over and done with 11th grade work and fully engaged in 12th. It wasn't really any sort of change in coursework, I just picked up with the next chapter in the second half of my Latin book and kept on with my writing, but it is awesome to have the mental satisfaction of knowing that I finished my course (if you don't mind the pun). A great sense of accomplishment. I replied to a comment on a post from a couple of days ago and mentioned that 11th grade was one of the hardest, if not THE hardest, school years I've completed.

Inquisitive Prophets

     Sunday School resumed today after the break for the Holidays. Our class is studying through the 1689 confession of faith; the class is excellent. I've thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the more technical side of our faith, what the components are and how they relate to one another. For instance, before the break, we had just finished going through justification and adoption, and now we are detailing saving faith and its applications. Our teacher is a great Sunday School teacher role model; his lessons are obviously well thought out, planned, and researched.

Finished!

     The Good News Club had a leader conference/seminar today. It was hosted by the lady who leads GNC for our local school and designed for all the leaders to show up, but only myself and one other leader besides the hostess showed. The speaker has been working with Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) for more than the past thirty years and had a lot of experience and information to share.

Mulching With A Dead Battery

     This afternoon I engaged in an unusual activity for January: mowing the lawn! The weeds had been growing slowly but surely and had gotten my attention, but our recent weather front put them over the top. It was time to reclaim the yard. I filled the mower up with gas, turned the key, and got...... nothing?

GNC & A Wrench

      Today I returned to volunteer work for Good News Club at a public school near us for the first time since we've been back from vacation. It's been a hard year -- attendance started above 100 students but has tapered off to 80 or so I think -- and the kids have been extremely rowdy. Part of that is due to a glaring lack of equipment, the sound systems that we have access to are not powerful enough to do a very good job. The rambunctiousness is also caused by the student to leader ratio, the overwhelming number of students has thrown the system off balance quite a bit. Despite the problems, though, the other leaders have shown a lot of dedication and have really put a lot of effort into presenting the Gospel to these children. All it takes is the salvation of one of their souls to make this entire year worth the effort; it's in the Lord's hands!
     I picked up my chainsaw from the shop today. I still need to test run it, but I trust

Latina Est Gaudium!

     This morning my dad and brother put up the first of two partition walls for my brother's new room. My dad pre-cut most of the boards a couple days in advance, and so today they assembled the lumber, erected the wall, insulated for a sound barrier, and attached the drywall. My brother remarked that it was indeed a BEDroom because the bed literally fills the entire room right now with about a foot of walking space left on two sides. Once the loft is built and the bed is raised up off the floor there will be more room, but for the time being there isn't. The dimensions are something like 7 feet by 5 or 6 feet.
     As my dad was installing the screws for the wall, the drill bit he was using began to

An Accomplishment!

     Today was a long day. Highlight of the day was being able to finish Revelation chapter 1 at guys' group tonight! We started to go through Revelation back in October I think, but it took quite a while for me to figure out how exactly I was going to teach through the book since I was quite the novice at eschatology. I've learned more than I've taught as we've studied through the book, although there have been many times when I have felt very inadequate. Thanks be to God who has

Missions Focus

     Our church had a guest pastor in this week for our missions focus weekend. Our family did not find out until this past week that the event was taking place this weekend, so we were not able to attend the service on Saturday. Today the guest pastor spoke to us about missions efforts in a certain foreign country, where he had recently been on a preaching/missions trip. It was a very inspiring reminder to

Riding A Whirlwind

     Wow, today has just seemed like a blur! That might be partially due to not getting the early start on the day that I'm accustomed to; since we were up until almost three this morning watching Courageous, I let myself sleep in until later in the morning. I did wake up at my regular time and keep myself awake for a little while just to keep the habit though.
     Spent some time in the morning after breakfast working on school, but then got sidetracked with the multitude of house projects flying around.

In The Groove

     Today it is finally beginning to happen, my body is adjusting to my new sleep schedule! I was on a lazy vacation for a little while after Christmas, so coming home and getting back in sync with life has been a bit of an adjustment. The first day was not too bad, but rising and shining got steadily harder each morning until today. My body has now set its internal alarm clock and it was actually quite easy to get going. Yes!