Passion

As usual I really enjoyed worshipping together with other believers yesterday. The worship was quite powerful and the message very pointed. The brother spoke from I Corinthians where it says that when we meet together everyone should have something to share, and thus edify the body of Christ. However, he went a direction that I did not expect. He said that for that to be possible we must be spending that time investing in our relationship with God. If not, we will not have anything to share when we meet together. He went on to speak about the importance of our time spent with God, passion for God, reading the Word, and praying. This is an area where I have made progress in the last months, but still lack much in the way of discipline, especially when it comes to prayer. I have really enjoyed reading the Word; it has come alive for me.
As another preacher said recently, "If we don't have passion for God, we will not have passion for the lost." How true. It is very humbly to take an honest look at myself and realize where my passions lie. Too often I am more passionate about things other than my relationship with God. Where do put my energies and what do I spend my time thinking about?
Think about it!

Faith

I think that, perhaps, in a previous blog I have written about faith, but it has been on my heart again recently, so here goes. It has been revealed to me, once again, that having faith and trusting God is an incredibly freeing thing. This has been on my mind as we look toward the future, after we end our term here with MCC in July 2010. My human, westernized, inclination is to try to “figure it all out”. What am I going to do, how are we going to make a living, etc. However, I have heard very clearly from the Lord, a couple of times, that he is asking me to trust him. The amazing part to me is that, instead of feeling more stressed about not knowing how things are going to work, I feel free. I know that He has an incredible plan for my life and I know that all the resources in the world are his. Why in the world would I have any reason to doubt that he will take care of us? I am excited to see what it is exactly that he has in store for us, but I am at peace waiting on his timing.

Que el Señor les bendiga grandemente!

Another lesson in rights

Just when I think that I have a good perspective on the things that are "mine" God sends another test my way to see just how tightly I am holding onto my possessions. On Saturday, as I was enjoying an hour away eating breakfast with my lovely wife, the jeep was broken into and the radio and a set of sockets were stolen. This happened on a busy street with lots of foot traffic. I never even dreamed that something like that would happen in that location. Anyhow, as in the past when various other small things have been expropriated, I was challenged, once again, to realize that all of the "things" that I like to think are mine, are really God's things. I can quickly judge just how tightly I am holding onto those things by my reaction when I found out that they have been taken. Do I rejoice or am I infuriated that someone would dare to do such a thing? Well, I wouldn't say that I rejoiced, but am happy to say that I have found that I can have peace even in such circumstances.
Here is the rest of the story: We had parked almost directly in front of an internet cafe where a friend works. We went in and said hi then walked 50' down the street to eat. A bit later the friend looked out and saw that someone was in the jeep so he said, "hey, isn't this steve's jeep". The kid said that it was someone elses and so, since he didn't see us anywhere, our friend went back inside to work. We returned to the jeep a bit later and quickly realized what had happened. I started it up to leave and, being that the power wire for the now nonexistent radion was shorted out inside, melted all the wires together that went to the positive battery terminal. After a quick "farmer fix" another friend accompanied me to our favorite electrician and he had it all fixed up before lunch.
On a side note, when I bought the jeep the ignition was so worn that any key in the world would start it. It was on my list of things to fix until a couple weeks ago a friend came to work and said that he had a dream that the jeep was stolen. Within a couple days I went and had the ignition replaced. What would have happened if I had not had it replaced? Who knows, but I firmly believe that God speaks to us in many different ways.

The Lord bless you and keep you. May His face shine upon you and give you peace."