November 4th Election

VOTE TOMORROW...PLEASE!!!!!!

Great Prayers

In the past week I have been challenged anew to look at the way I am praying. It has been good to examine prayer and to continue learning how the Lord would have me pray. Being a man of prayer is something I hope to be characterized by and continue to grow in throughout my whole life. Right now I am reading Good to Great in God's Eyes by Chip Ingram. In it he gives 10 practices that great Christians all have in common. One of those things is that they pray great prayers. So what, exactly does praying great prayers look like? What are some of the characteristics of great prayer?

First of all, they are deeply personal. Great prayer flows out of a passion to know God. The more we love the Lord, the more intimate our prayers become. Great prayers also come out of being broken. When we are broken, we pour our hearts out to Him. We give Him everything and expect everything from Him because we realize at this point that we are and have nothing. We realize that from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. We base our prayers on who He is. Great prayers also champion God's agenda. People who pray great prayers understand God's will for this world and pray His will be done and wish to see His kingdom come.

Great prayers take God seriously. They call upon God's promises and believe them to be true. They believe the nature of God to be full of truth and to be true to His promises and so they call upon that which He has promised to do. Great prayers also require great courage. They "require great courage because they boldly insist, in spite of natural reservations, on what God has said about Himself." When Abraham calls upon God to save Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of a few righteous he keeps asking God to save them based on the merit of God's character. He knew God would live up to His character and so called upon God to do so. "Great prayers ask the improbable, expect the impossible, and receive the unthinkable."

There is of course much more to prayer than just this, but it has been so good for me to remember who it is I'm praying to and to call upon Him to do the things He has promised to do. I want to know the Lord better everyday, so that my prayers will reflect that relationship. The prayer of faith is rooted in the life of faith. Do we believe? Do we pray great prayers for His glory and our joy?

GRE, Work, and Life in General

Today I took the GRE. For all those inquisitive folk who may be wondering what that is, it is basically the SATs for grad school. It is filled with many big words which even someone of my immense knowledge and vocab had no idea what they meant. It also has lots of fun math problems, which, even if I didn't know exactly how to figure the problem out, I at least had an idea of what it was asking...more than I can say for some of the vocab questions. Anyways, I ended up getting a 650 on the math and a 560 on the vocab sections and someone has to read the two essays I wrote and grade them. If anyone out there can tell me what a good GRE score is that would be awesome, cuz I have no idea if I did well or not.

I am still looking for a permanent job, although I have found temporary work for the past couple of weeks. I have been working with a geologist whose goes to my church up at an old gold mine building big filters to filter zinc out of the water up there. He is a great guy to work with and for, so it has been a lot of fun. I don't know how long the fun is going to last though, so I'm still praying God allows me to get a job here sometime.

As for life in general, it is good i guess. These past two weeks it seems like most of what I do is work and sleep and just find enough time to get those little things done that you have to do every day. I'm glad to be busy though and making money instead of sitting around all day on my butt. I have also been busy following the election and the debates and stuff. Today I was saying how Obama is such a weasel and my brother Trevor said that he has a much more endearing term that he refers to him as...he failed to say exactly what it was (we were at the dinner table and I'm going to go with it wasn't appropriate at said place and time). All in all I don't like watching the debates because they are so boring and full of lies and half truths, although I thought the saddleback forum was great. Anyways, go McCain!! Well, I gotta go grab my laundry. Peace.

The Scoop

Well, I am still on the job hunt, but I do have work for next week at least. A friend from church owns his own business and needs some help next week and so he offered to have me work for him. I don't have any idea what I am doing, but I'm just glad I get to work. Praise the Lord. Maybe it will turn in to a permanent job or maybe I get to keep looking, but I'm thankful for how the Lord is providing next week.

In other news...well, there isn't really any other news. My life continues to remain pretty uneventful. I'll be sure to keep you updated though when exciting things do happen.

From SE Asia to Now

My friend Rachel pointed out to me the fact that I haven't blogged in quite awhile, so I'm going to remedy that situation now. The highlight of my summer was hiking Half Dome with my brother Trevor and my good friend Holly and her sister Jill and brother John. It was quite the hike...16 miles round trip. It was a ton of fun though and there were more "your mom" jokes than I think I've ever heard. And the view from the top is amazing!! The picture on the top is of us on the cables at the top of the dome and the one below it is at the base of the cables (props to Jill Strand for that pic).


So, that was like the acorn shell version of the story that would take a whole coconut shell to hold. Since Half Dome I have been searching for job with limited success. Not exactly sure what the Lord has for me, but I'm hoping He feels so inclined to make it clear here pretty quick. Life is slightly uneventful when you don't have a job or school to go to, so thus this blog is a little lacking in excitement and great adventures. I hope that doesn't disappoint. Welp, I think that is it for now. Tootles!

Interesting Time of Life

Well, I've graduated, I've gone overseas and shared the gospel, and now the time has come for me to move on with life post-college. The only problem is...I don't know where to go. Yup, pretty clueless right now. Not gunna lie either...it stinks...well kinda. It stinks cuz I feel so helpless but I take comfort in Paul's words from 2 Cor. 12:9-10:

"And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecuations, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."

So, in actuality I'm not that bad off. All I have right now is the Lord, and that's not such a bad place to be at...in fact, there is no where else I'd rather be but in my Father's hands. James says that we are perfected through trials. In Psalm 32 David says that the Lord will instruct me in the way I should go. Jeremiah 29:11 says that the Lord knows the plans he has for me. After that he goes on to say that they will seek the Lord and that they will find Him when they seek for Him with all their heart. Lamentations 3:22-25 says,

"The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'thereforeI have hope in Him.' The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him."

I know that the Lord is faithful. He has proven it time and time again in my life. Deut. 7:9 says,

"Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments."

So, though I don't know what I am supposed to be doing right now, the Lord does. And my God is a great God and I know nothing is impossible for Him and my "problems" aren't problems for Him. Therefore I rest in the knowledge that the Lord will guide me and lead me on level paths and that in my weakness His power will be perfected. In know that through this He will be glorified and in that will be my joy. So, I wait on Him, as patiently as I can, and pray that I would know Him more clearly and glorify Him more greatly through this time in my life.

Here is my prayer:
Let me learn that the cross precedes the crown, To be low is to be high, That the valley is where you make me more like Christ! Let me find Your grace in the Valley Let me find Your life in my death Let me find Your joy in my sorrow Your wealth in my need That you're near with every breath in the Valley.

SE Asia Recap

Well, it has been five days since we got back in country. It is good to be back home. We had a beautiful view of the CA coast as we were flying in. I saw half moon bay and the golden gate bridge as we flew over the bay area. I was so happy to be home that I jumped and clicked my heels for joy at LAX and got a couple of funny looks for it. I brought home with me many memories and a stomach bug...a nice combo right. It is those memories that I want to reflect on now though.

The trip was hard, but good. The team dynamics were hard for me. I love my team to death and they are all amazing people, but it was hard being with them 24/7 for 3 weeks. I just had a hard time relating with all of them. It was also hard for me to find time alone and just spend good time in prayer and fellowship with the Lord. The trip was also good though. We had amazing translators who were so much fun and made our time so enjoyable. We taught them how to play jenga and sequence and we played these all the time with them. I have now officially played the longest and shortest games of sequence possible and I am the jenga master.

We did many many different things on this trip. We did a couple of different sessions of VBS with different churches. We taught english and we helped with a church youth retreat up in the mountains. We witnessed to muslims on the beaches for a couple of days. We encouraged the missionaries and they encouraged us. We did a little bit of sightseeing as well. We got to go see the largest buddhist temple in the world (which supposedly is one of the wonders of the world and also which you can supposedly see from space...after seeing it I don't really believe either of these claims though:)) I also got to ride an elephant and saw the biggest spider ever (both of which you can see in my picture post).

I also had the neat opportunity one night to work with and encourage this boy and his family. The boy had been in a bad accident and was in a wheelchair. I was able to talk with his parents and just see what exercises they were having him do and stuff and then was able to give them a couple of stretches and exercises for him to do. They kept on asking me how long did I think til he would walk and I told them I wasn't qualified to answer those questions, but I think it was still encouraging to them to have me there and work with him a little bit and just talk with them and affirm some of the things they were already doing with him. It was nice to have my major come in handy for something. :)

Well, that's kinda the trip in overview. Thank you to everyone who was apart of supporting me through money and prayer. I appreciate it so very much! The gospel was made known in SE Asia. Puji Tuhan (Praise the Lord)!