God is amazing. Everytime I think I know what's going on, he humbles me so that I have no choice but to worship Him. So today I realized something that could literaly change my life. Recently, I've been asking for God to show me his will. Okay. Cool. Aren't we supposed to do that? That's what I thought until this morning. Apparently I've been looking at this from the completely wrong perspective. First, the Bible is the word of God; it's His will. If anything I do contradicts what the Bible says, it's sin, and there's no way around it. But at the same time the Bible doesn't cover everything I'm going through - specifically, I mean. Should I go to China this summer, or back to VA? What about being a counselor for Impact? Was I supposed to apply? I thought the answer would come through prayer- asking about God's will. That's not bad, but sometimes we focus to much on the planning and not the doing. If I want to go to China, and God doesn't tell me not to go, and there's nothing against it in the Bible, then it's Okay for me to go. It is His will because he put a desire in my heart to go, and he hasn't told me not to. I've been caught up lately with "seeking his will" expecting a revelation about the future, so I know for sure what's going to happen, but I guess God doesn't work that way. For those of you who know me, I haven't decided to do the Camp China thing, I just used it as an example to show my point. I very well could be in Van Alstyne working at EZ-seal.
Another thing. I've been reading Romans and it's really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I find it funny that the bible and bathroom readers are the only books that we open up to a random point and start reading. The Bible was never meant to be like that; it's really hard to see the whole picture when starting at the middle. Try reading a book of the bible in one sitting, or at least enough to know what's going on. For school I'll sit down and read a textbook for an hour or two; after that I've got a pretty good understanding of what's going on. If I read a page everyday in a novel would I know what's going on after a week or two? Probably not. Or if I opened up my thermodynamics book to a random page and started reading, it'd be greek to me. I'm so guilty of doing that with my Bible, just letting the pages fall to Collosians 3:14 (random verse) and starting to read. It's so hard to get anything out of that when you don't know what's going on. I'd say that's it's better to read the bible one day a week for an hour and really understand it than for 10 minutes a day right before bed when everything that was just read slumbers in the back of your mind. So many times we put such a huge emphasis on reading the bible every day, because you've got to to be a good Christian. I'm not saying that's it's not important, but the reason for a daily bible study is to understand God more, and if that's not happening, something's wrong. God never meant for us to be bound by a quota. Freedom in Christ is being set free from the Law, so that you are not bound by silly rules and regulations that make you "better."
A note to the reader - most of these ramblings are complaints I have with myself, even though I'm writing as to give advise to a general audience. My hope is that you will learn through my struggles, so that you can glorify God more through your words and actions.
Hopefully I'll write more frequently now.
3 comments:
Jesus dork.
no, just kidding, i think it's great that you are able to have such a great relationship with God.
also, nathan, i'm not trying to be mean, but sometimes you are just kind of a little bit hard on yourself....you are a great guy...sure everybody has their faults, areas in your life where they could use a little work, but i honestly do look up to you in regards to so many things: your faith in God, your love for your family, your ambition in starting your own business, your being able to focus on school (a lot more than i have, that's for sure!).....there are just so many people that look up to you, and though i know you probably have your faults like everyone else out there, i just want to hopefully encourage you a little bit - i can truthfully tell you that there is at least one person out there who always brags on you whenever they get the chance!
whew. nathan, if you feel like knowing why i don't want to ever start putting personal stuff on by blog, just visit, mine, dyls', or emily's sites. it's a veritable firefight.
Hey! There's some great insight in your writing, my friend. I'd venture to say that some great learning can come from opening the Bible at random, as well. I think that's one of the amazing things about this collection of documents. There are as many ways to approach it as there are people to read it, and God has a different meaning for every one.
-Jess
P.S. I think you would be great at expressing God's love in other countries. You never know--if not this summer, there are more to come. And if not China, there's College Station and Van Alstyne.
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