School has begun once again

To be honest, I am quite excited about this quarter. I am taking six computer classes if you count the internship and computer science/math seminar. One thing that is great about this quarter is that I only one 8 am class which is on Monday. I only have one class at 3 pm on Wed., and no classes on Friday (thanks to a teacher making class 2 hrs on Monday and canceling Friday's class for the whole quarter)! How cool is that? It looks like I may actually have time to get some money flowing toward the bank rather than away from it (some people call it work). ;) I spent a couple hours running around campus today trying to finish registration for school. I needed approval from the head of math & computer science for my internship and for a directed study. Then I had to get a couple signatures from my advisor and another teacher. When I went to add the classes, I was told that I had to go up to the dean's office to get a signature of approval to take 19.5 units. I guess they don't want people that are failing their classes to be taking more than 18 units. I met with the person that deals with applications for graduation. We went through the entire thing and all I am waiting on now is for sign language to be approved as credit for the modern language department's requirements. If you could pray to this end, that would be much appreciated! I have been reading in James and really enjoying it, but it definitely is convicting at times. The reality is that when we sin, we are not trusting that God knows best. This is a lack of faith. We can't just say that we have faith and not live accordingly. James has been an excellent reminder to me of this truth.

Long day, but a good one...

I played basketball this morning at 6 am. It was a lot of fun... winning more than losing is a bonus too. :) After I got back, we went to the park and played frisbee golf using poles and random objects as the "baskets." I spent a lot of good quality time talking with mom today, and that was a huge blessing. I really am enjoying reading Psalms right now. It has been a big blessing being able to spend more than normal amounts of time in the Word and in prayer. I had an important meeting today which went well. I am definitely learning to trust Him with everything. It seems like the more I trust Him with.... the more I realize I haven't been trusting Him with. I am so thankful for His faithfulness in drawing me to Himself. I was reminded again today that I need to be a godly leader even right now. Honestly, I naturally lean toward following. I have a hard time leading, but this is just another thing that I need to grow in. I have been meditating on Psalm 84 the last few days, and it has been very refreshing (especially the last couple of verses).

Spring break is flying by...

I had a wonderful time reading through a bunch of Psalms this morning. After that, Christina, Jonathan, and I went to the gym to play racquetball while mom did her morning workout. It is always fun getting to spend some time with them. The gym has a basketball court too, so we went over there and messed around for a bit. Mom joined Jonathan and I and she asked this guy that was playing on the other side of the court if he wanted to play a game. I felt kind of bad... I think my little brother made the only basket for their team. I wasn't even trying hard for rebounds or anything. My mom impressed me though... she can shoot pretty well from short range! Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I have an important meeting tomorrow night, so if you would pray for wisdom, and for God to override my will where needed... that would be great. :)

Spring break continues...

I played basketball this morning. I was definitely a bit tired afterwards considering I got about 3.5 hours of sleep. I took a nice long nap though. I'm pretty confident now that naps are not for the kids, naps are for the adults. Thinking over the years of being a kid, I never remember needing a nap, and my parents never made me nap either. I have taken more naps in the last year than I have probably my entire life combined (if you don't count the naps that every baby takes). haha Anyway, I am greatly enjoying the time off. I really didn't do a whole lot today. I had a couple good studies in the Word today. It is such a blessing to be un-rushed. I can actually slow down and think about the things that I really want to think about rather than cramming my head with school information. I'm not saying that school information is useless, otherwise I wouldn't be paying the big bucks for it... but it can definitely be a hardship when it comes to focusing on God. I can't tell you how thankful I am for the commute to school and back. It provides a quiet time where I can settle down and focus on Him. I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite verses from Psalm 139 (verses 23 and 24).

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.

It isn't always pleasant, but is always refreshing to let God search the deepest parts of our heart. This can be a two-edged sword. If we allow God to reveal the things to us that we need to repent of, and we do not repent, we are cutting off the Holy Spirit! We must listen to what He says, and be completely obedient no matter how hard it is. This is essential for spiritual growth!

I got to hold my nephew!

We just got back from Northern CA. My first Gabriel holding experience wasn't the best one. haha He spit up all over my shirt... three times. I really didn't mind too much actually. I really enjoyed getting to see him and hold him. This morning, we went to my uncle's church, and honestly, it was the worst Easter service I have been gone to. The music selection was awesome, but it was as if the building was void of the Holy Spirit. It was very saddening to me. The pastor only talked about scripture passages like two times. I would guess that fewer than 10 of us in the entire congregation actually opened our Bible. I don't even know how to describe it. I just felt like I was the only one feeling this way. I looked around, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the sermon, but there was nothing to it... it was the wisdom of men. We all talked about it on the way back, and we all agreed. I just am really saddened by the fact that these hundreds of people are coming to church and not being fed. They are learning dependence on a pastor's wisdom rather than dependence on God's wisdom. I pray that God would keep me in tune with His Word so that I am not lulled to sleep when it comes to discerning man's wisdom versus His wisdom. On a side note, I have been to this church a few times before and the sermon was fine... so it may have just been today, but I definitely have doubts.

Spring Break is here!

God has continued to show His grace to me. I honestly thought I completely bombed my religion finals (we had two separate finals for that class). By nothing other than the hand of God, I got an 84% on one of the two. We had to write a big essay during the exam about a book that we had not read (a book that other people did presentations on). I had no idea that we were going to have to do that. I missed classes due to baseball, so I barely heard anything about the book. I knew that it was about Jews and I was pretty sure it was around WWII. I can tell you absolutely nothing about the book other than those two things. I seriously made up the whole entire essay and talked about how the Jews turn to God in the hard times, etc. It actually came together pretty nicely other than the fact that I knew nothing about the book or if those things were true according to that book. I kept it very vague. God is amazing! I think all of my other finals went fairly well. I am so glad to be off of school for a week. :) If all goes as planned, this week is going to be quite full with exciting things. I get to see my nephew for the first time! I found great encouragement in Psalm 84:11 this morning.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

What an amazing promise! God gives His very best to us, let's not pursue anything less.

Studying...

I have three finals (two for one class) on Tuesday, one on Wed, and one on Thursday. I am preparing my study sheets right now. Church went well this morning. I am continually blessed by the teaching of the Word. I signed up for a four day intro to Biblical counseling thing. I am really excited about it. There is a couple that is looking for a house to move into soon. They are moving out here to be part of our church. The plan is for him to be the assistant pastor, and then start a new church in the area. It is quite exciting! I can't wait until they move out here. This afternoon, I had a baseball game. I missed the first game due to church, but I played part of the second game. I went 0-2 at the plate... grounded out both times. God doesn't always choose to bless with such superficial things as hits in a game, but he certainly has in the past... either way, He is deserving of all of my praise. It may sound weird, but I am thankful for those two ground-outs. I know that it was His plan, and I don't want anything other than that. I have had some wonderful times in prayer this last week. I am really looking forward to what God is going to do in the upcoming weeks. Please keep me in your prayers as I try to listen and obey God's voice.

Finals already!

It seems like this quarter has gone by so quickly. Finals are next week! I guess that is a good thing since it is probably the hardest quarter ever. I don't know what my GPA is going to look like this quarter... but it's not going to be 4.0 unless points fall from the sky. As dad always reminds me, the plans are up to us, the answer is up to Him (Proverbs 16:1). I struggle with this verse daily. There is always more time that I could be putting into school. At the same time, there are lots of important things other than school. In fact, looking back on this quarter 15 years from now, I probably won't care about what my GPA was... but I have the responsibility before God to do my best. I have a very hard time defining what my best really is, so I tend to go with... studying until I feel prepared enough to do well on the exam. Test taking definitely isn't my forte. It's kind of funny... if you look at my physics exams, I lose almost all of my points on multiple choice. The actual problems, I do very well on... go figure. I actually have a physics quiz in the morning, so I should be studying for that. I haven't decided what I want to study next, so I have been reading some Psalms. Honestly, I kind of did the flip and point method today. Not exactly, but it was completely random what I chose to read. Psalm 101 looked interesting, what can I say? :) It was a refreshment to me, and a great reminder of fixing my heart on God. Take a look at the first three verses.

I will sing of lovingkindness and justice, to You, O LORD, I will sing praises. I will give heed to the blameless way. When will You come to me? I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. I will set no worthless thing before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not fasten its grip on me.

I love those words... "I will set no worthless thing before my eyes." What an awesome example of pursuing the things that matter! There are so many things to be distracted with. One of the main reasons that I rarely watch movies is because they are very time consuming. Another huge reason is the content in them. In almost all cases, the content is less than wholesome. I'm not saying that it's not okay to watch movies. I'm not really a fan of watching movies in general, but I think this concept of not setting worthless things before your eyes should be considered as you watch movies. It is okay to get up and walk out of a movie! You aren't tied to the chair. Those were some random thoughts... this has so many more applications, but movies is the one that came to mind.

Children's Church

I was given the opportunity to teach children's church for the first time. It was a very good and interesting experience. I taught about making promises that we can't keep. We studied in the gospels where Peter tells Jesus that he wouldn't deny Him. We did a few songs at the beginning. Honestly, I thought I was going to run out of things to say. I have this amazing ability (if that is what you want to call it) to condense everything that I can think of to say to an extremely short period of time. haha Well, that definitely wasn't the case. We finished the song time, and did the memory verse, and I got through not much more than half of what I was planning on saying before church let out. I did get through the main point, so I brought it to a closure. I wish I could have done a better job at tying it to Biblical truths rather than just those examples of Peter. Anyway, I think it went pretty well overall. It was a good experience. We had a good time going out ot eat with my grandparents for a late celebration of Christina's birthday. I find our conversations to be so empty sometimes. It is very hard to get a good conversation going with them. They need God! Please keep them in prayer for that, as well as my grandpa... he is having his other knee replaced on Wed. This evening, we went to the women's choir concert. It was a blessing. The one thing that really bothered me during the concert was that the director seemed so focused on the music and professionalism that it distracted from the focus on God. I sensed that it also rubbed off on some of the girls. It still was a blessing to me. :) Well, I have one more week of class before finals! I have a whole lot to do before I am ready for finals. It's going to be a crazy week. Please pray that I would be fully dependent on Him.

Waiting...

This morning, a very good friend of mine text mailed me as I was reading Jeremiah in my car before class. His computer was stolen last night after someone broke the window to his office. Thankfully, he has something called logmein set up on it... actually something I told him about. :) If whoever stole it will get online, I should be able to look up the IP (internte protocol) address, and then the ISP (internet service provider) should be able to give law enforcement the street address of whoever took the computer! They also stole the backup hard drives. He is completely trusting God in this situation, but I know that he would like to get his computer back along with all the important information on it. Right now, we are just waiting to see if they are going to get online. Please pray that the information would be preserved on the computer, and that this person would bring it back (or get online soon). Another blessing is that it is a desktop, so we don't have to worry about it being online on some other network quite as much. School went pretty well today. I am glad that the week is nearly over. I got to have lunch with the music leader at church... he works about 10 minutes from where I go to school. It is always fun getting to talk with him, and learn from him. Keep me in your prayers as I prepare to teach children's church on Sunday.

The end is in sight!

I can't believe it! I only have one week of normal classes after the week, and then finals. I am really ready for a little bit of time off. Lord willing, I'll get to see my nephew. :D I am in the midst of making some important decisions, so prayers for that would be awesome. This week was probably the busiest week of the quarter aside from finals. I am pretty much done with the crazy stuff this week. I think I did pretty poorly on my music appreciation test, but we'll see. I missed an important class period for that, so I might be talking with the teacher about it. Life goes on! :) I have been reading in the Psalms quite a bit. They are extremely refreshing. I plan to finish up Jeremiah next week some time. We had a ton of running practice today. By we, I mean myself and two other guys. We are all in the same class, so we miss practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We missed the running that the other guys did, so we had to make it up today. It was good excersise though. :) Well, I'm headed to bed!

Grand Slam!

Church was very good this morning. Music went well except for the 2x speed on "In Christ Alone." haha I am continually growing in my understanding of scripture. It is a huge blessing. Pastor Tim challenges us to think... I love it! I had two baseball games today. I missed the first one because of church. The 2nd one, I started in left field. It went pretty well... I caught a fly ball or two, and threw a guy out going to 2nd base. There were too many errors, and the pitcher was getting hit a lot too, so they scored 11 runs in the first half of the game. Coach put me in to pitch for the last half of the game. God was very gracious. :) Only 1 run came in during that half of the game making it 2-12. They put in a new pitcher, and he was having some difficulty throwing strikes. He walked a couple people, and there were a couple base hits. It was 5-12 with the bases loaded by the time I got up to bat with 1 out. The first pitch was low for ball 1... the 2nd pitch was right down the middle inside... right wear I wanted it. So, what did I do? I let it go. Ugg! I hate when I let the perfect pitches go. Well, he gave me an even better pitch to hit the next pitch. I hit a hard line drive above the left fielder. At first, I thought it was going to go right to the left fielder, but as I was running toward first, I saw him going back, and then I saw him give up... so I started really watching the ball... and I couldn't believe it... it went over the fence and into some trees. I have never hit a home run before, no less a grand slam! God is so good to me! He deserves all of the glory for this! Last time I missed a game for church, several were wondering why I couldn't miss church for a baseball game. It was a great blessing to me that several of the guys asked me about how church was today--a good improvement over the last time. :) I am excited about what is doing on the baseball team. Still have a whole lot of work to do, but I have definitely seen progress... and I am very thankful for that. I think of people like Jim Elliot who didn't even get to see the fruits of his work for God, and it reminds me that when God allows me to see visible evidences of His work, I must embrace it whole-heartedly and continue what He has called me to do. I am also glad that my parents got to be there. They are such a wonderful blessing to me.