School is almost done!

I can't believe that it's been over two weeks since Thanksgiving. Time flies when you are having fun... or having finals. ;) I can't say enough how amazing it is that God brings me through some of this stuff. Sometimes there is too much to do for the little bit of time that I have, but somehow, God makes a way for it to get done. He blessed me with 100% on my software engineering final. He blessed me with a C in discrete math. Yes, that blessing was a painful and humbling one to accept, but He knows what is best. I almost didn't get to take that class at all, so even though I had to learn it on my own and the teacher didn't fully understand it, I am extremely thankful that I had the opportunity to do it. God is good! I have yet to receive my other grades, but I think they are pretty decent. :) I have one last final next Thursday in Linear Algebra, but that one shouldn't be too bad. A day without school today was absolutely wonderful. I actually got to spend some more time in the Word. I was able to spend time learning things that I want to learn rather than things I have to learn. Don't get me wrong, school is important and challenging. We will not always get to do what we want to do, and it is important to learn how to do well in the things we don't really like to do. All the same, it was refreshing to not have that for a day. :) This seems like a rather empty post, so I must include a little of what I am learning in James 4:1-7.

What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"? But He gives a greater grace Therefore it says, "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Submit therefore to God Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

There are so many things that we want. Let's be honest here... we are naturally very self-centered people. Yes, we aren't committing murder (at least I hope we aren't), but we are full of self-centered living. We generally don't ask Him for things that we know He wouldn't give us, so we try to use our own ways to get those things. If we have the guts to ask Him, we already know that it isn't what He has in mind for us. We simply can't desire the pleasures of the world and live for God at the same time. In all this, it is an unbelievable blessing that He chooses to give us grace. I am thankful for that C, because I am prone to be proud. It serves as a reminder to me that He is in control of everything. That 100% is His; that C is His. The results belong to Him. God is opposed to the proud, and I am thankful that He blessed me with a C in order to keep me humble. He is good!