I am so thankful that God is working in my life. Even when I may not be able to see it. So many times in my life I worry about the things that I have no control over. It is like I think that if I worry about them enough I can change the outcome of the situation. I am so thankful that God works in my life even if I don't believe Him or trust Him like I should. I am so thankful that His care for me and how He provides for my needs is not so based on how much I do for Him, believe Him, or trust Him but it is based on who He is.
I am so thankful that God is extremely patient with me and knows that I will take a long time to grow up and become the man that He has made me to be. I am thankful that God is willing to work in my life to teach me to trust Him, love Him, and serve Him more everyday. I serve a great God and I am looking forward to all the great things that He will do.
God has been working on this in my life for quite a while now. He is still working on this and I find every day how much I fail in this area.
So many times my joy comes from how God has blessed me, how people treat me, how successful my fight against sin has gone, how I am doing financially. Basically anything to do with me. If everything doesn't go my way or how I want it to go I get discouraged. I tend to allow it to take my joy and make me a miserable person to be around.
God has been working in me that my life is not about me. And that true joy doesn't come from circumstance but from walking with God. From who God is and all that He has done for me. That true joy is not based on what is going on around me at the moment, but it should be on the fact that Christ has already won the victory and I am able to be a part of it.
I am so thankful that God is willing and does work on things like this in my life. That he is changing me and helping me to not rely on what is going on around me to find my joy. I am no where near where I should be but I am very thankful that God is slowly growing me in this area of my life.
I would just like to praise God for how good He has and is to me. It is so easy to see how good He is in the major events of my life like saving me. Loving me inspite of my failures and sin.
But in the last two days I saw how He cares about the little things that I worry about. He has taken care of me financially and has given me the work and money that I have needed to pay my bills for the past two years. I am so happy that He is still doing it today and I can trust Him with it all.
This past week He gave me three jobs that pulled me out of the hole and are giving me enough money to live on.
He gave me a pair of shoes yesterday that I really needed. I am so thankful that God takes care of even the littlest parts of my life.
I serve the Great God of Heaven. I look forward to seeing what He will do in and through my life today.
I just got back from a great trip to Italy. I was gone for two weeks. I will probably write some about the trip and how it went here over the next few days. But today I am just so happy to be home. It seems weird to me now to call here home in a way cause all of my family lives in PA. But over the past two years God has made Cumming, GA home for me.
I am so thankful to God that he has allowed me to come here to Vision to train to be a missionary on Pastor Gardner. I feel that this is where I belong right now more than anywhere in the world. I missed the church services every Sunday and Thursday. I love having so many friends around me here that just love God and want to serve him with their lives.
I don't know how to express how it all feels right now. But it is great to be home and around all people and church family that I love.
I thank God for all that he has given me and allowed me to be a part of. I would like to end this post with thanking God for Pastor Gardner and how he has affected me and caused me to want to serve God more. For Kathryn who is the greatest girl I know and who is a great spiritual encouragement For Scott who is one of my greatest and closest friends who has helped me to grow closer to God For God's Word that works in my life and changes me from the inside For Kyle who has been a great encouragement and roomate For Alex who is a good friend For a church that has a heart for God and for missions. For a God who loves me unconditionally and gave His Son to die for me and desires to have a close relationship with a worm like me.
Italy helped me to see better who great of A God I have and how privileged I am to live where I do with all that I have. The great friends, mentors, and spiritual influences in my life.
Where we were there was nothing. All there is in Italy it seems are a bunch of Catholic churches. Everywhere I would turn I would see one. It was like I was back in Morocco except instead of Mosques they were Catholic churches. I want more than ever to train here so that I might bring the gospel to a country like this.
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence."
I was reading in 'Explore the book' today and came across this passage of Scripture. I am so thankful that God uses the foolish, the weak, the base, the despised, and the nonentities! I definitely fit into these categories of people. I am so thankful that God wants to use me to bring glory to His name and I don't have to be anything of myself cause it is all of Him.
I am so thankful that God will be working in my life and it is not about me. I don't have to rely on my power, wisdom, money, etc. All God wants for me to do is rely completely on Him knowing that it is all of God, about God, and it is only God that can rely do the work.
I serve a great and awesome God. I am so thankful that despite my mess ups and failures He is willing to use me and work His will through me.
It has been a crazy weekend. Tomorrow morning I leave for Italy. Hopefully I will be able post some blogs while I am there and maybe some pics of what is going on.
I will be in Italy for 2 weeks and I will be able to see the place that I was born and where I spent the first 6 years of my life.
I will be at the airport tomorrow around 6 in the morning and I will fly into Italy around 10am on Wednesday.
