And say to the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the LORD, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt.” Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall not eat just one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the LORD who is among you and have wept before him, saying, “Why did we come out of Egypt?”’”
Hey Daniel, I just got an offer from the job I interviewed for. My parents will be really relieved that it all worked out.
Wow, everything is so new but it's kind of exciting. I still don't believe you when you say that in a year things will start to click.
Really, you guys meet together to pray for our co-workers. Yeah, I would love to join you guys for your prayer meetings.
When will things become routine. Routine is good. I optimistically await the day when everything becomes routine. I don't know how to do anything now.
That was THE most amazing opportunity. The words all came so naturally and it sounded so...right. Thank you God. If I could have opportunities like that, then that would be enough for me.
Bible study on Wednesdays? Sure, I've been looking for one. Your pastor sounds like a really rock solid guy.
Just when I thought things were getting easier, I totally mess things up. It's only by God's grace that I haven't been fired. Wow, this is the first time I've ever taken part in helping someone accept Christ. When I was told there was good news I was thinking "cookie?".
Starting from now on we'll call ourselves sojourners.
You guys were right. Things are easier now.
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Lessons that have been some of the most painful, blessings that I could never imagine, and a sovereign God who uses them all for His glory. I started work a year ago this day. I can't say I knew what to expect nor can I say that I was actually prepared and as I reflect back to where I started and how I ended up here I don't think I stand all that more enlightened. But as with most reflection the how and the why bow to the what. I don't know how everything happened the way it happened nor is my biggest concern why exactly God ordained for the events to unfold the way they did. As I look back, my focus is primarily on what I learned from the circumstances God saw fit to grace my life with (not to say that His purpose means nothing to me but rather that what has shaped me isn't the why exactly but the knowledge of His good purpose and the lessons He used to bring it about). At times life was hard, very, very hard and I wanted to cry. Other times things ended up working out as the blessings poured out. Friends, I suppose I could bore you with the innumerable lessons that I learned through both clear teaching and hard chastening but there is so much more worth in living them out in my daily life instead. As I look forward from here, I hope to be able to say these same things a year from now, that I was able to grow so that the life I live now would seem as child's play to the life I will live. If you would, however, like to inquire first hand, it would be my pleasure to reflect over lunch/dinner.
The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men." So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded.
What strikes me in this passage is how matter of fact Ezekiel approached his business. God told him how he was to react to the death of his wife. Her death and his response is summed up in a single sentence: she died and he obeyed. Reading this, one of two things must be concluded: either this man was incredibly cold, able to harden his heart against the natural emotions of grief, sadness, and the like, or that this man's heart was buried underneath layers of what went unwritten.
We find our biggest clue in God's description of her. She was the delight of his eyes. He loved her dearly. Perhaps we can imagine why she was so dear to him. Throughout all his ministry she was his biggest supporter. He could confide in her anything, even the things that were most unpleasant. Perhaps he could bear some of the harshest judgments God would have him pronounce because she was there by his side encouraging him to remain steadfast. A proverbs 31 woman...maybe, it's hard to say but this is what I'd imagine.
Knowing that she meant so much to him and that God had to order him not to grieve outwardly, we find here not an incredibly cold man but an incredibly humble one. Against any natural human inclination he, without repine and without anger, simply obeyed. Not to say that Ezekiel was able to bury her with a smile but that although his grief was immense he could not complain about the blessing God gave him in the years that he was able to spend with her and that, like Job, he must accept the joyous with the heart wrenching as part of God's good and perfect sovereign will.
As I think about all the things that I could theoretically complain about, my unmet expectations, my own personal failings, the experiences in life that leave me incredibly confused and incredibly helpless, I find too much me me me. Life is not about me (the motto of some pastor somewhere) and it's true. Life is about God glorified. Job. Ezekiel. Paul. Jesus. They all knew it and they all lived it. I know it, will I live it? Dear xanga reader, dear friend, you know it, will you live it?
I was thirteen years old when I first heard the word homosexual. I heard it on the radio during a lunchtime news report while staying at my grandparents' home. Paul Harvey simply used the word in the course of his reporting. As a thirteen-year-old boy, I didn't know what a homosexual was, and my curiosity was immediately aroused.
After lunch, I asked my grandfather, a kind and generous--hearted man--but a man of few words--to tell me what a homosexual was. He responded, 'Boy, if you ever use that word again, you won't sit down for a week--you understand me?' "
-Albert Mohler
And I found this downright profound:
We have to be the people who, because we are possessed by a passion to see God's glory in his creation, love homosexuals more than they love their sin. This means that our love has to be tenacious. This will also require that we come to know and establish relationships with those struggilng with homosexuality. Armed with an awareness of both the problem and God's provision, we have no right to believe that homosexuals are beyond the grace of God or that any individual is beyond the hope of redemption and transformation. Every sinner loves his sin, but the church must love sinners more than sinners love their sinfulness. This is precisely how Christ has loved us, and we must love other sinners even as Christ has loved us.
