On Saturday my friend/boss and I came to work at 8pm and took the girls to a town about 1.5 hours away to have New Years Eve with a family and church that are sponsors for our program. The girls had a lot of fun. We hung out all day together the next day at the sponsor family's house. This week I took a lot of doctor runs and organized a lot in the office on campus. I am taking over more responsibility in the office due to the fact that the woman I am "c0-office managers" with is stretched too thin due in part to the fact that she is PREGNANTTTT!!!! WOOOO! She and her husband are both staff in the "troubled teen" programs--he works with the boys and she works with the girls. I am excited about this increase in responsibility. I am organizing all the medical files right now.
Last week on Saturday I fasted all day and prayed and read and prayed. It was really, really good. A Hunger for God by John Piper is SUCH a good book about fasting. I am learning that only God can satisfy and that He is a far superior comforter than anything. A women's Bible study I was listening to today from The Village Church called "Enduring Trials" said the following: (paraphrased) Webster's Dictionary defines "joy" as the feeling evoked with the prospect of possessing what one desires. We, as Christians, desire fellowship with God above all else. Therefore, we can have joy in trials NOT because we enjoy pain but because God, through trials, is inviting us into a deep, deep fellowship with Himself.
I got the "Leaders" package of Logos Bible Software for my birthday!!!!! Yes, my birthday IS still 3 weeks away, but it was on sale so I have it now. I'm SUPER excited about this. I have been wanting to get it for as long as I have been aware of it (so about 2-3 years).
I feel very content in the fact that this time is a time of fasting for me from things/people that are good gifts given by God in order that I might prize Him and allow Him to develop in me a DEEP faith that He is Good and that He is indeed the author and perfecter of that faith. In A Hunger for God, Piper mentions Romans 14 in reference to whether or not fasting is a Christian practice but the verse that stuck out to me was verse 4. "Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master1 that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand." I LOVEEEEEE THAT! We WILL be upheld, NOT because I am great or because I am able but because the Lord is able to make me stand. The fact that the ESV states "upheld" is an amazing picture, too. I see Jesus holding me up, not me standing by myself--I/we are entirely dependent on Him.
ALSO, the idea of being "satisfied" in Christ is an interesting one because the more deeply I know Jesus, the more and more and more and more I want of Him. I am never satisfied to the point of being full of Him and not wanting any more BUT I AM/can be satisfied to the extent that I don't really want the crappy substitutes I chase after. That last concept, of tasting the real thing and not wanting the nasty fake stuff is the same thing I have found with food--the more I refrain from eating crappy fake nastiness, and the more I have real food, the less I wantttt the fake nasty crappiness. Ok, I am off that soapbox now, back to Jesus--the more I know Christ, the more I want Him and the less I want substitutes. (None of this is to say that I have stopped running to my substitutes [aka idols] but it is to say that they don't satisfy like they used to and I generally feel more free to resist them than I have before.)
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