Update: long time coming

So, it's been over a month since I updated my blog. It's been busy, and I suppose I don't think of updating this as often as I should. It's been a good month, a good semester, and a good year. So much has changed in the past year. December 2008, God let me know I was coming to seminary and I moved here the first of August. It's all still new, but the routines are beginning to set in. I have completed my first semester and while not all my grades have been posted, I believe that by God's grace I did well in my first classes. He provided a job at Chick-fil-a that I am so thankful for. God recently allowed me to be promoted to Team Leader with its new opportunities and challenges. I am thankful for the new challenges, it reminds me how completely dependent I am upon His grace each day. I'm thankful for the friends God has given me and the many brothers and sisters I have met both at Chick-fil-a and at the Seminary at large. I am also thankful for God's provision over my needs. I didn't have a job when I moved here, but God gave me one within a week of arriving.

My God is one who hears and answers the prayers of His children. But beyond that, He is a Father who does what is right and good. The things I needed, He has always provided. I have always had more than enough of the things I need. Beyond that, He has provided good things beyond my basic needs. My apartment has heat, but not air conditioning. When I moved here in August, I decided not to purchase an air conditioner but to wait. I had an oscillating fan that kept the temperature bearable and a ceiling fan in the bedroom. Our radiator heat works more than adequately and I actually find it necessary to open the window to balance the heat. A couple weeks ago a friend had the opportunity to move out of his apartment down the hall from mine into a house with some friends. He left me his air conditioner. My oscillating fan stopped working the day he gave me the air conditioner. My parents came up for Christmas and have installed it. I have it set on fan right now and it works far better than the fan. I'm thankful that God knew the fan would stop working and had it happen on the day He also put it in my friend's mind to give me his air conditioner. Dad and Mom gave me a microwave and coffee maker for Christmas. These will make life so much easier and I am thankful that God has provided these luxuries. A stomach virus was going around a few weeks ago. Several of my friends had missed a day at work because of it. A couple weeks ago at work I began feeling really sick. I went to the bathroom and asked God to please allow me to feel better. That He knew I needed to be at work that night. I walked out of the bathroom and went back to work and didn't even remember that I hadn't felt well until I was driving home. How gracious of God to allow me to feel not just better but well that night.

Time after time God has provided for the things I have asked of Him and many times provided things that I didn't ask. I didn't ask God to provide an air conditioner or a microwave. These weren't things I had to have, yet in His kindness, He put it upon the hearts of people and gave me these things.

I feel it necessary in today's society to clarify this post. Jesus said not to worry about what we will eat or wear that our Heavenly Father who clothes the lilies of the field and feeds the birds of the air knows what we need before we need it and that He as our Father knows the needs of His children even before we ask. That doesn't mean people don't suffer and that at times a Christian may not be in physical need. The thing about it is that God is infinitely wiser that any human being and has a broader perspective than any of us can imagine. He sees every life as part of a grand tapestry of human history. Each of our lives as a stitch that does not escape His careful gaze. The Bible says that people don't live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. The apostle Paul speaks of having times of plenty and of times of need but that he learned through all of this that God's grace is sufficient and His strength made perfect in Paul's weakness. Is learning that God's grace is sufficient in all physical circumstances worth times of physical need. Yes! Because in the span of eternity with God that lesson is of far greater value than a day's meat and bread. Think of a child who wants to eat a large bowl of macaroni and cheese before bed. That child is very upset when the parents say no. Macaroni and cheese isn't bad for children, but perhaps the parents know it would sit too heavy in the child so late at night and perhaps the parents also know that the child is running a fever and that a virus is going around and the milk in the dish would probably make the child feel worse. These are beyond the child's understanding. They feel deprived of something good, but the parents understand that ultimately it would not be good for their child. In the same way the Triune God of the Universe cares enough to know when a bowl of mac & cheese is a bad idea even and especially when we don't. That being said, such things are far beyond my meager understanding. All that I know is that God is good and does good. He has met my needs and beyond each day and has taught me to trust in Him.

Happy New Year.