Scholarshipping

Look at that word up there, it's so WEIRD looking. So is the actually thing it implies. Yesterday I spent a long time checking out scholarships and writing essays to apply for them. I read a fitting verse for the subject...

"The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true."  

~Ecclesiastes 12:10

That's exactly what I'm going for--to search for just the right words and write what is upright and true. Hopefully it will get me some school money to be a teacher :) If yall could put some prayers into my word choices it would be much appreciated ;)

Oh, and a side note. The other night I was reading my Bible and the Bird was asleep in her bed. She starts to whimper and roll around, kinda waking up Usually I just freeze and wait for her to go back to sleep, but that night I felt like I should climb over to her bed and tell her to go back to sleep. That's when I notice a rubberband wrapped REALLY tight around her finger, which was starting to turn reddish-purple. Whew! I said a thanks to Jesus for telling me to fix it, and gave the already-asleep Bird a speech on what is a beautiful ring and what is decidedly not.

Walking With the LORD

It has recently been brought to my attention through several different people, events, circumstances, etc. that, well, walking with God is the best thing ever.

Of course I already knew walking with God was basically the epitome of Christianity--if you are a child of God, you walk in His steps. But just recently the full magnitude of what it means to be in the LORD has hit me like never before. If you are truly in Christ, you are constantly checking with Him. Your decisions are all based off of what He wants. In fact, the only thing you want is to do what He wants! It is very liberating to just throw everything over to a God who loves you. I can't figure out why I continue to think things will be better if I worry over my little problems myself. When the little things are in God's hands, they don't seem like such a big deal after all.

And the best thing about being in the center of God's will? You can't mess up! Whoa! Obviously it's not a "Oh, I got in God's will and now I can do whatever and nothing go wrong" thing. It reminds me of the Ultimate Balance Test on Wii Fit. On said test, you must stand on the board and keep your center of balance at 50/50 for 3 seconds. HARD man! As soon as you're in, you're out! You have to chase it down, to keep figuring out how to get in there and keep it there. It's the same way with walking in God's will. You can't do any one thing and be "in the club". It's a constant process. Most of the time walking WITH God means quite a bit of time running BEHIND God, yelling, "Hey, wait up!" :P

But you know what's awesome about staying in God's will and walking with Him? It's fun most of the time, at least for me. The more I study and read and pray, the more I know about the characteristics of my Savior and all the different things He likes. And THAT is cool stuff.

Neither

Remember when Joshua and the Israelites were FINALLY getting to go into the promised land? They'd crossed through the Jordan river on dry land, eaten some of the fruit of the land, and are getting pretty excited. But the bad guys that they were scared of in the first place are still out there. They need to be defeated. So on this particular day, Joshua was standing near Jericho. It was the first place to go. I'm sure he was kinda counting fighting men in his mind, thinking up tentative schemes on how to get over those walls and defeat those people. But then he looks up and sees a man with a drawn sword in front of him. Had to be a wee bit disturbing. He asked the man, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"

Listen to what the answer was! "Neither, but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come."

Now we all know that the man proceeded to give directions about how to march around Jericho and the walls would fall down, etc. But what really grabbed me this time was that the man said, "Neither". He said he wasn't on the side of Joshua, or of Jericho! It seems he would say, "your side", especially when he was there just to give specific directions on how to defeat Jericho. Anybody agree?

And now here is my thinking. My simple guess is that Joshua NEVER thought, "Hey, hows about we march around these walls blowing trumpets for seven days these certain number of times, and the walls will fall down and we win!" My guess is that he was shopping around for grappling hooks or big ladders or bombs or whatever would come in handy. He was making his own plan. But whatever he was thinking, it is safe to assume that his plan was NOT what God's plan was. So God was basically saying, "I'm not for your plan, or their plan--check out MY plan for YOU!"

These are just my thoughts of the last 20 hours or so. Don't know if I communicated them to make any sense or not.

But God's plan always prevails. Bring it LORD! Not my plan, but yours be done!

Operation Babysit

Today I am facing an adventure. I am babysitting an active, fun, typical four-year-old boy who loves to fun and play for the afternoon. The only problem is... my leg is VERRRRRRY stiff today, and I can barely walk, much less run! I'll need to find something we can do while sitting down... hmmm....

Then Lucy and I babysit about five kids for our church tonight. I don't expect any problems, but this is the first time, and ya never know what will happen when you get a bunch of toddlers together!

Plus school. Ugh. All of a sudden I stink at school. Or at least on this one test I'm working on. It makes no sense that it's so hard all of a sudden, and that has me confused as much as the test.

This is my verse for the day:

"But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded."

~ 2 Chronicles 15:6-8

Please pray that the Spirit of God (and maybe the spirit or gusto of caffeine) would be on me today!!!