Dissapointed Hopes

It seems like life is really terrible for me right now. I guess when I really look at things they aren't the worst that they could be, but I still am in a state of uncertainty. Maybe that's you. Maybe it's not. All I know is that no matter what happens God is in control. Last night I had a dream that I was walking along, and then caught in a net and taken. The real fear that hit me hard was the fact that someday we will all have to appear before the judgement seat of God. We may be able to hide all the bad things that we have done from everyone else, but we cannot hide them from God. Which ties into the events that have happened to me in these last two days. The reality that we are walking on a thin sheet of ice over either eternal life or, eternal death is really something to contemplate. Most definately I want to have Jesus as Lord and Savior of my life. There is no time when it is more important to make that choice than right now friend. You see, right now may be all that you have, so please choose to let Jesus be Lord and Savior of your life, He promises that He will recieve you with open arms if you will just let Him into your heart. Lately God has been working with me on being honest with Him. He wants me to tell Him the truth about what has been going on in my life, and I believe that its the same way for you the reader. He wants to be apart of your life right now, but if you will not let Him, then you will miss out on all the great things that He has in store for you. Like Joshua, choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I believe that it has never been more important, and as the time of the end escalates, I am faced with the ever increasing reality that someday soon, everything that we have on this earth is going to meet it's firey end. There are no exceptions, if we hold onto something that we think is "fun" that God does not want us to have, then we are keeping Him at a distance from us, and that is not what He wants. Many of us are so satisfied with the life that we live and are content and distracted by the things that present themselves to us. For example, I got caught playing computer games all night, and then the computer errored up, so I went to bed. God wants honesty, and He can't get it until we are honest with Him. When we are dishonest with God it causes confusion in our relationship with Him. In Isaiah 29:10-13 we read: "10 The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep:
He has sealed your eyes (the prophets
he has covered your heads (the seers).
For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I can't; it is sealed." Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I don't know how to read." The Lord says:
"These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.



God wants us to be honest with Him, otherwise the Bible will be to us like a sealed book. We will never come to know the author and finisher of our faith until we are honest with Him about how we feel and our situation. This is how we connect with God, then we can be ready for His advice and instruction in the way that we should go. We need to be humble and teachable, and we all are capable of that, there is no excuse, it just may take some longer than others. I know this to be the case for myself especially, it takes me a long time to come to that place and a lot of discipline from the Lord, because I am a stubborn human, but please know that the Lord loves us, and that is why He disciplines us. In Hebrews 12 Paul Says:

"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Prayer is not the "easy button"

Well Im truly exhausted right now. I just got done unloading a container and it was very hard work. I had two friends to help me so it was not as hard as it could have been. As I arrived at the place where we were supposed to unload the container my friends had already gotten a head start. Walking up to into the container I quickly joined in and began to pick up the heavy bales of clothing. Each bale was surrounded by a plastic wrapping and then banded together by a bailer. The cylindrical tumblers ranged in size from about 100 to 115 lbs. As we continued to unload the bales from off of the skid I began to get a little winded. The heat was not excruciating but the tight space and the closeness made things a little more than stuffy. Some bales were grabbed and stacked on the bottom of the container and the rest that were on the top took two people. As time went one, I began to get so tired that I decided to pray. I asked God for supernatural strength, but my friend suggested that I ask for supernatural endurance. So I asked for both, then my brother said that I should ask for supernatural wisdom in order to try and bring me back down to earth. I would have none of that and decided that I was going to watch God prove my brother wrong, but that is not what happened at all. At first I could feel a burst of energy and strength, but as time went on, my arms began to tire and then my energy dropped. By the time we got the container about completed, I found myself taking a small break to recover from the lack of energy I was experiencing. This is not supposed to happen! I thought. I was sure that when I asked God for something that He would give it to me, but that is not what ended up happening. Instead I found myself exhausted and barely able to finish. Sometimes its easy for me to wish for that easy button that you see on those tv commercials. I guess thats what I thought prayer was. A simple push of the prayer button andBlamo! The container is filled and the work is done, but that is not how things work. I dont use prayer to make life easy. I pray to be able to make it through life and to get to know Jesus as a friend. In John 16:33 Jesus says:

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Don't be afraid?

Ok,

so where do I begin, I really don't know where, except to say that right now my life is in mid air. I am working on growing and learning. Last Sabbath our pastor gave a sermon on how it is important to know Jesus and to rely only on Him. I believe that in this day in age when fear is raging that it is important to trust in the only one who holds tommorow, or so I thought. That's the crazy part about it! Sabbath I learned that I can still be jealous and selfish, and sunday I learned that I have problems with managing my time. These are things that I thought I had worked out... oh, and that fear of thunderstorms I have always had still is in my life. Last night was a perfect example of that. I went to bed and was awoken, by a huge clap of thunder. I got up to hear rain pelting the side of the window and leaking through our roof falling on the TV. In my mind I could remembered the words of the Pastor, that it is important to trust in God, but for some reason, I could seem to grasp on, and the storm seemed to get worse. Finally I found myself regressing back to an old pattern of behavior that I seem to have and hiding in the basement. While in the basement my eyes caught a book that was up on a top shelf with cob-webs on it. I opened it up and began to read. The book turned out to be a devotional, and had to do with fear. The devotional was by H.M.S. Richards and it talked about how, even when the sun is behind the clouds and life does not seem to be working out the greatest, we need to hold onto our faith in God. "Hold on!?" I thought "Hold on when life seems to be falling apart around me, when I don't know if I'll ever get back to college to continue my life, when I'm unsure if I'm even going to be in the Kingdom, when my mind is driving me crazy and I can't seem to make sense of my thoughts, when my rebelious heart keeps pulling me away from God, when I could die the next second. The devotional for the day ended with a talk about Martain Luther and his death. Martin Luther woke up terrified one night and was afraid that he was going to die, and went into a depression for a while. After a while, a friend came to see him and asked him if he still had faith in God. Martin gasped out a faint "Yes I do" and then fell asleep in Jesus. Faith was what got him through. Then the devotional ended, and fear still held on, but somehow a thought began to repeat in my mind, "I need to have faith in God even when things are not turning out the way that I want them to, even when it is unsure if I will go to college, even when my mind is driving me crazy and I can't seem to make sense of my thoughts, even when I am not sure if I will even be in the Kingdom of Heaven, even when I am afraid that I am going to die, I need to hold onto faith in God. Maybe it's the same way with you, maybe your life is uncertain and you aren't sure what's going to happen to you next. Please have faith in God, ask for faith, pray for it, the Lord will give it to you, He never turns down anyone who comes to Him. Don't worry about how bad your life may have been up to this point, have faith! Have FAITH when life is uncertain because God is not uncertain!!!!!!!! HAVE FAITH IN JESUS:)

Confused

Hi everyone:)

I can oficially say that I am confused again. Of course confusion has been part of my life for the longest time. The interesting part about this is that I realize that God is never confused, so I am sure that He is working on a way to get me out of this situation right now as I type. I guess it just seems like things are being torn in every direction. My very identity is being pulled apart, and it is a very painful process. Today has just been one of those days where I am going to hold onto God's hand and hope:)

Not the Most Exciting Thing in the World

Well, it's a new fact that I'm going to be staying home for the semester instead of going to college. I sometimes wish that life would go better, but it doesn't always do that. I realize that there will be no more expanding my mind at an incredible rate anymore, because I will not be in an environment to do that, but maybe I can expand my muscles. In my mind I am tempted to feel a little like a failure, but I realize that there are lots of people who are in the same boat. You know, the kind with holes in every part of it, that is sinking filling with white foaming water from the waves all around. The only thing is, Jesus is in that same boat. He is with us when life is sinking into uncertainty and knows what is ultimately best for us in the end. Even though I do not like the idea of staying home for a semester, I realize that it is all part of God's refining process in my life. But enough about me, what about you? How about your life? Are there things going on in your life that make you feel like you are going to sink into oblivion? If that is the case, please cry out to Jesus for help, and He has promises He will come to your aid.

What will you do for Him?

When you ask God to show you areas that need working on, be prepared for Him to do it. Yesterday was an incredible experience. That morning I was thinking to myself, "if God wants me to work on areas in my life, he would have someone talk to me about it. Well, that is exactly what happened yesterday. I got a real reality check, as I helped the mechanic at our company. I decided to talk to him about legalism, and it turned out that he told me about a major problem in Christianity today, and that is that people are talking the talk, but not walking the walk. I talked to him about how I was just going to... well... relax on Sabbath. His reply caught me off guard because he said "Did Jesus relax on Sabbath?" As I thought about that question I realized that He did not, He was helping other people and doing good. What an idea! To be honest it makes selfish me a little uncomfortable, but that is what God calls us to do. He calls us to be witnesses for Him and to help those in need, to share ourselves with others.

Get rid of the facts and give me the TRUTH!

For some reason I find myself getting so caught up in trying to do everything right so that I can go to heaven, while I totally miss the real truth: The only way we are going to get to heaven is by faith in Jesus and His sacrifice for us. I guess that's what it boils down to. Last night I sat in the kitchen with my cell phone on the table, and as I began to wonder about why things were so miserable for me, a thought came to my mind. "Brandon, I don't want the things you have, I want you!" As I layed down to go to sleep that night, the real truth came down hard and began to press upon my mind the importance of knowing Jesus as a personal friend, otherwise, all I am doing is trying to follow the rules so that I can get to heaven (which never ever works.) See the story of the rich young ruler to find out for yourself. That man wanted to follow Jesus, but He had no real relationship with him, so when God asked him to give his things up, he turned away. With men following God is impossible, BUT WITH GOD, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. :)

A Day With a New Lesson

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Yesterday was an incredible day! It was one of those days that started out like it was going to be a monotonous one, but ended up being an awesome display of the power of God. He is concerned with our problems and things that concern us everyday. So today I would like to write about that experience.

The day started out like most days with the sun peaking it's head above the horizaon shooting rays of orange onto everything in its sight. I lazily rolled myself off the bed and walked slowly toward the family room, where an ice cold leather couch awaited me. However, this custom was not to be as I noticed my little sister sitting watching cartoons. "Oh well," I thought. "I guess I'll just go back where I came from and read there." When I got back into the room, I grabbed the Bible and the My Utmost for His Highest book, that was laying on the desk and started to read. The story out of the Bible that I read was about Jacob, Joseph and his two sons: Ephriam, and Mannaseh. In the My Utmost for His Highest book, I read about how people like to see in other people the image of them they have in their mind, but instead, they should look at people as God does. The interesting part was, that Joseph was doing this when he wanted his firstborn son to be blessed more than his second born. Jacob however, looked at people out of God's eyes and not out of the image that he had of who the person was. After reading worship, I went upstairs to look at the mess in my room. I could barely get the door open. Piles and piles of clothes filled my room; like a vast mountian range of things as high as the bed. To say I cleaned my room, would not be true, because it would take me more than 20 years to clean that mess! Ok, so I might be exagerating just a little, but you get the idea. After that, I moved back down to my brother's room and asked what we were going to do. The suggestion that day was that we go and help someone out. When we did, we ended up sitting around watching tv at their house and enjoying recees peanut buttercups and gateraid. After a wonderful meal we headed to our next house to continue our campaign for good, after not doing anything there either we went to the lake, where our dad was waiting for us, with the boat in the water. Now, at this point, in my mind, I wanted nothing to do with the water, or anything it had to offer. Instead, I wanted to sit back and relax on one of our two hammocks that overlooked the lake. However, after much coaxing by my dad, I finally submitted to the idea of getting in the boat, and I must say I was not the happiest on the inside. I quickly went up to the front of the boat, past the driver seat and sat in the seats that were at the tip of the boat. Grabbing onto the medal railings that were on either side, I held on with a pretty tight grip, as the boat started to speed up. My day was totally boring, I thought! Still thinking, I thought: Why does it seem that all the exciting things happen to me when I am in TN? Oh, well, another day down the drain! As we moved along, we passed a speed boat, with some police men in it, and continued on drifting down the lake. The wind blew in my face creating a rushing sound that drown out all other noises, and all I could hear was the occasional yelling behind me, because it is so loud. After we got down near the dam, toward the end of the lake, we pulled into a little inlet. As we boated our way down the inlet, we reduced speed to idle, and drifted quietly down the inlet commenting on the nice housing, and making suggestions where we could about the houses. The clouds were drifting along in an ocean of sun-tinted blue and there was a slight breeze. The radio played 80's music in the background. After drifting a ways, we decided to turn around. As we went to leave the outlet, there was a decision made to go for one last swim. So the boat was shut off and my brother threw himself into the water with his back hitting it first sending water in every direction. Pretty soon, it was time to move on, and so my brother got back into the boat. After he got into the boat, the key was turned one the engine, but... nothing happened! "Yes!" I thought to myself, "Finally some fun! Thanks God:)" (As we had been driving I talked to God and told Him how I was feeling.) As the boat sat stranded at the other end of the lake, I suggested we say a prayer. So we prayed, and not three minutes later the police boat that we passed came drifitng up, so I quickly flagged them down, and in no time we were on our way back to a marina, where we could get the battery replaced.

That day taught me an important lesson, and that is, that we should not always look at God the way we think that He is, because He is soo much different than we are, and it is exciting to know that we can't predict Him. He has shown us His character in His word, but that is as far as we can for sure know. God is an awesome friend, and like our relationship with people we can sometimes judge God by our ideas about Him, but this is not the case, He is soo incredible that we will be learning about His love through eternity. We will never truly know everything about God, and I think that is sooo awesome:)