Date up

• I finished the first paper, and I took the midterm.

• The second paper is on its way to completion as I type.

I read another book this week prior to writing and studying...it was a Spirit-led thing.

Spring Break begins late this evening, after my paper has been submitted and my class ends. Reading will be heavy this break, but reading will not be my only activity. I have a bit of work I would like to get ahead in before I come back and it piles up. I will also spend time working on applications, preparing for a global trip at the beginning of the summer, and planning several schedules for myself. It's going to be another great week. I'm excited.

Until later,



When I hid, He sought after my life and
Wouldn't let me go astray to the eternal day of strife.
But that is what I sought when my sins hid His face from me;
I was gluttonous for the fruit of the Idol-tree.
Now I'm new, and I war against that hunger,
Which an inner law of sin employs to take back the Spirit's plunder.
But it won't succeed, for the sword of God is sharper,
His way is perfect in perfecting, shining brighter where its darker.

Update (wow)

An update, so soon, is quite a feat for me.

I finished Crazy Love, and the final portion (Part IV of audio set) was great. Chan highlights some saints who have walked fairly radically in the way of Christ; that is, though all walking in the way of Christ should look like Christ and therefore bear semblance to one another, all have not been given the same gifts of service and people to serve. These testimonies of God's faithfulness through the lives of these brothers and sisters is both encouraging (that God can do such with us) and cautionary (if God desires us to be obedient and submitted to His Spirit's guidance, which is best and wisest for us, then we ought to stop sinning and our walk should be like that of Christ Jesus). I would recommend the book; the book's second half was the better half.

One midterm Wednesday night
One paper due Wednesday night
One paper due Thursday night

=

Spring Break: relaxation, reading, and research

Listening

I'm now 4/5ths through with listening to Francis Chan's Crazy Love.


Some books I'm reading through or am planning to read through soon are:

1. The E-Myth Revisited (finishing today)
   
2. The Meaning of the Pentateuch (reading)
   
3. The Mission of God (reading)
   
4. It's Mom-and-Pop, Stupid (Spring Break)
   
5. Rich Dad, Poor Dad (old read, but revisiting some ideas) (Spring Break)
   
6. In Search of Excellence (Spring Break)
   
7. Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco (Spring Break)

Deciding upon a strict reading and listening plan is becoming more important as I grow more conscious of the time I can easily waste if I'm not careful. My hope is that greater knowledge will increase my understanding as well as ability to serve others more effectively (and with greater frequency).

Until later

Less than a month

Hey all,

Well my Saturday class is finished. Now, I'm at work on everything that I couldn't quite complete while that was going on...including work for other classes. I have one mid-term and two papers due this week, along with an application or two. I'm on track to be finished with all but the midterm by the end of the weekend (though I will have studied for it).

I've started listening to an audio series on Bibliology (study of the Bible...how it came to be, inspiration and authority, etc...). It's great.

I've also been listening to Crazy Love by Francis Chan (received free from Christian audio last year). There are some really good, challenging parts to it that force thinking biblically.

I'm reading a business-mindset book for a course in entrepreneurship (one of my papers pertains to the book's subject), and I have a slew of others on the docket. With my Spring Break coming up the week following this coming week, I believe I will attempt to finish three of them.

In regards to Scripture, I'm reading through Proverbs and memorizing Psalm 119.



I'll write more soon.

Whew....a month

Wow, it's been a month since my last post. Like I mentioned last time, I am writing my poems by hand at the moment, keeping them in a journal, and hoping to keep pace writing one each day for the year. I'm around 35 or so at the moment, and a few of them are in parts (one part each day for consecutive days). Time is a hard fact, and creating bubbles of time for dedicated writing in accord with prayerful thoughtfulness has been a struggle. My class schedule is for 12 credits this semester - one of those courses being a compressed course (and so more like 7 credits by itself, meaning the graduate academic load of 16 credits). The material is interesting, and class discussions are quite insightful. The course names are:

1. Research Methodology and Statistics,
2. International Marketing,
3. Seminar in Entrepreneurship, and
   
4. Leading Change

The first is the accelerated course, and I will complete it on February 20 (next Saturday) at which point my workload will decrease tremendously. I hope to take the time I gain from that completion and supply other productive outlets (theological reading and writing, poetry, summer and fall planning, teaching curriculum, etc.).

For those who didn't know, I began teaching Sunday school last weekend. Last week's session in our exploration of "Theology Proper" pertained to the "Oneness" of God. This week's lesson will focus on God being Spirit. Keep my preparation in prayer.


God bless,

New Addition

I have committed to write a poem a day for the year. I started a few days into the new year, but that's okay. The poem is usually written at night, and though a couple of time I have written in haste, I have always written with spiritual intent for my content. That all said, I will not be posting most of these poems online. Nevertheless, I am sure that other poems will be posted from time to time, as the Spirit leads me to write. Maybe you will join me in this year-long venture?

ABRIDGED Making much of God from 8-5 (From John Piper's: Don't waste your life, Chapter 8)

1. We can make much of God in our secular job through the fellowship that we enjoy with him throughout the day in all our work.

• “In whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.”
• “I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever” (Psalm 86:12).
• “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).
• “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27).
• “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (Psalm 32:8).

2. We make much of Christ in our secular work by the joyful, trusting, God-exalting design of our creativity and industry.

• “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Genesis 1:27-28).
• “Let the rivers clap their hands . . . the hills sing for joy . . . and the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 98:8; 19:1).
• “Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep” (Ecclesiastes 5:12).

3. We make much of Christ in our secular work when it confirms and enhances the portrait of Christ’s glory that people hear in the spoken Gospel.\

• “to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:9-10).
• “Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may live properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”
• “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23;
  cf. Ephesians 6:7).

4. We make much of Christ in our secular work by earning enough money to keep us from depending on others, while focusing on the helpfulness of our work rather than financial rewards.

• “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. . . . Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:25,
  32-33).
• “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
• “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain”
  (1 Corinthians 15:58).
• “Work with your hands . . . so that you may live properly
  before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12).
• “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you” (John 6:27).
• “those who buy [should buy] as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.”
• “I have food to eat that you do not know about. . . . My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:32-34).

5. We make much of Christ in our secular work by earning money with the desire to use our money to make others glad in God.

• “Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread” (Proverbs 12:11).
• “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
• “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
• “Don’t steal, work!”
• “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.”

6. We make much of Christ in our secular work by treating the web of relationships it creates as a gift of God to be loved by sharing the Gospel and by practical deeds of help.

• “The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life” (Proverbs 10:11).
• “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).
• “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).