December 18, 2005

When you finally get up the courage to try to do what God says, the way it works out can potentially blow you away.

Talking to others about God and doing His work can change your entire way of thinking, and how you view a day, a week, a year, or a lifetime.

Meeting for the first time with a group of brothers today, the outcome was extremely positive. The main focus of the group is that God comes first, and that Christian attitude and living is key. Having said that, I think made a large impact on how things went, and how things will continue to go in the future.

Talking to old friends about things will sometimes make you see the face of God just when you don't even expect to do it. This is surely recycled material, but again, like many things, it is beyond true. Talking to someone you've missed talking to for awhile can make all the difference in a day's mood. Feeling that they have missed your company as much as you've missed theirs makes a day much brighter, and God's love becomes all the more evident in that time.

It's also evident how much the devil wants to pull me out of the good things that are starting. The best example I have is basically, when I finally escape the old, spiritually unnurturing job, and put in a two-weeks notice, I have actually been scheduled for more hours than any time in the last month I worked there. I am being tempted to return for the money it would offer, and the confidence of being able to pay bills, as opposed to spiritual growth.

I feel that resisting temptation is manifesting itself in my life heavily right now. I think that God is trying to make it evident that I DO need Him to get past all of it, too.

It's starting to become very clear.

He's gotten me to the point where everyday, I can think of more reasons than can be counted that it's amazing to be in this life, and moreover, in this life for Him. The reasons for joy always outweigh the reasoning of doubt or fear. In God, I can always see a positive outcome, and something that is, in the end, the best for my life, and for His plan of things. Encouragment through Him is something I think many of us sometimes forget or take for granted, and I think recognizing it as how amazing it is, truly, is something we should always stop to be thankful for.

Is any song, short of blasphemy, not of God? Is any art not a work of God Himself? Is any truth not part of the truth of God? Is there anything we can do that is not, in some way, be it a love song or impressionist art, that is God?