Taking pictures 

Joel

What I'm doing these days.

Has anyone ever taken care of 2 young cats? These guys are so hilarious! Maybe it comes from being named after Japanese food, I don't know. I think these two have got to be two of the friendliest cats in the world. They are there to greet me when I get home and spend a lot of time purring around my feet. Except for Sushi maybe, who spends an inordinate amount of time trying to get out the door when it's open and my hands are full. Verbal commands are to no avail with these guys. They seem to regard me as a sort of warm couch if I sit anywhere for more than five minutes and flake out in some pretty wierd positions. They like to play. Aggressively. And they like to knock stuff over and play with the placemats on the floor. Poor placemats.

There hasn't been much going on at work this week. Except in the office. Where I've been working. Minor panic while we try to close a work order for a plane that seems to have been around forever. A lot of legalese. Yep. If an opening came in aviation law, I might consider applying. I won't bore you with the details. To tell the truth, it sorta bores me too, only that I enjoy doing the research. Any openings for researchers? Can you make money doing that? Maybe I could do that part-time at school this year.

The parents have been at camp this week and Amy has been down south getting stuff done. And I've been here by myself getting stuff done. Yep, actually getting stuff done. Except for now, while I'm writing this blog. But I've really wanted to blog for awhile and haven't had the chance so I'm taking the opportunity while I have a day off. I think I'm gonna tidy up the office today. Sort some stuff. Do some work on the Sidekick and try to get the thing certified. It will be nice to get rid of that headache for sure.

So what's going on with my head? Sometimes I still feel mixed up and wonder if I'm doing the right thing. I wonder if it's possible for the truth to be hidden from my mind until some later date when I "wake up" and say, "How stupid I was. I should have seen the truth all along." And then have to apologize for all the mistakes I made. That sort of thing has happened in the past but I think there's a difference between now and then. At this point I'm seeking the truth with my whole heart and asking the Lord for step-by-step guidance, when before it was all pride, pride, pride. It just doesn't seem to be in the Lord's character to hide truth from those who are seeking it just so He can pull a rabbit out of a hat later and display it to our confused lives. What really confuses me is how separate parties can claim to be seeking truth and come up with different results of what the truth is on a particular issue. At the moment, I feel that to subscribe to anyone elses version of the truth and to trust them, be they authorities or not, would be to put myself in bondage, and that seems to be a far worse situation than to be at odds with another.

Some things I've been reading from the book "Waking the Dead" by John Eldredge.

The commonsense life, which, as Oswald Chambers warned, can be the enemy of the supernatural life. Many of the ministries and churches I've known made their decisions by principles and expedience. We have our morals and we have our precepts, but where is the living God? How will we hear him call us out of Ur, lead us to our own promised land, bring us through our own Calvary? Putting all our confidence in human reason was naive, and it left us in a very dangerous position. The only way out of this mess is to turn to your Guide, our Captain, to learn to walk with God.

Any "word" or suggestion that brings discouragement, condemnation, accusation--that is not from God. Neither is confusion, nor any counsel that would lead you to disobey what you do know. Reject it all, and carry on in your journey. Yes, of course, God needs to convict us of sin, warn us of wrong movements in the soul, discipline us for our own good--but the voice of God is never condemning (Rom 8:1), never harsh or accusing. His conviction brings a desire for repentance; Satan's accusation kills our hearts (2 Cor. 7:10)

Look to those who have walked with God down through the ages. Certainly, that is why the Bible is given to us. If God had intended it to be a textbook of doctrine, well, then, he would have written it like one. Oh, yes, we learn many crucial things about doctrine and Christian character in the Scripture, along with a great deal of wisdom. But if you'll flip from cover to cover, you'll notice that it's overwhelmingly a book of stories--tales of men and women who walked with God. Approach the Scriptures not so much as a manual of Christian principles but as the testimony of God's friends on what it means to walk with him through a thousand different episodes.

After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life. But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus' brothers said to him, "You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world." For even his own brothers did not believe in him.

I think we can relate to that Did your family believe in you? Some did--but far too many more believe in the person they wanted you to be. Did they even notice your heart at all? Have they been thrilled in your choices, or has their disappointment made it clear that you just aren't what you're supposed to be? At another point in his ministry, Jesus' family show up to collect him. "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you" (Luke 8:20). They think he's lost it, and they've come to bring him home, poor man.

Ya, so that's what I've been thinking and doing at the moment. A bit of a long read I understand, but I guess this is more for me anyway.