Imperishable Inheritance

I don’t write many posts that are “per­sonal” in nature. That being, that I talk about myself and what is going on; but a lot has been going on, and I would like to run down the recent events in my life. He is show­ing me a lot in my min­istry, relationship/friendships, school, and the like. It’s time to start listening.

Sum­mer Project

It looks as though I will not be able to attend the sum­mer project I planned on attend­ing. I am cur­rently over $1,500 short, and I am sched­uled to leave on the 9^th of next month. This is a rather hard pill to swal­low, because I thought that it was where God wanted me to be this sum­mer. He opened doors I thought were inop­er­a­ble, most notice­ably that of my work let­ting me off for two months.

I feel very embar­rassed and ashamed that I will not be able to go. I hate telling peo­ple I was going to do one thing and then do another, but these feel­ings are all based around my self­ish pride. Maybe I truly wasn’t sup­pose to be there. The ques­tion now is what do I do with the sup­port I’ve already gath­ered, what do I do with work, and what do I do with my ministry?

“But seek first His king­dom and His right­eous­ness, and all these things will be added to you.“
Matthew 6:33

The Girl­friend

I’ve been dat­ing Stephanie since early this month, and I have learned so much in such a short amount of time. In being the first rela­tion­ship since I’ve become a believer, I’ve learned so much on what I am not sup­pose to do. I strug­gle right now with the direc­tion it should go. It is quite obvi­ous my spir­i­tu­al­ity and her “spir­i­tu­al­ity” do not mesh. It’s not a mat­ter of know­ing the right path/decision but actu­ally doing it.

There is this strug­gle, because I really like her; but deci­sions again made on emo­tions are less than reli­able. It’s no won­der I am from the reformed tra­di­tion and it’s dis­trust of emo­tion. We’ll see how that pro­gresses; it’ll be espe­cially inter­est­ing, because I won’t be going on project like orig­i­nally planned.

“But seek first His king­dom and His right­eous­ness, and all these things will be added to you.“
Matthew 6:33

Min­istry

I’m fin­ish­ing up my year of min­istry in Cru­sade. I spent a year search­ing and now a year in min­istry. I have learned so much, and I am so grate­ful for the peo­ple that I’ve been around that have been so patient with me. Bridges has been such an incred­i­ble expe­ri­ence. It has molded the way I see evan­ge­lism and work­ing with other believ­ers to ful­fill that command.

I don’t plan on being overly involved in Cru­sade next year. I have already made my inten­tion known that I will not be return­ing to min­istry in Bridges next year, I don’t plan on reg­u­larly attend­ing a Cru­sade Bible study, and I won’t be able to attend Real Life all fall quar­ter due to a class. It’s not that I want to cut Cru­sade and the peo­ple com­pletely out of my life, but I am def­i­nitely at a place to move on. Cru­sade is only a spring board to fur­ther spir­i­tu­al­ity, and I have real­ized that and am ready to move on.

I wanted to go into min­istry at Grace Com­mu­nity Church in Wash­ing­ton Cour­t­house teach­ing apolo­get­ics, but it has become very plain that the pas­tor does not have that aspi­ra­tion for the con­gre­ga­tion. So, now I don’t know where to go. I am, and will con­tinue, to be involved in my Oasis group for The Cres­cent Project. I love the women in that group, and I look for­ward to our meet­ings. I’m think­ing about get­ting involved in an One80 small group, chang­ing churches (I’m think­ing about Grace Covenant in Beaver­creek), and Jason Wing talked to me about play­ing drums in Apex’s new 18–35 min­istry. I must have patience to see where He wants me to be.

“But seek first His king­dom and His right­eous­ness, and all these things will be added to you.“
Matthew 6:33

Career and the Future

Those are two weighty words! I don’t know any­more where I will be this time next year (note to self: Matthew 6:34). Wright-Patt is a great oppor­tu­nity for career employ­ment. I have com­plete con­fi­dence that I can roll-over if I wish next year into work­ing there full time. The ques­tion is if it is truly what I aspire to do. Can I truly glo­rify Him through a cubi­cle job?

Sem­i­nary has also been in the back of my mind, but it seems to be the deci­sion made for me by many oth­ers. Truly, I’m sick of peo­ple telling me that’s where I should go. First of all, I do not feel led to go there at this point in my life; there is still to much to learn, and I’m not talk­ing about doc­tri­nal knowl­edge but the rela­tion­ship with God knowledge.

Speak­ing of that last sen­tence, I’m tired of being crit­i­cized that I do not know what it’s like to have a true rela­tion­ship with God due to my theo/philosophical stud­ies. My uncle ques­tioned my sal­va­tion due to the empha­sis I put on doc­tri­nal growth. This was appalling to me. It just absolutely floors me that some­one can crit­i­cize my very Walk when I am doing as the Bible pre­scribes all believ­ers to do (Hebrews 6:1–3)! I have become hard­ened to crit­i­cism. It’s not worth wor­ry­ing about.

So, in all I don’t really know what’s going on right now, but talk­ing out loud does help. I have to learn more and more to turn my life over to Him and stop try­ing to run it myself. I know things will be so much eas­ier for me if I do. I just need to turn the knowl­edge into action.

“But seek first His king­dom and His right­eous­ness, and all these things will be added to you.“
Matthew 6:33