I Repent

This song from Steve Green really hit home the other day, it seems that so many times I forget to have true sorrow and repentance over my sin. Or maybe I just don't take the time in my day to listen to God and let him search my soul. I heard a story last week about an old vary godly pastor, and this women comes to him and tells him that she really enjoys being around him so much because of the saintly attitude that he has. The man looks deep into her eyes and told her in complete seriousness "If you could look into my soul you would spit in my face" I forget to take that serious look into my soul and when I do it still is frightening to see how far from God's perfection that I am. A month or two ago I heard someone talking about this and he was saying that no matter what the situation you are in "You can always repent" if you know you are in the right search your heart you can always repent of wrong attitude or the wrong motive. another thing about repentance is that it is between you and God he is the one that you have wronged he is the one that in the end you need to be forgiven by. David Cried to God after he had committed adultery then killed the womans husband that "against You and You only have I sinned" the acts of sin may be committed against others but in the end it is against God that we sin. So yes I do repent making no excuses I repent there is no one else I repent! O God my sins are ever before me. take away my sin and make me pure in your sight.

I REPENT

It's been awhile

It has been quite awhile since I last wrote. There has been so much that happened, and I have been so vary busy. God blessed me deer hunting this year I worked opening weekend so I didn't get to hunt until Sunday night. I got the two little doe Sunday night. they had been pulling my strawberry plants up this fall so I was vary glad to get rid of them, (and they taste really good)


The nice buck I got when I went up north and hunted with the Family the day before thanksgiving.

(Don't let the power get to your head!)

Last weekend I went up to Green bay to help my sister take down her garage so that we can put up a two stall one.
And I had some time to do some baking. I sure do love fresh bread(Not quite as much as my brother Josh).

Well now that you have an update. I plan to post a few more before Christmas, so stay tuned!

Trusting Him

Since I mooved down here it seems that it is hard to trust God with my finances. I think it might be because I am afraid that I would not be able to pay my bills, if I pay my tithe. God has been vary good to me and has always givin my enough, more then enough but yet I worry that I won't have enough to pay my bills. Part of it is that my job varys in how many hours I get in a month so that I am not sure on how much income I will have for the next month. Yesterday I found out that the pastor for the little church across the road from me is leaving. I am glad for him but I am sad for me, he has been a good friend and somone to talk with about the things of God. i fould out that he was leaving when another person from the church stoped in to buy some honey and told me that he was going to take over the pastorship. he also offered for me to use his tractor this winter to plow my drive and that they had just butchered a cow and could I use any meat? God is so faithful and I will trust Him with His money!

Lots of work

Amos Came over on the 8th of October and helped me to put in power to my house


Elijah and my Dad came over on 23rd of October and helped me get my well going so now I have electricity and running water!

Reaching for the Moon

My deepest desire and longing is that my life would continually bring glory and honor to God, and in that I without fail glorify Him by always doing that which is right. That I would bring joy to his heart. That He would delight in all that I do! All that I say, and in everything I think! most of the time I think that I do just that until a deeper look into my own self there I see nothing that brings glory to His name. at times I think that it is just an alluring goal the same as chasing the wind or reaching for the moon.

E'phraim herds the wind,
and pursues the east wind all day long;
they multiply falsehood and violence;
they make a bargain with Assyria,
and oil is carried to Egypt.
Hos 12:1 RSV

Today I was reading Psalms 119 and verse after verse I saw something I didn't see before in that chapter over and over again the psalmists says that he delights in God's word and that he will keep it with his whole heart and then he cries out for God to his help in keeping God's commands.
Ps 119:10 With my whole heart I seek thee; let me not wander from thy commandments!
How Refreshing to remember that My God will help me. I am not completely sure why it is so difficult for me to ask for help it may be because of my manly pride “I don't need any help! I can do it myself!” whatever the reason I need to remind myself that without God's help I go nowhere and get nothing accomplished!

Father God do not let me wonder from your cammands!

At times I can get so discouraged and down. recently I seem to have more reasons then ever to be discouraged. it seems that everything that I try to do seems to blow up and collapse in my face. I planted twenty six acres of oats my neighbors got over one hundred bushels an acre. and what did I get nothing I am still looking to just cut it down for straw. my honey bees had a vary bad year. but then again there is a brighter side my garden did good i had more food then I could eat. No matter whether I do good or I lose all that I have I must remember what is really important. Whom do i have in heaven but you O God?

What am I living for? Is there anything on this earth that I desire beside God? So many times there is things that I desire beside Him. things that I want and that remove my focus from God.
Yes things here can be difficult and hard, but that is not what defines my attitude but causes me to lean and rely all the more on God. Thanks be to God that he is my strength of my heart, and even more then that He is my portion forever. God is all that I need!

Ps 73:25-2625 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. KJV

This last month has been a mixed up month. it has been busy, yet I feel that I haven't got a lot done. I have felt tired a lot and felt like giving up many times. It seems like some things that shouldn't take a vary long takes forever. Truly God is is the strength that I have to go on.

Ps 73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail,but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Ps 8:3-9
3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!KJV

God's will

God's will seems at times to be so elusive, and so hard to find. Yet really its not that hard He leads us so gently and with so vary much Patience. His purpose is planned for our lives. as long as we are listening for his voice He will guide us and not let us stray.

Ps 139:8-108 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn,if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me,your right hand will hold me fast. (from New International Version)

That is an awesome promise. I love the way it says that He will hold me fast, and with an all powerful God nothing can pull us out of that grasp.

In His Guidance I will Trust

With my whole heart?

Often I ask myself if I am really doing all that I can to glorify God. more often I should be asking myself if I am using my whole heart for God. It is so easy to allow myslf to lapse into thinking that this world is all that really need to be conserned with, and then not put God as my number one proirty. The things of this world seem so big and the things of God so vary small in importance. The world pushes for all of my attation and it seems that the things of God are so easily out of focus. today I heard again the song called "The motions" by Mathew west. It is so easy to fall back into just going through those motions and letting nothing really come from my heart. My crazy work sceduale has made it very difficult because I cannot have my prayer time at the same time everyday, also I tend to be exhosted so that the time I do spend in prayer is many times only half awake. Which is just about as good as not having one at all. am I really giving my all? Am I putting my best out for God? I was talking to a friend the other day about the first and greatest comand which is to love the lord your god with all your heart withall your soul and with all of your mind. She was saying that it dosn't make sense to love God with all of your heart because your heart dosn't have any emotions. which is true. The issue is not which orgen of your bady that you are to love with but with all of of our emotions, with all our thoughts and with all of our physical effert! But I have been falling sadly short of loving him with all that I am. help me f ather to love you completly with everything that I am

Why is life seam to always be in such a big hurry all the time. Maybe its not so crazy busy for you but it sure is for me! it seems that the day is just started and it is gone already. I am beginning to read Desiring God by John Piper, as always it is challenging for me. The questions that I end up asking myself are these. Does God satisfy all my desires? Am i content with God and nothing else? Can I trust God with every aspect of my life? Am I motivated by the pleasure of God? The concept that joy should be our motivation in serving God makes perfect sense yet I struggle with putting it into practice. I think I will give you a quote from C.S Lewis from his sermon the "Weight of Glory"

"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, love. You see what has happened? a negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this of more then philological importance. the negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily securing good things for others, but but going without them ourselves,as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the christian virtue of love. The New Testament has a lot to say about self-denial but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seem that our lord finds our desire not to strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are too easily pleased.

A time to rest

After over six miles of portaging and almost fifty miles all the way around I am not all the way sure that this was really restful but it was a lot of fun

Time is flying

Over the last month so much has happened so vary quickly. It has been truly amazing what God has done He is amazing and completely trust worth. I started renting on may 12 the place that I am buying. a beautiful 53 acre farm. after that life has become a blur of activity. my bees come up on the 16th giving me even more to do. Amos and Noah helped me put the rest of the bees out

later on Amos helped me plant 26 acres of oats.

Esther me paint the inside June 7-11th and that was a lot more work then I had thought that it would be! at the same time a neighbor put horses out on the pasture

And we went to pewts nest and took some pictures

All in all we had a great time together

Budding out

I have been writing a lot about waiting, and trusting. Because I have struggled with the when? and why? of what God has been doing in my life. Slowly I am coming to realize, and understand a little more about the Patience that God desires in my life. It seems so difficult to wait, and sometime I would even despair that God was really working in my life at all.

I thought that if God was really behind this all, He was being quiet cruel, and mean to allow me to believe that He was leading me in a direction only to jerk it out from under me. (like leading an animal with a carrot just out of reach and never letting it get it).

God is doing more then that, He sees a lot more then I can see now, and he knows exactly what I need! My spiritual growth is a whole lot more important to Him, then me getting the "place" that I believe He wants me to have. According to James one I should be rejoicing that I have the privilege to grow in this test, instead of complaining about how difficult it is to trust God.

The Bud

James 1:2-4
2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.KJV

I love this verse it often reminds me that the hard times the trying of my faith works patience in my life and that is far more important then what I am waiting and trusting God for.

As spring is coming over us I think that God in his mercy sent trials for a time to strengthen me that when the time is right the bud that is swelling will burst into a beautiful blossom!
That is exactly what God is doing in my life!
The blossom of my soul is beginning to open!

Growing in God

It still amazes me the way that God works. His ways are in no way my ways and his timing is definitely not on my time schedule. I have been waiting for the funding to purchase my farm from the FSA. sometimes I do not know if the seller will wait any longer and they may sell it to somone else. so the waiting has been difficult for me. many a days I have felt like giving up, like nothing would ever go right, and that no one else has to go through this. Many days God has reminded me to keep trusting him, and to lean on his ever strong arms. that no matter what happens he is in control, and nothing can go out of his will. the other day i just felt that I must being doing something wrong that I keep having to wait like this. when I had my prayer time nothing seemed to encourage me to trust in God and so I was having a pretty good pity party when I began to read my daily reading. (I try to read good Christian books usually a chapter a day after my prayer time, if I have the time) I have been rereading Stones of Fire by Isabel Kuhn, when I came across this little jem of truth. "I had been feeling that no one had such heavy trials as I had. But doctor said that everybody has trials and that they are purposely allowed of God that we may develop and grow in our spiritual lives. That was a great help to me, changing my point of view. Even as a limb of the body needs exercise or it will become unusable, so we Christians must have circumstances that cast us upon God or we will never experience the strength of His undergirding arms or the faithfulness of His love toward us." it amazes me that no matter where we are and how alone I feel there are others out there who feel just like me. but what amazes me even more is that we serve a God you loves me so deeply, and yet knows exactly how I feel, and is strong enough to help me. Heb 4:15-1615 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (from New International Version) It is reassuring to know that I need this stress and strain so that I will grow into the likeness of my savior.

Living and Dying

I cannot beleive that it has been a month since I last wrote! time continues by in a streak of lightning today it is today and the next thing you know another year has slipped its way pass. So much has happend and yet so little really changed. I have been busy and as always getting seamingly nothing done. Today I picked up "The Normel Man" by DR cho and was captivated by a short part about dying with Christ. I was not all that surprised as he related that we died with Christ, but the time of our death was when Christ died (it is all in the past tense) meaning that we have already died! know I know that it sounds good and that yes to a point we did die with Christ, but if that is the case then why does my dead self raise its head up in my life? and that same dead self dosn't act dead! even more clearly the apostle Paul in 1 Cor 15:31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.KJV says that he dies daily. I think maybe even though the work is done on the cross that daily we must walk and live that death out in our lives! Not that we didn't die with christ but that we must stay and continue to live in that death that we can then raise and live new in Christ!

Waiting

For the last week i have been waiting for a confirmation for a loan for the place that God has been leading me to buy. it has been truly difficult for me to wait like this. especially today it seems that my life will go different directions depending on this desicion. so i try not to worry and to give it to God but the time in waiting makes it seem harder. I know that God is in control and that his will. will be done. I know that he has god things planned for me but I WANT TO KNOW NOW! I guess it shows a lack of trust that not just is his way right, and good but that his timing is perfect. O that gives peace and calms my soul, and boy i do not want to get ahead of him.

Lord Lord

During my bible reading I was challenged by the words of Christ

Luke 6:46
46 "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?RSV

Christ is asking again for me to take a good hard look at my self. I call out Lord Lord but do I do what he tells me to? am I following what God wants of me all the time? do I follow his instructions for life? it is so easy to say that I am a christion but do I really follow him?

Lose it all

The other day we watched "facing the giants" together and I was reminded again the truth about giving my all (maybe I should say convicted) the issue of giving my all for God is something I continually struggle with.

The old "chopping block"

Sunday morning I went to my sisters church and pastor Tanglin was preaching on

Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.KJV

One of the things that I remember is what he said about it being hard to be a living sacrifice because once we get put on the alter and it starts getting we have a way trying to get off of it dead sacrifices just lay there but as living sacrifices when it starts to be to painful we are like I am outta here.

Until we realize the the truth that I can not truly live until I am dead! I will not have anything until I lose that which I hold so vary dear.

Mark 8:34-37
34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.
36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

It says to take up your cross. the cross is not just a pretty trinket but one of the most cruel execution devices ever created. it could be said take up your noose or strap yourself to the electric chair. this reminds me of the time when we butcher chickens and i would take a chicken to the "chopping block" there was no way that the chicken was going to leave with its head. it is the same with me! Caleb cannot live through this but must die. I am beginning to realize that as I struggle to make my life and am getting nowhere i must instead lose it all for Christ, only then will i have a life to live.

Come along and lose it all

Simply trusting

God has been so vary good to me and is blessing me in so many wonderful ways. Yet as I watch still doubt that he is able to get me through the next problem.

Ps 116:77 Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee.KJV

God has been leading me to purchase a place of my own, and all the way along God has graciously reassured me over and over again that I am doing what he wanted me to, and yet it seems so big and scary that it all might fall through there are so many things that could go wrong. So last week I had put an offer in for some land and 37 acres and although the seller had agreed on a price he wanted to do an auction after the closing. Everyone I knew told me that it was not the thing to do I was going to counter his offer with pushing back the closing so he would have time to do his auction before, but I just didn't have a peace about it. The vary day I had signed the offer (I withdrew it latter) I was shown another piece only four miles from the first with 53 acres, it was all ordained of God now it looks like I will get it for less then the one I was looking at before.

God is so vary good to me and yet I doubt him so easily, with the amazing and wonderful way that God is working things out that I should have no problem resting in what he will do and just trust that He will take good care of me. I should but I don't always. You know that God is so patient and takes my trust where it is and loves me. He is always pushing me forward to trust him a just little more.