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!