How Firm A Foundation

Foun-da-tion: The basis or groundwork of anything.

Lets look at a little song I was brainwashed into learning as a child, while being forced to attend Sunday School.(You can also find this story in Mt 7:24)

Ahem

The wise man built his house upon the rock (x3)
And the rains came tumbling down
The rains came down and the floods came up (x3)
And the house on the rock stood firm

The foolish man built his house upon the sand (x3)
And the rains came tumbling down.
Rain's came down and the floods came up (x3)
And the house on the sand fell flat. (Sucker)

Now, I realize this song isn't the bible...but lets do a little study of this one (using some tips I learned in Intro to B.S. at Bethany.) I'll let you know right now that I think the house is a metaphor for our lives, and how we live them.

What do these two verses have in common....men, houses, foundations and storms. But the difference is where the foundation lies, and the outcome after the storms. In the Bible Jesus is telling the story of these two men and their houses. He says that when the storm came the man who built his house on the rock..."the winds blew and slammed against that house, yet it did not fall, for it had been FOUNDED on the rock" And the foolish man...well we all know that part of things.

I find it interesting how the word founded is in there. In verse 24 Jesus says "Everyone who hears the words of mine and acts on them is like the wish man who built his house upon the rock." So, shall we conclude that to "build your house", a.k.a, to place your foundation, to live your life upon the rock means to hear and follow God's commands? I think so. Besides God doesn't just say these things for fun, or cause He can. He gives us rules and commands for our own good.

"And to observe the Lord's commands and decrees I am giving you today, for your own good." Dt 10:12

I've built my foundation on sand...uh...pretty much my whole life. And when the storms come...and boy oh boy do they come hard. I don't have the strength or hope to go on, my house falls flat, my life and everything that I'd built it on lie in ruins. But I've noticed lately that when I put my trust in God, and obey his commands that I do have strength and hope to go on. When we make God the foundation of our life we can have strength to go through anything. "I can to all things through Christ who gives me strength" Phil 4:13.

This is a big lesson for me, even this week I've been challenged with where to put my trust, my foundation, my life. Do I trust God with all things, build my life on Him, follow His commands and decrees that He gives me for my own good? Or do I lean on my own understanding, worry about life myself and build my house on the sand? The Bible says in Proverbs not to lean on my own understand, and God will make my paths straight (It's in Pr.3:5,6). I thank God that He has reminded me of this. And I hope someone else out there can apply this in their life.

That's my spiel for today. Hope you all have a good one.
Hmmm...still thinking of a quote of the week guys, I'll get back to you on that one.

Ah, Sweet, Suculant Rest

Ok, first things first...Happy Birthday Pepto!!

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding

In all your ways acknowledge Him
And He will make your path straight.
(Pr 3:5-6)

And this is the one I don't like. It comes back to that whole trust thing. You know when your life sucks and people say "Oh, it will all work out in the end". This just never seems to solve anything in times of discomfort. Even though God has control of it, you never want to hear that at the time.
I have to trust God with my life, I have to, without Him I really have nothing.
God says "come to me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest"
When life gets tiresome, when things get heavy, and you are tired. When the struggles of this life are too much of a burden to carry, God can give you rest. How awesome would it be to really understand this concept fully?

In my life things change pretty quickly. I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm angry....I mean, just pick a mood and go with it! But seriously, the past week I've been really letting the crap of this life get me down. And its been a rough one for me, I won't lie. It gets very tiresome and hard to go through. Very overwhealming at times.

Can God really give me rest? Can God take the cares of this world and rid me of them? If He can then will He do this? Yes if I trust in Him, He will give me rest. But I have to trust him, and cast my cares upon Him. That's the hard one right there, casting all your cares upon the Lord. Its so hard to trust God when you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. At least it is for me, because God doesn't fit into my time frame or my plans. So often I do the opposite of the verse that started this blog says, I don't trust in the Lord, and I don't not lean on my own understanding.

But I thank Him for the truth that if I cast my cares upon Him, if I trust him, if I come to Him when I am burdened and weary He can give me rest. God has been good to me and I thank Him for it. He can and will give me rest, so I place my trust in Him. God has started healing my heart, and I know if I trust Him that He is good on His end to see it through.

Moving Out? Or Moving In?

Well here's the deal, I posted last night, and the post that I was supposed to put up didn't work, so uh...well I guess it just wasn't supposed to be?

Anyway, today is an exciting day for Mr. Ingalls. As I am moving out of my parents house! And where am I going you might ask? Well upon the vacancy of my uncle Danny's house, Theron and I are moving in to hold down the fort.
Its a nice house, three bedrooms and such. Located conveniently along the beautiful Seal Cove Brook, its a really nice spot down here...oh and did I mention to anyone that there is a POOL in the back yard. So when June comes I guess we'll all have to have a little shin-dig down here some night.

Now I get to go and buy some groceries as soon as I get my junk all moved in. Which I hope will only take an hour or so. Anyway thats what new with me.

Peace Out

Yurr...She Blows

So right now it is 2:30am, the wind is blowing about 50knot easterly and I have just arrived home. Why you may ask? Well I'll tell you why.
After Bible Study at about 12 Kirk Perry called me and asked me if I would like to go for a night hike, so we did. We went to Swallowtail to enjoy the lovely weather. The wind was blowing so hard it blew the rail off of the bridge! I love the wind, my favorite element of nature. Also when I was driving down the back road, there was a huge tree completely blocking both sides of the road!

Anyway we sat out on the bench, Kirk prayed and it was really neat to think that in the midst of this crazy storm God had control and we were safe. I am reminded of a sermon I heard once while I was at Bethany.

There is an occasion in the Bible where Jesus is teaching, and after teaching, Jesus SENDS his disciples on ahead of Him in the boat. Notice Jesus does not go, but sends his disciples. During their trip a storm arises. Mark's Gospel says they were straining at the oars, John's Gospel said they had rowed about 3-3 1/2 miles. (How long do you suppose that would take) during the fourth watch of the night Jesus comes to them walking on the water. And we know how is roles from there, Peter gets cocky, steps out, sinks, Jesus saves the day because He is awesome. When Jesus steps back into the boat it says in Matthew that the wind died down.

Now I see the storms in this passage as the storms of life. Notice that Jesus sent the disciples into the boat. So when they were in the middle of the storm, they were in the middle of God's will for them at the same time. I think its pretty simple how it applies here, we can be in storms in life and in God's will at the same time.

Next, "they were straining at the oars". Now this would assume they were straining at the oars for most of the 3 miles. But why bother? Why would they?...Sometimes the rowing, the perseverance isn't to get through the storm, but it is to just keep the boat afloat until Jesus gets there. Could it be that sometimes in our life we need to just persevere until God comes and fulfills his plan for us? We need to persevere so when we have done the will of God we will get what He promised (Heb 10:36). The pointless rowing, isn't pointless, its just keeping our hope alive, our boat afloat til Jesus gets there.

And finally and most importantly, when Jesus steps into the boat, the winds died down. The storm seemed to be no more. God will rescue us from the storms of this life. He will! All that rowing, all that persevering, all that praying, all that pain that seems so much to be in vain. It is not in vain! God will conquer in the end. God is in control. The oars get heavier, the waves seem to get bigger with every second, but God is in control. It is possible to be in a storm and in God's will. But know that He will come and calm the storm.

A little less intense perhaps?

Ok, so upon the intensity of the last few posts I would like to blog today to brighten the mood some. But first I pose this question to you all.
Who cares if there are spelling mistakes in my blog. My own mother pointed out to me yesterday that my blog was "pretty good, a few spelling mistakes, but pretty good" and the encouragement was muchly appreciated. And another peticular individual pointed out in one comment that they "didn't notice any spelling mistakes because they only skimmed"...perfectionism (and Macintosh) is going to be the world's downfall!
I'll just admit to it right now, in grade 6 I made a mistake. I said Majorie, instead of Marjorie, I couldn't read, talk, spell, or type then and I can't read, talk, spell, or type now. (The only thing I can do is use a comma a million times/blog) I'm sorry but between reading some "Farley Mowat" books and "Island Of The Blue Dolphins" I couldn't catch up on the rest of my schooling requirments.
So lets all just cut me some slack here and all go hastle Kirk Perry and Scottie Leighton about how all thier sports teams suck shall we?

Now moving on. I am adding something to my blog, its known as the "quote of the week". It seems to me people just love hearing things come out of my mouth that other people have said. So I am going to quote something (preferably humourous) at least once a week. I can not promise that this will happen on a peticular day each week, but that there will be at least one every week, at least for a while.
Also I must give credit where credit is due, I came up with this idea on my own. So here we go:

"I like travelling, I feel safe in airports thanks to the high calibre individuals we have working at X-ray security. How about this crack-squad of savy, motivated personnel. The way you want to set up your security is like this; you want the short heavy set woman with the skin tight uniform at the front. Thats your first line of defence. You want those pants so tight the flap in front of the zipper has pulled itself open, you can see the metal tangs hanging on for dear life!"

-Jerry Seinfeld

Until next time all my loyal subjects, have a good one!

And now its time for refections with Scott Ingalls...and of course by refections, I mean reflections.

What have I done with what God has given me? What God has invested in me, blessed me with, what have I produced?
Well I know the answer to this one, nothing. One peticular thing comes to mind, what did I do with it? Was I thankful for it? Yes, did I act like it? I squandered it, hurt it. God has given me so much in so many areas of my life and I have not acted thankful at all.
This is my confession. God has blessed me, and I do not want to be unthankful or take that for granted ever again. God is good to us, he has been good to me, and for that I thank him. His blessings are many.

So ya, this one was really short. I promise there is humour to come out of me, I know its in there somewhere, just gotta dig through some other stuff to get to it!

Peace out all. Have a good day.

More "dear diary" time with Scott's blog

So I've been reading and thinking laitly about the Israelites. Oh the Israelites...you know, maybe its just me, but the Israelites seem like the kind of people who just didn't get it. I mean they are in Egypt as slaves with of course sucked, and they cry out for God to deliver them. So what does God do? He delivers them. Fair enough eh?
Now we catch up later on down the road with the Israelites, lets see what happens. "Moses, life sucks out here, lets go back to Egypt where life was good."????What? God delivered these people from 400 years of slavery, and they want to go back? As the story goes on, they start to sin, life sucks again. They call out to God when life sucks, then God accomodates them (that whole manna thing, water from the rock, the snake on the pole...bet they were a damper to have around camp), they sin again, cry out God delivers them. They think God is a bail-me-out service. Ok, I sped the story up quite a bit but thats the general idea of is at least as I see it.

These people seem like THEY JUST DON'T GET IT! I mean God wants them to have what He promised, He wants them to trust him.
Life sucks, they sin and complain and cry out for deliverence, they get it. So hey, what the heck, they sin and complain, life sucks and so on and so on. (Now I hope you follow me with this because it made sense to me when i thought about it)

You know someone else who didn't get it. You guessed it. Me. You know life has sucked at times, and I want God to make it better, and eventually it gets better. So instead of following Him and learning what He wants to give me, I just go do my things my way and it all happens again, so on and so on.

I heard a preacher say something like this once "so often when bad things happen we ask "why", and we ask, why kind of God lets this happen?" All these questions that fix nothing. God's question is "who am I?". Who is God to me when bad things happen. For so long I've seen God as someone to bail me out when I needed it, someone to accomodate to MY needs as I see them. THIS WAY I LEARN NOTHING. But He isn't like that and doesn't want me to see Him like that, He wants me to trust him. He wants me to follow him, and believe that He will has it taken care of, because He does. For so long I just didn't get it.

Who is God to you when bad things happen? Is he someone to bail you out of the bad thing, or is he someone you trust to teach you through all this? I promise, God's got it under control, He really does, I believe it.
I'm so hard on people in the Bible...I mean those idiots, why don't they just get it! But I haven't gotten it either, and to this I admit, I'm the exact same way!
I'm sorry for the way that I have looked at God for so long, but I thank Him for teaching me this, and I am excited to see what else He has for me.