I know this wasn't exactly the most original of pictures, but it's the best that i managed to do today. I feel like I owe an explanation. Today, I decided to tap into my inner Southern Baptist and bring some food to church. LifeSong members are usually greeted by a pot of coffee, bottled water, and depending on who made them, cookies. So I take it upon myself to go out to Target on my way down to church, and buy these brand new oreos. Okay, let me just say that if it wasn't for the label on the package, you cannot taste the difference in any cookie. Oreos are the same as anything out there. A chocolate cookie with cream in the center. Something too tasty for its own good. I see food in general as a form of Kryptonite to me, it all has to stop somewhere, but you'll be happy to know, that the box was gone long before I could attempt to eat all of them ;). I am seriously trying to get my physical health in order. I am eagerly looking forward to receiving a copy of a Biggest Loser workout DVD (from the show on NBC). It's called the "Last Chance Workout". It should be about an hour long, and it's done by Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper, the shows 2 trainers. I want to work at improving my life all around, and there is just so much I have to thank God for in the process. I am not dead, I have Jesus, I have a roof over my head, there is just so much to say, and I haven't been saying it. Despite there being negativity in my life, I choose to say, God You Reign, and I will still love you.
Something powerful to think about today.
Anyway, the weeks here are school are starting to mesh together. I am struggling to keep at my personal deadline of finishing the book manuscript by the end of this month, but if I keep going, if I don't give up, I'm sure it will be finished by February 26th (my goal date). Right now, there is just so much emotion to these chapters because you are encountering my main character right after being liberated from auschwitz, and now he and his girlfriend (along with her parents) are going to Israel for the first time. He plans to propose to her, and also, have a special memorial service to honor his parents and sisters who all died during the war...This is chapter 19, and the book is supposed to be 42 chapters. I don't plan on boring people by making the chapters over 10 pages each, (please don't think that), I just want the book finished already, and if I can do it, I will do it. I am setting a personal goal to have the book be at the least 350 pages, and right now, the book stands at a whopping 201 pages. So I still have a ways to go yet. (149).
FLASHDEVO
So I decided to stay up late, and spend some serious time in the word. As I still am, I find myself reading Acts. If i am to be in full time overseas ministry, I need to understand where these desires came from and learn from the greatest of all missionaries, the Apostle Paul. Many times (since coming to Boyce) people have asked me, if you're Jewish, why are you not ministering amoung them. It is true, I am a Jewish believer in the Messiah, and I do have a heart for them, but it is not what God has in store for my life. I am (in my mind) like Paul. I am a Jewish Believer who has a heart for his own people, but whom God has called among the Gentiles. Tonight I read Acts 19-22. By this time, Paul is before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. He has been accused of turning the Jews away from the law, and they are now following after what Paul teaches.
I am not able whatsoever to compare myself to what Paul went through. I don't know what it's like to be stoned, whipped, beaten, thrown in jail for believing in Jesus. I have been told that I am going to hell for being in a "cult", and been rejected by a lot of people, and ridiculed, but never hurt physically. It would be an honor to receive physical hurt in the name of Jesus. I would count myself blessed. It would be miserable, I would be discouraged, but I would know that he is still God and he still reigns.
Paul also talked to his brothers and sisters throughout Greece, saying that he had been with them for 3 years and his time had now come, he wouldn't see them ever again. That would frigten me. I plan to serve in some overseas capacity in Japan, and I don't know for how long that would be. I cannot imagine saying to my family, my parents, my sister and her family, my brother, everyone I know...Goodbye, I may never see you again...It would be hard, and I would cry, but they would understand that God is there to watch over me, and to use me to reach people for the name of Jesus.
When I was living in Japan, I had the extreme honor of leading someone to the Lord, and baptizing that person...I don't know if I will ever see them again, but I pray that he is growing in the Lord, and that my impact on his life will help him to stay close to Jesus.
I pray you all have the best of weeks, and look to the Lord for your strength this week, it is not of yourselves that you accomplish anything, but through Jesus who gives us strength that we do all things (Philippians 4:13)
PEACE!
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