God's Amazing Second Mile

In our house, we have a saying. It goes something like. "Go the second mile, dude!" Well, this year, I've been realizing that God has been doing just that.

It started with me asking God for one mile. "Lord, please, help me not to be so stingy this year."

Deep down, I meant something more like, "Lord, I don't want to be so stingy with regards to my gift giving."

But, since that wasn't what I had actually said, He took it literally.

The first three months of the year I was slammed with unexpected expenses. Some were entirely unexpected one-time-only, and some were partly-expected-more-than-I-thought-long-term expenses. The latter ones took a hike mid-year; Kind of like a tax increase, but it wasn't taxes. By mid-summer, nearly 85% of my income was pre-allotted, leaving 15% for gifts, personal spending, and personal saving.

Then the Lord convicted me that at this time, I didn't need to be saving for a car. He also seemed to want me to spend the money I'd saved already on an airplane ticket to see my brother and sister-in-law. (That trip is coming up next week!! Yay!)

As September rolled to an end, I suddenly realized that:
a) I was about to enter October, which has about five important friends/family's birthday's. And,
b) It was almost Christmas.
c) I had a few important other items to purchase as well

All of which meant that I that 15% of my budget would be incredibly insufficient given my income, (which, by the way, took a significant decrease towards the beginning of the second quarter)

I only had one option, because cutting my pre-allotted expenditures was not an option. Getting smaller birthday presents wasn't an option this year either, because, in line with my lesson in non-stinginess/God's providence, I made a sort of un-spoken policy to give my best, regardless of cost, and let the Lord provide the rest.

So, I prayed, "Lord, I need some more money for these next few months, please."

Last week, the Lord provided me a second job. I was grateful. But since I charge an hourly wage not much over the minimum wage, and since I wouldn't be working more than a few additional hours, I wasn't sure it would be enough.

That is, until I discovered that my new employers randomly decided to pay me double what I was charging.

Isn't God good? He took my 'one-mile' request, tweaked my attitude about the whole thing, (quite a bit), and took it the second mile in more ways than one. This is only a short version!

Top Eleven Things I Said While Learning to Drive

1: I am slowing down!

2: Whoops, I guess I should slow down a bit. Don't want to get my permit suspended.

3: I am speeding up, your gas pedal just has a slow response time.

4: Where are you going, can I drive?

5: How'm I doing?

6: I'm such a good parker!

7: What should I have done?

8: *tears* I'm a terrible driver, I'll never get my license!

9: I am staying in my lane!

10: Night driving sure is different!


11: Let's do a road trip, I'll drive!

The Top Ten Things I Heard While Learning to Drive

1: Slow Down!!

2: Speed Up.

3: Look over your shoulder when changing lanes!

4: It's not a staring contest, just glance!

5: Stay in your lane.

6: You have to be aware of everything around you.

7: A merge is like two people trying to get into the same place at the same time without hitting each other.

8: Slow down, no, BRAKE!

9: Stay in your lane.

10: Don't panic.

And now, I am a Licensed Driver. Congratulations, Self!

Have I Mentioned...?

...That I love the book of Hebrews?

I saw another cool little thing in Chapter 9 this week.

"Whereupon, neither the first testament was dedicated without blood, 
"For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,
"Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you." ~(Hebrews 9:18-20)

The Old Testament verses for this is in Exodus 24:1-8.

What's cool about this, I thought, was the similarity of vs. 20 to Matthew 26: 26-28 which reads:

"While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body.
"And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them saying, Drink from it, all of you:
"For this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

In the same way that the sacrifices of the Old Testament were a type of salvation from sins, the blood of Jesus is the way of salvation. And both covenants were dedicated with almost exactly the same wording. Cool? I think so.

Musings, Part 2

Last time, I spoke about a passage in Deuteronomy. This time, let's look at something entirely different, but equally cool. It's from Hebrew's chapter 8:4

" Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law."

I've always known the ascension of Jesus Christ was important. After all, it's the ending of His physical work on earth. He completed His job on the cross. He gave us a way to be saved.

But this verse brings the whole ascension thing to a whole new level, and to understand that, you have to know a little bit about the Old Testament law.

The Old Testament law is the law spoken about in this verse. It refers to priests who offer blood sacrifices for the people's sins. Under the Old Testament law, such sacrifices were sufficient. But, as the writer of Hebrews continues in verse 9 of the same chapter, the new testament, or covenant, is:

"Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant."

The Israelites broke the covenant, so Jesus came to earth to establish "a more perfect covenant." (vs. 6) Hebrews 7 dwells extensively on the subject of Jesus's priesthood. He is a priest, the high priest. His priesthood is especially important. His death on the cross established Him as a valid blood sacrifice, which is what washes away the first covenant. There could not have been a new covenant without a blood sacrifice, and Jesus was the priest who made that sacrifice. (Hebrews 9:22)

Now the question is, why didn't Jesus just remain on earth?

The answer is that His great sacrifice would have been invalidated. Jesus would have been relegated to the same role as the Old Testament priests. "If He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all."

Isn't that cool? The ascension of Jesus Christ is His stamp of permanency and validity on the new covenant. Without the ascension, there would be no salvation. I just love the book of Hebrews, don't you?

Musings Part 1

So, I love the Bible. It's cool. And I have two cool things to tell you. One of them, I thought I had told you about last year, but, it turns out I didn't.

Last year, I was reading Deuteronomy. Typically, it's not my most favorite book of the Bible, but that time, I saw something regarding the power of intercessory prayer.

In Deut. 9:4-6, Moses speaks to Israel about their upcoming crossing of the Jordan River, and about the people, the Anakims, who are great and tall, and how the Lord, not the Israelites, will get the credit for driving out the Anakims. Notice the phrase, three times repeated, "It is not because of your righteousness that the Lord is driving them out"

Vs. 4: "Do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them out before you, 'Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,' but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you.

Vs. 5: "It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Vs. 6: "Know, then, it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess,d for you are a stubborn people."

The chapter continues with a recounting of the wickedness and stubborn rebelliousness of the Israelites.

Notice vs. 5, "It is because of the wickedness of the nations that Lord is driving them out."

From that, we see that the Israelites and the nations they were displacing were equally wicked.

So, if they were equally wicked, why did God destroy one nation and not the other? (Besides the reason that the Israelites are His chosen ones.)

We see that the Lord had indeed threatened to destroy the Israelites as well, but Moses, "fell down before the Lord, forty days and nights, which I did because the Lord had said He would destroy you. I prayed to the Lord and said, 'O Lord God, do not destroy Your people, even Your inheritance, whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a might hand..."


The reason the Lord didn't destroy the nation of Israel then and there was because one man fell down and prayed.

So, now I'm out of time and you'll have to wait for the other cool thing.

Happy Independence Day.

Belated.

Mine was great. How was yours?

Contrary to Seattle's historic precedent. Summer began on the 4th instead of the 5th, making it an absolutely beautiful day. After lounging around in the morning a bit with the family, who all had the day off, we went to a   barbecue picnic we'd been invited to.

There, we hung out with friends, chatted, sang God bless America, and heard my Dad give a great talk on how repentance is the necessary ingredient for God's blessing on America.

Then, right at the very end, the host showed us his cars...Yeah. You all know me, I like old cars. And he had a beauty. It was a lovely blue convertible Mercury '69 (I think). With a custom engine and very comfortable seats. Yes, the guy let me sit in it. =P And then I heard him talk about price...

"yeah, it's worth 29, and I put in 18. It's listed for 22, but I'd take 17."

Insert whirling brain. Did he really just say he'd take $1,700?!?

As my sister says, "God always makes a way of escape when we're tempted." In this case, it was by the confirmation that no, he didn't say that...he said $17,000. Shoot. :( But it was still fun.

Then, we came home, watched a movie, and attempted sparklers.

I don't remember ever doing anything but sparklers, and this year, I'd found some in a bin somewhere. The package looked like they might have been from the '80s, but we decided to try them anyway. We're probably the only people in the world that would use half a box of matches on 6 sparklers.

The wind blew a few out first. Then the sparklers wouldn't light. It came out that they may have been a little damp. Then, some of us didn't know how to do it, and we smothered a few dozen more matches.Then we got one sparkler lit, but it died before it went all the way. And so, the story continued.

Half an hour later, and half a box of matches later, all six sparklers had finally been properly consumed, leaving us with a memorable, and fun, ending to a fun day.

Happy Independence Day!