Friday Thoughts

After a really crazy past few weeks, I've come to conclude that God's hands hold our lives a lot better than ours.  I am at that point where I'm realizing more and more how much I want to know that my steps are in His. 

I was driving home yesterday and I saw this guy pull up beside me.  He had a business look and probably had a job just like mine.  He was rubbing his eyes and I could just tell that he was beat down from the week and had probably been working his butt off.  I wanted to just roll down my window and tell him how familiar I was with being beat down by a job and wanting to just veg on the couch!  It made me think of how Jesus is that to us.  He came as God in the flesh, lived just like you and me, and was literally beat down with this life and the people in it.  The Bible says that "He was a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering".  It was written about Him in Isaiah like 800 years before crucifixion was even invented.  I love how He is our advocate and that He knows everything we can or could go through because He ultimately went through it all.  After a crazy week, it's been assuring to know that I can rest in Him knowing that the chastisement that brought Him pain, brings us peace. 

I went with Abby to a little music venue the other night called Lestats.  It is quite the interesting place.  It's right beside a coffee house and has shows to promote local music artists and she sings there sometimes.  We've been praying through where we are in our relationship and where we are headed.  We took some time apart to just pray and seek the Lord and during that time, she wrote me a song.  She has actually written me two songs that are quite amazing.  Well, she ended up surprising me and singing both of them at the show.  She was the last person to go on and closed out the night.  The first song was written for my Christmas present and just described our relationship and how much we both just want to grow in Jesus.  The craziest thing happen afterwards.  This guy with a really shaved head and lip ring walks up just in awe of what he heard.  He couldn't even really describe what he was feeling.  He just looked at her and knew that something was happening in his heart through the words he heard.  The background was this guy showed up to what he thought was an AA meeting.  He happened to sit in and listen to her songs.  He probably was about 21 or 22 years old it looked and just began sharing his struggle with alcohol, lying, and stealing.  He knew he didn't want to continue walking down this path.  God used her words to strike a chord literally in his heart.  I was able to share a verse 1 Cor. 10:13 with him that goes through temptation and how we can overcome it.  We said bye to him and met a few other people and had some really neat conversations.  It's neat that neat things can happen when Christians are just out in the world doing their thing.  Crazy cool.

One Day at a Time
by Abigail Reimer

Just the other day
I was tellin' a good friend
That I did not want the Lord
To send a man cuz I was content
And I was serious, oh so serious

But it was not long before
We were playing Connect Four
Had a long talk and you said
That you were quite interested
And you were serious, oh so serious
(Let's take it)

One day at a time
One day at a time
I think we'll be fine
if we just take it
One day at a time
One day at a time

For the first time in my life
Sharing my heart feels so right
And I do look forward to
How my future might unfold with you
And I am serious, oh so serious

If this isn't for forever
I want you to know
That more than anything
I want you to grow
in Jesus

Baby, forgive me if this feels too slow
I'm just scared of where this could go
One day at a time

If you read this, please just pray that I would follow Him closely and He would guide me in major and minor decisions.  I want to know that everything I do, He is all up in my business.