Learning lessons

I've been reflecting on the past year and the decisions I've made and I can say that I'm pretty disappointed with myself. I'm only going to share one of them though because I think it's worth putting out there to other people my age to hopefully lead them in not making the same mistakes as I did.
Last year around this time we had just sold the house in Kingsland and I was reenlisting. A lot of money was coming my way. Did I do something smart with my money? Nope. I went and bought a Jeep and a Suzuki Hayabusa. Hindsight being 20/20 if I had only bought one of them I probably would have been fine with the financial situation. I didn't anticipate the mortgage payment here in Charleston and when I calculated the budget I wasn't happy with where we stood after the bills were paid.
So I made one good decision for the year. I got rid of both the jeep and the motorcycle. Most of the people who know me thought I had taken drugs or something. They(including my wife) couldn't believe that I had given up the things I loved. But God was working on my heart.

1st John 2:15-17
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world-the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does-comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

I read this scripture just a couple of days after I had gotten rid of my jeep and my motorcycle and got a Volkswagen jetta and it affirmed the feelings I was having. I felt I was becoming too attached to the things I had and that is a dangerous road to travel.
There are a myriad of reasons why I did what I did(having people pull out in front of me while I was riding my bike, gas for a jeep that gets 13 mpg and insurance for a sportbike were a few of the big ones). But I really feel that God put it on my heart first that I was headed the wrong way. I think most of us know that if your heart is telling you to do something, it's hard to do anything but that which your heart is telling you to do.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is this: If you stop to listen to God, He'll let you know what you need to do in your life.

God bless

Almost Finished

Worked some more today on the welding bench. Just a little bit more work to do. It's coming right along though. I was slightly off on the price, so far I'm at $240. The 1/4" plate that I used for the top ended up costing me more than I thougt it would.

Give

I've had some things put on my heart lately about God. Recently I've been spending a lot more time in God's word, serving the Church, and contemplating His will for my life. One conclusion I've come to is that we need to give to the Church. No, I'm not asking for money or anything like that. I'm talking about your life man!

Check this out: "For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
Sound familiar?
Jesus, the creator of everything, gave his life for us.

No greater love hath any man than he who lays down his life for a friend.

Jesus showed the greatest love of all because he gave.

Why should we do anything less than give our lives to Him? When you foot the bill for a meal. When you give someone a hug because they're feeling bad. When you tell someone you appreciate them(especially your spouse, love ya Doonae). When you impart some knowledge to someone else. When you volunteer to be a stage hand/security for a concert and end up not getting home til 2 a.m. when you have to be at work in the morning. When someone needs help moving and you show up for them. You are giving.

There is no better way to love than to give of yourself to someone that needs you, especially if they can't pay you back.

The Creator gave His life for us....there is no way we could ever do enough to repay that.

So, here's my challenge to you(and myself); try to out give God. See what happens in your life when you do. I guarantee that God can out give you.

Are we gonna mess up? You bet your butt. I know I do, but that's the cool thing about God. He knows we're gonna screw up. But if we truly give our lives to Him, He'll forgive us a million times over for our mistakes.

God bless you all.
Mark

Weekend Project

Here is the beginning of my welding bench. Just the frame so far. Pretty soon I'm gonna put a plywood shelf on the lower portion on which I will place tools and such and then I'm gonna get a piece of 1/4 inch plate for the bench section to mount my vise and so I can weld on it. I'm also gonna put a smaller shelf on the back(that's why its so tall) and put pegboard on it too so I can hang my tools up. It's gonna cost me around $200 but I figure the same bench, were I to buy it, would be over $400.

The Little Things

It amazes me how close God can be to us. This morning I woke up with a song in my head(Sometimes in Step). Shortly after I turned on my Launchcast Radio the song played. I think it was God's way of saying to me, "hey buddy, I'm still here and I haven't forgotten about you". It may sound sappy and cheesy but I bet I'll have a much better attitude today all because of a song that came on my computer at random. I know in these trying times it's easy to think that God has stopped caring and He's just letting us blunder around down here without any direction. Don't count him out just yet. He may be just around the corner.

Have a wonderful day!

Cool Background

Busy life and a Soapbox

Wow!
At the rate I'm going I'm only going to post something once a month. It seems that I've been staying really busy every day. Between work, volunteering to help the CSU marching band and singing in the Summit Church praise band, all of my time is taken up. Somehow I feel that doing all of this can be dangerous for my psyche. Going and going all the time without detaching and taking some time for myself makes me feel a little burnt out. Luckily there isn't a football game to volunteer at this weekend so my wife and I will have a whole day to spend together. That hasn't happened in a few weeks so we're really looking forward to it.

And now for my thoughts...

Since becoming a Christian my views have changed a lot about what it takes to be a Christian. I used to be pretty stuck in my ways and thought that that was the only way to be. Since then I've done a lot of reading and studying and come to the conclusion that maybe there are many different ways to be a Christian. For example(I'm not bashing the Church of Christ this is just my own personal belief), the C of C believes that instrumental worship is not set forth as a method of worship in the New Testament so therefore we shouldn't use instruments and we should only sing. No where in the New Testament say that we can't use instruments. What if a person can't carry a tune in a bucket as far as singing goes but has an amazing talent for playing the guitar or the piano or the drums. If that is the talent that God gave them, shouldn't they use that talent to praise Him? The Bible says that ,"true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."(John 4:23) Not everyone is talented at singing and there are many parts to the body of the church. Not everyone can be a voice box, we need hands and feet and noses too.
What if we all used our given talents to worship God?
I guarantee the world would be a much noisier place because we would all be worshiping with our true "voice". So here's what I'm really trying to sayto all Christians...Take whatever makes you come alive, whatever fires you up(within the confines of good judgement and morality of course), and use it for the glory of the Father. That to me is true worship.

It's not how you worship that matters, it's that you worship.