Catching Up

Well obviously it has been awhile since I have written on here. There has been a lot going on in my life lately. I got back from Chile on Tuesday. It is good to just be back here with my family. Something I didn't expect though was how much I miss being around people my age. So that has been an adjustment. I started my construction job on Thursday, which I didn't really expect to start for a week or two. And there has been a lot of other stuff that it would be pointless to talk about.

I just finished Jeremiah this morning. Yes it did take me a month to finish one book. At the start of this thing I decided that I didn't want to ever spend more than a week in one book because I felt like I would lose the flow of what was going on and much of the big picture stuff. I was right. I am completely lost in Jeremiah still. I didn't even take notes on most of it. Add that to the fact that it has to be one of the hardest books to understand in the Bible (all that prophecy stuff) and I just had a time of it. As bad as it sounds, I am really looking forward to getting past Ezekiel. There is just something in me that really enjoys reading a book where I can see the end. It helps me pay attention to detail much more. And after Ezekiel, I've got a lot of small books all the way until Matthew. But because of all that stuff, I'm not going to write out notes on Jeremiah. I'm sorry. It's disappointing to me that I read the whole thing and didn't even pay enough attention to know what it was talking about, besides a lot of wrath. But I think I would be incomplete and probably wrong in most of my observations if I were to do them. So yeah, I'm just moving on to Lamentations.

On another note, I'm asking for your prayers. I have been very discouraged these last few days. I don't know why. I talked to Dayton about it and he is right when he says that somewhere I am not fully believing the Gospel. That is where all of my problems come from (see Timothy Keller's seminar message "How the Gospel Changes Us"). I think that I am failing to believe that God will sustain me. I am putting a lot of value into what other people think of me. That is wrong. I know it's wrong. But it is hard to wiggle free from it. I'm praying about it. So I just ask that you would be praying for me as well. Pray that I would trust God completely.

One more note. Since we are now in summer, my guess is that most people have a little more time (maybe true, maybe not). So I am going to take it easy on the youtube clips and short tidbits. While they are great because they make us think about things, we need more. We need explanations of those truths from the word. So I'll be posting a lot more full-length sermons. Just a heads up. And I'll also post some of my readings that I am going to do with the guys in my Bible study this summer. I'm super excited about that. Honestly I don't think I have ever sat down and studied a book of the Bible like we are planning on doing. I can't wait. (Ephesians I think)

Thank you for all your prayers and especially your patience in waiting on me and my laziness. I hope that you are in some way encouraged and challenged by some of this. Keep seeking God.

Mitchell