Well at the beginning of the month I decided that I would try to make sure that I studied my Bible for 30 days straight without fail. Although I have gotten better, I still have failed a couple of days. I think what is important is that I am spending time with God. I have gotten so much better than I used to though when it comes to reading Scripture. I basically sit down and read the Proverb of the day (Whatever day it is, is the Proverb that I read.) I have read in Psalms, Hosea, and Decided to start back in Genesis. My goal at this point is to start in Genesis and read through the Bible, but not in any particular speed. When I had to read it for school, I just read through as fast as I could. Now I just want to sit down and hear what God has to say to me. All in all, I feel as if I am growing more and that he is showing me more of Himself.

I cannot say that I am perfect; I still mess up at times but know that I am closer to God than I have been in the past. Either way I know that he loves me and wants to know more of me. Not only do I want to Embrace Him, He wants to do the same thing with me. What a Wonderful God, I am very thankful for him.

The ever present question of, “If God is good then why is there evil and suffering in the world?” is one that have plagued man for many a millennia. The thing is, we are the ones that broke the world through our sin (wrong doing). I don’t think that we give ourselves credit for much of the evil and suffering that goes on in the world. God created a perfect world and gave us the right to choose to follow him or not. Then we rebelled wanting to be like him in knowledge of good and evil after he told us not to. Governments holding back food to the people, murder, rape, and other forms of evil are a result of our fleshly desires overtaking us at the expense of others. That is what sin really is. Sin is always at the expense of someone else.

As I was reading in Hosea 2 and God is condemning Israel for their “Harlotry” to the other nations gods. They had gone from the one that had delivered them from many troubles to ones made of metal, stone, and wood. There was no life in them. Hosea talks about those who forsake their God, and says that they are only going to be in a world of  hurt. God says that he will expose them for what they are. If she returned to him, like the prodigal son, he would receive her but the consequences he does not say he will take away. I believe that it is these consequences that many times are a rippling effect of the things we have done. It does not answer the question completely, but it does at least hit an aspect of it.

The best part of it though starts in verse 14, where God explains that he will restore her even after all that she has done. God has made a way, we just need to choose to follow it. The Good news is that Christ came to earth to connect us to His father through taking on the punishment due us. The Good news is that death could not hold him, and he now has given us a path – paid for our debt of evil in our lives. I need to focus on what He has done to bring me in communication with the Father and I am glad that now I can have the relationship that our souls desire to have with him.

Dont’ be in debt to your neighbor or a stranger. My wife and I are slowly but surely trying to get out of debt so that we can concentrate on the things that God has planned for us to do in advance. We believe that it keeps us from doing more for the people that we want to minister to. When reading the Proverb of the Day (It is Nov. 6 so I read the 6th chapter of Proverbs) I came accross this.

1 My son, if you have become surety for your neighbor,
Have given a pledge for a stranger,
2 If you have been snared with the words of your mouth,
Have been caught with the words of your mouth,
3 Do this then, my son, and deliver yourself;
Since you have come into the hand of your neighbor,
Go, humble yourself, and importune your neighbor.
4 Do not give sleep to your eyes,
Nor slumber to your eyelids;
5 Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hunter’s hand,
And like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
Prov 6:1-5 (NASB77)  -[red emphasised by me] 

There were a couple of things that I noticed. Become surety (under obligation) would mean to become a slave of basically, even if it was like an employer/employee relationship. Solomon basically says, “Importune your Neighbor” plead with him to deliever yourself. I believe that he is saying not to let yourself be slave to anyone, except the one that you owe all to and that is God alone. This is wise council, and I look forward to seeing how he will get us out of this situation that we have put ourselves into.

Chaundra believes that he is going to work with us, as long as we do our best to stay within our budget every month and not overspend. This hasn’t always been what we have done and now it is time to get serious and try to do everything in our power and his to get us out of this situation. He has delivered us through his son – which is the good news. Now it is time to do our part and do everything in our power to be in the places that he wants for us. Hopefully we will stick to our guns and do what we are felling he is calling us to do.

Get our of debt and owe noone anything, exept the Father alone. – That is what he is telling me today.

I feel as if God is telling me read scripture every day for 30 days until I have learned something that he is telling me every day. To do this I think that I am going to try and write done what I learn frome each study including today. I am sure that it will not be earth shattering, but my goal is to have read and to be listening to him for a whole month.

I was at Murphy’s deli for lunch. Most of the time if I am by myself I try to take the time to read my Bible. I have had people come and talk, had someone even come and ask if I could just give him a word of encouragement because his wife was leaving him. This particular day (yesterday) I was reading in Isaiah and a man said from accross the room, “If you memorized it, you wouldn’t have to work so hard at it!” He was just teasing me about reading, softheartedly. I found out that he was the Pastor from Cornerstone Baptist Church in Missouri City and he was having lunch with his son (the youth pastor to the church) and their family. We talked for a couple of Minutes and he said that they were getting ready to have a revival November 7-11 and that I was more than welcome to come if I would like.

He also said that I could go and listen to some of the messages on their webstite of the Evangelist speaking. His name is Hal Hightower. I felt like God was trying to tell me something and that I should try and look it up. So I went back to the office and listened to a couple of sermons as I was drawing a couple of projects for work. I listened to “Preventative Maintenance for Maintaining Moral Purity.” The man can definitely preach and do it with conviction. (check out the website: http://cbcmissouricity.org/calendar/revival2010)

Pastor Hal used to be a preacher before he was an evangelist. He talked about how they supported a bunch of missionaries and that it was gute often that one would try to get support from his church. So he developed a survey with two questions. 1) How many times in the last thirty days have you read scripture, 2) when was the last time that you witnessed to someone besides at your own church. This was a tell tell sign of whether or not they were commited to the service that they were asking for support for. One guy tried and said that he read the Bible 22 times out of the 30 days and that the last time he witnessed to someone was about two and a half years earlier. Pastor Hal said that it was an easy decision because, if he cannot do it hear then going over seas was not going to change anything or even make him a missionary.

This spoke to me. I am not doing scripture everyday, and that means that I am not spending time with Christ everyday. This is a problem! I believe I was supposed to hear this message so that I would try and fix this in my life. God will speak to me through this, and it is time that I start pursuing the one that loves me more than I can imagine. I need to embrace Him in spirit and truth and he will speak to me.