last week was great. one week closer to home! the Lord has brought me up over 17 hr per week for the year. it will be cool to see how He brings it in. don't think there is enough work pending yet to finish out the year but if i work steady 40 hour weeks (which requires steady work) i should finish the work year sometime before the end of october. that would be awesome because there is so much i want to get done on the house. Lord, help me not plan, devise, scheme or assume anything but may i look completely to You, Jehovah Jireh, my provider. oh it will be so wonderful if i can actually let go and fully trust Him rather than myself or any other...
got angry last week at the brother and sister who i helped out for 30 hours the week before. thot, as usual, that it was all of God..that my motivation was to simply serve and give..wasn't even close! i got so angry at them after only a day. i guess i expected them to roll out the red carpet, bow down etc. it was serious and while i was in it sooo justified. then God graciously opened my eyes to myself and how embarrassing and shamefully i appeared before Him ready to ask forgiveness. went back to them the next day and confessed my sin to them. they were gracious, acted surprised and said they appreciated what i did. how ashamed i was but it was so good to confess my sin against them and put the whole ludicrous thing behind me.
later last week this brother and i took measurements and discussed the details of putting railings in. saturday i worked from 5:30 to noon digging two foot deep hole to pour concrete in after we set the railing in place. to make them he took about 1.75" round galvanized pipe and bend it in a U shape in such a way that one length will be a railing next to the first four steps off the porch and the other will do the same for the middle four steps. he capped the ends and i put two coats of benjamin moore black ironclad latex on them. then he took maybe about a 1.5" round steel pipe, capped both ends and welded four very nice looking steel things on. where they hit the wall they are flat and round and these will be bolted into studs going up the stairs from the living room to the second floor. i put two coats of bm black ironclad oil. God You are so kind and good to me. You forgive and You provide things i could never imagined would be so nice and serviceable. thank You for Your goodness to me in so many ways. tonight we pour cement and bolt!!
have disliked the bushes in the yard for a long time. saturday am took out the bushes in front, yews (?) and rhododendron and this am (monday) the hedge between greiser's and 54, the overgrown azalea and huge bush be the back deck. they all left the property today, i believe, courtesy of souderton borough chipper. no more hedge trimming..YEA. dv i hope to swap labor with this brother, painting some more of the house for him really shoring up the rickety, tumble down iron fence to the point where kyle, in stead of bending it further over will hopefully find an iron rock of gibralter in it...that is may hope, prayer and vision. so we'll see. i hope to have that all painted with (commercial time again) bm black ironclad oil before cold weather, get rid of all the bush roots, and tree stump so that dv next spring, or whenever is best, i can plant some fruit trees, berry bushes, etc. i'd like to plant several fruit trees in front of the front porch so when they grow up i can sit out there and not feel like i'm on display. mom always loved to sit out on our big front porch and would luxuriate when the cool evening breezes would kick up on a balmy summer evening saying, 'ah, steve, i love these breezes! they are just like the sea breezes evenings at the shore'. one of the many things i love about my parents..their contentment with simple fare and (mom's) effervescent enjoyment of such. i hope to espatier them (pronounced espEyA) to provide a screen of sorts on front and side and possibly a source of fruit while i read. dv i hope to get into this next spring or so and then begin to think about and research how to have a goat, chickens, etc to provide milk, cheese, butter and eggs. i can dream can't i..
sunday traveled thru an intense rain storm..so intense the roads were flooding over and almost turned back but continued on with an even fiercer determination to get things right even if i got stuck, even if i got sopping wet to do it and thus God enabled me to finally track down a former colleague, after avoiding this for months, and ask him to forgive me for talking against him. he readily forgave me.. a little lighter yet! the Lord recently directed my attention to the section of the sermon on the mount about anger. Jesus here says, 'you have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. but I say unto to you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.." anger over something has a God-appointed time limit. ephesians 4.26 says be angry and sin not: let not the sun go down on your wrath. anger is to be dealt with the day it occurs. that opens up a host of other ?s and rationalizations that are commonly used for ignoring what God says. but be that as it may, it is interesting how Jesus turns this on its head. one would expect that he would say something like, 'so if you don't want to be judged don't stay angry'. but no, instead He says, 'therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee..leave ther thy gift before the altar and go thy way. first be reconciled (become friends) to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift'. He seems to say, yea, anger is so dangerous that when someone gets angry at you make sure ASAP that you relate to that one in such a way that their anger is resolved. (again a host of ?s and rationalizations appear before the mind's eye) in focusing on Jesus' words lately..what He says..how He says it..the wisdom and AUTHORITY with which He says whatever He says is really making a fundamental change in my perception of Him. i thot i knew Him..wow, how little..and still, how little. He is beautiful/terrible to behold! this time looking carefully at this i came away with these conclusions: a. i need to more thotfully relate to people b. i need to GO TOWARDS the people i am currently avoiding...WHICH, the Lord is horrifically showing me, ARE MANY! c. people who clearly show anger toward me i need to seriously attend to...as if i don't have enough to do already..but the Lord keeps showing me a simple, potentially transformative truth..YOU NEED TO BE DOING WHAT I TELL YOU TO NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. i have all kinds of things i like doing. i have all kinds of plans. i'm getting the idea that much that is uppermost or on the drawing board must be scrapped if i am going to please the One i hope to please the most. Lord, take out my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh and cause me to walk in Your statutes.
went sunday night to try and watch the gladiator (dvd) on one of the church machines. found they were inaccessable this week while at the same time met a brother who ended up giving me a vcr/dvd machine plus a converter box so i can get tv. though thinking before the Lord to gratefully receive the former, being weak i ended up taking, reluctantly the latter. got it home and, as i thot, was unable to connect the former up so we'll see..i don't think it can be connected to my 13" tv.. please Lord give me the determination not to bring the boob tube back into my house.
in 1804 william carey and his colleagues drafted a 'form of agreement' for the serampore mission. it contains the following statements of purpose:
1.to set an infinite value on men's souls
2.to acquaint ourselves with the snares which hold the minds of the people
3.to abstain from whatever deepens india's prejudice against the gospel
4.to watch for every chance of doing the people good
5.to preach 'Christ crucified' as the grand means of conversion
6.to esteem and treat indians always as our equals
7.to guard and build up the hosts that may be gathered
8.to cultivate their spiritual gifts, ever pressing upon them their missionary obligation, since indians only can win india for Christ
9.to labour unceasingly in biblical translation
10.to be instant in the nurture of personal religion
11.to give ourselves without reserve to the Cause, not counting even the clothes we wear our own
thot this week of the phrase, 'experimental christian'. it is an out-of-date concept. there are numbers who claim to be christians and yet this normally involves jumping through certain approved hoops which, in their..and ofttimes in others'..opinion qualifies them for the club. there appear to be exceedingly few who even approach a serious, ongoing, self-sacrificial attempt to follow Christ literally and keep His words literally. i don't know that i have ever met one, including myself who would qualify. but somehow that little phrase is working in my bones. maybe someday i can earnestly bent every muscle and sinew of the spirit to this end..SECRETLY..so as to experiment with following Jesus' words literally in every regard. if i could even do it constantly, fervently and largely fail in the effort just being given the grace to make this war the one focus of my remaining earthly existence would cause me to die enraptured. Jesus in matthew 25 in the judgment of the sheep and the goats said to both groups TO THE EXTENT you did or did not DO these things, you did or did not do it unto Me. thank You Lord for not being vince lombardi or grading on pass/fail but giving credit according to focus and amount of effort. i bless Your good and holy name.
have a good week. love, dad
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