2010 did not turn out quite as envisioned. the only thing that happened that i was thinking would happen is that by about november 18th i worked the last official hour as a 'professional painter' and noiselessly carried me into what is often called retirement, the end of gainful employment. what once i dreaded and feared happened. there has not been any conscious angst but indications that i am not yet at rest. one rather bizarre on was that in the last three months leading up to this i ate 55 quarts of ice cream. i know...gross. but that is who i am apart from the imputed righteousness of Christ...just another selfish pig desperately in need of a savior. i can't believe how He loves me. He is much more gentle and patient with me than i am with others...oh may He bring me to keep His commandments so that He can tell i love Him...
anyway, the year included a number of situations where i gave of my time, usually as a painter. as a result it was largely a very busy year. these situations took up almost 30 hours a week for the year. so with the ten gainful, i almost worked 40 hours every week last year... not nearly what i expected. 54 ended up getting about 12 hours a week. it was pegged to get 30.
spiritually and socially the year was difficult. God in various ways has definitely put me in isolation with very little genuine spiritual fellowship. i've started to talk to myself out loud a good bit more. this started out as a better way to review what i have memorized from the bible and to learn new. then it went to prayer, especially around the empty house. (both room renters left, one at the beginning of september, the other at the beginning of october.) lately i have noticed i tend to turn on kyw more, usually to catch the sports at the quarter hour or the weather and then tending to keep it on! yikes, what is happening to me. :) i have been able to trim that away again. but yea, it is beastly lonely at times. but God is so good. He constantly is bringing all kinds of difficult things into my life to purify my faith. He has, since leaving leidy church about 18 months ago...and a bit, maybe a year, before that, been providing a template upon with to build and toughen me spiritually...i think..i hope, by His grace..we'll see. but isolation has been a real part of that.
the spanish speaking people i worship with have reached out to me about as much as i have to them. i don't want to be speaking english in the building and so am really limited. but recently my ear is getting a lot more of the meaning of what is spoken and i am, sometimes to my amazement, quite fluent of expression..especially when praying in spanish and in talking within myself about spiritual things. it's good! i enjoy it and keep praying that God will enable me to use it in some way for Him. it is the same in this area. i am thriving inwardly and privately while largely barren in an outward public context.
i love reading the spanish bible every morning and am now at leviticus 21. the Lord has spoken to me powerfully many times through this. one of the most recent was in memorizing romanos 8.13 (i memorize the verso clave - key verse - for the sunday school lesson each week. this one reads, 'porque si vivis conforme a la carne, morireis. mas si por el espiritu haceis morir las obras de la carne, vivireis'. word for word translation is ' because if you are living according to the flesh (our self nature) you will die. but if by the Spirit you may make to die the works (or deeds) of the flesh, you will live' . i cannot get the words haceis morir out of my spirit. the way the spanish translates there is so powerful and helps me practically so much in the constant warfare between my continuing old selfish nature and the nature of Christ that is now within me. when that wicked desire rears its ugly head and seems so powerful and intractable those two ('make to die' in english) words the Spirit brings again and again showing me the way: kill what is going on in you right now. don't stop praying for My help and declaring that you 'will not' or 'will' do x, whatever the case may be and thus make the evil desire die...wow. it's powerful. and that has happened any number of times. wonderful good stuff.
eating has been exquisite having eaten a huge salad from the garden for months ending a few days from the end of the year. i want to build on that...but yes God has been so good in this area. my budget for food slipped another $7 a week to near $40. my goal for next year is in the $30-35 range but there is only so much progress possible unless i start moving into making some of the food i buy and that just isn't a possiblity to me now. we will see.
i had some big trials last year relating to people and painting. a lot of lessons were given. i hope i am learning, but i seem to be very stubborn and obstinate in the flesh. in that case God turns right around and brings the same lesson back again. the thing that He dealt with more than any other is my spontaneous, freewheeling nature of jumping at things and committing myself to things. God is loudly and clearly saying something to the effect that i am not my own but His and i have no right to do as i please with my time. my time is His. lesson in short: don't say 'yes' to anything without first consulting with Me. i suffered a good bit from having to try and learn that again and again in 2010. i am waiting for the next test for i did not learn it last year.
the most extreme challenge spiritually was how the Lord clearly led me to continue helping a certain individual with his house in philly.
1. he did not have the house ready to paint which caused me endless hours of extra work..for which i got 'kicked off' the job on three separate occasions.
2. he did not pay me several thousands of dollars until i actually called and got angry with him over the phone. (i so doing, like moses striking the rock instead of speaking to it like God told him, i broke a code that i was led to hold: never ask for $ that is not paid, just accept the loss. so that meant more difficulty on that score...one i still am experiencing. hopefully i will keep code.) 3. because he made rash, uninformed decisions of various sorts i had to repaint the entire house...and then to keep fixing areas where other workers had damaged wall or trim and redo again..sometimes several times in the same areas.
4. i got several traffic tickets (i can't remember when last i had one..years ago amounting to over $100.
5. i was never paid for hundreds of dollars of supplies i had purchased to do the job.
6. i was unable to recoup tolls amounting to over $60 or any time or any travel time although i put about 2000 miles on the car.
7....and when i was kicked off the last time in early november (i started there in june) the Lord clearly led me to call and offer to finish the job off the clock. all in all i put between 1 and 200 hours in unpaid.
8. when i finished painting the Lord once again clearly called me back to help get the house to where it could finally receive an occupancy permit.
9. one night the house was burglarized several hours after i left and although 100s of dollars of equipment was stolen, nothing was missing from my supplies.
10. one night at 10 i came out to go home and the battery was dead. after canvassing the neighborhood and no one could help i went to sleep on the floor and the next morning, miraculously the individual showed and jumped my car and i drove home! there is more but i can't share that.
11. one particularly grinding 15 hour no-pay day when i was really working hard to try and finish the painting this individual was largely walking around and talking with other people...at that time the reality of what a slave must feel like who is powerless to even have the simplest form of justice...the tang of that bitter reality came into my soul. from another side i realized the distance that needs to still be traveled between where i am as a 'slave' of God to where a true slave of God lives. it was good for me to see this and to have a tiny opportunity to experience a tiny bit of what real slavery must be like.
12. the most trying was that when i got feeling a bit spiritual, the Lord spoke to me about the verse in romans 12 that says to show mercy with hilarity. that was a struggle. i was very cocky about the mercy part. i was utterly incapable of doing the hilarity. i'm sure i'll be given more practice.
i left that house for the last time late on christmas eve and God, almost as a special gift, had me, very uncharacteristically, tune in xtu and thrilled my spirit all the way home with the most amazing string of disparate but absolutely riveting christmas music i have heard in all my life. it was so good that i somehow was able to call it up on my very broken equipment at home (found a hanger to serve as an antenna to bring it in!) and listened intently and enraptured until the progam was over at 1 a.m. and fell contentedly and blissfully in bed. what a wonder He is!
finally, and i need to stop with this, when i started my paint business i felt a clear leading to put $1000 a month away in savings. i never would have believed that that would carry all the way through even the 10 hour a week year in 2010. God's amazing grace. how could He do it inspite of all the problems along the way. when 2010 ended with taxes paid i had slightly over $48,000 saved. He's trying to convince me that i can trust Him. may He bring me to 'seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and see Him provide my needs. He is worthy of all my praise..
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