My God is SO Big!!!

Yesterday on the lovely BBC campus was the Day of Prayer. Classes were cancelled so that the students, faculty and staff could focus on prayer. This year, we had a theme to our Day of Prayer paralleling the theme for this school year of Celebrating God's Faithfulness (seeing as this year is the 75th Anniversary of the school) - the theme yesterday was "Thankfulness For God's Faithfulness".

Yesterday could not have come at a better time. Spiritually and emotionally I was to the brink. I was dealing with a situation that seemed to be taking a very very bad turn for the worst, and all last week I was up late in distress crying out to God, over the weekend I was questioning if there is ever a time in ministry when you have to give up on someone. I dont mean stop loving them and praying for them - but when there is just nothing else you can do. Needless to say, I was pretty drained and basically wondering how God was really working in the situation.

Tuesday night Boykin came to me and said that he had the best news I could have ever wanted to hear right now. God had worked in this guy's heart and life and he made a 180. I was thrilled, my heart was rejoicing like none other. I would have been doing backflips if I had been able to!! It was just an amazing amazing answer to prayer that we had been praying hard for for a good while.

So I was already rejoicing in God's faithfulness. And then I was talking with one of my guys who was unsaved - and as we are talking I come to find out he got saved!!!!! Oh I went into my room last night about 1:30 and just was in prayer and thanking the Lord for His faithfulness and His perfect love and working all things together - and I just started to cry.

My soul and heart are so happy right now. Then I realized that i needed to ask forgiveness, because when I was praying over and over that God would be faithful and when I was struggling to decide if there is ever a time in the ministry when I just have to give up - I realized how selfish and un-Christlike I was really being.

When God has been so faithful to me, and to others and to all of mankind for the enterity of creation - how could I question being faithful in the ministry to others because of a few bad hours, days or weeks?

My God is so BIG and AWESOME and POWERFUL - He is working things together that I have yet to see. But I know that He is working I have experienced His working, and His faithfulness and my cup overflows.

Psalm 40:1-5

I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and hear and will trust in the LORD.

How blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust, and has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood. Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, and Your thoughts towards us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count.

Forgetting what is behind...

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 3:12-14

Wow, it is October 22, over half way through the first semester of my sophomore year of college, and I dont think I have posted on here once since summer ended.

A lot has happened in these short months - which at the time seemed to drag on and on. I have met a lot of new people, formed many new bonds and relationships and even experienced many heartaches. We have roughly 30 new guys in the dorm this year, thats about 60% brand new.

As Boykin puts it to us RAs "We have lots of opportunities!" Man is that true! At first I was scared, then I was brave, and then I was scared again. God has really been growing me and teaching me a lot this semester. About what it means to be a man, a true man - man after God's own heart.

To be completely honest I am terrified. Not because I dont want to do the right thing - but mainly because people are looking to me for leadership. I am scared that because of my past and because I know the person under the outer shell, that God wouldnt want to use me. He wouldnt want to use someone who isnt perfect, who has sinned and whom others have sinned against. I have been hurt and have hurt others.

But then I have been learning that it isnt sin that defines me. It isnt my shortcomings, it isnt my failures, someone else's sin against me doesnt define who I am either. What defines me is Christ, my Lord and Savior. He loves me perfectly, and His love is not a performanced based love - it is an unconditional and perfect love.

"Part of being a man is realizing my weaknesses and seeking God out through them. I can lead and be courageous in the face of fear and uncertainty. Being a man means not stepping down, being a man means never giving up, but pressing onward with Heaven in sight. It means loving God with my whole heart and loving woman as she is to be loved. It means not settling for anything less than the plan God has for my life."

Journal Entry 10/16/2007

I think the biggest thing that I have learned is grace & showcasing God's love by continually loving people through sin and failure - because I am the same. I need that same thing when I fail, if I was to give anything less than everything I have, then I would be doing God and my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ a disservice.

-Alex