Elijah Anyone?

So I am back in Wichita and currently working at ye ol' inn until 11pm, which means internet access and plenty of time to write a faith blog.


My family has been huge Chuck Swindoll fans for years. We love listening to his messages on the radio. I came across his online daily bible study sites www.christianity.com decided to look at the topic for this week's study. It's over Elijah. It's a fun connection that God gave me, I sang in the Elijah oratorio last semester in school, so these devotionals really hit home as I focused more on the scripture. Elijah was God's servant, but he was human just like us. He screwed up, and the comforting thing to read about was that he made the mistake of running in fear. For months I had struggled with thoughts/ fears of the future, of my mortality, and of the unknown. What a comfort it is that God put in an example for me to read about. One of His servants who struggled with the same fears I do. God can use us despite our sinful defects. So in other words, we aren't useless, He can use our defects to speak to others. What a way to salvage ey? Ha ha....God doesn't give up on us because our human nature takes over, he uses all of our parts the good and the bad for His purposes. Neato! But here's the kicker from the Bible study for me:



"Do you live expectantly? Do the little things excite you? Do you imagine the improbable and expect the impossible? Life is full and running over with opportunities to see God's hand in little things. Only the most sensitive of His servants see them, smile, and live on tiptoe.
Children can teach us a lot about this kind of expectancy. Did you ever listen to a child pray? Their faith knows no bounds. And who are the least surprised people when God answers prayer? The children.


As we get older we grow too sophisticated for that. We use phrases like, "Let's be realistic about this." We lose that expectancy, that urgency of hope, that delightful, childlike, wide-eyed joy of faith that keeps us full of anticipation and excitement. May God deliver us from a grim, stoic, stale shrug of the shoulders! "Look, I haven't changed," He says. "I still delight in doing impossible things. I love to surprise you!"


Day by Day, Charles Swindoll, July 2005, Thomas Nelson, inc., Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved. Purchase "Day by Day" here.


What Swindoll said really hit home for me....kind of what I was talking about in the last entry, being the little ADHD dog for God. We should never stop marveling at the works of His hands. We should never be surprised at having our prayers answered. At this point, I'm comming off of the high I felt in KCMO, but I'm not going back to how I used to be. I'm still me, but a revised version if you will. One of the first thoughts that has gone through my mind, if not the very first thought when I wake up is, "I have been given another day. More precious time from God to do His bidding. Thank you!" If there is one thing that I've learned over the past week it is to be grateful for EVERYTHING!!!!! I have a whole new sense of wonder and appriciation of the world around me, for time, for people that I've met or will meet, the intricacy of His creation: plants, animals, people, etc.


It doesn't take an idiot to know that this universe didn't come into existance because of a big explosion. There are so many tiny intricate details in every work He created. An explosion destroys, God creates. I'm an extremely detail oriented person, but God has truly out done Himself :). And you have to admit that He has a pretty great sense of humor when you look at animals in particular. Let me give you some of my favorite examples: duckbilled platypus, hamster, caterpillar, otters, penguins, lamas...the list keeps going. I really can't help but picture Him with the best sense of humor, laughing constantly at the enjoyment of His creation.
With that in mind, just going to tie this in with something said to me at work tonight. I asked a guest if there was aything else I could do after making their reservation, to which they responded, "No, thank you too much." At first I though, well that was weird. But I thought about it again. That is the attitude we should have towards God, thank you too much! We should stop asking for all of these things. We have turned into such a gimmie gimmie society that we forget how grateful we should be. So yes, next time you pray, follow my new found ways of praying. Had this one given to me at a church I sang for this summer:
A.C.T.S.- Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication
I found that by the time I did the first 3 steps, I really had close to nothing to ask for myself. It's a very humbling thing, but I highly recommend it!!!



To end this faith blog, I would like to end with a quote that my dad reminded me of. We used to have a magnet of this on our fridge:


"Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous"
and since there was no claim on the quote, I guess that would make it anonymous . God Bless!