Yes

It has been a long time since I posted. As usual not much has changed. 'Cept my Wanderlust has increased. My friend John leaves for the Air Force tomorrow, and I'm really jealous of him. I feel like all my adventuring is behind me, and his is only beginning. Oh well. God knows what's best for me, right?
I was going to write more, maybe I'll update it later, but my friends just called to go shooting, so I have to leave right now. Yeah, maybe I'll add more later ;)


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Now playing: Phil Wickham - Give You My World
via FoxyTunes

Psalm 91

1_He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty

How many times have I read that? Tons. How many times have I sung that? Even more. But on Friday August 31 this really hit me. I've said this before and I will say it again, there is going to be some major PERSONAL APPLICATION in what I am about to say, nothing to build a spiritual house on, so please don't think I'm coming out with new and/or strange doctrine.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High.... To me, at least on Friday, that means whoever dwells in the Tabernacle. Ok, so you walk into the Tabernacle/Temple, and what is directly on your right? The showbread. Twelve loaves of unleavened bread set there symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel. The bread is replaced weekly and the Priests eat the bread that comes off the table. Translation, Judism. The Jewish Scripture, their history, their relationship with God. And directly on your left as you enter? The lampstand. This is symbolic of the Holy Spirit and His ministry. Translation? His personal indwelling in the believer, the Church. His work in my life and my fellowship with other believers. Directly in front of you as you walk in? The alter of incense. Prayer, plain and simple. Let's bring it all together. He who makes a habit of studying the scripture, abiding in fellowship with the Holy Spirit and with other believers, and prays continually...

...will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. 'Abide' is a fun word. It means so much. According to dictionary.com it means *clears throat*

1. to remain; continue; stay: Abide with me.
2. to have one's abode; dwell; reside: to abide in a small Scottish village.
3. to continue in a particular condition, attitude, relationship, etc.; last.
–verb (used with object)
4. to put up with; tolerate; stand: I can't abide dishonesty!
5. to endure, sustain, or withstand without yielding or submitting: to abide a vigorous onslaught.
6. to wait for; await: to abide the coming of the Lord.
7. to accept without opposition or question: to abide the verdict of the judges.
8. to pay the price or penalty of; suffer for.
—Verb phrase
9. abide by,
a. to act in accord with.
b. to submit to; agree to: to abide by the court's decision.
c. to remain steadfast or faithful to; keep: If you make a promise, abide by it.

See? big word. But that's not my favorite word in this sentence. My favorite is the word 'will.' Wait, you mean that whole 'how can I keep myself in accordince with God's will' question is as simple as dwelling in His Tabernacle? Yep. This verse states that if you dwell with God and in His Tabernacle you WILL abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Well that was simple!

Fear

I was reading today in Hebrews and Hebrews 2:15 really jumped out at me. It states, with verse 14 for context: "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery ."
How does Satan keep men from coming to God? I thought of two very prominent ways: Pride and Fear. Yet in a way, pride is a form of fear. It is the fear of losing oneself and of appearing weak to others. Satan uses fear. 2 Timothy 1:7 "For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." That verse was POUNDED into my head in Germany, as it is one of pastor Nick's life verses. And then I thought about it. How often do I let fear control my life? How often do I listen to my fears of, oh, failure, rejection, inferiority etc. instead of the Spirit of God dwelling in me? The more I examine my life and my choices, the more I see how fear has infiltrated so much of my life. How many of your decisions are motivated by fear? Remember, God has not give us the spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.

Concert

I went to the Shane and Shane concert last night, mostly to see Phil Wickham who was opening...let me just say the concert was AMAZING! Phil set the tone by finishing off a couple of his songs with well known worship songs and Shane and Shane took it to the next level with their own brand of worship. I was truly blessed. It was a perfect evening, even if the concert did start off an hour late. I think it was kind of funny that I was waiting at the door with about 50 other people 45 minutes before the show was supposed to start when the tour bus arrived - they had broken down (in a very literal sense) in Conneticut and were just arriving.

So this is me with Phil

Dreams

I dream every night. Seriously! Every stinkin' night I have at least one dream that I remember all or at least fragments of. Last night the dream included a woman on TV speaking in German, and I was so happy to hear someone speaking German that it soothed me. I think that means I miss Germany. With my going back to Russia this summer, I find myself feeling like I'm going back to Germany. I'm picturing my friends in Russia as well as those I have in Germany. Right now the song "Satisfied" by Scott Cunningham is on, but I feel like the only way for me to be truly satisfied is to return to Germany. I'm still restless here. And I don't know what to do about it.

I'm still here.

Things haven't changed much in the past month. I'm still unemployed. Still planning on going back to Russia. Still feeling desperatly like I'm supposed to be doing something that I'm not doing. Have you ever had something that you LOVE doing, where everytime you do that activity you just feel *right*? I've had that for about eight years. Yet I'm not pursuing that activity. Why? What am I scared of?

/randomness

What do you think?

Yes or no? My problem exactly. How do you answer a question when you don't know what the question is? If you read my last post, you understand that I'm fairly restless right now. I feel like I'm wasting away and not reaching my potential for God. I feel like He's giving me opportunities but I can't hear Him and therefore don't know what those opportunities are. I guess that what this blog is all about is my desire to hear from God. Please pray? Thanks.
YSIC

Restless.

I went to a movie last night, playing hookie from church. Hey, Chris wasn't teaching, no one was...I just needed to be alone....

So I saw "Amazing Grace" as I had heard it was excellent from numerous people. That includes the couple who was in front of me in line at the theater. I enjoyed the movie.

When I left, I felt restless. Like, here I am, sitting at home (while not looking for work) and doing essentially nothing, when I could be out doing something for God. Why am I in the States? And if I have to be in the States, why am I just looking for a job? I feel like I should be out there doing something. I dunno. What do you think?

Calvary Chapel Bible College

I squeezed two years into 6 minutes and 40 seconds. So here it is.

Europe

This is the post that I was supposed to write a month ago, sorry for the delay!

Europe. Here goes.

We left Germany on December 16th and went to Zürich. All I remember is that we couldn't figure out how to buy the Strassenbahn tickets and therefore it took a while to get to the Hostel. We walked around that night through a Christmas market and ate dinner at a place where I felt completly underdressed. Our first country, Switzerland, was the only one where we needed to change our Euros into something else - Swiss Franks. That really screwed me up just because I wasn't used to the money. I can't imagine how my mom felt as she was not even used to Euros.

The 17th took us to Geneva. The train ride was better than the city. We walked around the lake and then crossed over to the other side of the lake. We didn't do any museums or anything interesting, and since we were so close to France, no one spoke German. Communication was therefore primitive sign language and/or "Können Sie deutsch...English?"







The next morning we took an early trin to Bern and spent a few hours there. We just walked around, again. No museums or anything like that. Everything was closed, essentially. This was my mom's favorite city....





We took an earlier train to Milan than we were planning, and it worked out very well. We actually got to SEE the mountains as we went through them, and getting to the hostel was all but impossible once we got there. It was raining. All mom had was a square inch map with every 20th street on it and a bus number with no alighting point. At least I think we had that much. The train got in at 5:35pm and we got to the hostel at 9:30 pm. A lot of walking, asking for directions and random busses eventally got us there. My mom was convinced that there were people following us from the first bus stop. Paranoia. So we got in to the hostel and got our own room with its own shower. We were planning on leaving at 3 pm to go to Rome so we headed out early the next day. We dropped our bags at the train station and then went down to the metro to get us to the sights. While trying to figure out how to buy tickets, a man grabbed my arm and flashed a badge at me, while holding my pencil case. Yeah, a gypsy had gotten into my bag and stolen my pencil case. The cops had caught them (two tiny kids) and mom and I got a free ride downtown - exactly where we wanted to go. A police report was filed and we left. Fun stuff. That, however, had eaten away a lot of our sightseeing time so all we ended up seeing was the Cathedral. There is large copy of the police report at the bottom of this blog.







Rome was next. My favorite city - and we actually spent two days here. The first day was all the old archeological stuff - ruins, the Coliseum, stuff like that. The next day we went to Vatican city to see the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum. No pictures allowed inside the actual chapel but we made do with what we could.














Late on the 21st we traveled to Florence. The people were VERY nice to us tourists, and even told us when we were about to get on the wrong bus. We went to Florence just to see Michaelangelo's David. No pictures allowed.... But the hostel was an old mansion so that was beautiful.





We got into Venice late that evening and walked around the city a little bit. The novelty wore off for me after a few minutes, but my mom absolutly loved it. We stayed in a hotel that night, as there were no open hostels during that part of the season. No museums here..only a lot of glass. The hotel had a thing where they set up a trip to Murano glass and we got to see actual glass blowing and stuff. It sounded exciting so mom and I signed up and went. We left early Saturday morning, that would be December 23. There was a grand total of 7 minutes and 34 seconds of glass blowing before the extreamly well dressed tour guide took us up to the glass show room to show us all what they are capable of. The glass was beautiful, and expensive. An inexpensive vase was 400 euros and the 'nice' ones were upwards of 2000 euros. We did the loop with our guide and then expected him to take us to the exit. Oh no, he expected us to buy something. So began the stand-off. He continued with the sales pitch "oh, if you find something you like we'll ship it to your house in America free of charge. If it ever breaks, we'll send you another one" and so on. So I found a really cheap vase that was made by someone just starting off. It was only 50 euros and I liked it and decided that I would get it. But he wanted to wrap it up and let me take it with me. I said thanks but no thanks and we sat some more, wondering how to get out of there. Finally I went to the restroom and came back and just asked him to show us the exit. He did, in a huff. Whenever I think of Murano glass, I emphasise the the first two syllables. "Moran." And they made this tree.







We spent and entire day traveling and made it to Paris late on Christmas Eve. That means that for Christmas Day we were in Paris. No crowds, and we didn't have to deal with the locals much at all. That was a plus. We did the normal tourist things, Notre Dame, Eifel Tower, we saw the outside of the Louvre as it was closed for the holiday, and the Arc de Triomphe.
















We spent the 26th traveling to Vienna. We just walked around and eventually did a short little trolley ride around the city and then took off to Salzburg on the 27th.




Salzburg on the 28th was the most embarassing for me. My mom took me on the "Sound of Music Tour." We were on a bus of mostly Americans who had no qualms whatsoever of singing along to the soundtrack they were playing in the background. People who had been on the tour before (yes, aparantly once was NEVER enough) noticed discrepancies in things. "This wasn't the wedding church they took us to last time. Those aren't the trees the VonTrapps were hanging out of, at least they showed us different ones last time..." etc. After that, however, we had a wonderful time going up to the fortress in the center of the city. First you'll get to see some views from the Sound of Music, then some views from the fortress.


The house used for the back of the VonTrapp mansion.




This is supposedly the gazebo, although it's been relocated.




The fountain at the end of "Doe, a Deer"




A view from the fortress in the middle of the city.




Another view from the fortress.