New Blog Announcement!

Hello everyone, and happy Saturday! This post is a bit different than normal ones on here, as you can see by the title. I did a post like this once upon a time, but for different reasons. Allow me to explain.

About ten months ago, I started this blog. I had a previous blog, but due to the radical changes in my life that God was imposing, I felt led to entirely make a new blog with a new focus. This morning, I have been lead again to start a new blog, but it is not at the demise of this one.

Instead, I will continue to write periodically on here, as I have been doing for quite some time now. In addition, I have started a new blog, which can be found at www.lttchurch.blogspot.com. The purpose of my new blog, entitled "Letters to the Church," is to write a series of letters to churches in different places, much like the apostle Paul did with the churches of Galatia, Ephesus, etc.

These letters, the first of which was just written a few minutes ago, will be posted a bit more often than my "Lightning Bug" posts, as they are shorter and require much less work to write. I was inspired by my recent purchase of the book "Operation World," a book which tells of prayer needs in every country in the world. It also encourages you to pray for churches (or parts of the Church) in that nation. Therefore, I will be praying for different nations all the time, and will be writing short letters of encouragement to these parts of the body of Christ. I hope you will look into these posts and also pray for the churches. Many believers in foreign countries have it much worse than we Americans do, and I pray that we keep their troubles and triumphs in our hearts.

Have a great weekend, and keep those most affected by 9/11 in your prayers this weekend. A post on this will come on this blog tonight.

By the way: Happy Birthday Michael! My little brother has turned 18 today. :)

The Day of Adversity

A couple of years ago, my spiritual life looked quite different than it does today. I had been dealing with some depression, stuff at work wasn't going how I liked it, and our church was struggling with conflict. This, along with random other things, caused me to seriously doubt the presence of an all-powerful, loving God. In fact, I was quite sure that the God I had learned about my entire life, the Christian God, was not the real God. I didn't know who the real God was, but I wasn't even sure I cared. I'd been doing the Christian thing for quite sometime, and the only reason I was concerned about the God I assumed was there was so I'd have a bit of fire insurance in case Hell was a real place. As far as my life was concerned, though, God didn't seem to care much about me, and the feeling was going to be returned.

How often in the darker times of our life do we feel like God isn't there, or that He doesn't care? I mean, crappy stuff happens to us, and we don't like it. If we don't like it, then why would God let it happen to us? Does He enjoy our suffering?

God does not enjoy human suffering. We were not made for that. Suffering didn't come into the world until humanity screwed up and rebelled against our Ruler. It's ultimately our fault for anything bad that happens to us. Anything good and perfect, though, comes from God (James 1:17). So why does suffering happen? Look at Ecclesiastes 7:14 with me.

"14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider: without question, God has made the one as well as the other." -Ecclesiastes 7:14, HCSB

Just like we doubt God's being around when bad stuff is happening, we are quick to praise God when good stuff is happening. We can recognize that God causes good things, but is it possible that He sends bad stuff our way sometimes? Every day we live on earth is from God, good or bad. Yes, bad stuff is ultimately our fault. Our sin causes it to exist. But perhaps God uses that bad stuff to work in our hearts? Perhaps God is still around, watching over the whole thing, using everything good or bad to glorify Himself?

After I had been in a pit of despair, relying on myself to get through life, I realized that I had done nothing to fix my life on my own. In fact, my life was getting worse without God. I began reaching back to Him, realizing that, in the dark moments, He might still be there. Guess what?! He is.

Deuteronomy 31:8 says that God will not leave you. He will not ditch you. When bad things are happening, don't turn away from God. Those bad times may be teaching you something. I was a proud, arrogant teenager that thought I could run my life as well as God can. I needed to learn to depend on God to run my life, and realize that He is in charge, not me. I learned more about the love and passion of God during that stretch of my life than I ever did before. God is constantly working to form you to be more like Him.

To make a car, you cannot take a block of metal and simply mold it into the shape of a car. You have to melt it and pour it into a mold and let it cool and harden and pull it out of the mold. It's a process. God will not mold you into perfection in a day, a week or a century. It's a process, and in order for the process to work, you must participate. Instead of running from hard times, embrace them. Let God mold you in the rough times. If you will run to Him in the hard times, you'll come out closer to the finished product than if you want just the good of God.

So will you let God work in your life in the bad times, or will you reject Him in times of need? Will you be formed by Him?