Lets get it started!

The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His Sovereignty rules over all.
To me this is something that is very difficult to grasp when it comes to everyday life. How does the Lord have control of every detail when I cant even remember half the things Im involved in or responsible for? How does He reign and rule over everything if some of those things are falling apart? How do we move if Hes in control, knowing that obedience and free will are our rights? How do we even have rights if He is the all powerfull beginning and end? I wonder about these things and how they affect my day to day. How is it that I am not to argue with the potter if I am the clay, well clay cant move but I can. I guess I cant if He's in control but then why have I made so many mistakes and why am I still sinning? To think that I got to this place of wondering simply by placing something else but Him as ulitimate. Tim Keller said that "Idols can make it possible to call evil good, and good evil." I need to start writting based on the quotes Im reading!

Sovereignty

Getting sick is what it took for me to throw my hands up and surrender the proud thoughts of myself as a determining factor in my future. The bumps all over my body clearly speak to me of the truth that someone else is in control. Why? Because no amount of effort on my part can make these things go away, in fact the more I search for the cause, the more my small intellectual capacity becomes evident. A world is at my fingertips in the www. realm yet it cannot comfort me with a reason for my sudden change in health. So I make plans to go to a man who will examine me and state his opinion. The only difference is he has spent years expanding his intellectual pallet and so society tells me to place my health in his capable hands. I was explaining my dilema to a freind and she told me to read Job 38-42. In these chapters, the God of The Universe challenges a man to teach Him something. He seeks answers from a man about things of nature. In the end as you can imagine the poor fellow also throws His hands up and bows his face before the Almighty quickly admitting his futility. God owes me no explantion, He controls every cell in my body. Now I have to wonder how I would feel if it were to be a fatal thing that was overtaking my body, as opposed to a simple skin irritation. My simple desire would be that I go back and see the Mighty God who created me as being all powerfull and all loving being simultaneously both. We cant even explain what that would look like, so why do we arrogantly challenge it?

"You didnt think joy could change a person did you? Joy is what you feel when the conflict is over. But its conflict that changes a person." Donald Miller, A Thousand Miles in A Million Years.
Isnt that what Paul talk about in 1 Peter 5:10? He chooses the word "confirm" (NASB), to describe the result of suffering. Is that not what we are all seeking? Confirmation? The greek word from the KJV is sterizo translated from stablish. The meaning is to make stable, place firmly, set fast, fix,to strengthen, make firm, to render constant, confirm, one's mind. Later on his book, Miller records this same gentleman ending his thoughts with this statement, "every conflict, no matter how hard, comes back to bless the protagonist if he will face his fate with courage.". In his book Miller is continuously challenging our will and ability to create "better stories". He is not referring to the stories told by highschool or college students about nights spent puking off a balcony, unless to you that is your better story, but on the contrary, he parallels writting and living in this satement, " But it's like I said before, about writers not really wanting to write. We have to force ourselves to create these scenes. We have to get up off the couch and turn the television off, we have to blow up the inner tubes and head to the river. We have to write the poem and deliver it in person. We have to pull the car off the road and hike to the top of the hill. We have to put on our suits, we have to dance at weddings, we have to make alters.". Where did we become so fearful? Where did I become so fearful? To now bring back 1 Peter, are we scared to suffer for the life we have been called to, and more personally chosen? What are you not doing because of fear? Who are you not forgiving because you think you have tomorrow and bitterness tells you its safer than vulnerability. What ocean have you not jumped in? What person have you not reached? What song have you not written or sung? What sin have you not ran from? Seek to be perfected, established and settled by the Lord through the suffering He Himself endured to receive the "eternal weight in glory."