Catching Up

The first several entries in my blog here will be somewhat of a catch-up of the last month or so of what the Lord has been doing in my life. The next several posts will be directly from my journal that I kept during my mission trip to the Tohono O'dham Indian reservation in Sells, Arizona. I do not want to simply want to talk about my life with you guys. That would get boring really quick. Most importantly, through my inner musings of many different areas of life, I hope that it will prompt you the reader to meditate upon areas of your own life that are paralleled with what you read here. I pray you will be blessed in some way through this blog.

Arizona 6/13/09

We just arrived at the reservation a few hours ago around 4:00pm AZ time. My first thought was, "Hey, this really is the desert." We met for a short orientation at First Papagos Baptist Church with JT [the One Way Ministries organization director]. This area is apparently the hot zone in this country for illegal immigrant activity. JT told us not to be surprised if the border patrol pulled up to the mission house and we saw a group of illegals take of running. There are also a couple of trailers right across the street from the mission, and JT told us they are used for illegal smuggling of immigrants, cocaine, and marijuana. There is so much poverty and crime here. As I sit here in the wilderness, Lord, I think about how the sweetest time in the covenant with Your people was when they were lead 40 years out of Egypt. They had nothing on which to rely, other than Your grace alone. No means of intellect or ability to reason is going to cause a spring of eternal life to pour forth to the TO [Tohono O'dham] people. Your Spirit must come, Father. It must come. A wilderness cries for Your rain to fall. Please show us and the TO people Your sovereign provision so that all will know that there is a God is Sells. Please break my pride and humble me so I can be used, Lord. Help me. Please help me.

Quiet Times are not enough

A great truth was revealed to me this evening--a great truth that God may be using to graciously reveal a very hollow and derelict aspect of my relationship with God. I realize that when my relationship with Him was most humbled and pleasurable was when I communed with Him the most often. I used to work at the Rave Theater in the Patton Creek shopping center next to the Galleria. At the Rave, when I first became a Christ follower, I would think on Him constantly and seek communion with Him perpetually. If I felt as if there were any interference, of the least amount, in my meditation on Christ during the day I would immediately being to pray that God would restore it to me. I get sick when I think about how I spend time praying and reading the Word, by God's grace sometimes encountering Him in both, and then walking out and living my life as if He had never taught me anything. How can I be so trite and foolish with His revelation as if He owed it to me? I have begun to put too much merit and security into doing a quiet time. Scripture doesn't give a picture of a quiet time's being sufficient for a man's soul. If the Holy Spirit is not renewing my mind and my soul through constant meditation of Him then I will not be ready when the battle comes directly on my doorstep.

"For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." ~Romans 8:26, 27