Eternity

So far, I'm not doing so good on the whole, "I'm going to post something every week thing."
I'll just have to try harder.

Recently I went on a trip with my friends through a local church. Our destination was the state of Kentucky to tour the Creation Museum. It was a journey that definitely strengthened my faith, and I believe that everyone at some point should tour the Museum. It's in Hebron, Kentucky which was a bit of a drive for us (10 hours) but we made a week out of it and it was worth it.

However, this may have been a pleasure trip, but it was also a church trip and every morning and evening when we were in the hotel we had worship services. The youth leader from the trip had written all the "lessons" himself, and one thing that struck me was that he used the book of Proverbs as our morning devotionals.

He took the date and used that corresponding chapter (EX: the 19th day of the month meant that we studied the 19th chapter of Proverbs). He told us (and this is true) that there are enough chapters in this book (31) to be able to read one every day of the month (for the most part).

And it's true. The youth leader challenged us all on that trip to take five-ten minutes out of our day and read the Bible. It didn't have to be Proverbs. It could be any book, any chapter. Just as long as we made more of an effort to read the Good Word a little everyday, he said, it would be time well spent.

And it is. I admit that I don't read my Bible everyday, but I do read a little each week. And its so worth it. What is ten minutes anyway? It's nothing compared to an eternity.

What is eternity any way?

 

Infinite or unending time.

A state to which time has no application; timelessness

 

That's the definition anyway, according to Google.

 

INFINITE. UNENDING.

 

Eternity, then, is a fancy word describing God's love for us, his children. :)

 

In all seriousness however, can you imagine eternity? Something that never ends?

It's hard, isn't it?

 

Nothing on the world today is unending, because everything is finite. Everything dies at some point. 

Animals, plants, people. At one point or another, everything kicks the bucket.

It's May the 5th today. So, here's Proverbs 5.



<sup>Proverbs 5

My son, pay attention to my wisdom,
listen well to my words of insight.,

that you may maintain discretion
and your lips may preserve knowledge.

For the lips of an adulttress drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil; 

but in the end she is bitter as gall, 
sharp as a double edged sword.</sup>

Her feet go down to death;
    her steps lead straight to the grave.

She gives no thought to the way of life;
    her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.

 Now then, my sons, listen to me;
    do not turn aside from what I say.

 Keep to a path far from her,
    do not go near the door of her house,

 lest you lose your honor to others
    and your dignity to one who is cruel,

 lest strangers feast on your wealth
    and your toil enrich the house of another.

 At the end of your life you will groan,
    when your flesh and body are spent.

 You will say, “How I hated discipline!
    How my heart spurned correction!

 I would not obey my teachers
    or turn my ear to my instructors.

 ^{And I was soon in serious trouble
    in the assembly of God’s people.”}

 

 

Drink water from your own cistern,
    running water from your own well.

 Should your springs overflow in the streets,
    your streams of water in the public squares?

 Let them be yours alone,
    never to be shared with strangers.

 May your fountain be blessed,
    and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.

 A loving doe, a graceful deer—
    may her breasts satisfy you always,
    may you ever be intoxicated with her love.

 ^{Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife?
    Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?}

 For your ways are in full view of the Lord,
    and he examines all your paths.

 The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them;
    the cords of their sins hold them fast.

 ^{For lack of discipline they will die,
    led astray by their own great folly.}

 

POP QUIZ!

 

1) Did you read through the whole thing?

2)Did it take long?

 

Here's a cheat sheet.

 

Answers:

1) Yes!

2) NO!

 

^{The truth is, it doesn't take that long, and it isn't that hard to read. I try to read one chapter from proverbs every morning. I'm not saying that I do. I'm saying that I try. There are some days that I forget, so I double up the next day. It takes me less than ten minutes.}

 

Yes, this passage has nothing to do with eternity. But these verses do:

 

"And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son."

 

--1 John 5:11

 

 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life."

 

--John 5:24

 

 

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

 

--John 3:16

 

 

"I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh."

 

--John 6:51

 

 

"And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life."

 

--1 John 5:20

 

 

^{So let me ask you one more question.}

 

^{What's five-ten minutes compared to an eternity?}

^{Cross references:}

1. ^{Proverbs 5:1 : S Pr 1:8}
2. ^{Proverbs 5:1 : Pr 4:20}
3. ^{Proverbs 5:3 : S Ps 55:21; Pr 7:5}
4. ^{Proverbs 5:4 : Ecc 7:26}
5. ^{Proverbs 5:5 : S Ps 9:17; S Pr 2:18; 7:26-27}
6. ^{Proverbs 5:6 : Pr 9:13; 30:20}
7. ^{Proverbs 5:7 : Pr 1:8-9}
8. ^{Proverbs 5:8 : S Pr 2:16-19; 6:20-29; 7:1-27}
9. ^{Proverbs 5:10 : Pr 29:3}
10. ^{Proverbs 5:12 : Pr 12:1}
11. ^{Proverbs 5:14 : Pr 1:24-27; 6:33}
12. ^{Proverbs 5:14 : Pr 31:3}
13. ^{Proverbs 5:18 : SS 4:12-15}
14. ^{Proverbs 5:18 : S Dt 20:7; Pr 2:17; Ecc 9:9; Mal 2:14}
15. ^{Proverbs 5:19 : SS 4:5; 8:14}
16. ^{Proverbs 5:21 : S Ps 119:168}
17. ^{Proverbs 5:21 : Jer 29:23}
18. ^{Proverbs 5:21 : S Job 10:4; S 14:16; Pr 15:3; Jer 32:19; S Heb 4:13}
19. ^{Proverbs 5:22 : Ps 9:16}
20. ^{Proverbs 5:22 : Nu 32:23; S Job 18:9; Ps 7:15-16; S Pr 1:31-32}
21. ^{Proverbs 5:23 : S Job 4:21; Pr 10:21}
22. ^{Proverbs 5:23 : Job 34:21-25; Pr 11:5}

 
     




 

Plans

 Plans. That's a big word. By now most of my friends know where they are going to go, what they are going to do, how they are going to pay for college. They have their lives planned. They ask me where I'm going and all I can say is, "Dude, I don't know."

Me? My current plan is to apply for as many scholarships as I qualify for. And get my drivers license. And get a part-time job while finishing high school. That's about it for now. I'll figure out where I go from there.

I'm scared. I freely admit that I'm scared, that I'm terrified even. In a little over a year I'll be a college student, living on my own. I'll be working, studying, and trying to maintain a social life. It's going to be a change, one that, while I may look forward to, I still regard with apprehension.

I am a little bit excited as well. I've been waiting or years to finally finish my education and make my way into the world. But while I want to grow up and do all these things, I wish I could go back to when my biggest worry was whether or not I had done my chores or asking what was for dinner.

These days, I worry a lot. I worry about money, about getting my drivers license, and about college. I'm constantly looking at the date and wondering about the scholarship applications that I've turned in, or the ones that I plan to turn in in the near future.

That's the one thing I'm not worried about, where I'm going that is. I don't worry about that part. I just worry over how I'm going to get there. But where I'm going, to me, doesn't really matter.

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, "Plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Jeremiah 29:11    

 I worry and I plan for the future, but ultimately it's not up to me. God's got a purpose and a plan for this soul, and while I may be impatient He will reveal it in His own time, when it is time for me to know it. So while I may worry anyway, in truth, I don't need to and I shouldn't worry at all. God's taking care of me. Because God has a plan for all of us. We just have to listen.

Goodbyes

Up until this weekend I didn't truly know or understand how sad goodbyes could be.

For as long as I can remember, and as long as I have been at my church (which has been for as long as I can remember) the same people have always been there. I live in a small town, and as a rule my church is also small. On a good Sunday we average about a hundred in attendance for the sermon.
The people who're in my church have been going for years, and all of their children (myself included) have grown up together. One word that sums up all of us when we are together is family (insanity can also be used at times, but family fits better).

This year we have had to lose part of our family, our youth leader and her family, the senior high teachers, and a family that has played a big part in the youth since they started attending.

Every year in late spring/early summer our entire youth group has what we call our 'retreat'. One weekend we go away to a nearby wildlife reserve which allows us use of their two community buildings/cabins. We enjoy fellowship, worship, and each others company while learning even more about our God. We arrive on Friday evening, have dinner and a lesson, before having free time the rest of the night. Saturday is always the busiest and the most fun before going home on Sunday.

The cardinal rule of Saturday night is that there will be tears. The entire day we have been having lessons, and games that are our own version of Survivor/The Amazing Race. Then we have entertainment provided by either the leaders or the senior high. This year, because it was our leaders last year we decided to go out with a bang. The six senior high present (myself included) got together with the man who always does our worship music and compiled a performance of "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)". 

But we weren't just singing or playing music to it. Well, we were but not in the original tune. We hand rewritten it to the tunes of "Sweet Home in Alabama", "Jail House Rock", "Purple Rain", "Barbra Anne", "Great Balls of Fire" and "Friends in Low Places". To add to the comedy, we dressed up as the singer whose song we were preforming. I will never forget the sight of one of my best friends attempting to pull off Elvis Presley. Although, he did a pretty good job.

 In that thirty minutes, we laughed more than we had laughed all weekend. Which was good that we got to be happy for that time, because the tears were coming.

The adults gave out gifts to each other, and the entire youth presented our leaders with a wall hanging that had a verse on the front, and on the back we had stapled a piece of paper on which was written personal messages from all of us. The tissues had to come out at this point. We all needed them.

And we continued to use them throughout the night, as we all sang and worshipped together as a group one last time. It was one of the saddest moments of my very short life. Later, while the junior high had free time, senior high said our own goodbyes to the adults and teenagers who were leaving.
These are the people we grew up with, who watched us grow. They have seen us at our best and our worst, and been there when we needed them for anything. Saying goodbye to them was hard.
I don't think I've cried so much in my entire life as I did that night. I'm crying now, writing this and remembering.

Saying goodbye was sad, but it was also slightly happy. The best of times and the worst. Because we aren't saying goodbye to our brothers and sisters forever. We'll see them again someday, in this life or the next. This isn't the end, our goodbyes to each other aren't, "Forever goodbyes" they're, "I'll see you soon goodbyes". For us, this isn't it. It's the end of the chapter, but not the book. The end of an age, but not the world. I could use so many analogies here to try to explain, but I think those are sufficient.

As we stood there on that last morning preparing to load into the vans, we all knew that we were different. That this weekend had changed us more then the others, and that after this our lives would never be the same. And truly, they won't. We had said enough goodbyes the night before, we had spoken what was in our hearts. We had cried all our tears. So that morning there were no goodbyes.
just, "We'll meet again." 

New Years Resolutions

Today I got on my mothers blog to check on ingredients for a recipe I wanted to make when I realized something, I haven't logged on to or wrote on my blog for a while now.


The fact that I'm not writing is a pretty pathetic fact for someone who's going to major in journalism.

So, I've decided that today marks a new year for my blog. I've posted the occasional thing, book reviews, recipes, devotionals, etc.  My blogs new year resolution is to post at least three things a week. Some of it might be structured, some of it might be random. But I'm going to attempt to write at least three things a week to post.

It might be an article on how the day was, what I did and saw. Perhaps it will be a review. Or I might even post some of my own works. Who knows?

Here goes nothing.

The Orphan King

The Orphan King is the first book in a series titled "Merlin's Immortals" written by Sigmund Brouwer and was published this year.

"My greatest fear was that they would find us and make us a sacrifice beneath a full moon. Now you, Thomas, must help us destroy the circle of evil."

The last words of a dying woman would change the life of young Thomas. Raised behind monastery walls, he knows nothing of his mysterious past or fulfilling his imminent destiny. But now, in the heart of medieval England, a darkness threatens to strangle the truth. An ancient order tightens their ghostly grip on power, creating fear and exiling those who oppose them. Determined to bring light into the mysterious world of the Druids, Thomas leaves the monastery on an important quest. 

He quickly finds himself in unfamiliar territory, as he must put his faith in unusual companions-a cryptic knight, a child thief, and the beautiful silent woman who may not be all she seems. From the solitary life of an orphan, Thomas now finds himself tangled in the roots of both camaraderie and suspicion. 

Can he trust those who would join him in battle....or will his fears force him to go on alone?

When I first read the summary for this book, I thought it was right up my ally. And don't get me wrong, I liked it a lot. It was an enjoyable quick read. But that's just what it was. A very quick read.

The overall story was good. The characters were well developed, the plot was very good, it wasn't poorly written, as I said, overall it was a good story. But it was so fast, their was no break or lull to build anticipation between plot twists, or any break in the plot whatsoever. It was one twist after the other and they were all so close together at times I got a little confused and was like, "Weren't they doing something else on the last page?"

And even though Brouwer could have put more content into the story, maybe added a few more chapters, I as a teenager liked it, and I will read all the sequels, and I would recommend it to others who enjoy the fantasy genre. And even then it's not just fantasy, it's action, adventure, and even a hint of romance. Who wouldn't like it? But, it is more geared toward the younger generation (highschoolers) then it is toward adults. But hey, I'm not adult, so I can't speak for them. If you don't like it, okay, but if you do, awesome!

I received a copy of this book from Waterbrook Multnomah in exchange for writing a fair and honest review.