Interesting Evening

So we had an interesting night. Right before either of us got home yesterday someone ran off the road and hit the back deck. He just barely missed the house. If it had been just a few minutes later, our dogs would have been out there, so thankfully they weren't. Anyway it's a long story, but here are some pics. You can see how far off the road he had to drive to get to our house. We filed a police report, though he asked us not to (he was in a company truck). So now we get to wait on their insurance. It was ironic too...I was going to take pics of the outside of the house last night so we could put it up for sale.

Exciting

So, Nick and I have been talking about going on a mission trip for a few months now. We both wanted to do something to serve, so we started off with teaching Sunday School. But I had continued to pray about opportunities for mission trips. I would love to go overseas but Nick is not as certain on that part. Last night as we were leaving Crown, Stuart and Jenny asked us if we would be interested in maybe going on the trip to Japan the church is taking next summer. It was very strange...good, but weird. Several people, including Stuart and Jenny, went last year. Actually they were all people from our old Sunday School class. They're going back this summer, minus Jenny and probably Stuart (twins will probably keep them busy). It sounds like a very cool opportunity, because you don't really have to do a whole lot...other than going up to strangers and starting conversations, which I'm obviously no good at. But I always kind of knew a mission trip would be about expanding my comfort zone anyway. No manual labor is required, which I like. Anyway Nick seems very receptive and interested, so we will be praying about this a lot. The trip will be a couples trip again, and we will probably know several of them, which is good. So anyway, I'm very excited about this, which was really an answer to prayer.

Answer

So you know that I posted a few weeks ago about prayer. Well our pastor's recent blog actually addressed that. Which is pretty cool. And also makes me feel like I really need to be consistent about reading the Blackaby book daily. I would link to it but that doesn't seem to work, so here it is.


As I read this devotion this morning, I received the best and most succinct explanation of prayer I have ever heard. It comes from Blackaby's devotion "Experiencing God Day by Day", which is available here at his website.

A couple of weeks ago, I had someone ask my why we should pray if God was sovereign. They did not understand the need to speak to God about matters He'd already determined in His will. I attempted to explain what Blackeby has written here about prayer. Needless to say, I did not do as well.

This is what prayer is and what it does. This is good.

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. (Acts 2:1)

Prayer does not give you spiritual power. Prayer aligns your life with God so that He chooses to demonstrate His power through you. The purpose of prayer is not to convince God to change your circumstances but to prepare you to be involved in God’s activity.

The fervent prayer of the people at Pentecost did not induce the Holy Spirit to come upon them. Prayer brought them to a place where they were ready to participate in the mighty work God had already planned.

Jesus told His followers to remain in Jerusalem until the Spirit came upon them (Acts 1:4–5). The disciples obeyed His command, waiting for God’s next directive. As they prayed, God adjusted their lives to what He intended to do next. As they prayed, a unity developed among them. For the first time the disciples used Scripture as their guide in decision making (Acts 1:15–26). The day of Pentecost arrived, and the city of Jerusalem filled with pilgrims from around the world. When God released His Holy Spirit upon the disciples, He had already filled the city with messengers who would carry the Gospel to every nation. Prayer had prepared the disciples for their obedient response.

Prayer is designed to adjust you to God’s will, not to adjust God to your will. If God has not responded to what you are praying, you may need to adjust your praying to align with God’s agenda. Rather than focusing on what you would like to see happen, realize that God may be more concerned with what He wants to see happen in you.

Wow! Wrap your mind around that and give God praise. Prayer, like life in Christ, is all about what God is doing and our being aligned to Jesus. It is not about us.

http://www.1075theriver.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=woodyandjim.xml

This is a link (hopefully) to the 9/11 audio clip they play on 107.5 every year on 9/11. Pretty cool that they play this on a secular station.

I stayed up way too late last night (by which I mean, 11:30pm, which officially makes me pathetic and old) to watch Obama on Letterman. He didn't even have a Top 10 list because Obama was on for so long. Nick and I are taking off the day after the election, since we (or at least I) will stay up late. Hopefully we won't have to stay up late. I wish there was another holiday there in between. I read on Andrea's blog that one of the presidential debates is being held at Belmont in Nashville, so I'm kind of excited about that. I don't really know to get tickets or if I even could, but I'm going to try. Can you imagine the security for that? Anyway I get very excited about politics, even though I'm not as informed as I need to be. I should work on that.

Graduates

The dogs graduated from obedience class last night. I have some pics that I'll try to post later. They got framed certificates. I have an idea for a photo display for the wall...actually I've been thinking about it for a while. We have pictures of us at the wedding, us on our honeymoon, us on vacation, etc, but not many with the dogs. Which seems silly, since we love our dogs! So I need to get moving with that. I'm very proud of them, but they still have some things to learn. Mostly just not to be so stubborn (Izzy) and to listen to Nick and not just me (Sydney). But I said all along that if taking the class allowed us to take Sydney on a nice normal walk, it would be worth it. And now we can!

Also last night was the first meeting of our Homeowners' Association. Actually apparently they had a meeting last year, but obviously they failed to notify anyone. We were supposed to have a homeowners' association when we first bought the house, but 2 years later and we still don't. Nick went to part of it and had to leave early for dog class. Apparently there were lots of complaints. And they plan to charge us $125 a year for dues. Which is interesting to me, seeing as they do nothing. I will not be paying that. Nick takes everything so seriously...if someone said it, it must be true! But maybe I'm just too cynical. I'll just be glad to put our house up for sale...even if it does take years to sell. Hopefully not though.

The first night of Crown was interesting. I think going over all of this again will really help Nick and I get refocused. Probably mostly me. I don't consider myself to be very materialistic, but seriously I so am.

Sick again?

I feel myself coming down with something again. Awesome. I like watching tennis now. Now I'm watching Nadal and Murray. I don't really like Nadal, but everyone seems to love him. I like Federer, who will play in the US Open final tomorrow. Federer vs. Nadal is the match-up that everyone wants I guess. I would enjoy watching women's tennis, but the Williams' sisters kind of get on my nerves.

Tonight Nick and I start Crown Financial class at church. I really hope we like it as much as FPU. Today we had our ABF Open House, and a couple new couples came to our class. It's pretty cool that only a couple months ago, we only had 2 couples and now we have 8 or 9. I'm so glad we've gotten more involved in church. We've met a lot of people and some friends who we can hang out with.

Not a 3 day weekend

So is it just me or has this week seemed incredibly long? Why do short work weeks always seem so long? But it's finally Friday, so I'm happy. Even if it's not a long weekend. It's been a busy week. We've had to do something every night. Last night Nick went to pick up his truck, which was fixed. But it had a flat tire, so he had to fix that. Between the two of us, we've had at least 5 flat tires in the last year. I picked up my Coach purse yesterday. I love it, although it's not as big as the last one I was using from Target. That's probably a good thing, since I could never find anything in the last one. I also got the matching wallet and date / address book. But it's also big, and if I carry it in the purse, I don't have much room left. I don't have to carry it in there, but it matches and it's so pretty. I'm kind of crazy when it comes to purses.

Fun!

Today was fun. We did pretty much nothing. Nick put together my new dresser and matching shelf. We took a nap...and played with the dogs. It was awesome. I wish every weekend was a 3 day weekend. Yesterday we went to Nashville to eat at Olive Garden and go to SuperTarget. I love SuperTarget. Also, today I order my Coach purse, so that's very exciting. I'm getting pretty tired of watching the news. CNN has been on all day. I just turned to Fox News, and I'm going to see how long I can take it. It's funny to me how people see things so differently. That's why politics drives me nuts. I don't even understand where some people are coming from. I know I'm supposed to be open minded, but I have a hard time with it. So it's good I'm not in politics.