Shadow of the Almighty

Well guys, I have decided to keep with the tradition of posting about every 2 weeks. This gives me another couple of day, but I figure I might as well do it while I have time. A couple of days ago I started reading Shadow of the Almighty, The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot. For those of you who have not read it, you must. I have been so challenged by Elliot's devotion to God. Most of the book is portions of letters he wrote or sections of his journals. One of the main things that has challenged me is Elliot's prayer life. These are his words, "I lack the fervency, vitality, life in prayer which I long for. I know that many consider it fanaticism when they hear anything which does not conform to the conventional, sleep-inducing euligies so often rising from Laodicean lips; but I know too that these same people can acquiescently tolerate sin in their lives and in the church without so much as tilting one hair of their eyebrows. Cold prayers, like cold suitors, are seldom effective in their aims." This comes from a man who prayed more then I could imagine praying, and yet he realized that he was lacking. It is easy to become complacent about our prayer lives. We think that as long as we are praying more than just for meals or at school, we are doing well. That is not true, and thinking that keeps us from a deeper relationship with God. Think about it this way, we have the the opportunity to commune with our Creator and Savior, and often all we say to Him is "Please be with _______ and ______ and help us to have a good day." We were created for a better relationship than that.

Golden Park

Today was one of those days that turns out totally different then you expected. I went in to it expecting to be hanging out with a huge group all day, andI ended up being with a couple of people all day. Not that there is anything wrong with small groups. Actually, part of it was nice because I got to hang out with a friend of mine who got saved this week. It was encouraging to see how much she has changed. Along this same line, the same girl has shown me how important it is to watch what I do and say. She is a year younger then me and very impressionable. She is beginning to copy some things that I do. Which is very sobering. It scares me alot. Okay, so that wasn't where I was intending to go with this post. What I was originally heading for was that I learned how easy it is to exclude people from things. Not that anyone was excluding me. I actually left the group at the beginning, but I felt very left out when I finally found them later. I'm not saying that anyone did the wrong thing, it's just very easy to forget about people when they aren't there. So this is kinda a challenge for those of you who hang out with me at school. There are some girls that hang out with us and eat lunch with us every day, and yet they never feel totally included, especially by the guys in the group. I don't tend to think of our group as "cliquish," but often we only hang out with the people that we know well or are comfortable with. That's not right. I just wanted to challenge you to try to include everyone.