Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.
-Proverbs 3:5-7 NIV

well, today, my dad went in for surgery. now, that was like twelve hours before i wrote this. and all i know is, this is what has gotten me through the last week or so. just remembering that God is in control anyway, and if you seek His path and knowledge, then you’ll be ok. i’m really at a loss for words, and feel that the passage speaks for itself.

i sit here, praying that this will be as much of an encouragement to you as it was to me.

James 4:2 You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.
James 4:3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

de ja vu? only a little. it’s a good point that we don’t have cause we don’t ask. but it’s an even better reminder of why we don’t have. when we ask with our earthly motives we won’t get, in my life mainly because i don’t need it.

where i’ve seen some people get in trouble is that they take the first part, think all they have to do is ask and they get what they want. well, for one there’s a difference between asking and demanding. for two they missed part two.

now, the other side is those that look at part two and afraid to do step one. they get so worried about their motives that they never ask at all.

and then there’s moderate me, i just ask for everything, constantly trying to be aware of my motive for asking for it. i found out the hard way that when i demand it’s the surest way to get nothing. however, if i don’t ask i get nothing. so i tend to err on the side of just ask anyway.

so, go have fun with this, and pray more because of it! Gob bless!

James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.
James 1:6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

part of me would like to just focus on the first verse and relate it to my life and say how it has changed me. but alas, the glory needs to be given to God, not to me. and He has told me that for the sake of myself i need to look beyond my comfort zone and trut Him. and that’s where verse six comes in. verses two to four of this chapter talk about hardship and trials, neither of which am i foreign to. i’ve even commented on it at least once before. with that in mind, lets take the two peices together.

here’s the picture i’ve always gotten. trials will produce knowledge. knowledge of both the Holy One and of life and what’s going on. but the part that it seems to me that most people miss is that once you’ve gone through those trials you shouldn’t be doubting God. the ask for wisdom part is pretty straight forward. b ut why put it right after a section on hardship and trial? my beleif is that it shows that people will still question Him that delivered them from the trial they were in.

now, back to wisdom. many people have asked where i get the inspiration to make this site. or how i come up with all the stuff i write. well, quite simply, i don’t write it all. God helps me, and i hope that it’s all God inspired. part of it, i beleive, is that i made verse five the centerpoint of my life for many years. for me, i have to keep at it. but that’s a whole story in and of itself. so, for those of you that want to start your own site or just feel like sharing what God has given you, feel free to do it in whatever forum the wisdom of God has given to you to share it in.

what does all of this mean exactly? it means pray. some people need to pray for wisdom. some need to pray so that they won’t doubt anymore. i’ve had to learn that the hard way. as a matter of fact, i learn it again every day, and it’s never easy. but i know that doubting gets me in more trouble than not. just from food for thought. i pray that you will find this an encouragement and a blessing.

hello everyone! i’ve been working on some server side stuff that needed to be done. which is why the link http://ga.pyroturtle.com/ now works! the nice thing about wordpress is that it’s totally up to me what’s going to be going on. thing might be dependent, but i can always change that rather easily. that might be because i’m a geek, but i’d like to think that it’s mostly due to the wonderful efforts of the wordpress team. all that aside, a new article swarm should be comming out soon. thank you everyone for your generous prayers. speaking of which, my dad has his surgery in a week, and he is for the first time that i can remember scared. not that scared you get from watching a movie or getting pnched in the gut, but just scared. so all the prayer you could muster would be wonderful. the sugery is scheduled a week from tomorrow, so on july 26th and 27th prayer would be nice. in the mean time, have fun, and God bless!

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
-Mark 14:37-38

i can’t even being to recall all the times i’ve done something like that. known that i’ve needed to be diligent in pray, and got sidetracked by something. the spirit moves in ways that the body has no idea about. there’s just times where i feel empowered, but i still feel like i’m sleeping. phenomenal cosmic powers, weak little body.

for instance, this site. God has given me a gift and empowered me to do it. yet, how many times do i fall into slumps where nothing gets posted? where i get side tracked by work, family, personal endeavors? it happens all too often. it’s not like i’m a secluded case, but it’s not excused either. so, what can be done to circumvent it all? well, there’s the catch-22. the only way to get out of the loop is to pray. but the only way to get there is to pray.

which brings me to a point that i’ve been wanting to get to for a long time, but the timing was mine. i’ve read a few books lately on how to have a better devotional life with God. and one thing that they all mentioned (save one) is that you must have a daily, meaningful prayer life. that sounds good. but what’s the catch? well, most books pretty much say that the only way it’s going to work is if you spend at least an hour or so everyday doing that. and i agree that that’s a great theory. it’s even better if you work on, oh, lets say, a farm, where things revolve around daily chores. you could fit prayer time in for a half an hour between a couple of chores.

now lets bring that over to the phunny pharm called the urban jungle. things in the big city don’t revolve around a set of daily activities i’ve noticed. you do what you can, when you can. work schedules might fluxuate, traffic permits somethings one day, other the other. there’s just too many variables. the solution? for me, it was one day of devotion a week. besides church, which is fellowship time, i’d set aside at least one day in the week where i took that as devotion time. it took me a long time to be ok with that to be honest. with everyone telling me it needed to be a daily big devotional thing, how could this be ok? well, it doesn’t mean that you don’t read your bible or pray on those other six days of the week. i still would read a little passage of the bible when i woke up, and i pray throughout the day. but there would be one day outside of church time where i would sit down with my bible, a pad of paper, and a pen to write down all that God was revealing to me that i could put into words. but it was just one day, and God honored that.

what’s the point? don’t beat yourself up if you don’t have a “great” devotional life. even the disciples weren’t all that great at first. even after three years! find where it is that God needs you to be, and be there. no sleeping on the job though. have fun finding your happy place, and God bless!