Day 21: Friends in High Places

Days like today give me the encouragement to move on. I have been hanging out with a few friends this weekend. It has been great to get away from the distractions of life. It has also been great answering the questions and sharing the struggles and successes of my journey with others. I have gotten a few emails and phone calls from friends and people I barely knew this weekend. This experience was entirely for me but they are getting such a blessing from my Blog and I am thankful to God for that. I never intended for this blog to inspire others, but the Lord works in mysterious ways.

We were walking out to the bluffs outside Colorado Springs armed to the hilt ready to shoot anything that came near. Coyotes, rabbits, crows, pretty much anything that is a nuisance out here. We sat on the top of the bluffs and began to discuss my journey and theirs. It was so peaceful looking out to the valley below. He began to talk about the life we are supposed to live. The life that the typical Adventist life. You go to an Adventist school, find a wife, have kids, find a job in the service industry, get involved in your church, and then retire and die. This is not untypical of the life secular people live. But this life is only a short time. If I live 80 years, how can I compare that time against eternity? I mean, how can you measure 80 years against eternity? It is impossible to do. God doesn't work within the bounds of time where as humans are bound to it. We are bound to this earthly timeline and have the choice every minute to make that minute, which is an untarnished minute in time, good or bad.

So for day 21, I accomplished the following:

No Drinking
No Smoking
No Lying
No Dates
Also, I have been reading every day and have not missed a day of my Bible reading even though I have not said so in this section.

Changes:

Reading my Bible has been a great experience. If I don't do it until late at night I feel less motivated and it seem like a hurdle. When I do it early in the day I feel better during the day and enjoy my day more.

I have been reading Samuel. It is neat to start hearing about Saul and Samuel. Saul is a good example of someone that was lead by God that chose to turn from Him. I say this because it is how I felt about salvation. It is not a gift that God hands to you and you hand back over and over again. God will never stop trying but there comes a time when you turn from God and ask Him to stop trying and I believe He will. This is the unforgivable sin. I don't know if Saul committed this sin because I am not the judge. I just know that I don't ever want to reject the Lord. I don't want Him to give up on me and I don't believe He will.