A Look Ahead

The countdown is really on now. If I go by the official last day of classes, I have only 30 days of school left ~ BUT.......it doesn’t look like I can go by that date. It looks like I will need to finish sooner than that.

I of my classmates that I am doing a group project with is moving to Japan on December 8th, so we wanted to get done early for him. Now it looks like I may be headed back to India on December 7th ~ yet another reason to finish early. We are trying for the 5th, which means I have 25 days of school left. For so long it seems like this time would never come, now I can’t believe it is almost here!!

Regarding the India thing...it would only be for 2 weeks this time. It would be me and another co-worker, Kristin. We have put some stipulations on it, so we are waiting to hear back as to whether they are willing to meet those. I should have a definite answer sometime this week.

Thought for the Day:

PRAISE GOD ANYHOW!!!!

This statement was made to us during out revival last week – and what a wonderful saying is it. Take some time to REALLY think about it. No matter what is going on in your life, Praise God Anyhow. This is the Biblical thing to do!!

The phrase “rejoice in the Lord” is used 9 times in our Bible. And in those 9 times, not once does it say to only rejoice when things are good. As a matter of fact, just the opposite is true:

Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.

Did you need that ONE word that is so important in this verse ~~ we are to rejoice ALWAYS!!

Praise and Rejoicing are wonderful things.

"Praise ye the LORD: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely." (Psalms 147:1)

Do you ever have days that nothing seems to go right. I think we all do – and some of those days are worse than others. Instead of griping and complaining about our circumstances, we need to praise the Lord.

Here are some examples:

Your car breaks down - praise Him that no one had an accident.
Your furnace broke – thank God for the blankets you have.
All the kids are sick with the flu – thank God for medicine to help them feel better
We could look at much worse things, but I think you get the idea. No matter the circumstances we should praise the Lord. Think of Job.

I will give one more personal example. Anyone who knows me knows that just over 9 years ago our 12 year old son died in an accident and went Home to be with Jesus. Did it break our heart...YES....Did we praise God anyhow....YES, for many reasons – the biggest one being the God allowed us to have Steven with us for 12 years. He could have taken him away earlier, or never given him to us at all. And we know that one day we will all be together again.

Can you sing praise to God in the midst of trials?

Try it, you'll like it and so will God.