Another wonderful weekend here for the Blakey’s. Bobby and I have been looking for about a month and a half to upgrade to a bigger apartment. After few dozen phone calls and close to fifteen visits to potentials, we had not been able to find something that was both in our price range and in a good neighborhood. We became discouraged when we realized that our maximum price only had us in some of the more sketchy neighborhoods in our area…emphasis on the “hood.” It became clear that we were not going to be able to find a place so we decided we just needed to keep praying and have a thankful attitude no matter what, even if we had to stay in our one-room apartment. Many people prayed with and for us and we actually began to like the idea of staying, trying to focus on the positive. I shared my thoughts on this with a good friend of mine and she encouraged me to pray without doubting. She said that I shouldn’t pray that God would grant my request–which was preferably a two-bedroom at our complex–but to pray that His will would be done no matter where or what He provided.

I began to pray fervently along these lines and continued to check some online rental websites which are updated frequently with newly available or soon to be available rentals. On Friday I noticed a new rental for a reasonable price and area so I called the manager to set up an appointment to swing by. We were very surprised to find this place was in a nice neighborhood, had not two but three bedrooms and was somehow still well under the maximum we were willing to pay for rent. Thinking this was too good to be true, we brought some friends by on Saturday and they got excited with us as we realized this was a steal of a deal. We made some arrangements and were able to sign for the apartment that day. Every time this comes to mind I am amazed. I think I understand a little better why Paul said:

Yesterday Bobby and I were enjoying a nice evening at home when “one of us” clicked on a link in an instant message and set a virus loose on our computer. Thankfully our Norton Anti-Virus detected it immediately and set our alarm at ease. It did not, however, help with the ad ware that supposedly was instantly downloaded onto our system. Dozens of pop-ups later and a long conversation with our computer savvy friend, Brad Smith I was assured that the problem was solved.

I found it interesting how wonderfully slow and quiet our night was unfolding. Just after 10pm I was already getting ready to go to sleep, but in one moment, that entire plan changed. I could have just gone to bed and taken care of it this morning, but I wanted to make sure it was all okay. These pesky ad wares so easily just took over my night and had me yawning all this morning at work. The moral of the story is this: You never know what’s going to happen, so always be ready for anything. Use discernment when clicking on random instant message links and be ready to do what it takes to fix things correctly when something goes wrong.

Naturally the lack of discernment involved in the clicking of random links in instant messages last night had me thinking about John MacArthur’s book Fool’s Gold: Discerning Truth in an Age of Error that I am reading right now. He keeps talking about how when we lack discernment it brings deadly consequences into our lives. He may not be referring to poor dicernment allowing a virus to take over our computer, but I can see from that instance how it is critical to excercise discernment in so many other areas of life. MacArthur’s words always seem to be a plea for believers to be devoted to Biblical discernment helping remind us that:

Bobby and I enjoyed a relaxing weekend. With the weather cooling down we’ve started taking walks everyday out on a track by our apartment. I had what I thought was the neatest “step-o-meter” that I got some time ago in a McDonald’s salad. As you walk it supposedly counts your steps and tells you how many feet you’ve walked. But I quickly figured out that it didn’t work after I had walked a couple of miles and it only registered as a thousand feet or so. I suppose it’s good to go for walks anyway regardless of how many steps I’m taking.

This Sunday we were excited about the start of some new things for our youth group. We moved to a nice new room for our Sunday morning meetings and started back up our Sunday night Bible study called “Core.” The format of this study is a smaller group setting. We usually have quite a bit of debate and even homework to take home. This week’s debate revolved around the question, “Why do we go to church?” Bobby challenged the students on the two most prominent views regarding church structure and purpose, one gearing mostly toward evangelism and reaching out to non-believers so as to bring them into the church, putting our energy and resources into outreach and getting people interested and influenced by the church. The other gearing more towards a somewhat exclusive group of believers devoting themselves to the study of the Word, fellowship, worship and prayer and then going out to evangelize the lost. We had a good debate and the students presented Scripture to back their points and which side they thought should be the focus of the church. For further study they were assigned two different chapters from the two most distinct books that represent these differing views to read and come prepared for more discussion next time.

This morning I was reading in Luke 12 where Jesus addresses the problem we have with worry.

I know that I can sometimes be a worrier. Deciding what to eat never seems to be a problem, but often times these days I’m concerned about where we might live, and goodness knows I’m running out of things in my closet that I can actually wear. I realized that sometimes I think I have good reasons to worry about things. But I usually like to call it “concern” or “anticipation.” I know this is not true. Anxiety is nothing more than a fruitless activity in which I forget God’s goodness and doubt His care for me.

One part of this passage really stood out to me: “Life is more than food and the body more than clothing.” I used to think that this was referring to how we possess much more valuable things other than the burden of food and clothes. Many typical answers are family, friends, and church. But Jesus is not saying this at all because life is not about those things either. Rather verse 31 gave me the right answer, “Seek first the kingdom of God…” This is what life is. It is more than all of these other things because if I have family, friends, food and clothes but am not a part of the kingdom of God my life amounts to nothing. This was a profound realization to me. Jesus is saying that if my life is defined by having money, family, comfort, friends, or food that it will be undone if it lacked these things. But if my life is defined in Christ, I never have reason for worry. We cannot live for life, for all of us will eventually meet death. It’s an empty pursuit from the start. This is why Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God…” If we seek what is eternal our life will always be more than the unsatisfying temporary trappings of this world.

Philippians 4:6-7 gives a clear solution for not falling into anxiety, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” The idea is that there is nothing to be anxious about if you give everything to God in prayer. There is no problem, concern, or circumstance that cannot be brought before the Father. Sometimes we try to minimalize our worries by venting to our friends rather than taking everything to God in prayer.

Supplication is asking for something. When we pray with supplication it is not asking selfishly, but selflessly beseeching God for something or someone. James 4:2-3 says, “You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” I may have anxiety because I am asking for the wrong things from a wrong heart.

We should never have a demanding attitude in prayer. When we are ungrateful in prayer we act like God owes us. We ought to pray with gratitude and thanksgiving, taking the position of a servant. Acknowledging God’s high position, we should bow before Him. We should not act like a spoiled child, “Give me this!” “I want that!” When we pray, we can be confident that God will provide what is best for us. It is clear from Luke 12 that God cares for all of our needs much more so than the birds and the fields. It is good to present our needs to God, but we need to trust that God can most efficiently fill that need.

I like what Paul tells us will happen if I put away anxiety and thankfully trust in God: “And the peace which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7) Paul doesn’t say that my problems will go away. He doesn’t promise that I will always understand my circumstances. He does say that if I put off my anxieties through thankful, trusting prayer, it will be replaced with peace. If we turn to God our worry will give way to faith, and anxiety to peace.

We’re enjoying a beautiful week here. The first day of fall is two weeks from today but our weather has already cooled down, the days seem a bit shorter and Starbucks has started making a seasonal favorite of mine, the pumpkin spice latte. It feels more like fall. The days of wearing shorts and free-time are fading to the past. While the days of office attire and eight-hour days at my desk are here . Thankfully my job has quite a bit of down time right now and I have been taking advantage of it as much as I can to read and write.

This week I started reading a book by John MacArthur called Fool’s Gold: Discerning truth in an age of error. The premise of this book is a call for believers to be discerning in all areas of life between good and evil, truth and lies. MacArthur talks about how a a woman once wrote to him urging him not to be so narrow-minded toward other religions: