Day One

So today is day one. My head hurts. I spent four hours of hte day scanning pictures. Four hours. Imagine how that feels. Ugh. My head really hurts. Anyway, it means tomorrow I need to spend time touching up and fixing those pictures.
Woke up this morning and fought the urge to run out the door to work. I spent time reading the Bible. I read through Psalm 9, which was kind of cool cause I felt like I never read it before.

Psalm 9

For the director of music. To the tune of "The Death of the Son." A psalm of David.

1 ^[a]I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonders.

2 I will be glad and rejoice in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

3 My enemies turn back;
they stumble and perish before you.

4 For you have upheld my right and my cause;
you have sat on your throne, judging righteously.

5 You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked;
you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.

6 Endless ruin has overtaken the enemy,
you have uprooted their cities;
even the memory of them has perished.

7 The LORD reigns forever;
he has established his throne for judgment.

8 He will judge the world in righteousness;
he will govern the peoples with justice.

9 The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.

10 Those who know your name will trust in you,
for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.

11 Sing praises to the LORD, enthroned in Zion;
proclaim among the nations what he has done.

12 For he who avenges blood remembers;
he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.

13 O LORD, see how my enemies persecute me!
Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death,

14 that I may declare your praises
in the gates of the Daughter of Zion
and there rejoice in your salvation.

15 The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug;
their feet are caught in the net they have hidden.

16 The LORD is known by his justice;
the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands.
Higgaion. ^[b] Selah

17 The wicked return to the grave, ^[c]
all the nations that forget God.

18 But the needy will not always be forgotten,
nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish.

19 Arise, O LORD, let not man triumph;
let the nations be judged in your presence.

20 Strike them with terror, O LORD;
let the nations know they are but men.
Selah

Anyway, what I got from this Psalm was how rarely it is that I spend time giving thanks to God, like sincerely really giving thanks and praising Him for all that He has done in my life. I spent time trying to thank Him for stuff in life but found myself struggling to do that. Weird, yes. Maybe it was the long hot walk to school that kept me from being in a thankful mood, but it just may be one of those thing salso taht I have lost that I need to retrain myself to do. How often do we do that, like look at our life and think of how God has really given us every single thing in life. Everythign that is good and perfect is from God. Even the trials we go through. How often do we thank God for that? And I like also the last line of the psalm about how the Psalmist is asking God to remind the nations they they are but men. Who are we to begin with? We're not gods roaming this earth. We're but mere men and should always look to God with the utter respect He deserves.
I also read through a section of 1st Timothy 2 which seemed to go along with that psalm also.
My stud of Judges didn't really add anything new to my knowledge of the book. The only thing the commentaries pointed out was that it was usually the next generation of Jews that fell away from fearing God. Also, its amazing how long the book of judges takes place. It happens over almost 400 years! Four hundred years ago...America wasn't even discovered yet! So 400 years of people going to God and not passing it on....actually, there IS a thought. The next generation of Jews never really appreciated God for what He gave them. The previous generation recognized hwo they were saved by Him and how grateful they are that He didn't just wipe them off the face fo the Earth for sinning and rebelling. Yet the next generation didn't see God taht way. Why? Maybe they didn't really get trained up properly? Maybe the elders didn't share with teh kids what happened in a way that they would remember? I don't know. When people tell me that I should appreciate teh food we can get every day, I shrug it off and think the days of the 'war' are long gone and will never happen again. Yet I wonder why the students I have can't grasp teh idea that they should apprecaite having a computer, having the internet, having computer games, etc. Like, I want to slap half the people on the 'net and tell them to stop complaingin about the CGI in Hulk cause tehy should appreciate it for what it is compared to the CGI we had back in the days of the Jim Henson hour! Sigh. You see, when we tell the youth of today that they should be happy we can use drums during worship, they don't really internalize that as much as I do.
The poitn is, we shoudl look and see what God has done in others' lives, in our lives, in our friends' lives, and remember that He is the same today as He was back in the Bible times. God is the same and He never will let us down. We're always safe, we're alwya in His hands.

Pushed myself hard today to be excellent for the Lord, but also took time out to be with the students to remind myself that they are each gifts from God. Looking in all of their eyes and hearing each one laugh reminds me that God brought each one of them here and that what I do is to help them to become stronger and better leaders for Christ. That is why I work so hard. It's for each of them, it's because I believe in each one of them that they are going to bet he onest o change this world, to change the Philippines for Christ. Peopel may go to other colleges, but God told us to put this college up so that we can train teh next generation of youth leaders who will scare the secular world so much because of how on fire for God they are and how excelletn and strong they are in their work. They are the ones who will cause the paradigm shift that will make people once again really look up to Born Again Christians and say "those people are reflections of Christ." There's me rambling. But I love each and every one of them. Yes, there are days taht I wish God will move the hearts of some of my friends who have ended up in other colleges, especaily when I see the potential they have and how well a match they are with Messiah. But I trust that God is the one who brings people here, not me. And that means that His choise is waht is best.

So there are my thoughts for the day. I think this blogging each day for this month may help me to also decompress before I head out so that my head doesn't stay in "hyper work mode" the whole time.

Btw, I'm so proud of Matt :-) He's a college kid already and I see him already being a big brother to some of the guys here at the college, checking up on them and watching out for them.