Temptation

"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."
-(1 Corinthians 10:12-13)

Thank you God for Your amazing wisdom. You have not promised that we will never be tempted, or else how would we grow in our walk with You? You do not allow us to be tempted beyond what You give us strength to resist, or else how could ever hope to be more like You? You use our temptations as a growing time in our lives. You allow us to experience situations in which we have to make a choice: for You, or against You. When these times come, You offer us all the strength that we need to make the right choice, and then wait to see what we will choose. How it must break Your heart when when we dishonor You with our sinful choices, even though You give us the strength to resist. We have no excuse. We can't claim that the temptation was too great; only that we chose not to respond to it as You want us to. It is only through our deliberate disobedience that we fall into sin.

Father, please forgive me for all the times I choose to dishonor You with my choices. I praise you for the strength you give me to make the right decisions. I pray that as I grow closer to You, I would focus less on my own desires, and more on Your will for my life. I love you, Lord.

The admiral's house

I was exploring around the old navy base down here in Charleston a couple weeks back, and I love the old buildings there. The base closed down in 1995 after the BRAC decision in 1994 that it was no longer cost-efficient to keep it open. Although you can't really tell from the picture, most of the buildings, including this beautiful old house, are deteriorating pretty badly. It's a shame that they have just been left to rot. Certain parts of the base, mostly the industrial sector, have been purchased by private companies and are in use now, but other parts, like most of the old officer housing area, are just abandoned and left to the elements. It does make for an interesting afternoon exploring, though.

Beautiful Sunday afternoon

What a beautiful day. It is warm for the first time in a week or so, and it was nice to be able to ride without needing a heavy jacket. I rode out to church this morning, and stopped by Barnes & Noble for a coffee afterwards. I went to the church in Northwoods instead of Summerville because it's a lot closer, and I got a late start this morning.

The picture is taken from the balcony of my room, looking towards the galley. The green and orange objects are decommed torpedoes.

The message in church this morning was about Job. The pastor spoke on how we as Christians are so quick to judge others sometimes. Job's wife and friends quickly decided that Job must have sinned against the Lord. They figured God must be punishing Job for something. But Job remained faithful to God, maintained his integrity, and humbled himself before God. God used that experience to develop Job's character and build him into the man God wanted him to be. Then God turns to the so-called friends, and reprimands them. He commands them to offer a sacrifice and ask Job to pray for them. When Job interceded on behalf of his friends who had been so judgemental and cruel towards him, God forgave the friends. At the same time, He restored to Job everything he had lost. When people hurt us, or falsely accuse us, God wants us pray for them.

It was a good message. It was also good to be back in church. I haven't been in a while. The worship time was good, with lots of songs that I actually knew. Going with the right attitude, and not out of some sense of duty, definitely makes it so much more worthwhile.

"I'm coming back to the heart of worship,
And it's all about You; all about You, Jesus
I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it
When it's all about You; all about You, Jesus

King of endless worth, no one could express
How much you deserve
Though I'm weak and poor, all I have is yours
Every single breath"

What a song... and what a promise to God. All I am, all I do, everything about me, Lord, is yours. Use me. Lord, this is my prayer to You today.

I wanna do what You want me to

"Make my life a prayer to You,
I want to do what You want me to
No empty words and no white lies
No token prayers, no compromise"

These words, penned by Keith Green four years before his death in an airplane crash in 1982, kept running through my head last Sunday. I was heading back home after Tabitha's wedding, and had a lot of spare time while sitting in the airport terminal sipping a coffee. God used that time to convict me of those words in the first verse. Looking at my life in the past year, I realized just how far away from God I had drifted. "Make my life a prayer to You"... I had hardly even talked to Him in months. "I want to do what You want me to"... I couldn't remember the last time I had asked God what He wanted me to be doing. "No empty words and no white lies"... that was exactly what my walk with Jesus had become; an empty relationship, broken by lies to myself and others about how I was doing spiritually. "No token prayers, no compromise"... my entire life had been compromised by my willingness to accept what the world had to offer while distancing myself from the love and discipline of God.

God had been building up to this the whole weekend. Watching my sister get married, I was struck by what a lucky man Matthew was to be marrying such a Godly woman. Watching Mom and Dad interact with each other and with the rest of the family, I realized how richly I was blessed by growing up in a home so in tune with God. I thought about how far I had distanced myself from that. Surrounded by my family, I felt like an outsider. They had something I didn't. They had joy, contentment, and peace. I had all the worries, shame, and anger that I had kept to myself and not shared with God.

I cried out to God that day. I talked to Him for the first time in weeks. I poured out my heart to Him, and confessed my sin, and prayed for His forgiveness. I talked with Him about the things that were weighing me down. I praised Him for the blessings He has given me that I had not recognized or appreciated. I surrendered to Him, and He washed me clean.

And then I started listening. I listened as God began to convict me about the areas in my life where I was not right with Him. There were a lot of them. I prayed that he would show me each behavior, each habit that kept me from drawing closer to Him. It was hard. It still is. But He promises:

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" - (1 John 1:9)

It is an ongoing process. Every hour, every day I find I need Him even more than ever. So many areas of my life need to be cleaned up, brought back in line with God's perfect plan. I pray that I will never get comfortable with who I am or where I am at in my walk with Him. Thank you, God, for not giving up on me, even when I turned my back on You. Take my life, Lord, and let it be dedicated only to You, that I might glorify You in everything I say and do. Let Your light shine through me so that I can be an example to the world of Your forgiveness and redemption.

Tabitha's Wedding

I went up to NJ last weekend for my sister's wedding. She married Mathew Berryman, who was in my graduating class in Ukarumpa. I didn't take too many pictures on my camera, but there's more at my family's website. [wysite.org] It was a great weekend, despite being rather rushed. I love my sister so much, and I'm really happy for her.

Playing in mud

This is from a couple of months ago now, but it's worth posting anyway. I got a call from a couple of buddies one Sunday afternoon asking me if I could come get them 'unstuck.' They were offroading a couple miles off base, in two-wheel drive trucks, and had both gotten too deep in mud. I drove over to help them out, but no sooner than they were back on dry, solid ground, than Curt, who had come out to watch, decided to try it too. As you can see, he got in a little deeper than he had planned. What would have been a half an hour pulling two mildly-stuck vehicles out turned into four hours of work pulling Curt's Toyota out of a four foot deep mudhole. You can see that he burried it up to the headlights, but what you can't see is that directly behind his truck is another mudhole, making it rather difficult to find a dry spot from which to pull him out. We ended up buying 30 feet of chain to get him out. What an afternoon.

More pictures here

Charleston area marina

I was out on my motorcycle the other morning, just cruising around with nothing to do, and snapped this and a couple other pictures around the downtown Charleston area. This is a marina on the Ashley River on the south side of Charleston. I'd like to get downtown again sometime and take some pictures of some of the older houses down there. I've got a couple here, but I'd like to take more.

Seawolf Barracks, 2nd Deck, Room 207

This is it. My home for the last four months, and the next two. Once I graduated NFAS (Nuclear Field A-School) I got to move into single-man rooms instead of the two-man rooms I started with here. I still have to share the shower and toilet with a suite-mate, but it's not that bad. The room is definitely small, but for the small amount of time I spend here, it's more than adequate. And I don't have to pay anything to live here. I have to keep it clean enough to pass room inspections, but Mom gave me pretty good practice for that growing up anyway. I have a microwave, fridge/freezer, sink, walk-in closet, and everything else you can see in the picture. Oh, and a TV cabinet that is filled with books instead. More room pictures here.