Isaiah

For the past few weeks I've been reading Isaiah. It's been really really strange, actually. In many ways the God of Isaiah is not the God I know--He is so angry and destructive! That's a part of God that I often forget about--maybe want to forget about. Who wants to remember that God can get angry, that God will destroy sin someday? Because we all sin. What parts of ourselves will be destroyed in that destruction? (but were they really worth saving?) I don't want God to be angry with me.

Looked at another way, this anger is almost comforting. God will destroy the sin in my life. He still loves me. Even during all the destruction and anger in this book, God's love for His people still comes through. Destruction is His final, final, final option. And God has a right to be angry, after all--sin goes so against His nature and His will for us.

Update

I don't even know when the last time was that I posted here; sorry for the long delay. My life has been crazy this past month at school, with just so much to do! So I guess one big thing that I've been struggling with is not worrying and trusting God to be in control and take care of things. That's always something I struggle with, though, especially during the school year. It seems a bit unbelievable that I've been at school for more than a month now. I also feel that that gives me a bit of perspective when it comes to worrying; that thing that I was worrying about three weeks ago? I don't even remember it any more.

The other big thing going on in my life right now is that I have really been thinking about my place at my school, as a Christian. Yesterday I made a commitment, with a few others, to be more intentional about witnessing. We discussed some ways to do so that are respectful and metaphors that we can use. We decided to commit to focusing on two people--not to exclude others, but simply to make the task less daunting.

Worrying

This semester, I've been super busy, but I've been taking a weekly Sabbath every Saturday. This week, though, God said to me: "Alina, I want you to take Sunday off, too."

I was not happy. But I had a very restful day, and taking two days in a row off forced me to think about a few things. For one thing, I had been depending on today to get, hopefully, a lot done. Obviously, that didn't happen. But you know what? It's really OK. God is in control here, not me. My worrying tends to increase as I have more to do. God's in control, though, and my worrying accomplishes nothing no matter how much or little I have to do!

The other thing I've been worried about lately is, oddly, going to sleep. I thought for a few days that it was because of everything that I needed to do the next day, but I realized today that it's actually because of the dreams I've been having lately. No, they're not nightmares, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's more that if I've already had enough sleep, or if I know it's almost time to wake up, or if it's a really exciting dream, I've started controlling and manipulating my dreams. It's become my new Storyland, and one that I'm much less capable of controlling. It's awful; like my mind has betrayed me, at least while I'm sleeping. And it is hard to resist the call to lose myself in fantasies when I wake up after one of those Storyland dreams. Lord, please give me strength.

Excellence

The start of this semester has been a struggle for me, in a lot of ways. Many of those struggles are related to academics and my classes--partly the work and getting everything done, but mostly my motivation and effort.

The Bible says "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him" (Colossians 3:17). Last semester I really, really strove to give my absolute best to all of my classes, and to turn in my absolute best for every assignment. But I've been completely unable to do that so far this semester.

There are a few reasons. Last semester I loved all of my classes, or at least liked them, and they challenged me. This semester I don't love any of them, and two of them have been outright boring and unchallenging so far. The other two are individual, and therefore so unstructured, that I've been having difficulty giving myself goals, let alone meeting those goals. Last semester I also knew that many of my classes could later be relevant to my future career--but now God has completely changed my mind about that, I'm going to seminary, and none of my classes are immediately relevant anymore.

I still want to give my all to all of my classes, even if I haven't so far. But I've decided that I'm going to. I'm going to do everything "in the name of the Lord Jesus," and that means doing it joyfully, doing it morally, and doing it as well as I am able.

Why?

Why didn't God reveal Himself to the whole world? Why reveal Himself to just one nation, the Israelites?