AWESOME.

I wish I could shout this to everyone I know, but I don't have a Facebook or a Twitter or anything, so here it goes:

GOD IS AWESOME!!  Always!!

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Last night I was trying to study for my weekly physics quiz today, and it was going horribly.  I prayed, "God, you're good, and I know that!  You know I didn't sleep last night, and I'm so tired.  But you can give me the energy to stay up and study to your glory.  So could you either give me the strength to continue, or just let me know it's okay to go to bed?"  I felt release to go to bed, but I wasn't quite sure whether it was God or my mind speaking, so I prayed again, and it was clearer: Go to bed!

So I trundled back up the hill to my bed and fell into it at 9:30pm, falling asleep instantly.  Before I did so I turned off my phone, which is usually my alarm, and told God, "Thanks for letting me rest.  I'm trusting my physics quiz (and the recommendation I have to write and the application I have to finish by noon tomorrow) to you by going to bed now.  But I'm also trusting you to wake me up when I need to wake up"--which I figured would be about 5am to finish everything before my 10am physics class.  

I literally fell out of bed at 9am the next morning, confused about why God had not woken me up earlier.  But I figured He always knows what's up, so I finished and submitted my friend's recommendation and stumbled off to physics.  When it came time for the quiz, I approached my professor and the first thing he asked me was, "Do you want to take the quiz on Sunday?"  

God is so good!!  I'm grateful for His kindness, for giving me the chance to sleep, for letting me have more time to study for this quiz.  HE'S AWESOME.

Peace to you for today!

Love,

Jessica

Don't Wear Filthy Rags!! (or, Everything Outside of Christ is Rubbish - sermon by Zac Poonen)

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Thanks to my friend Lydia for sharing this with me; Wow, powerful stuff here!  Basic idea (but you should listen to it yourself): We are so quick to become indignant when God does not act like our business partner, to whom we give things in expectation of something else in return, but we fail to recognize that what we are trying to give God is based on our own merit, which is... worthless.  When we think like that, we're like people who have been given hundreds of thousands of dollars by a kind relative when dire straits befell us, and then ask the relative to pay us after doing a favor for him; or like people going to a wedding banquet who are offered free, new clothes to wear but  reject them because we think our clothes are better when in fact they are our ratty workout clothes.  So the bottom line is this: God does not owe us anything and is not impressed by our works, and that is why we pray in Jesus' name, not ours--because in Jesus' name, each of us takes on righteousness that is not ours and is set on equal footing with infant and mature Christians alike, whereas in our name and by our merit, we are not even worthy to come before God in the first place.  Thank you Jesus!  I'm excited for Advent :)