1 Samuel 16:7

But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look at his apperance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."



This past week I was reading in first Samuel and came across this passage again. It was one of those God moments when He says, "Slow down and read that again, think on that, ponder it awhile longer." As most of you know the context of this passage is right after God has rejected Saul as leader and Samuel is looking for the next leader of Israel. God sends Samuel to Bethlehem to Jesse and they parade his seven older sons in front of Samuel and God rejects them one by one as the next leader. Then they sent for David who was in the field tending the sheep and as soon as Samuel saw him God said, "Arise, anoint him; for this is he." Why did he chose David? David was the smallest and least likely of all the brothers. I wonder how many times we look around and think that people are more worthy or less worthy of God's anointing by thier looks alone. Have you ever looked at someone and pitied them for the way they looked when you should have shown mercy to them? There is a difference! Have you ever placed to much faith or trust in someone because they "looked" the part? Now don't get me wrong we all need mercy and grace. What the Lord has spoken into my life is twofold, one is outward focused and the other is inward focused. I need to see people thru HIS eyes and look not at the outside appearance but remember that the true person lies beneath the exterior and we must be people who are not superficial but willing to spend enough time to see the real person. The second part of this is that I felt God say, "now turn that around and apply it to yourself." Some of us struggle with the idea that we must "look" the part or we must put on a front so that others will not see our weaknesses. But it is in the weaknesses where He is made strong and it is there where He is wanting to meet us. We must apply both focuses in our lives. We must look at others as God does but we must also look at ourselves as God does. I would love to hear other comments or view points on this topic. Any thoughts anyone????

Calling all home group members

Hey group we have a fifth Wednesday night this month and as we talked about at the last meeting we are going to have some food and fun. The time is 7:00 pm on Wednesday the 29th and the place is at Miss Meekers apartment. If you need directions call her at 270-4822. I hope all of you can make it, that is all of you that are not going to be out of state or out of country.

This is me quietly being interested.

Hey guys - anyone else want to go to a VLI intensive over at Cooper Rd. with me?

Life on the Mission Field: Practical Realities
Saturday, April 8 (8AM-4PM) & Sunday, April 9 (2PM-7PM), $30
Dr. Tad & Amy Blackburn; Mark Batcheck
While the missionary life can be tremendously satisfying and rewarding, many missionaries are not sufficiently prepared for the practical challenges of living on the field. This course is an honest look at missionary life and an in-depth oientation to all that is involved with living overseas: moving and setting up a new home, culture shock and stress, handling conflict, team life & effectiveness, marriage/sngleness, sexual purity, family and parenting, etc...

Language and Culture Learning May 13 & 14
Dwight Gradin
(no other information listed)

Serious Question

Hey, all. I have a post that isn't about Brandy's slippery-slope behavior (see picture below).

;-)

Seriously... What does God tell you when you pray for me? Specifically about my time and purpose here in K'Stan. I really need the help of my homies on this one.

And, by "homies," I mean y'all.

If you think it's beneficial, post the answer as a comment or you can e-mail me directly.

Thanks!

Ye Ol' Mohawk.

You know, it's just too hard to ignore the stories about Brandy Shrader's past when the evidence says otherwise... (that's right, it's my picture, I'll tell the story anyway I want! and if want to say it's a beer bottle, then it's a beer bottle!). ;-)

The Price of Admission

Hi guys, Since I was quiet during the "share your calling and apostolic passion" talks, and since I told Megan and Craig tonight at church that I would go back to my own blog and paste in some old post about my my passion and calling, here it is as promised. Nothing earth shattering, I'm sure, and since you guys seem to know me pretty well, I think it will just confirm what you know. But here you! Have fun!
_______

(written on January 12)
This doesn't really make me a nerd, but there are moments when I really, really like my job. I've spent most of today getting my information together for the Nicaragua Parents' Meeting on Sunday...which isn't really about getting the information together for a Parents' meeting, it's about planning a mission trip for students. I can't believe I get paid to do this. I feel the same thing when summer camp rolls around, or any number of things where I feel like I'm equipping students to fulfill the call of God for ministry. I've known for a long time that's part of my actual calling - equipping the saints for the work of the ministry (I know, I know...I should go be a pastor or something like that)... It's why I know that I don't have to just be a youth pastor or just be this or that. MY calling extends to whatever allows me to equip people for the work of the ministry - and on days like today - I'm having fun because I'm doing just that. :-)

(written on Feb. 1)
But then as I continued to pray last night, I also felt like He was saying to me, "Your time working at the church will be shorter than you expected." And as I prayed, asking "WHY!?" he spoke more clearly the last part of the verse, "continuing on as I was when I was first called." The calling I have is to equip believers to reach the unchurched; the gifting I have is to do that by starting new ministries; and the skills I have allow me to bring order to chaos. My passion is for young people and for people who have never heard the gospel or for new churches. Does that have to be in another country? It could be. Does that have to be here in the US? It can be. That's the freedom of my particular calling. I just know what my calling is, and that in the past, my vocation has allowed me to work out my calling, gifting and skills even though the positions have looked very different from one another.

(written on Feb. 4)
OH...and I was just poking around again on the Navigators website...Like I told Craig and the crew on the AV blog, my problem is that I have no passion for areas outside the 10/40 window. Literally, I don't even look at those opportunities because I know the need to be greatest in the window. Could there possibly be a way to squish together everything that I want to do into ONE job?! I was talking with Devan yesterday about missions and she said, "I was just wondering when missions when come back into play in your own life, and I always figured it would be when you had to take your youth group on a mission trip. The passion you displayed when you were neck deep in it back then, I knew that hadn't gone away." But that doesn't mean that all of the other stuff I'm about just goes away either... I'm still going to be about youth, technology and communication in the church, leadership development, new church development and ministries, equipping believers to do the work of the ministry themselves; teaching new believers... These things aren't going to just go away because I'm rediscovering a passion for missions. (Maybe rediscovering isn't even the right word...it's more like coming to a place where that passion has space to breathe again. My first church did missions, but in an old school way - they just threw $ at it. East Lake didn't at all.) Sigh... This is part of Tom's series that kicked my butt. The "desire" part. I have a plain "desire" for all of my passions to come together in one, and maybe, God wants for those desires to come together, too, "if I delight myself in the Lord." I find myself delighting in God LOTS these days - He's such a good God and has such grace for my shortcomings and goofs...(I mean that statement to have much more theological depth than I'm writing it with). He deserves my delight.

prayer/fast

The Joellenbecks and the team from the church is holding the BBQ today at 5:00pm. Sorry for the late notice!!! If you read this post in time please stop and say a prayer or if you have the opportunity to fast a meal and feel led to do so, please do.

1:00pm- Cell group leaders are going house to house in the country to invite people to BBQ.
4:00pm- cell group starts, led by Nil. They will welcome people and preach and will end with an invitation to accept Jesus.
5:00pm- BBQ for all

Scott asks for prayer that the weather is good. Especially since everyone will be arriving by foot. He also asks us to pray that peoples hearts will be open and that the day will go smoothly.

prayers needed

Hi group,


We have a couple of people in the congregation that are in need of your prayers. I will give you some of the information here but please contact Brandy or myself if you need more information.


A couple weeks ago I sent out a prayer request for Teri Furrey who had a episode driving home after a prayer meeting on Tuesday. The tests that she has taken since then have shown some abnormalities. Tomorrow (Wednesday) she will be going in to have a heart catheter done. Teri has had heart problems in the past and has had the balloon procedure done. This time the Doctors aren't sure they will be able to do that and they are looking more to putting in stints. The procedure is to be at 5:30 am tomorrow and she will be able to have visitors but probably won't be awake enough until thursday.



Last weekend Brian Paquette was riding a horse at his parents home and had a bad accident. In essence his entire arm from the elbow down was crushed. He went thru a 6 hour surgery to repair the tendons and muscle and to reattach them to the elbow. At the last I heard he hadn't had the other surgery done for the wrist. Tom told us that he is under the best care in Columbus and that the doctor he has is very well known for his ability to reattach tendons and such. But as we all know the master physician is God and we want to make sure to lift them both up at this time. Brian will probably be in the hospital for about another week.

Apostolic Abandonment!!!

Have other passions crept in and taken over from the call on your life? What are they? How do we get back to and focus on the will of God? Have you deceived yourself into thinking that you are passionate about Jesus? Do you want the credit for your passions without paying the price? Are you afraid to sell out completely to Jesus... no matter what the cost? Are our passions only the things of this world, dressed up to look religious? Are you willing to allow the Lord to change your will?