Holiday Recap

Hello friends- I hope that you all were able to enjoy a very restful Christmas with friends and family! The Christmas season is an awesome reminder of what Christ, our Savior, has done for us. Its not only a time to remember his birth, but a time to remember that He was born for a reason. Indeed, He was born to die for our sins. I admit that I often lose sight of this and regret my self-centered actions. As a sinful man it seems that it is all too easy to lose focus on Christ in favor for my own worries and stresses. Friends, I pray that you and I may run to the cross always. Let us never forget that the problems of this life are fleeting, but our God is forever.

I would appreciate prayers in the upcoming month. My fiance and I are approaching the final month of wedding preparations which has its unique, yet often blessed, stresses attached to it. Please pray that God would continue to draw us closer together through our love and service to Him alone. I am also looking at quite a rigorous schedule of design work coming up which should definitely prove to be challenging. It seems that I have often been reminded of my inability to control circumstances of late. However, I take courage in the fact that God is control of all things. There is a great couple of verses in Psalm 127 that I find particularly encouraging (1,2):

Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.

In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to [a] those he loves.

What a great reminder for me personally! I try to control things so often. In vain I stay up late. I lose sleep while trying to accomplish impossible tasks. Though its hard to do so, I've found that it is often better to let go of some of these 'impossible' stresses and just sleep on it at times (I am definitely preaching to myself first and foremost on this... see my "Sleep- I Defy Thee..." post for confirmation on that!). After a good night's sleep I find that I am refreshed and empowered in the morning. In this way I am much more able to rely on God to fully give me the strength to persevere through any trial. How often do we forget that God created rest for a reason? God delights in the rest of his people and designed us as human beings to operate this way. May we never forget the value of a commitment to restfulness in our Lord.