Full Mind and New Status

And after a seven month hiatus we are back!

Thought 21:

Psalm 10:4 "In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God"

Youth Pastor Joel brought up this passage today and it struck me. He said how our minds are so full of thoughts of other things that there is no room for God. We are not thinking of God and so we become empty and don't feel him anymore. This made me think of how during the winter months so many have a "spiritual depression" of sorts and feel far from God. Perhaps its because our mind is so full of the stresses of the winter. We need to winterize our vehicles, shovel our driveways, and not to mention the biggest stress of all: Christmas. We have to buy presents which puts us under financial stress, we have to prepare the house for all the festivities, whether it be decorating or preparing the Christmas turkey or ham dinner, maybe we are even travelling (such as myself) to visit family and that comes with its own stresses. The state of our Christmas is one of stress and materialism and this occupies our minds from the true reason we celebrate Christmas: the celebration of God intervening into our lives so we can have a personal relationship with Him. Our thoughts are occupied by all these other Christmas stresses that we don't take time to be still and allow God to fully occupy our mind and fill us up with his spirit.

Thought 22: Well the biggest difference in my life over these last seven months has been the change in relationship status as now being an engaged man. I have found however that the characteristics of my relationship with my fiancee have not changed since that day however. Perhaps it is because the wedding is a little while off that none of the stresses of planning have begun nor really the continual thoughts of "oh my gosh I am going to be married soon." I believe it hasn't changed because we've felt like we've been at this milestone of our relationship for awhile now. We really felt like we were engaged to be married before we officially got engage we just didn't have the hardware for it to be official. I think that is another reason why we got engaged and are waiting awhile to get married. We could have stayed unengaged until closer to a time when we could get married in the financial sense but we would feel trapped in a title that didn't really suit us. It is amazing that a title such as "fiance(e)" could be so liberating emotionally from the title "boyfriend/girlfriend" because they are just words. However I like the sound of fiancee better than girlfriend. Maybe it makes me feel more mature.