It didn’t really dawn on me that today is the last Sunday of 2007, but the chaplain mentioned it at the worship service tonight. Time to reflect, but in a different way than I usually do.
Rereading Joshua Harris’ Boy Meets Girl last night uncovered a way of thinking I’ve been stuck in ever since giving my life to Christ. Simply put, I tend not to forgive myself. Okay, let’s get more specific than that. I don’t like to forgive myself.
Harris calls my bluff, though. It’s a form of reverse pride. My refusal to forgive myself is me telling God that my standards are higher than His. Let’s face it: God’s standards are pretty darn high, which makes it even more amazing that He offered His Son to undergo anguish, torture, and death on a cross so that we could meet that standard.
With that said, here’s a very short summary of 2007.
- political blogging
- mall preachers
- reaching out
- struggling with repeated sins
- leading Midshipmen
- ship selection
- 24/7 prayer
- goodbyes
- commissioning
- MacBook
- stashed life
- more goodbyes
- legal officer school
- re-meeting an old friend
- final goodbyes
- flight
- stashed in Sasebo
- leading a flight detail to reporting aboard the ship in [location, sorry].
- adjustment
- Sasebo
- bike trips
- apartment hunt
- having to earn respect
- conning
- OOD inport
- small boat adventures
- camraderie
- personal wars
- finding a church
- first guitar
- firefighting school
- The Lighthouse
- connections
- humiliation
- underway
- diplomacy
- shore patrol
- small boat crush hazard
- more conning
- figuring out how to lead worship
- NJPs
- powers of attorney
- dirty looks
- keeping the fervor
- inport
- shore patrol
- another guitar
- The Lighthouse, again!
- Sasebo
- complacence
- screwing up
- mercy
- grace
- more leading worship
- screwing up
- leading worship solo ashore (tonight)
What a ride. I felt like my worship tonight was something of a culmination of these things and more. I don’t know what’ll happen one year, one day, or one minute after I post this. What I know is that God is there, and that His Son’s blood really makes it all worth it.
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.
~Isaiah 6:1-7 ESV
Wow.
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