Lets review for a moment on all of the "stuff" that has to be reloaded on your computer "after" you rip out the motherboard and install a new one. Nah, lets skip that list. You would be asleep in no time. I will tell you that I just reinstalled w.blogger that is the windows based tool that allows me to post to my Web Log (blogger) when I get the urge to do so. I guess this means that I have the urge to do so since you are reading this.

Winter bowling leagues are coming to an end. Friday nights are over and Tuesday night league just ended. That means that I can fill those nights with other more important tasks. Dont get me wrong, I love to bowl but too much of a good thing can become a drag. Bowling on four leagues was just a bit too much. This summer I will bowl on Monday night and I think that will be about all. I have a Sunday night league that starts at 8pm that will be ending in the next 2 weeks and then that will be over. We won 3rd place on our Tuesday night spare timers league and I gathered up three patches and one pin for bowling over 200 on several occasions. Now I need a bowling shirt to put those on.

I have two books that I want to read in the month of May and June if I can manage to prioritize my life to do so. The Purpose Driven Life and the Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren. Let me give you a glimpse of what the Purpose Driven Life has to offer and how it is changing my life in a positive way. Here is a quote by George Bernard Shaw that just dinged me between the eyes.

"This is the true joy of life: the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish , selfish little clot of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy"


Can you say ouch and double ouch? I have a red spot between my eyeballs when that sucker slammed head first into my noggin. I am continually reminded that life is just not fair and bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. Imagine that for a moment? My life perspective is my life perspective so humor me as I go down this road for a second. My perspective is that life has certainly had its fair share of negatives since June of 2000. Between June of 2000 and today I have been in survival mode. I have been enduring life and responding to the circumstances and consequences of things. Doing this has put me in a pretty foul mood to the point of affecting my health , my family and my friends.
Gosh, did I forget to put the most important thing in my life here? More importantly my relationship with God has been affected too.

People that know me and are privy to all of the events that have unfolded since June of 2000 would tell you that we handled our situation very well and that we did not allow our situation to destroy our faith in God. All I can say is that if we did glorify God through all of this mess then I have to give the praise and honor and glory back to God because it was nothing that we did. God brings glory to himself through his children sometimes without them being aware of it and through His divine will and intervention. God also brings glory to himself through a life of brokeness and obedience to His word. There were times when I screamed at God and got angry. Lets just say that God does have a sense of humor and I am happy that I am still alive to write this.

Loosing my job in Feburary has set into motion a chain of events that have ADDED to the stress levels at the Moffitt house. Remember that I said earlier that bad things happen to good people. Loosing my job which was our ONLY source of income to pay bills was a BAD thing. I also have to say that my responses at times to this stress has not necessarily given any glory to God either. I responded to the stress by withdrawing into myself and lashing out at other people who care about me. I responded by trying to do things like bowling that made me happy. The problem with trying to bury bad things and unfortunate circumstances with things that make you happy is that happiness is circumstantial and it only lasts for a brief period of time. When the event is over that makes you happy you find yourself face to face with the problems again.

Survival mode has lasted for long enough. Out with the OLD mindset and in with the new. Instead of being a survivalist in a fallen world and being tossed too and fro through the whirlwinds of emotional chaos I am going to choose to realign my life with the purposes that God has for me and my family. I am going to choose to redefine the things that make me happy and rediscover the Hope that is within me. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The only way that I can cling on to hope is to immerse myself in faith building activities such as prayer, reading the word of God and other resources that will give me what I need for restoration. Does that mean that I will no longer have problems? No, it means that I am going to do what I can to let God redefine how I am going to react to these problems. Is the glass half full or half empty? Will good come out of bad or not? Will I approach life with a positive , humble and contrite spirit or will I try to tackle everything by myself and put my faith and hope in my ability to provide for my family?

I need to learn how to be who God wants me to be despite how others respond to me. In the past I have tried to develop relationships with others and when they did not respond in the correct way I either found fault in them or I would withdraw into myself and blame myself for some type of fault that was keeping people from responding. If people do not respond like I expect them or want them to then I will not be myself anymore. I will just become an introvert and stop reaching out to people. The only problem with that is my attitude towards people and I am short circuiting who I am in Christ because of those attitudes.

I can not let how others respond or not respond define who I am.
I must not continue to keep my eyes on people because as long as I do I will be disappointed. No one is perfect, not one. I must keep my eyes and mind focused on Christ. I need to allow people to be who they are and let the Holy Spirit be the one to convict them of whatever problems they might have within the dimensions of his authority and timing. Only the Holy Spirit can convict people of sin and change them. I can not and should not try to be anyone's Holy Spirit.

If you are reading this and you are not a Christian then you probably do not understand what I am talking about. I would imagine that you probably have not even gotten this far in my writings today. You probably have zipped through some of this and just gone on to other things. For those of you that are my friends and who follow my babbling from time to time I hope that my being brutally honest and real does not scare you away. I hope that my being real will not only be therapeutic to me as an individual but that it in turn will encourage you to know that you are not the only one that struggles with spiritual turmoil. The only way that we can grow in grace is by being real with God and with one another and to encourage one another to reach out to God with a spirit of repentance and humility so that God can restore us into a right relationship with Him and with one another. God is in the restoration business and He is not done with me yet !