The First Quarter
Every year tends to have some sort of a theme, either by design or by what seems to keep happening. 2015 was a year spent trying, and ultimately, failing to get a ministry job. It wasn’t through any particular fault, the position I candidated for would not have been an ideal fit. We would have made it work but God in His providence made the vote go the other way.
Even so, we gained friends out of it and discovered an incredibly beautiful part of the country. Seriously. Missouri is gorgeous.
Anyway, that search was last year’s theme.
I’ve been trying to pin down what the theme of 2016 is supposed to be and I may not know until 2017 but for now, the first three months have been all about false starts.
January was quite possibly the worst, darkest month I have ever experienced. February saw me fall through the cracks of a company’s hiring process when it all looked really good. And March, well March saw me applying for a ministry position that seems… impossible.
Getting into the second quarter, we are now in waiting mode but I can say there are three lessons we are learning right now, all involving trusting God.
Trust that God is good
The trick to this one is realizing that all the others flow out of this. We know that God is good because it is impossible for Him to not be (James 1:13). But when life is hard and when bad things happen to us, this is so easy to forget. Not just that, it’s tempting to believe that it isn’t true, that maybe God isn’t good and maybe He isn’t sovereign. It’s the same temptation we’ve been fighting against since Genesis 3. But God is good.
Trust that He has a plan
One of the many books I have started to read is The Mystery of Providence by John Flavel. The main point of the small bit that I’ve read, I haven’t finished it yet, is that we know God is sovereign and provident because we can look back at the record of scripture and see example after example after example of His will being carried out. It doesn’t always look the way we expect it to, like in the death of Jesus, but it is always, always always carried out.
Trust that His promises remain true
In Hebrews 6, the author explains to us why God swore an oath to Abraham by Himself. He swore by Himself because there is no one greater to whom He can appeal. And our God is unchanging. He has His will and He will carry it out. He cannot lie. If this were not so, He would not be good. So when we look at His Word and we read His promises, that we will be His and that He will keep us until the end, we can take those promises and claim them because they have been given to us in Christ.
While procrastinating
I should be figuring out stuff for the Vlog that I’m going to do that is definitely me ripping off Joshua Harris but will be much more me figuring out how to speak well. But instead I’m and eating chips and salsa and finally taking a crack at A Puritan Theology.
Jerk Taco Man
I went on an adventure today with my dad and brother. 
Five pt. 2
She’s sometimes a princess or a puffin or the perfect imitator of her mother. Pink and flowers and her turquoise blanket. She tells silly stories and she says ridiculous things like “Whatever her name is…” Or “God wrote the Bible with a marker pen”. She’s learning to read and she loves it.
She could not possibly have been born on a better day.
Six
Where has the time gone? 
His yoke is easy
The thing about a miscarriage is that when it happens your world kind of falls apart. We spent a week crying and praying and holding onto the hope and knowledge that even though our unborn child was conceived a sinner, the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit can regenerate a heart that is incapable of turning away from sin and toward Jesus. We have this hope because it happened to us at our conversions.
We were just as incapable of repenting of our sin as our unborn son, Levi.
But the good news is that it wasn’t our work or our decision to trust in Jesus as our savior and Lord. That we were able to turn from sin is grace. That our hearts were able to feel the depth of our sin and the desperation of our state is grace. All of these things are only ever the work of God.
While we mourned and cried and were filled with sorrow, we were able to avoid despair and anger toward God only by the grace of God. Because we were given the knowledge that we worship a sovereign God. Because Romans 8:28 and Job 1:20-21.
Verses like that only feel cliche until they are put to use within you.
