Once again I turn my attention to Romans 12 to see what other items that it contains for me. We now come to verse 3 where it says,

Romans 12:3 (NASB)
[3] For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

This is a call to humbleness, the opposite of pride. We tend to think in terms of how well we are doing in the world and that clouds our thinking and makes us less receptive to the Lord's leading. In fact, let the Lord elevate us in His site. If we are to have a renewed mind that is thinking the way that the Lord thinks, then we by definition will know a lot about the Lord and we have cultivated a closeness with Him. That is the only way that we would be able to think in the correct manner.

Back to reading Romans 12: Trying to determine what other goodies that the Lord wants to bring out in this passage for me. The word for Test here means to test, examine, discover, interpret, discern, approve, prove, demonstrate. So it looks like it's more than just testing the Will of God, but it involves discovery and examination. Looks like the passage in Proverbs 2 comes to mind here.

Proverbs 2:7-9 (NASB)
[7] He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
[8] Guarding the paths of justice,
And He preserves the way of His godly ones.
[9] Then you will discern righteousness and justice And equity and every good course.

One of the things that is important about this passage is the key phrases, "way" and "course." These indicate a path of life, following in the will of the Lord (as it indicates further on at the end of Pr 4. It also indicates preservation of that way for the ones that the Lord holds in regard. Just before this section there is a list of things about crying out and calling on the Lord to reveal hidden things so that they may be made plain, in order to follow the right path.

Here I am contemplating the meaning of Romans 12 in light of the Living Sacrifice thing. I have already looked into the meaning of the phrase "renewing of your mind". I came to the conclusion that it is a process which goes on for a long time in that you are trying to see things the Lord's way. You are trying to take His viewpoint on everything, looking as it were through his glasses. In coming to grips with this statement, I have begun to see that I have not been living my life quite the way that I should be living it. It came home to me in the Wolverton Class when I found out that I had a pride problem. I found myself in the rather bad position of having to quit something that I really enjoyed in order for the Lord to have a chance to deal with my pride problem, namely teaching. I am still at a loss to know what the Lord wants me to do with my life from this point forward. The Lord's direction seems to be one of letting you go in a given direction but looking for how you spend your life. Do I trust in myself, or do I trust in the Lord. Rom 12:2 states, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So, one of the issues that I have is anxiety. I listened to a very good message by Allister Begg on that very subject yesterday and today. The message dealt with I Peter 5:7 which to paraphrase, "cast all your cares on Him for He cares for you." I had never really thought of this verse very much until yesterday and this morning. It would seem that I am not casting my anxieties on Him and I need to be. The casting word is a Present Active Participle, indicating either continuous or repetitive action on my part. This appears to be something that I need to be doing on a daily basis. I never really thought about how much anxiety and fear of the unknown could affect how you deal with life. Now I know. These past few days have been filled with apprehension primarily because I am trying to release my teaching of the class to others and at the same time deal with the issues of the day, including work related stuff. After releasing the cares to the Lord I am in a much better mood, am working hard at work again, and am much less concerned about where I am being led. I am placing my hopes and dreams in the hands of the Lord who knows all about me and cares for me.

Well I have put all of my notes together, and have put slides for the lesson together, and I'm ready for tomorrow. Why do I feel sad about what is going through my mind? I'm going to tell my co-team teachers that I'm going to stop teaching the Sunday School class at the end of the session in August. I have been teaching this class for the last 8 1/2 years. But right now I feel pretty burned out. I need to take some time off, because I really need to be with my wife while she is still struggling over the death of her mother and father. Perhaps this is a selfish thing on my part, because I will no longer have to gather my wits about me and work on a lesson plan over several days during the week. But, I am starting to feel that I'm getting stale in what I'm putting together to present to the class. I need to make myself available for other ministry opportunities in the future. One thing that I need to do is to be able to sit under someone else's teaching beside myself. You do tend to learn a lot when you're teaching a class by yourself. Now that I have two teachers that I can really trust in to take over the class I don't feel as bad leaving it.

This Lord's day was really nice. I didn't have to teach today and I have to say that I really learned a lot in class today. Doug did a great job of putting forth a difficult subject (one of which dealt with the "unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit") and making it cohesive. I got thee opportunity to sit in church with my wife and grandson, and we listened to Pastor Paul from our Korean church that meets in our building. I think that we as a congregation have been very blessed. The rest of the day was quiet, spending some time with my grandson playing cards (rummy and Russian rummy) outside on the porch. It's nice to be able to do that for a change. The temperature was in the sixties all day, quite pleasant.

I am actually nit being pressured by my boss or anyone in this company to leave, but it is starting to look a little grim for having work to do here. I found out that there is more effort going on to figure out the funding for the MPC project and that we still have not heard back on the COC proposal yet. Both of those things, along with knowing that I will not be picked up by IT anytime soon makes looking on the outside more attractive every day. I have no way of knowing whether these questions will be answered before the end of the month or not. I have to overcome the fear I feel. Lord please help me make the right decision on this!!! Amen.