“What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” My pastor just recently spoke on the latter end of this verse. Appearing for a little while and then vanishing. What a glorious thought! I do not know the reason, but God has been prodding me to write about this topic and His recent working in my heart about it. It has been a hard topic for me in the past to try to understand or even think about. I never liked it. It was not that I did not trust that God would do what He said that would do. I think that it is because I have held the “things” of this world, or the “opportunities” still left undone – undone. I have always wanted to get married, have kids, plant a church in some other country, and many other things. What are all those things worth if my one joy of life is not to joy in Christ my wonderful Savior? I am realizing that death is not a bad thing at all! It is an incredible time. It is a time where you shed your mortal body and all the lusts and desires of the flesh in this depraved world, and you take on a new glorious body to worship and glory in your Redeemer for the rest of all eternity! Our minds are but finite. I wish I could understand it all. It is not mine to understand yet. This is what death is like for a Christian. There is much to worry about as unbeliever. To unbelieve in Christ and believe in yourself will not get you as far as your next breath. For those that are unbelieving, BELIEVE! He is so worth it! He is amazing! I admit that I am not there yet! I do not think that I have come to the point yet to where every thought of death is a grand thing, but God is drawing me. I am nearing my time of departure! I do not know if God is bringing me to this point right now for the reason that others may testify of my life and my eagerness to see Him or whether it is to encourage another mortal in this depraved world. All I know is my time is getting closer and I am getting more and more excited.
God has been doing some incredible things in my life! I get so tired of the flesh though. I feel like it is a ball chained to my ankle as I am striving to run this race of life. It is getting lighter though. Oh, it is getting so much lighter! He, who is so incredibly good has been taking my burden off. It is so good to fellowship with Him! It is easy for me to get caught up in what will happen in the future, but I am also realizing that it is not a good thing to lurk in this kind of thinking. I went to hear Kyle Paisley speak tonight at a nearby conference. I was not sure what to expect in the preaching, but the message was a huge reminder to keep pressing on. His main point came from Galatians 6:9 which reads, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” For those others out there that are struggling in your earthly clay vessel, make the best of it in His magnificent name and wait patiently for that time when Christ takes you to meet Him face to face!Waiting for that perfect day!

Josh Blaha

I’m sitting here at Panera checking my email and just enjoying some time by myself. It is quite nice. My brother left yesterday for Alabania and he let me use his laptop. He’s such a good guy. Hopefully, I will be able to save up some money so I can get my own. I mean, you can’t just take your desktop computer to Port City Java or something you know? I’m at one of those points in life now where you realize you have never been before. I know that sounds really stupid, but just think about it. How many times do you get caught in a rut of normality of life? For me, I work at night and sleep during the day. I have places that I believe the Lord has called me in life, but I’m not there yet. So, for now I just get stuck in doing the same thing over and over day after day. While I am doing that though, God is teaching many thing and is taking me to places in life that I have never been before. It is all by faith. Last year at this time, I would have never expected to be where I am now. I would have never even guessed it. Last year, I was in the “Frozen Tundra” for my freshman year of college. I had been dating my first girlfriend for exactly three months. I was playing volleyball and absolutely loving it. As for life and my direction, I was planning on finishing out at Northland and then going to seminary. I now am working a full-time night shift job (and very satisfied by His completing grace), do not have a girlfriend (as God saw fit for us to break up), play volleyball every Tuesday night at a nearby church (still loving it), and will probably never never return to Northland. I believe that God is leading me to just stay home and work and go to a nearby college to get a lot of classes in and then possibly finishing up with a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities from Bob Jones (Lord, help me!). Of course, I cannot even say that any of this is final because we all know that God changes circumstances and directions in people’s lives. He has every right to do so too! The things that God is teaching me about faith and where He has taken me, makes me feel like I am climbing the side of a cliff and have not looked back till now. I look back and see how far up I am and almost freak out. I find that I am not only afraid of heights in reality but also in life. It makes me just want to stay where I am now for a while and rest, but God says in His sweet still voice to just keep climbing. It’s a rather odd feeling, but how exhilarating also! God is so good! I would have never expected to be where I am now, but right now I am more in love with God than I have ever been. I have so far to go, but I can only praise God for where I am now. It is only by His sovereign grace!
I was just thinking (never good), “What about those from the outside looking in?” People from the outside may look at my life now and say, “What a bum!” I don’t blame them. I do the same thing over and over in life. While I would love to tour the world and go to the deepest parts of the world or swim in the Caribbean or boat down the amazon, God is letting me take the adventures of a lifetime right where I am now. It may seem weird, but how true it is. I believe that is calling me to be a missionary someday (possibly Buenos Aires now…we’ll see how the Lord leads). There are many more adventures in life that the Lord will still have to take me through, but I must get through where I am now.
My brother should be in Vienna right now. He must be pumped. He has never been on a missions trip in his life even though he has been many other places and done many other things in life already. I’m so glad for him. He is going there for a week to serve with a missionary there. Sometimes, I think that he is just very “out there,” but God is teaching him too. He believes that God might be leading him into missions. That thrills me (obviously, because I have loved missions since I was a kid). I never would have thought that God would have called my brother to missions. God is definitely amazing! Well, I do not have much more now, but I’m sure that I will later.

Standing in awe of Him!

Josh

I wrote the following post on March 11 (3:29am), but I realized that I needed to make some corrections to some things that I said, so now it is posted. There is more coming soon, just stay posted. Let me get some feedback. I appreciate that.