What God's Been Doing

Wow! I just looked and saw that it's been a month since I last posted. I can't believe how quickly time has gone (it's such a cliche phrase, but so true). In my last post I said I wanted to keep from being too exhaustive, so now I'm going to share what's been going on in my heart/life since I arrived to NTBI in Jackson, MI.

About seven weeks ago, I started the newest phase in my life - coming back to Bible school with a mind set for tribal missions. From the first week, God has been working in and on my heart to change me for His glory. I can see this is probably to prepare me for a secluded life away from convenience and comfort where much less time to study His Word will be possible. He's been teaching me about His grace. He's been teaching me about my focus. He's been teaching me about loving others.

I believe it was only the second week of school when I started a class called "Spiritual Disciplines From a Grace Perspective", it's quite the lengthy title - I know. It was not very demanding, and it only held five total classes. Our only assignment was a 5-7 day journal in which we were to choose an area of our life to discipline and then journal about it once a day. The idea was to choose something that we've always failed at before, something that we knew we could not accomplish. We then were to approach this new "discipline" from a grace perspective - realizing that we cannot succeed by ourselves, but must depend on His grace to gain victory. Again, this was only a 5-7 day assignment, but God has used it to teach me through experience more than I have learned in quite a while. Where I am weak, I now see His strength. Where I am insufficient, He is all sufficient. I have learned that it only takes admittance (of my own inability) and dependence on Him to see grace evidenced in my life.

To learn more about His grace has been the superior lesson so far, but He's also been confronting me with my lack of focus. This isn't a huge problem or anything, but it's just another thing that God pointed out to me. Though rare, I sometimes get distracted with the thought of who I will one day marry. But I stayed up one night just browsing my new study Bible. For some reason, I stumbled on to 1 Corinthians 7. It caught my attention when I started reading those verses that talk about whether a guy should get married or stay single. Let me paraphrase verse 27, "If you don't have a wife, don't seek one." Obviously the rest of the chapter has a lot more to say, so you'd have to read it yourself for its context, but it was a great encouragement. It was God reminding me to just wait on Him to provide the right person in His timing.

Loving others is probably one thing nearly all of us struggle with. Why? Because we are born with sinful minds that say, "Me! Me! Me!". It's sick actually, but this is something that God has been bringing to my attention (as I hope He is bringing it to yours). In learning of my own prideful insecurities, I hope to better combat this in the future. This is the newest thing that I'm realizing, so I don't have declarations of victory for you yet, but by God's grace, I'll be able to post some progress next time.

Anyway, everything's good. If you feel bad for me and want to send some money, life would be better! My music ministry at the church is going well. Every week thus far is a learning experience in this transition. If you want to know how everything else in my life is going for me, let me sum it up: I'm making friends; I'm staying healthy; I'm making good grades.

Thanks for taking the time to read. God's grace to you.

Nathaniel Clonch

Comments

Unknown said…
Hey man, loved reading your post. I pray that you could send some direction my way soon regarding that class. I've never heard of a class like that. I would love to hear more regarding that class. Anyways, thanks for the post. Hit me up when you get the chance.
March 5, 2011 at 8:30 PM
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