Week summary

I've been spinning blogs in my mind for days this week but never actually got around to writing them! So now at 1 in the morning on Friday, i'll make a brief review of what's happened this week:
Endured my first five solid days in a row to not see Charisma. I'm missing her, but this time has made us both the wiser. Plus we've both been able to get more sleep on weekends - that's a plus manifested through our good letters this week. I miss her and find myself yearning for her more. This relationship has been a little intimidating due to the fact of getting to see her (almost) every week, as my past relationships have been short-term and long-distance. Charisma has brought profound and peaceable changes in my life. I dont' want to be without her.
Leanne, an instrument student this semester, is a machine who just won't back down. She works harder than any student i know, and she's driven to the max. we've flown 6 hours this week , and 3.5 of that is in actual clouds. next week should be her stage 2 check, followed by cross-country planning to culminating in a trip to San Antonio next Saturday.
My personal flight time is about to become more noteworthy. I have 1,198.3 hours presently, which means i'm 1.7 from having Part 135 minimums. It's nice knowing i have a strong resume and expereince background to get into alot of jobs i want. Thank God that i do already have the job i want (Virginia!)
I said a prayer today that i wanted to write about. I prayed that God would bless me--emotionally. Bold prayer, i know. But i felt a need to pray it today because, honestly, my feelings and emotions have been just crazy. I don't anticipate change very well; i have to force myself to embrace it. I go through change with zeal and passion, but to anticipate change makes my body tired, head hurt, legs tingle, and brain freeze. I hate what my subconscious is putting me through. So today this prayer came to mind - "Lord bless me emotionally today." And miraculously, He did. In a short time, my worrisome thoughts and throbbing in my head disappeared, and i felt happy again. Isn't it nice knowing and witnessing how God participates in our life?
About Charisma - until God shows us that we belong somewhere or with someone else, i want to be here. For now, you and here is where i belong. Head above heart and God above it all.

okay time to sleep,
Radar

Another weekend getaway

Today i went to Harvest Church in Tyler, enjoyed a lunch at Chili's courtesy of Caleb and Megan, then got away with Caleb for a couple challenging games of chess. We each one a game, and the winner was, predictably, the first one to make a careless move with his queen. I won the first, he the second. Trying for a fashionable shot with the chess pieces
After church was some personal time followed by an hour of Salsa dancing! I've never danced like that before, and i'm sure i looked silly, but i learned some moves and had a lot of fun! I am looking forward to teaching Charisma so we can have something else to try out together.

For such a time as this

God often pulls us out of a major season of life and ushers us into a new one without a day's hesitation. It seems abrupt and ungentle on God's part sometimes; He never waits til we say "i am ready." That's because life is time and time is change, so if we stop changing for a bit, we've stopped living... anyway, that's a different discussion.
My life has been undergoing some drastic changes. I moved to a new place in Longview a month ago, said a final goodbye to several of my dearest friends, started a new flight semester, and then God brought me an amazing woman named Charisma. I wasn't looking for her, but I suppose God was because since we met we have been given days full of opportunities to spend time together. She has opened up a new world of friendships to me, a new church, new and exciting things to do, not to mention a soft shoulder to rest on and Godly companionship second to none. She is an encourager, comforter and partner in a relationship that seeks to be honoring to one another and foremostly to God. She is teaching me so much about faith and hope and trusting God, with which she is gifted.
Without further ado, here is a picture of us on our way to DFW airport on Saturday morning. She flew out to Ohio on Sunday for to spend a week with her family and friends:

Here is us at trying to find our way to the Airtran terminal.

A step away from the security gate, and a few minutes away from sending her off to Ohio.
My 'travel buddy', her gift to me today, and her note, which is so far the best love letter anyone's written to me.
I met a seaplane instructor in Grapevine to get materials for my upcoming seaplane training. Here's me at Starbucks studying while waiting for Heather to arrive.


Heather Jennings, friend/acquaintance of two years. met her and spent a little time together at her apartment in Plano before returning to Longview.

Characteristics of heaven-goers

I wonder if anyone is like me. Sometimes i lack the emotional attachment to my salvation. If i didn't know better, i'd be asking if i really have the final destination of heaven in my future. But we are not supposed to doubt, and for each season of wavering human faith is an answer in God's word to reassure me of my future in Paradise. In a previous quiet time, God brought this list to mind of what the Bible says about those who are saved unto eternity spent in the presence of God in Heaven:

1 They are prepared to be surprised by His coming (Matthew 25:1-3)
2 They are known by God (Matthew 25:12)
3 They are blesssed of the Father (Matthew 25:34)
4 Their hearts are willing to serve the unfortunate (Matthew 25:35)
5 They are sealed by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14)
6 They yield fruit by the life of that same Holy Spirit in them (Galatians 5)
7 They are conscious of many divine promises (Ephesians 1:11)
8 They claim the divinity and supremacy of Christ as Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3)
9 They hold on to a hope of Heaven (Philippians 3:20-21)

Hope this comes as an encouragement to some fellow travellers.
Radar

To fly you

I experienced a fascinating reflection on prayer when i was talking to a friend late tonight. She told me that one particular person had received better news of a situation, and she had expected me to remember said person. 'uh' was the word uttered by the silence, for i had forgotten. Then she had to jog my memory backwards until i could recall who she was talking about, and that's when i remembered that she asked me to pray for this individual. I hadn't remembered him tonight. Does that mean that i forgot to pray for him? At least in the recent past, yes.
God asks us to pray that His will might have course in His own creation. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." Divine purposes aside, prayer also keeps us in grip with our own reality and experience. What better daily memory refresher than prayer? Prayer also brings to mind what we neglected to retain over night - an important meeting, a bank account status, a suppressed feeling.
i will keep praying because God is gracious and knows what is best for us. Not only does the act of prayer position our hearts in submission to and active pursuit of God's will, but it also completes our knowledge for the day that will come in handy to do the right thing for ourselves and to bless others.
Like going to bed. I bet that if i prayed that i'd be in bed and get enough sleep, i would. The voluntary will on my part plus the intricately operating will of God meet, and it happens.
So, Lord, please grant me enough sleep tomorrow. I know it willl be good for me.

In other news, here's a cool story about missed church and a $100 check. So a week ago i was taking my check in to my church to pay my tithe from the week i had missed the week before. As i was walking the check in, i had one of those spirit's nudges that asked something quite odd - to add$100 to my check. "this will be your tithe for the next paycheck", the conviction assured me. As i wrote the new check, i thought, 'Ok Lord, i'm trusting you for $1,000 on this next paycheck.' Well today i got that new paycheck, and the gross pay was exactly 995,55. Getting any closer to $1000 was almost impossible.
He knows that i'wasnt' planning on being in Tyler for church this coming week. That was cool of God to orchestrate the money like that.
good and godly night,
Jonathan

Thoughts from the deep

Does God weigh minds with instructions that seem, just, bizarre? Does He wake one in the early morning just to say "do thus and thus" and that seems like the most un-God thing that can enter our minds? I'll take another deserting student; i'll take another day of fasting; i'll take gladly another dead battery in my car. But this...why, God? if it is You that sent such an unsettling and discouraging duty in my mind. I can't beleive this would be His idea, at least i so do not want to. God gives us gifts for a reason; "all good things come down from the Father of Lights." Now this proposal in my mind is to push one of those best of gifts away.
He says that He will not take us through trials we can not brave and conquer, and that whatever hardships of mind or situation were only allowed by God to get through the holy heavenly barricades so He could use it to rebound our souls to Him somehow. Hm.
I pouted several times today as i thought about this word that seems so real, yet so unlike the God I know. Is this one of those tests of faith to prove my obedience and His supremacy in my life, as another Abraham to readily thrust the dagger into his beloved son's chest? Or is this in itself a proof-test to see if I beleive God for who He is and discount the wild idea as but a distraction from Him, the ultimate Fact?
God, Thou the eternal Iconoclast,
who melts away my perceptions of You
And i must needs know You better
For i am always late in knowing what You purpose.
May in this time nothing of eternal substance be Lost,
and in the many days, my mistaken perceptions be Few
I have sent to you thought, word and Letter
Now let the intent of Your heart for me arise to the obvious Surface.

--Radar