This morning, I wanted to look back at everything God has shown Danielle and I, and try to find the common message. As wonderful as the insights granted to us both were, I still hadn't felt I'd found the one, core instruction that I felt I was intended to learn. Just before I went to sleep, I asked God about it, which let me tell you is not always easy for me. I'm the kind of guy who doesn't ask for help, you can ask anyone who knows me. ~.^

     I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting it. Me, the guy who never had to study for a test in his life; the guy who everyone asks for advice. Why couldn't I understand the one lesson God had for me that day?


     I felt like Marty confused over one of Doc Brown's theories in Back to the Future. "You're not thinking Fourth-Dimensionally!" Then it struck me.


     Sometimes, the difference between confusion and understanding isn't your intelligence. It's not your ability to reason patterns or complex ideas. It's all about perception.


     As human beings, we rely on our senses when reasoning the things around us. We make decisions based on what we see, feel, hear, etc... Then, these things get bent and twisted by our emotions, aspirations, anticipations and desires. If we want to believe something strong enough, then there's no convincing us otherwise, even if we physicly witness evidence to the contrary. We can deceive ourselves purely by our perception alone, and then back it up with every other rational sense we can muster.


     Yesterday, Danielle and I had days very similiar to every other day in our lives. However, we suddenly popped up with all these messages from God, and attacks at us from other forces. I don't know about you, but I don't regularly look at any given event and later call it a message from God. I see my life and I see responsibilities, and escapes, and problems to solve, etc... I perceive the world through a stained glass window, colored by my own pressures on myself and wishes for those around me.


     God wants me to see things as He sees them. I think both of us started to do that, yesterday, and we found more than one message peaking at us here and there. I feel that neither she or I will be able to fully grasp all the things God has in store for us this coming month (or for the rest of our lives), if we can't first learn to see things with God's perception.

     I told a friend of mine that whenever I meet someone new, I always ask myself, "What one thing can I do to help this person?" I now know that question was actually wrong. It sounds wonderful and noble, but it's not the right question I should be asking myself. I, myself, can't do anything, really, for one of my friends. Yeah, I can help out with little things here and there, and that's all well and good, but they miss out on the real benefit they could get out of our relationship, because I didn't have the right perception. I should be asking "Lord, what would You do through me to help this person?" I need to learn to see people as God sees them, as well as things around me and in my life.

     As a person, I can rationalize and justify almost anything. But as a believer of Christ, I have to accept absolute rights and wrongs. There are no justifications for these things. There's no "it's ok under the circumstances." As I study God's word, I need to look at how He sees things in our lives, and work to make them more like how I know He wants them to be.


     This morning, I woke up, and looked out my window. I saw the same run-down apartment complex I always see every day. I saw all my neighbors who will be up all night fighting amongst themselves, so much that this is considered the worst part of this town. I saw snow plowed and piled up into dirty mounds. Then, I looked again. I saw a coastline, dark and stormy, with people trapped in its wake. I saw myself as a lighthouse. I realized why I still live in this mercy-forsaken, run-down, almost ghetto complex. It's the same reason I have the friends I do.

     This is my mission field. God loves every one of these people, whether they love each other or themselves, or Him, or not. He wants to reach them, and he wants to do it through me and my family. I am God's light, shining in dark alleys and forsaken lands, where its needed the most.

     That's how God sees me.

Mission    This Blog is being re-worked, with a higher purpose. Today, a good friend and I decided to work together to strengthen ourselves and our relationships with God. We've felt, since we met, that God had a reason for bring us into each others' lives, and for creating such a strong friendship over a miraculously short span of time. Today, I feel like we're taking a step into the direction God wants for us.


     God is a big advocate of encouragement, and He knows the best way to deliver it to each person. My friend and I have found that in each other, and our friendship together. Some of you know how strictly judgemental I can get over people who proclaim to be Christians, yet fail in some of what I feel are the fundamental cores involved. It takes a special someone for me to take criticism about God without becomming bitter and defensive.

     It's a testiment to His love and patience that He found it fit to link me to such a person, so that we might help each other grow to know Him and His will for our lives better.


     It is my goal to be taught by God every day. That's something for me to say, too, because I'm a pretty smart guy. My brother has a better relationship with God, but he's always coming to me for advice about Him, or something the Bible teaches. He feels I know the meanings, better, and I feel he lives the meanings better.

     I've got my pride, really. It's buried in there under lock and chain that you've gotta really pierce me to find. I don't like to be told I'm wrong when I firmly believe I'm right. I don't like to be shown things about me that aren't appropriate or justifiable. I'm like a graduating Senior in highschool. I know it all....



     So, that's my first piece of wisdom, today. I don't know it all. I, Tom McDonald, am in no position to teach others about life, God, or being a Christian. Not yet, anyway. The most important point I want to make, is that I will not be the author of this Blog. God will be. As He teaches me, I'll record it here. It is my hope that not only will God use this to strengthen me, but continue to use me to strengthen others.

     It's amazing, that when I decided to open my Bible, I wanted to re-read Proverbs. I haven't read that book in far, far too long. What should I be welcomed to, but this?

        "A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their principal sayings. The fear of the Lord is thje beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction."
             Proverbs 1:5-7


     I can't dare hope to teach others, if I can't call myself wise. Yet, if I shun God's teachings in my own life, then I'm already a fool.


     For those of you that do, please pray for us and these future writings. Pray that God will minister to us, as friends and as individuals, that he'll take our hearts and our longing for Him, and show us how to live the life He would have for us. Pray that this effort will help to bring light to others, and may He receive all the praise and glory for it.