God's Timing Is Not Comfortable Timing

Over the past few months I've written about my experiences applying to medical schools. After much thought and prayer I concluded that medical school was what God was calling me to and so I applied.

However, medical school applications are anything but a quick process. My primary applications went off to schools in early September, my interviews were in December and January and now it's March and I still have no clue where I'll be next year. So far the only school to get back to me said that they wanted to keep comparing me to their other interviewees and would not give me a final answer for an undefined period of time.

And for me that is insanely frustrating. Personally I'm a very controlling person, and to know that I can't control when I'll get an answer about med schools means that I feel like I'm just floating helplessly along at the mercy of these arbitrary, often malicious forces (or that's what my mind thinks) known as admissions committees.

But friends God has been so good in this! I may feel like I'm just a helpless toy of the timetables of med schools, but God holds the world and medical schools in the palm of his hand. They do not operate outside of his will and if it is God's time for me to know about my future, then God would make it happen.

God's timing is not comfortable timing for me, but I can know that based on who God is I can wait. Over occupations, security, relationships, medical schools or any good thing in life God has given me Christ and secured for me a place in His Kingdom that cannot be shaken (Heb. 12:28); Even by medical school admissions committees!

You can be praying for me that I would trust God and not freak out about the time that he has me waiting right now. Please pray that as I wait I would know Christ more (Eph. 3:14-21) and to be diligent and finish the race of college well for God's glory instead of freaking out during the time that I have left.

New Attitude is now NEXT!

So you may have noticed that ads have started appearing on the blog at the bottom of each post. And you also may be wondering what in the world NEXT is.

Well I'd encourage you to follow the colorful link below, but essentially NEXT is a totally awesome conference that God has blessed my friend and I with the ability to attend this Memorial Day weekend.

NEXT, formerly known as New Attitude, is a conference for singles of all ages and young couples put on by Sovereign Grace Ministries. This year the theme is also "the person and work of Christ," with main session speakers being CJ Mahaney, Josh Harris, Kevin DeYoung, D.A. Carson and Sinclair Ferguson!

So in a word we're really pumped about this conference for not just the awesome lineup of speakers, but more importantly the chance to spend a whole weekend focused on learning more about our Lord and Savior.

If you're looking for something to do this Memorial Day weekend and would like to learn more about Christ I would encourage you to come on down with us to Baltimore. Plus you can also be praying for my friend and I as we prepare to head down that we would learn much about Jesus and also that God would do a good work to to teach many about his Son!

So take a few seconds and check this conference out:

So apparently I stink at keeping this updated

Well friends I have been doing a pretty poor job at keeping my blog updated and so there hasn't been much of a view for you all from the Ninth Floor here of late.

But God is good and He's been keeping us busy and away from blog posting for good reasons!

You can be praying for our fellowship as we travel to Orlando, FL next week to serve alongside the Wycliffe Bible Translators and offer our service to help out on their grounds. This is such an awesome opportunity to serve the Lord, serve the nations that need to hear His Word and serve our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Please be praying for us for safe travel, that the Lord would bind us in unity, and that he would establish the work of our hands for His glory (Ps. 90)! I hope to write soon with more awesome stuff that God has been doing!

Simple Pleasures

Ever notice how great God is to give us simple pleasures?

We had a snowball fight on Wednesday night followed by having everyone over for hot chocolate and hot cider. It was great fun and wonderful opportunity to just enjoy our friends around us in Tener Hall.

But looking back I was reflecting on how sweet and simple, such a joy it was to be like a kid again playing in the snow with friends. We don't deserve such wonderful joys, yet God gives them to us all over the place if we would just look. Even sleep (Psalm 127:2)!

What are some of the simple pleasures that you can think of?

The Intangilbes

So it was a pretty long day running around Boston, being interviewed, and learning a new subway system (which is really awesome).

But my faculty interviewer said something that struck home. It went something like this "When choosing a school you have to take into account the intangibles. That's what your decision should come down to."

So I was thinking about it and yep, I don't know if he was a believer, but there's a whole lot of truth in that. I could base my decision solely on the pedigree of the school, but that's not trusting the Lord as to where he's setting up as a perfect school for me.

Making a decision then is all about the intangibles, especially where prayerfully God would lead me to go should I be accepted. I thought that it was just really cool that while most likely he was thinking about things like weather, city atmosphere, etc. my interview had some real truth behind his statement when taken to the Lord.

Be praying for my safe travel home tomorrow!

Traveling 'round

This post is courtesy of the Longwood Inn here in Brookline, MA. Honestly this inn is pretty awesome. The rooms are super nice, I'm right near all of the hospitals, and the rooms and amenities are super. If you ever need a place to stay on the West side (Longwood) of Boston, check this place out.

That said, those pre-Christmas blog posts never came (silly me thinking that I would actually find time to write the days before Christmas). So in the interim, before those recap posts I figured I'd share what's been going on since New Year's.

Medical school interviewing has taken me all across the Eastern US this week, and I just wanted to write today about how amazing God is. To be perfectly honest, the weather this week has been horrible. In the roughly 36 hours that I was in Nashville, it didn't stop pouring rain once and Boston is covered in snow/deep ice. But in the midst of that God has not only answered prayers for safety, but every single plane flight was safe (in the iciest of conditions) and I haven't even experienced a delay.

Plus, even in the rain and cold God even provided an unexpected shuttle for me in Nashville so that I wouldn't have to wait for another!

I want to mention all of this because I normally freak out about all of those things (weather during traveling and mode of transportations like shuttles and subways especially). However God has been showing me so much this week about trusting him and seeing that he controls rain, air traffic patterns, schedules, snow, ice and all of the things that I think that he's forgotten about, plus that he knows exactly what I need, not what I want and that He has my best interest at heart.

If He allows an ice storm to cover the city I'm flying to, it's not just to spite me, but to somehow show great He is, even if I don't see why at the start.

So how have you all seen God provide recently in unexpected ways for His glory and not your comfort?

Back from the Dead...

So I've apparently dropped off of the face of the earth this past month, but I am still alive and I apologize for the silence here.

In any case the semester has wrapped up, and I'd like to take a minute to ask you to join me in praising God for what he's done this past month. And what a month it has been!

The Lord has been blessing Justin and I's Bible study on the floor with not only 3 guys who profess to be Christians, but also 2 guys who are not Christians (yet, Lord willing!). We've been diving into the Gospel of Mark, and some of the discussion especially with our two friends have been amazing. Please be praying for the work God's doing in their heart, that they may become Christians!

Also amazing has been that our one friend has been discussing Tim Keller's new book “The Reason for God” with us and we've been able to discuss many of the questions that skeptics of Christianity have often raised. But more importantly this has been a bridge to dive further in to the Scriptures with our friend and get to talk more about who God is, what he's up to in the world, and especially the good news that Jesus brings. And our friend has just been drinking it in and is so eager to hear more about Jesus. So again please continue to pray!

Also God has just been doing awesome things at DCF and in the other Biblestudies. The Lord is bringing others, even foreign exchange students from China, to know him and his Word. Other exciting developments have been seeing how God has been knitting the hearts together of our Leadership and Executive teams to love Christ, his Word and each other more! The relationships God has been building at my church and in DM at Penn State have been so amazing and it moves me to tears to see what God is doing to make his bride, the church, beautiful by his grace.

Tune in the rest of this week for updates on what God's been doing in my own life personally this past month as I'm no longer in school and cannot use school work as an excuse to not write!