I need a Wife.

Lately I have been thinking it would be nice to be married. Hmm…

Anyone else feeling the same way? Maybe it’s time for me to seriously pray and pursue this in my life? Maybe it’s not? Oh bother. Good thing not very many people read my blog. : )

God Gave Me Parking.

Just a few days ago I was starting to feel really guilty about the amount of money I have been spending in the last three days. (Most of you guys don’t know this, but by this end of this post you will). If you spoke to me, the way that I oftentimes justify it is that I would tell you “last year, I made so little money and bought myself practically NOTHING! So this year, now that I have some money, I feel like I HAVE to get myself something a little bit nice…” So I went on this crazy spending splurge. I bought a multitude of things in a very very short period of time. Let me list the items here…

Xbox 360 ($350)
Bioshock ($50)
Vizio 47″ Hd Tv ($1600)
3 Controllers ($130)
Ipod Nano 8 gb ($200)
Guitar Hero 2 ($51)
Wireless Network Adapter ($80)

Now I know that this seems like a ton of stuff, and it is. But last year I was making only 900 dollars a month, and 600 of that went to rent. I was dirt poor. Struggling to get by each month, scared to death of spending any money. And honestly…now I feel “free”. (See! I JUSTIFY AGAIN!!! EVEN AFTER I WARNED YOU ABOUT IT!)

As I was driving two days ago, I started talking to God about my spending money recently. I honestly felt really bad, and in my discussion, I asked God if it were okay that I spent the money. I kid you not. I felt His love suddenly come upon me. I was rather confused. I was almost bracing myself for a hard rebuke. “Sam! Why did you spend this money so wrecklessly!” Or “Sam! There are billions of people who have nothing and HOW COULD YOU!”. And yet, in its place, I get this sense of peace and this sense of love. Trust me. That wasn’t of me. My normal inclination would be to guilt myself into a hole, and then me trying to justify it. Honestly, I was getting ready to justify myself before God!

And yet, the answer was so much different than I expected. In fact…He told me that He was going to show me how much He loved me, and that He was going to give me parking right in front of my apartment today. Now, for those of you guys who don’t know, that is damn near IMPOSSIBLE to get that parking during the weekdays. But somehow I knew that I knew that God was going to give me a gift today…

And so I drove to my apartment. I hit a stoplight, and I felt like the Lord said to me “you need to hit this stoplight”. I just felt this enormous sense of trust, even though I didn’t see it, I knew that God was going to give me parking. And so I got there–to the front of my apartment–and I kid you not. Right when I got there, literally, at the exact moment, a car leaves. If I had not hit that stoplight, I would have drove right past the car. And yet…here I was. Getting parking RIGHT in front of my apartment just like the Lord had promised.

Then I felt the Lord speak something to me. “You are my son. I love to give you gifts”.

It’s a moment of revelation for me. Anytime I do something for myself, or even anytime I “receive” something, sometimes I have a hard time receiving it because I feel like I have to always be the one that gives. And yet God here whispers something in my ear…it was such an intimate moment with God. It was so moving.

I don’t write this post so people can justify spending lots of money. No. If you don’t have it don’t spend it and secondly, if you have a problem with spending on yourself a lot, then I would say you should be careful of the idol. But I guess I say…that sometimes God just wants to give you gifts. Because He loves you. And that material things aren’t bad in and of themselves.

God created everything. Everything is His creation and EVERYTHING gives Him glory! The beautiful TV in my living room gives Him glory! The xbox 360 gives Him glory! HAH, Microsoft. I betcha didn’t know that the xbox 360 is glorifying God right now!

So I would encourage you. Be free from guilt, and receive the gifts of the Lord.

mystuff-002.jpg, mystuff-004.jpg (picture of my stuff)

God loves you. Seriously.