James

So I'm finishing up my study of James. It really is a great book. There's a lot of great stuff in it. I love chapter 3. He talks about the tongue and how it controls the whole person. Just like the rudder on a ship. Controlling what we say is so hard to do and only comes with God's help. Then he goes right on to talk about wisdom. This is my favorite part of James: "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes down from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." I love this because it flows straight from everything that he was saying about the tongue. I mean if we have the "wisdom that comes down from heaven" then we'll know how to control the tongue. I also like the word submissive. It means we have to be humble to be truly wise. We need to be servants of not only God but of everyone; willing to help even our most dispised enemies. Then in chapter 4 he talks about submitting to God. "You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives...Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'" We need to give everything to God, our plans, requests, pains, needs, and even the things we think are of no consequence, like watching a movie or eating ice cream. Everything we are, were, and hope to be needs to be given over into His care before we can truly do His will. "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."

Next I'm going to study Romans with Manuel. I think it'll be great. I think we can learn a lot from each other. Please pray for me in that.

Starbucks

So for anyone who didn't know for whatever reason, I got a job at starbucks. I went in for the first time today and had to sign stuff and read stuff, and then read some more. I had fun though. The people I'm going to be working with are cool and I think once I get the hang of where everything is and how to make it all it'll be great working there. Mom is going to cringe when she reads this but its 1:45 and all I've had today is two grande mochas and some coffee at the end of my shift when we taste-tested Verona coffee (which was good by the way). Overall I think I am going to like it there.

I had a good weekend. I had lunch at the pastor's house on saturday and got to talk to him and Marina for awhile. Then after the quinciñera saturday night I went over to Stephen Stoller's house with Adriel where we watched amovie and caught up on everything going on (it was Stoller's birthday). Then on Sunday we had a good Sunday school class and afterward we ate at the mall. Then we went to the Tech and played fútbol rápido and basketball. Then I drove back up to Tucson with Leonardo David. Overall a great weekend.

Random thoughts: Ocean's Thirteen is definitely a good movie, I'm pretty hungry right now, its nice to be earning money again, James is a sweet book (I've been studying it for about three weeks now and I've learned so much), I don't have anything in the Mullet House that I can make myself for lunch, and will mom ever use her blog?

Have a great day. I'll be posting more often now I think.