From the Helm – Thursday, April 24, 2008
12:50 PM
Well, the RBBI ends tomorrow and my system seems to finally be coming around to normal. Got up rested at 3:30 this morning and felt great about it! Thing is, come Saturday, I’ll need to adjust back to the USA. I guess by the end of next week, I’ll be “reprogrammed” for stateside… Very small price to pay for the blessings God’s allowed me to see and be part of.
Today, Brent taught the 5th chapter of James. Lots of questions and comments on the subject of “riches”. Our people of Brasil live in the constant shadow of the few having the most. After much discussion, our guys began to realize that the measure of a man is his character and integrity not what he does or doesn’t have of this world.
Riches can come and go in a moment’s change of economic factors or individual foolishness. Character and integrity, on the other hand, are built over a lifetime of living one day at a time. If I choose to live each day as God leads, with a mindset leveled by His wisdom and in recognition of His grace, I will surely lay my head down in the evenings with all intact. My personal experiences have taught me that I lose only when I consciously, premeditatedly determine to act upon foolish thinking - it’s impossible to “accidently” take a dive. The harder I may try to make it out to be an accident, the exponentially more ugly the whole deal becomes.
I appreciate Brent’s manner with the men. He has taught the Book of James with great care and simplicity. We’ve been acquainted for a number of years but I’ve come to know something of his heart over the past week. He is a good man, indeed.
5:45 PM
This afternoon’s session concluded the final chapter of James. What a good time we had together. Eyes and hearts were opened to the simple truth of the scriptures. It was a joy to watch as seemingly difficult topics were understood for what they were. We tend to try to read in to some things in scripture, manipulating fragments out of context. Today was good for me personally. It was reaffirmed in my soul that I should stick to reading only the black of the printed page – all else leads me to lofty places I need not visit. I’ll just leave the brainstorm and the grouch to those better suited to handle it…
From the Helm – Friday, April 25, 2008
11:35 PM
Well, we are in Manaus for the night. I’ll catch everything up over the next days with a report on the RBBI. Headed home for now. Going to rest for the night and head for Miami in the morning. It’s been a good trip indeed…