progress & peace

here's the latest picture of the office building that is materializing out of thin air (not really thin...maybe just cold). there's some pretty dedicated and awesome guys working on this building and while i don't think i could successfully name them all there's a bunch from Gem AB and some from Calgary. thank you soooooo much for all your hard work (in some pretty frigid temperatures too!).

the other thing i wanted to say was that if you're planning on coming out here for Dec. 9th make sure that you contact the office and tell us what you're planning. the other thing is this: BRING YOUR OWN SLEDDING EQUIPMENT! we don't have much ofr sledding gear and unless you want to be going down on garbage bags, i suggest that you bring your own.

but let's talk about something else a little more interesting. I was at church on sunday and of course it's advent. the candle that we lit this last week was peace. it was totally cool to sit around and talk about what peace is , what it means, and what it means for our lives right now. these are the verses we had to discuss:

Isaiah 9:6 : For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

John 14:27: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Philippians 4:6-7: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and yuour minds in Christ Jesus.

a couple things that we talked about is that God's peace is always with us. i know in my life things can get chaotic and stuff just won't go right at all. my car isn't working, my job seems to go nowhere some days, i'm spinning my wheels, i'm constantly fighting with my parents, i have bad marks in school, my aunt is dying....those are just some of the things that could be going wrong in my life or anybody's life at any given point in time. and there's just times that i feel like i have no peace and i just feel like i have a knot tied in my stomach all the time, i lose sleep, i just feel like crap.

but what we talked about on sunday is that God's peace is always with us. Jesus GAVE us his peace. but does that mean that we will have a happy-go-lucky life all the time and nothing will go wrong...or maybe stuff will go wrong but it won't phase us at all? nah - i don't think that's it at all. think back to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (luke 22:41-43). there was a ton of stuff going on in his life. one of his friends had betrayed him and the rest were not even able to stay awake to pray. Jesus knew what laid ahead of him and he was so stressed that he was sweating droplets of blood (literally...the sweating blood thing...your capillaries can dilate so much under extreme stress that you will actually sweat blood...it only happens when you are under extreme stress though). Jesus even asked his father to remove "this cup from me" but he followed that by saying "your will...not mine be done". i don't think i've been under that much stress in my most stressful times and yet, Jesus was at peace.

so i guess what i'm trying to say is that if you believe in God and believe that he sent his son to earth to die on the cross for our sins and was raised to life 3 days later. and that Jesus left us the Holy Spirit to minister to us then you've got God's peace! so those times that seem to spiral out of control and you feel like the sky is falling or you can't go on...you got God's peace that transcends all understanding. Claim it cuz you got it. it means that God is bigger than anything that you could ever go through and nothing is outside of his reach.

pretty cool stuff.

stay in His grip.

cort