Geanne Guyon once wrote, "What is abandonment? It is forgetting your past; it is leaving the future in His [God's] hands; it is devoting the present fully and completely to your Lord. Abandonment is being satisfied with the present moment, no matter what that moment contains. You are satisfied because you know that whatever that moment has, it contains-in that instant-God's eternal plan for you." Some people come across presenting the Christian life as something that you constantly try to acheive, and even some live under the notion that all is acheived (even to the point of sinlessness) when you are a Christian. The first will make you tired, and the second one will make you [...]

Donald Miller wrote: "Some people skip through life; some people are dragged through it. I sometimes wonder whether we are moving through time or time is moving through us." I woke up today realizing that I'm over half-way done with my program in school, and that in mere months I'll be off to my internship. Where has the time gone? For that matter, it seemed like yesterday I was watching the sun set while sitting on the clay ground of the Navajo Nation. Time does more than "fly"...it shoots like an arrow, and you're lucky if you can grab it's wind as it zooms by. It makes me wonder how I'm on time for anything. I [...]

Everyday is a new start. It's been raining for a day. I woke up to the chill of rain outside, and drove to school this morning around 6 a.m. (Yes, be impressed...6 a.m., without coffee even) On the way to school my windows were fogging, so I had to use my defroster. Everything was saturated and wet. The street, the trees, my truck. I know, you're like, "Duh, that's what rain DOES, Joel." But you don't understand the novelty. I'm not a big fan of heat (even if it's dry), and right now I live in Chandler (which is next to Phoenix). It cracks me up when people say, "Well, it's a DRY heat." Cummon, ovens [...]