Theologicus

Update

I am going to start writing and recording but I need a head start. Let me get a month’s worth of episodes before releasing.

NEW! Study: Romans

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Since starting an internship at my local church, I am prayerfully and utterly dependent on God for direction and steps. Most certainly, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps."¹

What boils that down for me is to answer this question at every turn, “Where does God’s grace have me at the moment?” I am future guy. What that means is that nine times out of ten, I think about the future, stay in the future, and “live” in the future. The past? That is old news. I don’t have time for history. The present? As you can imagine, I have had a difficult time staying present when I spend all of my time trying to get to the future.

But when I ask the question, “Where does God’s grace have me right now?”, that anchors me to the present and makes me realize what God is doing now.

In short, I want to preach the gospel. Most of my energy and time and effort has been to this end. Does it mean plant churches or stand on a street corner or become an elder or become a lead pastor somewhere? Maybe or maybe not. I have been, quite imperfectly, been seeking God’s face and his will for over thirteen years. I don’t know what it entails. I don’t know what else God would have me do.

But because I ask the question of God’s grace, this is what I do know:

First, whatever He asks me to do, I will be prepared and ready. He has called me. He has made me ready. I can wait on him. And I am not always going to be perfectly patient. But He has more than enough grace for me when I get antsy.

Second, until such a time, I, as a child of God, enjoy the freedoms only afforded to me because I am a child of God.

What does that mean? I get to love God. I get to obey His word. I get to repent of sin. I get to fulfill the Great Commandment which includes raise disciples², understand the Scriptures and be his empowered witness³ to the end of the earth⁴. If I take it one step further, I know I am called to feed, care, and love His lambs⁵.

Let us not forget Mark’s account, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation."⁶

I think I am to preach in the context of corporate worship. Maybe or maybe not. God will call that shot. And with the pandemic as is, that might be a long reach. But, because of the Triune God dwelling inside of me, I do understand the Scripture and study the Scriptures. And with that, I will share my studies.

This is the format I am working out:

1. Keep the studies short - I am not here to deliver a minimum study length.
2. Start with once per day - My goal is to work up to three times a day
3. If safe, host the study - Either a small group at my home or at a local coffee shop. Starting out, I will take precaution and see what the numbers look like from day to day. One thing to note: these studies will be short and sweet. If you can show up, I wouldn’t even bother taking your coat off most of the time. It might be five minutes. It might be five hours. I will go before God and ask Him for what I am to say and teach. He determines the length.
4. Post with accompanied podcast episode once per day - For those who can’t make it to the study, I will give a quick daily recap and post it your podcast app of choice. Again, I am not here to adhere to a set time. Five minutes? Five hours? That’s on God.

So join me for a new daily series, Study: Romans. Podcast links to come.

NaNoWriMo: How Did I Do?

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Let’s check the results:

cat wc_theo_totals
Week Of	    Total  Current Since
2020-11-02 1046072 51911  868292
2020-11-09 1080786 34714  903006
2020-11-16 1105046 24260  927266
2020-11-23 1185668 80622  1007888
2020-11-30 1232570 28952  1054790

According to my calculations, the number of words written for the month of November: 186,498.

Not too shabby.

Here’s the kick: most of that is not in blog. Most of those words won’t see the light of day. Most of those are my private, intimate moments with God.

And yet, essentially, I had my prayer journal within my blog–all with Draft status as true. I felt as though I was playing with fire. I wouldn’t know what to do if they accidentally published or somehow if Google was able to index it and made it available.

So I had to pull them out and put them into their own repo.

Which divides up the word count like so:

====================================================
Week Of    Theo    Prayers  Total     Current Since
2020-12-10 325611  1176342  1501953   1176879 1324173

Index:

Theo - Total word count within my blog

Prayers - Total word count within my prayer journals

Total - Theo plus Prayers

Current - Total words written minus last weeks’ total

Since - Total words written since migration to Hugo back in April 2020

What I am so deeply encouraged by is that for every four words written in prayer, one word is written on the blog. I like that a lot. It feels like I am on the right track.

I still need to keep punching on Prayers on the Psalms if I am going to finish within my lifetime.

Pray for me.