The Adams

   I really enjoyed class this week because we learned about management from the Adams,(Adam Donyes and Adam Martin) two of the Link Year directors. I love hearing from the Link Year staff because they believe in heart transformation not behavior modification. This patient attitude helps them to show grace and mercy in a busy, self-centered world that craves instant gratification. They brought to light the importance of managing different areas in our life so that we can maximize our moments in life.

   C.S.Lewis said “the future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever they do, whoever they are.” Everyone has the same amount of time in a day, but we each choose to spend that time differently. We have to make the choice to maximize our time each day; we will never get back time.  As Christians, we are called to maximize our time, the Bible considers those who poorly manage their time to be fools! It’s so easy to get caught up in the things of this world but it’s essential to make the most of the time we have because everything we do in life has significance. We will ALWAYS make time for the things that are most important to us, Adam Donyes has been telling us this since day one and it’s so true. If it is truly important to us then we WILL make time.

   Learning how to manage our money at a young age is important. The spending habits we learn now will shape our future spending habits. Learning how to be smart with our money now really sets us up for our future and our retirement. Adam showed us a website called mint.com. This is a website helps us manage our money by looking at where all of our money is going to.

   Managing myself seems to be the most difficult for me because it requires a lot of discipline. As a believer being in the God’s word daily is a necessity because 1 Peter 5:8 tells us that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  Romans 12:2 says “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by   the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. “ It is impossible for us to renew our minds without the discipline of study. We have to remind ourselves daily to submit ourselves to God, so that we are living for Him and not conforming to the things of this world. Managing ourselves takes a lot patience.  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  It’s so easy to get caught up in what WE want, but we are here to serve God not ourselves. Our society craves instant gratification so when things don’t go our way we begin to stray away from God and allow the enemy into our lives, but we are called to rejoice, pray, and to give thanks in every situation, something that is hard to do if we do not discipline ourselves to stay in God’s word.

    This week of management was a great reminder of how easy it is to get caught up in the world and lose sight of why I am here at Link Year. Managing is important and I am excited to take what I have been taught this week and use it to maximize my moments.

Saturday. October 20. 2012

I have tried a lot of new things in the past few weeks while living in Branson. I have washed my clothes twice, only because washing clothes at the Ye Olde Wash House takes forever and a day, even when I use the BIG BIG washer!  I have attended church in a castle; it was really different than what I’m used to. And I have stayed up wayyy past my bedtime attempting to pull my friend’s truck out of the mud.   

Me and my roomie Amber!

Our room!

    Jamie, me, and Rachel skating on Mystery Monday!

       Beth!!!

 

      Class in the K-1 Chapel!

       The group that attempted to get Brooklin's truck out.

The Weekly Link

Our week started off bright and early Monday morning with a walk by the lake over to K-1. There we were encouraged to reflect on how we spend our free time, and how that affects our walk with the Lord. We all scattered throughout the lower fields of K-1, K-Kountry, and K-Kaua’I to spend time in the Bible, journal, and reflect.

     Our speaker missed his flight first thing Tuesday morning, so our director, Adam Donyes filled us with his words of wisdom while we awaited the arrival of our guest speaker. Adam talked about relationships, entitlement, transformation, self-control/ sanctification, and maximizing moments. One thing Adam said that really struck a chord with me was “the only thing worse than our sin is justifying it.” This is so true. I know I personally justify things all the time but I have never really realized it until he pointed this out. He also talked about how we are called to maximize our moments. Ephesians 5:15-17 says, “look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Our society is constantly on the go but these verses are a great reminder of how God calls us to be wise and make the most of our moments.

     When our speaker, Jonathan Morrow, arrived he began to blow us all away with his vast knowledge of how to defend the Christian faith. He pointed out that the Bible says more about knowledge than it does faith, and that faith acts on knowledge; it’s not a substitute for knowledge. He made two points that I really liked. The first one being that every beginning requires a beginner, and the second one being that every design must have a designer. I really liked these because we had to have a beginner, something can’t come from nothing therefore we had to have a beginner/creator. We are all so intricately designed; therefore we must have a designer. In his final session Mr. Morrow left us with advice on how to flourish in college and life. He encouraged us to find mentors, peers, have a Christian worldview, and to have a vision for our life. Proverbs 13:20 supports these four things by saying, “whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.“  Overall this was a busy week filled with tons of detailed arguments on how to defend our faith.

The Big Picture

At the beginning of the week I was told that I would be going through the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation in one week, I thought this was crazy! There is so much in the Bible, how could we possibly go through it in just three days? Mr. Mike Aleckson, our guest speaker came prepared to walk us all the way through. We started our week off with defining worldview as a frame of how one sees existence. We also learned that a Biblical worldview could be drawn out as a ray, with the starting point being Genesis 1:1 and our last at Revelation 22.

     The first day we reviewed over the history of the Old Testament.  I thought it was really interesting to learn about all the different covenants.  I learned that a covenant is not just a promise; it is a promise with rules. We looked at the Adamic (Genesis 2:16-17), Noahic (Genesis 6:8), Abrahamic (Genesis 17:2), Mosaic (Exodus 19:5), Davidic (2 Samuel 7), and the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34). It was interesting to see God’s faithfulness through all of these covenants.

     Early in the week we read Matthew 5:48, “you therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”   This verse didn’t sit well with me because we are all sinful and now this verse was telling me that I must be perfect? It wasn’t until our last session that learned the true meaning behind this verse. We had to look at the origin of the Greek word telos and teleion to see what perfect really means in this passage. Telos is Greek for goal or purpose while teleion is Greek for perfect, so when it says we must become perfect, it really means that we are to fulfill the purpose for which we were created. By going back to the origin of the Greek word we were able to see what the author of this passage was trying to convey.

      Mr. Aleckson had us draw out a timeline beginning with Genesis 1:1 and ending with Revelation 22. A common misconception after looking at the timeline of the Bible was that the Old Testament was concerned more with outward actions, while the New Testament was concerned with inward beliefs. Anyone can believe, the Bible says that even demons believe, but Ephesians 2:8 tells us that “faith without works is dead”.  Christianity is not a works based religion but our beliefs should influence our actions. Therefore because we believe in God, we should want to honor and obey Him in all that we do.

Our last point on our timeline was Revelation 22. This was just a great reminder of what the Kingdom of Heaven will be like. We concluded our week with looking at the big picture of how we can live for the Kingdom in our daily lives. It’s important for us to live out our beliefs and use the talents that God has given us to spread his word and bring Him glory in all that we do.