APTAT || Camping

Yesterday I happened to find messages by John Piper and I chose one. If you have time, it's worth listening to: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/the-word-of-god-is-at-work-in-you. I was amazed how real the Bible is in his life and you can just recognize it by listening to him speak for only a few minutes. He really analyzes the Bible in depth and you can just see God working through his life. The one thing I really learned from it was APTAT. So what is this? It's not a real word, but it's an acronym.

Admit

Pray

Trust

Act

Thank Him 

It's a way of living. Whenever I face any problems, I need to admit that I am powerless. I can't do it without God. I am helpless. Then I need to pray specifically. During the message, John Piper talked about how it is important to hold onto verses, promises God has given us. We need to repeat such promises over and over to ourselves. Then I need to trust God that He will be with me, take care of the problem, etc. After that I can't just sit and pray. I must act and after everything is over, I need to thank Him. (:

APTAT. After listening to this, I realized I did have my own variation of this as I learned how to overcome struggles last year, but it's assuring to know that others do the same thing.  I need to remember to thank God. There's great assurance knowing that it is not by my power I do things, but through God's power. His power is so much greater.

I was reminded that I need to bring everything before God, not just the big things in life, but even the small things. (:

Prayer is powerful.

Yesterday/today the youth group went camping! It rained a bit, but it was a good experience. Sleeping in tents were somewhat uncomfortable but not too bad. It reminded me of Mexico... We were all so fascinated by fire. Why are we so fascinated by fire? As I kept watching the fire, I kept thinking of fire as a metaphor to the Christian life. We need to keep feeding the fire to watch it grow. In the same way, we need to keep feeding ourselves spiritual food for us to keep growing. And the analogy goes on and on...

On another note, flag football's not that bad as I remember it from freshman year...

new blog post to check out: http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/2012/10/she-clings-tightly-to-edge-of-pool.html