I don't think I've mentioned how excellent church is every week. Today Pastor Rob continued the series on "The Beginning of All Things" from Genesis and expositing how God designed all things, our purpose in this world, and what God has given us from the very beginning. I confess I was super late today to church and thought that I was going to miss a big chunk of the sermon, but I walked in and was still able to catch most of the worship time. I think it was because they had baby dedication, so I just missed all of that instead and didn't miss anything from the worship or sermon. Score:)

In ECHO we had a guest speaker (whose name I can't remember right now) who spoke to us from Matthew 25 on spiritual gifts. He exhorted us to discover our gifts so that we would serve effectively in the church using those particular gifts. Scripture reminds us that our gifts are not our own, but that it is God who gives them to us, and we are to be good stewards of them. When we recognize that purpose, we will begin to exercise the gifts well. One of his illustrations came from when he was 16. When his dad first allowed him to use the car for a weekend, he was in the driveway earlier that day washing/waxing/vacuuming the car since he was going to use it later that night. He recalled that his dad had asked him to clean the car many times before, but he was never eager to do it until now. The connection there was that if we truly recognize our gifts as spiritual blessing from God, then we will be more apt to nurture, develop and use our gifts appropriately.

For lunch, some of us went to Fuddruckers which, in retrospect, filled me up waaayy too much.

This afternoon I continued my theme of "fixing broken things myself". After fixing my iPod Mini screen last week, I decided I was going to fix my laptop reset button, so I ordered a used keyboard bezel (with button) from eBay. Cost me about $20 but I think it will be worth it to get the laptop working normally again. Without the reset button, the laptop doesn't go to sleep when I close the lid, so the next time I open the laptop, the battery is dead. I try to remember to put it to sleep manually, but I don't always remember.

Finally, I recieved an email from a friend this afternoon. In it was an encouragement that "the truth of the Gospel really is sufficient for every and any circumstance that we are in". It was a good reminder to keep the Cross central to everything.