Trials

Driving in today (at 60mph), I was listening to a recording of our pastor doing a sermon about James. If Corinthians is a book about the joys about Christian life, love, and service, then James is more like a punch to the throat. It talks about how we should act and react as Christians. The first chapter talks about trials. For some reason, this message spoke to me today and I was enthralled (I didn't even notice the other drivers flipping me off as they passed me). The scripture talked about how we should be glad that God is putting us through trials because he knows that this is how we can achieve our greatest potential. An illustration Tommy (our pastor) talked about was regarding Michelangelo and his statue of David. When asked how he was able to turn a slab of marble into David, he responded by saying that David was always there, he just had to chip away the pieces that weren't David. That's how God's trials work. We are the slabs of marble and somewhere beneath is a masterpiece, but the only way to get there is for God to chip away the pieces. The trials are never pleasant, but we have to endure with the knowledge that God is in control and if He didn't care for us, we wouldn't have to endure these trials. In the end, our hope is that we have endured to become God's masterpiece.

Final update on my driving experiment. Hitting the gas station this weekend, I filled up and tallied the numbers to my sub-scientific test. The results were astonishing! I went from 24-27 mpg to over 30mpg! Worst case to best, I saved an average of 6 miles per gallon. Which turns out to be a savings of about $65 (at $4/gallon) a month. This is a little under a tank and a half of gas a month. All this just for taking 10mph off of my speed. I haven't gotten this good of gas mileage since they replaced MTBE with Ethanol. Plus, the added time it took me to get to work was only 3-5 minutes. So, based on this, I suppose Ill continue to get dirty looks on my way to and from work!