1) I still love my new job. I have a great project manager who is showing me the ropes and has made it his goal to see to it that I get my Professional Engineering license (PE). That's my goal, too! It is still shocking almost every day as I walk through the office, see the Rocky Mountains out the window, and realize God led me here and gave me work that I thoroughly enjoy.
2) I have been reading through proverbs for the past week, and I have been understanding how a lot of the principles taught in the book are illustrated in the life of Jesus. Yes, the whole Bible is about Jesus, as is all of life, but I still find myself surprised when I see this in new ways. One example, from Proverbs 14:10:
The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy.
Couldn't this be a song lyric?! It's really true and connects with me in a very emotional way. I sometimes feel like nobody can understand how much I enjoy the things I love or how empty I feel in confusing, hard situations. However, if we look at Jesus' life, we realize that he demonstrates this most vividly. Truly, none of us could ever know the emotional pain of Jesus, the bitter taste of being punished for sins he had never committed by a perfect Father who had only ever loved him forever. On the flip side, who could know and feel the same real, intense joy Jesus has felt in his heart through his love of his Father and the joy of reconciling all the world back to relationship to him? The good news is this: God invites us into that joy, but it also comes with pain. I don't totally understand that, why there has to be pain, but it has to do with sin entering the world. Jesus entered into eternal joy and invites us into eternal joy, both through a bloody, stinking cross. That's interesting, huh? As weird as it sounds, I'm glad this is how he did it; I'm glad God uses pain to bring about joy and goodness. I feel that without it, sons and daughters of God would be way too much like Ned Flanders. Do you get what I mean?
