Blogging may be more miss than hit this week.  Adding two or three tasks can throw off an entire week.  It's not a complaint but just a statement of reality.  Tomorrow is the day I volunteer to judge a high school debate contest.  My hope is it will be enjoyable for the students as well as for me.  It may be obvious that my experience in speech type settings is more than the average person.  My goal is to use what the years are teaching me to help the students along the way.  This is yet again one of the unique things that can happen in a small town ministry setting.  You get to be a part of some really fun things that just cannot happen in bigger cities.  Let's hope the scoring is done the right way.

There is also the matter of making a trip tomorrow for funeral visiting.  It may well be that my presence is not needed for my young friend and his family.  It's been a few years since we were part of this congregation.  Part of me just wants to be there as a friend but also for my own well being.  You can read other blog posts of a struggle with that idea of survivors guilt.  Death sometimes will honestly leave me at a loss for words.  Losing a family member or friend in their early twenties is one of the things that takes you for a spin.  Just pray with me for this family in the midst of their pain.  Be sure that there will be occasions of grief for which there are no words.  Don't ever try to force the words but just be there for encouragement.

Jonah is once again coming up this Sunday.  We are going to be taking a look at how revival broke out in the one city our prophet wanted to go away.  There is a quote that says, "Only Nixon could go to China."  It refers to the President going to China to open a dialogue with the country he once criticized regularly. Jonah is the one prophet whose prejudice makes him a perfect candidate to go preach in Ninevah.  God has a way of bringing me to places in scripture in His timing.  Dealing with the study of Jonah stayed on my mind for the last few years.  God is now allowing me to learn more than I ever imagined from this misguided man of God.  One can only hope that those who listen can gain as much as I do while researching this book.  One thing becomes true every week through study.  God can and will use even those whose hearts are not in line with Him at the start.  His providence outweighs our disobedience.  What we could do is realize how God cares for us despite our imperfections.  Long before we respond to His grace with repentance comes those times He reaches out to us.  Jonah will learn this the hard way.  My hope is we can just learn it now. 

Bro. Trey