bad day

yesterday i wasn't having such a good day. i had to wake up early on a monday morning...rush through a workout and then rush through my hour-long commute in the morning in order to make it to my training session at work on time.

i did make it on time. our first lecturer did not. overall the morning wasn't too bad. i was restless but i made every effort to listen. but then our last lecturer was also late. and our lunch got lost. i was feeling a bit light-headed and tired.

well after work i had to go to teach bible study, as i do on mondays. one attendee had already sms'd me to say he couldn't make it. i toyed with the idea of cancelling, as i wasn't feeling that up to it anyway...but before i knew it, it was 4 o'clock and i'd neither cancelled nor prepared. well, i thought, no problem, i'll just quickly go over my notes for the chapter were studying.

as you can guess, i didn't have any notes. or at least not with me. there is a lady named laverna who is truly an angel. a pet project of hers a couple of years ago was to put a lot of study materials online. i checked out her website to see if there was anything on the study we were doing.

the chapter was revelation 16 - the seven angels and the seven plagues that finish God's wrath.

we don't often think of God as being wrathful. and yet we shouldn't forget that though God is a deity of love and mercy, He is also pure and just. He cannot condone those who suppress His truth and oppress His people - and it is against those these plagues are poured out. but you cannot understand this chapter without going way back into the old testament, and studying leviticus 26 - the blessings and the curses. someone may look at this chapter and feel uncomfortable about the harshness of it, but again, it's something that must be taken into context. the context of God revealing Himself to an entire nation, of rescuing them out of slavery, sustaining them in the desert, and performing miracle after miracle in their sight. of His longing to create, out of that nation, a priesthood of people who would then carry His love to the rest of the world.

as i started driving from work i was feeling worse and worse. my throat was feeling dry and scratchy and my skull felt tight. and already my stomach was feeling weird from the late lunch/heavy lunch. i really didn't want to teach that day. but i went through it anyway and i covered about half of the chapter, talking about how each plague tied back to something in the old testament. one of my friends was really amazed by it. he's been studying for about a year and ready to get baptized soon, and after the study was 0ver i was really blessed by his enthusiasm for studying the scripture and also the fact that he's already sharing his faith in God and in the bible to his family. i'm so proud of him. it kind of made the whole day worthwhile.

it's amazing how God can do that.

i'm hoping He'll do it again today...