Divine Favor

Hello Orchard Valley and friends :o) i hope all is going well for everyone and that hey you are down to just see how I am doing. That is really just awesome and I really appreciate it. Anyways before I talk about the crazy just intense moments that have been going on in my life I am going to start by just telling you guys how great God is :). Every story I tell give the glory to him, there is no "good job marc" or "marc you are so cool" there is only "Thank you Jesus for what you are doing" because it is God doing the work here in SD. So blessed be the name of the Lord.

So the story of the day has been just divine favor and listening to the Lord. These past few days have been just crazy filled with stuff you would only hear about in the bible BUT that is not what I am going to talk about right now. The Lord has such great things planned for everyone but man I have just started to listen and God is totally reshaping my idea of blessing and being blessed. I am learning how to love in college I have made one extremely big mistake which hurt quite a few of people this past week and God has told me that i need to come back to love.

As it says in 1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, [1] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [2] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

And the bible says that God is love so even if I can do crazy things like prophesy, speak in tongues, or give to the poor but I have not love it does not matter. So I have been asking God to just show me more about love.

So today it was quite tough because I was emotionally and physically drained from the events of this past week. Not only that but I was behind on my homework and I have not done alot of things around the apartment. I was just not ready for the day today and when one of my apartment mates asked me to do some stuff to serve others I just got kind of fed up that the responsiblity was given to me and I was expected to do all this stuff. There were times when I was well rested where it was easy to serve others joyfully but today was one of those days where I didn't want to serve and I was upset because I wanted to love them and serve them. So I decided to bounce out and study at the library, but to my dismay the library closed early as I was about to find my studying rythem. So I walked all the way to a desolate study location in Eleanor Roosevelt college and I finished my studying there. I kept repeating the verse

"Now there is no condemnation in Christ" Romans 8:1

And as I finished I asked God to just teach me how to love others. Then I left to go walk to a dining hall because it was quite late and I had not eaten dinner yet. As I was walking i bent down to pick up some trash and a girl walking by asked me if I had seen a cell phone I tolded her no and I offered to help her look for it. (sadly i forgot her name now ><) We introduced ourselves to one another and I asked her where she left it. She told me that she dropped it somewhere between the place I was studying and the dark forest at the top of rimac hill which in my opinion is very sketchy. She then told me it was cool and she was like I will see you later. In my head I was debating how awkward would it be for me to ask her to help her look for it when the chances of finding it if she lost in the forest are like 1,000 to 1. I was like man but I was down to just love on this girl so I offered my assistance and we walked down to the forest after checking the walkway.

In my head I prayed that God would give us divine favor and that he could help us find this cell phone even in this forest where I was scared to walk into. It was so dark I was like what if someone comes out to get us or she is trying to mug me of course merely just scare tactics from the enemy. So she uses my cell phone to call and I am just praying that God would just give us a blessing and out of the corner of my ear I hear a ring. It is ridiculous at first I couldn't belive it. I told her what I heard and then she heard it too we contiued to call and follow the ring until we FOUND it in the forest. Man glory be to God I just gave him thanks and was astounded, the girl was so stoked that she found it she was literally dancing and jumping up and down. So I was now really far away from the dining hall I was going to eat at because I helped this girl but it did not matter because it God had a different plan. However as we were walking down this hill a car coming the opposite direction pulled up next to us and asked for directions to Muir college on the opposite side of campus.

Rather than just kinda give vague directions because I was not sure I asked if I could come in and just kind of show them the way and strangely enough they were down. I found out they were from LA area and that their daughter was a freshman and that they could not get back in the night. I showed them the way back and as we were passing the dining hall I was going to go to they stopped and dropped me off. I was astounded that God would use these things just to get me where he wanted me. I just laughed at the humor of God and how funny he is to put certain things in my path to teach me about love.

Thank you Jesus for what you have taught me.

Prayer Requests: For humbling me, teaching me how to love, fall more in love with Jesus.