Osh, Kosh, and Other Things That Rhyme With Josh

So now that I’m done with class for the day, I guess I need to actually put up a legitimate post, eh?

Well here you go, and it’s even tax free! How about them apples, or oranges, whatever your taste may be? Enough food for thought. Get it? I know, I’m hilarious. Seriously though, let’s get down to business, and since there are no Huns in the area to defeat…  I guess I’ll take this opportunity to reflect a little. It’s like milk, “it does the body good.”

It wasn’t by accident that today I finished reading the book of Joshua. For those of you that don’t already know, I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that one day I will inherit everlasting life with him. Interestingly enough, he died for yours, too. If that’s news to you, come find me, and we’ll chat about it, because how I came to know my Savior is a whole other story.

Back to Joshua…

So I’m a 22 year old guy standing on the edge of the next chapter of my life. Seven weeks from now, on May 14th I will walk across that stage and receive a very expensive piece of paper. What happens after that is totally unknown. The only thing I know for sure is that I will go wherever God directs me.

I am exhausting every option I can and basically the options are as follows: Get a job somewhere doing civil engineering, serve in Costa Rica with eMi, or go home to Corpus.

Get a Job – Go to work for a civil firm. If I could swing it, go to work for a transportation firm and work in construction. (Hence the title of this blog) It is tough, the economy doesn’t give me much hope that I will find a job straight out of school. I’ve applied everywhere, and I’ve used up any and all connections, too. I trust that God will take care of me. I will be graduating with an immense mountain of debt. Don’t get me wrong, I love SMU, but it was expensive. After losing my scholarships freshman year, God somehow found a way to keep me here. Regardless I have to get a job and start paying off that debt.

eMi  - A friend of mine, Christy, introduced me to a wonderful service opportunity, eMi (Engineering Ministries International) It consists of volunteering to serve with an engineering firm in one of several offices located throughout the world. Serving from August to December, and I would be helping to engineer a world of hope. It would be real world experience and I would be serving God. I would so love to do this, but it would involve raising a lot of money, and figuring out the job situation. Needless to say it would be a huge leap of faith for me.

Corpus – Oh Corpus, the home of Whataburger, and awful city beaches. I don’t want to go back, because I have grown to love Dallas. I refer to Dallas as my home more than Corpus Christi. There’s very little for me back there. Really besides my mom and a few friends, everyone else has left. However, 8 weeks from now, if I don’t have a plan in place, I’m headed home until something works out. God might want me to go back to lovely Corpus for some reason. Time will tell.

So yeah, I have a lot to decide…

Now for the reason why I cited the book of Joshua earlier. Everybody knows of Moses, he led the Israelites out of Egypt and through the forty years in the desert. The past few months as I have been reading through Exodus and Numbers I have felt spiritually dry. Nothing seemed to go my way, ever. I was broke, alone, and exhausted from trying to search after things to fill that God shaped whole in my heart. I didn’t realize I was doing this, because I thought I had filled that spot with none other than the God of the universe. It was a sucker-punch when I realized how wrong I was. I pursued what I thought my life should be. I looked for my future wife, I applied to job after job, and I tried to make sure that the people I was leaving behind at SMU would not forget me. Today, I am still single, have no job offers, let alone interviews, and I’ve discovered that I wasn’t properly investing in the people around me. So yeah, I was wandering through a wasteland of my life, and I really didn’t know where to turn.

Slowly but surely, God seemed to use the people in my life to help me to finally realize that I needed to listen to my own advice. I always tell people to trust in God, and he’ll take care of you. It was about for me to finally practice what I so often preached. I am not fully there but I am proud to say that I am making progress. Step by painful step I have been confronting my issues head on and bringing my demons to light. Sometimes I stumble, but God saw fit to bless me with amazing people to help pick me back up and share my burden.
Now to bring it on home, I feel like I have found the way out of the desert, and honestly I knew it all along. The way out is Christ, and living for him. I have been far too concerned with the things of this world. Where am I going to live? When will another family member fall ill? What about all that money I owe the government for student loans? Why doesn’t she want to date me? Why am I not happy?

Joshua was Moses’ successor, he was young and inexperienced and he knew it! But right out of the gate God’s word tells us exactly what we need to hear.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 (NIV)

God will always be with me, there’s nothing I can do to get away from him. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, either angels or demons, neither present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So I can’t do anything to get away from God’s love.

God will always be with me…

That is such an empowering statement!

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

If all of this is true, then why on earth am I so afraid of the future, so afraid of not getting a job, so very afraid of being alone? Well, I am human and therefore sinful.  The good news is, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for my sins. I have nothing to fear, because the maker of heaven and earth is with me always.

I don’t know about you, I don’t know if you even have stuck with me this long, but I do know one thing that the end of the Book of Joshua states.

“But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15

So a lot of my life is unwritten in the eyes of man, so we’ll just have to see where God takes me. I love him, and deep down I know the truth that is Proverbs 3:5-6 that if I trust in him and lean not on my own understanding and in all my ways submit to him, he will make my paths straight. It's time for me to step out in faith, with courage and strength, and trust in God for everything in life.

I hope this makes sense.

Numbers 6:24-26

Catch you later!

Bridgeman

I Should be in Class but....

Welcome!

I have been thinking about starting one of these for a while. With the fact that I'm embarking on a new part of my life, I feel what better time to start a blog than now!? I'm not making any promises as far as content and how frequently I post, but I will do my best. Hopefully you find what I have to say, or what I am doing interesting, or else you wouldn't be here! Right now I'm just a guy who's about to graduate college with no idea what's next. We'll just have to see what God has in store for me.

I apologize for how short this first post is, but isn't every blog's first post just a welcome and what not? Seriously though, I have to run to class, Foundation Engineering. Fun stuff...    I know.

See ya!

-Bridgeman