Being good doesn't make God choose you and being bad doesn't
make God choose you.  God uses whom He
chooses and how He chooses is a mystery. 
He uses High Priests and prostitutes, no attempt can come close to
changing His mind.  Trying to trick God
is not like tricking people; He is God who created people.  He knows His servants.

Galatians 6:7 says, "Do not be deceived, God cannot be
mocked."  People are so arrogant.  They think that they can actually mock
God.  Nope, He cannot be mocked and He
needs no defense because of this.  We are
not His defense; He is ours.  How many
times have you come to God's rescue?  People will choose to believe with or without
you.  News flash: We are not indispensable.  The faith of others does not ride on us.  In John chapter 3, Jesus tells us that he was
not sent to condemn the world, but regardless those who do not believe in God's
only son stand condemned because they do not believe in the only true
hope.  Even when people mocked Jesus at
the cross, glory was sent to the Father. 
They thought they were deriding him, but they were only deriding and
condemning themselves.

God loves you.  He is
not super pumped about your ministry or your choices or your righteousness; all
things good come from Him anyways.  He
loves you apart from everything you have done or ever will do because He does
not care about what you do. He just cares about you.

Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brothers, whatever is true,
whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such
things."  There is power in thought.  If you speak positively over a bottle of
water, the molecular structure changes. 
Unfortunately, if you speak negatively over a bottle of water, the
molecular structure changes.

2 Corinthians 10:5 "We demolish arguments and every
pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take every
thought captive to make it obedient to Christ." 
Considering truth destroys lies. 
Thinking on the noble causes you to clash with the ignoble.  Whatever is right is always in combat with
whatever is wrong.  If you are clinging
to purity even in your mind, impurity must flee.  The power to tear down or build up all dwells
in that space between your ears.

Today Brittany and I were typing up forms and letters of
great importance to the orphan center at our new base so that the field workers
could get to the field.  As we went
along, we were unexpectedly excited to come across some names that we were
familiar with from our time in Busia. 
Then, also unexpectedly, we were very disappointed and angry.  A few of the children that were listed were
legitimate orphans and a few were making their case sound much worse than their
reality.  People abuse the system
everywhere.  Don't they know that others
need that money?  Some of the orphans
have lost both parents to AIDS or some other horrible incident and have no
living relatives so they are constantly moved from place to place because no
one has an obligation to them or responsibility for them.  They have nothing and walk forever to try to
get an education while tackling more chores at home than I would ever dream of
undertaking.  Those children need
sponsors.  Of course, that sort of case
would move up on the priority list but the little money that is dispatched to
the children who do not need it is just... something when the other child is
starving and dying of AIDS.

God is not a man; God is not a white man.