Praise the Lord and Give him Glory Train

Awesome. Praise the Lord!

God has been immensely good to me. Just 8 weeks ago the Lord blessed my wife and I with a healthy beautiful baby girl. She's amazing, and a grand display of God's power and goodness.

I really don't have room to type out all the ways he Lord has blessed me, so I will suffice with the words of Scripture:

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
The LORD works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.
The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
Psa 103:1-13 ESV

 

Jordan,
bless you.

how much better off we might all be (including myself) if we praised God and His goodness more to each other.

I don't typically think of God's goodness in terms of what I perceive as positive things happening around me, though there is a lot of that, too.

I tend to see his goodness in his daily provision. I have a 1993 Toyota pickup, and by His grace is keeps running. And I'm fully confident that when it's time is up, He'll make a way for me to have another beater that will keep on ticking.

I don't have an abundance of material possessions, and don't really desire them, either. And sometimes, His goodness takes something away.

My house was broken into a few months back, and my computer was stolen. I was so disappointed because the one thing I cherished on there the most was all the notes I had from my studies, bible study outlines I'd made, etc

But the goodness in that is that I have to dig it out in scripture all over again. But it's not really that I HAVE to, I GET to.

I work construction, and had a job go really bad. Because of the mishaps of others, a job that should have taken two months was dragged out to 6 months. I had to turn down quite a bit of work for 4 months because I was tied to that one sticky mess.

But God sustained me through it. He kept me from eating dirt, and made sure that there was always just enough gas in the truck. I think I told you about the time I locked my keys in the truck, and a totally foreign key unlocked it - without the key turning. That was totally amazing. That was only three months ago

He's blessed me with a house to live in that is only 5 blocks from the school my son attends, which is our church also.

This week my work is very slow, so I have the time to add some ceiling fans in the school classrooms, which are badly needed. And there was an inflow of very good work over the last few weeks, which has paid me well enough to be able to have a week of volunteer work.

He's good, alright. In how He works things out, whether we perceive things as good or bad.

 

Brilliant testimony. Thank you.

 

God set me in a Christian family with lots of love in it, then when it was His time He gave me a wonderful wife who is my best friend, and we're still in love after 35 years of marriage.

God gave us a son, one child, who grew up to serve God faithfully wherever he has been, and who has gotten a BA, MA, MDiv and PhD from Christian schools so that he can teach the Bible. Now as soon as the Lord leads him where His will is we'll thank Him for that too!

The thing that the Apostle Paul was most thankful for was the opportunity to preach the Gospel (Rom. 15:19). God gave us the wonderful privilege of being missionaries here in Japan for 33 years (as of May 6), and it is such a blessing to be a missionary (amen C4K?).

As a missionary and a believer, there is no greater joy than to see people saved and walking in truth (3 John 4). So we thank God for those He's seen fit to save through our witness over the years in Japan.

Above all, we rejoice that our names are written down in Heaven (Luke 10:20), because we are saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ!