Weekly Update: Food + Friends = FUN!

Perhaps you may be thinking of a cheasier title to this week's weekly update, but I promise you, there is none. Compared to starting grad school last week, I guarantee you this weekly update will not be as captivating. Nonetheless, the Lord is still teaching me and giving me joyous experiences, starting with food and friends.

Before I type these weekly updates, I look at my calendar for the past week to see what I did so I can remember what I should tell you guys about (because I usually don't remember what I did last week...or yesteray...anyone with me?). As I was looking at my calendar, I noticed that almost every single meal that I ate last week I was scheduled to eat with a friend. Here at Boyce, most people go to the cafeteria (or "caf" for short) to eat their meals, which is personally my favorite part of day because all of my friends are in one place. Furthermore, having meals together is a wonderful way to get together with people because everyone's got to eat anyway! This week, as I said above, I had friends scheduled to eat with every day of the week. The point is this: God has truly been so gracious in giving me the friends that he has here. Friends (and food) are truly an amazing gift from the Lord, and we ought to not take that for granted!

Other than eating a bunch of food with a bunch of friends, this week was rather uneventful. I survived the second week of my graduate-level class, so that's good. There are definitely higher standards, but I know that I can persevere and even thrive with the strength God has given me.

I've been learning so much in my classes; I'd love to share a few of them with you. If you're interested, feel free to read. If not, I encourage you to skip to the prayer requests. :)

• In my Interpreting Psalms class, we are learning how the psalms give us a "voice to tell God that we are unhappy with our situation" (see most recent devotional). This has truly been eye-opening to me as I read through the psalms.

• In New Testament 1, my mind is being blown. We have to read through the scriptures (obviously), and it has truly been delightful to read through the first 11 chapters of Matthew all at once to get the bigger picture. When I read my Bible for personal devotion, I usually do it in small bits and chunks. However, we must remember that scripture was written on the macro-structure as well, that is, as a whole. We must therefore read it in its entirety. Also, I found great joy this week learning about the significance of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness (I wrote a six-page paper on it. If you want to read it, let me know by hitting the "Contact Matthew" button above, and I'll send it to you).

• In Psychology, we're reading a book about brain diseases. The book is called "Blaim It on the Brain?" and addresses the question of how much of these "mental diseases" we can blaim on the brain, and how much of it is a result of sin. I won't get into that discussion here, but once again feel free to contact me if you want to know more of what I'm learning!

• In Greek, I'm learning about participles. It's actually super cool!

• In American History, my mind is also being blown. I'm so glad I chose to take this course so that I can review and cement all I learned in high school (and put it all together from a Christian worldview). Most interesting to me this week was the philosophy of John Locke and how it influenced the American Revolution.

Prayer Praises..

• Job! So after praying to God for wisdom, he showed me that I needed a job here in Louisville (I applied at Culver's because it will be an easy transition). As I was typing this weekly update, I got a call to set up an interview. Praise the Lord. He is in control of even the smallest of our anxieties.

• Continued Sanctification/Growth.

• Continued Learning Experiences.

Prayer Requests..

• Joy and Patience.

• Continued Healing for My Shoulder. It has been healing up nicely, but still isn't 100%.

Thank y'all for reading this week! May God bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you! :)