Lot vs Abraham

Hello everyone!

Thank you all for the birthday wishes and thanks for signing that big ass card. Where Grace got that is beyond me.

Today at SBS (at church not the tv but theres been alot of good stuff on SBS atm) we read Genesis 13-14 and we read how Lot who only sees the immediate rewards of being in the awesomeland even if it's near the Sodomites who are dodge. And then we compared it Abraham who only is looking at God and kinda following his instructions lol.

Then Uncle Ken picked on me cos I was the youngest there....*shakes fist at DN and Andrew* so I had to give a 1 minute sermon on what we had learnt in front of of all the old people including deacons and elders...............................

Well here's what I thought about the passage:

Sometimes we only look at the immediate rewards and in computer science terms it's called greedy search. As students we sometimes put aside God for the time being and focus on what seems like the best choice at the moment. This could be like friends, relationships and even extends to our studies. Like Lot, we only see the immediate rewards and sometimes forget to listen to God and even cut ourselves away from him temporary. THat's what Lot did and put himself in a crappy position and 2 Peter 2:7 says he was not a happy chappy being there. He put himself away from God and suffered for it. :( So sometimes we see things that may seem like the best choice but in reality it might put ourselves away from God. It might be like "I'll go watch some dramas and read my bible later" or "Let's go to this party and pray when I get back". It could even be "Hey I need to study for this exam so I might give bible study a skip tonight".

It's a pretty hard thing to think about really. I'm not saying read all of chronicles and fail your exams but if we're thinking like this... "Hey the footballs on tonight. I'll just study after that and maybe I'll find time to read my bible..." then we're setting up camp near Sodomites. I've been a student for about 17 years now and there's been alot of "Oh look what's on TV" "Georgeeeeeee ... this is God. You have an assignment due in a week" "Nah don't worry I'll jsut watch this and get that started..." then BAM. It's 12 hours away from the deadline and I have fifty of these things:

which means I panic and cry and get a bad mark.

So God was right. I should have got that assignment started ages ago (maybe I was too over confident in my programming l33tness?). But how can I even hear the warning from God?

Well that means you have to listen for God's voice. That means reading your bible, praying to God and encouraging and learning from your brothers and sisters. I'm not having an attack on us bailing on YF to study cos I know what it feels to feel the pressures of exams and assignments. But I'm more directing my attack on the attitude that puts us in a situation that we have to skip bible study or our devotion for our studies. Maybe we picked the wrong choices and didn't listen to God when he said go this way, and now we're in a position we don't like.

So I hope you guys in this time of exams and assignments, I hope you guys don't neglect your time with God. It's far more important that getting good marks (but getting good marks should be like your 2nd or 3rd priority >: ( ) and pray to God to help you with your studies. Listen to God and he will guide you in your time of stress.