NIPTO, Day 276

mmmmm... today has been a good day.

Got up and rushed around. Went to school. Laughed a lot in Spanish... Let's just say that my teacher made a joke about CA's attempt to legalize marijuana... SO funny! Annnd thennn went to Study Hall and did bunches of school. Ate lunch (yummy Chinese food). Sat in on Mom's class and kinda got stuff done. Went to the Library and read and found some books. Now I need some time to read them! (One of the ones that I really want to read is Much Ado About Nothing... if only I can understand it... haha)
Came home... unloaded stuff... chillaxed and caught up on the blogs that I read... dried some dishes for Mom... and now I'm blogging. The last night of Alpha is tonight. Which is semi depressing. But I think they're starting something else up in a few weeks. Which could be fun. I don't know if I'll actually go, because I kinda need a break, but I might. I think I might be helping out with the next round of Alpha that they're planning on starting in January or February. Soooo yeah!
If I get this done and get the chapter of Uncle Tom's Cabin read that I need to read, I might paint a little bit. I've had this urge to paint. Maybe it's because I'm wearing the shirt that I wore the day that I did the breakout at IGNITE titled "Serving a Creative God through Art" or something like that. (I wasn't blogging then! SO WEIRD! I started blogging about a month and a half after IGNITE... interesting.) But yes, I've been feeling somewhat of a creative flair today and want to paint. I actually want to recreate the painting that I did at IGNITE during that session. It was sweet. I want to do it on canvas sometime so I can actually hang it up somewhere. That'd be sweet.

A'ight. NIPTO time!

Ecclesiastes 8:1-10

¹ Who is like the wise?
   Who knows the explanation of things?
A person’s wisdom brightens their face
   and changes its hard appearance.

Wisdom... is... awesome. Wisdom changes a person. Not even just mentally. It can change a person's physical appearance. Apparently.

Obey the King

 ² Obey the king’s command, I say, because you took an oath before God. ³ Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. ⁴ Since a king’s word is supreme, who can say to him, “What are you doing?”

Obey the king's command... hm. This would have been interpreted as "obey the king that's ruling at the time." Now the "king" might be interpreted as Jesus? hm. Maybe we should just obey both! That makes things simple. (Or really complicated depending on how you look at it.) Why are we supposed to obey the king? Because "you took an oath before God." Hold to the things you say you're going to do. It's soooo important! 
Also, don't be in a hurry to leave the "king's" presence. Mmmmm. I want to sit in God's presence. Soak in the glory. The awesomeness of God. 
Don't stand up for a bad cause because the kings gonna do whatever the king wants to do. And since he's supreme ruler, who can ask him what he's doing. Because what you say doesn't really matter in the end.

 ⁵ Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm,
   and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure. 

⁶ For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter,
   though a person may be weighed down by misery.

Powerful words. If you obey the "king's" commandments, you will come to no harm. A wise heart will know the proper time and procedure. There is a right time and procedure for every matter Every single thing. That's an important thing for me to think about. Sometimes things have to wait. Sometimes you have to figure out how to do something. Even if a person is weighed down by misery, there's still a proper time and procedure for everything. ... I wonder why this "person" is weighted down by misery... and not some other... emotion. Maybe misery/sadness is an emotion that hinders the most. I don't know. 

 ⁷ Since no one knows the future,
   who can tell someone else what is to come?
⁸ As no one has power over the wind to contain it,
   so no one has power over the time of their death.
As no one is discharged in time of war,
   so wickedness will not release those who practice it.

No one knows what's going to happen in the future. That's for sure. Sooo no one can tell someone else what's going to happen. Because no one knows for sure. Because no one knows. 
No one has the power over the wind. No one can contain it. No one has power over the time of their death. In the same way that no one is discharged when there's a war going on, wickedness won't release those who participate in it. 

 ⁹ All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt. ¹⁰ Then too, I saw the wicked buried—those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless.

As this person saw all these things, they applied them to their mind and to everything done on earth. 
Huh. There's a time when a person lords something over other people, but it hurts him. Huh. They also saw wicked people who used to come and go from holy places buried. Meaningless. Going to and from holy places is meaningless if you're just doing the actions for the praise and don't mean anything by it in your heart.



That's it for today!
Adios,