I started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez earlier this year in my Fiction class but I never finished it. It's been sitting on my desk ever since. I've known in my head that it is one of the most incredible books I've ever read and once I pick it back up I won't be able to put it down. Well, it's Memorial Day and I didn't have to do anything this morning so I decided to read. I read several pages in Desiring God by John Piper, but if any of you have read any John Piper- you'll understand why I only read several pages. It's hard stuff. So I put it down but I still felt like reading. So I noticed One Hundred Years... sitting there and I decided it was time to pick it back up. I backed up to the beginning of the chapter I'd left on to refresh my memory and was sucked in. I've been reading all morning. It is incredible! Today I was inspired. It was the part when Remedios the Beauty is levitated into the clouds with Fernanda's white sheets. Amazing. This book is full of inspiration. Dustin told me his inspiration came when it rained yellow flower petals. I know no one reads this thing, but man, if you're reading this and you're a reader, GET THIS BOOK. I can't imagine anyone not loving it.

In three hours and ten minutes I will have something to do. I'm going to a Memorial Day bbq. Its going to be yummy.

Something I read this morning in Desiring God really intrigued me. He was talking about serving God- I might as well just quote him on this. It's so true: "God's insistence that we ask Him to give us help so that He gets glory (Psalm 50:15) forces on us the startling fact that we must beware of serving God and take special care to let HIim serve us, lest we rob Him of His glory." What a strange thought, but how true! We shouldn't be going around striving to serve God as if he needed us! "God... [is not] served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." (Acts17:24-25) Instead we should allow Jesus to wash our feet, to serve us, so that he gets ultimate glory and we get none. Sound self-centered? It's not. Its humbling- we can't do anything but obey God. We are servants, indeed, but only in the sense that we do as we are told, not in the sense that we go around and do great things for God- bec its only through God that we are able to do great things- we should beware of our glory stiffling God's. Piper then goes on to quote Isaiah 64:4- "From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him." GOD works for those who WAIT on him. Piper writes, "He aims to be the Workman for us, not vice versa. Our job is to 'wait for Him.' "

It's a good lesson. Now I have to start living by it. That's the hard part.