Here\’s my last prayer letter from this summer, I hope you enjoy it!

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The words to this Jeremy Camp song \”Walk by Faith\” have been very inspirational to me these last few months as I am living in a world of uncertainty:

\”Will I believe you when you say
Your hand will guide my every way
Will I receive the words You say
Every moment of every day

Help me to win my endless fears
You\’ve been so faithful for all my years
With the one breath You make me new
Your grace covers all I do

Well I will walk by faith
Even when I cannot see
Well because this broken road
Prepares Your will for me\”

As I think back on my almost year-long job search and interview process, I realize that I have learned and grown so much. Here are just a few of them:

Persistence - how to not be afraid to pursue a job or get in touch with the people I need to speak to.
Communication - how to express my thoughts in a clear and organized fashion.
Self-knowledge - I know my own strengths and weaknesses so much better. I know more about who God made me to be and what I enjoy doing.
Patience - How to wait well for the right job and to realize that God is never late.
Resilience - How to bounce back from unpredicted changes or disappointments.
Faith - How to trust that God has a plan for my life, even when I couldn\’t see Him working, or it seemed like all was going wrong.

Praise God for His provision. I am so grateful!

I have really enjoyed listening to this podcast. They hit on so many interesting distinctions and intricacies of speech and usage. If you are fascinated and interested in language and words like I am, you have to check this out.

If you have iTunes 4.9 or higher, you can subscribe to their podcast by clicking here and iTunes will automatically download each new episode (every Sunday night) and will automatically sync it to your iPod if you want it to.

So check it out!

Regardless of age, most people look to their work to provide esteem, significance, and accomplishment. We each have an innate need to work. In mentoring young people, however, I have discovered that career is an even bigger issue for them because they are just starting out. Vocationally, they begin with a clean slate, and sometimes uncertainty about what they really are designed to do leads to a parade of trials — and errors. They want to know how to get established in their life’s vocation. But it’s more than finding a job that provides a sufficient level of financial compensation; they also want to do something that gives them a sense of meaning and fulfillment.

What we’re talking about is something I like to call passion, which one dictionary defines as ’strong feeling, either sustained or passing, for or about something or somebody.’ Another says passion is ‘a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything.’

He makes a really good point a few paragraphs later, that really struck me,

just because someone is good at what they are doing vocationally, that does not mean it fulfills their passion.

This hits home especially for me, because I feel like I am good at almost anything I put effort into, but I am not passionate about everything. I agree with his first statement that young people especially want to find a vocation where they can exercise their passion, not just make money. I don’t want a job where I hate my work and am not passionate about it. I want to work in a job I am excited about and passionate about. It’s not good enough for me to just have a job.

I am realizing that I am not “all that.” Sure, I walk into offices each week to interview with some potential employer and tell them how I am “all that” and more and why they should hire me (and I’m not lying about ANY of those things), but when you get right down to it, everything I do have has been given to me by God, and everything I will have in the future will come from Him. And that is humbling.

It is by God’s grace that He will provide me with a job and take care of me. I take comfort and trust in the truth of these verses:

Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

2 Chronicles 16:9 - “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”

2 Corinthians 12:9,10 - “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

The reason I am posting about it is because they have a new radio show podcast that you can subscribe to on iTunes. They have had 4 episodes and they come out ever Wednesday with a new episode.

From their website, they describe the show like this:

Dirty Little Secrets with Craig and Mike
Explicit Talk About Relevant Truth

The show will consist of hard hitting interviews with special guests, call ins, traffic and weather from Junior and Rob, and a segment called “questions you can’t ask your mama” where Mike and Craig answer a hot topic question sent via the web.

Part bullhorn of truth, part pop culture lesson, and part spiritual quest, Dirty Little Secrets will introduce you to two of the most engaging if irreverent men-of-the-cloth to ever take religious vows. It’ll entertain and inspire. It will challenge people to engage in real issues and to be aware of what is truly important.

Hosted with disarming humility, self-deprecating humor and uncommon frankness, Dirty Little Secrets will shock you and school you, move you and rock you, no matter what you think about sex, free speech, the Almighty, or whether Jesus really does love porn stars as much as he loves pastors.

I encourage you to check it out, but be aware that this is not the typical, “family-friendly” Christian radio broadcast. Not that it is in any way obscene, they just talk about issues like sex, pornography, and Jesus, without shame. I think we need people like this, Christians, who aren’t pretending that people aren’t struggling with these things, and aren’t afraid to talk about them. It’s unfortunate that most Christian radio stations would never air anything like this because they are “family-friendly” but in the family is exactly where these problems exist and need to be addressed! We need parents and teens listening to stuff like this, becoming more aware of the dangers of porn and what they can do to protect their eyes and hearts, and be encouraged to love God more, and to love the world, but not be of the world.

One neat thing that I really like about this family of churches is that they are committed to creating new music for use in worship through the gifts talented song-writers in the church. This means that I am unfamiliar with almost all of the songs as I visit this church for a few Sundays. I know some of them because I went to a similar church when I lived in Orlando last year, Metro Life Church which was also a Sovereign Grace Ministries church. But still, most of the songs are new to me.

But interestingly, singing these new songs have made my worship much more alive. I have felt free to look at God in ways other than the same songs I am used to singing or have sung for years. These new songs are challenging me to worship God in a new way, to celebrate His wonder and grace and gifts in new words, with new melodies, and new attitudes in my heart.

I like it! And I think God is pleased as well, because as it says in Psalm 33:2-3 - “Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre. Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy”, Psalm 40:1-3 - “I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.” , and Psalm 144:9 - “I will sing a new song to you, O God; on the ten-stringed lyre I will make music to you”.

I think it is important for us to always be singing new songs to the Lord. It helps us to not get too familiar in how we are worshipping God. When we get too familiar with the same order of worship, words, songs, and prayers, I think our minds and hearts begin to disengage and we don’t connect with God in worship in Spirit in truth. A new song brings freshness and newness to our worship of God, and an eagerness for the Spirit to work in new ways in our lives. Let’s not stop writing and singing new songs of worship!

So I over the last year have found several dynamic page-creating programs that will build a dynamic web site from your iPhoto library and host it on your computer.

WebPhoto
myPhoto
iPhotoWebShare

They each have their advantages and disadvantages. iPhotoWebShare is by far the easiest to set-up, but myPhoto has the most features (and most difficulties as well).

I am using iPhotoWebShare for now, since it is working well and I like it’s ability to let you download the full size image. I like that it’s controlled in a preference pane in the system preferences and not some extra application.

If you would like to see my pictures page, check it http://scottpaulis.webhop.org (If it doesn’t work, I have my laptop away from home somewhere with me, and you’ll have to try again later!)

What I want to know is: Why is there no such command in Apple’s mail.app??? I would use that in a heartbeat. I am stuck with two series of hotkeys. Assuming I’m in the “Unread messages” smart folder that I have created that contains only unread messages, I first have to press Cmd-A to select all and then Cmd-Shift-U to mark the selected messages as read. Not only does it require TWO shortcuts in a row, but the second Cmd-Shift-U requires TWO hands on my Powerbook keyboard. Why can’t there be a single, one-handed shortcut to mark all unread messages in the current folder as read? (Like Cmd-K as in Net News Wire Lite)

After searching for a solution. I tried unsuccessfully to create an Automator workflow or an AppleScript that I could tie to a Quicksilver trigger. I couldn’t figure out how to select all the messages and mark them as read with either method. (Maybe I’m just an Apple Script dummy, or the Automator actions are ridiculously limited in selection - there are no “Select All Messages” or “Mark Selected Messages As Read” actions)

I did find a way to shorten the process a tiny bit by using Mail Act On and by creating a rule to mark all selected messages as read that is tied to a keyboard shortcut Ctrl-X, which only requires one hand instead of two like Cmd-Shift-U.

If anyone knows of a way to create an AppleScript to do this, please let me know!