Only Believe!

So i am sorry again for the extra long delay this time. My apologies... I will try to do better! ha.

So i will try to cover the gap from my last post (November) until now.

Around november the semester was winding down, i ended up doing pretty well in my 1st semester, getting a 3.26 Gpa. I had some trouble in my one history class early on and ended up with a C in the class, so that brought my Gpa down a bit. But i plan to not have any C's this semester and do even better than before.

As for hockey, over the course of the months i have gone back and forth being in and out of the line up. There have been times where i have consistently played 2 or 3 games in a row, but typically it has been, dress for 1 game then sit out the next one, then dress for the following game. So it has been up in down in that sense.

I have gone and talked to my coach a couple different times over the course of the months and early in January when i last talked to him he said things like this: He thought i needed to be more physical, have more poise with the puck, and make a better first past. But he did say he can tell i am working hard and he was not upset with how i am playing. But in order to play more consistently he feels i need to work on those issues. And as i would think about it i can agree with him. I definitely want to have more poise with the puck, its a great thing to watch a player to has poise with the puck. He doesn't panic and make a dumb decision with it and it is truly a help to your team. Also being able to make a great first pass out of the zone is crucial, being a defenseman you need to be able to pass the puck out of the zone onto your teammates tape. If you mess that pass up you could easily turn the puck over to the other team and have them coming right back against you. I have read different scouts talk about NHL defenseman and say how they make excellent first passes, so it is a very important thing.

So in practices and in games i have been trying to work on being more poised with the puck and also i have been trying to be more aggressive. Especially in my defensive zone.

As i write this entry i dont feel very energetic, i feel tired, physically and spiritually almost. I have a bit of a stuffed up nose and have been battling some attacks against my physical body. BUT i am very thankful that i have a great healer, and i am and have been coming to the healer for healing. So i am thankful He is working in my body, even right now as i am typing.

This weekend coming up we have 2 big games. Basically if we win them both we will be in the playoffs, if we loose even 1 of them, then we are out. So we must win. I feel as though there are guys on the team with attitudes that are just not good, i have heard some of them joke about how we stink, and how we cant win, and so on and so on. And when i hear them speak like that i am continually reminded of the scripture found in Prov 23:7 "For as he thinks within himself, so he is." And also the fact that they say with their mouth we stink or we cant win, they have having a wrong confession. So i have been asking the Lord that this week, my expectation and my attitudes would rub off on these guys, and i would be an influence on them, instead of their negativity being an influence on the team.

Back in early January when i had to come back up for hockey, but i did not start school right away, i had a lot more time on my hands. So i started to hang out with some younger people from my church, which was really fun. I normally dont have time to see them during the week, but over the break i would go out and hang out with them for like 4 hours on a thursday night and i loved it. I also took the opportunity to go meet with my pastor one night to talk with him. I told him i wanted to talk with him specifically about the mind. I believed that something that was hindering me on the ice was my mind, how i would continually be thinking so much about things while playing, and a lot of the time it was negative things. So he told me to come over whenever and we could chat. I initially asked him on a sunday after a meeting, and later that week on tuesday i went over to his house. It was a GREAT time! We spoke for a while about the mind, he gave me a teaching he had done about the mind and about having a positive confession. So i am still working on reading the teaching, but when he summarized it for me then he was talking about how i need to use my mouth to have the right confession. If i do that my mind will line up with the truth coming out of my mouth. He encouraged me to make a list, a confession list and to work with it and continually speak those truths. After that we just talked for another hour about his history and the experiences he has had with the Lord and the adventures the Lord has taken him on. It was a lot of fun.

I want to give you a couple of examples from my confession list that i have from the Lord:

1. The peace of God rules and reigns in my heart and mind, therefore i always perform well when the pressure is on.

2. God says to fear not, for He is with me, therefore i am never afraid to make a mistake or fail. I trust in Him. (Is 41:10. 2 Tim 1:7)

3. I am a man filled up with the Holy Spirit, filled with power (ability, efficiency, and might), therefore i do not lack ability to play hockey at this level or any higher level. He has given me the ability, in abundance.

4. I have been given the mind of christ, therefore i am the smartest hockey player there is.

Those are just a couple of examples from my list. And i can say that this truth has really helped me on the ice. And just in my daily life as well. There are other area's in my life where what i am thinking does not line up with what God says, so i change my confession to be what He says. I really love it.

Another truth the Lord has been so graciously helping me with is, "Simply Believe Him". Hence the title of my blog"Only believe!" This comes from many of the teachings from Smith Wigglesworth. My dear brother, Alex Da Costa gave me a Smith Wigglesworth Devotional 2 summers ago and i did not read it much at first, but lately i have been keeping up with the entries each day and it has been a great help to me. I love hearing Smith's faith talking in his entries, it was obvious to see how this man read what God said and just simply believed it to be true. He did not consider or look at human nature, or the "impossibilities" of the situation, but he stood firmly on the Word of God. This is an example from one of his entries from the other day, "I laid my hands upon her in the name of Jesus, believing in my heart that i could say what i wanted and it would be done." When i read this the other day i was like WOW, what a great expectation to have. Other scriptures that the Lord has been using Smith Wigglesworth to show me are ones from the Gospels, where Jesus is saying "Whatever things you ask for, believe you have them when you ask, and you will have them." - (Mark 11:24) And this one, "Jesus said to him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes." (Mark 9:23)

I am very thankful the Lord is helping me with this and that i get to go deeper and deeper into this revelation each day. Another thing Smith has said a couple different times is, (paraphrased) "If you are not going on from Glory to Glory every single day, then you are backsliding." Basically if you are not going on into a deeper relationship with our great Lord every single day, then you have not progressed that day. I love that, that we need to go on with God, today. We cant rely on the fact that we went on with him yesterday or the day before, but we have to go deeper today, keep walking with Him in a deeper way today.

Just something else to think about.

Okay so thats all for now. Gotta get some sleep. I will try my hardest to update the blog very soon again in order to keep you all up to date.

Thank you so much for all of you that do continue to read my blog and for those that continually lift me up in prayer. I am very thankful for that. I love you all!