Visions

It's really quite hard to know what to do with the visions and prophecies in the Bible. I'm reading through Daniel at the moment and today I read chapter 8, where Daniel has a vision of a ram and goats. Gabriel interprets the vision for him, but at the end Daniel says, "I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it." (Daniel 8 v 27b) While it's somewhat comforting to know that even Daniel didn't quite get it, it does leave me wondering exactly what I'm supposed to take from this? We're working through Daniel in the evening service at church, so I suppose I'll have someone else's views on this in a few weeks... for the moment, what I'm taking from it is that God is in control of all things. Daniel's visions are mostly about the rise and fall of kingdoms and of evil in the world - that's the kind of thing that can be disheartening and leave people wondering what God is doing. I guess it's comforting to know that God is in control of the (seemingly) godless stuff too. (But I'll keep you posted on what is said in the sermon in a few weeks...)

And in other news:
I managed to get a fair bit done on my essay yesterday, so I'm feeling okay about that, even though I'm still way behind in my work. I actually enjoyed what I was studying, too, which is a definite answer to prayer. Honours has not been fun so far, which has been somewhat disappointing given how much I enjoyed the previous three years. Well, I enjoyed the studying... there were plenty of other things going on in life that weren't so enjoyable. Anyway I was starting to feel like this year was tainting everything I've done previously, which would be no way to finish (if I should have to finish after this year).

And while I'm talking about answers to prayer - Melbourne's water storage levels are up to 32%, while Sydney's are up to 55%. They've both increased over the last few weeks; and that's the highest Sydney's has been in ages. Praise God!