Are we fooling ourselves?

Almost a year ago to date I started reading the book of James and it really convicted me. Today when I decided to go back to James and read again conviction was present again, but this time was different. Originally when reading the Holy Spirit brought to my attention how I worry instead of having faith, being a doer not just a hearer of the Word, control of the tongue, impartiality of others, and so much more. However today when I was reading I was reminded with the force of a kick in the face that although I was convicted of these things what have I really done with this?? A whole lotta nothing. For about a month now I am really seeing how prideful and arrogant inwardly I have been.  My walk is nothing as it should be. My prayers are not without ceasing. I do a whole lot of feeling sorry for myself and not a whole lot of looking beyond myself.  James says it so well.

"So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.  But don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.  For if you listen to the word and don't obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you carefully look into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it."

 This passage just says it all! This holds encouragement, pain for my ears, and promise.  It is so comforting to know that the grass withers and the flowers will fade and die but God's word will endure always and forever to exhort, convict and comfort.  I will do better. I must. I will fall and fail, but not like this. I cannot continue to live this life as I am currently. Here is to a new day of God's grace and mercy giving me another undeserved chance to give Him glory.

Finding Contentment

I haven't been content for some time now.  This summer was full of being miserable in who I was, what I was doing, how stagnant my spiritual walk was, and how my future seemed so blank and vast before me.  I would pick myself up only to fall even farther into the pit of desperation.  I am slowly moving more and more each day out of this black hole of sin and rebelliousness towards my Savior, but as I said it is indeed a one day at a time achievement. I would be naive and ridiculous to think that I am going to be content and never seeking more than what I have again, but I take joy and have hope in the fact that I can choose to not be stupid anymore.  I can choose to let God's mercy and grace wash over me and bring me sweet and glorious contentment that I find no where else.  No matter what I choose to do with my future (because right now the possibilities are endless) as long as I am dying to myself and living as Christ then the rest will just be.  It will not be perfect as life never is, but it will be as God wills. If I am walking with Him that should be contentment embodied. In Numbers when God instructs Moses to tell Aaron and his sons to bless Israel he gave them this special blessing:

"May the Lord bless and protect you.  May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.  May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace."

These words God spoke to Israel are an example of how God takes care of his children.  He gave this blessing after giving the people laws to follow to show how they needed God to be truly holy and that their own efforts were worthless.  The law can never be kept (except by Jesus who actually fulfilled the law), but exposes how we truly do fail so much. To be holy we must seek after God and his ways.  God is saying if you follow me and do as I intend for you to do I will smile upon you, I will be gracious and show you favor and I will give you my peace.  All of those things I am seeking after and am completely okay with.

Come what may.

Some days I feel like every lovesick girl just waiting for my knight in shining armor or something of the sort. I watch movies and day dream about my future spouse as stereotypical as that sounds. And I know its normal to want romance.  To want flowers and all that mushiness that I pretend is stupid but in the end I still think its sweet and to be loved as I deserve, (judge me if you will) but I have come to the unpleasant conclusion that it is highly possible that I want all of these things to cover up my lack of contentment in Christ.  As I get older I think that I want the fairy tale more than I did before.  I mean is it really something that I am guaranteed or God is required to give me. As much as I hate to admit it......it's really not.  Having just graduated college and now really facing life solo I have to depend on God more than ever.  I know that I should have been totally dependent on Him all along but I am human and now its is really just me and Jesus.  I have no husband, boyfriend, or fiancee to depend on.  In the past I can see that I had used a relationship as a crutch.  I lost sight of my true Sustainer.  Part of that was my fault and part of it was the boy's fault, but that doesn't really matter. The thing that matters is that I learned a lesson in all of that mess.  Being truly dependent on Jesus is so important while I am in this season of singleness.  If or when I do enter another relationship this dependence on Him will be such a blessing.  This process will be lonely and will be sometimes terrible as I die to myself.  I will want useless attention to satisfy my flesh and I will probably fail, but I will press on towards the goal.  I want to desire Jesus as much as I desire a relationship and family.  I need to desire Jesus more than that. My prayer is that my contentment will truly be in Christ and His unending and unconditional love.

His Face is all I should see

For months now I have been searching for direction and focus. What should I be focusing on?? Well it kind of all clicked together today.

"Oh Lord You're beautiful and Your face is all I see. And when Your eyes are on this child Your grace abounds to me."  -Keith Green

If I would stop focusing on myself for once and focus on God my direction wouldn't matter. As long as I am focused on Him whatever direction I am going will be the right one.  Have I been praying enough? NO. Have I been serving Him enough? NO. Have I even been trying?? NO. I have been giving up and failing miserably.  I am not being hard on myself just being honest.  I have been hiding from my problems.  Instead of facing them head on running in the opposite direction.  I need to be advancing the Kingdom not wasting away in worry.  I am reading "Just Do Something" by Kevin DeYoung and it is hurting to read some of the book. I am so glad that it is uncomfortable reading it though.  One of the things that I love that he says is how we are cowards.  We cannot trust God because we are so scared.  I am definitely one of those cowards.

"God is all-knowing and all-powerful.  He has planned out and works out every detail of our lives-the joyous days and the difficult-all for our good. (Ecclesiastes 7:14)  Because we have confidence in God's will of decree, we can radically commit ourselves to His will of desire, without fretting over a hidden will of direction.....Don't despair. God promises to be your sun and your shield and to carry you and protect with His strong right arm.  So we can stop pleading with God to show us the future and start living and obeying like we are confident that He holds the future." -Kevin DeYoung

A very good friend told me yesterday as I was worrying and stressing over a big issue in my life currently that everything happens for a reason.  I was immediately convicted and felt so small, but that was the point.  My God will supply all my needs and why waste the energy worrying and fretting over His direction.

You make all things work together for my good." -Jesus Culture

 "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." Romans 8:28 NLT

This song lyric and this verse both simultaneously popped in my head.  I have so much to place my hope and trust in.  My focus should be on the peace and power I have through Christ Jesus.

It's okay not to know.....

I have no idea what direction my life is going in currently. Life lesson of the month:  becoming okay and at peace about that.  I am putting so much pressure on myself and letting pressure from other people make me believe that I have to do something great and awesome right this second, but in all honesty I am not ready to do that.  I need time to think, pray and find a real direction.  I want to be passionate about the direction my life takes and right now I am not that passionate about really anything.  I think I need a time for regrouping.  My mom gave me some wise words today.  It is okay if what you plan doesn't work out.  Plan B is acceptable and might even be greater than your Plan A may have ever been.  So I will abide in not knowing and ask for whoever reads this to pray for me as I explore what my future holds.

Friendships

I love people. Always have. I am not sure if it has something to do with me being an only child and craving interaction with my peers, but since childhood I have loved being around people.  My mom started calling me a social butterfly in about 9th grade when I discovered I had a way with making friendships and relating with people.  It's true. I do love making new friends. Some tell me I am decent at it and I would like to believe that.  I strive to use my relationships with people for God's glory.  Now I don't always achieve that, but being the fallen human I am I do my best.

As I am reflecting on my time here at Williams I have been thinking about all my numerous friendships I have made here.  My friend Chad tells me I am friends with everyone. Obviously that's not true, but it is certainly a wide variety of people.  I have my athlete friends, my business major friends, the random commuter students that I had a gen ed with that I still talk to friends, etc.  And then there is my core group of friends.  So many memories have been flooding my mind as I am in a general state of reflection.  I remembered the time we put a cone on top of Jennifer's car and drove around campus.  The time that I had to pop, lock and drop in front of Adrianna's.  All the bonding and quality time spent together here at Williams. You have supported me and helped lift me up throughout the valleys I have experienced these years here.  I am so very thankful that God has blessed me with such amazing friends.  I hope that I have been as good of a friend to you as you have been to me.  I pray that God has used us to edify each other in our friendship and will continue that work.  I know that my relationships that I have made here are strong and will last a lifetime.  These are lifetime friends.  I also know that they will never be the same.  As I am graduating, others are getting married, and we are all growing up in one way or another and life is never going to be the same, but thats okay.  I have peace, comfort and joy in the fact though that God sustains us and will continue to bless our friendships as long as they are centered around Him.  I am excited, anxious, and giddy when I think of all the crazy, awesome and unknown plans that God has.  As Dr. Gore said in class this week "I'm glad I don't have the map."

Spring Break Thoughts

I have had a lot of time on my hands this week for thinking. I came home instead of going on the mission trip to Nashville like I had planned to help my family.  Well God certainly used this alone time for good. I talked about in my last blog post that I have been hiding from God recently.  Well I came to a breaking point where I just sat and cried and prayed. I needed my Heavenly Father to hold me and comfort me, because in my weak and failed attempts I had tried to find fulfillment elsewhere.  I am terrified of moving to Atlanta. I am terribly excited as well though.  I love the amazing things I am going to be learning and experiencing, but I am also scared to start over and leave the comfort of my amazing family and friends behind.  I finally dealt with this fear and just let myself be freaked out for a little while.  It wasn't easy and I am not saying that I won't be scared again, but letting myself deal with my fear was so helpful.

I talked about my feelings of unworthiness and striving for perfection in my last blog.  I still deal with that and because I do I tend to make other people's problems and moods my fault.  Not saying that I am not a sinner and do things that are not right, because I completely do.  I say things before I think a lot that can or do hurt people, I am an emotional eater, I gossip, I am not always respectful of my parents, and I am a procrastinator.  These are to just name a few of my fault and sins.  This week I had to pray and tell myself that I am not always at fault because someone else is upset and it is not my duty to fix that.  I cannot fix everyone. Only Christ can do that. I tend to want to help heal and counsel and it's not always healthy or best for me to be in that situation.  I will continue to pray for whatever situations I can, but there is always a time when that person has to want to be healed.  They need to want to surrender and become what God intends for them.  I am totally in that surrender process myself.  I am so grateful for the amazing friends I do have that are just as much there for me as I am for them which is how friendship should be. I'm not sure if any of this made sense, but I do know that writing how God is working in my heart and life makes me feel accomplished in a sense.

Repetition

I feel like I repeat myself a lot. I am not in communication with God as I should be. I struggle with the same sins as I always have. I feel as if I am on a roller coaster of emotion a lot of the time....but you know I guess that is what being human is. Not saying that I should just quit and not work on all of these areas of my life and my walk with God which all need attention, but I am never going to be perfect. The concept of not being perfect is such a big deal for me to come to terms with.  I care way too much about most things. If it seems that I don't care I really do, but I am feigning apathy to convince myself that I don't.  God doesn't expect perfection from me.  He knows I am going to fall that doesn't mean that He is okay with my blatant disobedience of Him, but that His grace covers it.  Knowing that God loves me anyway is the only way I can deal with my imperfection.  His love is the only thing that carries me through. Even though I deal with comparing myself against others in the way I look, my academics, my personality I have to draw my peace from the only lasting peace giver, who is Christ.  Daily I am to be Christ in how I speak, listen, walk, and interact with others, but when I do fall I know that God is there to be okay with me falling short.  The sooner I am okay with not being perfect the closer I will be to who God intends for me to become.

The Desert

I feel like I am in the desert.  I am feeling burn out and its only February.  This is not good news. However it is my own fault that I am lacking spiritual nourishment.  For the past week or so I have had an attitude with God of I can do this on my own.  I put him in the back of my mind.  I felt myself slipping into bad habits that I had been working to overcome since the new year.  I have a problem with being selfish.  I want what I want when I want it.  I have been having a attitude of rebelliousness with God this week.  Things are not exactly like I want them to be and I just decided to "show him" I guess.  As always though I recognize how completely stupid it is to try and "show" God something.  No matter how much I get mad and want things to be my way it will never be as amazing as what God has in store for me.  I know we always say things like that but it really is true.  His plan may not be what my selfish desires want but it will always be better because it is from Him.  I don't need to let bitterness take root and grow anymore than it already has.  I have a great life and have so many blessings from God its ridiculous but as I already said I am selfish and therefore am not satisfied which is not okay.  Hebrews 12:15 says

"See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many."

Bitterness and anger at God are not productive.  They are human responses that I must deal with and work through.  Being satisfied with feeling this way is definitely not okay with me.  The amazing thing about God is no matter how ridiculous I am He is always there waiting for me to stop being stupid.  He is there to guide me through this "desert" that I am going through.  For that I am humbled and awed beyond measure and I need to remember

"All of my life in every season You are still God.  I have a reason to sing. I have a reason to worship." Amen -Hillsong

 The Desert Song.........This song has gotten me through the day. Give it a listen.

Pure and Perfect Love

God is love and loves us. This statement would seem to be a very easy concept to understand especially for me considering I have heard this truth as long as I can remember.  For whatever reason I have always had an issue with feeling unworthy of God's love or love from others as well.  This week I was reading "The Christian Atheist" by Craig Groeshel and God just showed me this truth in a way I have never understood it before. In 1 John 4:8 it says 

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."

Craig Groeshel goes on to explain:

"There is nothing we can do to earn God's love.  We are already and always loved simply because God made us and he loves each and every one of his creations.  There's nothing we can do to get God to love us more, and there is nothing we can do to cause God to love us less."

This just made me stop and start crying.  I was overwhelmed with the magnitude of God loving me.  When I sin it doesn't change God's opinion of me. Thinking that it does is putting God in human terms.  Human love is conditional.  When we sin against each other relationships are broken and have to be repaired or sometimes they are not fixable.  With God is completely different than that.  When I sin against God it hurts Him, but His love for me is no less. It doesn't change.  This concept is totally freeing.  I am not saying that I am now going to do whatever I want because "God loves me regardless".  My relationship with Christ creates obedience, but when I do mess up (which being human I will) God is right there to take me back as if nothing happened. This feeling of freedom helps take away the worry  I have always had of pleasing others.  With God I am loved just for being me.  I sang the song "Cannons" by Phil Wickham today at church and the lyrics ring true.

"You are holy great and mighty
The moon and the stars declare who You are
I'm so unworthy, but still You love me
Forever my heart will sing of how great You are"

 

Struggling for Words

I have been literally avoiding blogging for a month now.  I just feel like there is so much going on in my heart and my life.  Break was amazing for me.  I started out the break determined to really study my Bible and I picked the book of James to invest into (and I had forgotten about it being our study this semester in Collide. Oh how God works).  I was doing so good in being consistent in my walk with God and letting go of baggage that I have been carrying around since even high school.  I was letting go of self-image issues, feelings of unworthiness, needing affirmation from others to feel good about myself and I was beginning to address this habitual sin in my life that I have been hiding from for a while now.  I read the book "Lies Young Women Believe".  It really helped me see that all those issues are lies that are untrue but I choose to believe them and let them hinder the person in Christ that I can be.  Then the new year arrived.  For a few reasons I became bitter and really apathetic.  I was going backwards instead of forwards like I had all planned out for myself, but that was the problem.  I had it all planned out for me instead of listening to what God's plan for me was. I had tried to be all perfect without consulting God.  I was leaving the one who is perfect out of my perfecting of myself so it was doomed to fail from the beginning.  So I slipped back into that sin I mentioned struggling with and just kind of gave up for a week.  The turning point for me was when I was in my car driving to the third church service that I had no interest in going to and the song "Remedy" by David Crowder Band came on the radio.  I just broke down in tears, because I realized that I was broken and confused as the song says and Christ is the only remedy.  The sin that I was holding onto was no solution and certainly no substitute for Christ.  Jesus is "the one who has saved us, he is the one who forgave us.  He is the one who has come and is coming again. He's the Remedy."  And that night I went back to James the book that I had started out in and read

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters. whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  Blessed are those who persevere under trial, because when they have stood the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."- James 1:2-4, 12

I felt like I was failing under my trial and I refused to continue on like this anymore. So I made my "new years resolution" that I was going to have good habits and not fall back into my old patterns of allowing the same sin manifest in my life in the same way it has for a while now.  I know what to avoid to keep that sin out of my life and I can only do it with a continual relationship with Christ and being consistent in that. I am still in the slow and beautiful process of letting things go.  It is difficult, painful and challenging at times but the result will be amazing and completely worth it.

"If everything is Yours, I'm letting it go. No it was never mine to hold."-Audrey Assad