Idols

Lately I have been faced with the question of idols in my life. Weird question right? I mean I don't worship Baal or any of those other so called gods but, I have been faced with the question of idols in my life lately. My idols are not those of the old testament but, just like idols seperated the people of Israel from God, my idols have been doing the same thing. My idols are not little gold statues of so called gods but, none the less I often find myself concerned with them. They are the people on my life. Crazy as it sounds the people in my life are often my idols. No I don't worship them but, I do find myself wanting to make them happy and occasionally, doing things that God didn't want me to because the people in my life did. Now I'm not saying anything bad about the people God has so graciously surrounded me with. I love these people, the problem is that sometimes I love them to much. No, they don't ask for it or demand it, it just happens but, it shouldn't. So what now? I've identified my idols so what's next? Well in Judges 6:26 God tells Gideon "Tear down your father's Baal alter and chop down the Asherah fertility pole beside it. Then build an altar to God, your God, on the top of this hill." Now I don't necessarily think I should tear my friends down but, I need to make God an altar on top of them. He needs to be first and foremost and I need to be concerned with pleasing Him not them.

Running

If there is one thing in life I absolutely hate it's probably running. I honestly hate it, it makes me sweaty and out of breath and maybe that's just because I'm out of shape but, I just find it awful, so imagine my suprise this weekend at Disciple Now when God demanded I run to Him. No obviously this does not mean physically running to Him because well, that's just not possible but, He demanded I seek Him with the kind of urgency as if I was running and to let Him take hold of me. It all started with the song "Forever Reign" by Hillsong. Some of the lyrics are "I'm running to your arms, I'm running to your arms, the riches of your love will always be enough. Nothing compares to your embrace, light of the world forever reign". So good right? Well that was my song all weekend. I worshiped harder to it then I ever have before and you better believe I was out of breath and a little sweaty when the song was finished but, I really didn't mind. So I was trying to embrace this concept of running to His arms and so during my quiet time this evening I opened my Bible up to Psalms and found these two verses: Psalms 11:1 "I've already run for dear life straight to the arms of God." and Psalms 16:1-2 "Keep me safe, O God, I've run for dear life to you. I say to God, "Be my Lord!" Without you, nothing makes sense." Pretty great huh? I honestly wasn't even surching for verses on running to God, He just put them in front of me but, I can just feel David's desperation here. He longs for the comfort that comes from the arms of God so he is running to Him. I want to embrace that longing in myself. I want my desperation for my Abba to lead me straight into His arms because, as David said, Without Him nothing makes sense.

Interruptions

So tonight at church my youth pastor was talking to us about God interrupting us and as he was talking I coulsn't help but reflect on the time when God interrupted my life. I don't have the exact day documented or anything but, I can remember it like it was yesterday. The day when God pulled my off of my self-planned path and planted me firmly into his plan. It's nothing that I can really describe without coming of like a lunatic but, it was in those terrifying days when God was literally changing all of my plans that I began to find out what it ment to cling to him. Submitting yourself to God's will is a scary experience because if you ask him to, he will use you and the way he uses you will probably destroy your entire plan. But when you think about it, how good could your little life plan have been anyway if God wasn't the center? I found this really cool passage in Pslam 16. It's a really beautiful chapter but, it was verse 11 that really got me. It says "Now you've got my feet on the life path, all radiant from the shining of your face. Ever since you took my hand, I'm on the right way." My thoughts exactly David! How much better could our lives be if we just let God set us on his life path!

What are we living for?

The other day I was driving down the street and I passed this really cute little house that was for sale and I thought to myself, "If I were young and newly married that would be the perfect house for me". Now maybe you think that's a weird thing to think but, I think those sorts of thoughts all the time about what my life could one day consist of but, after thinking this I asked myself, "What would you be living for if you had that life?". Maybe another weird question but, as I drove down the road I pictured my life in that house, I would be married and teaching pre-school with the hopes of one day growing my family. Now maybe this sounds dumb to you but, that was my plan before God got a hold of me. I had it figured out and planned but, God didn't agree and I'm so thankful he didn't because if that was my life what would I be living for? Would I be living to make my husband happy, to make a buck, to have a whole clan of little ones? Probably all of the above. Well today I was reading in Psalms 92 and came across this "What a beautiful thing, God, to give thanks, to sing an anthem to you, the High God! To announce your love each day break, to sing your faithful presence all through the night" Now that's what I call living! I'm not saying you can't do that being a teacher or coach or police man or business man, I know personally how I'm called to do it but, what I'm getting at is that whatever we do we need to be doing it for the glory of God and to better His kingdom.We need to announce His love everyday and sing his faithful presence.

Coming back to God

I've just had one of the most God-filled nights of my life and I honestly only experienced it because I attended a concert out of the desire to hangout with my friends. I know that's a terrible reason to go to a worship concert but, in the beginning that's why I wanted to go. Here is the really cool thing though, I had some of the most honest and real worship of my life. On the way there God began convicting me about my distracted worship that I'd been having a lot and I promised Him that I wouldn't raise my hands and pretend, that I would only do that if I was really worshipping. Well God didn't allow me to be distracted tonight. He pulled me to Him so that all I could do was worship. It was really awesome and then on top of that God spoke to me tonight. One of my really good friends and I had been praying really hard for this girl at our school who isn't a Christian. We had been trying to get her to attend the upcoming Disciple Now, which it just so happens is what this little concert was for. Well she hadn't been real receptive lately and we'd gotten a little discouraged but, tonight God just spoke to us through the worship leader and reminded us that He's got this and He can do what may seem impossible to us, and that as long as we remain faithful that He will answer our prayers. It was really amazing because we both experienced it at the same time and we hadn't even been talking about it. Well I was totally overwhelmed, really I still am but, God is going to work in our city over Disciple Now and I'm so excited to see what He will do as all the seperate churches in our city come together and just lift up our community and the name of Jesus and worship and grow together. If you're not planning on being a part of it I beg you to sign up because God is going to show up and move in ways that we would never expect. 1 John 1:3 says "We saw it, we heard it, and now we're telling you so you can experience it along with us" That's what I'm doing. Don't miss out on the opportunity to grow with our community of believers. If we all commit to it, it will be an awesome, God-filled, sprit renewing weekend where we come back to God.

Unreached and Untold

So last night at my church we had this really awesome Mission's day service and a representative from the International Mission Board(IMB) came and spoke to us about unreached people groups around the world but primarily in Central Asia. Now you probably know by now that I want to be a missionary so of course I was all into this and soaked up every word this man said. I was startled by the statistics. If you don't know what qualifies groups of people as unreached I got the definition for you. An unreached people group is defined as a people group in which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this peolpe group. I got this definiton at this really cool website called joshuaproject.net. It's an awesome site with facts on every people group in the world and where they stand when it comes to Christianity. Well on that same website I researched the people of Central Asia and I was stunned at the results. It turns out that 96.6% of the population there is unreached! That is way too large of an amount. I felt especially convicted when I read the Great Commission at the end of Matthew 28. We are told straight up "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." v. 19. Those numbers don't show us doing that. We need to pray really hard over the people of Central Asia. Alot of the reason so many people there are lost is because there is no way to get the gospel to them. If you're interested in learning about more unreached people groups check out joshuaproject.net:)

Late

So it's late and I have school in the morning so this will be short. I've committed to doing this everyday so here I am but, honestly I'm just really tired. Here is what I want you to do, go read Matthew chapter 28 and figure out what you can be doing to answer the call of the Great Commission. I'll have more on my personal experience with this to come:) Night night!

Psalm 103

So I know a lot of this weeks posts have been about how I need to improve or where I fall short in my daily walk with Christ and when reading through them I became aware that these might give off the impression of a difficult week. The truth is this has been one of the best weeks I've ever had. God has shared with me part of him everyday and in getting closer to God he has revealed the flaws I have and just where I need to work on things but, even in this God has just given me the most amazing joy this week. I have been so free of temptation and so close to my Abba and it's done my heart all kinds of good and I've spent some time tonight just praising him for that. I also spent some time in Psalm 103. I have a hard time thinking for words to describe this particular passage of scripture but, it really just moves me to tears every time. The picture those words paint of who God is, well it's just beautiful. Psalm 103:8-11 says "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him." The truth behind these words just astounds me. My God doesn't stay angry with me, he doesn't punish me for my sins or make me pay for my mistakes, he just loves me more than I could ever comprehend. I am filled with so many emotions right now but, mostly I'm just joyful and madly in love. He is all I'll ever need and way more than I deserve and while yes, I still have a lot of growing to do and a lot of work ahead of me, I just can't help but be joyful.

James 1:19 says "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry". When I read this I kinda laughed out loud at myself because I am so not any of these things. Lets start with quick to listen. Several times this week I have ignored someone and got mad at someone because I misunderstood them. That's the opposite of quick to listen and that is really unChristlike behavior. So lets move on to slow to speak. Well I fail at this one constantly. I just like to talk and a lot of the time I say hurtful and rude things just because I simply do not take the time to think about things before I say them and sometimes I just like to be sassy. Now I think I have failed miserably at those first two but, when I get to slow to become angry well, lets just say I really need improvement in this area. I get called mean a lot these days just because I have a short fuse and when I get annoyed I go off and well that's just really unChristlike. Also when my feelings are hurt I become angry and I can stay that way for a while. Clearly I still have a long way to go in this striving to become more Christlike. I think about the changes I'm going to have to make and none of it actually seems unreasonable. Yes I will have to shut my mouth and just listen and next time my family is annoying me I will have to take a deep breath and push my anger away but, those are things I should be doing anyway. Not just because I want to be Christlike but, because I simply want to be a good friend, daughter and sister.

Obedience

Obedience..it's been a theme in my life these last few days. I really want to be obediant to God but to be honest, I didn't really know how so, I looked up the definition of Obedience and it literally means "Dutiful or submissive compliance". Not exactly what I thought it meant but, perhaps that's because a lot of the time I think of obedience as an option when it's so clearly not. We are supposed to obey God all the time, not just when it's convenient for us or when it comes easily. This week God has revealed the me the obedience in the story of Abraham being tested in Genesis 22. If you haven't read it for yourself I recommend it but, the basically the story is that God calls to Abraham and tells him to go up on some mountain and sacrifice his only son Isaac and Abraham just packs up his stuff and goes! Verses 9-10 say "When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an alter there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son." Awesome picture right? Now if you know the story you know that because of Abraham's faithfulness to God, God didn't make him go through with the sacrifice of his son but, the obedience of Abraham here is really what's beautiful to me. God said, kill your only son and Abraham loaded up his donkey and left. He didn't say "Hey God, look I really love Isaac and my wife is kinda old and I just would rather not" he just went and got as far as having the knife in his hand! He was so obedient and had God not called out to him I feel sure he would have killed his son. That is the kind of obedient I want to be but, instead of me just doing what God asks I often refuse to do the most simple tasks all because they aren't really what I want to do right then but, the fact of the matter is obedience is not an option! Just as Abraham demonstrated, we must be obedient no matter what God tells us to do.

Fan the Flames

Tonight in my devo time I read 2 Timothy (Thank you very much my darling Kevin). It was my first time really reading it and all I can say is wow! I'm just floored at the way God can communicate with me through His word. I was moved by a lot of scripture in this book of the Bible but, there is a particular verse that I have been hearing about quite a bit lately and it's just so awesome. It's 2 Timothy 1:6 and it says "For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying of my hands." Okay so lets jump into this. This is Paul talking to the young Timothy in his last letter written before he was executed. Just look at what he tells him here "fan into flames the gift of God". I'll admit I wasn't quite sure all that ment so I looked it up and found out that Paul was telling Timothy not to let his fire for God die out and to be filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. How cool is that? I just love all that means. How often do we forget that our salvation and God's love is a gift? I know it's not something I always remember and I know its not something I let set me on fire but, it totally should. If we all fanned into flame our gift of God and really let ourselves be on fire how much better would our lives be? No longer would we be ashamed to tell people of God's gift but, instead we would not be able to stop ourselves from letting the Holy Spirit shine through us and proclaiming the name of God everywhere we went. That vision inspires me. I want to fan the flames of God's gift and not spend one more minute worrying about the world but, just let God's love and fire flow through me.

Not worthy yet

I'm very very human...good thing to know huh? Sure am glad I'm not some sort of alien or robot right? But all sarcasm aside, I am human and as a human I am all about myself. I get consumed in jealousy,relationships,friends,bad attitudes, and all sorts of other worldly behaviors and I'm sad to say I often let these things distract me from my relationship with Abba. It's been a terrible battle in me these lats few days. I just keep getting in my own way. Every time I start to grow in Him I have a lustful thought or jealous reaction and I just bring myself down. It's an absolutley insane pattern that has had me spinning. The even crazier part is that even when I get distracted my God pulls me back to Him and speaks to me. He inspires me in His word daily. I've had awesome devo times and really great times of worship. God is moving in me like never before and the crazy part is I'm distracted a lot of the time...I just imagine what He would do if I stopped letting the world in and gave my all to Him. Well I'm not going to just imagine it anymore. I want to walk it out. Philippians 1:27 says"Whatever happens, conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." I have not been doing that but, I'm going to try my hardest from now on. I don't want any space between my and Abba therefore I will no longer be letting the world get in the way. This way I can do my best to be worthy of the gospel.

Who knows you?

I have very few friends. I know that's a weird way to start a post and I know myabe that makes me sound like a loser but, what I mean is I have a lot of aquaintances but, I have very few true friends. This is because I have a really hard time letting people in. I push people away the second things start to get too personal for me. I guess I'm afraid to let people care and my few true friends are those who don't let me push them away. They're the people that put up with the crazy that is me and actually take the time to love me, and trust me this task is not easy, and I will love these people always. They are true gifts from God that I do not deserve at all. Here is something else I don't deserve, my friend Abba. He is the greatest friend I could ever ask for because while I have the greatest friends on the planet, they are human and they let me down occasionally but, not my God. He knows me better than anyone. He knows when I feel lonely and he pulls me to him harder. He knows how many tears I've cried, he knows every hair on my head, the number of times I've laughed or smiled. He knows all these crazy things about me and that blows my mind. It's one thing to call him my Savior but it's another thing all together to call him my Friend but, that's what he is. If that doesn't blow your mind think about this, the creator of the world, the God who gives you every breath, the only one who controls life, He KNOWS you! He knows every thought you've ever had and every word you've ever said. I dare you to find one human who knows those things about you. Even your parents who, as much as we hate to admit it, probably know you best,even they aren't going to be able to tell you everything you've ever said. So why not let him in? I struggle with pushing Him away on a regular basis but, I cannot deny that it brings me the greatest joy to know that my Abba knows me, and even after that He still loves me! My mind is blown guys. Honestly it makes me want to know Him more. I want to know all I can about Him. He knows me, it only seems fair:)

Who can we tell?

I'm a senior in high school with one semester left before graduation, that means I am constantly thinking about the next phase in my life and what will become of me after I leave home and this comfortable little life here in south Georgia. But in looking towards the future I am also forced to look back on my life, especially the time in which I entered high school. To say I am a completley different person now would be an understatement but, instead of focusing on myself, I am forced to look at those faces in the hallway who I have let just pass by me for four years. I have to think back to all those students who were desperate for something to believe in but, I was too afraid and confused to let them in on the beautiful Abba I had discovered. I will never stop regretting the fact that my chance to share with some of them is forever lost. I will never stop being heartbroken over the fact that some of them will spend eternity in Hell and it's my fault. But the shining light in all this regret is that I haven't left yet. I am still here and I still have a chance to keep my friends from facing the despair that is an eternity away from God. Now don't get me wrong, I know there are opportunities I may never get back and people who I will never see again but, there are people I call friends who are still lost and I refuse to leave without giving my all to change that. Now I know myself. I know how difficult this is going to be. I will have to fight the cowardly, wordly part of myself every step of the way but, I want to do this. I want to step out of faith and know that my God will give me opportunities and the words to say. It's our jobs as Christians to tell of the good news and the best place to start is at home and in our schools. Maybe we will be persecuted, in fact the Bible pretty much garantees we will but hey Jesus was persecuted and killed and as Christians we are strinving to be like him right?

New Year...

Happy New Year! It's weird I didn't really realize it was the year 2011 until I went to write it in my prayer journal tonight. I mean I stayed up for it last night, watched the ball drop, told lots of people happy new year but, something about writing it on the top of my page really opened my eyes and got me reflecting on my past year. The year 2010 was full of mistakes, tears, drama, fighting and a lot of other not so pleasant things but, somewhere in there I also experienced falling in love with my Savior, friendships like I never thought I could have, mission trips that changed my life, God's calling, really I could go on for quite sometime but, I won't. What I'm trying to say is as stressful and painful as 2010 felt a lot of the time the fact of the matter is that God has been really really good to me this year and I'm just so overwhelmed. As I look toward what 2011 will hold, with graduating and going to college and just sort of growing up, I know that as scary as that seems now and as hard as it will be at times I know that my Abba will be with me and that makes me excited to welcome this new year:)