If Almighty Powerful God can do all things, why did you come as a little baby in order to die by the very beings you created? Another theme of God using weak sauce and disgrace in His Book to reveal His glory. I guess in a fallen world where we think power is everything it is the inadequacies that this Almighty One uses. To shame the wise and to weaken the strong.


It doesn't matter what people say about my Jesus. Say what they want. All I know is that I am free to be me and no one else defines me but him. I'm free to be with whoever I want. The Pharisees can shun me while I hang out with the sinners and I can worship my God at any place. I can be in a place with Catholic or Protestant, Baptist of Lutheran, Episcopalian or Methodist. I can worship God among the Muslims, with the Jews, next to the Hindus, my God hears me and knows me. I'm not restrained by anyone nor anything. God is not limited to religion, and neither am I.

The Hiding Place By Corrie Ten Boom, page 60

"Corrie," he began instead, "do you know what hurts so very much? It's love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain.
"There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill the love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or, Corrie, we can ask God to open up another route for the love to travel.
God loves Karel--even more than you do--and if you ask Him, He will give you His love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy. Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way."

I just read this, and I cannot say how true this is. :-) <3

"The Gospel is not a victory--drunk invading army, bent on conquering no matter the cost. It is a whisper in the enchanted beauty of the night that calls one to peace and love, insisting, but never tyrannical in its persuasion. It allows itself to be ignored, and in doing so, showcases the glory of God by its thriving in meekness." -Adam Marshall

Why do I curse my life?

"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,

who depends on flesh for his strength

and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

He will be like a bush in the wastelands;

he will not see prosperity when it comes.

He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,

in a salt land where no one lives.

"But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,

whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water

that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes;

its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit."

Jeremiah 17:5-8

Don't know about you, but this explains the very reason why I have fallen into despair many times in my life, not being able to find peace. Humanity is fallen. Why do I constantly put my trust in it? <3

love

I have felt unloved and worthless due to many people and situations resulted in my past. By allowing God to take it and to carry it for me, I have discovered the times I have felt unloved and rejected by humanity, are the times I am driven to love and accept those who face that daily. What is it with Christ's love? What is it with feeling the hurt of humanity where it should cause me to harden and to want to remain a victim, yet instead drives me to want to show love to the unloved. Acceptance to the rejected.

If only you knew his love.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened."^[46]

^{Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.}

^{Look him up.}

Texts saved in my phone...

Some texts saved in my phone...

After sending Jessica a quote about prayer from Spurgeon she texts me back by disagreeing. That's why I love her. haha

":) maybe I'm wrong by saying this, but much of the time prayer isn't so much a measure of my faith, but instead prayer grows my faith, because prayer itself is an act of faith. Continual prayer stretches, challenges, and helps me to revaluate my faith in the one true God on a daily basis."

Talking about friendship and how relationships get messy...

"thanks! yeah they really are messy. lol especially when God is not at the center of it."

Psalm 42

As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God?

My tears have been my food

day and night,

while men say to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

These things I remember

as I pour out my soul:

how I used to go with the multitude,

leading the procession to the house of God,

with shouts of joy and thanksgiving

among the festive throng.

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God.

My soul is downcast within me;

therefore I will remember you

from the land of the Jordan,

the heights of Hermon--from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep

in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers

have swept over me.

By day the LORD directs his love,

at night his song is with me--

a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God my Rock,

"Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning,

oppressed by the enemy?"

My bones suffer mortal agony

as my foes taunt me,

saying to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God.

Writing Exercise

I wrote this probably like last month. A friend told me whenever he is overwhelmed with anxiety or over thinking he just writes out whatever comes to mind. I started doing it too. It is extremely helpful. I question whether or not to share some of my thoughts on a blog because you can really show a lot of yourself through it, and I am not always proud of my self. However, I thought maybe this was good to share. I hope by sharing this writing it relates to you and helps you to understand you're not alone. Sorry if this sounds emo lol For those who know me in person they could never believe me to be emo and I'm not, I just try to be real.


These demons keep coming to me. My understanding of this life is so shallow. The more I learn I either find peace or don't find peace. It doesn't matter what I know, it matters what I feel. I still feel broken. I still feel my wounds. Pride... lifting myself up only makes it worse. It is this constant cloud pressing on my heart. Everyone is silent. Reason presents truth, imagination presents meaning. God I am utterly incapable of any control right now. My faith is hanging on a string. The darkness and lostness of this world brings sorrow to my heart and the questions of your mysteries remain unanswerable to me. It only brings me deeper and deeper into the pit of nonexistence. Humanity is a constant let down. Feeling comfortable is no longer my norm. Closing up the heart I will not do. Controlling of the emotions I cannot do. I am weak. I feel constantly weak. I have to be at this place in order for God to work in His way. The danger in asking God to use you is that He will but He has to break you first in order to use His full power. When dark trials come and my heart is filled with the weight of doubt I will praise Him still. I have no idea what I am doing here. Feelings come and go. Sin crouches at my door hourly. I must master it. God isn't a feeling. Otherwise right now He wouldn't exist. The dogma of christianity brings me down. I patiently wait for God to work, and I know I will probably never see it. The reality of life. "the believer is neither a pessimist nor an optimist. to be either is illusory. the believer sees reality not in a certain light but as is, and believes only in God and God's power towards all and over all that is seen."

Hardness Softness

"Every time you say, "I don't care" a part of your heart gets harder." -Greg Speck

Me: I guess it's because I just don't care anymore...
Jessica: It's not that you don't care, it's that you don't need to be accepted and loved by them you're already loved and accepted by God. You don't need it from them.

Need other people less, love other people more. Out of obedience to Christ, and as a response to his love toward you, pursue others in love. -Edward T. Welch

If you judge people, you have no time to love them...
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
— Mother Teresa

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26

From loneliness to lovingness

"So some suffering can clearly be God’s will. It isn’t necessarily the suffering itself that is God’s will, but rather, in a fallen world, following the will of God will generate suffering in our lives. In fact, there are two things that are always the will of God and always dangerous in a fallen world: telling the truth and loving needy people. In fact, if my life of following Jesus doesn’t feel dangerous, I should probably pause and check to see if it’s Jesus I am following...Doing what Jesus does, telling the truth and loving needy people, is inherently unsafe in a fallen world of lies and selfishness."
-Gary Haugen (taken from Discerning God's Call)

I realized that the more I try to live like Christ the more alone I become. It is so strange. I mean, sure I have great friends, but to have those friends that share that same mindset as me, that is where I fall in being alone a lot of times.
When I look at people who are not christian, they do not live their lives as such, their lifestyles do not appeal to me. However, when I look at people who are christian, who apparently do the christian things (going to church, reading their bible, etc), I realized most of their lives do not appeal to me either. Both lives are so boring to me. lol
Non-Christians live serving themselves in their "pagan" ways, while Christians live serving themselves in their "Jesus" ways. Both ways are exactly the same to me. Like the story Jesus told of the Prodigal Son. (Luke 15:11-32) Both sons were sinful, the one who left his father to live a life of crazy fun in sin, and the other who stayed and worked for his father and did all the right things. The sinner and the religious person are both sinful to the same degree. They're not seeking God, they're seeking their self. They are seeking what they want, they are just conveying them in different ways.
I like what David Bainerd says, "I love to live on the brink of eternity" in reality, if you truly believe in God, and in living as Jesus lived, then your life here is not suppose to be a life of luxury. We aren't here to live in a way that makes us "feel" comfortable. We are not suppose to follow the American dream. We are suppose to follow God. I mean goodness, if you're going to claim to call yourself a Christian, then you are claiming you are a follower of Christ, no matter the cost.
C.S. Lewis quote, "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this."

I don't know about you, but God is changing my heart. I don't want to settle here.

Ever since I was a little girl, I always sang songs to God. I use to sing songs to him while I made my bed in the morning skipping around my room. I use to pretend I would be dancing with Jesus when a happy song came on. It was so childish.
I could never really feel God, nor could I feel Jesus. As I have grown up, and as I have faced some rough spots in my life, I still haven't felt God. Ya know what though, I realized this year, what faith is. I realized what it means to have faith. To have faith means you pray to someone you don't know if they are there or if they are listening, yet you still pray and you continue to pray even though you don't see anything changing. My prayer life has become so much a part of who I am. I don't see changes in anything or anyone else, however, I see a lot of change in me. One way I relate to C.S. Lewis, "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me." I know the God I pray to. I pray to the God of the Bible. I pray to the God that in the Bible, slaughtered hundreds of people, I pray to the God that in the Bible He slaughtered His Son on the Cross and then raised him from the dead, I pray to the God that gives and takes life. I pray to the God that has allowed evil to exist and I have no idea why, and I cannot even wrap my mind around it. I pray to that God. It is crazy, how praying to that God, praying to the one who created Heaven AND Hell, when I pray to him, the need flows out of me, when I can't help but just beg him for mercy and grace and peace I beg him to answer the prayers that go out to my loved ones, I cannot tell you how free I tend to feel. I am not in bondage to anyone else but Him. To be a slave to that God, is better to be a slave to any person here on this earth, and even being a slave to myself. Whether the Ancient Hebrews made Him up, whether the Jewish Jesus freaks were delusional and crazy, it does not change the fact that by copying how they live their lives, by holding to the beliefs that they held that it works. It works!
When it comes down to it, you have the decision to make, are you going to be a slave to other people? a slave to yourself? or a slave to God? Are you living to please that person or many people? Are you living to please yourself? or, are you living to please God?
I cannot tell you how amazing it is to live a life pleasing God. It is so hard, let me tell you. To please God, to enslave yourself to Him, I have learned and am learning how to love, how to forgive. It hurts to live for Him. Like Gary Haugen says, "loving needy people and telling the truth is unsafe in a fallen world..." why do bad things happen to seemingly good people? because we're fallen! Our world is a mess.
It is so crazy how people still have this mindset that by following Jesus we are in some way changing the world. Jesus followers thought that Jesus would save the world. This world is past from being saved. We aren't here to save the world, we are here to be saved FROM this fallen world. It is the same fallen world that is was centuries prior to now.
I mean in the story of Genesis when God says to Cain, "if you do what is right, will you not be accepted? but if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." Even right after the story of the fall of man, and man being cursed, the next chapter displays this dialogue with God and a human. The first dialogue of God speaking to a man since He cursed them in the prior chapter. What does this God say? He is basically advising Cain! He is advising him to save himself from what is around him, sin, fallenness. RIGHT AFTER He curses them, He advises them. If God in this ancient hebrew text was thought of as mean, uncaring, tricky, deceitful, then this verse would be extremely inconsistent with that belief. Yet the ancient hebrews, when they told this story, it was to display man and God. God IS good, man IS fallen, and God wants to save man from His fallenness, but man has to cooperate with God and His goodness. THAT is the story of the Bible, that is the story of the God of the Bible. Amazing.

"Christianity doesn't come by gritting your teeth but by falling in love." -Richard Foster

I am in love. When you find love, you tend to be in love, no? Human love just doesn't suffices for me. Of course I love to be loved by humans, and I love to love them, but it is not what motivates me to live. I don't live for their love, nor to love them. I live to love Christ and to show that. That is how I am able to remain hopeful in the most trying of days, in the most darkest moments of my heart, and facing the deepest struggles of my past. The only way I get through those days without my heart hardening is by knowing Christ's love.
I keep going back to Corrie Ten Boom's story, it is so inspiring. I love when her sister responds to a woman in the concentration camp cabin who says to her, "how can you believe in your God when he allows THIS" and she says to the woman, "if only you knew his love." Do you know his love? Do I know his love today? His love is the only love that gets me through the days of feeling unloved, worthless, angry, judged, unfairly treated without lashing out against it, or hardening myself so I cannot feel. It is only his love that can keep my heart soft and yet have to face the heartbreak of the chaos around me. I don't know about you, but I want to be enslaved to His love.
God bless!

International Justice Mission

http://www.ijm.org/docs/internships/GHaugenFallsChurch10_22_06.pdf

"What Sean seems to remember most is not the hundreds his team rescued, but the one. And he put it this way: “I looked into the eyes of a 15-year-old girl who had been brutally raped two years previously, and no one had done anything to help her. I was able to tell her, ‘God loves you. I know he loves you because he sent me here to help you. I don’t know what will happen, but I will fight for you.’” The man who raped her, the son of a police officer, is now serving a life-sentence for that crime. The 15-year-old girl is now a radiant 20-year-old young woman studying social work in university so she can help abused children. In fact, this extraordinary young woman, Cardela, is actually coming here to Washington, DC, on December 5."

< 3

Whenever I get excited about something that I may have learned or remembered I HAVE to share it with some close friends and so I text them. I know one appreciates them, do not know exactly about the others haha
I just thought I'd share a text I sent yesterday...

Text 1: the man answered, "now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." John 9:30-32 I'm just so amazed by the words in this whole chapter. Jesus healed a blind guy! like what?!? who does that? who has the power to do that?!? what religious text claims these things?!? like who has one on one contact with a guy who can get a blind man to see by spitting in the dirt and rubbing it in his face? lol it is so ridiculous! so simple and primitive no? lol I'm amazed.

Text 2: One of my favorite lines from a movie about Corrie Ten Boom and her sister. Her sister and her were reading the Bible to the women in their concentration camp cabin together and one lady was saying "how can you believe what you do when your God allows us to suffer like this?!?" and her sister responded with, "if only you knew his love."
Do you know his love? Do I know his love? I know I desire it immensely and when I actually take the time to seek after it and rely on it I am driven like crazy to love. haha I'm in love right now with Love.

Thought: "When people turn away from God, they don't turn to nothing, they turn to everything." -Begg

"We must give our Lord our love or that love will go somewhere else.
We are so created that we must love something or other."
-Spurgeon


Not only am I total quote geek, I'm also a sermon geek. Listening to some Truth for Life podcasts this week, pretty cool stuff to hear and to consider. Thought I'd share:

From the topic of 1 Kings 19:
"Isn't it a strange thing in how christian television everybody wants to go on the tv and tell about how they saw the glory of the Lord? You can fill up a half hour program telling about what you saw and the experience that you had.
Isn't that so very different from the Bible? When Peter on the boat saw the glory of Christ what did he do? He threw himself on the deck and said, "depart from me for I'm a sinful man O Lord!" When Moses saw the glory of the Lord in the desert he took his shoes off his feet at the command of God because he knew he was standing on holy ground. When Elijah discovers that God reveals Himself to him he pulls his cloak over his face. When Isaiah sees the glory of God manifested as His train fills the temple he cries out, "I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips!"
It seems to me if we would really see the glory of the Lord it wouldn't put us on christian television it would put us in the silence of our bedrooms in the quietness of our hearts"

Thought: "They that know God will be humbled: they that know themselves cannot be proud." -John Flavel

Another TFL sermon:

1 Peter 5:6-7: Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

"The presence of anxiety is directly related to the absence of humility."

"[referring to after you cast your anxiety on God] and then the discipline at every 60 seconds a minute of walking through your day and refusing to take back onto your shoulders what you just gave over in the quietness of your room."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

"The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ."


"The question of why evil exists is not a theological question, for it assumes that it is possible to go behind the existence forced upon us as sinners. If we could answer it then we would not be sinners. We could make something else responsible...The theological question does not arise about the origin of evil but about the real overcoming of evil on the Cross; it ask for the forgiveness of guilt, for the reconciliation of the fallen world "


"I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith."

One of my favorite scenes

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."
— C.S. Lewis (The Silver Chair)

"There's a difference between a God given Spirit filled holy boldness and a manipulative bombastic personality driven, strategy for moving and steering people. One can be produced on a purely human plain. The other may only be discovered on your face before God when you acknowledge that you can't do a thing, that you are wholly inadequate."
-Alistair Begg

From the mind throughout this week

"Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom." Psalm 45:6

"The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord." -Psalm 45:11

Commenting on Psalm 45: "The king turned out to be God--as verse 6 had suggested. The poem that seemed to be only about a king's marriage turned out, in the end, to be about God's marriage to humanity."

God's plan during ancient times:

"You are to be holy [to nation of Israel] because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own." Leviticus 20:26

My texts to my two friends this week...

"I LOVE Isaiah 55 :-) I just love Isaiah in general. If you have never studied Isaiah I highly recommend you do. It's amazing. Just get a Bible with commentary notes and you'll be guided for hours. :-) lol but anyway Isaiah 55:9-11 amazes me. :-) cuz God's Word is NEVER meaningless. Anytime we speak of Him to ANYONE it goes out and will accomplish a purpose, God's purpose. God's ways are mysterious but His heart and character are not. :-) <3"

Isaiah 55:9-11 : As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

"What other ancient society ruled like this?: When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself. For you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:34-35. One reason God allowed his people to be enslaved in Egypt is that after they were freed, He was able to remind them that they are nothing without their God and they are no better than any other human being."

"For me to live is Christ and die is gain. I'm seeing how radical Christ following is. We're crazy. lol the intellectual does not get it. "the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power" I get how when Paul preached in Athens how only a few compared to the hundreds of Greek philosophers actually believed. It isn't a mass conversion religion. You don't have the power in your words until God decides to act through them."

"Neither Esther nor Mordecai had the power or position alone to deliver their people. It was only as they acted in concerted power and authority that they were able to lead God's people through the crisis of death and into deliverance. Neither of them aspired to the role; perhaps neither of them deserved it. It was thrust on them by a series of improbable circumstances largely beyond their control. Nevertheless their unlikely partnership accomplished God's ancient promise and the Jewish race was preserved until in the fullness of time God entered history through this people as the Messiah. How marvelous are God's inscrutable ways!" -Beth Moore Commentary on the story of Esther

Sermon today:

Jesus is king over all yet the world is not forced to obey his kingly rule. Satan can deny it. Humanity can deny it. Hence why there is sin and evil in the world. And so Jesus has not fully conquered evil yet. Yet He has started, through his people. His kingdom is already present in his followers.

You cannot have Jesus as Savior and not accept him as Lord.

Luke 17:20-21 : Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is among you."

Contemplating tonight:

Luke 13:20-21 : Again he asked, "What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough"

my text to a friend after reading that...

"[luke 13:20-21] We are working through the dough of this world. :-) The kingdom of God is not invading from the outside. It is coming from the internal, from humanity itself. Wow. God is amazing."

C.S. Lewis Quotes:

"I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time-waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God-it changes me."

"If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this."

My thoughts:

If my feelings or my logic alone were the only thing that drove my belief in God, then God doesn't exist. I do not always feel God, nor can I logically prove God. Yet there are mysteries in this world and power among people that I cannot deny the existence of God. In my mind, God is not dead until His people are dead. They have survived 2500 years of persecution and being a minority amongst the greatest nations of our world's history. If the world is evil, and is by nature an enemy of God, would it not then attack the people that have been chosen by God? Judaism is a persecuted people. The core of Christianity is a persecuted god and its followers were persecuted soon after their god. Why? There is something more going on here than just some religion.

"The believer is neither a pessimist nor an optimist. To be either is illusory. The believer sees reality not in a certain light but as it is, and believes only in God and God's power towards all and over all that is seen."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position; all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing." -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it." Ecclesiastes 8:17

Speaking of the notion of the leading of the Spirit of God...

"such leading excludes all fanaticism, all autosuggestion, all hearing of fictitious imaginary inward voices." -Martin Luther

Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong. Sermon on II Cor. 12:9

"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.

Random Mixture of Thoughts

Random thought one:

referring to the suburban church, "but when the church fails to break the barrier [going into the cities], both sides lose. Those who need the gospel message of hope and reality of love don't get it; and the isolated church keeps evangelizing the same people over and over until its only mission finally is to entertain itself."

-Loving God, by Chuck Colson

Random thought two:

I have come to find that I cannot explain God to anyone and I no longer intend to. I am living what I love and God will explain Himself.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God, all things are possible with God."

Mark 10:25-27

Random thought three:

"In the moment of surrender, I let go of all the theological or social questions which had kept me from [God] for countless years. I simply let them go. There was the sense, profound and wordless, that if He knew everything I did not have to know everything, and that, in seeking to know everything, I'd been, all of my life, missing the entire point. No social paradox, no historic disaster, no hideous record of injustice or misery should keep me from Him. No question of Scriptural integrity, no torment over the fate of this or that atheist or gay friend, no worry for those condemned and ostracized by my church or any other church should stand between me and Him. The reason? It was magnificently simple: He knew how or why everything happened; He knew the disposition of every single soul. He wasn't going to let anything happen by accident! Nobody was going to go to Hell by mistake."

From: Called out of Darkness, a Spiritual Confession

by Anne Rice

To Be Whole

"Righteousness guards the man of integrity, but wickedness overthrows the sinner." Proverbs 13:6

Integrity. The Latin word for integrity literally means, "entire."

Looking up the word Integrity in the dictionary, I came across words that led up to it,

Integer is a mathematical term, meaning a whole number, it is not a fraction.

Integral "Entire. Essential to completeness."

Integrate "Unite. Blend into a whole."

Integrity "comes from being complete, undivided, whole."

Brought to my mind the cute little romantic terminology that we as girls melt over when a guy says to a girl, "you complete me." In all honesty I never believed it or really fell for it, when guys say that to girls, because I would never want to complete a man. Why? My reasoning since I have grown up even as a teenager has been, you do not need a partner to become whole. I've always seemed to have known that, I have not always wanted to believe it because it is way easier to depend on other people. As I study more and more about finding the "self" in this stage of life, I understand more and more why people cannot and should not "complete" one another and how I have no desire for that in my own heart and life. A person cannot complete another person, otherwise that person is only half of a person. Preferably as a single woman just living life and of course desiring to have someone to share it with, I don't want to share my life with half a man, I want to share it with a full man. lol

From observing and experiencing, I have come to the conclusion that integrity is of great value because I have found that men and women of integrity compliment each other's wholeness.

To be righteous; "acting or being in accordance with what is just, honorable, and free from guilt or wrong."

A person of integrity addresses and deals with past wrongs so that they remain guilt free. I have come to find that those who have the most guilt are the ones with the hard hearts, those who are closed up, because by doing so they cannot feel their guilt. The tragedy of closing up and hardening ones self is that you are not whole. You are still scattered and many times you end up searching for someone else to make you feel whole, however, that person, object, circumstance, will never make you whole, no matter how it makes you feel in the moment.

Soft hearts however, are those who have dealt with their guilt and therefore are free to live in wholeness. "Need people less, love people more." Individuals of integrity are capable of loving and giving because they are not in need of wholeness or completeness.

The reason men and women of faith strive to live and practice righteousness is not to attain perfection, but to maintain their wholeness. By doing so, they then can provide care and love to those who are searching and trying to find wholeness in and of themselves.

When you do not guard your integrity/wholeness through righteousness, you will be overpowered, overthrown, fallen victim, hard and cold, to this world.

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In all honesty, the reason I can state these things are because of my experiences with them. I have experienced dealing with my own hard heart, with having to soften my heart (that hurts), with wanting to feel complete and not attaining it, to feeling in need and incomplete. I hope you know that this was something I studied and wrote out today from reading Proverbs and being inspired by a devotional I've been doing. I struggle to be a person of integrity just as much as you do, and I hope that you know that. What I have discovered from this study today is that, to be a person of integrity, does not come from doing the right things, but it starts with dealing with yourself. I felt this past week that I could not attain integrity or being a wise and joyful person. My thoughts were consuming me, I felt so restless in them, and it came down to the very fact that I was not facing myself. If you do not deal with yourself, you will have a hard time and may not be able to deal with the stuff that comes your way as the day drags on. Reading encouraging Bible verses, singing worship songs, and prayer, can only go so far, you can do all three of those things yet never face yourself. Believe me, I have been one to deceive myself in that way. In order to face yourself, you have to take time out of your day to expose yourself before the wisdom of Scripture and acknowledge what you are. These are the beginning steps toward becoming a man or woman of wholeness, completeness, integrity.

The church I attend here at school is off campus but near the short north which is also known as the art district. The church itself does not look like a church, when you walk in it looks like a small gallery with tall tables and chairs, and as you continue in you see a small stage with chairs around for worship service. I love churches like these. On the walls inside by the tall tables and chairs they have artwork that was donated. As I was looking at some of the work, I came across an artist, specifically, a photographer that I really liked. Her name is Janelle Vagaier. Vagaier wrote this, explaining the reason behind her style of photography.

[mis] perceptions.

The world inside is in conflict with the world outside. Thoughts when allowed to run rampant and out of control, confuse and muffle the voice of truth, causing deception. Tension between what is perceived and what is real results.

The camera supposedly captures reality. However, this assumption does not always ring true. Manipulations can occur on many levels. Using inconsistencies of toy and handmade cameras, I created a series of images that distort reality.

The distortion of the camera is a metaphor for the distortions that exist in our minds. People have misconstructed perceptions of self, knowledge, time, the world, God, and others. Recently I have been challenged to face the misperceptions I believe, acknowledging that they exist and pursue truth. I know I am not alone in this struggle.

Thinking

I don't know if I'm meant to do great things in this life or if I'm meant to live at all but that doesn't matter because I'm going to do something that I believe is of value. I may never know if the directions I take are right or wrong. Life's a journey and each choice I make will either lead me to my own destiny or what God has destined for me...and even if God's not real, he was worth living for.

"Whatever game He is playing with his creation he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience from the trivial irritations of family, life, and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man therefore he was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile." -Dorothy Sayers

My Honor

"He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him." John 7:18

"My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge." Psalm 62:7

"You'll know that you are making progress in becoming a servant of Christ by how you respond when someone treats you like one." -Unknown

Love these two verses and the quote. Definitely been a defining moment in my walk with the Lord this summer when I came across a study that quoted these two verses and just a reminder to me of who I am.

Many times, we get caught up in wanting to be honored and respected by people. I know for myself, I would rather be overlooked than honored because I know I have such an ego. I hate my ego so much. The reason why is because nothing could ever please me when I rely on my ego. It is definitely my enemy. I have to constantly work on humbling myself, and so I really needed to read those verses.
You know when you get paranoid about what people think about you? Well, if you don't, then you're a stronger person than I, because I of course do care about what people think of me. However, what I realized through how God has brought pain and conflict into my life this year, is this: my honor depends on Him. God shares His glory with no one. It is the most amazing reality to say that and to believe it. The Almighty shares His glory with no one. He will not share His glory with me. I am just a tool in His great plan, and I will be used for whatever He purposes for it. I am nothing before the Almighty.
You know what is also really cool? The Almighty became nothing for His nothing. lol It is basically the greatest form of love, and if people really took the story of the Gospel to heart they would see how beautiful it is. It is really sad because the Gospel story is over used in our American society, we lose the passion and power of it through a "feel good" fake christianity and power hungry religious institutions. I guess what it comes down to, and what I realized, is that people don't want to hear the Gospel anymore, they want to see the Gospel. The really sad thing is, not many "christians" show the Gospel in their lives.

In all honesty, sometimes I feel like the only one who actually still cares about doing that. Other times, I feel like I don't care enough. haha I realized, I can't compare myself to other christians or other people, I have to remain in my identity, Christ.

I am also learning a lot about the church, and even though I know what the church is suppose to be like, and I also know it is very rare to find a genuine, real, church in this society, my whole perspective is changing. My perspective of the church has always been, the people of course, but I am beginning to see and desire it see it act out. I know that is why I feel so out of place here. I don't feel like I fit. I mean, yes, I fit with people, and I get along with people, but I still feel like a wanderer. Don't know where I am suppose to be yet. All I know is that I am waiting. What is cool about waiting, I learned this from my friend Melissa the other night, she was saying how waiting on the Lord doesn't just mean you sit there and do nothing. But if you look at the term "wait" as you would look at, "waiter" what are you doing then? You are serving as the Lord guides you to His purpose. You aren't just sitting there and waiting for a revelation from God, you are doing stuff, you are busying yourself, you are serving and loving others. I realized, by reading christians' biographies, and hearing about others' lives, that when you submit to the Will of God, He will guide you to what you have been purposed for. Otherwise, you will just wander, going from one purpose to the next, or just not even caring for knowing your purpose. I realized the most stable decision I have made is what I am doing with my life, and that is loving God. lol

Maybe I was meant to wander, to remain unsettled, who knows, I don't know the last time I have felt settled or sure of something. The only thing that I am sure of, is that I want to love God in whatever area of life I am in, and in whatever circumstance I am under. To honor Him above myself, and to be right before His throne. Who knows what this year has for me, and what God has planned for those who wait for Him.

Getting in the mind of two christian woman...

A good friend of mine and I of course have our times when we talk about guys and all the normal stuff girls talk about. Well, I came across a text I saved from her that I just thought I'd share.

July 13, 2009

"I think I have discovered something common among men. They lack self confidence and therefore are often too ashamed or fearful of what people think to be honest. Our culture encourages this. Even the men who are outgoing appear confident but it is an act to cover up their low self-esteem. Maybe the truly confident (an identity only found in Christ) are the most humble and HONEST men you'll ever meet. Next time I am going for one of those. Lol I want someone who can admit their failures, doubts and worries about life without fearing my reaction because they totally FEAR our God."

O my Strength

Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

I needed to read this today. I was praying in tears asking God to just speak to my heart what He had to say to me and remind me of what I am forgetting. Yesterday I was an emotional wreck, today I'm pressing on.

The human self is so strange, I'm all pathos while my logos is saying, "you know you're being irrational" I hate how pathos takes control. It is so weird to be so divided, because logically it doesn't make sense why I feel so sad, but apparently my pathos/feelings take the dominant role. It's tough being a woman. Satan knows the best way to attack my kind too, go for the pathos. I am perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. Mean world, I will never be your victim. I will fight you full force with my God and my Saviour on my side. My God who turns our curse into blessings who gives us strength so that WE will be empowered. "Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will trample down their high places." Deuteronomy 33:29 God doesn't just deliver us He empowers us. He wants to make demons tremble before you. Ever wonder if God wants to get the job done why He uses us to do it and not just do it Himself? He does it to show us that we can do it, that with His strength we have the power to make our enemies cower before us. God doesn't just deliver us He empowers us!

Mean world, I will not be your victim I will fight you, my God who empowers me to do so and my Saviour who has overcome you. "I have told you these things so that in me you will have peace, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Brothers and Sisters, we are not meant to be victims of this world, we are meant to fight against this world.

"I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith." 1 Timothy 1:18-19

We are to fight, THE good fight.

Mean world, I will not let you harden my heart, you may wound it, hurt it, break it, but you can never destroy it. My heart belongs to God and He is the only one who gives me the strength to love in ways I could never love if I relied on events, people, circumstances, or myself. No matter how much you may wring my heart, it will remain soft. I will not let you turn me into stone. I am alive and free, my identity is within Christ and I don't need to guard it, it is already secure.

"O my Strength, I watch for you; you, O God, are my fortress, my loving God"

"But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble. O my Strength, I sing praise to you; you, O God, are my fortress, my loving God."

Psalm 59:9,16-17

Reversal

"...they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you. However, the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you." Deuteronomy 23:4b-5

God can take our curse and turn it into a blessing. In fact God has overturned our curse and made it a blessing through Christ. God overturned what was once a curse into an eternal blessing.

Today I was reading the Word and thinking about these things, Galatians 3 came to mind when I was considering these thoughts. It referenced Deuteronomy 21:23-25 this ancient Hebrew book of law states,

"If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse." Deuteronomy 21:22-23

I've read that before in the past, but today it just brought tears to my eyes to realize how this is in the Torah, the Old Testament. We look a thousand years later, to find the Son of Man hung on a tree. Christ overturned our curse that began in the Garden and reversed it to an eternal blessing.

I've been thinking and considering a lot lately, and the most amazing thing that I've thought about is the story of the Bible as a whole. I have to tell you, it is the most beautiful, well written, documented story in the whole span of history. As I go to college and continue in my history major as well as religious study major, I will let you know if I find anything more beautiful than the story of the Bible. ;-)

It is so sad to me when people see it as just this book of rules and regulations, and a way and means for man to control people. Of course as we look at history the irony is that the best way the religions were able to control people was by keeping them from reading their Bibles. The people were told to just trust what the religious institution told them the Bible said because they didn't want anyone "misinterpreting" it.

All I have to say is, thank God for the reformation. Thank God for those who stood against their societies and were able to translate the Bible into other languages in order to free the captive souls from the bondage of religion. I continually pray for the same today. That people will stop debating about the foolish most pointless things of this world and pick up their Bible and just stand in awe of their Creator. We live in the bondage of our religion. May God save us from these manmade institutions and lead us into His Sovereign kingdom.

"The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power." 1 Corinthians 4:20

I have heard of and seen that power in people's lives and hearts. There is no other story that can turn the human heart in such a way as to completely change one's identity from their own into something greater and ever lasting. I am not living as a religious individual, but as a Christ follower, on this inconsistent but stable journey with my Saviour. I am ready to follow you Lord, wherever you lead me.

Real Faith

Loving God by Charles Colson

Chapter 3: Faith and Obedience

Page 37-38

"So obedience is the key to real faith--the unshakeable kind of faith so powerfully illustrated by Job's life. Job lost his home, his family (except for a nagging wife), his health, even his hope. The advice of friends was no help. No matter where he turned, he could find no answers to his plight. Eventually he stood alone. But though it appeared God had abandoned him, Job clung to the assurance that God is who He is. Job confirmed his obedience with those classic words of faith: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."

This is real faith: believing and acting obediently regardless of circumstances or contrary evidence. After all, if faith depended on visible evidence, it wouldn't be faith. "We walk by faith, not by sight." the apostle Paul wrote.

It is absurd for Christians to constantly seek new demonstrations of God's power, to expect a miraculous answer to every need, from curing ingrown toenails to finding parking spaces; this only leads to faith in miracles rather than the Maker.

True faith depends not upon mysterious signs, celestial fireworks, or grandiose dispensations from a God who is seen as a rich, benevolent uncle; true faith, as Job understood, rests on the assurance that God is who He is. Indeed, on that we must be willing to stake our very lives.

There was a time when eleven men did just that. They stakes their lives on obedience to their leader, even when doing so was contrary to all human wisdom. That act of obedience produced a faith that emboldened them to stand against the world and, in their lifetimes, change it forever."

Loving God by Charles Colson

Chapter 4: Take Up and Read

Page 47

Saint Augustine before his acceptance to salvation:

"The philosophers have helped me understand the Bible," Augustine admitted. He explained that until recently he had believed that only what he could see, measure, rationally and systematically prove could be real. The idea of an invisible spiritual God seemed just talk. But studying Plato and his followers had convinced him that the real things were invisible, spiritual.

"This has helped me a great deal." Augustine was candid to fault. Yet he watched Ponticianus carefully, his posture tense. "But there is a major difference. To follow Plato, one merely thinks like Plato. To follow Christ is something much more. You must put your whole life into it and leave behind whatever hinders you from following Him. I don't know what it is exactly that enables a man to give himself to God--to commit himself to a life of sacrifice and faith. That's more than adopting a particular point of view isn't it?"

Ponticianus nodded, as did Alypius. Alypius, younger than Augustine, practically worshiped the scholar.

Wrapped in his own thoughts, Augustine went on speaking, almost as though working out a problem for himself. "Plato takes you up on a high mountain peak where you can see the land of peace. But you do not know how to get there. There must be a highway leading straight to that land, but you can't find it." He shook his head wearily. Augustine had few illusions about himself. He knew how easily his mind fell into habits and was changed by them. His women. His pride. I am utterly depraved, he thought, and the mind alone is no match for the seduction of evil pleasure.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle...

"That's why tough guys seldom know much of God; people who are confident of their own abilities, confident in what they've done what they've achieved, what they've built, what they've made, what they've earned. It is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for such individuals to enter the kingdom of heaven. Why? because before you discover God's power and strength in all of its fullness you're brought face to face with your own total abject poverty and weakness. " -Alistair Begg

"The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." Mark 10:26,27

Hence why we pray. It is the only communication we have to reach the Almighty One within this fallen world.

Beth Moore it up!

I'm doing a Bible study with other women of this church that I attend locally. (includes my own mom) They are such sweet and kind older women, I love the environment. We are doing a Beth Moore study on the book of Esther. Very good study. The theme of this 9 week long study is, "It is tough being a woman." We had to write some notecards down and I thought I'd share with you what we had to write down as homework before next weeks study. What we had to do was write down the statement and then on the other side of the notecard write down verses that put your mindset back on what matters. I hope they encourage you as they seem helpful for me. :-)

It's tough being a woman...

1. in another woman's shadow.

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty" Psalm 91:1

2. in a world where beauty is a treatment.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time." Ecclesiastes 3:11

3. in a mean world.

"I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith." 1 Timothy 1:18-19

4. thrown a giant size weight.

"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7

"However, the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you." Deuteronomy 23:5

5. in the tight fist of fear.

"Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will trample down their high places." Deuteronomy 33:29

"After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, "Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes." Nehemiah 4:14

"See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." Isaiah 49:16

6. who can balance passion with patience.

"Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him!" Isaiah 30:18

7. who feels responsible for the "how"

"if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgement, while continuing their punishment." 2 Peter 2:9

"for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust." Psalm 103:14

I just came across some notes I took on a sermon.

"Religion is anything of making us to get to God. It is either pride or despair. Jesus offers grace. Pride -> "I will please God by my works." Despair -> "I cannot match up to this list."

It comes down to this: Walk with God. So often we complicate our relationship with God.

John 15:4-5 "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

Apart from God we cannot do anything. If we're not connected to Him we can do nothing for Him. Walk with God."

After talking with a friend last night, we were discussing how we as people can use other people and good christian things such as church or bible study, to grow us in our walk with God. However, even though those things are helpful, the source of our strength does not come from those things. The source of our strength comes when one is by themselves, reading the Bible and praying.

A lot of people look at me and think of me as "super christian" it is really annoying. haha I am guessing, they see a difference in me? In all reality I really don't like being different, I'd rather hide in the crowd, it would be easier that way. but ya know being set apart as I feel sometimes, it does not come from me or going to church. It comes from the time I spend in the Word of God. The best moments I have had are when I am digging in and learning from the Bible on my own with no one distracting me or helping me. When that happens it overflows into my life and my heart. How I view circumstances and treat people.

I am such a Bible nerd. It is rather embarrassing when you're around people who don't study or read the Bible and who actually have never read it in their life. Then when someone closer to me asks me a biblical question in front of them, those listening are like, "wow she's really religious" ick. haha Hate that word, "religious" to describe me. lol I guess I have to get over that and just do what I have been called to do. Love.

I guess my desire is to show people what real christians are like and how to be one. I'll end with a St. Francis of Assisi quote,

"Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words"

An Excerpt from a Thought

"Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." Genesis 4:6,7

I just skimmed over this chapter tonight and these two verses jumped out to me. I realized this is the first time the word "sin" is ever mentioned in the Bible. It is the character, God, who uses the word. I also realized, this is the next story after the fall, and the character of God portrayed in this story shows God's care for his created beings. It fascinated me as I read it and it also serves as a reminder to me. Those are very wise words. Very deep words. I would never expect them in this story, yet there they are.

Your voice is so quiet because our sin is so loud. Don't be silent God.

Dig

"For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."

1 Corinthians 2:16 KJV

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." John 15:15 NIV

"The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him, and he will shew them his covenant." Psalm 25:14 KJV

"For the perverse person is an abomination to the LORD, but His secret counsel is with the upright." Proverbs 3:32 NKJV

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law." Deuteronomy 29:29 NIV

I've been going on various message boards online and reading views of skeptics when it comes to religion and God and all the spiritual things that can keep one up all night thinking about. There are a lot of questions of God that people cannot explain. It has caused me to just sit there and think until my brain hurts.

Yesterday I rested in my mind and decided to put all those questions behind me and took the time and spent it reading the Word. It is a beautiful thing when you read the Bible, but you know what is more fulfilling? When you dig into those Words and search for understanding rather than just encouragement for the day. The deeper I dig, the harder I look, the more of God I find. The Bible is an incredible book. Critics can say a lot against it, but it is put together so incredibly that whether you believe it or not, you just have to sit back and me amazed at how well it is put together and thought out.

I sat there with The Book in front of me not knowing where I wanted to read. I asked the Holy Spirit to enlighten the words of the page because in all honesty, we cannot understand anything of God without knowing His Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:11-12) I am just amazed at the syntax of this book, the whole story behind it.

I'm doing a Beth Moore study on the book of Esther and she was talking about how the Bible is filled with a "reversal of destiny." I never realized that but it is true. From the book of Genesis destiny was reversed, to the book of Revelation which reveals the reversal of destiny through the Lamb of God. The more I read the Bible I understand the reasons for the stories within it. Everything is about God revealing Himself to man.

The other day I was digging into Ezra, the more time I spent reading and really trying to understand the concept of the passage I read the more emotion I saw in it. The pages came to life. Have you ever done that with a book before? When you just fall right into the pages of it, and you become part of the story? When you do that with the Bible the story captivates your soul. When the story is historical like the book of Ezra (it is recording the exiles and the Medo-Persian kings of that time) you realize the reality of these people and the reality of God. It is so mysterious how God reveals His character through the Bible and through people.

I've questioned all that a skeptic questions of God, it really does keep you from trusting the Bible because there are so many questions. However, I'm beginning to realize why C.S. Lewis refers to some of these as nonsense questions because they are never-knowing questions. These never-knowing questions are just ways for people to keep themselves from having to fall on their knees before God and acknowledge that we are not God and we have no control. That there is only one God, the true and holy One, the Creator of the universe. No one wants to completely devote their life to the someone beyond themselves. Why? because it is the fear of the unknown, the foolish result of not knowing. How foolish to believe in the God of the Bible.

One question I've been pondering is, I don't know how evil came into existence or why God allowed it to flourish in the way that it did. I really don't understand the concept of a Holy God and evil, and how the Holy God puts limitations on evil but hasn't destroyed it completely and why He'd allow it to corrupt His created human beings. I don't understand why that is, but what I do see is that there is more to God than just this infinite being that allows things to happen, that allows evil to exist and spoil other areas of his creation. The story of this god, from what I have found, is that instead of just letting these corrupted created creatures go destroy themselves, this god has shown compassion on them. The story in Genesis, shows how after God curses Adam and Eve and kicks them out of the Garden because they sinned, this same God then provides clothing for them. He clothes them, to cover their exposure. What uncaring God would do such a thing? We can ask the question, if God was so caring why does He allow evil to exist? but have you ever asked the question, if God is so uncaring why does He still speak to His created beings? If God is so uncaring who is this Jesus of Nazareth character? If God is so uncaring, why are there so many happy to do people proclaiming Him? Why are many of these happy people not material? Why are they suffering yet joyful in it? Why do they have hope? If our Creator is so uncaring, why as created beings do we have this sense of "hopefulness" within us? If our Creator was so uncaring, wouldn't we have that innate sense that there is no hope? I don't know, I'm probably just rambling a bunch of nonsense but that has been on my mind.

Through my despair, through satan constantly lying to me, God is supporting me.

He's giving me just enough to get by. and when I get puffed up, He brings me down.

what a journey this is...

Wonder Tour by Cool Hand Luke

You've already made too many mistakes
To ever amount to anything great
You're not allowed to dream out loud
You're far too young to even count
You're much to poor without any doubt
And you haven't done nearly enough
To deserve any grace or anyone's love

God, speak truth.
To the lies we've believed instead of you

You're in the wrong city for that line of work
And you'll never make it unless you're a jerk
Live for yourself and store up more wealth
We've traded in dreams and youthful ideals
For less noble things of paying the bills
And trying our best to look like the rest
While hiding our fears by the way we all dress

God, speak true
To the paychecks we have trusted instead of you.

Rejoicing Comes in the Morning

It has been an emotional day. Dealing with depression in the morning, crying my eyes out, and finally getting to the point of right perspective.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance." Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

serves as an encouragement to me. I feel as though crying about things and basically mourning about stuff is just me wasting time when I should be doing better things. However, this passage encourages me that it is okay. It is okay to be sad, it is okay to cry, it is okay. There are times to cry, and this morning through afternoon I see as a right time to cry. There are times to laugh though, and right now I see it as that. This afternoon and morning and even last night were times of mourning, but now I feel like dancing. Why? because I'm human, and human beings make mistakes, and through their mistakes God uses them, yet also, because of our mistakes Satan accuses us. I've been going through a lot of accusation today, and I cannot say I am freed from it, it is still there, but I know it is growing me and teaching me. I know the things I've done in my past, sure I messed up, but I also know that I'm not perfect, and that through our mistakes God can be even more glorified.

"Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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." 2 Corinthians 12:8-10

Do I regret my past? No. I mean, I thought I did, but why should I regret something that I am learning from? Our mistakes, our confusions, our unwise decisions, they make us who we are. In some instances, for those who choose to avoid learning from them and disciplining themselves from changing their ways, they are foolish and will bring about their own problems and sorrows. Yet for those who are wise, they will choose to learn from them, and will see how they, even though messed up and stupid, can become wiser to not go there again.

I want to be wise. I remember Josh using this metaphor of a glass being filled. If it was filled with good and loving things, if you bumped into it, it would overflow with love. Yet if the glass was mostly filled with unkind and rude things, when you bumped into it, it would overflow with those aspects of your character. You have to question then, which would you rather be filled with? Love or hate? How you will know is, how you react when you are caught off guard and bumped into, and what comes out of your life then. That will define what you have truly filled yourself with.

I believe I am filling myself with love. Even though I'm stupid, and even when I'm caught off guard, and life comes out of nowhere and bumps into me, I realized recently, (just recently, I cannot say I was this a month ago) I have more of the ability to spill out love to people. Am I always like this? No. I think this week works the most in a loving way because of last week, and being able to rest in the LORD and surrendering my thoughts and my heart to Him once again. It has helped me to face what I have gone through this week, and will continue to have to face. God is always on time, never late. I can see that perfect timing in my own life. Not just in one instance, but in many instances at one time.

"I'm not shaken, I'm not letting go."

That has been my motive for this week, my hope for this week, it serves as a reminder to me. Freedom is here.

and remember, weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. :-) (Psalms 30:5b)

God bless!

"So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow." 1 Corinthians 3:7

"Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." " Matthew 9:35-38

"Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life--in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing."

Philippians 2:14-16

"We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world."

1 Corinthians 4:10-13

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds." Hebrews 10:23-24

"At this point Festus interrupted Paul's defense. "You are out of your mind, Paul!" he shouted. "Your great learning is driving you insane."

"I am not insane, most excellent Festus," Paul replied. "What I am saying is true and reasonable. The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe in the prophets? I know you do."

Then Agrippa said to Paul, "Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?"

Paul replied, "Short time or long--I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains."

Acts 26:24-29

some Scripture that has been on my heart today. "God speak Truth, to the lies that we believe, instead of You." -CHL I wish those I've known who don't truly know God could understand how I feel right now. I wish people could understand how chaotic my life can be, how I could break any second, yet there is a strength and hope that is keeping me going and reminding me of what matters. I guess it is a spiritual high that I'm in. A high that I haven't had for so long, I've been so far away it seems from my Lord and my God. It is so nice to be back and seeking out God's Words to fill me in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening. To have peace in the midst of painful slander, and to humble those slanderers by only God's power in my life shining through. What a dark and chaotic year for me. What despair I've felt, what heartache I feel, what peace God brings me and reminds me it is not done in vain. That is my hope, that God speaks Truth throughout my life to others.

It hurts to be completely rejected by people you have put your trust in. So many girls if they were in my situation would just start not trusting anymore. Would start believing lies. No. Not me. I know in the midst of my heartache God is my strength and will shine and that is all that matters to me. To be broken sucks but it is the best thing to be done to me, because through brokenness God creates us more like Him.

Such a strange feeling, to feel heartache yet then feel completely fine. One moment I want to break down and cry my heart out, the next moment I want to live for something beyond my own power I want to pursue more people. My two spirits are fighting each other I guess. lol I hope and pray the second one wins.

I need to exercise my faith more and be more bold. That is my goal for this summer. May God use it for His kingdom.

Well, that's about all that's on my mind and heart as of right now. God bless!

Psalm 25

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul;

² in you I trust, O my God.
Do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.

³ No one whose hope is in you
will ever be put to shame,
but they will be put to shame
who are treacherous without excuse.

⁴ Show me your ways, O LORD,
teach me your paths;

⁵ guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.

⁶ Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.

⁷ Remember not the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
for you are good, O LORD.

⁸ Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.

⁹ He guides the humble in what is right
and teaches them his way.

¹⁰ All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful
for those who keep the demands of his covenant.

¹¹ For the sake of your name, O LORD,
forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

¹² Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD ?
He will instruct him in the way chosen for him.

¹³ He will spend his days in prosperity,
and his descendants will inherit the land.

¹⁴ The LORD confides in those who fear him;
he makes his covenant known to them.

¹⁵ My eyes are ever on the LORD,
for only he will release my feet from the snare.

¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.

¹⁷ The troubles of my heart have multiplied;
free me from my anguish.

¹⁸ Look upon my affliction and my distress
and take away all my sins.

¹⁹ See how my enemies have increased
and how fiercely they hate me!

²⁰ Guard my life and rescue me;
let me not be put to shame,
for I take refuge in you.

²¹ May integrity and uprightness protect me,
because my hope is in you.

²² Redeem Israel, O God,
from all their troubles!