Ask me how my week was and I will probably tell you long, or hard.
Ask me what God has been teaching me, and I could write you a novel.
As I sit listening to the rain fall and basking in God's greatness, I have to wonder why my first response to the first question would be long.
[Side note: Rain is God's way of telling me everything is going to be okay]
Moving right along. I guess this week could be summed up in a few words...filled with God. But my tendency is to remember how I really felt. My goal is to be authentic and real. The real answer is that my week was long. There were so many bumps in the road, unseen twists and turns, and yet, it was still good. But the reason that it was good is God. That's literally it. By Tuesday, I knew that I was only running on Jesus juice. There is no possible way that I am capable of dealing with all the crap that has been happening. It's only by the grace of God. But it's easy to remember the bad, and incredibly normal to forget the good. Why is that? Beats me, I'm asking you. But I've been trying so hard to remember how good my God is. He has my best interest in mind, he loves me all the time and DESIRES to be a intimate part of my life.
The God of the Universe, the Creator of the Heavens and Earth, wants to kick it with me. That is what is up.
I told you a couple posts ago that I was having a hard time looking at the world and not being sad. There is so much pain, heartache and sadness that is scattered all over this planet. Recently, I've felt like there have been more problems than usual. Maybe it's just that I'm getting to know more people and with that comes their problems too, or maybe it's just God's way of revealing to me how much more he wants me to depend on him. Either way, there are problems. A wee bit of back story for you, when I was 15 I had this issue with my stomach. For like 3 months straight, my stomach hurt every day. I took Rolaids like they were going out of style. Cause for me, when my stomach hurts, I can't function. This led to going to a doctor and him telling me it was stress. I figured out that I tend to take the whole world on my shoulders and never really let anyone help me. Honestly, I love hearing what people are going through, especially my friends. I've had random people open up to me about their entire lives, and I love that as well. God has given me that gift and I wouldn't have it any other way. But then it becomes a lesson to me to, like the old cliche says, "Let go, and let God."
This past Sunday, my college pastor, Paul was speaking at the Grove Church. We've been going through Genesis for the past couple months. He was speaking on chapter 49:1-4. Paul is a great speaker normally, but this sermon was one of his best for sure. (I'll put a link to the podcast at the bottom) He was talking about faith.
He started with Hebrews 11:1 that says:
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Is God calling you to jump? To be different than the staus quo?
Last week for college group we went rock climbing. It was awesome! But there was this moment of fear while I was climbing that the person belaying me wasn't gonna catch me. Relief washed over me at the end though because I knew that the faith I had was put in the right thing. That's how life is, when we put our faith in Christ, we are relieved to know at the end that our faith was in the right place the entire time. Something that really hit me was that Paul said that God doesn't view us by our weaknesses. He sees our strengths and how we can use them. God says, "Look at what you can be. You are beautiful." He doesn't want us to be complacent in the place where we're at. No. He wants us to be filled with him. We don't think we need to be filled, but to able to live, we have to be filled with Christ. As long as we are filled with Christ, we can be a like a lions cub. A lions cub is worry free because they know that the lion and lioness are protecting it. The cub is carefree. That's what God wants us to be, because he is always protecting us. He's got our back, no matter what. Even in the saddest of moments, the most irritating situation, and the angriest circumstances. All of this said, what I realized is that it always comes back to....
Trust.
God wants us to live in boldness, not fear.
He wants us to trust him.
But that takes faith.
When you put your faith in him,
you can trust that is in the right place.
No Fear
Live Boldly
The reason I know that I have to give everything to God is because he'll do a way better job of taking care of things than I will. It's proven fact. I'm not capable of handling any situation without Christ as my lion. I'll just be the little cub that lives without fear. :) It's not gonna be easy, but it is SO worth it.
Are you up to the challenge?
Live boldly, free of fear.
