Monday 28 April 2008

The Lord is Good!

The Lord is good. I could recite Psalm 145 to describe this but I won't. Can I magnify Him for what He has done in my life? Absolutely. Can I begin to describe His goodness? That's somewhat more difficult. I was asked yesterday why I loved Jesus. I considered answering that it was because He first loved me. But that just doesn't say enough. When I consider what He has done for me, how He suffered and died to pardon me from my sin, what do I owe Him? My life, my love, my full devotion and adoration. But I know that. What do I really owe Him? To extend the same measure of love to others that He has extended to me. This is what I owe Him along with my life and this is the best testimony that I have Christ living in me: the love I extend to others. It will not always be easy. It wasn't easy for Christ to die for us. Nevertheless, this is what we owe Him.

So that's my random meditation for today and God bless you as you continue to have sweet fellowship with Him.

Friday 25 April 2008

Learning From a Rough Week

I'd been sick for a week now and I'm still recovering although feeling much better. It seems I had gotten a nasty case of food poisoning (not fun) and after nobody else got it and it lasted for so long, I knew it wasn't just a stomach flu. It's so easy to take our good health for granted. This was probably the hardest week I've had in long time. For the last few weeks I had been learning to take everything to God in prayer so that's exactly what I did. Last Thursday night I still felt fine but I had a bit of a cold so I prayed for God to take it away and I woke up in the morning with this. Personally I would rather have taken the cold. And every time I prayed for healing it just got worse and just when I thought I was starting to feel better it got worse again. My faith was really under fire.

Sometimes you get bored from doing chores and the same things all the time, but don't complain. It's really hard when you're too sick to do the things you normally do. After hardly being able to eat for a week, loosing nearly ten pounds (and I'm fairly small as it is), and being extremely weak, I was pretty well left in bed a few days. Then you see that Mom could use a lot of help but you can't help her and when you offer she sends you to bed. So don't ever complain about all the work you have to do; thank God for the health that you can do those things.

Anyway, I have a lot to do but I'll try and post again early next week. Blessings!

Monday 21 April 2008

Are We Available?

I feel this to be a critical question for all Christians. We all want God to use us to do great things but are we truly available. You may find yourself hesitating to surrender your will to God and become fully available because He might ask you to do something you don't want to do. We need to realize that God often has much different plans for us than we have for ourselves: bigger and better. No, it doesn't always seem that way but we don't always see what He sees. It isn't always easy and that's the whole point. God doesn't ask us to do easy things but the hard things that are much more rewarding. We may have a great long term vision for the future, but we're so focused on that, we forget to take the necessary steps right in front of us to get there. It may seem small and pointless but have you ever considered that it might just be your training ground?

God doesn't ask us to have it all figured out. What He does require is that we trust Him and be obedient to His will, available for His work. We have an extraordinary God who uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

God bless!

Wednesday 16 April 2008

Looking Up

It's been hard having to neglect my blog and it almost feels like I'm running out of things to talk about when I do have time to post. Funny because my life is busier than ever right now. I've been helping my sister out quite a bit, babysitting, trying to cram in a little schoolwork when I can. I feel like time is swallowing me up; there's so much to do but not enough time.

These last few weeks I've learned to be a lot more dependent on God, learning to take everything to Him in prayer. I'm starting to see what it really means to worship in spirit and truth and having fellowship with the Lord right throughout the day and not just in my quiet time or church. In all things we need to look to Jesus. He is everything and we are nothing and can do nothing without Him. Our very breath of life depends on Him for He is the giver of life.

I need to do a chemistry experiment this afternoon yet but I hope I can get something in later.

Saturday 12 April 2008

I'm Back

Sorry, I've been trying to get a post in all week but something kept coming up. I feel like I've had a really busy week but gotten little accomplished. And yet, I've learned a lot. Mainly that I have to be completely dependent on God in all things. Also, the importance of diligently working at the task right in front of me. Some of you may know the feeling; we have a great vision and great things we want to accomplish and here we are inching along not really getting anywhere. But at the same time we're making great progress. We are preparing for great things. We are taking small steps toward the goal but they are very necessary. Things don't happen overnight. We can't expect to wake up one morning and have our greatest dreams fall in our lap.

One of my dreams is to one day serve in Ghana and here I am dragging through my schoolwork, trying to do other things to keep moving. But if I can't be faithful in the small mission fields God has placed me in, I won't be faithful in the big ones later. I've noticed this week that I'm really in a mission training ground. It's easy to get discouraged and discontent with the small hard things we're doing but they are extremely important. Our calling is to seek, serve, love, and learn more about Jesus, to seek His favour and for that we will have great rewards.

Blessings!

Tuesday 8 April 2008

Anyway...

Sorry, if I don't get a good post in for awhile. I'm really cramming to get schoolwork done.

Friday 4 April 2008

Why Do We Get Discouraged?

I'll start by saying that I tend to get discouraged easily. It's so easy to look at areas of your life that are lacking and say, "If I could only be able to do this or could only fix this area of my life." This is good and we need to look at areas of our life that need work but not to the point that we get discouraged. It's easy to look at others and see all the things they can do that we can't and all these character qualities that they have totally together and feel like a total failure. But the truth is we aren't supposed to compare ourselves with each other. In school when we did track and field and short distance running, one thing the teachers always stressed is don't look back because it slows you down. And it does. We are called to run the race and if we look back or turn to look at the person next to us, we slow down.

Another thing is that maybe if someone has something in their life all together where you're lacking, you might be strong in one area where they're lacking. I often get discouraged because I can't sew but I cannot let this weigh me down. It would be great if I could and the sooner I learn the better, but I'm not in a do or die situation; I still have time. On the other hand, there's things that I really don't mind doing. I've learned to enjoy doing dishes (usually) and for me cleaning showers and toilets is really not that bad. No, it's not my choice chore, but it's got to be done and I don't like dirty bathrooms. It's the same with character. I have to be honest that I do have a warmer temper under me but by God's grace I can work on it and change that. Even when we look at great men of God, they don't have it all together. King David was an adulterer and yet was a man after God's own heart.

So let us not be discouraged but run the race with perseverance and endurance and press toward the goal. Great will be our reward.

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Warming Up

This week, babysitting has brought along its own set of challenges. Mainly the lack of consistency in my quiet time. I'm so used to waking up and grabbing my Bible of my nightstand and now I can't really do that anymore. I often don't have time till later on in the day which is often really hard. In the morning (if your not too tired or if you don't have to rush) your mind is free to focus and concentrate but later on it's filled with other things, you get distracted and you can't concentrate. Yesterday was one of these days where I couldn't get focused because I knew my mom would be calling me any minute to help with supper.

The other night I woke up nice and warm and comfortable but I really needed to go to the bathroom. Well, seeing it to be very necessary, I dragged myself out of my warm bed to go to the bathroom. When I came back, my bed was cold and so was I and so I had to warm up again. It just got me thinking that often we decide to take breaks from our spiritual life and when we come back we find it cold and need to warm up again. Physically, we need to take a break every now and again but in our Christian walk we need to run with endurance. If we decide to take a break, we come back finding that the fire has gone out and needs to be lighted again. Just a thought although I don't know if it makes any sense at all.

Blessings!