Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God

I was faced with a question this last weekend: Do you remember a time when you loved God more than you do now? I'm sure many of us can say that there was a time in our life that we had a greater passion and zeal for God than we do now. If so, what brought this downslide? For me it was my proud, stubborn, selfish attitude. Along with that, my lack of faith and trust in God.

Early on this year, God showed me that this year wasn't going to go as I had planned it to. For the past couple of weeks I have been desperately looking for a job. I was now presented with an opportunity but with a very low income. I look around saying I need this and I need to do that but I can't do it without money. As I was thinking about this this morning, I remembered the verse:

Matthew 6:33
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

How much do I really trust God for His providence? I may not get all the things I want, but I will get all the things I need. I love how this verse is a promise; Jesus doesn't say all these things may be added unto you or I'll think about it but is spoken with assurance. I also think of a verse in Psalms:

Psalm 37:4,5
Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

Psalm 1:2,3
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Again and again we see great and precious promises but each one is attached to a prerequisite: that we seek God and love Him and delight in Him. I wonder why we often get so worked up about things rather than grabbing hold of God's promises. It would make life so much easier.

Philippians 4:6
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

Here we have another requirement: thanksgiving. One thing I have seen is that God cannot put me into the workplace until I'm content at home. It's like this with so many other things as well; God cannot call us to marriage until we are content in our single life and He can't send us out to another country to be a missionary until we learn to be a missionary at home. Well, I guess that's enough rambling for one day. Blessings!

Psalm 105: 3,4
Glory in his holy name: let the heart of the rejoice that seek the LORD.
Seek the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore.

Mountains or Valleys

I must say that I'm at a difficult place in my life right now where I feel stuck between a mountain and a valley. It seems like the valley is calling out to me "Come, it's easy here. You don't need to climb that big mountain. Why would you make it so hard?" But then I look at the rock that looks so sure. It's an awful hard climb but the view at the top must be incredible. Is it worth it? What if I fall or get hurt? But I know that the Lord is my rock; I read it over and over again in scripture and sing it over again:

The Lord's our Rock, in Him we hide,
A shelter in the time of storm.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry thirsty land;
He hideth my life in the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand-
All other ground is sinking sand.

I'm pressing on the upward way,
New heights I'm gaining every day-
Still praying as I'm onward bound
"Lord, plant my feet on higher ground."

Don't stay in the valley; climb the mountain.

Blogging With a Purpose

Thank you to Sarah and Leah at Follow in His Steps for the Blogging With a Purpose Award. I would in turn like to pass the award onto Shari at Onward Christian Woman and Melodie Joy Wiebe. These are just two blogs that have been a great encouragement to me. I would also like to recognize a few others that have already received the award:

Maria Pauline~Beautiful Grace
Under Southern Skies
Emily~A Heart of Praise
Bethany~Blogging Beth

The recipients of the award are asked to nominate five other blogs with a purpose that have not yet received the award and share them on your blog. God bless!

I Asked God

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.
I was made weak, that I might learn to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy.
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for — but everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all people, most richly blessed.

Quick Update

First of all, I hope everyone had a good Easter. Our was particularly interesting when my sister had a baby on Friday. His name is Alexander James Giesbrecht. It was a good reminder of new life. Brendan liked him until he found out that he took up a lot of Mommy's time and attention (he's a real big Mama's boy). I got to really drive for the first time this weekend which I got a real kick out of. We had some close calls but I didn't hit anything (whew). Last night we went to the Gospel Express Easter Celebration in Stratford. We got home just before midnight so I had a little trouble getting up this morning but it was good. This week I'll probably be helping my sister out some and next week I start babysitting for my brother. That'll definitely be a change.

So that pretty much sums up my life right now and I hope to get a more solid post in later on this week.

Power

Joshua 23:10
One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised us.

Let this be an encouragement to all of us. We as God's children have power given to us by the Holy Spirit. The battle is not ours; it belongs to God. But God fighteth for us and is on our side and He gives His children the power to fight in the battle and run the race. We war not against flesh and blood, not in the physical realm but rather the spiritual realm and He gives the power to gain the victory. 2 Timothy 1:7 says "But God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

Psalm 86:10
Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.

Random Ramblings

So, it's finally time for another solid post and even if it's just a long post of random ramblings, I hope you get something out of it. I've been learning many things the hard way all the way from gossip and the daily decisions I make. I've learned that not only do you reap what you sow, but you also reap a lot longer than you sow, a lot harder than you sow, and a lot more than you sow. Now, I'm reaping the consequences of choices I made over a year ago that I never thought would have any future effect on me. Something else is about the doors in our Christian life. If you see an open door, take it. If you come to a closed door, don't camp out in front of it waiting for it to open because then you're useless for anything else. And don't force a door open because it'll only end in a disaster.

There's also been something else on my mind that's going to need a little more explaining and I'm not sure if it'll make any sense at all but here goes. As I look around, children and youth nowadays are in a sad situation. Each one feels that they need to conform to a certain likeness in order to be accepted. They require a certain image, opinion, political viewpoint, or way of thinking in order to be accepted by their peers. By doing this, they wear a mask and completely forget who they really are. They may be able to tell you what they believe but have absolutely no support for it. Why? Because it's not what they believe. It's merely been adopted from someone else. Our generation has become afraid to be different. Our culture and the media has set up so many ideals that everyone is trying to reach. There's the ideal body image, the ideal career, spouse, family, house, lifestyle. Everybody's looking for or trying to work towards these ideals. They put all their time, energy, and money into these things hoping to achieve a certain level of wealth or prosperity. They feel that's where their happiness lies and they only come out disappointed. One day they realize that their ideal doesn't exist or it didn't bring the satisfaction hoped for. They look back feeling as if their whole life has been wasted, thrown away. I have yet to find a person who has a perfect life, the perfect spouse without fault, the perfect house. Many people think that if they only had so much money, they would be happy. But it's never enough. The more they have, the more they want.

The scary thing is these falsehoods have been drilled into the minds of children. That if they're pretty, famous, have lots of money, they'll be happy. They idolize movie stars and celebrities and all their glamour, glitter, and gold not realizing they are some of the unhappiest people yet. They wear a mask in front of the camera that looks good but inside are torn apart. They get into drugs, have broken relationships, suffer from depression and the list goes on. By looking up to these people, children too begin to wear a mask and don't know who they are anymore.

What are we putting into the minds of children? Are we encouraging different lifestyles or asking them to go along with everyone else? Are we putting false ideals in front of them? Or are we pointing them to the cross showing them that only Jesus can bring true fulfillment in their lives? What are we doing for the next generation?

Sorry that was so long, but I hope you got something out of it. Blessings!

A Child's Love

On a hill far away
where a wooden cross stood,
A child was kneeling,
praying hard as he could.

His hands pointed northward,
folded ever so tightly,
His mind clear and focused
on the Lord God Almighty.

His prayer today
was for those he loves dearly.
His father, his mother,
and his baby bro' Billy.

Take care of our needs, Lord,
though I know that you will.
Bless daddy, and mommy, and
my baby bro' Bill.

Watch over our house
and keep us from Sin,
Come enter Lord Jesus.
Come Enter.
Come In.

Copyright (c) July 7, 2000
Joe Medrek

I apologize in advance if I don't get to posting for awhile. It's a really busy week. God bless you all!

Winter Wonderland

Well, it still doesn't look like spring. We got another snowstorm last night and it's still really coming down. I just can't wait until spring when the trees green and the flowers bloom, and strolls along the beach at sunset and long walks through the woods. To wake up in the morning with the sun warm through my window and hearing the birds singing. Now it feels like only a dream but in a few months, a warming reality.

Where's Spring?

So last night we got freezing rain and ice pellets again and lots of snow over top and it's still snowing. If things don't change soon, I'm afraid we might have a white Easter again. Well this means that I don't have much to do today except bake muffins, read a book, listen to a message and so forth. Lord-willing, I'm going to be able to get back to my schoolwork soon. See y'all later!

Something Random

Psalm 62:5-7
My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defense; I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.

. . . In the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.

My life is pretty boring right now. Kind of stuck without any schoolwork to do. Sounds exciting, eh?

Is there a hymn or a specific verse of a hymn that makes joy rise within you or bring tears to your eyes? I have several of those but I'm only going to share one right now.

And Can It Be? (verse 3)
Charles Wesley

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night.
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray:
I woke- the dungeon flamed with light!
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Amazing love! how can it be.
That Thou my God, shouldst die for me!

So time for you all to share so drop me a comment. Please note the hymn title, author, and verse number.

Blessings!