Weathered Believers

I find the weather fascinating. Currently it is both cold enough to snow but also just warm enough to rain, with the sun glistening through all at the same time.

 

A funny thing the weather is… as well as my mind…for I seem to relate the current weather conditions to that of a Christian, whom is saved yet doesn’t fully understand what it means to be under the covering of Christ’s blood.

 

Yes, of course, everyone who is a Christian understands that by being saved they now have eternal life in Christ and are no longer spiritually dead (whatever that means to them). But like my last statement states…most of it is whatever it means to them and nothing more. And certainly not what it means in the gospels…

 

Now I don’t mean to pick on new Christian. No, that is not my point in stating this observation. No. What I am meaning to state is that like the weather, though it snows (a person is saved) the snow does not stick for the rain washes it away before it is even given the chance (a new believer or an unknowing long-time Christian gets what it means to be saved and have eternal life, but doesn’t understand nor are they taught so that they may understand what it truly means to be a child of Christ… thus when the cares and worries of the world wash through their Sunday morning teachings, they never get a chance to stick and grow).

 

And yet, like the sun shines through this goofy display of Mother Nature’s falling snow and wet weather…the Lord shines through to the non-understanding believer’s confusion with glistening hope.

 

So, merely with this post, I guess I am trying to say that my mind makes a strange connect to this day’s weather and those uninformed Christians. And that it is sad that understanding believers don’t take up their part in informing those that are confused.

 

We truly should be focused on making disciples just as much as we are with sharing the gospel. For would we not have more help in reaching the lost if more of your fellow believers understood the power of the person living inside of them and what He truly means to them?

 

(if the above post sounds quite out of the blue a book I have been reading is likely the stirring of these thoughts…Victory over the Darkness.)

Walk By Faith

2 Corinthians 5:7 – “We walk by faith, not by sight.”

This passage has always frustrated me. I’ve understood it, yet never known how to accomplish it.I mean if you can’t see how do you know where your going. And yet, there are millions of other passages that support this one. A woman touching Jesus’s hem by faith, knowing that only a touch of his is clothing will heal her. That she need not touch him personally that she could get in trouble for doing such a thing. A man asking Jesus if he is willing, he could heal him. Every story about the blind being healed and seeing. Mouses, Noah, Abraham…all having to believe and have faith will doing there work signed to them by God with out knowing the possible outcome. Or even where they were going.

Yet most of the time I feel so lost by this passage, because it makes me feel as if I am in an empty room filled with blinding light. There are no shadows nor walls, everything is just out of my reach…yet I’m not sure its even there. I just have to guess. Just have to believe. The feelings that consume me are nerve reckoning. Emptiness and the feeling of being totally alone swells over me. I could only pray for the that bright room to turn dark so that the vastness narrows and I could guess my moving shadows where walls are at. Or that maybe my imagination about fabricate something out of the darkness to make me think I wasn’t so alone. Yet with the light, I cannot doing that. For it hides nothing and shows everything. Every flaw in me, and my life. It’s more scary than the darkness.

I know though that I must live by faith and that someday I will grow more accustom to it. That it won’t feel so open ended. That there are goals within reach and not so far off. I know that I can’t live by my emotions, and as a woman that is a hard thing to accomplish. But someday I will fully learn how to curb that, for now though I must try to have patients and practice.

Practice my faith, hold off my feelings without going cold, being the woman God wants me to be.

Dreams and Understanding

Sometimes I think our dreams are meant to torture use. To cause use to want and desire things we can or cannot have. I wonder what is the true purpose for dreams?

My Bible has a message in it that states dreams are given to use by God, so that we may hunger for Him more. This also leads off of the passage I mentioned earlier in Matthew 4:4 – “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’.” That we hunger for God’s word. That verse is Jesus quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3 -“He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”

So God causes us to dream so that we will hunger Him. But He also uses dreams to show us visions. That is where in my mind things get confusing. I know God can reveal His plans for peoples lives and the world through peoples dreams, for He does so in both Isaiah and Josephs dreams (just to name two out of the many listed in the Bible). But where does His visions start and our imaginations begin? Because for me it is hard to tell. Some say that the strange dreams, the ones you are unable to interpret are from God. Where has I have heard that the ones you remember are from God, for how could you forget something from the Lord?

And yet for me, being one that wants to be a published novelist someday, I know that my imagination can cook up some rather strange and unforgettable dreams as well as visions – one doesn’t have to be a sleep to dream!

And because, my imagination runs hog wild, I feel tortured. It plays out for me the things I want most in life. The feelings of happiness, love and safety. I so deeply desire. It makes me wonder are these dreams from God or is the Devil and my subconscious just trying to torture me? Will my dreams come true or will I be running circles once more with my life?!

It’s hard when you don’t understand or fully know.

Can You Add A Single Hour Of Life?

I received a comment today on my entry entitled Lose Your Life to Find It. And I must say I was very surprised by the comment. It was exactly what I was needing to hear for the challenges I have been facing lately. It seems more and more as if I am losing my life, losing the me I have been trying so hard to work for. Yet, as I sit and look at that life that I have come to know and desire, I see that I truly don’t want it. I don’t truly desire it.
But even with that thought and realization it doesn’t make life any easier. Doesn’t make the pain I feel physically or emotionally go away.

This past weekend has been very hard on me, and though I don’t feel like going into any detail, right now. One passage from the book of Matthew keeps appearing in my mind.

Matthew 6:25 - “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…”

Matthew 6:27 – “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

Though I know the verses continues on to talk about clothing and food. I feel like I have to keep reminding myself not to worry about my life – about myself physically or emotionally. That God will take care of me. Verse 6:26 says, “Are you not much more valuable than they [the birds]?” I have to keep reminding myself that I am valuable to God. That if I am within His will I will be alright. He will see to my happiness.

Yet that adds yet more worry to my mind. Am I within His will? Pastor Jeff mentioned a system of trying to figure out if you were or not for choices, major choices within your life. And I’ve found that it works with most things. Some such as a path you are currently on, it’s not so good with helping you determined. Which is all fine and dandy if you weren’t like me and a worry-wart.

I keep having to rephrase the verse, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” to “Who of you by worrying can add a single moment of happiness to your life?” For I find when I worry, I am not happy and there for just lost yet another moment of happiness.

I try too not to worry about my past decisions. For even if they can be changed, I do not want to worry and regret them. If they are supposed to be changed, I am trying to trust in God to tell me. To show me that I need to now reverse something that I have done and continue on from there (cause technically you cannot reverse anything in life).

Other Than Bread

I’ve been reading in my Bible more and more, recently. And what I have been reading has surprised me, yet also has allowed me to understand why I still breathe.

Jesus states in Matthew 4:4 – “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’.”

I cannot eat bread in the way the rest of the world does. I cannot eat most of the food in the way the rest world does. Yet, it was not until a few years back that I found this out. Food allergies are not an easy thing to deal with, and they are even harder for a small child or infant to handle. My mom tells me stories of how I used to never eat or keep food down, as a young child or baby. Yet, I wondered, if food hardly ever reached my stomach how did I survive.

Now, I understand.

I understand why humans must fast, why I still breathe. Man does not survive on bread alone, but on God. If He wants you to live, to survive He will proved what you need. He will cleanse your body as well as your soul. He will also take distraction from your life – like food. That is why fasting is so important. It is a time to get yourself back inline with God’s will.

For me, normal food would have been a distraction. Without the pain I have suffered through within my life, I would have never ended up where I am today. I know this, because it has taken me some time to learn to surrender all to God.

I wanted my dreams and my life, first!

I don’t believe I would have ever placed God in the position He is growing into within my life had it not been for my food allergies – for my inability to eat Gluten or Corn (which in today’s world is in everything!). It is because my dreams and wants were stronger then my desire for God. The want of the things of this world, to fit in and take charge of your own destiny are so strong in humans. Yet, there is a strong desire to know God as well. I have learned to thank God for this hindrance in my life. I know my food allergies can only make me a stronger person in Christ (even though I would love to do without the pain).

Lose Your Life To Find It

It seems more and more, as I read from my Bible and of words from those seeking after God that one must surrender all to follow Him – to really serve Him in all His glory. I don’t know why, but it has never been so clear to me, until now, this surrender.

The surrender of everything I have ever known. I’ve told Him I am willing, now He is calling me to that.

It’s hard to give up the people in your life, your family and friends. Yet the surge of faith that wells up in my heart tells me that I will be alright. That as long as I am doing God’s will, I will have more then my little heart can desire (for me that seems hard to believe, yet I do know that it’s true).

For Jesus says in Matthew 10:39: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

I can’t wait to find the life He has for me.

Yet, I understand that none of this will be easy. I know I will cry my heart out. That I will not want to do God’s will because it is hard and that I will be miserable at times. But, I understand too that no matter what happens God will be with me. That he will be the one I should fall back on.

And though as I sit back and read this entry, I know it sounds like I am just understand these things for the first time. And that is seems like I am swept up in a Bible story-book tale. I do understand.

I am not throwing my life away to follow God. I know, I may never be rich or famous, like any girl my age might imagine. But I don’t care about those things anymore, not truly. A girl can keep her daydreams, yet that’s all they’ll be unless God says otherwise.