365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 325

I started reading the next chapter in The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth by John Maxwell; it is about the law of consistency. I so remember hearing that word a lot in those early days of motherhood. How consistency in discipline and setting up routines for your children are the key to building a good foundation based on order and obedience. Consistency really is the grounding factor. The attitude of the heart, the good works, the thoughtful prayers, the time taken to worship and praise the Lord can be done every day. We have the power within us by the Holy Spirit to consistently work at being more and more like Jesus. Maybe just maybe by the end of our lives, our grandchildren will say she was always there for me, always loving and always generous of heart. “Always” is what we strive for when we work on consistency.

Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 316

Reality TV has a special quality to it. It’s real. I love to see the interaction between people and what is said and not said. It is really a fascinating study on people and our relationships with one another. Survivor is my long-time running favorite reality show. Last night, a tribe member that was in a 5 girl alliance made the choice of going to another girl in the alliance and suggested voting out another girl in the alliance that she was personally getting annoyed with because of all her strategy talk. Unfortunately, the girl she told went to “annoying” girl and told her. The “annoying” girl went to the girl that started this all and asked her if she talked to so and so about voting her off. The girl that started this all chose at that moment to lie. At tribal council, it was mentioned in the discussion that “trust has to be earned”. And yes, they voted out the girl that broke the trust. This morning as I was thinking on this statement I was able to see how our trust in God works in the same way as with others. Trust is earned. When we meet someone for the first time, some of us more than others will be more naturally trusting but the truth is that it will take some time and getting to know this person before a real trust is formed. This real trust, however, must be maintained. If you lie to a person like this girl did, that other person has lost their trust in you and it will take more time and effort to regain that trust. The beginnings of trusting God will come more easily for some depending on what has happened in their life and what kind of foundation if any was built with learning about God as children. But to get to that “real” trust you have to get to know God. The more you study and pray, the more time you are spending working on building up the “real” trust, the deeper that trust will go. You have to keep working on getting to the point where you really know God and with that knowing you will have a “real” deep trust in Him. The things that happen to us in this world will not shake you. You will be able to overcome all trials and tribulations because you know God is always with you, never fails you and will never forsake you. Evaluate your trust in God this week and commit to working on building up the “real” trust through prayer and study in His word. The reward of having that trust is valuable beyond measure.  

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

 

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 306

 

The movie After Earth with Will Smith is filled with parallels of biblical concepts. There was one of a beautiful example of how the Holy Spirit is always with us. When we are really connected to God then the power of the Holy Spirit grows within us. The movie is about a father and son who find themselves back on planet Earth which is currently hostile to human survival. The father sends the son out on a mission to save them both otherwise they will die. But the son has a communication devise on his arm and a video devise on his back that keep him in contact with his father and the father is able to see everything that could try to harm his son. The son finds himself in dangerous frightening scenarios and the father calmly talks him through them, helping him calm his fears and focus.

Over the course of the mission, the son is growing in his confidence and finds himself rebelling against the father. The son ends up doing something very dangerous and ends up without his communication devise so he can’t talk to his father and hear his father. But his father can still see all that is happening and is still talking to him like he can hear him. There was a beautiful moment when the father was talking to the son to calm his fears and the son not being able to hear the father was grounded in what the father had taught him. So when the father says , “take a knee” , the son was taking a knee. In the end it was like the power of the Holy Spirit came to fruition within the son and gave him the power to conquer his fear. The father was with him every step of the way.  Our journey of faith is like this mission: we accept Jesus into our hearts, work on building a growth foundation and connecting relationship with God and the Holy Spirit will work within us and the fruit of that relationship will be demonstrated in our character. Fostering that relationship is the key to the fruit of the Spirit growing within us.

2Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 92

Sometimes during a sermon my thought process sticks to one word said and the rest of it becomes a blur. The word that had me going off in my own thoughts was convicted. It is likely many words we use and hear and understand the meaning but couldn’t put it into a definition. So, I got onto the handy dandy Google site and got the definition of convicted or conviction: a fixed or firmly held belief. Conviction isn’t just about belief but about the groundedness of that belief, the solid foundation of that belief, the belief that doesn’t waver in the sifting sands of this world. I remember an when an earthquake hit in southern California when I was about 16. Usually, the earthquakes always came in the early morning hours and you slept right through them so this was my first experience of the ground beneath me shifting in this jolting rolling motion. I was drying my hair in the bathroom when it hit and immediately tried to get to the doorway where we were always taught you would be safer if the building/house collapsed. The ground was not what it always was. It was all over the place and walking those 4 feet the doorway seemed to take an eternity and be the greatest of challenges. By the time I made it to the doorway, the earthquake has stopped and my emotions bubbled over into a torrential rain of tears. It was hard walking those few feet with the shifting foundation below me which is what is like when our spiritual foundation is not solid. Would you rather walk on a solid surface or in a jungle where there may be quicksand in any step you take or on an icy driveway where you slip and fall? I want my walk to be on solid ground and that solid ground comes from the one and only Jesus and the Word of God. How convicted am I of what I believe? I can honestly say that my convictions have been on shaky ground at times but the more I am in his Word and working on living out the Word within my life the more I feel the foundation getting stronger. I think it will always be a life-long process of working on keeping the foundation strong and building it stronger but that is where the Spirit will help us in giving us patience, perseverance and hope to keep going, keep fighting the fight, keep walking the walk.

Romans 4:18-22 Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will your descendants be.” Without being weak in faith, he considered his own body as dead (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver in unbelief about the promise of God but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God. He was fully convinced that what God promised he was also able to do. So indeed it was credited to Abraham as righteousness.

365 Days of Prasie Challenge-Day 358

It is always so fabulous to finally get to a place where you know and are at peace with the direction God wants you to take. I have been researching the options on becoming a Christian counselor and have been going back and forth between the conflict of the secular route vs the biblical route.  The question hasn’t been about which route to take as I know that it is the biblical route, however, the path to take for schooling for this has been muddled.  Going the route through the NCCA (National Christian Counseling Association) or AACA (American Association of Christian Counselors) was bugging me and so I have been praying and prayed especially last evening after researching more and feeling more and more confused. So the Holy Spirit worked on me overnight, I laid in bed this morning and let random thoughts come to me and than over pouring a cup of coffee discussed my confusion with my hubbie and had the “Light Bulb Moment”. The school through the NCCA tells you that if you are not already a pastor that to counsel under the authority of the church you will need to be licensed, credential or ordained.  It sounds like a simple fix that they could help you with. I have finally concluded that being a pastor and having that seminary education of a pastor is a part of being equipped to truly counseling others. The word of God says we are to build a foundation of faith with Jesus being the cornerstone.  I have to build a foundation not just of my faith but education and wisdom through the right schooling. I know now that just being a licensed minister so I can counsel is not the right foundation. It feels like cheating. I have to lay the ground work of my counseling ministry with a strong education in the word of God. The NCCA and AACA have some great looking programs and courses that I may ultimately take on but they are not the cornerstone. So, now I will be researching finding my cornerstone and going to seminary. Thank God it’s the weekend where I will have plenty of time to tackle this. Thanks be to the Lord for making my path fully clear. You are amazing!

Isaiah 28:16 So this is what the Sovereign Lord says:  See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;  the one who trusts will never be dismayed.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 142

It is the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic today. In thinking on this, I am so comforted by the thought that people do matter. Even a hundred years later, though we don't know specifically who these people were, we feel compassion and sadness for what they had to go through. Nobody wants to go out tragically, but we cannot escape tragedy in this world. Thankfully, we have an awesome God who can take tragic events like this and use them for good. I have not personally had to deal with a tragic event but I will not worry about it. I will continually prepare myself by cementing in my faith with a solid foundation that will not be shaken. Is your faith growing day by day or are you at a standstill?
Isaiah 28:16 See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 89

Ever heard of fog in the brain? It is a symptom of perimenapause or menapause when you are in a non-thinking, doing anything kind of mode. Your brain just can't engage in anything. I had it yesterday and ended up wasting most of my day because I couldn't think. It's one of my obstacles in reaching my goal of having a successful faithbooking ministry, along with all the other symptoms my body likes to throw at me like migraines and naseau. It is these kinds of times when I feel the most discouraged and down about things. I feel like giving up. But because of my master mind group, I was reminded about the power of affirmations and that I need to create one that would help me get through these down periods. I thought about God and a couple of character traits he has: perserverence and patience. He didn't give up on me. He perservered and kept at me until I finally saw the light. And that didn't happen overnight, so he had to be patient and wait for the time to come. So, with God's help I can perservere through the down times and be patient and wait for the blessings that God has in store for me and this ministry. Keep laying the foundation... I will perservere and be patient for God's timing.
Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entagles, and let us run with perserverance the race marked out for us.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 51

God has been really speaking to me lately about foundations. I think we always want to be at our destination long before we ever are. I have been like a child asking God over and over again "are we there yet?" But everything is in God's timing is a lesson that I am trying to swallow everyday. My goal of a successful faithbooking ministry isn't going to happen overnight. Like any good business it really needs a good foundation to build on so I have been keeping that thought more and more in my mind, meditating or as our pastor described meditating recently "chewing on it" like a cow chews on cud. Foundation. Foundation... What is needed to build up a good foundation? Being in the Word and praying everyday is a very good start and I am sure God will lead me and open the doors when it's in His time. So today I am thanking God for patience in the work he wants me to do with this ministry. It's all in his hands and his plan and I am sure he is shaping and molding me as I persevere through the discouraging times and the disappointment. Keep at it he has been telling me. So, I will keep at it and keep praying and hoping that this ministry will in His time blossom into something wonderful.
Col 1:10-12 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and my please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.