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 48

I am finding that the fruits of the spirit are very much interconnected at least when it comes to joy. Joy is definitely connected to peace and love. And I am betting it probably associates with the other fruits as well.  The fruits of the Spirit can be like a fruit salad rather than individual fruits. The truth is when the Holy Spirit is within us, we do have all of the fruits and the more we call on the Spirit to ripen this fruit within us, the more we are growing and our fruits are getting peeled and cut and are turning into a delicious fruit salad. This is much like the analogy of the potter and the clay; God molding us into a beautiful pot. Everything is a process. We grow and change and get closer and closer to being what God intended for us, to be more like Jesus. This goal of becoming more like Jesus will give God so much joy. When we truly love God, we will have that motivation to do and be all that He wants us to be and we will be making Him joyful. Relationships are a give and take kind of thing. How well am I doing at truly loving God?

3John 1:4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 217

Praising God for my co-worker friendships. Our company has changed a lot since the new owners took over. Unfortunately, although a small part has been good the people aspect part has become terrible. We've lost benefits and are being micro-managed to the point that people are making comments about just walking out. In the breadth of those same negative comments, however, are the comments that its the people we work with that make it worthwhile. Its good to focus on the good aspects like this and let the others go since there isn't anything we can do about how the company is run. I am thankful to God for the friendships with my co-workers, the laughs we share, the listening ears for our venting and for making going to work a good thing. The situations we find ourselves in may not be to our liking but in the midst you will always discover that its the relationships with others that makes it all worth it. Here's a good quote from CS Lewis on friendship: 

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”

Ephesians 4:29-32 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 171

We had a grand time yesterday afternoon at the new Brunzwick Fun Center. I had a blast trying out arcade games that I have been too timid to try out before. I blasted "the machines" in the Terminator game, road a vitual motorcycle and did a car race against some family members coming in last place. It really isn't about the winning. It was just so fun to try out something never done before. My arm is a bit sore in various places thanks to our bowling game but we all had such a grand time. In the midst of all our fun, my dad slipped and fell on his knee. I don't think any of us actually saw the incident. I just turned around and saw him reaching for his knee with an intense look of pain and knew something happened. It ended the bowling game for him, but thankfully it will just be a sore bruised knee. It was a good reminder that despite those times in life when we are in the midst of joyful celebrations, there are still people hurting in the world. I don't think God wants us to stop our celebrating but rather just be mindful and prayerful about those in the world that aren't able to celebrate at that time. My prayer is that if you are struggling with greif about a loved one or working through an estranged relationship with family or anything that is bringing you sadness and pain that you will look to the Lord for comfort and peace and be led by Him back to a place where you can celebrate and be filled with joy.
Esther 9: 20-22 Mordecai recoreded these events, and he sent letters toall the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebrations.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 165

I beleive there are two key ingredients when it comes to relationship building: time and the ability to open up. I am going to share about the latter. There have been times with small groups of friends where I have shared something on my heart. Those times are forever on my heart as good times because I felt truly connected.  I think that really sharing with friends is a great challenge for many of us. I think we build up walls to protect ourselves but in the end when we share our burdens with friends we often discover that we are not alone in this struggle or we are comforted and encouraged and even given some wisdom passed down through our friends from God. There is a reason that God wants us to foster our relationships in community with each other and yet we still build the walls up. I am praising God for a lady who opened up breifly to me about her life situation and praising the Lord for bringing her into my life. God uses us not only as fishers of people but as encouragers, advisors, caring people, listeners and more. Do you feel you have walls built-up around you holding in feelings and thoughts that need to be shared to be processed? Take your burdens first to God and ask him to help open your heart to releasing your burdens with your community of friends.
Philemon 6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 41

My hubbie and son got me hooked onto a show on AMC called The Walking Dead. Yes, it's about zombies but it is well done and very suspenseful without too much gore or grossness. The human aspect with the relationships is really the big draw for me. Some survivors have banded together and are trying to survive each other and the zombies. Despite the harsh reality of their circumstances and what they are up against, they still have issues with each other. It's one of those things since the very beginning with Adam passing the blame onto Eve and Eve passing the blame to the snake and Cain and Abel and the jeolousy that drove Cain to kill Abel. We pit ourselves against each other when we should be banding together in complete unity as brothers and sisters. Our only hope is Jesus and thankfully we have him to steer us away from those relationship issues, help us through them or help us restore relationship that have already turned south. I struggle with the jeolousy thing when it comes to my parents and how much time and energy they spend on my brother and his family. Thankfully, because of my knowledge on the love languages I figured out they are service love givers and you can see the trend through our lives on when each of us was in need they were there. My brother's family is in need now because their adopted daughter, Grace has issues that no child or family should have to go through. So, I am thankful and praising God for helping me with these issues that can come up within our relationships with others so that I can see them for what they really are and not be thinking just of myself.
Gensis 4:6-7 Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.