Merry CHRISTmas!

Due to the lack of computer, it’s been six months since I’ve written. I can honestly say that God has changed me more in this period of time than in my entire life. He has taught me to have the right perspective on life; to fall in love with the struggle. He has taught me more about the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22&23 – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I continue to learn how detrimental these qualities are to being a true follower of Jesus.

I’ve learned to approach God differently. When we pray, we are stepping into the presence of God, but we tend to take prayer a too lightly. If you were literally in the presence of God seated on His throne of jewels and angels and all of His radiant glory would we just walk in and say “Hey, I need money, God. Give me this or that”? Something to think about.

I’ve been reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan with my women’s Bible study. I recommend it to everyone! It definitely makes you realize how powerful our God really is and how we forget so often.

Today was Christmas. The question I was faced with this season is why do I only think about the birth of Jesus one month out of the year? Why do “Christmas songs” have to be confined to December? There was one song that followed me around all month.

Oh, holy night!
The stars are brightly shining
it is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt it’s worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!

We were nothing until Jesus arrived! He brings meaning and purpose to our lives! It’s amazing how we think that the plans we come up with for ourselves are better than following the path that Jesus began for us 2000 years ago.

2 Corinthians 1:9&10 “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us.”

Thank you for your birthday, Jesus!

Americans’ Idols

So, this morning I auditioned for American Idol.  Yes.  I know.  It was the second time and I didn’t get through.  But it’s fine! I’m always up for an experience.  There were about 11,000 people there.  From 4am to 8am we all waited outside in a line just to get into the stadium.  After we entered the stadium, we were assigned seats where we had to sit for at least 2 hours, if you are one of the FIRST to audition.  I was there for about 4 hours.  In that amount of time you over hear maaany interesting conversations all around you.  Two gossip girls were sitting somewhere behind me talking about “kicking his ass”, whoever “he” is, and going on and on about there dramatic “ass-kicking”.  I shifted my focus to something else and later I recognized their voices again: “We need to pray! Oh, God, help us through this audition.  Please, make the judges like us.”

After the 4 hours of sitting, we were finally called up to audition, which really was just another 45 minutes in line.  A girl standing behind me started talking with me about music and the auditions and what not.  She would bounce back and forth between our conversation and the group of people’s in front of us, inserting her own frivolously placed profanities into her sentences.  She asked me what I like to do for fun besides sing.  “I do hair, read, go to church a lot,” I said.  Her face lit up.  “Oh! You’re a Christian?” and I said yes.  Then she went on to say “I was a missionary…like a couple months ago.  But then I quit because they wouldn’t let me do music.”  I didn’t really know what to say.  Then I found out she was 17.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart.  And lean not on your own understanding.  In ALL your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” -Proverbs 3:5

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with THANKSGIVING, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” -Philippians 4:6&7

In Proverbs 3:5 I emphasize “ALL”…Revelation 3 talks about the “lukewarm church”.  God says, “So then, because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth”.  We tend to forget about God until we need something.  We don’t talk to Him unless we are in trouble.  Nobody even knows that we KNOW Him because we want to make our own rules, but still ask him for help when something doesn’t go our way.  Unfortunately, a lot of times, we have to hit rock bottom for us to see that God has been trying to talk to us.  And he does amazing work at those times! But, we don’t have to wait until everything is going bad to give him recognition because we should be trusting and acknowledging Him in ALL our ways, ALL the time.  In doing that, the bad things don’t seem so bad.

In Philippians 4:6&7 I emphasize “THANKSGIVING”.  We ask when we are in need, which is perfectly fine, except we forget to thank Him for the prayers He’s already answered.  LIFE itself is a gift from God.  We are not here on our own terms. We did not just spontaneously generate from nothing, because if that were the case, I’d probably join right along with the unhappies in the world.  But our lives are valuable and full of meaning and purpose. So things seem to be the worst ever and life sucks… remember you HAVE life.  Beautiful ETERNAL life through JESUS CHRIST. Our bodies are so wonderfully and perfectly made by a Creator who LOVES us dispite all of the times we take Him for granted.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…Yet in all these things we are MORE THAN CONQUERERS through Him who loved us.” -Romans 8:35&37

So rejoice!  We are MORE than conquerers! Be productive in your high points and in your lows.  His love and mercy is 100% ALWAYS there for the taking.  I can say all of this in confidence because it is part of my testimony.  I once was lost and He saved this wretch! The dictionary defines “wretch” as a deplorably unfortunate or unhappy person, a person of dispicable or base character.  I was that! So, as I stated in my entry about loving the world and the things in it, don’t! It will not remove that wretched, unhappy and broken feeling from your heart.  Only God can, and only God will.

Across the Universe

Why should I love a world that won’t love me back?

“Do not love the world of the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world – the lust flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world.  And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” -1 John 2:15

There God goes with His promises, again.  He has made us so many promises if we will just hold up our end of the deal and it makes me wonder why we try so hard on earth to to do things to feed our flesh that don’t even last a lifetime! SO, when we can truely have FAITH that he will give us what he promised, all the things of this world slowly lose value. 

Mark 10 talks about the difficulty of riches.

“…But Jesus answered again and said to them ‘Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ And they were greatly astonished, saying amonth themselves, ‘Who then can be saved?’ But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.” -Mark 10:24-27

Obviously it isn’t a sin to HAVE money, but it is a sin to worship it (or anything else that isn’t God).   Everyone worships something, whether they call themsleves Athiest or Buddhist or Scientologist but it all comes and goes.  God is our only constant and our ONLY way into Heaven is through Jesus Christ.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” -Hebrews 13:8

Praise Him for THAT!!

The Secret of Life

Fact: Laminin, a major component of basement membranes, has numerous biological activities including promotion of cell adhesion, migration, growth, and differentiation, including neurite outgrowth. It can be used as a thin coating on tissue-culture surfaces or as a soluble additive to culture medium. Laminin has been shown in culture to stimulate neurite outgrowth, promote cell attachment, chemotaxis, and cell differentation.

In simpler terms: Every living creature has laminin inside of them…the purpose of laminin is that it basically keeps our bodies from falling apart. It holds us as one united whole.

Here is a scientific diagram of laminin:

And here are actual pictures of laminin:

And that, my friends, concludes my mini lesson on why you are alive.   You can resist the things you “can’t see” all you want, but now I’ve shown you a little bit of something that is vey real.  Do with it what you will. Thanks for reading!

 

“In Christ shall all be made alive.” – 1 Corinthians 15:22

We are not promised tomorrow.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, now…write down all of the things God is doing in my life.  Every day there is something new added to the neverending list and i get so caught up in my own thoughts and activities, those blessings are soon forgotten and, at times, taken for granted.

We just got home from ten days on Maui, Hawaii and I learned so much there.  I learned to love better, to listen better and to think more.

On Maui we went on a hike through pastures and tidepools and rocks.  On that hike I was going backward down a steep cliffside with plants growing on it.  There was a dirt pathway someone had made.  As I decended, I started to lose my blanace and grabbed onto a plant for support.  The plant I chose wasn’t rooted very well, and came out of the ground.  I started falling backward, which would have most likely resulted in me not only mangled in the rocks a hundred feet below (maybe more…I’m not good with estimating) but also taking down everyone below me.  Thankfully, my friend Michael was there with his long arm and grabbed me out of the air.

Now I’ll point out the obvious “lesson” in that story…not being “well rooted” in God’s Word WILL cause you to fall…HARD. But what I brought away from it is in that brief moment, I had no fear.  Clearly I’d thought of the dangers of repelling down this cliffside before i’d done it, and it was weird! I laughed! I was laughing and not afraid.  Michael was angry that I was laughing, so of course I apologized.  But it was on that day that I really understood what it meant to have faith.  If God meant for my life to end on those rocks, God’s will be done.  Throughout the hike, some of the girls were paniced and afraid and I reassured them, “It’s alright! Don’t be afraid! If we slip into a drop in between these rocks and die, we’re going to heaven!” (I was trying to keep things lighthearted.  and their response was, “Well, if I die, that’s not hte way I’d want to go.” BUT, the reality is, it doesn’t really matter what WE want.  That’s what being a Christian is all about.  We put our lives in GOD’s hands and that’s the safest place for it! 

The more I live, the older I get (duh) and the older I get, the wiser i become.  And each time i think “I get it! I’ve figured everything out!” God throws something new in my face. Praise Him for that!

I’ve become a strong believer in the fact that every person in our path is there for a specific reason and by ignoring that, we’re ignoring God.  The people I tend to meet unintentionally point out things I need to fix or change about myself.

I met an older woman on the plane on the way home from the trip.  I talked to her about Jesus, but only for a moment.  I could tell she didn’t want to hear it, even though she said she believes in Him.  I’m young and she’s old and that’s where that pride steps in.  It made me look at myself and my pride issues and I definitely need to work on some things!

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect the will of God.” Romans 12:2

TOTALLY relevant…and my roommate’s dad happened to speak on that in church last Sunday.

What you think determines how you feel.  How you feel determines how you act.