Hear Instruction, Heed Correction

Words of wisdom. Let’s take this one to heart!!

The Sacred Grind

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
– Marcus Aurelius

Courtesy of http://www.30sleeps.com

In this month in the past weeks, I have been following the Proverbs each day and found out one particular theme that jumps out at me as if it were the only thing written in the book: How the wise deal with rebuke as opposed to the fool.

In the Proverbs the fool comes in two parts, firstly as the person who is a rebel, any act against God, His laws or even those that the general public follow but are established by God; secondly as someone that is genuinely void of any wisdom, knowledge or understanding. Now depending on the context the word (fool) is used, it is either the one or the other.

During moments every now and then spent with my dad, arguments…

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Peace that passeth all understanding

Sometimes hard decisions have to be made, but if we are truly seeking and following the will of God, He will give peace that passes all understanding. We as humans are limited in our understanding of Gods will and His direction, and sometimes we are confused and don’t know why somethting happened or why God is calling us to a certain action, but we know that with following the will of God comes the peace of God. and the peace of God is perhaps the closest we can get to experiencing the full and perfect will of God! Just wanted to encourage you in that! 🙂

Don’t be afraid to follow where God leads!
Blessings to you,
Eveline

This is true…

Revelation in our hands!

Ranting Session…

Haven’t posted in a while, as I’ve been busy readjusting to life at home again, done with Bible college. Ya know, it’s been harder than I’ve thought to readjust to being at home again! Not because I don’t love being at home, I do. But it’s been hard nonetheless. At Bible college I felt like I was preparing to do great things for God, learning so much new material every day, Bible talk every day, chapel/church every day, my life was revolved around God, around Scripture, and it was just crazy packed full of God. It was amazing. I came home, and it’s different. Now I catch myself feeling like I’m doing nothing for God, I’m no longer in school, paying thousands of dollars to learn about God, I’m not doing anything, I have found myself thinking. I have found myself dreaming about the next big thing I wanna do to better my relationship with God. But that’s exactly what I’m supposed to be doing right here right now, day in and day out, in the routine of work, of life, of family, of church, of fellowship. In the every day mundane things that I do I am to seek a better relationship for God. And here at home it is most definitely much much harder to focus on that because not everyone around you is high on Jesus! While at college I was excited to come home to start doing things for God, to start putting out everything I was taking in. And that’s exactly what I want to be doing. I realized today that even though I may not feel high on Jesus, I AM high on Jesus, because He is number one in my life and I want to glorify Him in all I do, even if I find my days somewhat boring. And even in our boring days, guys, we can be little lights in the lives of everyone around us! Be an encouragement to someone today, fire out an encouraging text to someone to let them know you’re thinking and praying of them, take the time to stop and chat for a while with someone you may run into, ask them how they’re doing, genuinely care about others.. these are some of the things I’m doing to make my life count even in the little things such as these. Okay, this has been a lot about me, I’m sorry. If it has been an encouragement to you at all I am beyond happy, if not, it was a nice venting session for me to get a few things off my chest that I’ve been feeling and pondering. So if there’s anything you can take out of this is that no matter what you do, we can always make it count, and we can always do everything, even the little things that might seem boring and useless to us, we can make them all count for eternity! That’s what I think Christianity in the every day life should look like, make everything count in the long run…as in the forever run! 😉  

 

Colossians 3:1-4  “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

In Messiah…

Rejoice In Trials…

Again… God is faithful! Don’t give up!

Give it up

Sometimes all it takes for us is just to give it up.

Two weeks ago I was home for a job interview- pretty much my dream job. Child care, they would provide for the training (which saves me a year of college and $6000), close to home, good pay, never on weekends, never past 6 pm. Sounds perfect to me! I thanked God for such a perfect job opportunity. So after the interview, I was told that I would be e-mailed about job positions, etc within a week. However, 2 weeks passed and after checking my e-mail 10 times daily for an answers, I finally prayed to God and told Him that FINE I would be okay, but really I had gotten my hopes up, and because I was disappointed it was hard for me to tell God to just show me wherever He wanted me. I have a lot of loans to pay off so a job when I go home is important to me! And so I prayed to God last night to just show me and reveal to me what He wanted from me because I obviously didn’t get this job. Well, this morning, I checked my e-mail, there were two e-mails in my inbox, confirming my position at this job, all that had delayed the confirmation was some things that didn’t get organized as soon as they had hoped. Praise God. That is my testimony to you for today!

What can we all learn from this?

Sometimes all it takes for us is just to give it up-

To hand our worries and cares over to God and know that He will provide. Had God told me this job was not for me, I would have moved on and God would have faithfully proven Himself to me in a different way! But God revealed His plan to me in His perfect timing. And you know what? It’s ALWAYS worth the wait!! It takes effort, and it takes us to trust God. Whatever you may be going through, don’t give up, keep faithfully trusting in Him, because He always has, always will be, and always is faithful to His own. Be patient, fellow believers, God will direct you and guide you in the way that you should go. He is faithful. Always. How Great is Our God!!!!

Psalm 37:4- Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Proverbs 3:5-6- 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.

God is so faithful it blows my mind!

Special Reminders

Wow, God has most definitely spoken to me today, in so many ways. Here at Prairie we just had a Global Connections Conference yesterday and today. I learned a lot about God is doing in the world. For example, I learned that God is providing freedom for millions of untouchables- those who are considered lower than animals, not human, cursed by their god, hopeless mistakes of nature- in India through Dalit Freedom, which is aiming and believes that it is very possible to completely destroy the unjust caste system in this generation! Praise God! Right? These people have value as you and I do. They are not mistakes of nature, they are loved and desired by God. Anyways, I heard many wonderful things, but nothing really resonated with me to the point where I was impacted, until tonight. 

Tonight I was reminded that I am young. And for us young people, there is SO much out there in front of us, there is so much our eyes have yet to see, there are so many people’s lives we have yet to impact, there are so much more for our minds to grasp, there are so many more things God Himself will reveal to us!! And I was reminded today that I need to be patient and trust in the Lord’s timing! I was reminded that I do not have my life figured out, and right now THIS is where God wants me. In a place of uncertainty, in a place of reliance on His guidance. And guys, I encourage you to really let this sink in: that we do not always need to know what we’re doing for God to be working in our lives. We do not always see His plans for our future, we do not always understand why something may or even may not be happening! But God does! And ultimately God is the one in control. It’s better for Him to know than for us to know! So I’m choosing to place my trust in Him, to have faith that even though I don’t know what I’m doing, God knows. And God is my first and my last, my alpha and my omega, in whom I can trust fully to direct me to become the person He has created me to be, to do what He wants me to do, to fulfill the things that are in store for my life! The happiest place I can be is a place in which God is in control of my life! And may this be an encouragement to you also!

Tonight I was also reminded, that you never know! As I was walking out the doors, I noticed an elderly couple behind me was coming through the doors too, and I felt like being nice so I held the door for them! And they stopped, the lady said “Your face looks familiar, is your name Eveline?” Honestly… I felt like saying who are you and why do you know my name and why have I never seen you before?! But… I didn’t say that. Apparently they had been sent a prayer card from Prairie and they had often times prayed for me, and from the picture on the card they recognized me. So tonight I was reminded through these lovely two people that God cares. And that people care. And I was reminded of the heart of elderly people. They are special to me. I have no grandparents close to me who can share their wisdom and insight with me, and for me to have such wise and goodhearted people step into my life to make a difference means the world to me. This couple immediately invited me to their home, they gave me their address and phone number and asked me to visit. How cool is that?! I think it’s pretty cool! It’s so neat how people’s lives meet and how we are impacted by others and how we impact others. I had no idea there were people praying for me, but I guess you never know what kinds of things may be impacting your lives. Tonight God reminded me that I am precious in Him and that He cares for me. 

Tonight I was also given a glimpse of what Heaven will be like, and it makes me smile now just to think about it! “How great is our God, Sing with me how great is our God, and all will see how great, how great is our God!” This is the song we sang. Personally, I have come to realize and admit that I struggle with focusing on God alone when singing worship songs to God. I may be singing my heart out- I love to sing- and I can be thinking of something totally else. My mind wanders and strays from truly worshiping God, with all of me. But I do earnestly desire to worship God, with my mind, body, soul, heart, and voice- not one without the others. But my mind wanders to think of how other people are worshiping, I am distracted by the people on stage, I am distracted by lights, by children, by everything around me that keeps me from worshiping from my heart and my soul! But for this final song, I closed my eyes, I lifted my hand as high as I could, and I sang to God. I did not sing so that the person next to me could hear that I can sing, I did not close my eyes and raise my hand so that people would see my body language and think about how well I was worshiping, I did not close my eyes and wonder if people around me were struggling with distractions like I do… for this one song, I sang to God as if no one was around. It was me, and 100s of other voices singing praise and adoration to our GOD!!! And for once I was not distracted by my surroundings, but I praised God, because God is worthy of praise and I am unworthy of grace, and yet I am given grace- every day. How amazing is that?! A feeling of overwhelming peace and joy and happiness and love and everything good swept over me as I realized, “Wow, this is what Heaven will be like” We will have eternity to forever praise our Father, our God, a chorus of voices just praising God, exalting His name. I can’t wait! Can you?

 

The Deep Simple Truth

Can you relate?

I don’t know how many of you can relate, but I most definitely can, and I’m sure most of us do. So often we let things get in the way of spending even just a small fraction of our time with God… ever wondered why that is? I think this author has laid it out pretty well for us to understand. It’s about relationship, and often we don’t even recognize that in our hearts- we might claim that we do… I know I do. I encourage you guys to read this!

P.s. Feel free to comment any reflections or questions or comments- often times conversation  is a good tool to reflect deeper and to allow just thoughts in our mind actually sink into our hearts and in turn come out in our actions! So I encourage you to comment!

The Real Reason We Avoid Time With God

By Dargan Thompson

A desire to spend time with God is tied to an accurate perspective on who He is.

I rolled over and hit the snooze button on my alarm for the third time.
I had planned on getting up a little earlier than usual in order to spend some time reading my Bible, but, like many other mornings, in the fight between extra sleep and good intentions, sleep won out.Sure, I was tired. I probably needed that extra sleep. But I somehow didn’t see time with God as something I needed.Maybe you can relate.

In the daily struggle to balance different areas of our lives and the limited time we have, almost everything else wins out over spending time with God.

In theory, we all know that time with God is important. Having a thriving quiet time is something we aspire to, like all those projects on Pinterest that we just know we’ll get around to when there’s some space in our schedules, when we finally get our lives in order.

But “getting our lives in order” is always a future possibility, a place even the most organized among us never really reach. For now, quiet time is something we squeeze into our schedules intermittently when we get a few minutes.

We don’t really see it as “avoiding” time with God, we just think that between everything else we have to do, we don’t have time. When we really look at our lives, though, we know that’s not true. We’re all busy, but we could set aside some time. Why don’t we?

The truth is that often, deep down, we lose sight of who God really is and who we are in light of that. When we view God as anything less than who He is, our desire and motivation to spend time with Him wanes. There are many ways this plays out, for example:

God Is Not a Record Keeper.

When we see God as our record keeper instead of our loving father, spending time with Him becomes a chore.

In our sinful, fallen state, it’s easy to slip into seeing God as a distant being keeping tabs on our behavior. This can make time with God into something we feel we have to do in order to be a “good Christian,” which can either make us do it for the wrong reasons, or run in the opposite direction.

Our default is to want to earn our salvation, and when we slip into legalism, reading the Bible and praying become something to check off our checklist to prove to God that we love Him and deserve His love in return. Instead of viewing Bible reading as a time to soak in the truth of God’s love and grace, we search for more rules to follow to please Him.

We let our own religious fervor dictate how we feel about ourselves and others. When we’re well-disciplined, we feel superior to those who aren’t having regular quiet times. But then, when we miss a few days of reading, we think God is mad or disappointed. Like Adam and Eve hiding in the garden, we run from God out of shame.

When we don’t view God as good, we run from Him.

All of us have areas of our lives that we just really don’t want to give over to God. Maybe it’s a particular sin pattern, maybe it’s something we really desire that we’re afraid He won’t give us or will take away from us—a certain career path or way of life, a relationship, our health.

Surrendering our whole lives to God is terrifying if we don’t really believe God is all powerful and wants the best for us—even when what’s best is painful. So instead, we interact with him in a guarded manner, not being honest about how we really feel.

But the truth is, God is nothing less than our loving father who delights in us, wants to spend time with us and wants the best for us. He sent His only son to die for our sins not to simply give us a clean start, but so that we can be with Him and draw near to Him.

If we really saw God like that and felt these truths, wouldn’t we want to strengthen our relationship with Him?

So maybe the answer to our failing to spend time with God isn’t to just resolve to be better, to hop on another Bible reading plan and try harder to accomplish. Maybe it starts with re-examining and adjusting how you are viewing God and yourself. Here are a few ideas of what to do when you find yourself getting “too busy” to spend time with God.

Be honest with God about how you feel.

Confess to God that you’re mad at Him or that you feel like you’re doing fine without Him right now or that you’re fighting for control. Ask Him to give you more of a desire for Him. After all, it’s ultimately God Himself who spurs us to cry out to Him. That means that if you’re aware you should be spending more time with Him, He’s already working in you.

Use the time you have.

Wanting to be close to God is not our default, so we are going to have to resolve and fight our natural tendencies in order to do it even when we don’t feel like it. And you can’t really get in quality time with God by just getting up five minutes earlier than usual. You’re going to have to intentionally set aside some time in order to really dig in.

But also, you don’t have to wait until those appointed times to talk to God. In fact, something like turning off your radio to spend your commute to work in prayer may increase your desire to set aside more time later.

Figure out the best way for you.

Some people need a Bible reading plan. Others find plans too restrictive. Some people need to read and pray in the morning. Some people work better in the middle of the day or at night. Don’t let others’ ideas of how you “should” be spending time with God make it into just a routine or chore.

Any relationship takes maintaining on both ends, but even if you haven’t talked to God in years, He’s not waiting to shame you or ask accusingly “where have you been?” He is always faithful and loving, even when we aren’t.

Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/practical-faith/real-reason-we-avoid-time-god#1TiAlRbsWvhgC6Bo.99