Drifting

Drifting - To be carried slowing away by air or current.

I never thought that I would be the Christian kid that went to college and drifted from Christ. Never was it a conscience decision, but little exceptions that caused me to drift far from what I was raised to be. Throughout high school I was warned of the people that would directly oppose my belief and cause me to rethink what I stood for. Now I know that the people that were in direct opposition were not the ones that I should have been on the look out for. It was the ones who did not directly oppose my beliefs. In fact it was the ones who also claimed Christianity. I began to see them making small decisions that I thought harmless, so I made them too. Slowly each decision I made changed the way I saw the world. I no longer looked at the people around me with the love of Christ, but with a bitterness towards their being. A person can tell exactly when they stop walking in the spirit, and it happened to be when I stopped loving the people that were placed around me.
The adventure that I thought I was going on, was different from what I experienced. I look back now on my first year in college and see the creeping in of the one who came to destroy. Darkness did not come by abruptly turning out the lights, but by slowly dimming them till I could no longer see the light that I once walked in so faithfully. Christ clearly warns us of the destroyer, that he is clever and will come in not with a grand entrance, but through creeping in through the cracks. I was ready for direct opposition, I was ready to argue with the atheists about their worldview. But I was not prepared for the smallest of decisions to turn me from walking in the Spirit daily.
A walk with Christ is not easy, never has it been taught that it is. It is a battle, that must be fought daily. A relationship with Christ is so beautiful that no matter how far you think you have drifted from Christ, He is ready to draw you back into his arms the very second you ask for forgiveness.
"For this reason we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it." Hebrews 2:1

Rolling in Crap.

      I have a small black dog, she likes to roll in vile things. I have come to the conclusion she loves the smell of death. The amount of baths she has been given is uncountable. During the summer it is at least twice a week, during the winter, not so much.  Washing the dog is the most unwanted chore at my house. Tonight it fell upon me to wash the dog. I wasn't asked, I just volunteered to wash her, which is not like me at all. I usually come up with anything to get out of the task.  As she jumped in the bathtub (which she has learned to do on her own!) I sit down and start cleaning her.
Once the soap started covering the dog something bubbled into my mind.

     This dog repeatedly rolls in death, some of the worst smelling things I have ever smelled are because of that dog. We clean her every time without fail. This reminded me of humans, and their sin. We roll in sin daily. Like the way my dog rolls in crap. Every time, without fail, God cleans us. He washes away the stink and grime of our sin. Once we are cleaned up, smelling like roses and shining, we go and roll in crap some more. I am in awe of this, He cleans us every time without complaining. I complain every single time I have to wash that stupid dog. Our God, He doesn't even complain, He just loves us through it. He Loves us through our sin.

     Just think about that amazing, awesomeness. God cleans us, every time we mess up. Every. Single. Time. Your past is behind you and God has forgiven you. The slate is wiped clean, just to be dirtied, then cleaned again, by Him. Wow.

What a friend.

Friendship- a relationship with a friend. 

Friend- a person in whom you regard and trust. 

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately, and what really makes a friend true. 

Is it the way we get along with them? The way they treat us? Or, is it the unseen bond between two people that just all of a sudden one day, just appears? 

It could be all three of these, or none of these. Some people put having a lot of friend,s at the top of their priorities. But the way I see it is, we don't need one hundred friends, we don't even need 10. It isn't the number that matters, but the quality. 

Quality meaning, that they accept you for who you are, but are not afraid to hurt your feelings when you need to be corrected. Knowing when, what, and how to say what needs to be said. I have over one hundred friends, but less than a dozen of whom I call my closest friends.

But even your closest friends are still human, and they make mistakes. 

There is only one friend who will never let us down. He is the ultimate friend, one that laid His life down, so that we could live. Now that is a true friendship. 

Often I feel that we don't give Him enough of our time, that we put Him lower on our friends list than we should. But no matter how low on that list He is, He will always be the best friend we have. Unlike man, He won't leave us or forsake us, He won't gossip about us, He won't forget our birthdays. He will always love us. No matter what we do, no matter what we say about Him, He will love us. And that is what true friendship is. Loving someone when they are unlovable. No human alive today is capable of giving unconditional love. But Christ is, and we should allow him to become our best friend.  We don't even have to send him a friend request, He has already sent one to us. So accept His friendship, for he is the only friend that can bring us joy, and eternal life. 

Plans?

Have you ever just sat down, and thought about where life is taking you? About the road your on? Why are you on that road in the first place? Where are you going to be in 5 years? Do you have a plan? 

Planning your life seems to be so simple when you're not in the position to act on those plans. It's easy just to sit back and not worry about what classes you need to take, or what job you need to apply for. But why is it so hard to narrow down what you want to do? What can make these life changing decisions easier? I have one answer, His name is Jesus, and In his word he says "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11. In Christ we have a hope and a future, without Christ we are damned to hell forever. 

Now as a Christians, most of the time we want our plans to be God's will. How do we find out
God's will for our life? The answer is simple; do what you want, and He will tell you if that's His will or not. If God wants you somewhere else, He will move you.  But is that really the way to find God's will for your life? Yes. Does it always work? Yes, if you are submissive to him and you listen, and obey His voice. Will it be easy? No. Name one Christian in history who had it easy! But whether it's easy or not doesn't matter, it's if we choose to obey him once we have arrived where he wants us. 

 So it doesn't matter if we have every step of our lives mapped out, or we have nothing planned at all! If we choose to have faith, and trust in our Creator, then our lives will turn out exactly how God has planned them to go. He hold us in his hand, and loves us unconditionally! No matter what we do, His Will is worked into every part of our lives, and if we choose to obey him, we will glorify him! And isn't that's what it's all about in the end? Glorifying God? 

Meaning in Pain.

Pain - the feeling of hurt. 

When we break it down. What is pain? Is it a thought? A chemical telling your body that it is wounded? What about nonphysical pain? Emotional hurt, and heart ache.  

Physical pain doesn't ever last long. It is a pain we can remove, temporary. But what about emotional pain, is it something we can put a band-aid on and forget about? I'm afraid not. Now as a teenage girl, I have experienced both kinds of pain. From my experience, I found that the physical pain isn't nearly as painful as emotional pain. Why is that?  Emotional pain should vanish quickly as well right? Our emotions change, so shouldn't the pain leave? 

I've often tried many things to get rid of emotional pain. Trying to replace what was lost, forgetting what happened, making up feelings that don't exist. All these ways of getting rid of the pain, failed. I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get rid of the pain on my own. There is only one person who is capable of taking away pain for good. And that is our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. 

With Christ taking the ultimate pain on the cross for our sins, I realize that he can take away our emotional pain. But will he take it away if we need it to grow spiritually? No. Cause it's all apart of his glorious plan. 

Some wise person once told me "Our pain, brings Him glory in some way." That really made me have a different perspective on the way I view pain and suffering. "If there is any meaning in life at all, there is meaning in pain" we must go through our daily lives finding the meaning in our pain. Figure out why we have that pain, and why God has let it in our lives. Sometimes, like in my case, you won't be able to see the meaning. You just have to trust Him. 

Trust?

Trust - the reliance in the integrity, ability, strengths, in a person.

Who do you put your trust in? Is trust earned, or is it given? 

Now we have all trusted someone, who in turn let us down. Why is that? It is because man is inherently flawed. We can't trust in something that has flaws and expect it to keep perfect trust. That is why God tells us to put our trust in him, "... put your trust in the LORD." -Psalms 4:5 There is a reason We are to put our trust in him, it is because he is the only one who will not let us down. Man brings pain, God brings peace. Have you ever thought about the trust we put in our beds? We just hop on them and sleep without any doubts, but, what if there was a visible flaw in the bed? Would we so readily fall asleep? Probably not. It is the same way with man, but for some reason we still put our trust in man. 

It does not matter if we promise something, or we say we will never change, we are not God, we will change, and we will break our promises. Only God is unchanging and capable of not breaking his promises. Name one time where God's character changed, or one time when he broke a promise! You can't! 

Before I learned to put my trust in God, I put my trust in man. Thinking that I could trust this person without having to worry about that trust breaking, but it broke. I thought I would never be able to live, because it was so painfully shocking that they had let me down. Why was it so shocking? I knew they weren't perfect, but I expected them to keep their promise, I expected them not to change, but they did. I was crushed, and it still is very painful to think about it. This is why we are told to put our trust in Christ! When we put our trust in Christ, we don't have to worry about broken promises leading to a broken heart. Now I'm not saying trusting in God is always easy, but trusting him will bring peace. We can trust him completely, for he is perfect. 

 

Faith and Fear

What are you afraid of? Heights? Darkness? Falling? I am afraid of all three. Sometimes I think to myself, "is it a good thing to be afraid? Should I be fearless?" These are the things I was thinking on the recent family vacation.  On our way to Utah, for our cousins wedding, I thought about everything we were going to do. Since it was a three day wedding adventure, there was going to be hiking, climbing, and repelling through the rocky dessert.  I was so scared. Scared of what? The 150ft repel I was going to have to face on the five mile hike through sand!? Yes. Fear had riddled my mind. Right as I started down that repel, something came to me, a part of the bible I had read. "Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand." Is 41:10  I remembered then, God is always watching out for us. I had no reason to be afraid, other than I was one hundred and fifty feet in the air, hanging by a rope and harness! 

Another time when I felt fear, was when I was out evangelizing on the streets. Sharing my faith, it was so scary, I was over come with fear. I should not have been afraid, I had the Spirit of the Living God inside of me. Yet, I was afraid. Or was I ashamed? In Romans 1:16 it says "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of salvation to everyone that believe" There was no reason for me to be afraid or ashamed in that moment. After I started talking to people about my faith, the more bold I became. It was the power of Jesus Christ working through me, to overcome my fear. 

     Today, on the way home from Utah, I was reading a book by Michael Patton "Increase my faith" (wonderful book) and it dawned on me. Fear is the absence of faith. When repelling down the rock, I had no faith in the rope, and harness, therefore I was afraid.  As Christians we boast about how much faith we have, but we are still afraid of talking to the person next to us in line about our faith. 

In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Eph 3:12

We are called to be bold and have confidence in our faith, but yet we have not either.  Often Christians just accept the faith they have and don't realize their faith can get any bigger, I know I am guilty of this. We must grow in our faith DAILY, because we are Christians, it is important for us to grow. Be bold in your faith, once we are bold in our faith we can have no fear.