All Things New

While driving in my car today, God spoke deep into my heart about contentment.  I was listening to a podcast sermon by David Platt (imagine God speaking through that  guy). The point David was making was about being single vs. being in a relationship. He challenged my idea of thinking by stating that singleness and  marriage are both gifts from God . I think many of us have viewed marriage as a gift and singleness as the absence of the gift. That couldn't be more wrong. It is easy for us to understand marriage as a gift, but singleness is proven valuable many times in the New Testament, especially in 1 Corinthians 7.  David Platt continued to challenge me when he said the issue is more than deciding whether we have been given the gift of marriage or singleness; it is whether or not we are content in God.  For me, this applies to more than relationships. I think many of us are torn between two things, even if both options are great: singleness or relatio...

But He said to me,  " My grace is sufficient for you, for   my power is made perfect in weakness. "  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then,   I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 This verse came alive to me today, very unexpectedly. I was studying for MT when I came across this verse. I've read this passage many times, and even quoted it. But today, it just clicked.  Earlier in the chapter, Paul is talking about "a thorn in the flesh" and a "messenger of Satan to harass me". He pleaded with the Lord multiple times to take it from him, but God responds by telling Paul that His grace is sufficient and that in Paul's weakness, He is actually powerful.  This really hit home for me. Recently, I have had my own "thorn in the flesh". I hav...

God showed me a glimpse of my heart yesterday, and I wasn't too fond of what I saw.  It had been a bit of a rough morning, so I was journaling and praying about it. (And to be honest, probably whining a bit, too.)  I felt as if I was stuck in a place of limbo -- God wasn't fulfilling a specific desire, but He wasn't taking it away either. I was begging God to show me His purpose, to let me know what exactly it was that He was wanting me to learn in this situation, when the next words out of my mouth stunned me into silence : "You already took a big part of my life away. What more do you want from me?" As I uttered those words, I sat frozen and in shock. For the first time in a while, I realized that I was still upset with God; more than that, I was indignant and downright  angry .  I felt wronged by what God had taken out of my life. It was mine, after all. Right? Hadn't I been good enough? If He was just going to take it away, why did He even giv...

I was in the 6th grade. Mr. Adams was taking my class over to the library to check out books. We walked in and the librarian had the news playing on TV. At first, I didn't really pay attention. Soon, the librarian and the other teachers were telling us all to be quiet. That's when I first noticed that something was wrong. All the eyes in the room were locked to the television; no one was moving or talking. Finally, I looked at the TV and I saw the images of the towers falling.  As a 6th grader, I didn't really understand a lot of the implications behind this terror attack. I knew it was horrible, and I felt compassion for the families that lost loved ones. I had never paid much attention to the American flag or the pledge of allegiance, but in the days to come, they both became very important symbols. The moment of silence was implemented in the mornings at school, which was another new thing. I had never thought much about the Middle East, but everyone was talking about...

God knows what He is doing.  Obvious statement, but sometimes it takes me a while to see the obvious.  He has been showing me His faithfulness and provision in the area of friendships.  Take Anna Humphrey for instance. I've known her since freshman year, but not too well. Lately, however, God has brought her into my life and we have been able to become closer. Turns out, we've been going through some of the same issues, and talking with her is such  an encouragement. God's timing is perfect, and He knew exactly when our paths should intersect. Ecclesiastes 3 says, " For everything there is a season, and  a time for every matter under heaven." God knew exactly when Anna & I would be able to connect most, even though we've been around each other for some time. He set up that community. After all, He wants us to be in community; that is why He blesses us with friendship. Proverbs talks about iron sharpening iron, and John says that there is no greater...

I am an oversharer.  When we hear that term, most of us think of the people who give way-too-detailed descriptions of their bodily functions, or those who post every move they make as a Twitter update.  But for my purposes, being an oversharer has a different meaning. I would loosely define it as someone who shares deep and intimate parts of their lives and relationship with God with people outside of their own personal inner circle.  Hopefully, that makes some sort of sense. Basically, someone who's not scared to be vulnerable (in a productive way) with others.  I have not always thought of myself as an oversharer. In fact, it didn't really cross my mind until yesterday, when I shared some deep parts of my life and what I'm learning with a girl I barely know.  I've always considered myself a pretty private person. I can be vulnerable with God and with those extremely close to me, for the most part anyway. But recently, I've seen how that has progressed to s...

I love to bake. This is something I have recently discovered. I've always liked to bake (and cook, for that matter). However, until I moved into my apartment and finally had my own kitchen (besides the fact that I share it with 3 other girls), I didn't realize how much I enjoyed it. Now, I'm not an amazing chef -- I don't make 10-course dinners or spend hours meticulously decorating cakes, and I don't really have the time or funds to make a lot of things completely from scratch, but I would say my creations are fairly edible. :) (Part of the reason I love fall is all the awesome seasonal things available to bake!)  So now I know that I love to bake. And I also know that I can do it for the glory of God. We've all heard about using our "spiritual gifts" to serve God and those around us, and that is a very valid point, one that should not be taken lightly. 1 Peter 4:10-11 says , "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as g...

A typical week for me looks like this: Monday: work and frantically completing homework and assignments due the next week Tuesday - Friday: 6 shifts at work, hours and hours of class and homework, observation hours, and ministry duties Saturday: try to recover from exhaustion, catch up on what I'm behind on, and catch up with friends Sunday: church, work, and preparing for the week to come Basically, Monday-Friday I spend a lot of time waiting for the weekend, Saturday I'm too exhausted to think about anything, and I spend half my time Sunday wishing the weekend would be longer/dreading the week to come.  This is not healthy, and not how God intended it to be. I find that my mind is constantly moving forward to the next list of things I have to get completed instead of focusing on where I am in the moment. Often during the week, I am pretty much useless to God because I don't have time to look for opportunities to serve or share the gospel. It's hard to find...

Sadly, more of who we are and what we feel comes from external forces rather than within ourselves or from our Creator.  Yeah, that's a bold statement. And yes, it's a generalization. But this is something that has been gnawing at me for a while now.  This really came full force in my mind when I was talking to my roommate on Thursday. Some things in her life weren't going so well, so we began discussing what effect that had on her relationship with others, her relationship with God, and her own heart. Through some really refreshing dialogue, we came to the conclusion that too often, we rely on things outside of ourselves and our control to shape our relationship with God. It's easy to worship and glorify God when things are going great; to live with integrity when you are unchallenged. The difficulty lies in the times that life gets tough. How easy is it to praise God when an area of your life is suffering; to hold fast to integrity when the wrong choice appears to ...

Lately I've noticed that people of our generation are very concerned about our rights and what we are entitled to, usually without recognizing the other person/people involved. We want what we believe we deserve. (Maybe it's not just my generation, but as a college student, those are the people I interact with.)  I see this take many forms in our daily lives.  "She has no right to get angry with me about my dirty dishes. It's my house, too."  "Why is this old man driving so slow? I'm going to be late for work." "I should get the last say in the argument. After all, she's wrong." "I'm not going to go meet people. If they want to get to know me, they can seek me out." "So what if I sass my parents? They shouldn't treat me like a kid."  "My professor better give me an A...I mean, I showed up to class. Those paper grades were unfair." "My boss is such a jerk. So-and-so wears shorts to wor...