I was recently invited to a conference for women with Lynette Lewis. She is a young lady that is on fire for God, very fashion savy and just a blast to hang out with. She touched on how we all have DREAMS in our hearts. Weather they are short term or long term, they are dreams and who would be be if we didn't dream of something, or anticipate something in our lives to come. Lets face it, we are honest with ourselves, we all have dreams that we take before God. We entertain things in our minds that we hope or dream that God will bless us with. It may be a spouse or a house or children. It may be a dream to become a certain someone someday like a speaker or a teacher or an author. Some of us dream of a nice car or a dream job and some of us dream of making it big with singing, dancing, or photography. Some dream of living in other places of the world or traveling lots. There are so many types of dreams and we all have them. Some are larger than others and some are simple. Some dreams have a tendency to consume us and some are just a slight distant dream that we think "maybe someday". In any case, I think it is good to dream. It is good to keep our sites on something bigger, to anticipate with excitement about what is to come. This is what I believe our dreams are placed in our lives for, to give us HOPE.
The hardest part is that sometimes, our dreams just don't come true. Chalk it up to the fact that our world isn't perfect, or to the fact that some dreams take money and most dreams take energy and time. It is sad to think that sometimes we leave this life with unfulfilled dreams and desires. When that happens, or should we have known it was going to happen, we would have a hard time facing that and better yet, accepting it. Sometimes God says no, and to this day, I don't understand why. I was reading a devotional that said, "David heard the Lord's "no" and quietly accepted it without resentment. That's awfully hard to do. But we find in David's final recorded words a life-sized portrait of a man after God's own heart." This statement grabbed me right out of my seat.
Let me focus on this for a second. David was considered a man after God's own heart. He messed up and sinned just like me, but yet the Bible says he was a man after God's own heart. I think the part that struck me so was how he quietly accepted it WITHOUT resentment. Um, yeah, I am not so good at this. I hear God say no, and I am like a kid trying to find another angle. "well, what if I do this God, then will the answer be yes?" or "okay, God, I am a really good person and what I am asking for is from the desires of my heart, the ones You gave me, so why can't it be yes? I don't understand. What if I go to church and treat everyone really nice, then can I have this thing I desire?" I find myself doing this in the depths of my heart, pleading with God. Trying to make sense of it all. I look around and don't understand why God blessed someone else with something that I wanted so badly. Does it make sense? Is it fair? Why them and not me?
"After four decades of service to Israel, King David, old and perhaps stooped by the years, looked for the last time into the faces of his trusted followers. Many of them represented distinct memories in the old man's mind. Those who would carry on his legacy surrounded him, waiting to receive his last words of wisdom and instruction. What would the seventy-year-old king say?"
The devotional goes on to mention that he literally revealed his deepest desires and dreams of his heart. The Bible reference is (1 Chronicles 28:2). This was his biggest dream to build a temple to the Lord and he was going to die with his dreams unfulfilled in his lifetime.
Dreams are the hardest thing to let go of. Dreams die hard as said by the devotional. We can choose to do as David and focus on what blessings God has given us and what he has allowed us to do in our lifetime. For me, I am blessed to have the dreams of my childhood fulfilled. I have other dreams that I anticipate but I am choosing to be content in whatever my God has given me. This is a daily battle for me sometimes and yet, there are days it seems to be getting easier to do.
"But in his parting words, David chose to focus on what God had allowed him to do—to reign as king over Israel, to establish his son Solomon over the kingdom, and to pass the dream on to him (28:4–8). Then, in a beautiful prayer, an extemporaneous expression of worship to the Lord God, David praised the greatness of God, thanking Him for His many blessings, and then interceded for the people of Israel and for their new king, Solomon. Take some extra time to read David's prayer slowly and thoughtfully. It's found in 1 Chronicles 29:10–19"
I want to do this. I want to follow this prayer of David's heart. He chose to praise God with a GRATEFUL HEART. Not only did he chose to look forward and keep exalting our living GOD, but he did it with a grateful heart, even knowing some of his hugest dreams and desires of his heart never would be fulfilled in his lifetime. His dreams were not selfish, or even wrong, but they were just not in God's plans for his life. SO my question is how did he manage to not wallow in sadness of his unfulfilled dreams?
"Blessed are You, O LORD God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone." (29:10–12)
Then as I read further this morning, Something else jumped out at me as to David's attitude. He never once saw what God gave him through is life as really his own stuff. He saw the people under him (his kingdom) as God's. He saw the money and the throne and the lavish material possessions as GOD's. He seemed to always keep that mindset, which didn't allow for him to have an unhealthy love for money and material things. He was not a greedy man. Can I say that of myself? Can I really look at all God has given me and see it as his. What a challenge!!! I know my husband and kids are his but I still fear them getting hurt or losing them. What if I had the mindset that they really were HIS and when He decided it was time, it was? How do I get that sort of attitude about all in my life?
Steven Curtis Chapman wrote a song that Micah and I sing alot and we love what it means. We even have made up our own word to fit the songs and we sing it when we are scared of what is coming in life, to remind us that it is all HIS. The songs lyrics are:
I walk the streets of London
And notice in the faces passing by
Something that makes me stop and listen
My heart grows heavy with the cry
Where is the hope for London?
You whisper and my heart begins to soar
As I'm reminded
That every street in London in Yours
Oh, yes it is
I walk the dirt roads of Uganda
I see the scars that war has left behind
Hope like the sun is fading
They're waiting for a cure no one can find
And I hear children's voices singing
Of a God who heals and rescues and restores
And I'm reminded
That every child in Africa is Yours
And its all Yours, God, Yours, God
Everything is Yours
From the stars in the sky
To the depths of the ocean floor
And its all Yours, God, Yours, God
Everything is Yours
You're the Maker and Keeper, Father and Ruler of everything
It's all Yours
And I walk the sidewalks of Nashville
Like Singapore, Manila and Shanghai
I rush by the beggar's hand and the wealthy man
And everywhere I look I realize
That just like the streets of London
For every man and woman, boy and girl
All of creation
This is our Father's world
And its all Yours, God, Yours, God
Everything is Yours
From the stars in the sky
To the depths of the ocean floor
And its all Yours, God, Yours, God
Everything is Yours
You're the Maker and Keeper, Father and Ruler of everything
It's all Yours, God (Ava's Yours God)
It's all Yours, God (Micah's Yours God)
It's all Yours, God (Christian is yours God)
It's all Yours, God (My life is your God)
The glory is Yours, God
All the honor is Yours, God
The power is Yours, God
The glory is Yours, God
You're the King of Kings
And Lord of Lords
And its all Yours, God, Yours, God
Everything is Yours
From the stars in the sky (From the House that we live)
To the depths of the ocean floor (to the Health of our families)
And its all Yours, God, Yours, God
Everything is Yours
All the greatness and power, the glory and splendor and majesty
Everything is Yours
Yeah, it's all Yours
We are Yours
The glory and honor is Yours, everything is Yours
It's all Yours, God
My life is Yours, my heart is Yours
My hands and my feet are Yours
Every song that I sing
It's all Yours, all is Yours
All belongs to You
Our gifts are Yours, God
All our dreams are Yours, God
All our plans are Yours, God
The whole earth is Yours, God
Everything is Yours
So my point is if we can be 100% confidant that God, our LIVING GOD is truly in control of EVERYTHING we own and and want to own. EVERYTHING we love and hope to love. EVERYTHING we dream of and hope for. . then what do we have to fear. HE is in control of it all. IT is all HIS!!! And if we are serving Him and we are loving Him, then what do we have to lose. We are going to be blessed and victorious and we serve the ONE and TRUE LIVING GOD!!!! God's plans and dreams for our lives are so much better than anything we can do on our own. If we can remember to hold all of our possessions and dreams loosely and trust them all to God, we will win in the end. RIGHT? Maybe this very mentality will remind me and help me to cope with the answer "no" when I get it.
I leave you with this final closing statement taken from the devotional I read this morning. . . .
Though some dreams remain unfulfilled, a man or woman of God can respond to His "no" with praise, thanksgiving, and intercession . . . because when a dream dies, nothing of God's purposes die.
My devotional that I based this blog off of was the following website: http://www.insight.org/library/articles/bible-characters/when-god-says-no-pray.html
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Surviving Life's Trials
I think there are many times in my life that I have felt that "I don't deserve the bad things that are happening in my life." or That "I deserve better than this." That mentality makes me very discontented because you see, the truth of the matter is I don't deserve to go to Heaven, but yet because I accepted Jesus into my heart to save me, I AM going to Heaven. What I DO deserve is to live a life of damnation in the pit of Hell because I am a sinner. I sin without knowing it even. I sin by the thoughts I have about others when I am judging them ( I justify this to myself by saying I am just speaking the truth, but really it is SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS and wrongful JUDGING), or the way I talk about someone or something that is not maybe quite edifying to their character. (This is GOSSIP but I justify it as just letting someone know I have a prayer request, so I look all Holy or something.) I sin when I fib to make myself look better. (I justify this as I am just stretching the truth a little, not telling LIES.) Oh, yeah, another one that is huge for me is having DISCONTENT in my current circumstances and COVETING what others have. There are so many more I could mention and so many more things I do wrong, but my point is, no matter how hard I try , to become the reformed GOOD CHRISTIAN, I still mess up on a daily, often minutely basis. I am a SINNER, and only by the grace of God am I even allowed to some day set foot through those pearly gates. As for now, in this world, I need to remember that I am not exempt from hardships and trials and I have to just fight the battle with my armor of God on.
I came across a teaching a few months back taken from Walk in the Word - What if I Refuse this Trial? (Job 23:10) For some reason, when something doesn't go as planned for me in my life, I get all anxious and want to know the end result NOW. I will say patience is a virtue that I do NOT have within my possession.
Some of the things that I outlined while listening to this particular sermon series I will hit on below. Hopefully this will benefit someone out there the way it helped me. Hopefully reading and writing this blog entry will once again remind me why things are not always easy and yet we have to stay the course and keep our eye on the goal. . . HEAVEN!!!
I. What if I refuse this trial? (Hebrews 12) I always think this, when things get hard, I want to run away and refuse the trial. Like Jonah ran from God and then God found him, so has God done that for me to. I have learned it is scarier to run from a trial if it is God Ordained than to hang out in a life of luxury that is not in God's will and plan for my life. With God, I can do anything
a. God allows a painful circumstance to come into my life so he can turn me into Gold This one struck me a little bit hard. I always blamed Satan for all the trials in my life and all the hardships, but what if God really does allow us to go through painful circumstances for the soul purpose of turning us into Gold? For me, a new concept. I used to pray the trials out of my life, or at least try to. What if I should welcome them to a certain extent, trusting I will be stronger for them?
b. Embrace that God is the source of this trial, he has chosen it for you
i. He is not abandoning us, he is moving into our lives
ii. God allowed it to come into our lives
iii. He knows the way that I take and when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
c. Trials are like God’s discipline us as his children. Wow, this one hit me. I often give my children a command and they chose to disobey or just do it their way. I know the end result may be painful but I can also see the lesson they will learn from it, where as if I just always made choices for them, they would never really grow and learn. They may never be the confidant and successful person that I desire for them to be, so sometimes, as a parent, I have to step back and allow them to hurt and harder yet, I have to discipline them. I know in the end it will make them stronger and they will grow.
i. We get the blessing if we are trained by it
ii. I do believe God cries with us when we hurt, but he may not actually be crying over what really is happening because he sees the big picture and realizes that we are going to benefit in the long run. We will be blessed for accepting the discipline and instead of getting angry at the source of discipline, we just might anticipate the end result, trusting that GOD always has our best interest in mind and loves us.
d. Trials can lead to discouragement – so lift your drooping hands & straighten your weak knees
i. What if we are in denial
1. I have been in denial alot in my life when a trial hits. I think, "well, God loves me and I am a GOOD CHRISTIAN so He is not gonna let anything bad happen to me, RIGHT?" WRONG. sometimes it happens to be the exact opposite. First of all, I need to get rid of feeling as though I am entitled to a good life and feeling as though GOD owes me anything. It just isn't true. And as for the whole GOOD CHRISTIAN thing, well, that is Self Righteousness, once again and I need to recognize and get rid of those thoughts right away.
ii. What if we are into finger pointing
iii. What if we are into blame shifting
1. There is a problem but it is not because of me, it is because of others around me.
e. Discouragement leads to dislocation.
i. The angle creates the injury – the pressure is still on
1. Submit to God when under pressure and he will help you to stand under the pressure. I struggle with submitting to God's Will for my life sometimes, because the desires I have for my own life are such deep and strong desires.
a. If you try and get out from under the pressure, combined with the angle of the pressure and you are trying to get out, you will be dislocated. Dislocation is very serious – God wants to heal the limp
1. If you resist the trial, or pressure – it lasts much longer. This is true in a lot of ways. I have found for me, that the very things I hate, I continue to be put back into similar situations with the same result. At one point in my life, as I was throwing a "spiritual tantrum" and yelling at God for always allowing these HORRIBLE things to happen in my life, my mom looked at me and kindly stated, "Michelle, maybe if you would strop throwing a tantrum and figure out and learn what it is God is trying to teach you, then maybe you wouldn't keep ending up back in this same situation." Wisely said mama. I think it was at that point that I submitted to the trial in my life at that time and God used it to change my life. He is faithful in that way too. I do believe though that He kept allowing me to be placed in the same situation in different ways, until I submitted to what he had to teach me.
f. Strive for holiness
i. Most people don’t know what holiness is
1. If we had a little bit of it, we would understand it. It is putting behind us all the ways of the world and you get into the soul satisfying saturating presence of God in your life.
2. Without holiness we will never see the Lord
ii. When you get more holiness, you want more holiness. When you get a taste of what it is, you can't stop at just a little bit. God is going for more holiness in us when he uses trials. This is something I needed reminded of again.
g. Dislocation leads to bitterness
i. Get the trial and still refuse to embrace or accept it. I do this often. I am currently doing this now. I am told or made aware of a trial I am facing and then I want to run away and just get mad. I don't want to face it. I want to refuse and not embrace it. I don't want to be TRAINED by it which in turn means I won't obtain the Grace Of God through it.
i. I need to Help others not to fail to obtain the Grace of God
1. Fallen short of the Grace of God. Instead of submitting to the trial, you resist and rebel then refusing the trial.
2. Now you are failing to obtain the Grace of God, whether it be by white knuckling it or just choosing to not walk with God. Maybe this entails not searching for HIM in every situation or for his wisdom and knowledge. Here is one I am really guilty of most often, NOT digging in His word to get his take on things. He gave me the Bible as a guide through his life and I forget to get it out. I should use My Bible as often as I use the GPS. HMMM.
3. Just hanging on to get through. Wow this one is huge. How often do I chose to just hang on waiting for the terrible RIDE to get over, only to find out that I learned nothing and it was just extremely draining. I am always hanging on by the end of the rope or something, instead of diving into the trial to learn what I need to learn sooner, so I can get through the trying times.
4. another way to help others is by encouraging them and not allowing their trial to lead them to discouragement. I have a hard time with this for myself, let alone helping others, but it is what we are to do as friends and fellow believers.
ii. Bitterness (this is a biggie)
1. I hear what word of God says, but I feel I will be safe though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart. Yup, I have said this over some trials in my life. I hate the pain and yet I continue to follow my own stubborn ways. Makes the process a lot harder. Like when you were a kid and going to get smacked and your parents tell you not to put your hands back there. You do anyway, cause you are trying to SAVE your butt and then SMACK, now your hands and butt are both hurt. Hard lesson to learn but stubbornness is not worth the consequences. Another big one is "Don’t ask me to find a placed of joy about this, I will Never get over this." Yeah, this one speaks directly to me also.
2. I won’t let God change me.
3. Root of bitterness -
a. Clouds and distorts the way you see everything
b. Roots don’t stay roots for long – they spring up and turn into a tree. Once they are big trees they are so much harder to get rid of. . .you need alot more maintenance too.
I know this is long but I am wrapping it up. . . .so our attitude is huge when we are facing trials that are placed in our lives. Do we embrace them and allow them to change us and turn us into a shiny piece of Gold for God? or do we allow bitterness and hatred and our attitudes toward our trial take over and cause us more trouble down the road? I know as for me, I don't want to refuse the trials God has given me or placed in my life. I want to grow through them and learn from them so I can come out on the other side victorious. Anyone with me on this?
I came across a teaching a few months back taken from Walk in the Word - What if I Refuse this Trial? (Job 23:10) For some reason, when something doesn't go as planned for me in my life, I get all anxious and want to know the end result NOW. I will say patience is a virtue that I do NOT have within my possession.
Some of the things that I outlined while listening to this particular sermon series I will hit on below. Hopefully this will benefit someone out there the way it helped me. Hopefully reading and writing this blog entry will once again remind me why things are not always easy and yet we have to stay the course and keep our eye on the goal. . . HEAVEN!!!
I. What if I refuse this trial? (Hebrews 12) I always think this, when things get hard, I want to run away and refuse the trial. Like Jonah ran from God and then God found him, so has God done that for me to. I have learned it is scarier to run from a trial if it is God Ordained than to hang out in a life of luxury that is not in God's will and plan for my life. With God, I can do anything
a. God allows a painful circumstance to come into my life so he can turn me into Gold This one struck me a little bit hard. I always blamed Satan for all the trials in my life and all the hardships, but what if God really does allow us to go through painful circumstances for the soul purpose of turning us into Gold? For me, a new concept. I used to pray the trials out of my life, or at least try to. What if I should welcome them to a certain extent, trusting I will be stronger for them?
b. Embrace that God is the source of this trial, he has chosen it for you
i. He is not abandoning us, he is moving into our lives
ii. God allowed it to come into our lives
iii. He knows the way that I take and when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
c. Trials are like God’s discipline us as his children. Wow, this one hit me. I often give my children a command and they chose to disobey or just do it their way. I know the end result may be painful but I can also see the lesson they will learn from it, where as if I just always made choices for them, they would never really grow and learn. They may never be the confidant and successful person that I desire for them to be, so sometimes, as a parent, I have to step back and allow them to hurt and harder yet, I have to discipline them. I know in the end it will make them stronger and they will grow.
i. We get the blessing if we are trained by it
ii. I do believe God cries with us when we hurt, but he may not actually be crying over what really is happening because he sees the big picture and realizes that we are going to benefit in the long run. We will be blessed for accepting the discipline and instead of getting angry at the source of discipline, we just might anticipate the end result, trusting that GOD always has our best interest in mind and loves us.
d. Trials can lead to discouragement – so lift your drooping hands & straighten your weak knees
i. What if we are in denial
1. I have been in denial alot in my life when a trial hits. I think, "well, God loves me and I am a GOOD CHRISTIAN so He is not gonna let anything bad happen to me, RIGHT?" WRONG. sometimes it happens to be the exact opposite. First of all, I need to get rid of feeling as though I am entitled to a good life and feeling as though GOD owes me anything. It just isn't true. And as for the whole GOOD CHRISTIAN thing, well, that is Self Righteousness, once again and I need to recognize and get rid of those thoughts right away.
ii. What if we are into finger pointing
iii. What if we are into blame shifting
1. There is a problem but it is not because of me, it is because of others around me.
e. Discouragement leads to dislocation.
i. The angle creates the injury – the pressure is still on
1. Submit to God when under pressure and he will help you to stand under the pressure. I struggle with submitting to God's Will for my life sometimes, because the desires I have for my own life are such deep and strong desires.
a. If you try and get out from under the pressure, combined with the angle of the pressure and you are trying to get out, you will be dislocated. Dislocation is very serious – God wants to heal the limp
1. If you resist the trial, or pressure – it lasts much longer. This is true in a lot of ways. I have found for me, that the very things I hate, I continue to be put back into similar situations with the same result. At one point in my life, as I was throwing a "spiritual tantrum" and yelling at God for always allowing these HORRIBLE things to happen in my life, my mom looked at me and kindly stated, "Michelle, maybe if you would strop throwing a tantrum and figure out and learn what it is God is trying to teach you, then maybe you wouldn't keep ending up back in this same situation." Wisely said mama. I think it was at that point that I submitted to the trial in my life at that time and God used it to change my life. He is faithful in that way too. I do believe though that He kept allowing me to be placed in the same situation in different ways, until I submitted to what he had to teach me.
f. Strive for holiness
i. Most people don’t know what holiness is
1. If we had a little bit of it, we would understand it. It is putting behind us all the ways of the world and you get into the soul satisfying saturating presence of God in your life.
2. Without holiness we will never see the Lord
ii. When you get more holiness, you want more holiness. When you get a taste of what it is, you can't stop at just a little bit. God is going for more holiness in us when he uses trials. This is something I needed reminded of again.
g. Dislocation leads to bitterness
i. Get the trial and still refuse to embrace or accept it. I do this often. I am currently doing this now. I am told or made aware of a trial I am facing and then I want to run away and just get mad. I don't want to face it. I want to refuse and not embrace it. I don't want to be TRAINED by it which in turn means I won't obtain the Grace Of God through it.
i. I need to Help others not to fail to obtain the Grace of God
1. Fallen short of the Grace of God. Instead of submitting to the trial, you resist and rebel then refusing the trial.
2. Now you are failing to obtain the Grace of God, whether it be by white knuckling it or just choosing to not walk with God. Maybe this entails not searching for HIM in every situation or for his wisdom and knowledge. Here is one I am really guilty of most often, NOT digging in His word to get his take on things. He gave me the Bible as a guide through his life and I forget to get it out. I should use My Bible as often as I use the GPS. HMMM.
3. Just hanging on to get through. Wow this one is huge. How often do I chose to just hang on waiting for the terrible RIDE to get over, only to find out that I learned nothing and it was just extremely draining. I am always hanging on by the end of the rope or something, instead of diving into the trial to learn what I need to learn sooner, so I can get through the trying times.
4. another way to help others is by encouraging them and not allowing their trial to lead them to discouragement. I have a hard time with this for myself, let alone helping others, but it is what we are to do as friends and fellow believers.
ii. Bitterness (this is a biggie)
1. I hear what word of God says, but I feel I will be safe though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart. Yup, I have said this over some trials in my life. I hate the pain and yet I continue to follow my own stubborn ways. Makes the process a lot harder. Like when you were a kid and going to get smacked and your parents tell you not to put your hands back there. You do anyway, cause you are trying to SAVE your butt and then SMACK, now your hands and butt are both hurt. Hard lesson to learn but stubbornness is not worth the consequences. Another big one is "Don’t ask me to find a placed of joy about this, I will Never get over this." Yeah, this one speaks directly to me also.
2. I won’t let God change me.
3. Root of bitterness -
a. Clouds and distorts the way you see everything
b. Roots don’t stay roots for long – they spring up and turn into a tree. Once they are big trees they are so much harder to get rid of. . .you need alot more maintenance too.
I know this is long but I am wrapping it up. . . .so our attitude is huge when we are facing trials that are placed in our lives. Do we embrace them and allow them to change us and turn us into a shiny piece of Gold for God? or do we allow bitterness and hatred and our attitudes toward our trial take over and cause us more trouble down the road? I know as for me, I don't want to refuse the trials God has given me or placed in my life. I want to grow through them and learn from them so I can come out on the other side victorious. Anyone with me on this?
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