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| Good morning everyone!
I am in my INFO 250 class right now and very much not in the mood to
pay attention. Life has been amazing the past couple of weeks and
the Lord has made His presence known in my life in powerful ways!
I have had some wonderful opportunities to serve people and got to talk
to a few friends about the good news of Jesus.
I have really been thinking alot about the gospel. It means "good
news" for a reason. IT IS! It is WONDERFUL new!
Well... class is over soon... but I will continue later today!
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| Wow... so it has been forever since I have updated this.
Quick update:
School has started, I drive big charter buses around campus and the
Bryan-College Station area (exciting I know!!) for my job, my classes
are harder and much more interesting, and as always, the Lord is
blessing me like crazy!
Here are some lyrics from a Big Daddy Weave song called "You in Me." They describe my situation almost perfectly:
Up tight, down right
Wound up like a spring
Funny how I worry bout what just don't mean a thing
But then thats when
You speak Your truth to me
You say things aren't what they seem
This life's not what it seems
And it changes
I'm in less of a hurry
I'm less likely to worry
When in my heart I receive
Thoughts of my eternal destiny
I've given up frustration
Trust you without hesitation
But my mind just can't conceive
That it must be the You in me Lord
I tried till I cried
To bring about some change
But in spite of all the work
My efforts were in vain
I guess for this mess
I'm the one to blame
Cause when I'm trusting You
My life's just not the same
I'm different now
No matter what my present situation
I need to give it all to You
So, that song definitely is exactly where I have been. School was
definitely my idol last week. And the Holy Spirit really
convicted me of that this past Sunday morning when my pastor was
talking about worship. We got to the topic of idols and he made
some comment to the extent of: whatever your primary attention, focus,
and energy go to, whatever you think of first and plan things around is
your idol. And yea... school, definitely. And the funny
thing is... even with all the studying I did, my test grades still
weren't good. I studied almost 24 hours for my management test
and still made a D... granted the whole class of almost 400 got grades
just as bad, but seriously. But in spite of all the work, my efforts were in vain...
So this sunday I found myself in a place of surrendering that to my
Lord and letting Him back onto the throne of my life and IT WAS
WONDERFUL! And here is the result: I have 3 tests this
week. I actually took my accounting exam tonight and have an
economics exam tomorrow and a computer programing test on thursday,
along with lots of other stuff in between. I definitely have
studied "as much as I should and need to" to make an A because I have
spent more time resting, studying my Bible and in fellowship with other
believers. But its AMAZING to see how God has been
faithful. My accounting test went wonderfully and I just did a
practice exam for my test tomorrow and got almost all the answers right
and haven't really studied yet. It just blows me away and amazes
me everytime I come back to Jesus that when I put Him first, everything
else really does fall into place, even when my mind tells me... "you
arent studying enough, you aren't prepared" trust Him without hesitation
And when He isn't my everything and doesn't have first place in my
life, no matter how many hours of studying, everything still becomes a
mess and falls apart without Him. Whatever I do without the Lord
is in vain and is worthless.
Psalms 37:5-6 compliments this perfectly:
"Commit your ways to the Lord,
trust Him and He will do this: He will make your righteousness
shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun."
When I commit everything that I am
doing to the Lord... the justice of my cause and my righteousness are
realized to their full potential.
Well, I need to get some more studying done before I go to bed, but I
will update soon... after all these tests =) about how amazing life has
been since I've been back at Texas A&M! Have an amazing day!!
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| I do not own anything. Everything I have has been given to me.
I have been thinking about that alot lately. Every possession, everything is the Lord's. He provided it all and
has allowed me to be the steward of these things. Who am I to
say what should be done with things that are not even my own?
Even if I were to try to tell myself that I still had myself I would be
wrong. It was for me, for my life, that Christ died. His
life was paid for mine, and therefore my life is owed in return.
Of course I will always be indebted to Him beyond what I could ever
pay, as if I had anything to offer anyway. If this body is not
mine, then I should take extra care to make sure it is in perfect
condition, or as close as I can get it by the grace of God. You
would do the same with a friend's car: keeping the the
outside in good shape as well as making sure everything inside was in
proper working condition. I have just come to realize that it is
important to keep my body in good condition because it is not
my own. And of course, more importantly, I must keep my spirit, my inner being,
continually in tune with God so that it too may be in good shape and
pleasing to God.
Well, I think you get what I am saying, haha, but I'm tired and alot of
times I don't make a whole lot of sense except in my head. But
that's just
something that has been on my mind recently. I heard a song the
other day on the radio that I really liked. I don't remember very
much of it because it was the first time that I had heard it. But
one of the lines said, "Who am I that I should know your ways?"
So often I find myself questioning why God is
bringing me to certain places, or why He won't let me have something,
or why He allowed something to happen. But honestly who am I to
question the authority of God? It wouldn't even be different
if I didn't know He was working for my good, but I know that He
is.
So, I really have no reason not to trust Him. It's actually
pretty
silly that I don't. And I say this and yet will find myself again
questioning His ways. What silly creatures we must seem to
God, but He loves us beyond what we could imagine anyway. Now
that is pretty cool.
Another song lyric I have thought about recently is from Moulin Rouge:
"The greatest thing is just to love and be loved in return."
Well, I believe that is very true. The greatest thing is to love
God and realize that He not only loves us back, but loved us first and
will always love us no matter what. We may fail, we may fall, but
He is always there, loving us. What a magnificent gift we have
been given, the only perfect love, the love of our Creator. Now that's something to be excited about! : )
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| God is so cool!
So today I was talking to my mom about how God really does work all
things together for the good of his children. But sometimes He
does take us to places that we don't really like or even enjoy at
all. Even so, it is still for our good that He brings us there,
even though we don't see it right away and may doubt our reasons for
even being there. Just a couple hours ago, He kinda showed me a
very short term example of this.
I was on my way to the gym where they conveniently have tvs in front of
each of the cardio machines, which although I'm not all that fond of
television, I am glad are there. I usually go when there is a
movie on and it keeps me occupied instead of just thinking how much my
legs hurt. Unfortunately, earlier today I took my headphones out
of my purse when my sister and I went shopping and I didn't have them
when I got the gym(you need to have headphones in to make the tv turn
on). Needless to say, I was really annoyed(sounds ridiculous, I
know) and decided I wouldn't be able to work as hard as I normally
do. I started working out and about five minutes into it, I
remembered(as I have so many times) that God is with me all the
time! HOW AWESOME! So I was just started talking to
Him. It was great, as always, and we just got to talk about so
many things that I have needed to share with Him and I left feeling 100
times better than if I had been mindlessly watching a screen.
What a blessing in disguise. God is so cool.
It was really awesome how my mom and I had been talking about that very
thing earlier today. I have also been thinking alot about fearing
the Lord. Something I definately have not fully grasped yet, and
probably never will til the sweet, sweet day that I see My Savior,
Creator, Father and Lord face to face, in all His glory and
power(Goodness how I long for that day)! C.S. Lewis brings up the
subject quite often in the Chronicles of Narnia, which I am reading
now. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" Psalms
111:10 "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman
who fears the Lord is to be praised." Proverbs 31:30 Fearing the
Lord... definately a must.
That verse in proverbs is one that I was thinking about while I was
working out today. I just really want to make sure that my
movtives for trying to get in shape are honoring to My Lord. It
is so easy, being a girl, to get your confidence from your body and
have the goal of improving it to look a certain way so that you can
feel better about yourself. My sole purpose in trying to stay in
shape should be to keep my body healthy and honoring to God.
After all, it's not mine anyway. It was bought at a high price,
the highest: Jesus's life. This "jar of clay" that I reside in,
this body, is a temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells, and that's a
pretty serious reason to keep it as healthy as possible. "Do you
not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you,
whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were
bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." 1
Corinthians 6:19-20
If I spend all my time, efforts, and thoughts on looking the way that I
think will make me feel good, and forfeit the inner beauty that comes
from knowing God, what good is that? Plus, outer beauty doesn't
last forever, while inner beauty does. Of course everyone knows
that, we all get old, but even so, its possible to lose your outer
beauty before you would naturally lose it... accidents happen, nothing
is guarenteed. The Lord gives, and takes away, and that is
definitely something that is given by Him and can be taken away in an
instant if He so wishes. "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes
away. Praise the name of the Lord." Job 1:21
So I will strive to glorify God as I get this body of His into shape
and as healthy as I can possibly get it, "to our God and Father be
glory for ever and ever"(Philippians 4:20).
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your
bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your
spiritual act of worship." Romans 12:1
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| I just finished The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I am
reading through the Chronicles of Narnia right now. I have had
the set for a while and decided that its a shame that I've never read
them all. But I am quite enjoying myself actually, haha.
I've finished the first two already and I only started reading them
last wednesday. But today, I almost started crying while I was
reading. If you weren't aware, these books are very paralleled to
Christianity. The author, C.S. Lewis has written tons of other
books on Christianity that I am dying to read. But in the book I
finished tonight, the Jesus figure in the book dies, very much in the
same way Jesus died in real life. It was just such a wonderful,
yet solumn reminder of the huge sacrifice that was paid for me. I
cannot even fathom the extent of suffering that Jesus went through to
give me the opportunity to fall in love with Him. I couldn't
understand it if I tried. I've gotten to the point where I can't
even say anything, because anything that I could think of saying would
just downplay the amazing wonder of it all because human words will
never be enough to express what He did. Never. Simply
amazing.
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