encouragement, lessons

Help, God, I settled for a counterfeit!

help

–>Lessons in Contentment<–

So, you prayed and prayed and prayed. Finally, God opened up a door, seemingly miraculously and it seems like He would have you to walk through it. From a distance everything looked great. It seemed to be almost exactly what you needed, however as you started to move closer and closer to it you began to see tons of imperfections that you didn’t notice before. Or worse, you’re like me, and notice every imperfection that could begin to exist in the door before you walk through it and are complaining the whole way and time you walk through it. Thoughts come to your mind that cause you to wonder: ‘Is this really the best that God can do?’ But perhaps you don’t dare utter them out loud, since you know it’s not too good to complain about where God has sent you. As you bite your tongue and decide to settle with the portion God gave you, you still can’t help but think: ‘Lord, I settled with this option.’

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Christianese 101, lessons

Christianese 101: ‘God said…’

Godsaid

–>Hearing the Voice of God<–

So, you thought you heard from God. You went after that one job, that one person you thought was going to be your spouse, or that one career path that you could’ve sworn—if you were allowed—that it was the path you were meant to go down. However, once you found out these things that you pursued weren’t what God told you to go after, you start wondering to yourself: Do I really hear from God? Sometimes you might even get other people who you told you were hearing from God scorn or mock you for following what you though was God’s leading.

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encouragement, lessons

Are We There Yet?

WethereInsta

–>Rushing through your seasons <–

Are we there yet? No, seriously, have we arrived at the destination yet? Not, yet? Really!? Why are we still at this same spot? Round and round again we go. Not knowing when we’ll ever get off of this ride. If I could just get to this place, this spot, with this person, this amount of money, or this position I’d be where I want to be. If I could just jump out of the cold harsh winter I am in and into the fresh sunny Spring I’m craving everything would be settled, right? I just want to get out of here and move forward! There comes a time in everyone’s lives I believe where they are craving and screaming to get out of the current position in life they are in and ready to move onto the next one. You might realize the past position was horrible (read about that HERE), and even if you are moderately ok with the current season, you still find yourself craving a new avenue in your life.

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encouragement, salvation

The Best Gift

gift

At Christmas time, when I was younger, I used to wonder what my parents were going to get me. The joy and excitement of opening presents were really what the thrill was in this holiday as opposed to the actual presents. Out of all my siblings, I was usually the one who was the most excited and happy to open the gifts and enjoy the gifts no matter what they were. In fact sometimes I would get so excited I would open or take my siblings gifts, but I’ll talk about stealing on another day, heh heh. I always have to say the best gifts I’ve ever received were gifts that the giver somehow knew I needed or wanted, when I didn’t even express or know I wanted it. There’s something about receiving something that is exactly what you needed, even if you don’t realize it at the time. This is why I have to say, the best gift is God’s salvation.

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Christianese 101, lessons

Christianese 101: Being Led By the Spirit

spiritled

So we’ve all heard it before if you’ve been in church for quite sometime now. Preachers and pastors always answer almost every single question a young Christian has with, “You need to be led by His Spirit”, when making whatever decision it is they are to make. So, what is that exactly? How can one be led by the Spirit of God? It’s simple really: if the fruit is not there and the works of the flesh are, it’s probably not the Holy Spirit guiding you.

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lessons

The Indecisive Leader

Indecisive

–>Knowing God’s Will<–

Thirteen year old girls are moody, sometimes bubbly, or sometimes crabby. One thing I’ve learned from being one and chatting with some, is they might change their mind at the drop of the hat. One minute they’re bffs with Jessica, the next her and Jessica are having a huge argument. One minute they think Taylor Swift is the best singer ever, the next minute they’re moving on to Beyoncé. If anyone would know the smell of indecision it would be them, or at least their mothers. Could you imagine though if your boss or CEO at your company was this indecisive? Hiring people and firing people, but then changing his/her mind a few seconds later. Unfortunately most people think that God and his will are like this.

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encouragement, lessons

Respect Your Position

position

You’ve just been moved or have moved on your own. You thought this move was in God’s plans. It seemed like a wise choice. You’ve asked God multiple times about this move and everything seemed to point to this being the right choice. However, as soon as you start to get to this new apartment, job, city, or this new place in your walk with God, you feel uncomfortable. Although it seems this is the position God wants you in, you can’t help wonder if you would’ve been better off staying where you were previously. Even though the place you were at previously had a lot of negative things and would leave you in the same complacent and mundane routine, you find yourself forgetting those things and wondering if the move was worth it. The question you need to ask yourself is: Do you respect your position? Do you respect the position God gave you? The Israelites were a people who had a hard time respecting the detour that God purposely sent them in to be free from slavery Egypt.

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encouragement

You’ve Been Recruited!

Recruited

God wants YOU to follow Him all the days of your life, to give up your life as a living sacrifice, and to honor Him with all you have. The question is will you honor the requirements of being recruited for service or will/have you forgotten about them? Have you forgotten what you first said to Christ when you were first saved? When God recruits us into His kingdom it’s almost the same as when a regular soldier is enlisted.

These soldiers can be called at any time or any day to drafted into service! They cannot afford to be too wrapped up or too attached to what they are currently doing because they never know when it will be their time to be called to serve.

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encouragement

The God of Mediocrity

mediocre

—> Put Your Best Foot Forward For Christ<—

When we prepare ourselves to go on job interviews we make sure we look nice. We practice questions that may be asked or research before applying. The point is we put our best foot forward. We try our best to show the interviewer that we really want the job. I had applied for jobs in the past that seemed to come up miraculously, from people who only met me once but remembered me years later enough to recommend me for a really good job. All those jobs seemed to not work out, the door closed on them for one reason or another. As I was talking to someone about how odd it seemed that all those offers didn’t go through, but the last job I applied to seemed to work out, they told me I probably didn’t show I wanted it enough.

I knew this was a lie, because I’m an overachiever who has applied for jobs and went on externships or job shadowing in my field since I was a freshman. However, this made me think about our walk with God. Do we show Him that we want Him? Do we show Him that we actually truly want to go to heaven? Do we show Him we want to serve Him? We put our best foot forward when it comes to an interview, but what does God get from us?

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encouragement

Millionaire Matchmaker

MM

–>Persistent Prayer<–

What if the richest person in the world came up to you and asked you to ask them for anything you wanted, as long as it followed their morals and standards of living? Note that this rich person is very fond of you in a platonic way and wants to help you with anything, especially your needs. Their wealth is infinite, in the sense that no matter what you ask for their wealth will not be depleted much at all. They will match you up with anything or anyone that you need. Not only do they ask you if you want anything, they want you to ask them for the things you need. What’s even more awesome is you don’t even have to pick up a phone to ask them, you just have to start talking and they’ll hear you.

Most people now-a-days would probably be ecstatic at first about being able to do this. They would make sure they followed the rules of making the request. They would probably love asking daily because since they can see that person, they know who that person is, and trust in what others say about that person’s wealth they have full faith that this person could deliver their requests. Why, then, don’t people feel this giddy about God?

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