Category: lessons

encouragement, lessons

Are We There Yet?

Adrianna Smith

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.

Continue reading “Are We There Yet?” →

Christianese 101, lessons

Christianese 101: Being Led By the Spirit

Adrianna Smith

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.

Continue reading “Christianese 101: Being Led By the Spirit” →

lessons

The Indecisive Leader

Adrianna Smith

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.

Continue reading “The Indecisive Leader” →

encouragement, lessons

Respect Your Position

Adrianna Smith

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.

Continue reading “Respect Your Position” →

encouragement, lessons

Get Your Own Oil!

Adrianna Smith

GYOO

So, you’ve spent a little time trying to approach God. You feel like you know Him and maybe you do. You feel like He’s telling or leading you to do something in your life: start a business, get a degree, get a job, or whatever it is you feel like He’s leading you to do. You’ve told everyone that God has told you to do this thing. You’ve boasted about how awesome the idea is to as many people as you could.

There’s just one problem: it’s been years since He’s told you to do this thing. What’s worse is you haven’t even started doing anything about this idea, maybe at the most you’ve started a facebook page for it. And to make things even worse you procrastinated so long you no longer have time to do this idea or thought God gave you. So, what do you do? You try to get other people to do it for you–and for free too. If you’re doing something like this you need to ask yourself: Why would God give you something just so you could try to force it on someone else’s shoulders?

Continue reading “Get Your Own Oil!” →

lessons, testimony

Knowing who God is

Adrianna Smith

DYKM

Have you ever just talked with someone for years and years and suddenly your relationship with them just blows up in your face? Questions come out about whether this person was ever really for you or if they ever really knew who you were. See, what I’m learning is we can have conversations with people for days, or years even, and find out that they don’t really know and understand who we are and what we are about. The truth is that this person probably never really wanted or tried to understand who you were from the beginning because they might be clinging to whatever preconceived notion they had about you from the beginning. When I see this happen so easily in human relationships, it makes me wonder about our relationship with God. Do we really know Him? Do we really try to learn and understand who He is? Or do we just believe what others have said about Him or our own initial judgments we had about Him?

Continue reading “Knowing who God is” →

lessons

How to love people who hate your guts!

Adrianna Smith

LYE

How do you deal with people who mistreat you? How do you deal with people who use you for their own selfish purposes? How do you deal with people who plot and scheme against you? How do you deal with people who seem to hate you just because you are you? We all know what the Bible says: Love your enemies, right? Well, what exactly does that even look like? How can you love someone who is clearly hell bent on your destruction? When I think on the teachings of Jesus, I always find myself going back to the Old Testament stories. One that really comes to mind where a man hated God’s people for no real good reason was Haman in the story of Esther.

Continue reading “How to love people who hate your guts!” →