God Is In Control

God is in control. We hear that all the time or at least a form of it. Ever since I was a child, my parents drilled that into my head. Twenty years later, I finally am starting to understand what that means.

Everyone struggles with anxiety, stress, being unable to fully surrender their fears and worries over to Christ. Overtime, your fears, worries, and stress will eventually consume you. Now if you want to live a life like this, being consumed by your fears and always stressed out…by all means, be my guest. BUT, God invites us to live a worried- free, stress-free life. Doesn’t that sound so amazing?

Isaiah 41:10 || So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. But, what exactly does that mean, “God is in control”? We hear verses in church, we read the Bible, we listen to song lyrics that all talk about this, BUT do we really take it all in? Do we fully understand it every time the way God wants us to? Most of the time we don’t. We just say, “oh yeah, I trust, I believe, he is in control.” Unfortunately, we don’t act upon that. We become all talk, and no actions.

Psalm 46:1 || God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Because God is our refuge, this means he is our safe place to go to when times get tough and when times our good. When we know that God is our safe place, it makes it easier to fully trust and surrender to him.

I use to be the worst about worrying about every little thing, I realize now looking back that all of the time I spent stressing and worrying, it didn’t do any good and it also didn’t change my situations.

Matthew 6:25-34 || Do Not Worry

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

There is no reason to worry about tomorrow, or the future. God is in control, remember that. Why let fear and worry hold you back?

Understanding God’s Plan For You

We all can agree on this one fact, life can be messy. Life can also be confusing. I have gone through many seasons of just not knowing and understanding where I am headed in life, which can be extremely frustrating for someone like me.

I am a planner. I like to have everything down to a T. This is not always the best quality to have, especially in the story I am about to tell you.

I recently just got out of a relationship that towards the end became very draining in my spiritual life. I had everything planned out for us and I had this idea in my head it was going to last forever. I always knew there was a reason that God drew us together, however, I never thought God was going to draw us apart. I seemed to always be looking forward to my idea of what God’s plan for me was. Little did I understand that my plan is not God’s plan.

I realize that my prayers were starting to become prayers to save the relationship instead of prayers of understanding and clarity. Now, I get how silly that was. I was actually praying, “Please save this from destruction. Please just help things to work out and please just be present in this situation.” Then my prayers slowly turned into, “God help me understand that it is not my will, but your will. Help me to realize that I am not in control, but you are in control of my life.”

Now, the difference between the prayers is that the first prayer was a prayer of selfishness. I was not praying in a way that was fully giving my faith and situation over to Christ. I was being lukewarm about the whole entire thing; I was half in, half out when it came to trusting God’s plan for me. I cannot stress enough, YOU CANNOT BE HALF IN, HALF OUT, YOU HAVE TO BE FULLY IN WHEN IT COMES TO TRUSTING CHRIST. In the second prayer, I was praying from a different place. I knew then that God had bigger plans for my life and that he was going to use me for something bigger than how I was feeling, which was small and unworthy. Has a relationship or someone or something ever made you feel that way? Small or unworthy? Let me tell you something, that is not the plan God made for you when you were conceived in your mother’s womb. Yes, he had your life planned from the moment you were born! He knows every mistake we will make, he knows every trial we will go through, he knows our deepest thoughts and fears. He isn’t going to just write our plan for us in the sky, we have to ask him and quietly and patiently listen to his voice. He may give us an answer right away or maybe his answer will be just sitting here with me and wait awhile.

John 13:7 || Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

I’ve realized that you cannot make plans then pray for the plan to workout, you must first pray then make plans.

Psalm 23:1-2 || The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters

So, if you are in a season of waiting, keep waiting. If you are confused about what God’s plan is for you, keep praying and seeking him in everything you do. I promise, there is a reason for everything God does, even the little things.

What are you THANKFUL for?

I got a book for my birthday titled, 52 Lists for Happiness, **(I’ll post the link for the book below)**, and it has sparked all these thoughts about things that I honestly haven’t given any thought to lately. There are times, well most of the time, where I just feel unhappy or stuck in a season. This causes me to stray away from what makes me happy and it causes me to just be ungrateful. NOW, I hope I am not the only one who feels this way, but I think there are several reasons for this feeling… (I’m trying to be as blunt as possible)

• I don’t always remind myself of the things that make me most happy. Honestly, when you are constantly reminding yourself of the things that make you genuinely, heart warming, happy… you will be happy! That’s just how it works.
• I don’t always thank God for the things that he has given me. I mean, I feel like I do every other day, but not 24/7. This is a problem, because truly, we as selfish human beings, forget all that Christ has done for us. Our father sent down his one and only son to die on a cross FOR OUR SINS and we sit over here just asking God for more of this, or for someone to love us more, or for something to go our way INSTEAD of thanking him for his unfailing love, compassion, and mercy. The cool thing about it though, is that God knows that. He knows our selfish hearts and we honestly just have to work on it every single day, every minute, every hour, just thanking him for all that he has given us and has blessed us with. Once we fully understand this, we will have a happier, grateful heart.
• I don’t always remind myself of how blessed I am to have certain people in my life, like my close friends and family. Once again, because we are selfish human beings, we tend to be so ungrateful and we take everyone who we love for granted, even the simple things we have and need in life like water, food, and common courtesy. I believe once we stop taking the ones we love for granted, and start living a GRATEFUL and THANKFUL life, we will be 100 times happier.

I challenge you to ask yourself these questions,

1. What makes you happy?
2. What are you thankful for?
3. Who means the most to you?
4. Have you told the people you love lately that you love them?

So, for these questions I really want you to think about it. Don’t just write something topical down, truly get down to the truth. I promise you will benefit from this! SO, right now, thank God for everything he has given to you, taken from you, and thank him for his constant, unfailing love and mercy!

Lamentations 3:22-23 ||Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

Link for the book!

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Why the beautiful & brave?

Honest question. How do you see yourself? Take a second. Think about it. Maybe write it down in a journal. Take time and really think, how do YOU (not other people) see yourself?

Okay. Now what was the first thing that came to your mind? If you are anything like me, your first thoughts would be all of the things you hate about yourself. Unfortunately, as humans, we have a difficult time at loving ourselves for who God has created us to be. We live in a world where it is common to bring others down and bring ourselves down, a world where boys and girls are taught they are not good enough and they are not loved for who they are, a world where it is okay to harm yourself if it means you will look or feel better.

But this is a fact and the truth, YOU WERE MADE IN GOD’S KIND & LOVING IMAGE.

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:3-5

“to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”  Ephesians 4:23-24

Beauty is who we are, it is who we are in Christ. Beauty goes beyond what is on the surface, it reaches down to our core, our soul level. 

Again, think about it. What is beauty to you? Do you see yourself as beautiful and worthy as a son or daughter of Christ? If you don’t or if you are a little hesitant, I encourage you to just pray about it. Pray that the Lord opens your eyes, your heart, your mind to just embracing the amazing person God has created you to be! Pray that God allows you to see yourself worthy of the crown as his princes and princesses.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalm 139:13-14

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from the beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

“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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in my weaknesses, in hardships, in persecution, in differences. For when I am weak, I am made strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Having courage and bravery is not always easy. It is however, super easy to get caught in the current of this world. It can be hard to say “no” to this that will corrupt you and distract you, and it can be just as hard to say “yes” to the things that will make you stand apart from others. This is how I see look at it, you can either be a leader or a follower. Which one do you think God wants you to be? Once again, THINK ABOUT IT.

After much thought and prayer, I decided to be obedient (stand up, be a leader, and spread the good news of Christ) to my calling of starting this blog. Yes, I had doubt at first, a lot of doubt. Will people actually read it? Will it really have an effect on people? What if it turns into something totally and utterly amazing? Then I started to think, it really doesn’t matter what others may think, what others may say, whether it’s positive or negative. It only matters what God thinks. So even if this does not go far, I know that in God’s eyes, it is good.

“I have not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9