The first steps

Man this Faith "thing" can be so hard. If you're a Christian you know in your heart that God will always take care of you. Especially if you're following His plan for your life and you're not trying to make your own decisions.

Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, lean not on our own understand and in ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths. What an amazing couple of verses. It tells us exactly how to know the will of God for our lives. My goodness though, how hard it is to do this at ALL times. Some times our humanness sneaks in and we think that we know better and can handle things on our own. Yeah, that may work for a little while, but before long we end up looking around and thinking, "how on earth did I get myself into this mess". THEN we go to God and ask for help. Ahhhh, how much easier our lives would be if first we'd turn to Him and seek His Will for our lives.

Jerry and I have stubbornly repeated the same mistakes over and over and over again. Each time we've managed to dig ourselves out only to fall right back into the same pit. This time around, the pit is so big, and so deep that we cannot even see the light at the top on our own. Of course NOW we're doing all kinds of praying, looking for direction and telling God we're NOW willing to follow His path and do what He wants us to do. How foolish are we that we didn't do this before??? I'm willing to bet that we are not alone in this type of foolishness.

Some of the things that God has made clear that we need to do are things that have been nagging us in the back of our minds for a while now. Things we didn't WANT to do, things that scared us, or made us feel as though we were failures. However, that first step onto God's path for our lives, as scary as it first was, it made the next steps much easier. It was kinda like testing that if we really jumped in with both feet that He was for sure going to catch us and not let us fall. Once we made that first leap and felt His arms embrace us, we weren't so hesitant to jump again and again.

Now, I'm not saying that we won't be foolish at some point again in our lives, cause we're sinners and we will always fall short. However, what an amazing learning experience this has been and continues to be. One of Faith, Trust and Believing that God is who He says He is and He can and WILL do what He says He will.

Fear Change

Isn't it wonderful when life just seems to be gliding along so perfectly. The kids are good, the marriage is good, finances are good, God is good. I love it when that happens!! However, whenever that happens there's always this nagging voice in the back of my head that keeps saying "waaiiittt for it, waaaiitttt for it". Sure enough, just as you crest that hill, the bottom drops out. Most the time it's not one big thing, but a series of small things that seem to affect everything in your life. While all this is happening, as a Christian you always ask God what He's up to. You always know that when those bumps in the road come along that God has something up His glorious sleeve. We're supposed to just let go and let God do what He has in store for us. Most the time what He has in store for us means we need to change something, or everything we're doing so that we can live the life that He has in store for us. Now I don't know about you, but in my flawed humanness I fight this tooth and nail because the idea of changing things scares me half to death. That doesn't mean I don't know that the changes that God has in store for me aren't all for the greater good and in the end things will be better than they are now. I also know that God will be with me through it all, however, just the journey getting to the end terrifies me.

I have discovered though that taking that first step in the direction of change that God wants you to take, that it gets a little easier to make the second step. Hopefully as I need the finish line of this change, I'll be running through the victory tape.

On a side note though, yesterday I got my Joyce Meyer teaching of the month, any one want to guess what it's about??? The name of the CD is The Courage to Change. Just like Joyce to be there in your face with what you need to hear when you need to hear it. Thank you God!

Discovery

In this great big world in which we call home, we can't help but wonder, just what it is we're here for. When you soak in the awesomeness of God you have to wonder why on earth He would need us. I mean when you think about it, mankind has been kind of a big headache since Adam and Eve ate that apple. All of God's great plans for us went out the garden so to speak. Then many years later He tried to "fix" it by wiping the earth clean save for Noah and his family and start over. Well, we all know how well that went, idolatry, murder, adultery, you name it. Oh there were those that worshiped God, but the world was just enveloped in sin once again. I hate to think how much livestock and doves I'd had to have had just to keep up with all the sacrifices I'd have to do to make amends for my sins. Some where along the lines you have to wonder if God didn't go, "good grief, why did I make these humans, they cause Me so much pain and grief". Then on top of all the pain and grief we've caused Him, He decides the only way that we're ever going to be able to come into His glory is if He sends His only Son to die for all of us sinners. Can you imagine, had Adam and Eve never taken a bite of that apple, Jesus wouldn't have had to come down from His glorious thrown to be nailed upon a cross for something He didn't do.

This just goes to show that God is much more than we can possibly ever understand. He continues to love us and forgive us even though we continue to sin and fall short each and every day.

Why discover? Because today I'm working on a piece of art I'm going to call "Beautiful". It's a piece of self discovery, and in using this to help me discover who I am to ME, I'm also struggling with just who I am to God. As you can see by the comments above I'm struggling to see just how or why God would want to take the time for me, when I am a sinner, just what is it about ME that makes God think I'm worth saving.

Please don't feel the need to leave me "pep talk" comments, I'm okay, just trying to .... Discover....

Relationship

I wonder how our earthly relationships would survive if every time we talked to our friends, we either only thanked them for something they've done for us, or asked them to do something for us. I imagine they wouldn't be long lasting friendships.

I know that I am guilty of doing that with my relationship with God. I start most every prayer with, thank you's, the meat of my prayer is asking for things either for myself or loved ones, and ends with a few praises and maybe another thank you or two.

Now it's not to say that God doesn't want the thank you's and the requests for help, but He wants more than that. This morning our sermon was about having a relationship with Him. Coming to him to just tell him about our day, our problems our joys and including him in our life. So often we come to him looking for a solutions to our problems, when what we should be doing is just telling him about them and letting the solution come when it does.

Often, I just need someone to listen, I don't necessarily want someone to give me their advice on how to "fix it". I usually call my sister for this, and I fully intend on still calling her for that, but I think I'll take it to God as well.

Struggling

It's been a long time, not that I haven't thought about it, because I have, but because I wasn't sure how to put into words what I have been feeling, until listening to our sermon this morning at church.

I've resigned myself to the fact that I have some seasonal depression, and while going through that, facing a blog is the last thing I wanted to do. I've been able to work though it all with the help of some medication and Psalm 23. I cannot even tell you how many times a day I've recited that Psalm as I was waiting for my meds to kick in and help me with the darkness. Now by the grace of God and my doctor I have gotten over that hurdle. The depression though, was the beginning of some inner searching though. At one point during my illness I even told God, I know You are there, and I thank You, but I don't want to talk to You. The awesome thing about our God though, is He was patient and kind and loving with me and He waited. He waited till I was ready to talk again. I was reminded of the poem "Footprints in the Sand" where I know that at that time, there was only 1 set of footprints because I could feel Him carry me.

However, in the shuffle of all of that I've run into some other things that have taken me off guard and I'm terrified of it even though I know it's the right thing to do and that God will be there with us through all things. I'm ashamed to say that I don't know if I CAN do this. I think the fact that I shut the doors to Him during my depression may have been the beginning of what brought all of this to light.

I pray, I listen to my Bible on my IPod and podcast sermons almost daily, I go to church every Sunday, I lead a Bible study on Wednesday mornings and Jerry and I go to a Bible study together on Thursday nights. I listen to Christian music almost exclusively, and I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. These are all good things, these are all RIGHT things, yet I have fallen SOOO short of what God wants for me in my life. I have not surrendered my life to Him. The true thought of what that might actually entail keeps me awake at night. Do I think that in the long run, things will be better than ever, of course. It's the journey of getting there that makes me physically ill. It all boils down to not having enough faith, and not trusting in God enough and truly it's the fear that keeps me from doing this.

This week at Church our Pastor asked us 4 questions:

1. What am I doing right now that God has asked me to do?
2. When is the last time I asked God what He would like me to do?
3. List the specific areas of my life which I have surrendered to God.
4. List the specific areas of my life which should be on the list above, but are not.

Suffice it to say, I left church in tears this morning, knowing that questions 1-3 were virtually empty, and #4 had a list longer than I care to imagine.

I know that I'm not alone in this fear, my husband also struggles with this. I think that in the next few weeks as our Pastor touches on the life of David that we may at least begin to pray about God helping us through our fear and lack of faith.

I know that God has great things in store for us, and hopefully one day we will see it. In the mean time, if you feel moved to do so, please keep us in your prayers.

Saying Thanks

I may have mentioned Andy Stanley from Northpoint Community Church before, and i still listen to his podcasts all the time and his messages online. He's a wonderful speaker and is so awesome at life application sermons. This last one I listened to he gave us homework. The homework was to write a thank you note to the person who helped us ask Jesus to become our personal Savior so that we may be saved and have eternal life in heaven.

Being raised in a Christian home I had to really think about this because for as long as I can remember I've always known there was God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. However, when did I truly ask Them into my heart?

Pastor Sam Hamstra Jr. is who I need to thank. He was the pastor at our church when I was a teen. Those years I spent in youth group were awesome! Until now, that was the time in my life when I felt closest to God, that's when I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior. Sadly, for me anyways, Sam left and moved onto another church and our new pastor just wasn't as excited for the youth as Sam was. Life went on and most of it without much God in my daily life. I managed to find the church he's now pastor of online. I'm hoping to be able to connect with him and send him my Thank You Note soon.

I also, feel I should thank my sister Rachael for taking me to that first Joyce Meyer convention, because that's where my love for the Lord was renewed. We're headed to our 3rd convention together in a month or so and I'm so excited for it!

So, you can take this post and read it and take it for what it's worth, or you too can take the time to sit down and write a Thank You Note to the person that guided you to asking Jesus to be your Savior. I'm hoping you'll take that time.

God's Plan

Things are changing at Lakeland Community Church, and although change can sometimes be a difficult thing, it's also a necessary thing in order to grow. About a month ago, Pastor David Howie and his wife Phyllis informed us that David would be retiring from the ministry and taking a position as a Pastors Coach in Greenlake Wis. It of course is bittersweet, on one hand we are sad that they were leaving us. We have grown to love them and enjoy spending time with them and will miss them dearly. On the other hand, we know that God would never have called David and Phyllis to move on to something new, if He didn't have great things in store for both the Howies, and for Lakeland Community Church! I am so excited to see what He has in store for us!!! God is alive and strong and at work in our church and I know that He will continue to work through our congregation. He has already handpicked our newest pastor who will help us to grow in numbers and in faith. I can't wait to meet him!!!