Food for Thought

I love when God connects things in life that don't seem to go together at all! He recently did that for me with a class assignment and a Bible study. We watched a few videos regarding public health for class. One encouraged viewers to do something small to make a large impact on America's public health. At Bible study a couple of days later, I learned the impact that thought life has on the body... It's scientifically proven that constant negative thoughts cause illness and stress on the body. Have you ever noticed that really negative people seem to always have something wrong with them? This is why!

So here's my idea to improve our country's health... Think positive! How? God's word! Every time I'm faced with negative thinking I'm going to try to recall or look up scripture that reinforces God's goodness and ability to handle my piddly circumstance. If you're interested in joining me, here's a few scriptures to get you started...

Isaiah 26:3

"You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You."

Psalm 18:29-30

"For by You I can run against a troop, by my God I can leap over a wall. As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him."

Proverbs 16:3

"Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established."

Jeremiah 19:12-13

"Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all of your heart."

Psalm 91:1

"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."

Dwell in His presence and enjoy the blessing of His pure joy!

http://drleaf.com/thought_life.php

Little Circumstances, Big Message

As I was driving down the turnpike this morning my low fuel light came on and started dinging in my car. In a small freak out moment, I realized that the small snow flurries I had seen at the beginning of my journey were turning into a blizzard, and I pictured myself stranded on the side of the road with no gas, or comforting heat, to get to Wichita. Luckily, Chris Tomlin's voice interrupted my thought with these three powerful words: "Let faith arise!" Sometimes God uses others' voices to get His point across to me. The song was a wake up call to just have a little faith! God is much more powerful than a lousy tank of gas!

Has God ever spoken to you through silly circumstances?

"This world needs God, but it's easier to stand and watch"

As I was driving to class this morning, I heard a familiar song (link below) on the radio. The lyrics pierced my heart because I'm one of those people that is saddened by the state of our world, but does little to change it. This evening at Christian Challenge, a similar topic of being sold out for the glory of God was discussed. Once again I am challenged to, more or less, get over myself and let God be my one desire. As nice as this sounds, it seems to be such a long, painful process that has its high and lows. Today is one of those lows that God is revealing the lack of His presence in my daily living. Although I am convicted at the state of my heart, I am joyful that He is moving on my heart to draw nearer to Him.

"For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it."
Matthew 16:25

If you are a follower of Christ, I pray that you will be challenged with me and seek to make much of our Lord and Savior by making little of ourselves. His love for us is far too great to be masked by the love we have for ourselves.

"I Refuse" by Josh Wilson

How Did I Get Here?

As a first time blogger, I really have no idea what I'm doing. A friend of mine recently started one and sparked my interest! I decided to create one of my own to share the little things in life that I don't deem "Facebook worthy." Since my life goal is to bring glory to the Savior who brings me so much joy, my goal for this blog is to look at the major and minor details of my life with the perspective that He knows exactly what He's doing. With that said, I will begin by telling you why I believe what I believe...

As a young child I was blessed to be part of a loving family that wanted nothing less than the best for me. From the very beginning I was taken to church and all the related activities. I followed my big brother to the alter to ask Jesus into my heart when I was five years old, and a few years later I followed him once again to be baptized. As life went on, the flashing lights of the "right steps" of faith began to fade.

High school proved to be the most challenging few years of my life so far by taking me down a road of bad choices and, in my opinion, a lifestyle unworthy of God's love and forgiveness due to claiming to follow Him through it all. It was then that I realized how much He really loves me and exactly what Jesus did on the cross for me long ago and how sweet the gift of the Holy Spirit is. Around that time, I went to a conference and we sang "Wrap Me in Your Arms" by Michael Gungor. As I poured out my heart to Him, I literally felt someone wrapping their arms around me. God kept reminding me of His grace to forgive me and pulled me out of the mess I had made of myself and of His name.

College proved to be another trying time in a completely different way. At times I felt totally alone in my faith. Although I had plenty of friends who shared my faith, it was as if God wanted me to experience Him for myself and without the comfort of others' reassurance. I wanted so bad to go to church and other activities with friends to share in God's goodness together. However, He wanted so bad to have one-on-one time with me and that's exactly what happened! He began to show me how intimate relationship with Him could really be. Right now I feel that God is still refining my faith. He has given me a passion for Him that I could have never had without time alone with Him. As long as He is my center, circumstances of life don't really matter (even though I still get caught up in what I want sometimes!). Good day or bad, He is still God and in control.

"And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again."

2 Corinthians 5:15