Intentions.

Lately, I’ve been considering something. When I pray to God and tell Him that I love Him and am so thankful for all that He does for me, what are my intentions? Am I loving God for who He is, or am I loving Him because of what He does for me?

God has given me so very much. I spent my whole last post talking about all the blessings that He has given me, and I’m pretty sure that doesn’t even begin to skim the surface. Typically when I pray, I am either thanking God for what He has done, or asking Him to do something more for me. When I think back, it seems like a lot of my prayers are simply focused on asking God to use all His power to help me; either thanking Him for what He has done, or asking Him to solve even more of my never ending problems. Even When I pray to thank God for things like His love and wisdom, I feel like it’s typically because I am seeing myself benefitting from these attributes of Him.

The more I consider this idea, the more confused I become. I don’t want to have a faith where my main motivation is simply the benefits I reap for myself. I want to have a relationship with God where HE is front and center, and I am simply on the sidelines. I think I need to truly get it through my head that this is not about me. God has blessed me with so many things not to benefit myself, but to share it with others. This life isn’t about me one single bit! Rather, it is all about being a servant, following in Jesus’ example, and serving everyone around me for Christ. That is what matters, not how much my relationship with God can benefit me.

Blessings.

God has completely showered me in blessings – all different kinds of them. Some are the ordinary objects that I use every day, like my car or my house. Then there are the intangible things that I’ve been blessed with, like my education or a great relationship with a good friend. Both of these categories include objects that play a role in my everyday life, and most of the time I tend to take them for granted. I get comfortable with these blessings and begin to view them as assets and necessities rather than for what they truly are: blessings, gifts, and things that I don’t deserve. I am not entitled to them, and in true reality I have no ownership over them. God can easily take them all away if He wanted; they don’t fully belong to me.

However, I am frequently reminded that there is still one more type of blessing that God has showered upon me. These are the ones that I don’t even understand why God would give them to me; the things I couldn’t possibly have without God giving them to me. These are all the attributes of God that I am blessed to experience every single day that are completely rooted in God. They are things like His love, grace, peace, mercy, provision and so many more. When you seek Christ you will find these blessings in full abundance, and God gives them so generously. These blessings are found fully in Christ, but He Has also blessed us with the opportunity to experience them in other ways as well. Like when my parents or close friends show me love, God is showing me love through that as well.

God has given me more blessings than I could possibly imagine, and the best of them come from Him. While the phone, clothes and friends are all blessings, nothing can compare to the gifts God showers upon me purely out of love.

You Do Not Have a Soul.

Psalm 45:11 “The Lord is enthralled by your beauty.”

As a self-conscious, teenage girl, those words never made sense to me. To me, that verse (and others like it) simply didn’t apply to me. When I read it I would kind of skim over it and never take the words to heart. Not in a super-low-self-esteem sort of way, simply in a confused manner. I’ve never thought my appearance was every anything great, so why would the creator of the universe see beauty in me? I mean I know that God made me in His image and gave me this body for a reason, but what if my current weight or the lovely red spots on my face are things that God doesn’t really want there? I used to subconsciously be under the impression that God would only see beauty in me if I saw beauty in myself first. I would be extremely hard on myself mentally and really wear myself down when it came to my appearance. I would get frustrated when I didn’t like how I look, and I was never content with what I had. I would look at others and compare myself to them, thinking “man I wish I had her legs,” or “Goodness I wish I looked that pretty.” I would allow those self-diminishing thoughts to consume my mind on a regular basis, making myself even less happy than I already was with what God has given me.

As I struggled with these degrading thoughts, I continued to question the idea that God found me beautiful. Not just acceptable or average, but beautiful, enthralling, lovely, ideal, superb, wonderful and delightful. I would try to comfort myself with these thoughts, that God really did see me in this way, and make myself become happy with my appearance. Slowly I became a little more accepting. I kind of came to terms with how I looked, thinking things like “welp, it’s not going to get any better so I guess it’s time I just accept things.” I still wasn’t happy with it all, and I still didn’t understand how those verses could be true, but I kind of just tried ignored the whole thing.

That is, until something drastically shifted in my mind. It was like God’s truth finally made it through my stubborn hard head and rang true in my heart. I finally realized that those verses expressing the beauty God sees in me has nothing to do with my physical appearance. God does not care what my body looks like; the only thing that concerns Him about my body is what I do with it to glorify God. When God looks at me and sees beauty, it is my heart that He is admiring. That is the part of me that was made in God’s own image. That is my soul, the center of what I am. What my body looks like doesn’t matter, because all it does is house my Christ-filled soul.

I know that this may sound a little extreme and probably pretty radical, but I believe it is true. I believe that allowing ourselves to be consumed with what we look like and how our bodies compare to those around us is just a waste. It’s a waste of time, energy and self-esteem. This body will one day be buried in the ground and go no further than this world, but our souls will go on to heaven to live with Christ for eternity.

I’m reminded of a C. S. Lewis quote that says:

This completely rings true. Nothing about your physical body defines who you are. Your body is really only the storage place for your soul; that is what is important. With your soul, you can share God with everyone you see. You can be joyful even in the worst of times; you can find peace in the instances of ultimate stress. You can look past your human figure and embrace your spiritual existence. Always remember, your body is meaningless. It is the soul inside that counts for everything.

Apology.

So I would like to briefly apologize for my lack of writing. I've been busy and my time has been filled with other things, but I do have a few things to post on here! So I'm not going to make this long, seeing as I have other, more important things to say. I just didn't want to write some big long post after not writing at all for a month! So now I will be back, but I am sorry for being gone for so long!

Iron Sharpens Iron.

Proverbs 27:17 : “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

As I look on my own faith, I realize that so much of the growth I have experienced is thanks to the people in my life. I have been blessed with so many great friends who are such strong Christians. Those people have inspired me so much, and I know that my faith wouldn’t be the same without them. I have a great family, great friends, and ultimately a great community. I cannot explain how thankful I am for them and the motivation that they have given me.

Reading that verse again makes me want to live in a way that would sharpen the faith of the people around me. Being an example of Christ to others sharpens their faith and helps them grow too. I encourage you to find those people in your life who will help you grow, and to be that kind of person to others.

Struggling.

Lately, I’ve been struggling spiritually. I want so badly to make my faith real and change my life according to God’s will, but I’m stuck. It’s like my faith is trapped in the pages of my Bible and in the words in my journal, and it never goes further than that. I want to make my faith alive, to truly live out my relationship with Christ. I so earnestly want to live out God to the people around me, to be a walking witness for my Savior. The only problem is I need to actually do it. In my head I desperately want this and I know that to do this. I need to daily die to myself and my sinful nature and to live for God instead. If I know all of this in my head, why can’t I live it out in my life?! It’s a frustration and a struggle, but I need to persevere. God will teach me new things and use me in ways I can’t even begin to imagine; I just need to let Him.

God, make me yours.

Back to the Beginning.

So today during church, we were asked to flip through the Bible and find your “life verse”. I flipped through Philippians, trying to find the verse that was essentially the inspiration for this whole blog. I knew it was in one of Paul’s letters, and I was pretty sure it was Philippians, but unfortunately I didn’t know the reference by heart. I was just looking for the word “shine” in one of my underlined verses. I saw a verse in Philippians that started with “do everything without complaining or arguing”, and after skimming over it I continued to look for my verse. I couldn’t seem to find it anywhere in Philippians, Galatians or Ephesians, so I went back to the formerly mentioned verse in Philippians. However this time I actually read the entire verse, and I realized that it was my verse! I had completely looked over it, and hadn’t even recognized it! That isn’t good at all!

That verse was my inspiration for this blog, as well as my motivation in my faith. I know I’ve put it on here before, but the whole verse says:

“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.”

This verse is so powerful, and I have clung to it many times when going through hard times. The fact that I completely forgot what it said, even when I was specifically looking for it, kind of shows how my attitude towards my faith has been lately. I haven’t been focusing on what needs focus, and I have been absorbed with me and my life. Even my devotions have been scarce, and they haven’t received my undivided attention. And complaining and arguing? Don’t even get me started! I feel like every sentence that comes out of my mouth has some complaint or argument strung along with it.

This morning made me realize that I need to refocus. I need to refocus my writings on here, my devotions, and most importantly my dedication to God. He deserves my everything, not whatever left over time and energy I decide to throw His way. I want to start my mornings by giving the day to Him, not just fitting Him in whenever I get the chance.

I am taking this opportunity to refocus myself onto God, and to go back to where I need to be.