Another one I wrote a while ago....
When I was growing up, one thing set the foundation for my thoughts; Happily Ever After. I was only 5 but I knew what I wanted... I wanted that Prince Charming to come and wisk me away to our happily ever after. I was envious of Ariel, Belle, and Cinderella. These princesses lived the good life and I wanted my story to unfold just as theirs did. What little girl didn't have that dream? What I didn't realize was that this thought process had contaminated my very being. My mind was constantly driven by the overwhelming urge for that perfect guy. In my mind, that would complete my story, and no matter what I walked through everything would be perfect. Stupid, right? Don't lie...you've wanted it...I just said it. But as I grew up I began to see my story unfolding completely different than I had hoped. I began to see how dissapointing this world could be, and I simply lost hope. In giving up my previous happily ever after dream though, I saw hope with something else. Jesus.
With the world sending us these mixed messages it's no wonder we're so messed up. It's so easy to lose focus of the things God has called us to do. In the world we live in (with sooo many distractions), it's a wonder we accomplish anything that furthers the Kingdom of God. Even knowing the call God has placed on my life, sometimes I can't seem to pull away from the madness and business my life has become accustomed to. I get so frustrated and overwhelmed with the way things are going that I start blaming God for not making my life less stressful. What I often fail to realize is that i'm in the spot i'm in by my own admission. By simply giving everything to God and spending the time I need to with Him, He heals my heart and allows me to release all the built up pressure I've accumulated from the stresses of the world. There's just something about resting in Gods peace... It's rejuvinating, stress free, and everything opposite of what I feel as I spend time in this world. It's amazing how much we make this world our home. I suppose it's because we've never known any different. We get to the point where we let the world in so much that we shut Jesus out. Maybe we do it intentionally, maybe not...but we still do it. Sometimes we try to see how close we can get to being a part of the world, taking part in carnal pleasures...and yet still walk with God. Jesus warned us long ago that we can't serve two masters, we can't live for both Him and the world. He has told us to seek Him first, above ALL else...and then he will give us the desires of our hearts. Unfortunately, we try to do it all backwards. Our mindset is more like "hey, let me do all the things in life I want to first, what can I do to make myself happy"... And then we try to cram God into whatever is left of ourselves. How is it that we've gotten to this point.
We all have things that divert our attention away from Christ. For me it was growing up under the false idea of happily ever after. Don't get me wrong...I'm most definitely not against relationships or people wanting to be in one.... because it can be a beautiful thing. I'm simply not ok with my life being centered around that one thing. Life is meant to be lived to the fullest. God has called each and every one of us to accomplish something amazing... He has a story written for us, and it's way more creative and dreamy than even Walt Disney could imagine.
What's keeping you away from the calling Gods placed on your life?
Saturday, December 26, 2009
How can I?
This is something I wrote a while back, but hadn't posted on here... so here it is.
As I've sat through services at church the past couple weeks, I couldn't help but look around to see just how much people choose to tune out. I mean I get that sometimes we sit through church services and it's just like... "Ok, I'm soooo tired, is it over yet...or man this is really boring today, lets just get this over with"....... I'm definitely guilty of having those thoughts at one time or another and I'm not saying you're a sinner if you don't FEEL like being at church one Sunday/Tuesday.... but to continually come to church only to shut Jesus out is utterly pointless.
I had a great experience with God a couple weeks ago at youth. We watched a video, and the speaker is someone who has impacted my life and inspired me in huge ways... now coming out of that service, I was excited! I felt amazing, and God just really revealed great things to me. I was at the edge of my seat the entire time and soaked in every word of wisdom this man of God had to offer. After the service, I went up to talk to a friend who I knew could totally get something out of the message and asked them how they liked it...and to my amazement, all I got was an "ehhh, it was ok...just another service" I was seriously stunned. How could someone sit through something so powerful and moving, and not be touched... As I pondered how this could be, the answer simply came to me.... They hadn't come that night expecting or wanting to hear from God. They choose not to receive anything from God. They were there to put in their mandatory Christian church time and as long as they were physically there for all to see, it didn't matter to them that they had checked out mentally.
I've seen it all too much lately... Christians on auto-pilot.. and it makes me so sad, to know that they have all the potential of being used by God but choose to tune out and walk away instead. My heart breaks for these people. It's no wonder people get burned out from playing church. They don't tap into God and who He really is and what He really wants to do in them...and when things go wrong in their lives, they don't have the peace (that only comes from Jesus and resting in him)... they continue to have no hope. No passion. No purpose. No understanding of their destiny or the person God is trying to call them to be.
I believe the words made famous by Lifehouse state it best....
"And How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?"
How can we sit in Gods presence and not be touched by Him?!? How can we be in the presence of Jesus Christ and tune out?!?
The song goes on to say;
"You're all I want you're all I need.
You're everything, everything
You're all I want you're all I need, you're everything, everything."
But is that our mentality? More often than not we seem to have the opposite thought process. By sitting in His presence and disreguarding Him... we are saying something like... "God, You're not all I want, you're not all I need. I wish I was somewhere else, doing something else...I'm sorry God who created the universe, God who created ME...I don't want to hear what you have to say to me today."
We all have so much junk in our lives...so much pain, sin, stress, anger, bitterness, ect... And how many of us WANT to deal with that.... Sorry, but I don't WANT to deal with pain... Do you? So if we have pain in our lives, obviously we're gonna want to get rid of it, and the only place to get rid of our pain (more than just temporarily) is through Jesus....
Remember the woman with the issue of blood in the Bible... for 12 years she struggled with a disease that left her weak, anemic, in pain...and embarrassed because she was constantly bleeding everywhere. Now after 12 years of dealing with this incurable disease, she sees Jesus passing by with a large crowd of people. Ok, so knowing Jesus could cure her no problem, no questions asked...Imagine, that she just decided to sit back and watch Jesus pass by, not attempting to go to him for help. What if she just didn't FEEL like going after Jesus that day?.....seems absurd right? I mean we all know that she fought through the crowd that day, she crawled to Jesus, touched His cloak, and was healed.... Now reading that, you're probably like "well i'd go for Jesus too... obviously"...but would you really? Because if you're living with junk in your life and tuning God out as you sit in church... you're obviously not going after those miracles. You're watching Jesus pass by, telling Him (by every second you tune out) that He isn't worth the effort.
When will we get so tired of living the way we're living... that we just go after God with ALL that we have... and instead of having the "you're not worth the effort" attitude... seek the "YOU'RE ALL I WANT, YOU'RE ALL I NEED, YOU'RE EVERYTHING" attitude.
"But if from there you seek the Lord your God,
you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all
your soul." —Deuteronomy 4:29
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you
will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who
asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will
be opened." —Matthew 7:7-8
We must seek Him to find Him... We have to go after Him with ALL we have.
ARE YOU READY?
As I've sat through services at church the past couple weeks, I couldn't help but look around to see just how much people choose to tune out. I mean I get that sometimes we sit through church services and it's just like... "Ok, I'm soooo tired, is it over yet...or man this is really boring today, lets just get this over with"....... I'm definitely guilty of having those thoughts at one time or another and I'm not saying you're a sinner if you don't FEEL like being at church one Sunday/Tuesday.... but to continually come to church only to shut Jesus out is utterly pointless.
I had a great experience with God a couple weeks ago at youth. We watched a video, and the speaker is someone who has impacted my life and inspired me in huge ways... now coming out of that service, I was excited! I felt amazing, and God just really revealed great things to me. I was at the edge of my seat the entire time and soaked in every word of wisdom this man of God had to offer. After the service, I went up to talk to a friend who I knew could totally get something out of the message and asked them how they liked it...and to my amazement, all I got was an "ehhh, it was ok...just another service" I was seriously stunned. How could someone sit through something so powerful and moving, and not be touched... As I pondered how this could be, the answer simply came to me.... They hadn't come that night expecting or wanting to hear from God. They choose not to receive anything from God. They were there to put in their mandatory Christian church time and as long as they were physically there for all to see, it didn't matter to them that they had checked out mentally.
I've seen it all too much lately... Christians on auto-pilot.. and it makes me so sad, to know that they have all the potential of being used by God but choose to tune out and walk away instead. My heart breaks for these people. It's no wonder people get burned out from playing church. They don't tap into God and who He really is and what He really wants to do in them...and when things go wrong in their lives, they don't have the peace (that only comes from Jesus and resting in him)... they continue to have no hope. No passion. No purpose. No understanding of their destiny or the person God is trying to call them to be.
I believe the words made famous by Lifehouse state it best....
"And How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?"
How can we sit in Gods presence and not be touched by Him?!? How can we be in the presence of Jesus Christ and tune out?!?
The song goes on to say;
"You're all I want you're all I need.
You're everything, everything
You're all I want you're all I need, you're everything, everything."
But is that our mentality? More often than not we seem to have the opposite thought process. By sitting in His presence and disreguarding Him... we are saying something like... "God, You're not all I want, you're not all I need. I wish I was somewhere else, doing something else...I'm sorry God who created the universe, God who created ME...I don't want to hear what you have to say to me today."
We all have so much junk in our lives...so much pain, sin, stress, anger, bitterness, ect... And how many of us WANT to deal with that.... Sorry, but I don't WANT to deal with pain... Do you? So if we have pain in our lives, obviously we're gonna want to get rid of it, and the only place to get rid of our pain (more than just temporarily) is through Jesus....
Remember the woman with the issue of blood in the Bible... for 12 years she struggled with a disease that left her weak, anemic, in pain...and embarrassed because she was constantly bleeding everywhere. Now after 12 years of dealing with this incurable disease, she sees Jesus passing by with a large crowd of people. Ok, so knowing Jesus could cure her no problem, no questions asked...Imagine, that she just decided to sit back and watch Jesus pass by, not attempting to go to him for help. What if she just didn't FEEL like going after Jesus that day?.....seems absurd right? I mean we all know that she fought through the crowd that day, she crawled to Jesus, touched His cloak, and was healed.... Now reading that, you're probably like "well i'd go for Jesus too... obviously"...but would you really? Because if you're living with junk in your life and tuning God out as you sit in church... you're obviously not going after those miracles. You're watching Jesus pass by, telling Him (by every second you tune out) that He isn't worth the effort.
When will we get so tired of living the way we're living... that we just go after God with ALL that we have... and instead of having the "you're not worth the effort" attitude... seek the "YOU'RE ALL I WANT, YOU'RE ALL I NEED, YOU'RE EVERYTHING" attitude.
"But if from there you seek the Lord your God,
you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all
your soul." —Deuteronomy 4:29
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you
will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who
asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will
be opened." —Matthew 7:7-8
We must seek Him to find Him... We have to go after Him with ALL we have.
ARE YOU READY?
Sunday, December 20, 2009
I think God forgot the shut off valve to my brain...
It seems I can't sleep much these days. I guess there's just a million and twelve things running across my mind at this point in life, and sleep simply won't bless me with it's presence while my brain is on overload. This won't be a very long blog, or my best writing... but I've been needing to start a blog for a while now and I've had this gnawing urge to just write. Who knows if this will actually be read by people.. It may be simply for me to keep track of where I've been in life and how far I've come. My other blogs won't be this boring, promise. If in fact, you are reading this and you decide to stick around for the rest of my writing, I hope to encourage, challenge, and strengthen you. God has me on an intense roller coaster in my life and I can't wait to share both the good and the bad with you. Someday I'm going to write a book, and whoever you are that may be reading this can say that they knew me before I was famous =-P ... For real though, I hope you'll be blessed by my future postings. Well, it's late and attempting sleep sounds like a potentially promising act... so off I go. I'll hopefully continue this weekly, if not daily.
Mucho love <3
Kristin
Mucho love <3
Kristin
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