Knowing God’s Will

Psalm 32:8-9
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.”

There is a parallel between being studying habits and my walk with God. I expected God to at times, direct me just like the illustration; pretending that I have no understanding of the Word planted in me, expecting God to give me instructions as if I know nothing. I don’t claim to know anything except that which God has spoken to me. But for the Words He has given me, I am responsible.

God doesn’t want us to be like a horse which must be directed with an instrument (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridle). He wants us to take the time to understand His Word, understand our situation, understand why we are here; the basic, but hard to swallow principles of being a Christian. The doing will come, but first, we are to immerse ourselves in the Word to gain understanding — to know Him first.

Just like engineers cannot solve problems by simply knowing the formulas, we cannot do God’s will by just following a step by step list. We have to know the one from whom the Words came from. In our classes, in order to get through a problem set, you will have had to go through the concepts and make connections in your head, to fully grasp the big idea. Its not enough to get the bare essentials to get by on assignments, as I have learned the hard way. Everything depends on a solid understanding of the underlying concepts.

In the same way, God calls us to get into His Word, think about it, day and night, trying to understand who He is. Our “problem set” is not doing His Will. Our assignment is knowing Him. Through knowing and understanding God, we come to know His will. We come to know Him. Sigh. Its as if I go in circles with this one. Constantly I am here and there, trying to figure out just what God’s will is, forgetting that He wants me to be closer and closer to Him.

“Know me!” He commands. Its a love-relationship after all, and you are not a horse, a mule, or…..a robot that responds only after a command.

When God reveals something in His Word to you, its a call to understand that Word at that very moment.

Waiting on God’s command or leading does not always mean waiting for the heavens to open up and give us a sign; it means reading God’s Word to check whether the decision or plan in question is in alignment with what God’s Word says and also in prayer, asking the Holy Spirit to steer our desires in the right direction. We are not like the animals, we have understanding. Understanding. I’ll say it one more time, understanding! ..given to us from God above.

So I’ll finish off with Philippians 3:16, “Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”

Let’s take ownership of that which God has placed in us, His Word.

when the enemy tries to tell you otherwise, listen to the voice of truth.

Voice Of Truth – Casting Crowns

Oh what I would do to have
The kind of faith it takes to climb out of this boat I’m in
Onto the crashing waves

To step out of my comfort zone
To the realm of the unknown where Jesus is
And He’s holding out his hand

But the waves are calling out my name and they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times I’ve tried before and failed
The waves they keep on telling me
Time and time again. ‘Boy, you’ll never win!’
“You’ll never win”

But the voice of truth tells me a different story
And the voice of truth says “Do not be afraid!”
And the voice of truth says “This is for My glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth

Oh what I would do to have
The kind of strength it takes to stand before a giant
With just a Sling and a stone
Surrounded by the sound of a thousand warriors
Shaking in their armor
Wishing they’d have had the strength to stand

But the giant’s calling out my name and he laughs at me
Reminding me of all the times I’ve tried before and failed
The giant keeps on telling me
Time and time again “boy, you’ll never win!
“You’ll never win”

But the stone was just the right size
To put the giant on the ground
And the waves they don’t seem so high
From on top of them looking down
I will soar with the wings of eagles
When I stop and listen to the sound of Jesus
Singing over me

I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth

I had a really great dinner tonight with a good friend of mine and I just wanted to share some things that have been on my mind since. I realized something. The reason why I was so worried about the future and the possibility of wasted potential was because I was worried that the grand future I had envisioned for myself would not come true. I feared that I wouldn’t be able to fulfill the things or challenges before me and that I’d become an average Joe, barely reaching half of my potential. How selfish and greedy I’d been, that it had blinded my eyes from seeing that God, all this time, had a plan for me from the beginning and all this time I was worried about my own plans coming true rather than following His.

When God gives you something to accomplish, He doesn’t let you do it alone. God gives you the strength and the guidance to do whatever it is He has called you to do, and walks with you every step of the way. Its not about what He will do or how He will do it, because we know, from His word that He indeed has a plan in place already (yeah, you’ve heard it a million times if you’ve been in the Christian circuit for awhile, Jeremiah 29:11 =D ) — its whether we will obey Him and whether we are truly, truly willing to give up our plans in order for His plans to happen. We’ve got to learn to wait on Him and not to force His will to come prematurely. You can’t speed up God’s will. You can’t tell Him to hurry up His will so you can be where you think He wants you to be right now. If you aren’t “there” yet, chances are, there’s a lesson God wants you to learn in your current circumstances. God isn’t all about changing our circumstances, He’s about changing our hearts.

At the end of the day, we are here to know God, glorify Him, and make Him known. At the end of the day, we have what our hearts are longing for — a relationship with God, made possible because of what Jesus did on the cross for us: every person in this world, convict, saint, murderer, or that seemingly perfect church goer down the street, every person is on even ground before God; no one is perfect. Through Jesus’s death on the cross our sins are forgiven, all the things we’ve done that we know we shouldn’t have, that we know aren’t doing a good thing for our hearts that are taking us further from the person we were meant to be — if its taking you further from God, its sin. This gift of salvation is offered to every single one of us and all these things I’ve mentioned are promises for those who believe and accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord of their life.

You might be thinking, heck, I could get this “sort of thing” from any other motivation book or from watching Oprah where there’s an abundance of resources promising to help you meet your potential, to be positive, having an unwavering belief that everything is going to be fine, etc. I’m telling you its not the same. When you take God out of the equation, you miss the entire point, everything else is meaningless. It all comes back to God. We were made for Him. We were made to have a relationship with Him. If you’ve felt that void inside your heart that something is not right, or something is missing, that’s the God-shaped hole right there. You’ll be searching for substitutes until you let God take His place in your heart.

Thing is, He can’t force Himself to be the Lord of your life. He’s given us a choice. We just have to pray and ask for Him to come into our lives and into our heart. And let me just say, I made that choice to follow Jesus when I was 13 years old and I feel as though I’m still having to make that choice every day, now at the age of 22. Its not easy. I’m human, I’m imperfect, I’m a sinner. I admit it, I’m not perfect. I have worldly desires too for fame, money, hot guys , pretty clothes, the list goes on. But at the end of the day, I realize these things are not what I was meant to live for. These things don’t bring happiness or fulfillment. Its God. And yes, its not an easy life seeing as though not everyone’s doing it. Its easy to do what everyone else is doing but its not so easy to live the life of a Christian. But I know that in God, I have everything I have always wanted. In God, I am who I’m meant to be. I believe there is no other way to live but to live a life devoted to Him.

That’s my two cents for the day. Be blessed.

Alyssa.

get out of your comfort zone.

Christians who’ve been wading in luke-warm water:

Stop waiting for God to come to you and save you. Newsflash! : He already did. You know it already — He died for you, He loves you with an unconditional love, He is the source of our strength. Now my question is this: what have you been doing with the life God gave you?

Think its just words and motivation to give you the guts to do what you’ve always wanted to do? Think again. Come on guys, its time to grow up and embrace the Christian life. Its not going to be comfortable, its not going to be easy, and its not always going to be a party, but I do know one thing, its that God is in it. You might have been looking for Him in other places whether it be your new social circles, pubs, clubs, doing crazy things you’ve never done before, a new personality, a boyfriend/girlfriend.

I think God is calling us out, and asking, what have you done with all of the words I’ve put in your ear? Have you put any of them in your heart? I want you to experience life with me and you haven’t really listened to a word I’ve said.

Pastor John, a couple weeks back, was talking about how people tend to get old. They get boring. Nothing is new to them. As their childhood dreams don’t become fulfilled, they just settle with the comfortable, not really challenging themselves and fulfilling the dreams God had for them. The Bible says, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” -Matthew 18:3

Isn’t that so true? That as children, we say, “I want to be an astronaut!” Others, “I want to be a doctor!” It seems that the world is ours to conquer and we can do whatever we could imagine ourselves to be. Then as we age, we see the negativity in the world. Often we react to circumstance, focusing on what we don’t have, what we don’t know, as opposed to taking steps to getting to wherever “there” is. I think that this verse just reminds us that we need to be like children again, actually believing for amazing things.

I believe God has great plans for your life. I believe God has put dreams in your heart. I believe that God is who He says He is, and that His strength is made perfect in my weakness. Hear that? God’s strength is made perfect in my weakness. I cannot even imagine doing the things God has put in my heart, on my own. But there’s a reason for that, it’s because God doesn’t expect me to do them myself, He wants us to acknowledge that, that we need Him every step of the way, that walking with Him makes all the difference. He wants this daily relationship with you.

I can’t say I have it all figured out. Every day is different, every day I learn that I am wrong about something or someone. I don’t know exactly, at this point, what God has planned, I just know I need to walk with Him daily in committing to reading the Word, keep learning, keep moving forward and not put aside the things I think are impossible.

So, this is something that’s just been on my mind lately and needed to get it out. Its kind of a rant, on my part, I guess.

Later days.

Is it wrong to have all guy friends?

I mean, they’re easier to hang out with. Well, girls are easier to talk to most of the time. But guys are just fun to be around because they’re always spontaneous and the least likely to complain about something. They’re a lot more happy-go-lucky compared to most girls.

But, sometimes I feel like I should be more balanced by having an equal amount of friends that are girls. Arguably, it is understandable seeing as though I am in a program wherein 80-90% are males.

But what about the guys that have mostly female friends? How does society look at them? How does society look at girls who have mostly guy friends?

The thing I guess I am worried about is that people will get the wrong idea and think that I’m the type of girl to give myself away to guys or that just wants attention. I don’t think that is true, whatsoever. The guys treat me like one of the guys (minus the sexual innuendos which I cannot tolerate), but sometimes I do feel like I’m missing something.

Anyway. That’s my brain fart for the night, after spending the evening playing rock band with my best buddies, yes, all guys, and at one point, wondering whether it was normal.

What do you think?

Natalie Grant – The Real Me

Foolish heart looks like we’re here again
Same old game of plastic smile
Don’t let anybody in
Hiding my heartache, will this glass house break
How much will they take before I’m empty
Do I let it show, does anybody know?

But you see the real me
Hiding in my skin, broken from within
Unveil me completely
I’m loosening my grasp
There’s no need to mask my frailty
Cause you see the real me

Painted on, life is behind a mask
Self-inflicted circus clown
I’m tired of the song and dance
Living a Charade, always on parade
What a mess I’ve made of my existence
But you love me even now
And still I see somehow

But you see the real me
Hiding in my skin, broken from within
Unveil me completely
I’m loosening my grasp
There’s no need to mask my frailty
Cause you see the real me

Wonderful, beautiful is what you see
When you look at me
You’re turning the tattered fabric of my life into
A perfect tapestry
I just wanna be me

But you see the real me
Hiding in my skin, broken from within
Unveil me completely
I’m loosening my grasp
There’s no need to mask my frailty
Cause you see the real me

And you love me just as I am

Wonderful, Beautiful is what you see
When you look at me

Sunday reflection

How do you live a godly life while ensuring that your pride doesn’t get in the way, that people see the reflection of God rather than a super-human being or a perfectionist? How can we show the world the light with our lives? How can we enact change and inspire others to live life with an ultimate purpose or meaning? How can we bring Christ to them?

I am so far from perfect, but there’s always this temptation to pressure myself into thinking I have to always be perfect so that people would come to Christ. I think I am realizing that its this mentality that draws people away instead. I think actually, its this mentality that makes me, myself, more reluctant to trust God and instead try to go it out alone, try to live on my own strength and am consequently limited to my own ability or at least my self-perceived ability.

Today in church, I felt God was try to teach me that its not about that. God always has something bigger planned for our lives; whenever we dream something and trust God with it, whenever we break through challenges, acting on faith instead of fear, God brings us to a place greater than we could have ever imagined to begin with. Its so easy to get caught up in the glam of the “prosperity” gospel, but definitely its important to realize its not the end-result that changes peoples’ lives. Its the process, its the relationship between trusting God and overcoming challenges. Its the daily transformation of your own preconceived notions of the world, your thoughts, your beliefs and becoming more like Christ. Facing obstacles, taking on real-life challenges and actually believing and hoping for something greater. Hope, faith, trust — these are the real things in life that make a difference.

Knowing that at the end of the day, God loves me, just as I am. At the end of the day, whatever stupid thing I may have said, whatever impressions I have made on others whether good or bad, whether people hate me or not, whether I was just… not as cool and confident as I thought I was yesterday… God loves me just as I am. God is not like us. He cannot lack faith like we do. There’s a reason for this. It makes a huge difference. Just think, a life trusting in God, believing, not worrying, how much one could overcome. Life is challenging at some points because as humans we have to learn how to trust God and to have faith even in difficult circumstances. But God, it is who He is. God sees something in me because He is hope, He is faith; we all are a reflection of who God is, and I believe that God does not give up on this until moment we die.

God has so much in store for you, wherever you are in this walk of life. I mean, I could say all these wonderful, wordy, supposedly “Christian” words and not live it out perfectly. To be honest, the last week I hadn’t prayed or spent time just in reading the Bible, talking to God, trying to hear what He wants to teach me. But that’s just it. I am a work in process and expecting to be perfect just because I am a Christian is impractical. At the core of our being is a desire for earthly things. Granted, being perfect does not mean that you pray every day. But, I find that when I don’t spend time with God on a regular basis, I start getting distracted with other things which are really unnecessary noise in my life. Like watching movies on and on and on, spending hours on the internet, playing games, I mean these things aren’t bad, but I always have this laziness lurking inside of me, wanting to just lie in bed all day and be on my laptop. And to be honest, its not a pretty sight.

I’m not really happy when I do these things, being lazy, that is. I want to be purposeful with my life and spent every minute trying to make a difference. I don’t want to be shy and keep to myself anymore. I want to be out there, sharing who I am with the world because Christ is in me and people need to experience God. I can see it. I’ve been there. It feels empty. It feels lonely. It feels desperate and deprived.

Only God can fill this void if you’re feeling it today. Sure, you can have many friends around you, you can have all the success in the world. But what happens when you go home at night, what are you thinking just before you go to bed? Are you truly satisfied?

When you’ve experienced God your life just isn’t the same anymore. Things of this world don’t satisfy and just, a relationship with God is not the same as the greatest relationship you could have with another human… Whoever is reading this, God loves you so much. God wants you to know that you are so valuable to Him.. that whoever you are, whatever you have done in the past, God wants you to lay it at His feet and realize that He has always been there and that He is waiting for you to come to Him. Just ask. There’s no special way to say it, just talk to Him and say whatever it is that’s on your mind. Then, listen. Christ died for us so that we could live and know God personally. He died for our sins, the things we have done that don’t please God and offend the spirit that lives inside of each of us. There’s a life that’s waiting for you that God wants you to experience and He’s not ever going to abandon you and He’s never going to betray you, take advantage of you — He is perfect, He is not like that people that have disappointed you in the past.

Friend, I hope that you got something out of this, whoever you are.

Love,

Me.

Why do we really need caffeine?

As I was looking up ways to make your own Red Bull, or in other words, a high-sugar, high-caffeine recipe, something dawned on me. There’s a plethora of products out there selling energy boosts, promising to stimulate your brain activity also your metabolism. But do we really need it?

Is it just a cop out for bad health and a lacking desire to do what we have to do? I think that we don’t really need it, in my opinion. I think that if you do things that you truly believe in, or truly want to do, you will put in the extra work required and will not need caffeine to help you along the way.

Case in point, last week I was a part of a 168 hour film project, where a team has — you guessed it, 168 hours to make a 7-10 minute film. Essentially I had 2 days to complete my portion of it, (which was the film score) since I had to wait until they finished writing the script and filming the scenes. Side note, I’m in a high-stress program in school (which also does not have anything to do with music, engineering actually) and drink tea almost every hour to keep me going. Anyway, back to the film, I worked 18 hours each day, probably had one complete meal in that entire timeline and a glass of milk. I kid you not. Despite that fact, I was able to focus and concentrate.

Never did I give it a thought to even grab a cup of hot black tea or coffee or red bull. The only source of energy I had was my motivation and determination to get the music done. Yet, the moment I was finished that project and I had to go back to my school work, the first thing that hit my mind was that I needed a cup of tea. And candy. And whatever food was out there. I cannot say that this was because I was starved the previous days. But I really do think that I was in a different frame of mind when I was making music.

In consuming all this caffeine and energy boosters, are we actually trying to fix something that has nothing to do with our lack of physical capability and everything to do with the fact that we are not doing what we want to do? Is this healthy?

Are you doing what you really want in life? Are you getting out of life everything that you can and want and believe that you should have?

I know I am not. I know that I hate school and the things I learn — I should have quit 3 years ago. But, its too late now. I am going to grab what it is that I want and do what I love to do. We all know what we love to do but so many of us choose to go the safe route and stick to a 9-5 job. I will not do this. I will not give in to the caffeine.

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

this is why i didn’t want to come back

Being out east with a network of friends and lots of places to go and see, the money to do whatever I wanted, go wherever I willed, when I wanted, it made it really hard to miss home.  Home, — school, or campus, rather, is  a place where I feel failure to the nth degree.  It is boredom at its finest, bluffing at its worst, and convincing myself that all the time I have spent here has been worth it.  I had so many new experiences out east.  My biggest fear was that I would come back and be the introvert I’d always been, stay in my room for hours on end with nowhere to go, looking up websites on potential and breaking out but really living a life that was small.  Here I am.  I am back, and it sucks.  I guess I really put myself in the position to do so.  I can change, sure, but really I don’t know what I want.

Perhaps its also because I feel like I don’t know what I should want.  Again, the whole living by others’ expectations mentality is bobbing its head out of the water.  Who do I want to be?  What do I want to do every day of my life?  What am I living for?  What can I do to wake up in eager expectation and anticipation for the day ahead?

Each morning I wake up on campus I feel like I’m already doomed to fail.  Sure tell me to change my attitude.  But nothing can change the fact that I don’t give a #$%t about school.  I think in the end that’s what matters.  I’ll work hard for something I care about.  I will.  I just don’t care enough about school to work for it.  I suck at it.  Its not my forte.  I don’t to put effort into something that is just going to make me feel like $%^&.  My subconscious is telling me that I haven’t tried hard enough.  That maybe, just maybe, if I change my attitude and work a little harder, it’ll all get better.

Shut up.  I don’t want to do this.

I want my passions.  I want them.  Where are you?  Come to me.. soon… get me out of here… I want to finally do something with my life.