Your choice to choose...

You know that hard moment when your parents give you the decision of what to do, like stay at home and be with them or go out with some of your best friends the last night you're in town. Or the moment that you want to stop running because your muscles burn and you think you can't get any further at the same place everything, and you feel like you can't get past that point, so you choose to stop.

Choices may be one of the hardest things God has given us. Free will is a powerful thing but so is your heart to make the right choices. It is always so much easier to fall instead of getting up, or continuing to sin than to get out and get help. The willingness to be free is one of the most powerful things God gives us, in our control.

I hate the fact that He give us this choice, to choose Him or choose sin. Why are choices in general so hard for us, do you think we naturally make the right choices, or do we have to go against our will more of the time?

Do our decisions reflect our values? When we follow our heart we get caught up in emotions. My good friend told me once "Emotions will never make logical sense. We all have many reason for feeling the way we feel but if we are focused on our excused we get stuck in our head." We decide to go against our values to see what really is important to you. Like do the little things really bother you, can you live with them, or do you not deserve them what so ever.

"Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are, and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else's life." -- Eleanor Roosevelt  


Our choices we make may cause pain and distraction and we have to be all in or all out, in our decision because being half in and half out will only drag out that hurt more and more. We are responsible for our decisions and all that it brings with it, the pain, the joy, a decision is dangerous sometimes.

So if our choice goes again our value and our heart, a war brakes out between our flesh and spirit. This is where the pain and hardness comes in,  because you know what you WANT to do and what you SHOULD do. Choosing want you should do is not going to be any easier after than what you want. Both are hard and bring this feeling of missing out sometimes, or that the other one would be easier half way through. But the decision is made and you have to be all in, in that decision that was made.


Galatians 5:13-35
Life by the Spirit

 ¹³ You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. ¹⁴ For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵ If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.  ¹⁶ So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
 ¹⁹ The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
 ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶ Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Making the right choice will show the love you have for the other person, in the way you are respecting them by choosing to live by the Spirit.

Notice the when you took verse 16 and 17 together the main point is not war, but the victory for the Spirit. Christ is the God of the Universe and if you choose Him you will win if you choose to live by the Spirit.

Finding hope...

One of my closest friend told me once...
"You are so strong. No, not all the time. But that's okay. Even when you're weak, the strength that it takes to admit that and to fight that battle is incredible. Your life has been far from comfortable and you appreciate all the little things, just like i do..." and of course we always under estimate ourselves and who we impact and what we do on this Earth. But at this point in my life that is all I needed to hear, and it gave me HOPE.

Hope is a word that is used a lot. Sometimes I'm not sure if i fully understand what it means until all I have is hope. I fall. A lot. We all do. But what makes us get back up? It is so much easier to just give up, but why do we consistently want to find for something more? We are scared of death, and we long for pleasure. Getting up for me is what gives me hope. And hope GIVES ME STRENGTH.

"It will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."

What makes us strong? Our attitude, our vulnerability, our hope? Guess what? You are allowed to have a bad day, but do not lose your hope.

I think a lot of the time we get caught up in our world and our life and problems that we get numb and get start to lose that hope that has been there the whole time. Suffering sucks we all know that, but how do we show our strength through our suffering?

My dad told me about a year ago, "You see someones true character during the hardest of times." It is completely true, it is so easy to walk around with your head up, shoulders back while things are great, but when things start to get hard do we lose that hope, do we start to sulk in our own pity?

Romans 12:12  Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

So are we really strong, because I am told that day after day and really I think we are hopeful. We hope because we are faithful. Faith in a God that uses the weak to help the strong. 

 

We are strengthen through His FREEDOM. Freedom from all suffering, but we have to choose His peace. He only wants to free us. We do not have the control but we do have the choice to choose Him, and until we do choose to choose Him we will suffer.

Find your strength IN HIM. Find His hope, His freedom. He will restore you.

"To miss"

Defined as:
 1. "to fail to encounter, meet, catch, ect."
 2. "to notice the absence or loss of."


Why do we miss people?

What is it that people bring in our lives that one other people can bring out in us.

My little brother and I hung out 24/7 until I was in 7th grade, and with him my other "little brother" Tanner. It was always us. Tanner died about 4 years ago, and when he did I was destroyed, but I thought it might bring my little brother and I closer and it didn't, nothing was the same after that.

Tanner brought something out of both my brother and I that neither of us could do for each other. People bring different sides out of us. This is not a bad thing, at all. We are all different, made up with millions of personalities.

"Missing someone means, that person makes you feel so good, and so loved, when you miss them you miss that feeling they give you because you feel so full"...a friend wrote this on a paper and is stuck in my bible.

When we are around our closest people the our hearts, the ones that understand us more than we understand ourselves, those are the ones we miss the most...usually. 

I think this is so beyond true. This is also so very true when we start to miss that feeling of fullness, joy, peace, satisfaction, freedom. We feel like something is missing, the Lord waits.

"The Lord isn't really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent." -2 Peter 3:9

The star breathing God of the universe is so satisfying that we are contently feeling like we are missing someone, because we miss that feeling that he gives us. That warm heart, pure smile, and feeling of standing on top of the world, we are contently missing it.

"How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand" - Psalms139:17

He misses us to, He wants more of us just as much as We want Him. The difference...is we need Him, He doesn't need us, but He still wants us. He gets that satisfaction of holding his child in his arms.

****

When we don't have the Lord in this holey heart we try and cover these holes up with Earthly things, but it will never be big enough to fill and never be small enough to fit. The Lord is the only one that can fill these holes, drinking, people, sex, drugs, addictions, control will NEVER fill the holes.

 
Stop trying to fill these holes and let God just heal you. Miss him, long for him, need him, because He misses you, longs for you and wants you.

Satin's playground....

Every single day we wake up on Satin's play ground. We get beat up, we hid, we scream and sometimes we have to learn to run faster than him when we are most tired.

I feel like right now a lot of us are DISTRACTED, and caught up in life and lies and fears, and we need to take the time to take a deep breath and collect our thoughts.

We get caught up in school, work, organizations, or hobbies and we forget why we are doing them. We are we going to school, why do you work where you work, are your hobbies really still making you happy?

This distraction is what Satin wants us to be in, there is where he can attack us the most. When we are not looking he will throw a punch and hits us HARD. We don't know why we cant get up because we keep going and going until you get to a point where you want to run away. You need a VACATION, you need a worship night, you need just a day with your family and no errands or running around to sports or activities. This is where we get tired and Satin can catch us and hit us, hard.

Satin is like the biggest BULLY on the play ground just waiting for you to fall or get distracted. We so lost in all the things we need to do, all the stress of every day, but if you think about it...

THE STRESS YOU GO THROUGH IS NO WHERE CLOSE TO THE IDEA OF JESUS DIEING ON THE CROSS FOR YOU AND I!

Why do we stress out about the future and about what people think of us, because we are on Satin's playground and that's right where he wants us to be. DO NOT GET DISTRACTED.

Keep you eyes on that cross, keep your ears to the Father whispers, keep your mouth in truth, keep your mind clean and fresh, keep your heart free and at peace. Be IN TUNE with the star breathing God, that thinks about you more than the gains of sand.

Get up! Take a deep breath! Shake off the dirt! and HIT SATIN BACK.

My god is way bigger than this little playground and is way stronger than any bully on this Earth.

It is going to be okay, and if it is not okay, it is not the end.

Fear

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.- 1 John 4:18

We go throughout this life wondering and fearing. Why?! Why do we compare ourselves to someone who we will NEVER be? 

All we do is hurt ourselves, pulling ourselves down, and no one else.

We sit in this suffering we create, this self sulking "pain" that we can swim in. 

I was listening to a song just now and the lyrics go like this:

You are my vision, O King of my heart.
Nothing else satisfies, only You, Lord.
You are my best thought by day or by night.
Waking or sleeping, Your presence, my light.

You are my wisdom, You are my true word,
I ever with You, and You with me Lord:
You're my great Father, and I'm Your true son,
You dwell inside me, together we're one.

You are my battle-shield, sword for the fight
You are my dignity, You're my delight
You're my soul's shelter and You're my high tower.
Come, raise me heavenward, O Power of my power.
I don't want riches or man's empty praise:
You're my inheritance, now and always;
You, and You only, the first in my heart:
High King of heaven, my treasure You are.

High King of heaven, when victory's won
May I reach heaven's joy, O bright heaven's Son.
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

It is called You are My Vision by Rend Collection Experience.

As I was listening I was asking myself why do I feel so insecure if these words 

just soaked my heart. 

We are human. We are on Earth, the world effects us no matter how strong 

we are, but if we are strong IN Christ and THROUGH Christ we will not let the 

world bring us down. 

 Why is it always so hard to listen to 

the love of the God of the universe, 

the God that knows every hair on 

top of your head and thinks of you 

more than the grains of the sand, 

when the people listen to complete 

strangers of how we are not good 

enough, when we are everything to Him. 

So what?! 

"Stop trusting in mere humans, 
 who have but a breath in their nostrils. 
 Why hold them in esteem?" Isaiah 2:22 

He loves you because He loves you, 

He loves you because He loves you, 

He loves you because He loves you, 

He loves you because He loves you, 

He loves you because He loves you, 

He loves you because He loves you, 

Because that's is who He is.

He loves you 100% right now. 

There is nothing you can do to to make Him love you more or less, 

because He loves you RIGHT NOW!! 

Stop please people because it will never fill you up.

This is who YOU are. 

YOU ARE YOU. BE YOU AND ONLY YOU. 

Taking control...

The world gives us a lot of pressure to figure out our lives, and with that we sometimes get lost what the world is telling us and what we want to do.

Most of the time with this pressure we forget that it is okay to be selfish in a healthy way, in the sense of doing what you want to do for you and God, not for your parents or to make the most money or what makes you look smart, but truly what you want to do it your life.

We say things like "I guess", "I don't know", "maybe", "sort of" "kind of" these words do not show any kind of security in ourselves and give other people the control, and some people may take advantage of that.

Saying these things makes us vulnerable, and it gives the other person or people the opportunity to pursue you in a way that you usually don't want to do.

We get hurt by saying these things. We need control of our life, and if we don't we get walked on, we get into situations that put our heart in a bad spot, or just in a place where we can get hurt.

Do what you want to do, because no matter what God is in ultimate control which means that no matter what He is going to make anything and every work if it is of Him. He will take open and close doors and if we are scared of doing what we want to do, we will miss those open doors. Take control of your life and stand strong in what you believe in, because God is there with you.

I am not encouraging you to go out hurt people by being selfish, and not caring what you are doing. Don't walk on people, don't take advantage of your words and your actions because they can get you in some dark places.


YOU ARE YOU, everyone else is taken, SO BE YOU.

Don't give other people that control and the advantage of making decisions for you, you may get hurt.

What really matters?

To really live you have to learn to die. 

Sitting in all four of my sociology classes, I have recently been sitting there and thinking to myself why does any of this matter?Why does it matter that we are stuck in this bureaucratic control system. I think it does matter because we are human and we are on Earth and God has created us to love. But if that's all we need to do then why do we get caught up in all the drama and statuses we could/should/would have and playing the if/then games?!

I sit there and ask myself, what the hell am I suppose to do about all these problems? I am only one person, I am so small to this world, but in our own heads we are so big, so important. Who we are big and important to is number one God, and two the people we touch that are in our world.

So we are given a choice to do something in this world of ours, to LOVE or to FEAR, and ultimately I think everything comes down to love and fear. If we choose to fear we will get caught up in life and all the Earthly things that happen, but what do you think would happen if more people chose to choose love, we all know that everyone can't choose love but what if you loved someone and that changed their life. What if all it took was a phone call to your older brother to see how he is doing, or to call your grandma on one of your good days and not your bad days, or to not rush the cash register, or to write your best friend a letter telling them what they mean to you. What if the world did this more instead of living in fear?

One of the hardest things for humans to understand is the sentence "Jesus loves you". You may say to your self that is so easy to understand but do you really get what that is saying? Who is Jesus, He is not here physically, do you really trust him with every thing you have? Love, what the hell is that, we say it all the time and we say it with and with out meaning, we say it to strangers, we say it in a rush, we say it all the time, but do we even know what love is, probably not, so how the heck would we even come to understand what agape (compassionate/SELFLESS love) means. Last but not least who the heck is you? Who are you? Who are you in your friends eyes compared to your professors eyes, who are you to the people standing behind you in the line in target, who are you , who were you and who do you want to be?

These three words are said so much but it is so unbelievable hard for us to understand what each one of those words mean. This is why faith is such a beautiful thing, and so when we get caught up in what the world says we need to do...go to school, get a good job, make babies, buy stuff...lots of stuff, party and have a million and one friends who don't know your name, and behave, WHY DOES IT MATTER when we are talking about the love, selfless love that the God of the universe has for yourself?

You are loved.

Jeremiah 31:3 

The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying:
"I have loved you with an everlasting love;
 I have drawn you with unfailing kindness."