Audience of One

Does anyone else get stuck in the pit of comparing where they should be by the standards of others? I know I sure do!

All our lives we are told what “true” success is; it’s an education, a 9-5 job, big house, and a family to fill it. The real kicker is there seems to be an age range for each success. An education should happen right after high school to start preparing you for that career, so that age is about 18-22 (unless you are majoring in something more sophisticated such as a Doctor, then the age has a further age range). Then after that you have to get that job right out of college, so that gives you the age range of about 22-24. Then you have to start getting serious with someone, get married, get the house, and start a family. By the time all that happens you should be no older than 30. After 30 you have the rest of your life to live in simplistic bliss. The real happily ever after story.

What I want to know is who in the world decided that this was the formula for a “truly successful” life? Who made it mandatory that these things be done in order to label someone “successful”? Why put a limit on the way a life should be lived? Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with wanting, or even having, any of these things. But to have them be the only thing that defines us as a “successful” person is wrong; to only finding your worth in these things is wrong. But as wrong as it is, it is still so tempting to try to live up to the standards.

So here I am, a 21 year old female, living with my parents with no college degree or a “real” career in sight. And I won’t even bother mentioning a relationship status. Its a real kick in the face with all these standards to live up too. But before you get carried away thinking I am this lazy moocher I want to tell my side, even if some of you may not understand it.

I chose to take a different route in life, or more like I was directed to a different route. Trust me I was headed down the typical college route after high school, but one choice to follow in a different direction lead to a whole new way of life. Instead of a college two hours away from home, I chose an internship program two days away from home. And instead of earning a degree, I voluntarily chose to dedicate two years of my life serving and learning about an education worth more than any University degree. In those two years I gained a faith that will last a lifetime. I learned what it means to be a true Christian and how to live it out in everyday life. What I gained there is worth more than any worldly gain of “success”.  I took what I learned there and have been applying it to life back at home. I work a temporary job until I am called else where. I also do volunteer work and have started up a small youth ministry. I have goals and ambitions, but without God’s guidance I will not move. Rather than stress on all the worldly standards and demands, I have been trying hard to focus on what God demands of me. God has been teaching me that it is not my job to follow and please the world, but it is my job to follow and please Him. And that is my God moment.

True success is not gained by our selfish ambition to make a name for ourselves; true success is gained by humbly accepting the life given to us by our Maker and making a name for Him. So our identity and worth don’t come from the amount of education we have, or the job we have, nor our material possessions, or our relationship status; our true identity and worth can only be found in Christ. When we start to realize that, then the world is no longer our audience; only God is our audience.

I hope this encourages you to live an audience of One life. Live out this life to please Him, not the world. Follow after His plan, not the worlds plan for you. As hard as it is, it is possible. God will give you the strength and the sight to see only Him.

God Bless You!

Love,

theblessingsgirl

 

Grace Wins

“There’ll be days I lose the battle

Grace says that it doesn’t matter

cause the cross already won the war.”

-Greater by Mercyme

My God moment came today when I heard this song. These words spoke to me because they hit home with the situation I’ve been in. I have had a lot of seemingly innocent thoughts and temptations lately, but really they aren’t in God’s sight. Knowing this, I have been in a constant battle against them. Jesus says in Matthew 26:41, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” This is so true for me right now! I am praying and looking to God in my time of weakness, but my flesh is so weak. I know what is right to do, but I still want to hold on to doing what I shouldn’t. This is the same struggle Paul mentions in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” The struggle is real.

That is where this song comes in. It gave me some peace in the midst of my struggling. It reminded me that somedays I am going to lose the fight against temptation. But I don’t have to worry, because grace already won on the cross! Jesus took my punishment for sin and now I am free from it! But I am not saying this to excuse my temptations and thinking that it is ok to give in to them; that would be cheapening His grace. Rather, I am saying this to point out that I am a weak human being who will not always be willing to fight against the attacks of the enemy. I will let down my defense and the temptations may win. But I have a loving, almighty God who will come to my defense if I call out to Him. When I admit that I am weak and that I need Gods strength, that is when He will come. Jesus says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (1 Corinthians 12:9). No sin is to great that God’s grace can’t overcome it. It is in our weakness that God’s power and strength shine through all the more.

If you listen to the song some more it continues to say, “And greater is the One living inside of me than he who is living in the world.” This is in reference to the verse 1 John 4:4, “…the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” What an amazing comfort that is! Yet it is so easy to forget. The enemy, the Devil, would have you believe that there is no way to defeat your temptations and sins. He wants you to think that you are weak and defenseless with no hope of winning against him. He wants you to fall into his trap; which you would be if you believed any of these things. The Devil is a liar! There is a way to defeat sin! You are not defenseless against temptations! You can have victory! It is with God that all these things are possible! He has made a way for you to stand up against temptation through Jesus Christ our Lord! Jesus has defeated sin! With God we have the victory! Claim that truth against the Devils schemes! Do not let him deceive you any longer!

So with this truth I challenge you, and myself, to fight the good fight as it says in 1 Timothy 6:12, “Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” Keep fighting against the enemy and his lies. Proclaim God’s victory in your life against temptation and sin. Cling to Jesus and receive the grace he poured out to you on the cross.

God bless you!

Love,

theblessingsgirl

Family Bonds

This is my little brother Jacob. I took this picture after we had gone on a bike ride yesterday. In many ways we are alike; our looks are similar, our personalities, and the way we react to things. Sometimes our similarities are good, because we can relate to one another. In other ways, though, it is not so good for us to be so similar. We are defensive from being put down by older siblings (if you are a sibling you can understand the order of things and how things work). So when it comes to having arguments neither one of us really knows how to let go and move on. We always want to prove ourselves that we know what’s right, since we are constantly wrong in the eyes of our older siblings. At least that’s how it is perceived to us. So defending ourselves till the very end is the only way we have been able to attempt to survive in an argument; even thought it hardly works because we always end up being wrong somehow. Thus causing our self-esteem to be lowered. So when it comes to fighting with my younger brother, we both enter in with our low self-esteem. We try to redeem ourselves by having the last word and needing to beat the other person in the argument. This causes much frustration with each other since neither one of us is ready to back down. I always become beyond frustrated with him and have to walk away in a cloud of anger.

Lately, these arguments have become more frequent. It has caused me to question how close we actually are, if we are at all. That is where the God moment comes in. God opened my eyes on this bike ride we had. It was such a nice, relaxing bike ride that all the arguments seemed to disappear. I was reminded of an important question I had learned way back about relationships saying something along the lines of, “what is more important winning the argument or winning the person?” You can’t be so focused on winning the argument, but more focused on winning the relationship; meaning you might have to lose some arguments in order to win the relationship. I don’t ever want to lose my relationship with my brother. How blessed am I that God has given me him as a brother! That is the beauty in family bonds, you can’t break them easily. It is a God given bond and is stronger than anything else. God is so good to give as He has.

I hope this will encourage you to see your family through the eyes of our Maker. There is a  reason for the relationships God has given us. I encourage you to keep trying to win the person, not the argument.

God bless you!

Love,

theblessingsgirl

A Molded Heart

The heart is fragile, yet strong; it can be broken, yet it also can be mended. There is nothing quite like the heart. It is the symbol for all deep emotions and is correlated most with the emotion of love. We as humans were made to feel. We can feel a great amount of good emotions, but we can also feel a devastating amount of bad emotions. Enough to make us endure the pain of what feels like our heart breaking. Unfortunately, we cannot appreciate the good without the bad; we cannot receive healing without the heartbreak. It is hard to accept that reality. It is even harder not to question and shout out, “Why God, Why?”

So why does God allow the bad to happen? To answer that you must first consider that maybe God did not wish to allow it to happen in the first place. We as human beings are given free will, but we are also given a nature of sin because of the fall. So to have a nature of sin we are prone to wander and choose to do wrong in God’s sight. The consequence of sin was death, but Jesus paid that price. In replace for death we are disciplined and sometimes that discipline comes in the form of pain. But sometimes the pain is from a source we cannot control, like in the form of death, or of bullying, etc. Those are influenced by outside forces. But even with the weight of sin and the pain it brings, God has allowed a way to make beauty from pain. We only need to trust in His plan, in His timing, and in His loving care in the midst of the pain. Who are we, then, to doubt and question God’s work? “Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say ‘He has no hands’?” (Isaiah 45:9).

The chapter of Jeremiah 18:1-6 beautifully displays the symbolism of how God molds us into the masterpieces He has intended us to be; even with our heartbreaks and sins. This is what it says: “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: ‘O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?’ declares the Lord. ‘Like clay in the hands of the potter, so are you in my hand, O Israel.'” What a beautiful display of God’s faithfulness and love! That He would look on us and want to mold us! That He would look on us and see the masterpiece within us rather than the sin we display! That He would take our brokenness and turn it into something beautiful!

Isaiah 64:8 says, “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” How true this is when we trust God to mold our hearts; to mold our very lives!

God bless you!

Love,

theblessingsgirl

What Beauty Is

 

You can travel the world and come across many beautiful views such as these images above. The first image is a view from my home state of Minnesota. The second is of an Alaskan view taken on my trip there not to long ago. They are both vastly different from each other, yet each displaying their own unique beauty.  What is it that makes them each so beautiful? And how can there be so many different displays of beauty?

For me to ponder these things, I can only conclude one answer; God. Each view is uniquely created by an amazing Creator. When you witness the stillness of the moment and the peacefulness that fills you, how can you question a Creator? As you watch the wind dance in the leaves and hear the birds singing sweet songs, how can you think Bang. As you take in the majestic strength in seeing a mountain standing tall, how do you not see a Potter’s hand that formed it? I think the most beautiful thing about each view is that they don’t make you bow down to them; rather they make you want to bow down to the One who gave them life.

My God moment today was being awaken to the idea of how much we can relate to these beautiful views. We too cannot look at ourselves and not see a Creator behind our design. Look at your hand and see your fingerprints, something that can identify you and be traced back to you. Look close at your skin to see the lines, the hairs, the pores. And see the veins with blood coursing through them. Your insides that our working just perfectly to keep you alive. How can all this, and much more, be by chance? It just can’t be. Psalm 139 is a chapter that beautifully describes God’s careful, thought out, and intimate design of each one of us. He knit us together in our mothers womb (vs. 13). And we are each fearfully and wonderfully made (vs 14). Why would we doubt a Creator? The devil is why. As he deceived Eve in the garden, so he deceives us. Doubts come in our mind making us question if there really is a Creator. Judgements of ourselves and others begin to form, because we start to see the flaws in what once was considered beauty. We begin to dress ourselves up, hide behind cosmetics, and try to knock off a few pounds. We allow media to be our knowledge of what beauty is, rather than God. But what if I told you it was all a lie? What if I told you that you are being deceived? 1 Peter 3:3-4 says, “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in Gods sight.” Do not let the enemy deceive you any longer!

Let the beautiful views be your example. As the mountains and trees stand firm, you also must stand firm in the truth of Gods word. As each landscape displays its own unique beauty, you also must display yours. And just as the views give off a gentle and quite atmosphere, you too must give off a gentle and quiet spirit. But the greatest example the beautiful views give is that of pointing to their Creator. In our beauty, we should not bring attention on ourselves, but our beauty should point to the one who Created us.

Let your true beauty shine! A beauty that is not conformed to this worlds definition, but one that embraces Gods truth! God created you uniquely beautiful! He loves you exactly the way you are! What greater feeling then accepting that truth! I pray you will feel it if you haven’t already!

God bless you!

Love,

theblessingsgirl

New Insight on Salvation and Baptism

Two God moments stood out to me today. One being on salvation and the other on the topic of baptism.

Salvation came to me this morning as I was preparing for a bible study that happened this afternoon with a friend. The bible study was on the topic of the Armor of God and one piece of the armor is the Helmet of Salvation. As I got to reading an article on it, I was awestruck with the awesomeness of Christ Jesus and all He did for us on the cross. It says in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That gift came at a high price; Jesus’ life in exchange for our own. Was this an easy price to pay for Jesus? No, not at all. If we take a look at Luke 22:44, as Jesus was praying on the Mount of Olives, we can see just how hard it was on Him. “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (vs. 44). Jesus didn’t want to go through the suffering of the death He was about to face, but even greater than that He didn’t want to have to be separated from God. Since Jesus was meant to take our place, that meant He was to take on all our sin. That sin is detestable to God and is not to be in His sight, meaning Jesus was going to have to be forsaken. He was more in anguish to be separated from God than He was to have to endure the painful death of the cross. To have the passion that Jesus had for not only us, but even more so for His relationship with the Father in heaven is something to be in awe of. But my question is, why did Jesus worry so much if He knew He would ascend to heaven anyway? The God moment is truly this. Jesus was in such anguish because the thought of being separated from the Father even for a small amount of time was enough to have Him sweat blood. Wow! To have that deep of a love for God is astounding! It made me question just how in love with God am I? Am I in love enough that I would dread it more to be apart from Him than facing a gruesome painful death? Or enough that I would sweat blood at the thought of being apart from Him? Don’t get me wrong I love God, but if I am honest there is always room for improvement. As a Christian I need to be living the example of Jesus, walking as He did and loving as He did. That means walking in my faith with as much passion and loving the Father as passionately as He did.

My second God moment happened while I was talking with my friend during our bible study. We were reading the article about the Helmet of Salvation when the word baptism came up. So we started talking about it and the different ways churches handle the topic. Our church, the Reformed Church, does infant baptism, but I also have been to churches that do baptism as a way of professing your faith. In the past two years I had been apart of an internship program through the organization Mission E4 in Massachusetts. And during that time I finally understood what it meant to be a true Christian. As I was learning more about my faith, I was attending a church that did adult baptism rather than infant baptism. So in my mind I connected true Christianity with adult baptism. When I came back home, seven months ago, I struggled with supporting the ideas my home church had. It created some bitterness within me. I didn’t realize I still had some unresolved bitterness in me until today. That is where the God moment comes in. God showed me that I was viewing baptism through the eyes of a Pharisee; I was being so legalistic about it that I was missing the point. Baptism, whether done as an infant or an adult, is still the symbolism  of being cleansed of sin and dedicating our lives to be lived for God. Maybe you still have some doubts and think only one way is right, but I urge you to not get so caught up in having to know the right answer. Rather, keep your sight on what is truly important and that is to love God and to live your life as an example of His grace and love. It is trusting that “HE is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE” (John 14:6). It is not whether you get baptized as an infant or an adult.

I hope this is as insightful and encouraging to you as it was for me!

God bless you!

Love,

theblessingsgirl

 

First blog post

Hello Everyone! 

Im obviously new to all this telling by my lack of posts, basic settings on my blog, and much more (my writing skills 😁). I hope to learn more and present to you all a much more appealing blog, but for know bare with me please! 

I intend for this blog to be my personal journal, of sorts, to express my experiences of personal God moments and blessings I seek throughout my day. I hope to encourage and uplift through it all helping you to see God in your own life. He is everywhere, working in even the tiniest details, you only have to look in order to see. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope this blog will fulfill the goal and encourage you to seek God more! 

Love,

theblessingsgirl