Don't Be a Snore Loser

Psalms 30: 5b - weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

Have the thoughts in your mind ever kept you awake at night? Has worry ever made you lose out on a good night's sleep? Has depression ever overtaken your joy to the point where you sleep all day and stay up all night?

This past week and for probably many weeks now I haven't been sleeping well. I've stayed awake worrying about work and thinking about my classroom. I would get up in the middle of the night to work on lesson plans then be falling asleep at my keyboard and crawl back into bed.  It used to be my constant thought, until now. I remember listening to my husband snoring and thinking HOW does he do it? How can he just "relax"and sleep?  I was so tired of being tired and drinking coke to stay alive during the daytime. I felt like a vampire but instead of sucking life out of others I was letting life suck it out of me. 

If you obsess over anything God may just take that away from you. You may not think you are obsessing over something and you may not even realize you are doing it. God wants us to think about Him not about our problems but our promises we have through Him. God doesn't want us to worry He wants us to just trust He has a plan.  For me, I know God has a plan but sometimes it's hard to just "relax" and let God deal with it all.  Thankfully He always seems to know when to grab the steering wheel and pull the car back into the right direction so my thoughts don't run me into a tree.  

My pastor has been talking about Gideon lately and talking about how God didn't call us to be losers. I thought that this was perfect for all the stress that I went through this week to just relax and realize God has already won the victory over my situation.  Then I remembered that word "loser"... I realized losers usually lose something... they usually lose faith. Most of the time they lose faith that God is going to work all things out.  I don't want to be a loser because I know that God is going to work all things out. It's definitely not worth losing sleep over.

1 Peter 5:7 - Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

Shoving the Cork In It!

Luke 6:45  For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Have you ever wish you could hold your tongue? Have you ever said something too quickly and then regretted saying it for the rest of your life?

Last Saturday my pastor gave us a cork at the end of the sermon. He told us an inspiring story about how the whales would smack the cork down to the bottom of the ocean and no matter how many times that cork was smacked down it would still rise up. The moral of the story was that we are not called to be looser but to rise up in Victory and WIN the battle that God set before us. This was very inspirational at this time. I whispered to my mom what I had planned for my small cork and how special it made me feel. I felt like yes I have definitely been knocked down in life. I need to start standing up for myself and say I'm not a looser! I can do all things through Christ who gives me Strength! I have good plans that God has planned for my life and He planned them already. He mapped out my life before I was born and He didn't call me to be a failure He has a plan for success and prosperity! He wants to place me where He needs me most but He wants me to realize He placed me there. I need to not be afraid but trust that He has a reason.

The pastor's son who is also a pastor in my church recently wrote a blog about the "Disease to Please". In the blog he stated how pleasing people can sometimes form into idolatry. We all know that God doesn't like idolatry and He will do anything to destroy any idols we put up in our life.

Confession time: I've got the disease to please... recently it has become aware to me that I'm forming idols in my life with my job. It's not uncommon to want to please my employer but when it takes up about 90% of my life and I soon lack the ability to take care of myself.. then I have a problem. The truth is I can easily cure this by just saying "I'm sorry, but no, I can't right now". The thoughts that Satan puts in my mind causing me to feel like if I speak those words I'd get fired or piss my boss off. That's not God, God doesn't want us to become slaves to worry. God doesn't want us to always be afraid to say no because we are afraid we might lose the fight. That's where this little cork comes in. It's time I put a plug in it! It's time to stop saying I'll do something just to make people happy. It's time I stop trying to please people so much that it takes away from my sanity and ability to care for myself. I need to put the cork in my words of worry and those thoughts I have of failure and just let God's words speak instead. It's time I start believing that God is in control and He will carry me through every step of the way.

Moderation Explaination

Proverbs 25:16 Do you like honey? Don't eat too much, or it will make you sick!
       Here I am exhausted from folding laundry. My husband and I seem to both have an abundant amount of clothing possibly enough to clothe a tribe in Africa of people our size. Since we've been married we've already donated a great deal of clothing to Goodwill. Every Wednesday night I do laundry at my parent's house. Every Saturday morning I attempt to tackle the clean laundry and put it away.

      Today I was thinking of this scripture and realized it can be referenced to a great deal of topics. You've heard the expression "too much of a good thing is "not" a good thing"? Since we've been married we have tried to use this scripture to help us control our diet intake and now I'm coming back to it while I gaze at the pile of "my" clothes on the bed. Anytime I think of this scripture I'm reminded of one time when I was younger and I had too many Skittles and now I don't like eating candy so much. It is true when you have too much of something it is never a good thing.
   
      When Jesus came into the earth he had nothing his parents had very little he never had a huge home with lavish furnishings. Instead He lived very humbly off the mercies of others and God's provision. I admire the fact that Jesus could go anywhere without anything and do what God wanted Him to do.

      For our honeymoon we tent camped at Powder Horn in Old Orchard Beach. There I was with massive amounts of bug spray and still complained about bugs. We brought a whole bucket of clothes with us half of which we didn't even wear. It seemed silly to be burdened with so many things that we thought we needed but in reality were just a hindrance.
 
       Have you ever reached the point where too much of a good thing was "not" a good thing? This week I want to encourage you to downsize. Perhaps it's the amount of food you eat. Perhaps it's the amount of clothes you have. Perhaps it's the amount of time you spend playing games on the computer or video game console. Time to break free from the excess!

Luke 3:11  John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

Humble Pie

2 Chronicles 7:14

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Lately I've been hearing the saying "don't let your eyes grow bigger than your stomach" a lot.  When I think of where my life has been going these last few years I was never really pleased. When things happened which i felt were unfair I blamed people. When in reality I could have gotten myself out of the mess I was in if I just used the brain God gave me instead of trying to insist that everyone solve my problems for me.  Who was I to think that I should be dished out an "easy as pie" life? I know I have  calling to be a teacher. Yes the economy is very unkind right now to that specific calling and yes I was provided with a lousy education for it. However, instead of dwelling on the negatives I need to just push it off and move forward.  Sometimes I need to swallow my pride... and it is not always easy. Sometimes the best way to swallow your pride is to make it into humble pie. We need to understand we are "no one without Christ" and would get "no where" if God didn't have a plan.  Then we need to actually USE the gifts He's given us to get the task done even if it means getting our hands dirty. Bake all that frustration and anger about our circumstances into a nice pie and cook it in the humility until it is ready to swallow. Then move forward.

Today reading the scripture it just released what's been on my mind lately. I'm not humble! I guess I was going with the world that viewed being humble as a sign of weakness. If I admitted that I am the cause of my problems then I am admitting that I am nothing without God's hand in my life.  How can I "just" have God's hand without my own? Didn't God create me so I can do what "I" feel is the best thing "my" way. Somewhere along the road I climbed up onto this high horse and got comfortable. Then after reading this scripture I got a tiny bit confused. This was God talking but for some reason my mind automatically thought to Jesus. I was thinking He never did anything until He knew it was okay with His Father in Heaven. If anyone lived by this scripture it was Him.  Jesus didn't go around and say THIS IS UNFAIR! I should not be hanging from this cross I am called to be the King of Kings! This crown should NOT be made of thorns! This is "not" my calling!  Even when the world's sins came upon Jesus on the cross and all of our burdens... He obeyed His calling.  He was called to be the sacrificial Lamb. He didn't whine, mumble, or blame his teachers or parents.  He did what God wanted.  He fought through it all.

So I'm realizing now it's time for me to stop making excuses and pick up all my slack.  We all have a cross to carry and the world may not be easy but we need to keep on keeping on! When we humble ourselves and realize this then God will bless us beyond what we could ever imagine. It may not ever be in this lifetime... or it may, who knows. All I know is... it is time to take our pride and make some humble pie.

Matthew 23:12 

For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Easy Street

Matthew 7:14

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

      It's a new year! Are we going to still continue down that same path? You know the path "everyone" looks for... the easy way out. Anyone loves an easy road we don't have to worry about any speed bumps or stop signs. We don't have to worry about any caution signs and we never would have to put on our hazard lights. Unfortunately, life is never that easy... even when we belong to God.

A lot of people believe that when they give their hearts to Christ that life will be easy from then on out. Christ says to give Him our burdens because His yoke is easy and His burden is light. It doesn't say our burdens will disappear. The difference is when we cast our cares upon Jesus He "helps" carry our burdens instead of us carrying them all by ourselves. However, we need to also realize that when we belong to Christ and our identity is through Him we are going to take on a lot of His burdens as well. Jesus never took the easy road... if He did He would have never willingly submitted His body to go through torture and be crucified on the cross for us. It wasn't even "just" the physical agony that Christ went through. When Jesus was alive He lived the life of an outcast maybe even an outlaw according to the pharisees. He was always running from people who wanted to kill him ever since he was a baby. The people who welcomed Him in put themselves in the line of danger as well. Peter was a good example when he was afraid for himself so he denied Christ three times. Thankfully Christ forgave Peter because the bible says "anyone who denies Me will be denied before My Father in Heaven". We don't want to deny who we are in Christ just to take the easy road. Yet people do it all the time.

    When I grew up in the public schools there was one half of a year in middle school where I was harassed because of my faith. Children spit on me and called me the Virgin Mary, why? because I was "saving myself" for my future husband and honoring God. To them that was an open opportunity to harass me. I am sure we all go through things like this where we are harassed through situations because of our faith even if it's just a joke a work. There are even people who "die" for their faith because they will never deny Christ. The thing I'm constantly reminding myself is... yes I will be persecuted but "blessed" are the persecuted we wont get treasures in earth but our treasure is in Heaven. We wont "fit in" or "belong" here but our home is in Heaven and I am okay with that.

     The bible says "what good does it do a man to profit the whole world but loose his soul". There are people who are walking around with one foot in the world and one foot in God and they can "not" serve two masters. The master of the world is "Satan" and I "know" I want "nothing" to do with him. However there are still Christian's who believe it's okay to live a worldly "easy" lifestyle and belong to Christ. You may "think" that that road is easy but the place it ends up will be far more torturous than you can ever imagine. So be careful which path you take the path less traveled but with a promise at the end or the path which is beaten the path of the world that leads to destruction.


Next time you come to the fork in the road remember to read the signs. Do not take easy street this year.  

Luke 9:23 

 Then He said to them all: “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves

and take up their cross daily and follow Me.

The List

Jeremiah 32:19
19 great are your purposes and mighty are your deeds. Your eyes are open to the ways of all mankind; you reward each person according to their conduct and as their deeds deserve.

It's three days before Christmas and the children are all wondering what Santa left for them. Will it be a Xbox or a lump of coal? Unfortunately, most of these children will be getting whatever they asked for no matter if they were naughty or nice. Many Christians believe that God plays Santa and gives them things no matter how they live or act. While the wicked do prosper on earth many of us fail to see that our real treasures are stored up in Heaven. God's list is a lot more serious than Santa's.
So what will you be getting for Christmas? Will you be on God's naughty list or God's nice list? Maybe you are hoping for that new big screen HD television that you have been drooling over this last year. Well, although a big screen television is a great thing it is not something your soul or eternity in heaven will benefit from. The bible says "what good does it do a man to gain the whole world and loose his soul". Why are we so caught up with who is getting what? So much we are blinded to see what God has told us to do through His son. Jesus didn't come into the world looking for earthly riches. Jesus would have been top on Santa's nice list but did he get all the things his flesh desired? Jesus told us to look out for the widows and the orphans. Are we doing all that God wants us to do or are we just seeking the rewards the world has to offer "us". Think about it this year would you rather be on Santa's list or God's?

Revelation 20:15
If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Walking into Walls

Isaiah 59:9-10
Therefore justice is far from us,
Nor does righteousness overtake us;
We look for light, but there is darkness!
For brightness, but we walk in blackness!
10 We grope for the wall like the blind,
And we grope as if we had no eyes;
We stumble at noonday as at twilight;
We are as dead men in desolate places.

You ever feel left in the dark? Perhaps you've been searching for God to show you which door to go through yet you can't seem to find the handle in this dark world we live in? You aren't alone. I can't either but we have to keep believing that God is there through the darkness. We can not be consumed by the darkness we are living in today or we will just become blind like everyone else and start walking into walls. God will direct our steps when we walk in His light. However, sometimes it may be in the full light of noon that we ignore His voice and go another path. Soon we stumble and wonder what happened. God does want to keep us from stumbling but we must chose Him. We should not be living like dead men in desolate places. It is hard especially with the pressures of society but we can do it. Allow God to move you today. Listen to His word in your life and follow His instructions.
God "will" put walls in our way so we wont be able to move through doors without doing what He wants us to do first. In Isaiah 59 God told the people He would "redeem" them but they had to get out of their sins... the people still chose to walk in darkness. Are we choosing to listen to God today or will we just keep walking into walls?


Isaiah 59:8
8 The way of peace they have not known,
And there is no justice in their ways;
They have made themselves crooked paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.