“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27

Obedience. That’s probably the one word that scares me the most. Why? Because honestly, I don’t trust God enough. I know he has a plan for good in my life, and that he works all things for good. But I also like to know where I’m going, what the plan is, and when things are going to happen. I’ve grown in this area a hundred fold over the past few years. But still, if I can figure out how, or when, or what, I like it. When things don’t go as planned, I can react as if the bottom is dropping out and my faith waivers.

I was in downtown St. Louis almost two years ago attending a Joyce Meyer conference with my mom and my friend. We decided to walk down by Busch Stadium because there was a night game in session. As we stopped on the sidewalk across the street from the stadium, a woman who was homeless came up and asked us for money. She told us she had diabetes and seven kids to feed and needed the money for medicine and food. My first instinct was to give her some money. We prayed for her but I didn’t give her money.

The next day, my mom and I were walking by the Edward Jones Dome when we walked by this woman again talking to someone else. We were surprised we saw her again, and I had the same thought to give her something, but we kept walking. After eating, we decided to walk to Busch Stadium just a few blocks away on our way back to the hotel. As we walked past a Macy’s store, I was explaining to my mom it had closed down since last year. Out of nowhere comes the same lady from behind. “Yeah, that Macy’s closed down last month”, she told us.

Okay God. I’m listening. She told us her same story. I told her about the dream center giving away food and maybe she could try there. I asked her what her seven kids’ names were. She recited them off quickly. Whether her story was true or not I wasn’t sure. What I did know was she appeared to us in three separate areas that were not in close proximity to one another. By now I ‘m thinking there is a pattern to this and I can’t make this up. I felt like I heard God saying very clearly: “GIVE. HER. SOME. MONEY.” So, we gave her some money.

My point isn’t about whether I should or shouldn’t have given her money, or to question what she was going to do with the money. It was a simple lesson in obedience from God telling me to give her some money, don’t question why, just do it.

Sometimes there are clear signs we miss. I wish I could hear God as clearly with all of life’s bigger decisions. Listening to God can be difficult when there are so many distractions pulling us away from his presence. For me, hearing him is easier when I’m closely connected to him through prayer and his word. The thing I’ve learned is when I ask God for help, he’s there. When I ask for guidance, he gives it to me. He never gives me the whole picture, just little affirmations of faith that tell me I’m following him.

Trusting and obeying him is hard, but he’s written a unique story for us all that is so much better than the one we could write for ourselves. Trust and obey God, even if it doesn’t make sense, and even if it seems he’s telling you to go somewhere or do something that scares you.

Tiffany

“Can a mother  forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though she may forget, I will not forget you!  See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.   Isaiah 49:15-16

     This verse is about God’s promise to bring his people out of captivity in Babylon and return them to their homeland Jerusalem. God’s people doubted this and thought God had abandoned them. This verse is a prophecy he would not forget them and would reconcile them to their ruined city to rebuild again.

     When I read this scripture verse in Isaiah about a year ago, my intellectual understanding of God’s love for me was transformed into a spiritual appreciation that sank down and settled right into my spirit. He has me on his mind, he has my name marked on his hand. It was almost a gasp of profound understanding of the scarifice he made by sending his son to die on the cross for my sins. Sins I would no doubt commit thousands of years later as a result of being human flesh and blood.

     God nevers forgets about us or leaves us alone. There may be times we don’t think or feel he is close, but he is. We don’t always take the time to get in his word or presence in order to feel and know he is there. God always knows where we are. He’s there even when we make mistakes or make a huge mess that seems irreparable. He still loves us even when we sin. He helps us acknowledge our sins and turn from them.

     I picture him walking alongside me and telling me that we will work on this together. That I don’t have to accomplish this in my power. But, through his strength he will help me grow. This takes a lot of pressure off of me, because instead of trying to accomplish things in my own power, I rely on his strength.

     No matter what you’ve done in your past, no matter how messed up your life has been or is now, God loves you. He doesn’t exclude anyone. All have access to him because of the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross.

     There’s a song by the Christian music group Pocket Full of Rocks titled “Worth Everything”. This song is a great example of Christ’s love for us. The last few verses are my favorite and sum it up best:

“….There’s no one else like you. You are precious to the King.

He calls you chosen. He calls you child.

Listen close you’ll hear him, as he says you’re worth everything.”

     He loves you. He chose you. He has a plan for your life he wrote long ago. He has a plan for your future. He has an eternal gift that you can neither earn nor lose. He wants to use you to further his kingdom!

God bless you!

Tiffany

“By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.” Hebrews 11:11 ESV

Has God ever spoken a promise into your life that seemed impossible? Maybe you even laughed with unbelief? Sarah and Abraham were past their childbearing years when God appeared to them and gave Abraham a word that he would have a son who was his own flesh and blood, and his offspring would be as many as the stars in the sky.

Years later, God’s promise still had not come to pass. In Genesis 18:10, the Lord again appeared to Abraham and told him he would return about that time the next year and Sarah would have a son. Sarah was in a tent nearby listening, and when she heard this she laughed.  God asked Abraham why she laughed. Sarah was afraid to admit it, so she denied laughing.

It’s funny how we have the tendency to do the same thing when we feel God has placed a dream in our heart and we’re still waiting on it. Whatever that dream or desire may be, we somehow don’t believe God will come through for us. We may even laugh and tell ourselves that can never happen.

We might say something like this: “Sure, He is able.” “He’s God.” “He’s sovereign.” “He’s almighty.” But, will he really come through for me? Did he really make that promise? That’s impossible, and yes,God can do the impossible, but will he?”

When Sarah laughed she was looking at her circumstances- her age, her energy level, and the fact they had been waiting for years and nothing had happened yet. So, why now?

I would like to think I would believe God if I heard him audibly speak to me. It’s simple, right?  Sarah saw her situation through her own eyes and not through God’s eyes. We do the same thing. We look at our situation from our perspective, and gauge whether we can accomplish something in our own strength. God has a heavenly perspective. He sees what we don’t. His timing is impeccable and he has a reason for our waiting seasons. I believe it’s to bring us in closer relationship to Him so we can rely on His strength to prepare us for His purpose. The deliverance of a promise he has made comes in his timing and not ours.

That’s what faith means to me. Being obedient to God’s will and his leading. To let him speak to me through his word, through prayer, through circumstances in everyday life or through people placed in my path. All things that culminate into a small whisper I hear that seems to say, “This is the way, follow me. You’re on the right track.” I think that’s why faith is so hard for me, because it’s quiet, it’s a whisper. It’s seldom loud and in my face.

In Hebrews 11:11, it states Abraham and Sarah were able to have a son, Isaac, because they judged him to be faithful. They got to a point where they put total trust in God, and he delivered on his promise in his time. I think a lot of times, as soon as we completely surrender our need to control, whatever desire or dream he has placed in our hearts begins to spring up.

If you believe you’ve received a vision or a dream or a desire in your heart from God, please hang on to it.  He created you for a purpose and has a plan for your life that is unbelievable!! Put your hope in him, don’t try to figure out when or how.  He has already written our stories and they are so much better than our minds could ever imagine!!

“I have said these things to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33.

This summer I made the decision to splurge and buy some personal training sessions. I’ve been in a group boot camp for about a year and I have loved seeing how my body is pushed harder and harder. Our bodies are very resilient and can do much much more than we realize when pushed past our comfort zone.

To me, physical training isn’t just about how you look when you see results. There’s a spiritual component to it. If we have accepted Jesus Christ into our hearts, we have the power of the Holy Spirit inside us. Our bodies carry God’s spirit. That makes me want to take care of something that belongs to God.

There’s also a mental part to physical training. When pushed enough, the pain of it is unbearable and you think you cannot endure one more thing because if you do, you just know your arms or legs will snap off. Or worse, you might die from the workout itself and you want to give up. These are some of the things I’ve said and will say again: “This is too hard. I can’t do anymore. It’s too much weight. Can you just lift it for me?” That last one is pretty pathetic, right?! This is honestly how I feel every session. No session is ever easy, which is very frustrating. But mentally I keep in mind there is an end result that will pay off and will be worth it.

My trainer said something like this to me one day that didn’t fit with my concept of getting stronger. “Good, I wanted you to reach failure”. What? Failure? Isn’t he supposed to be encouraging me and not pushing me to fail? He explains failure when training like this: “When you’re working out, failure is okay so long as it’s not just flat out giving up. It means you pushed yourself hard to the absolute max and you couldn’t possibly do one more rep. Those last few reps before failure are the most important because they do the most damage to the muscle, then when they repair they come back stronger…. But most people want to quit before reaching that point.”

Wow! So it is when God allows something in our lives to shake us and put us through a time of testing. Not to make us fail, but to build us up stronger than we were before. It’s a refining process to develop us further into Christ’s image. It’s when you’ve endured a hardship or a desert season long enough that you don’t think you can take one more minute of it, and if you have to, you might just snap in two. You want to give up because you don’t see how this process could possibly result in anything good. The last part of that long season is the hardest because it feels like it’s never going to end.

However, if we’re not being pushed out of our comfort zone, then we remain stagnant. It’s about hanging on and letting him accomplish his will in our lives for his glory. He never promised the Christian life would be easy. If it were, we wouldn’t need faith and we wouldn’t need God. He has a spiritual race for all of us to run. The end of that race isn’t about reaching success in this life. Once one trial is over, there will be another. Then another. We’ll have seasons of fruitfulness, and seasons of drought.

Like physical training, living a life for Christ requires a cost. But the end result in this life is joy and peace, even in our circumstances. The ultimate prize comes when we reach eternal life with him in heaven. It is then we are made perfect only through the sacrifice of Christ dying on the cross for our sins.