Silence

As I turned on my computer i pulled up my itunes and turned on Everlasting God by Lincoln Brewster. I love that song. But then something inside of me told me to turn it off. I remember the other day as I went into work me and Reid both got on our computers and where looking up stuff for youth. Then he said "its really quiet...its nice." Up until then I really hadn't noticed, but indeed it was quiet, it was silent. I couldn't remember the last time I had just sat in silence. It was refreshing. So that is what I have been doing tonight, enjoying to silence. The world is such a loud and chaotic place that we really don't notice it until we just sit and listen to the silence of an empty room.
It gives you a time to slow down and reflect and take in all of the days events. But most importantly it gives us a time to listen and tune in with God.
It reminds me of the story of when Elijah went on the mountain to meet with God:

"The Lord said, "Go out ad stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper." -1 Kings 19:11-12 (NIV)

It makes me think, so many of us, including myself, are so distracted by the winds and rocks and fires of life that when God whispers to us we cant hear him!
It really puts me in my place. The big things in life don't seem so big anymore. It seems easier to push aside the distractions of life when you understand how important it is to listen to what God has to say. We are nothing compared to Him, but still he loves us unconditionally. We owe him our attention, we owe him our ears, and we owe him our silence.

Sometimes our silence is all we can give to God. Sometimes their are so many things going on and so many things we want to say to God but just cant find the words to speak with. And that's ok, God gave us silence for a reason. He knows our hearts.

"...For the Lord searches all hearts and minds and understands all the wanderings of the thoughts. If you seek Him [inquiring for and of Him and requiring Him as your first and vital necessity] you will find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever! "
-1 Chronicles 28:9 ( The Amplified Bible)

God is in control of it all! His Will will be done no matter what we say or do not say....and sometimes its just better not to say anything at all and let God do his will.

This all reminds me of my favorite passage in the Bible and I cant think of a better way to wrap this all up than by using it.

A Time for Everything

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
A TIME TO BE SILENT AND A TIME TO SPEAK,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
-Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Control

In life we are contoled by one of two things. We are either controlled by God, or we are controlled by sin. We have the control to choose what controls us, but that's about it. God gave us the choice of who we want to follow and he told us the consiquences to each side.If you choose to be contolled by our sins we reap the consiquences of loneliness and hopelessness. Its a life lived only to please yourself. You end up in hell, plain and simple. That kind of life is no life at all and God makes that clear all throughout the Bible.If we choose to be contolled by God we reap a life filled with hope and love. It's not always easy, but it's so much better!
Either way we choose to go, we have no controll over what is going to happen in the next year, the next month, the next day, the next hour, the next minute, or even the next second. So why do we spend so much time worrying about what is going to happen and try to control it?! We have no control! God is always in control! Besides, he is the creator of the universe, he knows what he is doing. We have to learn to trust that and let it be enough!
If God gave us contol over everything in our lives we would just end up screwing it up! We tend to look at immediate results rather than long term results. God knows what the future holds and we do not. We have absolutly have no control over the future but we know the one who does! So why don't we just trust him?! Why don't we give up trying to maintain a control over our lives that we have never really had?!
It's time to let go of trying to control things and give it all to God.

"...I am God, and there is no other, I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, form ancient times, what is still to come. I say: my purpose will stand, and I will do what I please.". -isaiah 46:9-10

Troubles

Everyone has troubles all throughout their lives! It is just a fact! Some peoples troubles may seem bigger or smaller than others. Ultimately I believe that in the end it all evens out. Its not really about the trouble we face but how the deal with it and grow from it. What may seem small to you may be huge to someone else! We all have our own unique lives, no two are exactly the same.

When we are in a slump in our lives, sometimes it is easy to look at other people and judge them thinking that God blessed them and they have never faced anything like what you have had to go through! When we are in that slump or hole in our lives, we tend to become really selfish and think everyone in the world is against us. It is hard not to be jealous when you see someone laughing and being carefree while you are struggling to keep your head above the water. It can set on an array of emotions and make it harder to do what is right. It is harder to find hope or see what good is going to come out of it! But you shouldn't lose hope! "And we know in all things God work for the good of those who love him...' Romans 8:28.

When your down and out it is so easy to forget these words, and it shouldn't be that way! When we are down we become vulnerable, and we become vulnerable to one of two things; God or the devil. Sadly to say, most of the time the devil wins. When bad things happen to us we tend to blame God and say he is against us because of what we are going through. It is totally the opposite of how it should be. We should be reaching out to God and asking for his help instead of blaming him. When you blame God is shows ignorance. It shows that you have let the devil grab hold and you are trying to make since of everything through his standards. Of course the devil is good at twisting things and making it seem like everything is God's fault but in the end God is the one that remains with you to pick you up and take care of you! After everything is said and done, following God is just easier!

God or the devil are not the reasons we face troubles in our lives. It is because of sin that we face these hardships. It has been that way ever since the beginning of time. So really their is no reason to blame God for our troubles. God wants us to draw nearer to him through our troubles. He wants us to rely on him to take care of us because he will! He is our father. He won't let us down. He may not give us what we want, but he gives us what is best for us!

I believe that the troubles we face help shape us into who we are. They either make us grow or regress. If we never had to face any troubles we would never grow and it would give us less reason to trust and put faith in God. Our troubles are a blessing in disguise if we deal with them in the right way. We may not always see the good in our troubles right away, if ever, but their is good in it! Paul faced so many troubles and hardships while doing to work of God, but every time he looked at it not as a bad thing but a blessing! He had it figured out!...I think it is about time we did too!

In 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 he wrote, "...We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God..."

A sleepless night....

I don't know about you but I hate it when I cant sleep! I hate the feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night knowing you only have a few precious hours to sleep but you feel they are wasting away as you stare at the ceiling. It is one of the most frustrating things for me.
After I realize I am not going to fall back asleep anytime soon, I let my mind wonder. You see, one of the main reasons I don't like waking up in the middle of the night is because it makes me feel like I am the only one awake and everyone else in the world is dreaming away. So this makes me think about the saying "You don't know that God is all you need until God is all you have." To me it is a pretty powerful statement but it can't be fully understood until you are down to that point where you feel that God is all you have in the world. Laying in bed tonight really mad me feel that way. I felt like it was just me and God in the world. It kind of put me back in my place because in my heart I know that God is all I need...but I don't always live that way. I place all these worldly desires and thing that I want to do in front of God and spending time in the Bible and praying. It breaks my heart because I know that in the end all the things I desire in this world will amount to nothing. Living life the way I want to live it only leads to heartache.
It all seem so simple when you think about it; God is all you need. You see, we already have all the answers we need in the Bible. God gave us everything we need to know in every situation in this book!...unfortunately we don't always follow what the Bible teaches us. We sin.
I can't relate any better to Paul than when he wrote Romans 7:18-20:
" ...For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do ; no, the evil I do not want to do- this I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."
Sin is always going to be apart of our lives for as long as we live. It has been since the beginning of time and will be til the end of time. It separates us from God.
I want so bad to rely fully and completely on God. I want to live the life where God is all I need...but my sin keeps hindering me. It pulls me under.
Though sin is always going to be apart of our lives, we don't have to give into it. God is stronger than our sin. James 4:7 says, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." To grow closer to God we have to do just that, resist the devil, resist sin.
...and though we all sin, the question is; are we letting sin be the ruler of our lives, or God?

"...God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords....To him be the honor and might forever. Amen." -1 Timothy 6:15-16

Love your enemies

Loving your enemies is probably one of the hardest things to do. It is for me at least. It is hard to love someone who hates you, someone who hurts you, or someone who stands against everything that you do. Romans 12:9 says "Love must be sincere..." You can't love someone who you have hatred towards, the two cannot exist together. So how do you really love your enemy?
First, we have to fully and whole heatedly love God. We have to love him first and foremost, even before we can love the people who are easy to love. Mark 13:30 says "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." This is such a powerful verse! Jesus is straight up saying you have to love me with everything you've got and with everything you are! If you really loved God with all your heart; putting him first, doing his will, and what pleases him, and you let you let your soul overflow with his love and mercy, and focused every thought on him, and loved and cared for him with every ounce of strength you had so that you fell on the ground before him everyday, then nothing else would matter. All the troubles of this world will fade away into nothing. Whether or not someone hates you and is persecuting you doesn't infect you with hatred for that person, but with joy! You would be able to take anything the world threw at you with pure joy and patience. You would bless the ones who persecute you and pierce you for your faith. God's love changes you, but only if you let it.
Jesus goes on to say in Mark 12:31 "Love your neighbor as yourself." Now we have all heard this a thousand times, which i am not saying is a bad thing. You can take this verse in many different directions, but we are only going to look at it from one aspect; your enemies are your neighbors too. If we loved our enemies as we love ourselves we wouldn't call them names, talk bad about them, give them dirty looks, or anything like that. If we truly love God as it says to in verse 30, we wouldn't feel compelled to do any of those things. We would be filled with peace.
Never give anyone any reason to dislike you, other than for reasons regarding your love for God. Being kind and showing love and concern for someone who treats you horribly and hurts you is one of the greatest ways to show Christ's love.
Showing love and mercy to someone who has only treated you badly and hurts you convicts them far more than anything hurtful or mean you could ever do to them. No matter what, God is always going to overcome evil. We have to start believing that. God is going to take care of you. He will repay those who do you wrong, it's not our job.
"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written; "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." -Romans 12:17-21

"You don't have to go to church to be a good Christian"

"You don't have to go to church to be a good Christian."
This is a phrase i hear way too often. The majority of the Christians that use this phrase don't regularly , if at all, attend a church.
I can't disagree with this statement because it is true. Going to church doesn't make you a good Christian. You are the one who determines that through your daily choices and actions. The church is a tool and safe heaven here on earth to help Christians grow and have fellowship together. Now granted their are some churches out their that are not like that and don't display the love and kindness of Christ, but we are not taking about those churches. Half the Christians who use the phrase above use it simply as a cop out. They are only trying justifying the fact that they do not go to church and they know they should. If they truly didn't think they needed to go to church they would flat out tell you that, not make up excuses and cop outs! And we all know good and well that half the time when you don't make it to church it's because you are too lazy or stayed out too late the night before and can't get out of bed the next morning for church!

Christ calls us to go to church! It is a place of Christian growth and fellowship! Fellowship is such an important part in the life of a Christian. In fellowship, Christians can share in each others joy, pain, hardships, and blessings! 1 John 1:7 says "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another..." Also Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says "Two are better than one...if one falls down, his friend can help him up, but pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!....A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."
The church challenges you to be better and apply Christs teachings to your life. Christ is the church and the church is Christ! So when we deny the church all together, we are denying God.
Colossians 1:24 says "Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of this body, which is the church."
And again, granted, not every church is meant for everybody! If you visit a church or two and don't like them don't just give up on looking! If you went to a certain restaurant to eat a hamburger but you didn't like the hamburgers at this particular place you wouldn't give up eating hamburgers all together! You would go to different places until you found one you liked! Church is the same way! It's apart of helping us grow in our faith. It is so hard to keep up a quiet time or a deep relationship with God with out accountability or motivation.

Now with this subject kind of made me go off on my soapbox, but church is something that is very important and I hate to see people take it so lightly.

Trust

Trust. Probably one of the hardest qualities to posses and act upon. I think about how many people in my life i put a lot of trust into. Their are quite a few, but not a lot. It's really hard to put your trust in people sometimes because so many times they end up letting you down. Friendship, relationships, and families are ruined by lack of faith or trust in one another.
....here is the thing though, so many times we are quicker to put our trust in the people that are going to let us down than we are our perfect and holy God. Why is that? We know he is perfect and is always their for us, but we cant trust him. Maybe it's because so many of us have the mind set that we are here and God is there, far away from us doing his own thing, so how can I possibly put my trust into someone I can't even see. Or maybe it because you are so wrapped up in yourself and your friends lives that you are convinced that they have the correct answer for you or you can just find it on your own and they don't need God's help.
For the ones who can't trust in God because they can't see him, or hear him, or touch him, if you truly believe in God, you don't have to see him to know he is there. God is all around you! Ever since the beginning of time, God has always been here. He is the same today and he was yesterday and will be tomorrow. He's not going to let you down. I think the main problem is people mistake God not giving them what they want for God letting them down. We have to trust God and trust that he knows what is best for us and we don't. Their have been so many times that I have tried to follow my own understandings and have only ended up in a deep mess. If we start giving all our hopes, dreams, and worries to God then we should be confident right then that everything is going to be ok, we have nothing to worry if we only trust in God. Paul wrote the book of Philippians from a jail cell and he was rejoicing about it! He knew he wasn't alone and knew that it was for the glory of God! I couldn't think of a lonelier place to be than a jail cell. Paul truly knew and understood what it was to trust in God!
"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength." -Philippians 4:12-13

And now the ones that put their trust and faith in themselves and friends to solve all their problems....your friends cannot fix you and they cannot determine your future. They can't even fix themselves or see the future for themselves, much less yours. Friends are amazing and everyone needs a good one to talk to and listen to and fellowship with. But it is when you refuse the words that God is giving you because you trust your or your friends instincts more that you start walking down the wrong path. God should be the one you run to for advice first! God is the only one who can save you and he determines your destiny. Paul says it far better than I ever could in Philippians 3:7-9, "I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ Jesus to save me. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith."

Trusting, fully trusting, in God is a very hard thing to do. But it is so wonderful. Christ died so that we could have life to the fullest (John 10:10), but we can't have that without trusting in him first.