Lessons from Israel

When God makes a promise, He’ll come through.

When I complain, timing may be pushed back.
When I’m disobedient, timing may be pushed back.
When I’m prideful, timing may be pushed back.
I don’t want my promise to come in 40 years when it could have taken a week.

God didn’t give Israel ten tons of Manna as they walked out into the wilderness, so why should I think that I will have everything I need before I need it?
“Give us today our daily bread.”
God wants me to step out and rely on Him alone.

I want to learn my lessons the first time around.
I don’t want my pride in victory to cause me to have to learn humility over and over and over and over again.

God calls us to be a peculiar people–a people who calls everyone else to join instead of boasting in their accomplishments.
Our accomplishments would not be made possible without the hand of God on our lives.

Lessons on relating to boys

This is for all the guys who I’ve led on.
This is for my future husband.

I was not playing a game.
But, there is no good excuse.
Only one of you are supposed to be my best friend.
I hate the skin-deep relationships.
But for you, husband, I will refrain.
These friendships come easy.
But I have to release the easy…
…the hard is what’s more worth-while.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s not time yet.”

I’ve got my own mountains to climb on my own.
I am not ready.
I have so much to work out in me.
I am so far from what I’m supposed to be.

This is for the girls who know exactly what I’m saying.

We gotta stick it out.
We gotta stick together.
Girls can be catty.
Let’s not.
Let’s band together.
Let’s do the dance of becoming who we are.
It happens once in a lifetime.
Boys cannot form our identity.
God gives us our identity.
It is in Him alone.
Men find us once we are in our own identity.

soul:spirit

Soul: mind, will & emotions.
Spirit: communion, intuition & conscience.

My spirit must lead my soul. When the two are not in correct alignment is when I start making choices that follow my emotions and carnal nature. I want to do what God wants. His desires are what is always best. HE’S GOD. Why would I ever think that my own ideas would turn out better than His?

I want to be a spirit-led woman.

Sometimes I think my soul speaks louder than my spirit… that’s why I have to be in the Word more…to strengthen my spirit.

It’s all about Jesus in the end… my soul forgets this while my spirit is constantly trying to remind me.
I gotta quit even thinking of how I need to change and just focus on the person of Jesus and PRAISE HIM. If I do that, I would automatically change anyway–He has that kind of effect on people.

He Never Relents

re·lent   [ri-lent]
—verb (used without object)
to soften in feeling, temper, or determination; become more mild, compassionate, or forgiving.

—Synonyms
bend, yield.

You won’t relent until you have it all… –Misty Edwards

God wants ALL of me.
The art of losing myself has often meant to me that in specific areas of my life I have to lay things down. Today I was discussing one of these with my best friend Ali… she hit me with this text:

Refocus your eyes. Count it all as loss. Every friendship, every situation. It’s all Jesus. That’s all it should be… God won’t relent until He has all of you. Your attention, your feelings, your emotions… He lets us choose him or the other thing. So He’ll wait patiently.

It was like… what a thought. He wants it all. It’s all about HIM–NOT me. It’s not about my future or my aspirations, my likes, my discomforts…. what I want…
ITS ABOUT HIM before anything else. So, when something goes differently than how I wish it would or I want something God doesn’t want me to have… I need to remember that. When my will is on auto-pilot, that’s when i get into trouble. I must be intentional. Nobody said this life was easy… but it does get easier when you stop trying to do any of it on your own.

My life is not my own.

Learning this art of losing myself is a long process… but I think that the reason it must be learned over and over is because once learned, it will stick and never waiver. It’s like learning to ride a bike. It hurts when you fall while you’re learning and for some it may take a long time but once you’ve learned, you never forget.