His plans are not my plans

I was trying to think about what to write about this week and I realized today that I have an issue that I am looking for a solution for and I remembered that we created a scrapbook page not too long ago that spoke to this very thing.

The page that we created was about the direction God takes us.  We all have a plan for our lives.  God created that plan!  Sometimes we think we are the creator of the plan and we try to make our lives fit the mold that we think it should.  We try to open doors that God closes, we try to take advantage of “opportunities” that do not fit into our God created plan, we try to convince Him our plan is best.  Sometimes we step back and ask God,  “What do you want me to do?”  Sometimes we feel a clear answer and sometimes we sense silence.  Sometimes all He wants us to do is to lean into Him and be obedient.

We do not know what God has in store for us tomorrow.  I never would have imagined that I would be a stay at home mom, write a blog, lead a prayer group, lead a scrapbooking group, move into the city…..  I think I had a much more boring life planned for myself.  God has moved in my life beyond my expectations and I know that He has more planned and I want to follow His plan not my own.

One thing I can always count on is that God’s plan is always the best.  He knows me better than I know myself.  He knows all the details that are involved in my life and the lives of people around me.  He knows EVERYTHING!!!  I on the other hand know very little.  I seem to know less and less every day or maybe I am just more aware of how little I know.  If I trust Him and am obedient to Him then I have nothing to fear.  He will take me to places that are uncomfortable.  I will resist ( I know this because I frequently do).  I will delay obedience.  He is patient with me and He knows the sin I deal with and the temptations that I struggle with and He knows when I will be obedient and He knows that I will eventually be grateful for His leading.  He is always right!   I am not as apt to take the chances that have made my life so amazing I have taken them because He led me to them and through them.

I can’t wait to see what lies ahead.  I look forward to the next steps in God’s path for my life and the lives of my family and friends.

On the red squares I wrote what my plans were and on the brown squares I wrote what God did in showing me His plans.  Proverbs 16:9 was the title for my page.  In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.

Excuses

Hello everyone,

I promised a few weeks ago we would talk about excuses we make for not sharing the Lord with others and then I went AWAL.  Sorry about that. 

Here are the pages we did where we talked about excuses that we make for not sharing Christ with others.  I am sure there are a hundred excuses we make but we don’t have room for all of them on a scrapbook page so I just focused on five of the most frequent.

I had many excuses for not sharing that I held onto for a long time.  The first and most embarrassing one was that I didn’t want people to think I was weird.  Oddly, I have never felt like I was the type of person who needed to fit in and didn’t feel, consciously, that I wanted or needed the approval of others but I guess we all do to some extent.  I felt uncomfortable talking about God and salvation because I had always viewed people who talked openly about God as weird.  I did have some friends that I spoke to about spiritual things and about God but that was different to me.  It seemed that there were people that were close to you who you could talk to about their beliefs and people who were always trying to change you.  The people who shared life with me and didn’t preach at me were the people who I respected and enjoyed hearing about their faith even when I didn't agree.  As I share my faith with others this is still the way I feel most comfortable sharing; with people I have a relationship with.

Another reason that I did not share Christ with others is that I believed that faith was a personal journey.  While this has some value to it, I now know that God does not give us anything so that we can keep it for ourselves.  He gives us everything we have; our gifts, our finances, our jobs, our kids, our spouses, our friends and our faith.  He does not share with us so that we can hoard for our own purposes.  He gives us everything so that we can share with others for the glory of HIS kingdom.  One of my bible study leaders once asked me whom I interacted with that I truly wanted them to go to Hell.  My answer is no one.  I love all of God’s people and desire them all to feel the joy that I feel because of my relationship with the Lord.  It saddens me to know that there are people around me who don’t know the Lord and can’t know the joy that He brings to our lives on this earth and after.  Why would I keep that knowledge from them and not give them the opportunity to accept His salvation and be an active member of His kingdom. 

Ezekiel 3:18-19   If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.

Another excuse that I had is that I didn’t know enough theology or have enough knowledge of the bible.  Anyone that knows me knows that I am not an academic person.   My dad used to love to read textbooks and learn about things all his life.  I prefer to learn by living.  I like to be out with people, be out in nature, do things rather than read about things.  I will never be a scholarly person.  Thankfully, the Lord blessed me with some wisdom and blesses me continually as I seek out Him and His will.  Otherwise I would be a mess.  I learn from experience and He knows that because He created me.  He gives me the ability to share Him and His love through experiences.  As many people as there are out there who need to come to a knowledge of Him through academic learning there are just as many people like me who need to hear stories of how God has changed lives, blessed families, taught through struggles and hardships. 

God made each and every one of us different and so He reaches each of us in a different way.  We just need to make sure that we are being obedient to His will each day.  It’s hard to believe that we can be in His will and not share about Him with others.

Sharing your faith

A few months ago we worked on a page about sharing our faith and I thought this would be a great time to share that with you all.  Amid all the New Years resolutions shouldn't the most important be that we resolve to share the Lord with others in our lives.  I like this page because when I am gone (hopefully my faithbook will be passed down) it can be a reminder for all those who come after me that there are many ways to share the Lord besides quoting scripture to people.  Sometimes people are not ready to hear scripture or understand it.

There are so many ways to share our faith.  Sometimes we share our faith and we don't even recognize it.  Have you ever met someone who you think right away, "That person must know the Lord?"  Something about their actions, words, peace about them or the way they carry themselves.  You don't need to have a deep conversation to feel their warmth and suspect that it comes from the Lord.  Don't you want to be that type of person?  God can use you no matter where you are if you make yourself available to Him.

This week in bible study one of the things the leader talked about was that our obedience to the Lord always blesses others.  It is amazing to think about isn't it?  If we are obedient to the Lord we don't have to go out of our way to bless others we can be a conduit for the Lord!  Think about all the people in our lives that we interact with each day.  How amazing would it be if we knew that God was using us to bring someone to him or to help bring someone closer to him just through our obedience?  Our obedience is His pleasure and He will use it for His glory and His kingdom.

When we created the page we limited the ways to share to five just because it made for an easier page.  Of course there are many ways to share so you don't need to limit your page to five.

One thing that you can't see on the picture is that we added a bible verse to the bottom of the page.  My chosen verse was.....
Commit to the Lord whatever you do and He will establish your plans.  Proverbs 16:3  

I challenge you this weekend to think about how you can share your faith with others around you.  Give some thought to why you stuggle sometimes to share your faith also.  We will talk about that page next week.

New year.... New Commitment

Hey everyone,

It has been too long.  I reread my last post on this blog today and it made me feel sad and hopeful at the same time.  Almost two years ago I felt the need to create this blog and have been very neglect in following through.  For those of you who don't know me I enjoy being in the background.  I like to be busy, love to help others, love to share the wisdom that God has given me but I don't want to be known.  I am not a fan of being out in front, in fact, it makes me very uncomfortable.  I don't update my facebook page because I am not even sure what to post.  I have a wonderful life that God has richly blessed but I am much more comfortable talking about it one on one than sharing it online.

This year I am feeling more and more convicted that God wants me to shout it from the rooftops.  I HAVE BEEN RICHLY BLESSED BY GOD!!!!!  I have no part in that blessing.  I did nothing to deserve it and did nothing to earn it.  He has just been sooooo good to me.

I also have been convicted that God desires me to share faithbooking more regularly.  I have a small group of ladies that I faithbook with and God provides the ideas every month.  I am not that creative of a person but every month we have a page to create so remember what God has done for us, shares who God is, enriches our faith and relationship with Him.  I have never been all that creative so it must be His ideas.  I am so grateful for that group of ladies and the pages we create.

This month we did a two page spread for the new year.  The first page was about what we learned in 2014 about God and/or from God.  I have limited memory capacity so I loved the idea of looking through my bible study and having one page that shared some truths I gained from the year of study.  This way I can look back and be reminded quickly about what I learned and what I need to continue to remember.

The second page was things we were commiting to the Lord or committing to do for the Lord and this blog is one of my commitments for 2015.  I look forward to sharing my journey this year and pray that I am able to keep my commitment.



I will be posting once a week and hope to hear from you about your faith journeys.

Music that Moves

Hey guys,  It has been a long time since I posted last. I have been distracted. I hope to start posting again weekly.  

I don’t know if you have ever had a song run through your mind a thousand times but I know it happens to me all the time.  This is one of the reasons that I am convinced that music plays a much bigger part in our lives than we can see or care to believe.  I do believe it can have a positive or negative impact depending on what type of music we listen to. I can notice a difference in myself when I listen too often to non Christian music.  I have always been a channel changer.  I like lots of different types of music; rock, country, rap, pop...  My music tastes change with my mood sometimes.  I used to not like Christian music because it sounded too slow.  Then I was introduced to Steven Curtis Chapman, Toby Mac, Matthew West, Casting Crowns....  Now I am not sure how I lived without it.  I had to look for different types of music when my kids were in middle school to correspond with the tunes they were exposed to at school.  What a blessing that was!  We were able to have many wonderful conversations about what was being encouraged in the popular songs and there were a couple of songs that were banned in my car because I couldn't tolerate them and we talked about that as well.  My kids still listen to popular songs and I do as well sometimes. It is good to know though that they are able to sort through the "trash" and know the differnce.  I still change channels occasionally and I can tell a difference in myself when I stay too long on the popular music stations just as I can tell when I stray from my relationship with God.

Many people disregard this theory and don’t worry much about what they listen to or what their children listen to but I would challenge you give some serious thought to whether or not this is true. We talk at length about how the words that we say to one another have such an impact but we disregard how music lyrics can be an impact because we assume it’s just background noise.  Have you ever overheard someone talking, even someone you don’t know, and been offended or hurt by their words?  The bible says in Proverbs 4:23  “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”.  I would encourage everyone to take a 30 day challenge and listen only to Christian music and see if you don’t see a change in your life.  I feel confident you will.  KSBJ and Air1 are great stations.

I would love to hear from anyone who takes the challenge.

The song “Say Amen” by Finding Favour is so descriptive about why I think it is so important to document our lives.  I have included the lyrics and hopefully will be including a link to the bands you tube video.   I would love to hear your “AMEN” stories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRcvcF_0_9M

Say Amen by Finding Favour

This life is a journey we walk by faith

And there will always be the mountains in our way

But right here in this moment, may our strength be renewed

As we recall what God has done and how we've seen Him move

If there's anybody here who's found Him faithful

Anybody here who knows He's able

Say Amen

If there's anybody here who's seen His power

Anybody here brought through the fire

Say Amen

Anybody here found joy in the middle of sorrow

Just Say AMEN!

Sometimes through the darkness, it's hard to see

So just be brave and follow where He leads

Greater is the one who's in us, than he who's in the world

So child of God remember, the battle is the Lord's

If there's anybody here who's found Him faithful

Anybody here who knows He's able

Say Amen

If there's anybody here who's seen His power

Anybody here brought through the fire

Say Amen

Anybody here found joy in the middle of sorrow

Peace in the storm, hope for tomorrow

And seen time and time again

Then just Say AMEN!

Even in the valley of the shadow when you feel alone in the unknown

Just say Amen, Just say Amen

Even when the storms are raging, Stand and know your not forsaken

Just say Amen, Just say Amen

Is there anybody here, Tell me is there anybody here

Come on and Say Amen

If there's anybody here who's seen His power

Anybody here brought through they're

Come on and Say Amen

Anybody here found joy in the middle of sorrow

Peace in the storm, hope for tomorrow

And seen time and time again

Then just Say AMEN!

Love

In the Gospel of Matthew 22:37-40  Jesus said: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

What does it mean to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind?  How do you love your neighbor as your self?  These are commandments that we must contemplate everyday as we live our lives.  Are we loving God today with everything we have?  Are we loving our neighbor as God commands?  I believe this includes all the people we come across each day.  Our neighbors aren’t only our friends.  We all have neighbors that we naturally love and those that are difficult to get along with as well as those that we just ignore simply because we don’t cross paths often.

So what does it look like to LOVE someone or something?  You spend time with them, you talk about them to others, you miss them when they are not around among other things.

Several years ago I found a wrap restaurant named Roly Poly.  I loved it and it was not very busy.  For very selfish reasons I wanted it to be successful.  I wanted to visit every week and get my wrap fix.  The owners were wonderful and the food was amazing.  I looked for ways to get the word out about the restaurant.  I invited friends and family for lunch there, I looked for opportunities to get them to cater lunches, I talked about them to people I interacted with during the day.  I prayed for them.

To remind you we are talking about a wrap restaurant!!!  Do I do these things for God?  Do I look for opportunities to share Him with others? Do I share His word everywhere I go to make sure people know about His greatness?  Do I invite others to share in His glorious kingdom?  If I would go out of my way for a sandwich shop like that how much more should I be excited to share God with others?

Unfortunately my days are not always spent loving God or others.  Sometimes I get so intent on checking things off my list or asking God to help me with my life that I neglect to love Him well.  Faithbooking reminds me of His love for me and documents His working in my life so I can share His love with others.  It also helps increase my faith as I see Him clearly working in my life and in the lives of those around me. I believe we love our neighbors best by showing them His love and pointing them to Him by our actions and words.

In the beginning….

I thought I would share a little perspective on my scrapbooking “career”..

I do not generally consider myself a creative person.  I have friends that are amazingly creative and I envy them sometimes but I definitely don’t put myself in that category.

When my kids were young my friends and I wanted to go out but we were not sure what to do for a night on the town.  I am not a drinker, not into clubbing, not a huge fan of movies and had not gone out consistently since the kids were born.  We also had a little motherly guilt about leaving our kids to do something for us.  Also anyone that knows me knows that I am “thrifty” so hiring a babysitter at $10 and hour seemed crazy!

One evening I decided to host a Creative Memories party.  My friends and I realized that we could get together at night and do something fun while accomplishing something amazing for our families.  It sounded like a win/win!!

The group became one of my kid’s fondest memories and some of my best times with friends.  Initially we thought we would leave the kids with husbands and get together at someone’s house without the kids but that didn’t work very well and before long we were meeting together on Friday nights with the kids.  The kids would run wild upstairs or out in the backyard and we would scrapbook and share stories, laugh and share struggles and “solutions”.  Sometimes we would stay up until 2am and the kids would either fall asleep or stay up and play.  It didn’t matter that my 8 year old was up at 2am running wild because it was just once a month and it was special time.  My kids loved it, I loved it and the whole family enjoyed the finished product.  My kids still asked to get together for “scrapbooking night” even into their teens.

So..  Back to perspective..

I was the person in our group that was on a scrapbooking mission.  Because I am a planner/organizer by nature I was all about getting projects done quickly and keeping my project organized.  I came up with a project and would create a picture plan, print the pictures and slap it in a book.  I would get 40 pages done in an evening.  They weren’t pretty but that wasn’t the point to me.  They were done!  There were other ladies there that were afraid to put the pictures on a page because it may not be perfect and ladies that spent an evening on two or three pages and they were beautiful.  Everyone has a different perspective.

Here is a picture of one of my early scrapbook pages.