Word Web Vocabulary

Over the weekend, I was at an anniversary party and some friends of ours sat down next to me 

and the guy said to me, "So, when you are you going to write a devotional?" 

Almost on a daily basis, on my facebook wall in the morning I share little snipits of what God is teaching 'today' and I never really thought about it, but I guess a lot of it would be "devotional" type of material. 

I kind of sat there with a puzzled look on my face and said "Huh..." It wasn't like a question "huh?", 

but more like a "Well, there's a thought." I told him, That's a good idea. I know I'm supposed to be writing, but sometimes I just don't feel like I have enough in me to write a whole book. 

But I do have bits and pieces of things on my heart."

 As soon as I left the party, the thought came to me, well that's the biggest lie you've ever told yourself.

Have you ever told yourself a lie like this?  

That you don't have enough in you to do what it takes....

"Really?"

 I felt like that's what God said to me.. .yes, now God is saying it (the really thing)...

He said "Really Julie? YOU don't have enough in you, eh? Don't I live on the inside of you? 

Isn't it by MY strength, by MY power? Don't you live and move and have your being in ME?"

Wow! Well I keep telling myself, it's all Him... All of this, everything I write, being a mother, being a wife, stepping into new positions in my life, it's all Him. It's all by his strength I do any of it. I can't be a mother of three on my own. Are you kidding me? I can't be a wife of seventeen years on my own. I can write this stuff on my own...

So why would the next thing (the scarier thing) be any different? 

(As if trying to raise and instill morals into three small people isn't scary)

It's not us, It's him. 

We just have to be willing.

Are you willing?

We have to remember that the Greater One is on the inside of us. Why do we belittle him to having such

little ability through us?  We are telling God he didn't give us what it takes...

Or better yet, why do we think that anything we do or have ever done is done without him?

It's not...

Allow yourself to believe that "Greater is He that is in YOU..." (I John 4:4)

With it comes freedom to open yourself and allow everything (and I mean everything) HE placed on the  inside of you, every passion, every talent... to be used for his Glory. 

He put it there. There is nothing God can't do through you. We just have to allow him to.

I love  this scripture I heard last night and read this morning...

Daniel 11:32~ But the people who know there God shall prove themselves strong and stand firm

and do exploits for Him (their God).

If you know your God, this means you...

Congrats to Hanna over at bouffe e bambini for winning the #tenpoundsbytenten challenge.
She was actually the only one who lost over ten pounds! Yay! Go Hanna!

I've come across way too many people lately, including myself, who want to question God's word.
Not on purpose, but just the same as the people who pick it apart word for word deciding what they will and won't believe, we still do it.

The whole point of believing it, is that you have Faith.We believe what we cannot make sense of in our mind. We believe what you cannot see or feel. We either believe it is inspired by God or we don't.

If you don't, then it certainly doesn't mean to you what it does to someone that has faith in the Bible.
Because to that person, the questionable, in time becomes reality. But it takes faith to get there.
Perhaps to some it's a book of poetry or stories of history (true or untrue) told by men.
But to those that believe the depth therein, the depth is as simple as faith in every promise spoken. That every word spoken throughout thousands of years comes from the mind of our creator. What he did for one, he will do for us. Afterall, he is neither a liar, nor he is a respecter of persons.
We believe that because His word says it. Yes, His word...God's word.

Trust and faith in God and his word are both supernatural responses, if that makes sense. They don't make sense. They're not "natural" as we think of the word. It's the opposite of what comes naturally to us. Our natural pea sized brain wants to reason, to wonder, to question, to debate, to worry....Our natural mind wants to google whenever a circumstance or a difficulty or something we don't understand arises. Or we want to "intellectually" justify our conclusions in which we belittle the Bible to be less than what it claims to be ~ the inspired word of God.   It's highly egotistical to place trust in our "knowledge " or "understanding" of something, as opposed to the mind of God and even more so, the heart of God.

Repeately in scripture we are told to trust in Him. Repeatedly He reveals his heart and his thoughts in scripture, and as "believers" we claim to believe it, yet we still pick it apart. We still fight it. We debate it. We choose what we will believe. We still google it, our questions, our answers, our symptoms...before we trust Him. We find out fallen man's thoughts, fallen mans experiences and we choose to believe fallen man's words over God's. 

No, we would never say that, but if we are honest with ourselves, we do it all the time.

 He wouldn't tell us to 'trust him' it if we were incapable of trusting Him. Fight the desire to worry. Fight the urge to google. Fight the desire to reason and compromise over his word.
Respond to life supernaturally or abnormally, whatever makes more sense to you. Which actually, as a person of 'faith', trust (the abnormal) should be a normal response.

Respond to life 'in faith' of Gods promises. Not faith in google's declarations.

Googles got nothing on God's promises.

  As it were, I was googling symptoms the other night, I woke up and I opened my devotions to this topic. 

We love to trust in our own understanding of things. Why? We love to find out what other people say about it. Why?  But one complaint, one word of negativity or worry can slowly spiral out of control and can take  the place of our knowledge of who God is and what He has promised us. Stop yourself before you give yourself over to a life of question and reasoning. Stop yourself before you replace faith with questions and then questions become doubt.

Friend, remember, faith believes what it cannot see. It doesn't go to man first. It doesn't turn on the laptop first. It doesn't open the latest 'christian' book filled with man's unbelief first. It sees God first and trusts in Him alone.

But I trust in your unfailing love, my heart rejoices in your salvation.
Psalms 13:5

No matter what stage of life you're in, whether you are feeling weak,

whether your circumstances are less than acceptable.

Maybe you are at the top of your game.

you have a happy family, the perfect job...

Maybe you have enough blog readers, finally...to satisfy you.

Maybe, you feel sad or left out because you don't get noticed.

Maybe you want to lose weight, maybe you want to gain it.

Maybe you want a husband,

 Maybe you are desperate for healing in your broken marriage.

Maybe you have five noisy kids,

maybe you've had five miscarriages.

Whatever season of life you are in, good or bad.

You're seasons and circumstances don't define you.

Your job status or marital status doesnt define you.

You are worth more.

You have everything you need to be an AMAZING you. 

You have everything you need to give, to love, and to receive love.

I watched this video just moments ago, tears in my eyes...

and I wanted desperately to share it with all of you.

I hope you take a few minutes to watch this.

 You deserve it.