A Call to Die - week 2

Okay, so this week was about dealing with the "hard words" we sometimes have to hear from Jesus - like, get such and such out of your life or go do this incredibly hard thing that no one else would understand, and the like. We talked about how to deal with these hard words - 1)be receptive, 2)obey, 3)be thankful cuz He's only telling you cuz He loves you, and 4) be RUTHLESS in taking care of business! I desperately desire for Him to point out the CRAP in my life that I place before Him because I desperately want to follow Him with everything that I am. So, I ask these "young adults" to pray each day this last week for God to shine His light on anything or anyone that is occupying His place in their heart and then to write those things down so they can begin dealing with them. Did I do it? Of course not! So, then it comes time for me to prepare for the next lesson to, so inadequately, teach them and for me to blog about week 2 in this call to die and I've got nothin'! What is that all about? Why do I, essentialy, forget about Him on a daily basis? Why do I think so many other things are so much more important and worthy of my time? I blame the culture, I blame being a mother, I blame being pregnant, I blame being sick, I blame being pregnant (oh, did I already say that one?). And, although, those are all fairly valid excuses - it is really simply my decision to be selfish. I, consciously, decide to not seek after Him, to not read His Word to me, to not, genuinely, say "Yes, Lord" each and every morning. And, I'm done! I don't wanna be a poser (I initially wrote fake, but then decided to modernize the language a bit). I do love God and I want to fall deeper in love with Him. I want to be uncomfortable with the things of this world, even when that makes no sense to the people around me. I wanna follow Him and I, desperately, want for these "young adults" to experience Christ the way that I have so many times. Oh, how their lives would change. Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to play a role in showing them who You are and how You have called them to die. I commit myself to death, today.

LOT's of Catching Up...

Okay, so when this blog was started, I guess I thought that I would have all kinds of insightful, witty things to post -- turns out, that's not really the case. I could blame it on the pregnancy, but then I would feel obligated to be insightful and witty again after the baby is born, so I guess the 2 of you out there who actually read this blog can just live with the fact that I will post my ramblings on my own time...
Couple of things to talk about today and I don't really know where to begin.
1. First of all, let's just say that God is so good. He is so faithful and so constant, you know? How refreshing is that in today's world. I've been dealing with a bit of family drama that I let stress me out more than it should have (to the point of making myself sick - although, that isn't really that hard to do these days) and when I finally decide to just let it go -- who is there, ready to comfort me and give me peace and help me back on track? He's ALWAYS there and I am so thankful for that!
2. Alright, time for a cool illustration that I saw this last week. It was boston's birthday on Friday and my mom, aka Gramma, decided to make the 9 hour drive down here to surpise boston for his birthday. So, boston and I were coming home from lunch on Friday and I told him that there might be a surprise there for him when we got there. I called my mom on the way home and she was probably about 20 minutes behind us. When we got to the house, I told boston to look around for his surprise because it could be anywhere! He wanted to call his dad and ask him if he knew where his "prize" was. Dad told him that maybe he should just go outside and wait for it to come. So, that is what we did. It was pretty cute. Anyway, my mom drove up and he was pretty surprised, but he just ran up to her door looking for his prize! We tried to explain to him that Gramma coming WAS the surprise and he was, by no means, disappointed in that, but it was as if he just couldn't really understand how a person could be a prize or surprise. So, the illustration here is probably pretty self-explanatory, but it is always cool when God paints a picture for you in real life situations. Why is it so hard for us to see God as a prize. Why do we always have to look for what He might give us or "provide us with?" He IS our prize and we should treat Him as such. All boston wants to do when Gramma is here is play with her and spend time with her -- why are we not that way with the most awesome "prize" ever? Why do we waste our time and our lives on CRAP? My goal, since, has been to view God as my prize -- someone I am able to spend time with and enjoy and learn from and grow in -- every single day! I don't have to look around the house for him, I don't have to guess what the prize could be, I don't have to wait for him -- he is here, waiting for me to enjoy him! Super Cool!
3. a call to die -- week one! We have started a new Bible study on Fridays at lunch with the young adults at our church ( we named it a young adults study in the beginning in hopes that lance and I might actually meet some friends our own age, but they are all college students, way younger than us -- such is the life)! It's a journey of fasting from the world and feasting on God (yes, I just described the book using the tag line on the cover). Anyway, we started last week and I just want to try and update about it each week. It might be really cool to look back on and see how God used this study in certain ways. I am pretty excited about. Okay, so the 1st week was from Matt 16:24 - If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. We had a really good discussion about how to actually do each of those things. One of the main things that stuck out to me was to stop feeding selfishness. How hard is that in todays society? But in order for me to say yes to following Christ, I've got to say No to my selfish desires. So, I have tried to be mindful of that this week. My goal is to wake up each morning, saying Yes to God -- whatever that might mean for that day. I feel as if I have this attitude a lot of the times anyway, but it is so powerful to verbally confess that to God each and every morning. I will also say that it kind of hard to not be selfish when you are 8 months pregnant and MISERABLE -- I just want to lay on the couch and do nothing all day because I'm so stinkin' uncomfortable and moody and experiencing pain in places that I should not be experiencing pain!!! Anyway, God is teaching me through all of this and like I said, I am excited to continue on with this study - with all the wonderful college kids! (you know I had to throw that in, just in case one of them reads this one day)!!!