Day 327: Ride it Out!

Hebrews 10:32-36

32 Think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering. 33 Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things. 34 You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever. 35 So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! 36 Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.

Sometimes walking with Christ can feel like trying to swim or surf through a storm. It can feel like all you want is to stay afloat and not drown. I’m talking about those moments in life when the waves are crashing down on you and the winds blowing you all over the place, and you seem to have lost all control. Sometimes that’s what life feels like. It can be rough and sometimes because we walk with Christ things are a bit harder. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned was from swimming lessons. I grew up very afraid of water and whenever someone tried to teach me how to swim I would freak out when it was time to go into the deep end, even when my dad was holding me in his arms, telling me it was going to be okay, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. They would always tell me to stay calm. When I finally agreed to go to swimming lessons, my teacher would hold me up unto a certain point and then she let me go and told me to stay calm as I began to be afraid. She said, the more afraid you are the harder it is to learn. Freaking out wasn’t helping me in fact it was hurting, it made me sink faster. When I was too afraid to do things she wouldn’t let me get out of the pool, because she knew what I was capable of and she knew that I could handle it. I tell this story because sometimes this life is scary, sometimes those waves are bigger than we thought, but even in those moments of fear we have to ride them out. God knows what we can take and we cannot just walk away because we are afraid, but we must endure, we must endure because we know what’s on the other side, we know what it will all be worth in the end.

Verses thirty five through thirty six encapsulates everything that I want say, ”So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.” God has brought us this far, even when the storms are throwing us every which way, He was the one that made sure that the storm never overtook us. I thrive off of faith in the Lord, not abandoning that trust because it has gotten me to where I am at this moment in my life.

All this to say, life vn feel like you're riding the roughest wave. But even if you can barely stand, ride it out. God’s got you, you’re going to make it out just fine, trust Him and know that He is holding you up.

Reflection

1. Have you gone through or are you going through a time in your life where you feel like the storm of life is throwing you all over the place?
2. What have you noticed about submitting to God as opposed to submitting to fear?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer, have a conversation with God about what we discussed. Whatever you feel led to pray about today, pour your heart out to Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 328!

Day 308: Recap! (Kinda)

We're doing the recap a bit differently today. Take the time to go back over what we discussed this week. Whatever spoke to you the most or whatever you feel led to, take the time to reflect. As we reflect today I want to bring your attention to Day 305 when we talked about trusting in the power of prayer and praying in faith. Tonight America needs of prayer, Texas needs our prayers. As another mass shooting has taken place just a month after the last mass shooting. Both together have claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Today a gunman walked into a church and opened fire killing 26 people. So tonight we pray, tonight we lift up those people and we pray for the families. We pray for healing for those hurt and affected. We pray for peace in our world and we pray that even through the evil in the world we will always see the goodness of God. In the midst of all the hate we will love. We love you Texas and Vegas, and you are in our prayers.

I love you all and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to come back tomorrow for Day 309!

Day 306: Lose Control

Proverbs 19:21

You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.

Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Isaiah 55:9

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”

You ever felt like you were navigating through life but not really getting anywhere? You have a plan, you know what you want and you're going after it but it doesn’t seem to be working out the way you planned. Everything thing is out of control and falling apart. It’s like we’re losing a grip on everything. What if we’re think about it the wrong way. What if we have it all wrong, what if everything is out of control because no matter how hard we try life is too hard to navigate alone. Sometimes we think losing control of our life is the worst thing possible. Not knowing where we’re going and feeling lost is the bane of our existence. But, what if it’s not, what if it’s the start of something beautiful. When we’re in these positions we tend to open ourselves up to direction, when we’re losing control we try to find a way to get a hold of life again. It is in these moments when we find ourselves submitting to God. It’s in these moments that we realize how big He is and small we are. Sometimes we have to lose control to know that we never had it anyway. Sometimes we have to be lost to understand that only in Christ can we be found.

What I’m saying is we cannot walk around with our planners, our schedules, or six month plans and completely cross God out of the picture. There is nothing wrong with plans, goals, and following our dreams but we must keep a loose grip on them because we never know what God is going to do. If anything we hold tightly to God and His plan because it is better and greater than anything we could ever imagine. We have to learn to let go of our control over our lives and give it God. It sounds crazy but it’s not. Only when we completely surrender to God will we see how His hand has always been on us. We will see how His plan for our lives has been, is being, and will continue to be played out in our lives. When we constantly feel the need to be in control we are in a constant state of anxiety when things do not go as we planned them to go. But God is like, “I got this, don’t worry, I got this.”

All this to say, lose control. Submit to God and know that He is always in control. Don’t fight against it.

Reflection

1. Are you the type of person that needs to constantly be in control?
2. Do you really believe that God’s got this (your life in His hands)?
3. Why do you think it is so hard to fully submit to God?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Have a conversation with God about giving up the need to be in control to Him. Talk to Him about submitting completely to Him and trusting in His plan.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 307!

Day 300: Faith is Active

James 2:17

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

James:2:20-23

Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.

Yesterday we talked about faith, in the aspect that we must believe. We must believe in order to be saved. Today we are going to take that a step further and start acting on that faith. Faith when it comes to following Christ is an action word, yes we must first believe and confess then we must walk with Christ, all the days of our lives. We must have faith in who He is, and trust Him with our lives. We must put all of our faith in Him, knowing that He will do all that He said He was going to do in our lives. This looks like obeying His word, living by His word, and listening when He tells us to go. One of the prime examples of this is Abraham. We all know the story of Abraham and Sarah who had a child way past childbearing age. They were old, very old. But God promised that they would have a son, and they stood on that promise. We see parts of the story when they decided to do it their way but it didn’t work. See the thing about having faith in God is that we cannot decide to do things our way when we decide God is taking too long. We must stand on His promise even when it looks like it’s not coming through, trust me He will always come through. The only way life will work is God’s way, and the more we pour ourselves into Him the more evident that truth becomes. Abraham had a child but it was not the the promised child, the child God had promised was to come from Abraham and Sarah not Abraham and Hagar.

The turning point in this story is when Abraham and Sarah finally had  Isaac (the promised son), God tells Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice. Without hesitation Abraham goes to do it. Now many may think, why would Abraham voluntarily kill his son? The simple answer is because God told Him to, as gruesome as it sounds. I think Abraham knew something that we take a while to grasp and understand. He knew that whatever God was doing it was so much greater than what He could ever imagine. Abraham knew that God gave Him Isaac and if God wanted Him back then He would have to send Him. Sometimes God’s plan doesn’t make sense to us, but it is some much greater than what we could ever think. I cannot say that Abraham was happy-go-lucky to do this. It does not say how he felt about this, but I can imagine that he was a bit troubled. The thing is, Abraham had faith in God’s plan whatever it may have been. “But what about the promise, he waited so long to have this child and then he’s just going to give him up that easy.” It poses the question, do we have faith in His promises or faith in Him? Are we putting our faith in the things that God says He’s going to do, are we putting our trust in His promises or are we putting our faith and trust in Him? I believe that Abraham’s faith was in God, not in the promise of a child because even when the promise was fulfilled He was willing to give it up because His faith in God was stronger. Abraham’s faith was more than words it was active, that’s the type of faith God calling us to have.

Reflection/Prayer Time

There’s a two part question we must ask ourselves, one being do we really have faith in God, do we trust Him with everything? The second question being are we trusting in the promise, or are we trusting in a God who makes and fulfills promises? Allow your answers to those questions guide your prayer, talk to God about it. Have a conversation with Him about your faith, ask Him to search your heart and teach you to have faith in Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 301!

Day 244: Not Everything is Everlasting

Ecclesiastes 3:1

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

Revelation 3:7

Write this letter to the angel of the church in Philadelphia. This is the message from the one who is holy and true, the one who has the key of David. What he opens, no one can close; and what he closes, no one can open:

I know many of us have heard these two scriptures a multitude of times, and I want to talk about them today. I want to talk about the fact that not everything in our lives are meant to last. Not everything is forever or everlasting, no matter how much we want it to be. Sometimes God closes doors in our lives to open others. Sometimes people walk out of our lives or relationships fade because they were only meant to be there for a season. We must learn to realize and honor these moments. I feel as humans we hold on so tight to things that we won’t even let our hands open to God. Sometimes we hold onto things so tight, not wanting to let go while at the same time not realizing, trusting or understanding that God has something greater in store. Sometimes He needs our hands to be empty in order to fill them completely. Sometimes as humans we are so hesitant to let go of a good thing because we don’t know when it’s going come around again. We are afraid because we are not trusting that God has something greater. We are not trusting in Him, His timing or His word. God always has something greater for us, we just have to trust Him. We have to trust His process.

With that being said, sometimes God closes doors, and no matter how hard we try we cannot open them. This does not mean God is punishing us, all it means is, either it’s not the right time or there’s a better door. Everything God does, He does for a reason, He’s not going to leave us empty handed or stranded. He always has a plan. I feel like many times we decide something isn’t for us before we give it a chance because we are so focused on our own plans. I know we all think that we know what’s best for ourselves but trust me when I say God knows much more, we’re not even scratching the surface. So we must trust Him with every area of our lives. Even our relationships.

Now this is a big one, relationships. I don’t just mean romantic relationships, I mean every type of relationship. There’s couple of quotes I’d like to reference here,

“Some people aren’t meant to be in our lives forever. Some are just passing through to teach us a lesson.”

-Unknown

“Some people come into your life as blessing, others come in your life as lessons”

-Unknown

The main point I’m trying to make here, is that even people have seasons in our lives. Some people are only meant to be in our lives for a season. We go wrong when we try to make seasonal people permanent. Meaning we could very well be holding on the very thing that God Himself is trying to break apart. Sometimes we are so caught up in our feeling that we try to force everlasting on temporary. This will only end in heartbreak. Trust me I know from experience, however God even uses the heartbreak to shape and mould us into the person He has always destined for us to be. So somehow someway God will keep us in His will.   Having people in our lives for just a season is not always a bad thing, what it means is that where we are going some people cannot go and where others are going we cannot go. It’s not just about us either, we have to be willing to let people go not just for our sake but for theirs. We know when someone’s season is up, we just feel it, so let’s not force it to continue knowing it’s over. We have to realize that sometimes we are only meant to be in a person’s life for a season, and be okay with that. This is not to say that nothing is everlasting, it is, just not everything.

All this to say, not everything is meant to last forever and that is okay. It’s life. We must learn how to let go when it’s time to let go. As well as trust God with where our lives are going and where He is taking us. We must keep a loose grip on our plans and understand that God’s plans are always greater than ours. Trust Him with everything you are and all you aspire to be.

Reflection

1. How hard is it to let go for you?
2. Have you had (or currently have) people in your life that you know was only meant to be there for a season?
3. Do you trust God’s timing?
4. Do you trust God with your life?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer. Talk to God about the seasons and seasonal people in your life. Have an honest conversation about what it looks like to completely trust Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 245!