He meets us at our choice.

Recently something really big happened with my faith, as I said. It was easy after that to think, Well, I've fasted and prayed for this, so I'll just take a break for awhile. I was wrong.. I ended up breaking my fast, more than once, this week and it of course is accompanied by a sense of shame and guilt.

However, if I've learned anything about walking in the Word, it's that we have a choice. No one's twisting my arm to break my fast, or to study my Bible. It's my choice alone. We have to see past our current circumstances and make the best decision for the future. That to me is a huge sign of spiritual maturity. It should be noted, though, that it's not all on us, thank goodness. We make a choice and He meets us where we are.

1 John 1:9 says (NIV), "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." So, confessing is our choice, and forgiving and purifying is what He does with our choice.

As I've been doing the A Call to Die study, the Holy Spirit has convicted me of sins that I have committed. Thankfully in the light of God's grace, I need not feel ashamed or guilty because He forgives! He wipes our slate clean! This does not mean, however, that we can "grieve the Holy Spirit". Romans 6:15 says, "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!" We don't quench the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives because we continue in our sin.

As I've grown and matured in the faith, I have realized that I should worry less about the external and more about the internal. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, " "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." As I walk in the Word and pray and seek the holiness of God Himself, the external will fall away on its own. I have experienced that first hand. The internal is more of a struggle. But He is faithful and just.

He is faithful and just.

He is faithful and just.

Over and over again I repeat that in my mind... "O LORD God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O LORD, and your faithfulness surrounds you." (Psalm 89:8)

Growing our faith

The Lord knows our weaknesses, our strengths, and how we can best respond to His Holy Spirit. Over the past year I have experience a growth of faith that is bigger and more exciting than any other in my entire life. It's not that things have been amazing, because honestly you could not pay me to go through this past year again. For sake of not rehashing everything that's happened, we'll just say there were some dry spells and some valleys. However, He has pulled through on every single thing. Ultimately He's done what He's done because of His sovereignty, not because of my cry for faith. However, He delights in blessing us and the cry of faith is done in Jesus' name.

{{Romans 4...
 ¹What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? ²If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. ³What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."^[a]
 4Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. ⁵However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. ⁶David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
 ⁷"Blessed are they
      whose transgressions are forgiven,
      whose sins are covered.
 ⁸Blessed is the man
      whose sin the Lord will never count against him."}}

I really feel that I've been able to relate with the life of Abraham. Believing despite the circumstances. I've begun fasting at certain times for mainly my family and all the things that are happening there. Things are happening! I have faith that everything will work out according to His good purpose (Rom. 8:28).

I feel that Aaron and I are going through a time of harvest right now, both relationally, financially and spiritually. In the seven years we've called ourselves a couple, we've been through an awful lot. Not that we weren't blessed before - it's not biblical to say that only good things that you're happy about are blessings - but a lot of what we've been through is really starting to show itself as blessing and also as preparation.

The Lord is good, He is enduring, He is faithful!

Restoration is coming.

Isaiah 49:8-10
This is what the LORD says:
       "In the time of my favor I will answer you,
       and in the day of salvation I will help you;
       I will keep you and will make you
       to be a covenant for the people,
       to restore the land
       and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
  to say to the captives, 'Come out,'
       and to those in darkness, 'Be free!'
       "They will feed beside the roads
       and find pasture on every barren hill.
 They will neither hunger nor thirst,
       nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them.
       He who has compassion on them will guide them
       and lead them beside springs of water. 


God is a God of restoration. It is amazing the supernatural changes that are wrought because of our human belief in an immortal and holy God. There is a specific area of my life where I beginning to see restoration. 

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, "restore" means "to rebuild, renew, repair". What a beautiful thought. Throughout this season of Lent, I have been fasting from most Internet and all secular media. I have been fasting and praying for this certain area of my life and it's amazing what God can do with our circumstances.

I am forever thankful for these things that are happening because my faith is bolstered and encouraged. I am now throwing all semblance of caution into the wind and letting Him drive. I am not my own; I belong to the One who bought me.

Temple of the Spirit

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

This is my motivation to exercise. I love the feeling after having a hard workout.. and I love meditating on Jesus while in the process. I often listen to Underoath because it's definitely upbeat and energizing.

My insecurity yields His victory.

Ironic, right? My insecurity leads to spiritual victory. However, the road which I have to travel to get there is rough and plagued with stubbornness.

Let me say that again: I am stubborn. Say it's in the Little blood, say it's a product of my circumstances, but it is the truth. Lately it has been keeping me from complete and total communion with the Lord. I am stubborn in the spiritual realm... believing that I can do it all on my own. (The Bible doesn't say that; it says "I can do all things through Christ.") Believing that a little of Jesus here and there is okay. Believing that I am immune to certain sin. It's at that point, people, when the devil takes a hold. Lying is his specialty. He's had quite a few years and then some to practice and he is relentless in it. So... I start to believe the lies in the spiritual and they pour into the physical realm.

Insecurity is debilitating and back-breaking. But it's not until it shows itself in the physical realm that I do anything about it. My stubbornness leads to insecurity.

And it's in the realization for the 1,684,286th time that the Lord is my strength that I finally relent and let Him drive.

Proverbs 18:10 sheds light on this. "The name of the LORD is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe."

Just the very name of the Lord is a strong tower. It doesn't say that the righteous run into it when such-and-such happens...  it says that they just run. Who cares when. The righteous recognizes that the Lord is his strength and he just runs. No questions asked.

No amount of worldly securities could ever overshadow the fact that only the Lord (Yahweh) is my strong tower. No amount of money, practice, education, experience, relationships can replace the strength that is in the very name of the Lord. Verse 11 goes on to say, "A rich man's wealth is his strong city, And like a high wall in his own imagination."

I need to learn to speak up. Why did I ever think I could just "think" a prayer? The strength and victory of the Lord needs to be claimed verbally. The enemy needs to know from Whom we draw our strength.

It is some times like these that I am glad the sun sets on a day when I have experienced embarrassment and insecurity and a new day can dawn in which I claim the strength of Yahweh, Jehovah, Alpha & Omega. Verse 12 says, "Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, But humility goes before honor." (NASB) I want to experience humility tomorrow.


Maybe someday I won't have to learn my lesson the hard way, but I am thankful the Lord is in the details; He knew them before I was even an earthly thought.

Father Abraham had many sons

and apparently a lot of [spiritual] daughters too. I am one of them. I guess I never realized the theological, no, biblical, meaning behind that song. This week in the Believing God study I have been reminded of Abraham and his faith. Interestingly enough, he comes up in The Inheritance. Both studies I am doing are simultaneous but independent of one another. Abraham's story speaks to me. Not that I am a Hebrew man who lived before Christ who was obeying the Lord by almost sacrificing his son, for whom he had waited so long. However, we have a common thread.

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.

-Hebrews 11:8

I have felt like this past year God has been dealing with me on obedience. I say "dealing" because it's been Him revealing what I need to do and me being my stubborn former Little self and pouting like a girl. Sometimes over the past year He's basically had to put up a brick wall where there was none so I'd smack into something. And every time that's happened it's been an actual barrier to whatever harebrained situation I had gotten myself into.

So, with obedience being the theme of spring of last year to this spring, I have begun to understand firsthand that obedience begets blessing. And big obedience begets big blessing. Abraham was obedient and while he didn't come into his land of inheritance while he was alive on planet Earth, he will surely see the descendants of his obedient life in heaven.

I have to say that I want to live that kind of life. I want to be obedient. It may not always be pretty, or easy, or comfortable for me or those around me, but the blessing and righteousness that come from it far outweigh whatever earthly obstacle there seems to be.

When I look back through everything I have been through, I see it's all prepared me for this very time in my life. Now, with all that I'm going through now, I can only wonder about what is to come in the future. Sometimes it makes me a little scared. I guess I'd rather be scared and in God's will than comfortable and completely oblivious.

Today...

...is one of those days when, as Beth Moore would say, I just love my Jesus. I am happy. It's March - only 31 days until I see my handsome soldier and get to experience lovely spring weather in Arizona. I think my students thought I had a little too much caffeine this morning.. I was peppy!

I found an awesome new artist - Enter the Worship Circle. Maybe not new to the world, but new to my appreciative ears. The album I bought on Rhapsody (like WMP or iTunes) is called Chair and Microphone. It's acoustic piano and guitar and it's a female on lead vocals. I'm in heaven.

Random "praise report", if you will.. I have to have some work done on my car, nothing drastic but maintenance that needs to be done when a car as 131,000 miles on it. My dad's been searching around the Pekin/Peoria area for quotes and the lowest was only $845. That is exciting considering some of them were $1600 from the dealer and $1200 from somewhere else. The best part is that we have that right now because we have our emergency fund.

So.. it's a great day here in Illinois. The sky is cloudy and it's still chilly, but this month will be bright.

The verse for today from A Call to Die is Psalm 56:3-4:

"When I am afraid, I will put my trust in Thee.
In God, those word I praise,
in God I have put my trust;
I shall not be afraid. 
What can mere man do to me?"