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Inspired by God

Being still isn’t easy it takes patience, trusting God, and a bit of faith in order to do it well. It sheds light on who you really are instead of this constant high of rush in things going our own way. It also reveals our weakness and areas that we need to ask God for His help. In 2019 was a year of being still. I’m not saying I did it well in fact I did terrible. If it was not for the grace of God I would have failed! I still tried to open doors of where I shouldn’t have. I still took detours that took me further back. But then I had breakthroughs, if it was not for me trying to see what doors were opened I would of never known what doors were no good for me and it would have not of lead me to where it did. I went to a conference in 2019 to share my testimony. It was to see if my story could be used for the ministry they did. I never got a call back after sharing my story, I even followed up and got delayed responses. In the Same year I went to volunteer at a local rehab to get hours for my counseling in training certification just to find myself being walked out of the door within 30 minutes of my first day volunteering because the director did not know that I was a volunteer. These were hard moments for me, I felt the sting of rejection. But then even in those rejections God guided me. He was shaping me and directing me to His will in my life. God was working for my good. Within the same year I was asked to speak at another church and I was given information to become a peer support before I left the rehab I was volunteering at. At first I didn’t see what God was doing when it was mentioned to me but later I applied and was accepted to the core training early in 2020. I didn’t even know what that was before. It turned out that not only did I qualify but I would only have to work 500 hours before testing for my certification instead of working 2,000 hours before being able to test for my certification. Sometimes we make our work for The Lord harder than it is. I have learned looking back the harder the rejection, the longer the wait, the deeper the pain, the greater the purpose. During all of this waiting I had a desire I was trying to drown by serving God. I longed for another child for years. I had a miscarriage in 2014, it was another pain that felt like rejection and I held onto it for years. My husband and I tried to adopt in 2018, I thought well maybe this is what I am supposed to do. However, the adoption fell through. But still God was working it out for my good. I remember listening to a Christian radio station during 2020 New Years and the topic discussed was what would be your New Years resolution? I cried out to God and told him that all of my dreams and what I thought I would do died. I needed Jesus to give me a new dream. I didn’t know that I was pregnant. Within another week or two I found out. The next month I heard my baby boy’s heart beat in February, the same month that I miscarried in 2014 and the same month the adoption feel through in 2018. I’ll admit, yes I was nervous but so thankful to God when I heard it. My son is 5 month’s old now. How great is our God!!! God is always working out things for our good, Romans 8:28 even in being still and when it doesn’t seem like it’s going how we think it should go. Remember my friends sometimes God’s no today is for a better yes later! He is always for us never against us.

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When beginning to ponder the desire of new ideas and dreams, fear visits in our mind and makes itself at home into our hearts to knock us down. Then once we have sought God into prayer, in His strength we are able to hurtle over that first fear. However, another fear greets us, the fear of failure comes to mind and we are back down on our knees in prayer. The third fear that chimes in, is the fear of success. You may have thought of different fears when a new dream or idea pops up, but all our fears comes to a full circle, the unknown. It attacks us and every time we try to do what we feel God has called us to do, we cripple on the inside. I have experienced these fears and how one is to handle it biblically. Lets take a look at the parable in the book of Matthew 25:14, “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property.”  (Matthew 25:19) The one who received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. On Verse 25-26 when the servant was to bring his talent and settle accounts with his master he says, “So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.” But his master answered him, “You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed?” The end of that servant who was afraid and shrunk back was not good. After learning through practice, the verse (Psalm 46:10) “Be still and know that I am God,” I have learned that I would rather fail and eliminate the possibility of a dream or desire I felt God has placed onto my heart than to do nothing at all and not know what it could have been. This also I know, we have tried things before consulting God, and didn’t think much of it when we failed. God just moved us closer to His will. The bigger the struggle, the deeper the revelation is to come. Sometimes, God is waiting on us to move in faith. (Proverbs 16:9) “A man’s heart plans his course, but The LORD determines his steps.” Knowing this verse, helps so much. God knew that we would have desires and dreams.  But that they would a times be amiss. However, God is so good at helping us be on track. Thank you Jesus!

We need to address the elephant in the room also. some of us go for our dreams and ideas but forget our first love, Jesus. In the book of (Revelation 2:2-4) “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” We can be in our dreams and forget to go back for our first love, some of us get so dug into our desires that we forget Jesus in those little things. Men remember in most hero movies, the guy gets his dream but never forgets to go back for the girl. Even with women. Girls get their dreams but then realize its not what they expected without their love, so they go back to the guy who loved them enough to let them go. We must remember to level ourselves at ground zero every morning, mid morning, afternoon, mid afternoon, and evening to love God and to love people. God is asking for our hearts first. We have to make sure of this but how? Like everything else, Jesus says in (Matthew 7:7) “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Remember, God gives us big dreams and they are bigger than us, they require His help. Look at Moses and Gideon to name a couple of examples in the bible, who thought it would be best for God to ask someone else. God is waiting for our yes, and He will do the rest. He also wants our heart in the whole process. May we ask for wisdom my friends for God gives generously to those who ask. (James 1:5)

When you are going through a season of rejection and failure it is almost always that a insecurity price tag will be attached to it. I heard a sermon one afternoon and learned that my season is God digging deeper into my life pulling out pride and any other impurities. What is shaken will be shaken so what is not shaken will remain. The greater the rejection and failure, the deeper the pain is. It is hard to see it during the process but all of it reveals the greatness of our purpose for God’s glory and kingdom.

Dealing with rejection from adoption was heart breaking, closed doors for helping others in your struggle to find those same doors open for others is soul crushing. Being at a still dark place in your life is not easy. Though my mind and spirit aren’t in darkness it is as though my life is in a season of pruning and some of my fruit has yet to pop out into the surface making them in the dark. Acts chapter 7, “Who made you ruler over us?” Moses thought that God would use him to deliver Israel but they did not understand him instead they mocked him for helping them. Moses fled but then 40 years later God did use Moses to free His people from out of Pharaohs hand. So even Moses went through a season of rejection and failure. With that in mind if we rise, we should rise in Jesus Christ because apart from Him we can do nothing. When we are struggling with insecurities we should run to spend time with our Lord for He is our present help in trouble, Psalm 46. So be encouraged to friends, our fears and insecurities fade too nothing when we sit at our Lord’s feet even in a season like this.

How many times do we cry out in our hearts for desires? How many times when we cry out for those desires are they filled? Not wanting to lose a loved one or have to watch them suffer, mourning over what you can not have atleast in this moment or even season in life? A baby, a career, respect, finding true love, that our young children would behave or that our older children come to know Christ. There is a never ending desire in this world in each one of us. Rather it is to heal from our past and have understanding, to have God fill our desire in this season, or for God to take away the pain.

Every season in our lives it seems as if we have a new desire, a rekindled fire, a struggle, or even pain we would like for God to take away. But I am learning in this season in my life that there really should only be one desire that we should all have, that I am coming to the grips to let go and have. That is to desire to know my lord and The Lord all of my days and to love him more. In this I hope that I can no longer be distracted with temporary desires that God may or may not fill depending on His will in my life.

This will help with every season in my life. When someone does me wrong, what is God teaching me? When a loved one passes away, what is God teaching me? When I mourn for a desire I can’t have in this moment, what is God teaching me? Because I know now that God will never leave me. Like a teacher is silent when you take a test, so is our Lord when we are being tested. So remember that, God never leaves us and He is always for us.

Have you ever been in the valley for so long that you forget that you are in the valley? Just like the hills, the valleys are also a season of time to be seasoned with salt from God and His unfailing love for us. We never remain the same, sometimes we go on top of the hills for just a moment but then we are back in constant valleys. What I have learned in my most recent valley experience is that God has not forgotten me in the valley. Even when we grow cold, or even numb, like this is it. What I love about our maker is that he reminds us in our complacency,” Dont get comfortable”. I know this in the hill but I forget it almost every time in the valley. It took a song on the radio, and a spiritual touch from above to let me know, yes He knows I am here even though I forgot it and He is about to change my season. So be encouraged if you are in the valley and remember to stay humble if you are on top of the hills. God bless you today and remember that He is for you, not against you.

“The man of God came up and told the king of Israel, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Because the Arameans think the LORD is a god of the hills and not a god of the valleys, I will deliver this vast army unto your hands, and you will know that I am the Lord.” 1 Kings 20:28

True faith comes when its being tested, when you have nothing to stand on but God’s promise. No feeling or circumstances can be a crutch for your faith when they are being used against God’s promise for you. This is when it burns inside you, the baptism of The Holy Spirit. But this produces patience and builds both your character and faith. The kind that can’t fail like Daniel in the lions den or Abraham with the promised child.

1 Peter 1:7 says, “These trails show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold- though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day that Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” So remain in Christ to be strong against the furry darts of the devil and your faith shall increase as you remain in Christ because apart from Him we all are nothing but with Him we are all producing much fruit for His kingdom and glory for it all belongs to Him.

If I suffer while eating and my flesh is strong. How much more will I rejoice fasting yet my flesh is weak?

I have learned that in order to live my life to the fullest and to have more victories in my life, I need to be willing to not only read the scriptures but to walk in them. Its like when a child reads a book on how to be adventurous, he or she will want to try the adventure that they read about. Just like a child, we need to make the same step to be adventerous in Christ. Recjoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn we know the scriptures and how to do these with little or no faith. However, when you arent getting a prayer answered or a feeling wont leave you try to be adventurous like a child. Jesus says that some spirits will not leave without fasting and prayer Matthew 17:21. So if you have a full stomach but a empty heart, fast in Christ according to His word and wait on The Lord to be filled again. God bless you today and remember, God is for you not against you.

If fear paralyzes us then we know it can’t move, instead it tries to hold us down. The wise know that fear is only the presence of evil and that it even has to wait on the name of The Lord. However, our God does move, before the beginning of Genesis and His spirit moved over the face of the earth. So knowing that fear can’t move but Our God can, fear actually drives our faith to move and praise the God who can move. This gives us power over fear when we move as God has called us to do with praise. The end result is God’s peace dwelling in us that surpases all understanding. So walk in praise going into your battles and God bless you today.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.