These last couple weeks have been incredible. Our team has been in Jerusalem helping out with a soup kitchen. We have been able to tour around as well and see a lot of the city and holy sites. I am so thankful and blessed to be here. Recently I have also started spending more time waiting on God. Being still with Him and waiting to see if there’s anything He wants to show me. Often He lets me feel His presence. I highly recommend it, or any way that you enjoy spending time with God.
This week I was thinking about simplifying my life and getting rid of distractions and learning to focus on what’s important. I know that Jonathan Edwards had well over 80 resolutions and life principles that he kept faithfully throughout his life. But I think it’s ok if I just start with four things and see how I do with those.
1. Always keep my attention on what God is doing.
It’s amazing how many times God has taught me this lesson and I have forgotten it. A practical way that I do this is by counting my blessings throughout the day. Taking a little while to ponder each good thing that God has done for me throughout the day. In James it says that “Every good and perfect gift is from above”, so that means to me that if something good happened then God gave it to you. I love to credit the really small things to God and the big ones too.
I will just share a little history from my life of how God has used this. About two years ago I started counting my blessings in April. Every day I would a few times throughout the day stop and think about all the little blessings that God gave me in the last few hours and it was so fun. It entirely changed my mindset, I don’t think there was one day that month that I was ever discouraged or bitter or sad. It was probably the funnest month of my life.
The crazy thing was the more that I gave God credit for the things He did, the more good things He did. Miraculous blessings would just come out of nowhere and amaze me. Shane and Shane came to Regina (one of my favourite bands), when I was support raising almost every second day huge gifts would come in for my trip. Friends would call out of nowhere and want to talk. Every single thing I did became so enjoyable because I couldn’t wait to find the little blessings that God had hidden in each circumstance.
But the crazy thing is I have never kept it up for more than a month. Somehow I always let myself become distracted from focusing on the great things that God is doing. So this is my goal for the rest of my life to focus on what God is doing.
2. Seek God as the answer for every difficulty.
“God wants workers who lean heavily on His strong arm. I believe that our entire success in life depends on one thing. How greatly we can depend on God. How fully can you lean on His strong arm? Does your life show it? Are you dependent?” I wrote that in my journal last month.I wonder what would happen if we really believed that God loved us and wanted to be the answer to every problem we face?
3. Stay drunk in the Spirit, and do the impossible.
All I know is, God loves when we are filled with Him. On Pentecost day they got drunk in the Holy Spirit and 3,000 people got saved. He gives us supernatural boldness and fun when we are filled with Him. I carry around a little batman mug now that I drink from throughout the day. Faith always looks ridiculous before the answer comes.
4. Be who I am, become who I was meant to be and never compare, never compromise, and never back down.
To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.
Revelation 2:17
As I was praying today I thought of the verse “These are the names of the the sons of Israel…” from Exodus 1:1. The whole book of Exodus starts with the names of the twelve tribes then talks about how each tribe lives out it’s name and it’s destiny. In the Hebrew the book is actually called “the names” and there are word plays throughout of each name of the tribes. A person’s name and a person’s destiny are intertwined in the bible. Afterwards, that revelation verse popped into my mind.
If we overcome, if we walk out the destiny that God has given to us and don’t let anything stop us, then we will get our true name. It will be written on a white stone. That’s awesom
