My Rock

This weeks been strange really, I've had some good times but it's been a bit of a roller coaster.

I've felt up at times and down at others, and that's not me, at least it shouldn't be me...

Gods really been teaching me the importance of walking in His peace at all times, and a lot of the time I have been, what changed this week I'm really not sure.

But every time I've took some time out, just me and God; talked to Him, praised Him, read His word, listened to Him, I've felt so much better after. Maybe I'm learning something after all!

It's like things come along and block my vision, but as soon as I look back to Jesus everything becomes clear again.

I'm realising that I can't afford to let anything steal that peace from me, emotions, people, things, because God is my Rock and I need to keep my eyes on Him.

I've also been amazed looking back at how faithful God has been. Prayers I've prayed that have been answered without me even realising, and looking back I see how God has provided time and time again.

The people He's sent into my life, the ways He's used me without me even realising, it's like 

Gods placed His hand print on my life. As I look over my life it's like a stick of rock with the name stamped all the way through it, just rather than a seaside town it's Jesus, He's been there, He's brought me through, He's brought things together and worked things out to the exact detail!

I want to be like Stephen when he was brought up before the court, they made false accusations, sought to kill him, but it says He looked up and saw Jesus!

How quickly everything makes sense when we just look at Jesus!

I know God has good plans for me, I know He wants to use me, I want to be in that place where He can.

I seek to be in that place of peace, looking to Him all the time, knowing He's the rock beneath my feet, the one who lifts up my head and makes me everything I am.

Because without Him what am I? And with Him what can't I do?

Surrender

A word that can so painful and hard yet so beautiful.

To be in that place of total peace, total surrender, where nothing else matters but Jesus.

It seems a word that God is telling me more and more lately. I'll get to a point where I feel there can be nothing else left to surrender, yet God will reveal whole new areas of my life I never even really knew existed.

The peace and stillness that comes from that is so wonderful though! 

Jesus said "Not My will but Your will be done", and that's the prayer of my life to.

What good are dreams and plans when God's are better, He's promised that all things will work together for the good of those who love Him, and He's promised that His plans for us are good!

Just to come, in total trust, and surrender everything, knowing He will provide for all my needs and that He will use me for His purpose and His glory.

All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give; 

I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live. 

I surrender all, I surrender all. 

All to You, my blessed Savior, I surrender all

Dancing on the mountain tops

I just read another blog which encouraged me so much! It reminded me of something God showed me a while back.

Song of Solomon 2:8

 The voice of my beloved! 

      Behold, he comes 
      Leaping upon the mountains, 
      Skipping upon the hills. 
       ⁹ My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. 

Psalm 18:33 He makes my feet like the feet of deer,
         And sets me on my high places

I love how God is described here as leaping on the mountains, and skipping upon the hills. Mountains that might seemed so huge, so daunting, yet here comes my beloved, here comes my God dancing on them! Why is it things that seem so huge look like nothing as soon as we see God. And what's more in the next few verses God calls out to His beloved saying "come with Me".

"Yes the mountains may have seemed huge but I'm going to teach you how to leap and skip on them just like Me!"

Then it talks about the mountains and the hill breaking forth before us!

God has made a way where there was the way, and I'm going to run with Him, and as for those mountains well they are just going to fall down all around me, for God is making a way! 

Oh to be so on fire for God!

"Are we happy plastic people

Under shiny plastic steeples

With walls around our weakness

And smiles to hide our pain

But if the invitation's open

To every heart that has been broken

Maybe then we close the curtain

On our stained glass masquerade"

I'm totally in love with so many of Casting Crowns lyrics at the moment, they really have so much truth behind them!

Why is it so much of the church get on with their lives, and the world is left unchanged?

I'm fairly outgoing in witnessing but how come I can look back over a week and often see such few lives impacted, if any...

Jesus went about and peoples lives were changed everywhere he went, people were saved, healed, demons cast out, the dead were raised... and didn't Jesus say we would do all those things, and greater things also?!

"But if we are the body

Why aren't His arms reaching?

Why aren't His hands healing?

Why aren't His words teaching?"

"So maybe this time I'll speak the words of life

With Your fire in my eyes

But that old familiar fear is tearing at my words

What am I so afraid of?

'Cause here I go again

Talkin 'bout the rain

And mulling over things that won't live past today

And as I dance around the truth

Time is not his friend

This might be my last chance to tell him 

That You love Him

But here I go again, here I go again"

I've just finished reading a book about the wife of a well known minister. What struck me more than anything was the leading of God, how God would lead them in every single step they took.

As one door would close another would open, each time seeming more and more impossible, but God always made a way!

I want to be in that place where I'm totally available to God using me, and totally open to the leading of His Spirit.

That every word I speak, that everything I do, everywhere I go would glorify Him.

It's often far easier to wait for God to move, even when He is waiting for us!

To pray for God to move in a mighty way, to send revival, when all along revival is waiting for us, and God is waiting for us to be in that place of availability and surrender.

To pray for God to heal, when God has told us to stretch out our hands, yes in His power, but we are the ones who have been given the authority and instructed to go out and do it.

It seems far easier to pray for that blind lady and ask God to touch her, afterall if nothing happens Gods in control and it's all in his hands? But what if we layed hands on her and commanded her eyes to be whole, that seems far more risky... what if it didn't work! Yet isn't that what the apostles did, isn't that what Jesus did? Isn't that what Jesus told us to do?!

A while back God gave me a word of prophecy for my church:

You ask Me to send the fire, you ask Me to send revival but I have already poured out My Spirit upon you. 

Why cry to me for what I have given you, why ask for what you have recieved.

You must surrender your life to my Spirit, you must let my Spirit consume every part of your life.

For as you surrender to my Spirit and you let my fire consume your life, then that fire will spread, that fire will spread throughout this nation and the nations of the world, then revival will come, then the world will see my glory.

But this will only happen as you surrender every part of your life to my spirit.

Dieing's hard, but I know it's only as die to self that Gods Spirit can fill me, and I know it's only as I step out in faith that I will see Gods power at work.

Why is it that first step can seem so hard, I feel so alone like it all rests on me and I'm taking a step into a big hole with noone to catch me... but then after I take that step God takes over so mighitly.

If we are filled with Gods Spirit we are equipped to do all we could ever need. We have a fire on the inside of us that's capable of changeing lives, and destroying everything the devil would seek to build up in our lives and others. We need nothing more, just to surrender to Gods Spirit and be willing to step out in faith! For God goes before us, behind us, and lives inside of us!

  Isaiah 58:5 Is it a fast that I have chosen, 
      A day for a man to afflict his soul? 
      Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, 
      And to spread out sackcloth and ashes? 
      Would you call this a fast, 
      And an acceptable day to the LORD? 
       6 “ Is this not the fast that I have chosen: 
      To loose the bonds of wickedness, 
      To undo the heavy burdens, 
      To let the oppressed go free, 
      And that you break every yoke? 
       ⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, 
      And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; 
      When you see the naked, that you cover him, 
      And not hide yourself from your own flesh? 
       ⁸ Then your light shall break forth like the morning, 
      Your healing shall spring forth speedily, 
      And your righteousness shall go before you; 
      The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. 
       ⁹ Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; 
      You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ 

A special someone

I am so bad at making decisions I will think and think and think over the smallest of things!

Just something like choosing clothes, this t shirt or that one, in the end I'll just buy both, but then which one do I wear.... Four biscuits all looking so nice but which do I eat, I know I'll just eat all four and take another of the nicest ones, it's a great guide to eating lots of biscuits! :p

The bible talks about a double minded man, a guy who asks but doubts, and can't make his mind up, it says that man will receive nothing from God...

Really I'm not that bad, I just like to be sure. I want to make sure things are Gods will for me, and that my decisions are in line with His. However sometimes I feel we have to take a step forward before God guides the next. As I've heard before God can steer a moving vehicle, but the vehicle has to be moving in the first place! Paul would sometimes plan to go to an area to preach, but God would tell Him "No not there, go here", but he didn't just sit there waiting for direction before he did anything. 

Anyway I'm rambling, and getting completely away from what the theme of this post is, or should that be who the theme is...

The thing is I like somebody, I like her alot.

More than anything I love her heart, her desire for God, and desire to please Him with her life, even when everything may look so bleak.

And I'd like to ask her out, but I'm afraid...

I'm afraid that she will say no!

I'm scared that if she said yes I wouldn't act right, or be what a boyfriend is meant to be. I've never had a girlfriend, well not since first school lol. I never really had much chance while I was ill, but I probably wouldn't have anyway. I've always believed in trusting God to find the perfect person for me, and never saw much point in dating loads of people for no real purpose. 

But now I'm worried I just wouldn't be whatever it is a boyfriend should be...

And most of all I'm scared that if things didn't work out I'd end up hurting someone that means so much to me, and end up loosing a friendship I really value.

I know if I tried to tell her all this face to face I'd only end up rambling on and totally fail at explaining myself!

I know if she did happen to say yes I'd be all I could to her, and God would be the rest

Perfect peace

I love Gods peace so much, it goes so beyond common sense and logic!

There have been times I've been so upset and worried, full of questions and concerns with no idea what the future holds. I'll go to God and it's like suddenly things no longer matter, my questions may not have been answered, in fact nothings changed at all, yet God will give me such a peace and rest.

There's a old song that goes:  

 'Turn your eyes upon Jesus... Look full in His wonderful face... And the things of earth will grow strangely dim... In the light of His glory and grace'

And it's so so true. It's like when you meet with God there's a faith that comes, a knowing that everything will work out. All the questions no longer seem to matter.

You hear people say "When I get to heaven I will ask God this thing, and that thing", but I think when we are in front of God every question will fade away, and we will just be left in total awe!

The question is how long does that peace last? I wish I could live it in it constantly, it's surely possible. But a minute, hour, even a few days later I find myself thinking where did that total peace and rest in God go. I find myself living in it alot more than I did, looking back a year or so ago, but to remain in that place always...

To be in that place where I let nothing take my eyes off Jesus, and learn to see everything through His eyes.

Jesus said He only did that which He saw His Father do, to be so in tune with God that every word I speak, everything I do, even every breath I take would be in Gods will, for Him to be glorified in everything!

Isaiah 55:12

For you shall go out with joy, 

      And be led out with peace; 
      The mountains and the hills 
      Shall break forth into singing before you, 
      And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

I'm so confused at the moment, my feelings are all over the place, and somewhere amongst it all is what God wants.

I want my desires to be what God desires, I want to see through His eyes, think His thoughts, and most of all right now I want to be led forth in His peace. That peace where there's no room for doubts, no room for fears, just total rest knowing I'm exactly where God wants me.

Part of a song I was just listening to:

"So maybe this time I'll speak the words of life

With Your fire in my eyes
But that old familiar fear is tearing at my words
What am I so afraid of?

Chorus:
'Cause here I go again
Talkin 'bout the rain
And mulling over things that won't live past today
And as I dance around the truth
Time is not his friend
This might be my last chance to tell him 
That You love Him
But here I go again, here I go again"

Empty words?

Seeing I feel in a blogging kind of mood, if such a mood exists, I intend to make the most of it!

Recently God seems to be really be revealing to me the power of our words.

I'm trying to read my way though the old testament at the moment, and I keep seeing people who put so much importance on what they spoke.

For example there's quite  a well known story in Genesis where Jacob dresses up like his brother Esau and tricks his father Isaac into blessing him over Esau. 

And when Issac finds out he says the following:

Genesis 27:33 Then Isaac trembled greatly and said, "Then who was it that hunted the animals and brought me food before you came? I ate it, and I blessed him, and it is too late now to take back my blessing."

Now I think  of myself in Isaacs' position, my son has decieved me in an attempt to rob what is rightfully his brothers. Surely I'd tell him off and just go and bless the real brother.

Yet Isaac seemed to put so much value on what he'd said that he couldn't take it back, even though he deeply regretted it. Is there something that these people believed that maybe I have put less importance on in the past?

There's an even more extreme case of this later on.

A guy called Jephthah makes probally the most stupid promise to God ever:

Judges 11:30 And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, “If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, ³¹ then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” 

Maybe he expected a sheep or bull to walk through his door, he certainlu didn't consider that his only daughter might just walk through that door to greet him!

Judges 11:34 When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing; and she was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter. ³⁵ And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low! You are among those who trouble me! For I have given my word to the LORD, and I cannot go back on it.” 

³⁶ So she said to him, “My father, if you have given your word to the LORD, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, because the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the people of Ammon.”

A man having such importance on his words that he sacrifices his only child to keep his promise! And his daughter even seems to agree, she was certainly a lot more understanding than I would have been!

Now i don't fully understand that, but I cetainly see that these were people that believed their words would come to pass.

So then I flip over to the new testament and see verses like this:

Mathew 12:36 But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. ³⁷For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

And James 3 a whole chapter talking about the tongue and the words we speak. It even goes as far as to say that that it's like a ships rudder and the words we speak direct our lives.

Then there's Job who was called a rightouse man, a man who seemed to do nothing wrong. Yet later on Job says 'For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, And what I dreaded has happened to me'.

Isn't it strange that the very thing he feared came to pass in his life?

All this seems so foreign in a culture where words are thrown about so easily. Where the media seems to only ever tear down others with their words, and we seem to be encouraged to judge and critisise everyone and everything.

If our words contain the power to change things, then gossip no longer becomes harmless.

Could it be that the very things we speak about ourselves and others are the very things we will get?

Jesus said 'all things are possible for those that believe', but the condition on that promise is belief.

Could it be that the only time we fail in what God has planned for us is when we say 'I can't!'

Moses said he couldn't but God showed him where his strength ended, Gods strength began.

I always try to stay positive, I try to never say I can't, because I know in God I can!

But there are times I find myself slipping back into old habbits, I'm learning though...

I just desire to bring life with my words and never death, I want to build up and encourage others, not ever tear them down.

I want my words to be Gods words in my mouth, I want them to bring fruit and life into situations and peoples lives.

Jesus could say that He only did that what he saw His father do, how I long to be in that place one day where I can say the same :)

Where do I stand now?

That can be hard a hard question to answer sometimes. People ask "So what do you do".

"Do you have a job?" Nope

"Do you go to college/uni then?" Well no

"So what exactly do you do?" Well...

I guess it's really pride, I'd love to give a normal answer, a answer that showed I did actually do something with my life!

In truth I live one day at a time, or at least try to! Why can it be so hard to do that sometimes? Is it something common to all people, to want to jump ahead and plan the future, or is that just me?

I'm still recovering from so many years of nothing. Physically, although I often ignore it at my own cost, I'm not as strong as I should be, even if a thousand times better than I was in the past I still do tire quicker.

Really I do alot now, at least comparing my life to how it was. I'm out six nights a week, with things at the church and youth clubs, spend two half days helping in a cafe, and another day pretty much occupied with activities at church, piano lessons and a lunchtime club in a school I've started helping with.

At the moment it's really just enough, and most importantly I know I'm in the place God wants me, and I know as long as I stay there He will provide all the strength I need.

Then there's the whole social side of life, and all the emoticons that go along with that.

Six years and everyone seems to have grown up and moved on in life, all except me!

And that can hurt so much, it's so easy to start looking back and thinking, all those years gone...

And meanwhile the worlds moved on, all my old friends have left for uni, college or work, one of my best friends as a child has even married.

How do I even begin to relate to people when all I've known is God and the inside of my bedroom for so long. I'd find myself on the edge of crying, 'God I need friends, I need relationships, yeah your called the God who is more than enough for all my needs, but I want friends to share stuff with, to have fun with, talk to, laugh with'.

And afterwards I'd always come back to that place of such awesome peace knowing God was in control, until I was put back into a situation where I felt it all over again, the heartbreak of wanting such a simple thing.

I did learn one thing though, how important it is to be God conscience and not self conscience, the moment I'd start looking at others or myself rather than the very God who bought me through, and is bring me through, so much then I'd fall back into that place of pain.

Now I look back a year or so and I see my prayers and cries answered yet again. It's like I didn't even notice it happening, but through different things God has just brought everything together.

I have friends now, even met up with a few old ones, I feel part of the youth group at church, and the weirdest thing is the very people I feel I can't relate to are the very age I seem to be working more and more with.

What with youth clubs and even dipping my toes in school work, it's like God's directing me into things that seemed so unlikely not so long ago.

So that's really where I'm at at the moment, even if it does make a rather long answer to the question "so what do you do?" !

I still want more, Gods still got so much more to change in me, but His timing is so perfect, He makes everything slot together just right.

One thing that God promised me when I was ill, and someone prayed over me last year was:

Joel  2:25 So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, 

And I will hold onto that promise! :)

Why Jesus is so mega in my life!

I don't really feel like writing this all over again, so I'll copy my first post  from elsewhere:

"I first came to know Jesus when I was really young, being brought up in a christian home ever since I remember I always believed in God.
I was about 4 when I actually gave my life to Jesus, I asked Him to forgive me and come into my life, yeah I was young but I knew I loved Jesus and I wanted to follow him the rest of my life!

What followed was 15 years of ups and downs, just like any life really, but throughout it all I had the most faithful friend and God in my life.

School was good, I liked it, but I also liked Jesus, and towards the end of 1st school starting middle school at 9, I started to get bullied for it a fair bit.
At times I let it get to me, at other times I trusted God through those times and He brought me through them.
I met some great friends that helped to, and even though I sometimes got scared, I learned the hard way God is a faithful God.
Around year 7 or so things began to calm down abit, some people still really hated me, some still do lol, but things had calmed down alot.

It was around that time that God told me that I was to remember how he had brought me through this time as I was going to go through something worse, but I wasn't to worry because as he had brought me through the bullying so He would this.
I was like 'oh something worse that's great to know lol!', for a month or so after every little thing that went wrong I thought 'this is going to be it!' but it never was, so I just put the thought aside.

It was around 6 months later when that much worse thing started to happen.
I'd had the flu kinda bad, had had 6 weeks off school because of it, but started feeling better so returned to school.
The problem was it left me feeling constantly tired and at times feeling faint.
I tried to hide it at school, pride I guess, but rather than getting better it started getting worse, till in the end I was only going to school in the mornings.
By my last year of middle school I was only going to 1 or 2 lessons, and soon after couldn't go at all.
I was diagonsed with a condition that meant I didn't produce enough energy in my body, there's no known cure but over years and years you gradually do get better, but it's always very slow and gradual.
The worse you have it the longer it takes and I had it pretty bad.

I constantly got worse, was feeling more and more sick, having to sleep longer.
I'd always been fairly active, I enjoyed running, now I struggled to even walk.

For a year or so of that time (hard to be specific as alot of that time is really a blur) I was sleeping 23 hours a day, couldn't walk, I could barely talk or swallow food.
Things really couldn't get much worse, and it was in that time God reminded me of His promise to me.
Although I learnt things through that time I knew it was never Gods will I was sick, and always trusted He'd heal me.

When things were at there worse God stepped in and did a series of miracles in my life.
At the start they were small things, but massive to me.
I hadn't been able to read or see a TV screen clearly, and God told me to try it and I now could.
I couldn't grip things, not even a pencil, God said to do it and I did.
Then one night I had a dream and God spoke to me saying how He was going to lead me to new places, and how this period of time was coming to an end.
And I woke up and God told me to walk, and I walked!
In the natural that does not happen with what I had everything's gradual, but God made sure He got the glory and did it instantly.

So yeah Jesus is huge to me, He's the reason I live, and the reason I will continue to live!

Thx for reading, and if you don't know Him you really should, you seriously will not regret it ^^ "