geez_luise's Revelife

Thank God for the Chinese

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 03:09:51 GMT

"Thank God for the Chinese.' It was one of the best quotes of tonight, the night in which I saw the best fireworks show of my entire life, and learned the true secret to enjoying them. If you're close enough, lay on the ground to watch them and it looks like they're falling on your head. It's amazing!!

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:37:18 GMT

So I'm sitting at work and it's a slow day. So I'm going to post again :) I was reading the blog of HL Hussman , an associate pastor at the campus ministry I'm in and he wrote something really interesting.

He was talking about how he had struggled with his spiritual life going up and down, with tons of highs and lows. It reminded me of a heart rate monitor :) But I realize I've been in the same situation semi-regularly in my life, and here's what he said he was told.

"He described the ride of faith as always being one of ups and downs but the goal is to make the ups more and more common and make them peak at higher and higher points while making the downs less and less common and less and less deep. Eventually, when pursuing this kind of walk with God you find that the deepest drops you experience will be higher than the highest peaks you reached before."

I think that's really encouraging. First, he's a guy I respect and the fact that he still has the ups and downs is encouraging to me. Second, because I feel like this advice is a lot better than the advice I was giving myself, which was to be perfect all the time. With my advice, I feel condemned every time I mess up like I'm less spiritual than other people. With the other, I realize the normalcy of this and just continue to work towards raising the highs and lows. A lot more encouraging and a lot less condemning.

Obedience

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:03:40 GMT

So I realize if I just keep responding to others posts, my blog is going to remain very small :) So, new update from me.

God is a good God, but sometimes He's frustratingly consistent. For example, I felt recently that God wanted me to stop watching TV. This is in no way saying that all TV is evil or that everyone should give it up, but God was showing me how much I watch it and depend on it. For example, when I have free time, I prefer to lay on the couch watching TV for a couple of hours instead of doing more productive things. Sometimes I even get cranky if I have to miss a show I wanted to see. It was to the point where I felt like I needed the TV in order to pass boredom when I could easily be building my spiritual walk instead.

So, God probably talked to me for at least two months, and if I'm honest maybe even much, much longer. I just didn't like it and didn't want to do it. It got to the point where it seemed like every sermon at church and every time I read the Bible, was telling me the importance of being obedient. I jokingly told a friend that I was reading the Psalms because it was safe, but God's conviction seemed to find me there too. Grrr... Then, to top it off, we had an entire sermon on obedience and I finally realized God wasn't going to leave me alone. I ended up talking to the wife of our associate campus pastor about it and she basically spoke the truth in my life. Stuff I already knew but definitely needed to hear again. She said one thing that hit me. She said that she knew that I didn't want to sacrifice God's best for my life because of the television.

So I gave it up, and it's been about a month. I do watch movies at group get togethers or with family, but that was about it. But it is so easy to slip up in this. I've realized that lately I've been slipping in my obedience. ABC.com is a huge temptation because technically I'm not watching television, I'm on the computer. :oP But I'm pretty close to dropping the whole thing. I admit I've been watching tv again, not as much, but definitely watching it.

I was hoping that He'd release me from this commitment soon, but I can tell it's going to be awhile. I notice that my attitude toward the television has not yet changed, and I thing God's probably not going to release me from my commitiment until I don't feel such a strong pull and temptation from it. It might be a while.

So like I said, God's frustratingly consistent and unmoving sometimes.

So I'm mainly writing this to encourage myself in obedience, and hopefully recieve a little encouragement from others. But what about you? Has God ever asked you to do something you don't really want to do? Did you do it or not, and how did obedience or disobedience effect your life?

People say smoking is a choice. But if you’re addicted to something, doesn’t that rule o

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:18:36 GMT

When I hear about that I think about the verse in Romans 6 that says you become the slave of whatever you obey. You can choose to obey God or the world, but eventually you're going to become a servant of one or the other. I think this applies to smoking. I've heard people say they'd quit if they could, but they've been doing it so long it seems impossible. I don't think it's impossible, but I think it's really difficult to stop listening to the cravings and instead be obedient to God's Spirit because you've basically enslaved yourself by obeying it.

Like I said though. For all you smokers out there, I not trying to say it's hopeless to try to quit. In fact, in the same chapter it states,

Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.

I don't think that as Christians we are permanent slaves to anything but that Christ's sacrifice frees us from the bondages in our life and gives us the ability to get out of them should we choose to do so.

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If you have given or received a marriage proposal, will you share the story?

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 05:13:54 GMT

Well, I don't know if this counts, but when I went to church camp around third grade it was the cool thing to have fake marraiges. Someone would pretend to be the pastor and two people would walk up the "aisle" and get married. Of course, kissing was out so I guess the ceremonies never were complete. :)

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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:50:33 GMT

So for the first praise report, I want to mention a verse, Psalms 37:25.

I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.

Well, I know his Words are true. I am a college student, living in an apartment near my University, working a part time job to pay for groceries. Now, this part time job is necessary for me to continue living in the apartment instead of moving back home with my parents, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, we get along, but it is something I would prefer not to do.

Well, my boss realizes she needs to cut back hours. I go from 20 hours a week to 6-12 hours a week. Talk about a shock. My grocery money just halved, and I didn't have much to spare to begin with. Luckily, the pastor of the church I go to has taught me for four years about God being our provider, and had recently used the aforementioned verse in one of his sermons. I am also in a campus ministry that has taught me how to cling to God's promises and expect and believe them.

I get the news on a Wednesday, get off work, eat some dinner, go to church. The whole time I'm confessing scripture. I will not be begging (my parents) for bread. I will not be forsaken. My provider owns the cattle on a thousand hills, he can definitely provide me with money for food. Over and over I repeated them, and with them, came peace. The word also says to be anxious in nothing but in prayer and supplication give it over to God and the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds. And that is what happened. After church, I decided to go for a run. I'm running down the two mile campus loop, looking half crazy, telling myself out loud the promises of God (discreetly, of course). When a thought comes into my head.

One of my friends had been complaining about regularly working 10-12 hour days. She worked two different jobs, owned by the same person, and I helped her get her foot in the door by recommending her. Maybe, just maybe, she wants to get rid of some hours.

I call her immediately after the run. She sounds excited, but then asks if I can work the following semester. Sadly I tell her no, assuming that all chances of taking her position are closed. I'll be student teaching next semester. Not much time left for a second job. Yet she is thrilled. She had just decided to quit her first job and ask if there was any way that she could get it back for the semester. She had little hope it could actually happen though. And I need a second job for the summer that didn't carry on into the semester. Plus, the hours were perfect. I got off my old job no later than 4 pm and my new job started at 4:30! She told me that she'd talk to her boss tomorrow.

And one day after my financial crises, God came through. He didn't even make me sweat for a week or two. He just stepped in and provided. The crazy thing is he was preparing to provide for me months in advance, when I helped my friend get the job. God is so stinkin' good!

So I want the world to know that God provides!! He will not leave his people begging for bread, not even from their parents.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:23:41 GMT

So I should post for real, not the cheap, prewritten text. So I'm going to just say how awesome God is. See, this is the purpose of this journal: to see God and to see his hand in the world around me. I don't know how many times God has come through for me, and a month later I have forgotten about it. Or he has taught me something that I did not put into practice and promptly forgot about.

I hate that! It's like God's gifts aren't valued to me.

So I want to write it down. Everything. Revelation, conviction, blessings, just tidbits on my walk with God that I never want to forget.

And I'll probably write out my struggles and frustrations, confusions and questions. So it's mostly a chronicle of my spiritual journey. I wonder how interesting it will be? With God as the author, I'm expecting some excitement.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:51:30 GMT

Hi everyone! I'm just getting started on Revelife... Drop me a comment if you've got some ideas on what to do first - or just to say, "Hi!" :-)