Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Thank God It's Friday
Wow... what a week... I must say that this hasn't been the best week of 2006... Ever have those days or weeks where you don't seem to do anything right? Yeah... that's my week in a big, informal nutshell. My moods and patience has been up and down like a rollercoaster. I've been tired all week (which probably contributes to a good portion of my bad moods). I've seen a lot this week of myself that I don't like very much, from overthinking, to over-analyzing, to my sins, my faults, my stubborness, my disobedience, my failures. But in essence I look at 'failures' and they're really not failures at all, but mere learning experiences. I told God if He was testing me this week I didn't do so good... I'm looking forward to being off work for the next week and have a total of 10 days of not having to work and just relaxing with family and friends and loved ones. Ahh... this is much needed I must say. My excitment for it has been hindered by all the hardships amd that sucks. It's like riding a bike up hill until your legs are burning like hell and when you get to the top and you get off that bike you just want to collapse. I sorta feel like that. Maybe not that extreme, but you get the idea.
Oh well... It's Friday, and I just have to muscle my way through 8.5 hours of bordom (I mean, work) and it won't be long until I'm heading out the door at 7:30am tomorrow morning for Sherwood Park. It'll be the first time my family isn't together for Christmas which is crazy! I'm spending it with Dawn and we’ll be coming back midweek sometime! (Thank you Jesus...) There isn’t too much of a Christmas mood here because there’s no snow on the ground and some of these winter days feel more like spring than winter. (I love the warm sun!) Up north it will be more Christmasy!
If I don’t see you or talk to you in the next while, have a merry Christmas! Enjoy it, every moment of it, with what you have, the big blessings and the little blessings! Thanks Jesus for being born (although I don’t think it was actually around December but hey.. we've got to celebrate your birthday SOMETIME in the year) Issues aside from one another, count your blessings! This is a time for peace, love, family and many other traditions! Reflect with someone on this past year, what God has done for you, in you and through you! Reflect on how great He is and just how great this next year is going to be! We can be thankful that He's so much bigger than what we do or what we don't do... and that He's put people around us that love us through our worst of moments (which is hard for me to understand or feel worthy of) Either way, start dreaming and planning for 2007 to be the best year you’ve ever had! Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!
Oh well... It's Friday, and I just have to muscle my way through 8.5 hours of bordom (I mean, work) and it won't be long until I'm heading out the door at 7:30am tomorrow morning for Sherwood Park. It'll be the first time my family isn't together for Christmas which is crazy! I'm spending it with Dawn and we’ll be coming back midweek sometime! (Thank you Jesus...) There isn’t too much of a Christmas mood here because there’s no snow on the ground and some of these winter days feel more like spring than winter. (I love the warm sun!) Up north it will be more Christmasy!
If I don’t see you or talk to you in the next while, have a merry Christmas! Enjoy it, every moment of it, with what you have, the big blessings and the little blessings! Thanks Jesus for being born (although I don’t think it was actually around December but hey.. we've got to celebrate your birthday SOMETIME in the year) Issues aside from one another, count your blessings! This is a time for peace, love, family and many other traditions! Reflect with someone on this past year, what God has done for you, in you and through you! Reflect on how great He is and just how great this next year is going to be! We can be thankful that He's so much bigger than what we do or what we don't do... and that He's put people around us that love us through our worst of moments (which is hard for me to understand or feel worthy of) Either way, start dreaming and planning for 2007 to be the best year you’ve ever had! Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!
Labels: Relief
Issues of Today, Worries or Tomorrow - Sights Upright!
Ever feel like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders? Ever loose hope in a sinful generation? Or people you admired let you down? Turned your head to look for hope and all you saw was pain and suffering? I don’t know about you, but once in awhile with me, the weight of the world pulls at me. You get in a mood and before you know it, all of the baggage, all of the sin, all of our lack of faith knocks at your door for a visit. Hope and trust seem to vanish and you begin looking at people and loosing hope wondering if anyone will ever see the light of day. Or perhaps you’re so caught up in dreams or desires that you forget where you are today? Stare at something long enough that is not of God and before long you’ll watch yourself loose focus, feel anxiety, possibly furthered by a lack of patience, confusion, or perhaps worry may even fall over you which, at times, results in a dried up soul sprawled out on the ground left wondering what just happend. Perhaps the problem started for before your whirwind of emotions set in? Perhaps they snuck in when your eyes were set so focused on that one thing (whatever it may be for you) that you didn’t have them on God and natural principles prove themselves once again? I’m seeing just how easy the weapons of the enemy or thrown at me when I loose sight for even what seems like a second, on the real goal. What we look at may not even be wrong but it can’t be first! It can’t be primary. I’m writting from experience - one of many thingst I’m walking through which seems to be a daily basis while I’m taken through a process of becoming more than a conquerer.
I find myself thinking too much about any given particular topic, whether it be dreams or desires, and so often my focus is caught up and I begin to feel anxiety. I feel my patience thinning sometimes, which can throw me into a loop of confusion and I’m beginning to see it’s that lack of focus on God which creates the mess. Interesting... When I look at God and focus my eyes on Him, watching Him, spending time with Him, the little issues fade away and I realize how small they are and how much they don’t matter. Even my dreams. God isn’t concerned about what I do so much as who I am and the relationship we have together.
I don’t know why I struggle so much with enjoying the moment. Today. What the day has. I’m scared of growing old and looking back on my life realizing I’ve lived in tomorrow. But that won’t happen because God’s obviously showing me something He wants to change and I can’t change anything in my life if I don’t see it first. Step 1. Thanks Father! I would like to think of myself as a person whose not discontent with what he has... Where do we find the balance where we’re told to be content with what we have, yet strive for more? Striving for Godly desires, not being content in that sense, but being content with our blessings. Or perhaps even with who we are as individuals. It’s an interesting journey to walk through and I’m sure it can be frustrating at times for those who help me through it (thanks for your patience!).
I’m walking through a process of learning.... on how to actually enjoy everything about the day I’m given, learning not to be so hard on myself, more on who I am in Christ, more about love, about God, learning strategies that overcome schemes of the enemy, so we don’t always have to run to God for help while we’re being beaten, but we can actually stand back up and reject it because God wants us to walk that way. These may just be words on a page to you but they are deeper revelations on top of previous revelations (some are new) for me.
Either way, with what I do or what I don’t do, who I am, who I’m not, what I want, what I don’t want, I’m deeply grateful and thankful that God loves me enough to work these out JUST because He loves me. Because He wants me to enjoy life on a newer level, because He wants to take me deeper with Him. What a blessing... what an honor, what a joy. I’m tired of the enemy stealing from me what is mine without me even realizing I’ve handed it over to Him. Yet God reveals and in that, I learn, then am given discernement and I can fight back. I can take my ground back, all by the convenant of a loving God who sent His only son, that I might have all of this and so much more.
I find myself thinking too much about any given particular topic, whether it be dreams or desires, and so often my focus is caught up and I begin to feel anxiety. I feel my patience thinning sometimes, which can throw me into a loop of confusion and I’m beginning to see it’s that lack of focus on God which creates the mess. Interesting... When I look at God and focus my eyes on Him, watching Him, spending time with Him, the little issues fade away and I realize how small they are and how much they don’t matter. Even my dreams. God isn’t concerned about what I do so much as who I am and the relationship we have together.
I don’t know why I struggle so much with enjoying the moment. Today. What the day has. I’m scared of growing old and looking back on my life realizing I’ve lived in tomorrow. But that won’t happen because God’s obviously showing me something He wants to change and I can’t change anything in my life if I don’t see it first. Step 1. Thanks Father! I would like to think of myself as a person whose not discontent with what he has... Where do we find the balance where we’re told to be content with what we have, yet strive for more? Striving for Godly desires, not being content in that sense, but being content with our blessings. Or perhaps even with who we are as individuals. It’s an interesting journey to walk through and I’m sure it can be frustrating at times for those who help me through it (thanks for your patience!).
I’m walking through a process of learning.... on how to actually enjoy everything about the day I’m given, learning not to be so hard on myself, more on who I am in Christ, more about love, about God, learning strategies that overcome schemes of the enemy, so we don’t always have to run to God for help while we’re being beaten, but we can actually stand back up and reject it because God wants us to walk that way. These may just be words on a page to you but they are deeper revelations on top of previous revelations (some are new) for me.
Either way, with what I do or what I don’t do, who I am, who I’m not, what I want, what I don’t want, I’m deeply grateful and thankful that God loves me enough to work these out JUST because He loves me. Because He wants me to enjoy life on a newer level, because He wants to take me deeper with Him. What a blessing... what an honor, what a joy. I’m tired of the enemy stealing from me what is mine without me even realizing I’ve handed it over to Him. Yet God reveals and in that, I learn, then am given discernement and I can fight back. I can take my ground back, all by the convenant of a loving God who sent His only son, that I might have all of this and so much more.
Labels: Revelations
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Over Thinking & A Dash of Joy!
How many times in life do you think we make things more complicated than they really are? I wonder if we could look through God's actual eyes for a moment (besides the fact we couldn't handle it) to see how He actually intended life to be. God is complex, yet simple at the same time. I think there's aspects of his mystery He wants to show us, but I don't think He ever intended for us to loose ourselves in the mystery and forget the simplicity of it. After all, there IS only 2 actual laws now (thanks to Jesus). Mark 12:28-31. How much more simplified can that get?
I know for myself I like thinking beneath the surface and it's just one of millions of gifts God grants us, but this seems to be one of my stronger parts and at the same time, one of my weaker points as it causes me to over think at times, which leads to confusion, and anxiety and before I know it, one of my strengths has been used against me to hinder me. That is clearly not the will of God.
I watched the inspiration of the movie 'Cars' at lunch today and did it ever speak a lot to me in those short 16 minutes. Here was a group of men that wanted to research some history before they made a movie so the information could be accurate. They traveled on Route 66 which I'm not highly educated on, but this road has a history to American people. Two watered down thoughts I had were: for one, how much more there is out there in life than the place I'm at now (which doesn't leave me discontent, it leaves me daring to dream). Secondly, the words the director spoke at the end were what hit me the most..It was something to this extent. " Life is like a road we travel and we never really know where we're going, but it's the journey we enjoy."
Which leads me to my next rebuke of myself. over thinking. Which causes clouded vision and hinders the ability to enjoy. It scares me to think I'll walk through life and one day as an old man and see that I wasted my entire life wishing for tomorrow when tomorrow never came and I forgot to live in the day I was in and enjoy it. It seems like such a waste to me. Tomorrow has its benefits, struggles, triumphs and thrills, but what about today? What about life just being simple, moving forward, loving God, loving others and 'enjoying' the day, enjoying the relationship you have with Him, and the people you have around you. If you looked at each day individually as if you weren’t promised the day tomorrow (because you’re not) perhaps we could have a completely different outlook on life? Perhaps we’d see how truly blessed you really are. This is more so for me to hear than anyone else and I’ll be reminding myself constantly, I can tell you that much, that being said, I’ll say this...
Don’t forget to ‘enjoy’ this holiday season.
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