Monday, October 19, 2015

God's Kingdom Come

Bringing to light how I pursued my kingdom has revealed other areas I sought to glorify me.  It is hard, but I am thankful.  I lay down me so I can pursue God's Kingdom.  I won't do it perfectly, but God isn't calling me to perfect - not just yet.  He's calling me to trust and step out in faith.

If my hand is out wanting love, then I do not love.

God is teaching me to love fully.  He has poured His knowledge into me.  He has equipped me with understanding of His ways.  That dry spell I felt wasn't because I needed to know more or that someone needed to spiritually move me with their teachings, activities or ???  I'm at a point where learning shouldn't be the priority, it's learning to act out of love.  Practice to improve, to be in more situations where it may be hard to love, but love anyway. 

Love as the other person needs, not to expect anything in return. 

Love by walking with others, not condemning them and holding the bar high and expecting them to live up to it (I mainly do this with one person and am working hard to stop.)

Love by taking care of their needs, serving them. 

Removing me and my needs from the equation, for I trust God to provide. 

This is God's Kingdom - Love God, Love Others.

To live out the verse God has shown is my life verse:

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.

Isaiah 58:10 [underline added]

Monday, October 12, 2015

My Kingdom Come

It was a simple dinner with friends.  The men watched football while the women sat around the table discussing up coming events in our lives.  Dinner served, game over, conversations continued.  It was pleasant.  Then BAM.

Out of no where.

I'm hit.

In the face.

With a nerf dart.

The mothers turn, ready to pounce on their son for doing such a thing.

All were shocked, me the most, that it wasn't a young foolish boy, but my husband.  What had possessed him to do such a thing.

I tried to process and remain calm.  I decided it was a great time to break for the bathroom.  I calmed myself.  I realized it wasn't so much about what he did - for he never had done something like that to me.  It was what it brought back to mind from my childhood.  This type of behavior and much worse happened to me at the hands of my brothers, cousins, step-fathers (yes, there an S at the end of that word) and basically any male in my life.

It was remembering that no one was taught how to treat others and especially no one taught the boys/men in my life how to treat a girl/woman.  I recalled my prayer through much of my childhood, back when I thought God was about sending wants up and He filled them.

Send someone to love me - only me.

After I committed my life to God, I began to understand that Jesus answered that prayer long ago.  But that didn't change my desire to find someone on earth to fill that request.  The desire diminished, but after this incident I received clarity as I cried for that lost girl so many years ago, how lonely she was, how unconnected she was to any love that may have been present.

In that little prayer, I wanted my kingdom to grow.  I wanted to assurance that I would be worshiped - for that was really what I desired.  Someone to love me and to demonstrate it loudly in a specific way so that I would always know, feel it.  Which, of course is not possible.  Especially for someone who didn't know how to love in return!

Although this wasn't the forefront of my motives anymore, I had never repented of this.   I can look at the years after committing to Jesus that I still tried to get my kingdom going.  Oddly enough, no one jumped on board.

Thank you Jesus for this revelation into my past.  Thank you for the ability to forgive my husband and laugh it off.  Thank you for showing me that I need to lay my kingdom down. 

Monday, October 5, 2015

Knowing Me Better

This past week has been focused on phones.  Something that should be simple, but just isn't.  We have dumb phones and love it.  However, we were lured into a pricing that would allow us to have smart phones, so we decided to jump head first.  We even found great prices on the newest fruit phone on the market.  Well, the guy who doesn't know the plans he sells didn't give us all the information and a long story short after several phone calls to our provider, those phones went back.

AND IT WAS A RELIEF. 

It wasn't how I wanted to spend my time, enduring phone call after phone call, reviewing my account online, explaining it all to the hubs.  However, through it all, I learned something about myself, for that I am thankful.

I'm ok with a smart phone, just not one quiet so indulgent - which is how I felt having it.  It was just something I simply did not need (I hate using the word 'need' here because I only NEED Jesus.)  I actually had anxiety for having something like that in my possession.  I gladly returned the phones and everything returned to how it was before.  Somewhat...

In God's timely way, he sent a blog post about how many parents have their noses in their phones, ignoring their children.  I took the warning, for I know I could easily get sucked into it myself.  I mean there's the app to update and keep all my lists in order.  Yes, I could see myself easily doing that.

On another front, I'm counseling my girl on making straight A's an idol.  That we can't hold onto something so tightly, because God will not allow us to have idols.  In one way or another He will take it (whatever we are clinging to more than trusting Him) away from us.

All this tied into my heart to take warning and to not seek out the latest and greatest in the phone department.  That getting a phone the will text (and not shut itself off!), make phone calls is the major focus, not how great it connects to the internet.  Because I really don't want it to be that great, because I don't want to use it for that purpose.  I have other devices to do that.  I don't want to be that devoted to my phone.
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