Doing Hard Things

Sometimes in life, God calls us to make choices that aren't easy. In fact, sometimes He calls us to make choices that are very hard. Emphasis on the VERY. And you know why they're hard? Because naturally, we care about what other people think; we care about what other people expect us to do. Rocking the boat causes light to be shed on us, and sometimes its negative light! But no matter what it is for you, God sees how hard it is. And He still asks it of you nonetheless. We can be assured that God is in control, and He has a reason for asking you do make certain choices. If you always took the easy route, you would be stuck in the never-ending circle of a place I call wimpyville. Yup, wimpyville. The place in life that you get stuck in sometimes because building up the gut and muscle to make hard choices ISN'T EASY.
When you're going through a time like this, don't be afraid to ask for prayer and support. We all know how hard it is. Look up to people who are doing hard things in their life, who are stepping outside of their comfort zone so that God's plan can ultimately play out.
FREEDOM comes by stepping outside of the chains you're in when you live for your own, and other people's, comfort. You become stronger.
Don't live your life within your comfort zone.
God calls us to a radical lifestyle.
He also calls us to trust Him in everything, in ALL choices we make.
So don't worry about ANYTHING.
:)

Thoughts on Psalm 37:4 :)

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4

God gave me this scripture yesterday and today. I think this is what He wants me to know even more, and the step He wants me to move forward with.

Delight. I ought to look that up in the dictionary. Actually I think I will.

Here is what I came up with from dictionary.com:
Delight: a high degree of pleasure or enjoyment; joy; rapture

I loove that last word. Rapture. Ah!

Now that we defined the word delight, lets move forward :)

Okay. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Lets flip this scripture to see if we can find another layer of what it means.

He will give you the desires of your heart, when you delight yourself in Him.

So, let's see what this is saying. If I want to receive the desires of my heart, what must I do? Search for them? Date around so I can meet "my knight in shining armor" or "my sleeping beauty"? Make more money so I can buy the stuff I want?

Nope...none of those are correct, as you probably guessed.

The verse says if we want to receive the things our heart desires, whether it be a fantastic marriage, a cool house, or a job you enjoy, it clearly tells us the step we can take to do that. Although, deep down in our heart of hearts, sometimes we doubt that God can do this for us. So we try to accomplish finding things to fill our desires, which as we know, never ends up working out in the end.

Anyways.

There are only 2 steps, and both of them are painstakingly easy to understand. (To do? They may take some willpower against our old fleshly desires. But its soooo worth it!)

Step 1: Delight ourselves in the Lord. (Find our joy and pleasure in being with Him, talking to Him, reading The Love Letter and Guide he wrote us....)

Step 2: Receive the desires of our heart. (Sometimes God knows what we want more than we do. I mean, that makes sense, 'cause He fashioned us in our mother's womb and all, so we might as well trust His judgement.....I think that sometimes, receiving what God has for us can be difficult, for whatever reason; it might be the lie of feeling unworthy, so we reject it because we don't think we're good enough, or maybe what He is giving us isn't what we thought we wanted, so we stomp our feet and whine a bit....etc, etc...)

Maybe there really is a reason those steps aren't reversed. Maybe God really is doing it the right way! :P

It's because God knows what we need, as well as what we want. I'm sure parent's out there can relate. Your kids have needs, and your kids have wants. Would it be good to give your children all of their wants, all of the time? Good heavens, no! Because you know that sometimes, their needs should come before their wants, and oftentimes, what they want is not what they need. Other times, they don't want what they need. Sometimes It's actually what they shouldn't have.

Starting to connect the dots yet? I am, slowly! Haha! :)

God knows we need Him. He knows that by pursuing Him back, that is the only way we will ever be truly fulfilled.
He also knows that the "desires of our heart" won't fulfill and satisfy us, although by the way we pursue our desires more than God, we seem to think that they, indeed, will.

Lets use an example.

Say there is a parent and a son. The son is a child.

Dinnertime rolls around, and the kid doesnt want to eat any of the food.

"I only want a Popsicle and thats it!!" he whines.

You know a Popsicle wont fill him up, and especially wont keep hunger away for the rest of the night. You know that if all you feed him for dinner is what he's whining for, he will probably end up with a tummy ache.

If I was the parent, I would only see two choices.

Choice 1: Give the kid the Popsicle and let him experience what repercussions he will. Let him realize that he is still hungry, or atleast will be later on. Point out to him what happens when he eats what he wants before he eats what he needs.

Choice 2: Tell him that he may only have a Popsicle after he eats his dinner.

Has there ever been a time where you thought something, or someone, would pretty much make you happy? But in the end, it didn't really give you long-lasting happiness? Or there were repercussions because you ended up being wrong about what you needed to make you happy?

I know that I have. Definitely. Especially in regards to boys! (Notice how I said boys, not guys? There's a reason for that....Aaaaannnnyways...XD back on track now, Kayla...)

Although I may not have consciously thought that a boy could make me happy, my actions and the way I spent my time showed I obviously thought that one could! And even the flip side being true as well! That I could make a boy happy!

(That last sentence can be an 'ouch' moment for girls, because something in us was made to make a guy happy, to serve and be a joy to him. And if we cant find our identity in making a guy the happiest guy ever, or if we don't seem to be enough for him, then we oftentimes will get depressed and our self worth will go down! So that's why you shouldn't be seeking to make a guy happy, until God brings along the man He has for you. Well, besides one Man you will always want to please. THE Man. Jesus:D We can be selfless godly women, encouraging and serving others, but in the aspect of relationships, we need to know where they are going to find their only fulfillment!)

 

Sometimes we don't realize just how we are searching to find our pleasure and happiness in other things; sometimes the only thing we realize about our desires, is that they aren't being filled.

Let's just say it; let's just put it out there!

When our desires aren't being filled, searching harder within the garbage bag the world calls "fulfillments" is not going to be the answer. We may try many things, and some things may give us short-term pleasure, but nothing we find is going to fill us up and give us the happy and joyful life that everyone dreams of.

When our hopes, dreams, and desires aren't being filled, it means we are not delighting ourselves in the Lord. Or maybe we are only letting Him be a charm on our bracelet. Well let me tell ya, the amount of room in your life that you give God is the amount of your life, and your heart, that He can change and fulfill.

God can and will fill every desire of our hearts. We, on the other hand, cannot, and will never, fill our own true desires, or anybody elses.

In the end, the source of our true happiness is always God, who is, in fact, the CREATOR of our hearts, and designed our hearts that way.

What a wonderful promise He makes to us! It's like the best deal I've ever heard!

He invites us to eternally fall in love with Him, the most tender, intriguing, romantic being I've ever known, and the one who created us so that when we drink of Him deeply, as some do of wine, we will be deeply fulfilled<3

That is why, I'm sure, we call it "being drunk in the spirit" because the more you drink, the more happy and overflowing with joy you become!

"Your love is more delightful than wine" Jesus! (Song of Solomon 1:1b) :)

Let's get this straight: not only does He offer Himself to us; He promises that when we delight our souls in drinking of His wine, we will be fulfilled, and our earthly desires will be filled as well!!

I'd like to add that when I drink of His amazing presence and love, I desire nothing but to be as possibly close to Him as I can be<3

In conclusion, it is entirely possible to actually delight ourselves in the Lord. If you dont believe me, then you have not tasted of Him. The bible says "Taste and see that the Lord is good!" It is possible and desirable to fill our every want and need with Him.

That's why we can never seem to find the missing puzzle pieces to our hearts in the "things of the world" as we Christians call it.

We can be assured that when we find all our delight in God, that our earthly delights will come. :)

Our earthly desires will not make us happy unless we are already completely satisfied in the Lord and what He has already provided.

Unclench your hands from the possessions, people, and habits that you know won't make you happy, so that Jesus can open the floodgates of heaven and shower you in blessings and love. :)

 "Seek first His kingdom, and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:33

God will never fail to fulfill you.

His only requirements? For us to open our hearts; unclench our hands; and run towards Him with reckless abandon.

Never give up. Yes, it will be hard sometimes and easier at other times. But deep down you know where you are meant to be. Right in the arms of our Savior.

Do you feel Him calling you?

Ladies: Song of Solomon 2:13b, Psalm 45:11, Psalm 37:5-6

Gents: Matthew 11:28-30, Psalm 105:4, Psalm 37:5-6

Psalm 37:4

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." <3

Ta-ta for now~

Amazing Love!!!

I'm going to share with you a vision God gave me after an intense week of serving/ministering to the poor and helpless. It happened during worship at ::Infusion Youth Group. :)

The whole Camp Compassion group was in serious need of some water; the water from the well you drink of when you are worshiping Jesus! Many of us were really looking forward to youth group on Wednesday night. When the worship team began to play, I and many others were more than ready to drink deeply of Gods presence; we wanted Him so badly, and our weary souls were in desperate need as well.
I didn't even care what other people thought anymore- I went straight up to the front and instantly jumped into the atmosphere of worship. I was praying that every heart and soul in the room would abandon everything to run after Him. I prayed that His spirit would pour over us like a bursting dam and His tangible love and healing would be present. I was worshiping my heart out and reaching for God like nothing else mattered!
I remember a specific change in atmosphere when the band started playing How He Loves. It felt like oil was being poured over me, the oil of Gods presence and His love; the whole point of our week at Camp Compassion was to shower the thirsty with Gods love; our ability to serve came from His love! It was then that I started to have a revelation of the power and greatness of the love of Jesus- although we had been servants all week, the Ultimate Servant was pouring out Himself on us, and in the light of that thought, God gave me the vision I'm about to try to describe as my eyes were closed and I was focusing on Him:

I was imagining that I was worshiping before the throne of God. I looked up and God was there, huge, and in all of His splendor; the thing that I noticed was that He was holding His heart- He was holding it in front of the place where your heart usually is. The heart looked like it was so full that it could explode!
I could see the fiery, selfless love in His eyes, and He was looking at us- at the youth of Infusion- with a gaze full of love that consumes your everything!

He thrust His hands towards us, still holding His heart, and when He did that, His heart bursted; streams of love in the form of vibrant, colorful lights shot towards every person in the room, wrapping around each one like a ribbon! For every person there was a different color- there were colors that I cant describe! 

The emotion that flooded over me was indescribable- I had caught a small glimpse of the passionate, consuming, unconditional love that was bursting from Gods heart for us! It was the type of love that is so strong it's almost painful, but painful in the sense that His desire for us is so strong that He can't bear the thought of not being with us for eternity~

Tears began to well up in my eyes as a passion and new understanding of God's heart flooded my whole being. For the rest of worship I just soaked in God's presence which was heavy in that room. Standing in the light of liquid love, I realized that though I, and the rest of the Compassion team, had been servants all week, there was tremendous honor in having the privilege of having that same love flow generously through us to touch lives. We were being servants ultimately to the one who gave everything for us. His life for ours! Him, being brutally crucified for the shameful sins I have committed and will commit- Just so that the gap between me and Him could be covered by the Cross; the chasm of Hell and eternal separation from Life to have a bridge across it!
He did all that so that the mere opportunity for me to choose to surrender my puny, meaningless life without Him, to the one who will satisfy ever desire I have; to a glorious King who is obsessed with loving us.

The words, "amazing love" don't even begin to do it justice.

Hallelujah. :)
<3