An Act of Submission: Prayer

Pray [verb]: (1) to make a request in a humble manner; (2) to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving

Often I wonder how often we take heed of the definition of pray. Sometimes I think we, as Christians, think it's our RIGHT to "pray" and ask God for everything we want/need/etc... 

[Let me preface with, I don't think it's wrong AT ALL to ask God for the desires of our heart... In fact, he asks that we do (Psalm 37:4;  Mark 11:24)]

But when was the last time we (and I'm preaching to myself here...) came to God in a purely humble manner. 

Humble [adjective]: (1) having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience; (2) courteously respectful

In response to God, we should be nothing BUT humble. If we look at ourselves... We are in a fallen world, living a broken life, that is make good only by His perfect life. How or why should we go before Him with an attitude of expectation? Expectation that He will do EXACTLY what WE want, when WE want it, and how WE want it. Where is the humbleness in that? 

And when we pray... Are we as respectful as we should be considering it is the Most High God we are talking to? Or are we coming at it as if he is our friend, across the street, whom we only talk to once in a blue moon?

God didn't HAVE to die for us. He doesn't HAVE to listen to our whiny, selfish prayers.

BUT HE DOES.

And how amazing I've found it.

Despite the fact that I find myself praying for the smallest, silliest, most selfish things, I KNOW He listens. But how often do I really do it, considering what I know?

Muslims pray 5 times a day facing Mecca.

Judiasm requires their followers to pray 3 times a day.

Hindus pray 3 times a day.

HOW OFTEN DO WE PRAY?

God doesn't require a certain amount. It doesn't matter when we pray, or how we pray... But God WANTS us to pray. 

Prayer is our way of recognizing God as our friend, our father, and our God.

It requires a certain amount of humbleness to pour out our heart to someone... and this is what God is asking us to do. Not in a vain attitude, where we can boast to people about "how we prayed..." It's not even so we can tell people "Well this happened because I prayed..." It's simply to be in tune with God. To humble ourselves, to be real, and to become intimate with the one Man who can understand our aches, pains, joys, and laughter more than we can ourself.

So pray. 

Pray with an attitude of humbleness. God doesn't HAVE to listen to us, but He WANTS to and He DOES. 

Pray with respectfulness because it's the God of the universe we are talking with.

Pray with fervor because it's our real heart God wants to hear.

Pray real because God knows it even when we're faking.

Pray.

Hall of Faith

Does MY personal faith have what it takes to make it into the "Hall of Faith?"

This has been the resounding question in my head since I read Hebrews 11 last night.

"Now faith is being SURE of what we hope for and CERTAIN of what we do not see."
How many times have we heard this verse? There is at least one sermon a year about this chapter. Don't get me wrong, the sermons are always fantastic, but this chapter hit me in a way that it had never hit me before.

Being sure of what we hope for... What better could this be talking about than the hope of living in Heaven with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior for eternity! BUT... so much more can be taken from that little phrase. Yes, we are SURE of our hope of living with Christ, but what else do we hope for that requires the faith this verse talks about? In retrospect, nothing else compares. We hope for things such as a job, spouse, family, health, etc... But those sure aren't things I want to put my faith in, yet on a regular basis I find myself thinking and being sure of those things rather than lasting things.

Why is that?

Certain of what we do not see... Certainty of Christ in our lives is about as certain as we can get. We can't be certain we got the job that we wanted... We can be certain of what is going to happen in the future. All of those we cannot see, but what we MUST be certain of is Christ. Even though we can't see Him, He CAN see us, and is certainly leading us on His path for our life.

"By faith Abel..."

"By faith Enoch..."

"By faith Noah..."

"By faith Abraham..."

"By faith Isaac..."

"By faith Jacob..."

"By faith Joseph..."

"By faith Moses..."

"By faith the people..."

"By faith the prostitute Rahab..."

By faith Grace...

Can I honestly be described using those three simple words, "By faith Grace..." What would come after that? Has my life been whereas God can say that "By faith, when Grace was called to Bristol, TN she went and obeyed even though it wasn't her plan." or.. "By faith Grace, even though she is single at a Christian college, lived her life for Me because I have the best plan for her."

All things to dwell on, as I look on the lives of so many monumental people in the Christian faith.

Abel... was killed, yet was known as a righteous man.

Enoch... was spared death and was commended as one who pleased God.

Noah... had faith for something he had never witnessed.

Abraham... had an attitude of expectancy.

Isaac... blessed.

Jacob... worshiped.

Joseph... saved the people of Isral.

Moses... regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as GREATER VALUE.

The people... wandered and struggled, yet still followed Christ.

Rahab... was obedient.

Grace.....

"God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." [vs. 40]

I look forward to seeing the big picture of God's plan... But I am SURE of my hope that He will use me, and CERTAIN His plan is much better than mine ever could be.

Resolutions, Family, and Joy

I know I'm a little late... But late is better than never, right?

It's now halfway through January. I'm 20 and a junior at Asbury. Where has time gone?

The year of 2013 is bound to bring a lot of changes, especially in myself.
My resolutions this year weren't the typical, "Run a mile by the end of the year," or "Have a significant other by New Years of 2014..."
Instead, most, if not all of them, were things that I am going to work on changing, rather than achieving. Now, if you know me well, all of the ways I need to change are probably coming to mind. I completely understand. I'm about as human as you can get. Recently though, God's really been showing me how I need to do this thing called "change."
Instead of figuring out how I can change everyone else around me to fit into my mold, I need to be the one who is changing to be more of Christ to everyone around me.
It hasn't, and probably will continue to, been easy to evaluate all the ways that I "fail."
[Now, I'm not saying that in a negative, I hate everything about my life way... Instead it's way that I need to change in order to become more of a woman after God's own heart."
And I know there are LOTS of areas.
So if you would, please be in prayer. I want it to be an evident change in my life.

But going along those lines, family also tied into my resolutions.
Now let me just paint a picture real quick:
The Perfect Family
This woman and man met at the young age of 10, and knew they were right for each other. They dated all through high school, and got married at the age of 18. By 21, they were parents and entering in this new journey. By the time they were 30, they have 4 children, and a picture perfect family. Their children all got along perfectly, hardly any fighting. As they continue to grow up, they were all best friends and the family was the "ideal family" in the school and church they went to. Their kids would come home from college and it'd be a great family reunion. By the time the parents are 80, the children are all willing to move back "home" to take care of them. It was a perfect life.

I'm not mocking families that have that. I think it's perfectly wonderful.
But THAT isn't the family God has blessed me with.
Just because my family isn't that "picture perfect" doesn't mean that it wasn't perfect for everyone in my family.
Guess what? WE ARE HUMAN. Every single person in my family messes up, and I'll be the first to admit that I've messed up a significant amount of times.
And because of that, no, we aren't all BFF's who want to spend every waking minute together. Believe it or not, we want time apart. We want to be away, so that when we come back together our time is even sweeter because we have realized how important and special family really is.
Plus, if you know my family deeply, you know the struggles we've been through. Trust has been broken, hearts have been broken, and tension has been created. But it's ok. You know what God says about broken families?
"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." [Psalm 147:3]
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, or crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." [Revelation 21:4]
"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." [Matthew 18:20]
"But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-every one- to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah 53:5]

ALL of these are promises that my family clings to.
We aren't perfect.
We are going to disagree.
We are going to need to "get away" to think.
But we love each other unconditionally.
Those that think otherwise of my family, needs to get to know us more. Till the day I die, I will stand up for my family and show them how much I love them.
As I like to say, I may not always like them, but I sure as gravy will ALWAYS love them.
Now all that to say, many of my resolutions have connections to growing my relationships with family. I have realized how special those friendships really are. Being in this new age of life, it's neat to have that friendship relationship with my mom, who I know will be with me and support me no matter what. My sister and I are slowly building up the trust that was lost. It's a process. Nothing is going to happen overnight, but rather, it will take work. Lots on my part. But I'm willing and ready to put the effort in it, as I know it will be worth it.

Through all of that, my goal is to see joy.
Now, I know my mom will be reading this, and probably will jump up and down and say, "FINALLY!" [Yes Mom, I really have been listening all of those times you've talked about joy... :)]

After talking with one of my best friends last night, I really solidified my efforts in trying to be more joyful about all of my circumstances, whether they are who I'm living with, who I'm interacting with, or who I've yet to meet. But God blesses our lives so much more when we see life through His eyes. Ones of forgiveness, openness, gentleness, and kindness. After all Hebrews 3:14 tells us, "We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first." We tend to become complacent and comfortable in our situations, which I have found, leads to apathy, unthankfulness and a lack of joy. Instead of viewing each day as the "same ol', same ol'," my challenge is to view each day as a wonderful gift from God. Full of new choices, interactions, and blessing from God! With this viewpoint, I believe the joy that we will find will come STRAIGHT from God and His blessings that he will choose to bestow on us.

"In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas... But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God."
[Jonah 2:2,3,6b]