Getting to the promised land wasn't easy: My journey

     Hey, guys! Today I wanted to write about something (a few things actually) that I've been learning. I'm especially excited on this one because I really believe that God put it on my heart to share it with you. So here we go!

    First of all, I'm going to explain my title: Getting to the promised land wasn't easy: My journey. I think this is important to explain. So I'm sure that we remember how Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt and freed them from slavery. But I want to focus on the journey they went on. I think we all are on this journey. So, I want to share a big part of mine.

    A big part of my journey was when we sold our house not long ago. At first, we had a lot of trouble finding a new house. We pretty much had our minds set on moving out of town. I wasn't exactly in favor of that plan. I wanted to stay closer to my friends. But, every house we looked at, it just seemed like all the doors were closing and none were opening. I remember through that prosses my dad kept saying something that stuck with me. My dad would consistently talk about a promised land and the Israelites complained and spent an extra 40 years in the dessert. (which I will talk about more later). So, through that prosses of waiting for a house, I'd say that was us waiting to get out of  Egypt and wandering through the dessert. And soon, God parted our red sea.

    I mean, we could have bought one of the houses out of town and probably might have been fine, but we waited and God brought us a house. By this time, I had made up a list of 'What my new house has to have'. Don't judge me, it helped me get an idea of what I wanted my house to look like! So anyway, we found a house in Regina about two minutes away from my Grandma's house AND in my mom's favorite neighborhood.  

    I mentioned earlier that I would write more about how the Israelites complained and didn't listen to Gods plan which resulted them spending an extra 40 years in the dessert. I'll explain what I mean. In the bible, the Israelites were complaining because they wanted food. I don't know about Moses, but I would have been like, "Come on guys, God brought you out of Egypt and freed you from slavery and now your complaining that God freed you just so you will die in the wilderness without food!?" But, after the Israelites asked (complained) for food, Moses was told by God that bread would rain down from heaven and that the people would gather the bread everyday but ONLY enough for them to eat for that one day. God told Moses that He wanted to test the Israelites. And what I find interesting, in a version in my bible it uses the word "grumbling". They grumbled to God for food. 

    And not long later, the Israelites grumbled again and again. They then complained for meat, and then water. They were pretty much testing GOD to see if He was faithful. Soon, Moses goes up on mount Sinai and God gives Him the ten commandments. And, I'm sure you can guess what the Israelites did next. They complained about how long Moses was on the mountain for, and decided that God had abandoned them. Then, they made their own God. Something they could SEE.

    So, as you can see, the Israelites didn't trust in God's plan. Sometimes, even when God is speaking directly to you, you don't listen. I remember one night I was feeling really discouraged and I was praying to God and I specifically asked, "What do I do now?". And I remember LITERALLY the next day I wanted to write in my journal. So I opened it to the first empty page and it was one of those journals that had verses from the bible written at the bottom. And the verse at the bottom of the page was James 1:5, "If you want to know what God wants you to do, ask Him, and He will gladly tell you." My mind was blown. One thing I have learned is that God is a specific God. He will tell you EXACTLY what you need to hear. And, just like the Israelites, we might complain and not like what we hear. Here's something I wrote in my journal the night I read that verse, "Pursue righteousness, and when hard stuff comes along, you'll be ready and know truth.". When I read James 1:5, it was truth because it was God's word. If you pursue that, you won't be like the Israelites who complained about God's plan. 

    Proverbs 16:3 says, "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.".

    But, like almost everything, this brought up more questions. How do know what is and isn't God's will? Moses had God pretty much telling Him everything that was going to happen. However, He still didn't know little things like "What am I supposed to say?". I've known for a long time that if it lines up with God's word, then it lines up with His will. But, we are human and we tend to focus on the little things that make us stress out for not really any necessary reason. For example, a career choice. The bible doesn't exactly say anything about that. It just says that men are to provide for there families. But, I learned that God also gives us choice. Sometimes He leaves it up to us to decide things. Because if you take it too seriously, you might end up asking God what color car you should get, which is something that God would leave up to you to decide! 

    But maybe there's some things that are bigger and harder to decide. Just remember that if God wants you to do something, He will be specific with you and show you. Maybe He won't literally send manna falling from the sky or a cloud to follow, but He will tell you. God has so many ways to speak to us, through music, the bible, other people. I actually have really cool story about that. One time there was a worship night at my church and I was going to dance, I was a little nervous. To this day I don't really know why I was nervous because that wasn't the first time I've danced at church. But anyway, I was sitting on a chair waiting for the first song to start and I closed my eyes. I prayed to God and asked for His peace and help. Then I saw something I'll never forget. With my eyes still closed, I saw myself dressed in white dancing with someone who, to me, looked like Jesus. And I heard the words, "Dance with me", and I think this is very important to mention because I would usually think of dancing FOR Him. But it was just such a beautiful reminder that God can use anything to talk to you.

    In the bible we read a lot about God's promises. God promised the Israelites the promised land, He promised action in our lives and He promises things to us today. When God promised the Israelites the promised land they wanted to do their own thing. Because sometimes, our own judgement or opinion can seem easier or better. But take a look at Psalms 145:13, "The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made.". Earlier I wrote about how the Israelites were testing God to see if He was faithful. Here it says that He is faithful to ALL of His promises. Not some, ALL. Now lets look at this verse a bit differently. 

    Differently: "Because the Lord is loving to ALL that HE HAS MADE He is faithful to ALL of His promises." So, the Israelites didn't exactly trust in God's promises or follow His plan to the letter. But that didn't stop Him. God loved the Israelites, His chosen people. So He was and is faithful to all of His promises. Don't think that you could stop God from working. Even if your not really cooperating with His plans (which you should by the way, and I'm guilty too) doesn't mean that He has an obstacle, He just has another way of getting your attention and getting closer to you. So then, what was the point of the Israelites wandering in the dessert for 40 years? God finally got their attention and they finally started to trust God's plan.

    Philippians 2:13 says, "God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey Him and the power to do what pleases Him." Don't worry, your not on your own. You will and do have the desire and power to do what God wants you to do and to please Him.

    God's promises are everywhere in the bible:

Joshua 21:45, "Not one of all the Lord's good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled."

Psalms 85:8, "I will listen to what God the Lord says; He promises peace to His people, His faithful servants-but let them not turn to folly."

1 Kings 8:56, "Praise be to the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel just as He promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises He gave through His servant Moses."

Luke 1:45, "Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill His promises to her!"

Psalms 106:12, "Then they believed His promises and sang His praise." 

    Choose to trust in God's plan. Please, PLEASE don't complain or argue like the Israelites did. Sure, they still made it to the promised land. But it would have been a lot easier if they just trusted God's plan in the first place. I mean, 40 more years! And remember, you will make it to your promised land.

     Psalms 37:5-6, "Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun."

    

    

Jeremiah 29:11

     We always come to a point in our lives when we ask the question, "Who am I?". We ask this question sometimes with no hope that we could ever have a future. Well, at least I did. The expectation today is we have to become someone amazing to be noticed, and if your noticed, you are happy. But is that really how it goes? Do we have to prove that we are happy, or even successful to gain love and popularity?

    Everyone knows the verse Jeremiah 29:11, " 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord. 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a HOPE and a FUTURE.' " So why do we all know this verse? Maybe it was engraved into our heads when we were little and we've read it a million times, but have we engraved it into our hearts? Do we really know the true meaning of this verse? Lets take a closer look. 

    Obviously, God is the one who is speaking this. Anyway, GOD the CREATOR of the whole WORLD who knows your every THOUGHT and every MOVE and says that YOU have a hope and a FUTURE. He knows who YOU ARE and loves every QUIRK and every FUNNY thing about you. I just wanted to clarify that for a second. That alone should give us all the assurance we need to trust that He knows what He's doing. But, just to let us off the hook a little, we are human and we can be pretty dumb sometimes. He knows everything that is going to happen. It kind of reminds me of a movie. God is up there watching us and He can see the next scene and always knows what is going to happen. Yeah, and I bet He laughs sometimes too.

    The next part of the verse says, " 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you...". I find it interesting what the dictionary meaning of prosper says: To succeed in material terms; flourish physically. As Christians we know that our reward will be great in heaven (Matthew 5:12), but sometimes life can be tough on earth. So God is reassuring us that we will succeed and flourish not only in heaven, but on the earth according to His will and to what He knows is best.

    Then this verse ends with, "...plans to give you a hope and a future.". Not only does God promise to give us a future, but also hope for the future! Because of this we can have hope and joy knowing that God has our backs. Proverbs 23:18, "There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off." Although we may not know what that future is, remember that you are still in every scene of the movie. 

    Another thing to remember is, in the very beginning of time God wanted people to inhabit the whole earth. So then why would He not let us do amazing things for His glory without His help or planning schedule? Job 8:7 says, "Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.". You might think that this is the part where I tell you to sit back, relax and watch God plan out your life. Nope! God wants to use you to do great things for His glory, so suit up. The director can't make the movie without the actors and actresses. 

    But don't worry about your role or what you are supposed to be doing. God knows what you are meant for. Society will put a title on you and try to tell you who you are. That's when sticking to God's promise becomes vital. We all have a hope and a future and no one could ever take it away. Matthew 10:28 says, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul...". No one can take away the most important and exciting part of our future... heaven. The place with no pain, no sorrow and no death. The place so awesome that we can't even comprehend.

Truth vs. Lies

     Has anyone ever lied to you? I've had people lie to me, and I've definitely lied to people too. A lie is designed to sound or look as close to the truth as possible so you believe it. What about this: Has anyone ever said something about YOU that was a lie? Maybe someone assumed something about you that wasn't true, or maybe a rumor was spread that was a complete lie; maybe you were falsely accused for something you didn't actually do. So what should you do about that? WWJD?

    It says in 1 Corinthians 13:6, "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." I'm going to look at this verse a bit differently. God is love, so GOD does not take delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Now I'm going to take the word evil and replace it with the word LIES. "GOD does not take delight in LIES but rejoices with the truth."

    God doesn't take delight in evil; telling lies deceives, and deception is by definition evil. What does delight mean? This is a word people use to express something greater than happiness. Enjoyment, gladness and pleasure. So what is the opposite of delight? Displeased, disgust or dismay. In other words, God hates evil and lies.

    So then what is truth? What is God saying to rejoice in? It says in John 14:6, "I am the way and the TRUTH and the life..." We are to rejoice in Jesus! He is truth. We are to fix our eyes on him and he will cast out the lies.

    Now I want to focus on something I said earlier. I said that a lie is supposed to sound or look as close to the truth so you believe it. So how do you recognize a lie so you dont believe it? Well, look at 1 Corinthians 13:6 again. If we are rejoicing with the truth ( Jesus, who is the way and the truth and the life) and practice truth, we will be able to tell the difference between the two.

    We are strong young women purified from the inside out with the word of God woven in us which is our weapon to defeat the enemy and his lies. NOTHING and NO LIE can come against us when we are filled with his truth, his power and his love. Remember this today and declare that you are sanctified and filled with truth. I declare it in Jesus name.

Proverbs 31

    I've been asking myself a few questions lately: How should a woman act? What is a woman's job? So I decided to go to the most reliable source ever...... the Bible. The Proverbs 31 woman is a perfect example. First off...

    Serving

    In the beginning of time God created man first and woman second. God sent woman to be a " helper " as it says in Genesis 2:22. We are to serve. Proverbs 31:13, " She looks for wool and flax and works with her hands in delight." This woman "works with her hands in delight", she doesn't complain about her work but she understands that God gave her the job to serve; serve her family, friends, Jesus. Proverbs 31:27, "She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness." She takes care of her home and looks well to it. Proverbs 31:31, "Give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates." I love this one especially because it's saying that she works and serves her best, so she will be given the same product of her work that she has given others. Her works will praise her in the gates, she will be rewarded in heaven. 

    Vanity

    Proverbs 31:22, "She makes coverings for herself, her clothing is fine linen and purple." She presents herself modestly in her best clothing. Proverbs 31:25, "Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she smiles at the future." Again, talking about her clothing, she spiritually wears strength and dignity and she is confident. She smiles at the future, or, in the NIV, "she can laugh at the days to come". She believes that she has a future, she knows that she has identity. She is brave, confident, beautiful. Proverbs 31:30, "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised." This time, no specific woman is being mentioned. It is just saying that we need to be careful when we look at a woman and think that she is beautiful, but don't take the time to see where her heart is with Jesus. You see, being beautiful and done up will not last forever. Check your heart before you compare yourself to others. Maybe you are ON FIRE for Jesus and you don't know how beautiful that can look to some people. But at the end of it all, Jesus says you are PRICELESS!

    The proverbs 31 woman is a wonderful example that we need to be reminded of daily. Her confidence, strength, beauty, humility, her heart to serve... not to make us feel condemned, or discouraged when we mess up, but to show us that is our job and our calling. We are all the proverbs 31 women, we have it in us! Now we need to ask God to give us the strength and patience to become who God wants us to be. Are you ready? 

This is Me

    Everyone has a personality trait, quirk, or funny thing about them. Well, I thought it would be fun ( hilarious actually ) to share some of my uniqeness!

    I am pretty short. Ok, really short. Many people will ask me, "How old are you?" And when I say thirteen, their eyes nearly fall out of their faces! Sometimes I even make people guess, for my own satisfaction, so later on I can laugh about it. I think it's funny hearing people guess that I am ten and then learning that I'm actually thirteen!

    I have a tendancy to not start the dishwasher after putting the dirty dishes inside. I don't mean to make fun of myself or anyone else that does this, but what's the point of doing the dishes if you aren't going to start the dishwasher after? Often my Dad will open it a couple hours later expecting to see clean dishes and say, "This wasn't ran!" I don't know if I forget to, am too lazy, or what but it is a rare occasion if I do start the dishwasher.

    I can never find a matching pair of socks! I have a really deep drawer that I keep my socks in but none of my socks are ever put in pairs. I think I am starting a trend by wearing two different coloured socks all of the time! For some reason when I am doing laundry I don't put the same socks with each other. At the last minute when my family and I have to leave the house for something I am always searching through my drawer talking to myself, "There isn't ONE pair of matching socks in here?!"

    On sleepovers I can get a little strange. In fact, my friends reading this will probably agree. One time, actually this happened twice, I was laughing so hard that I fell off of the bed! Another time, some of my friends and I were at a youth camp for the weekend and of course we were in the same room together. Not ONE night passed by that I didn't do something strange. It can sometimes even get violent; my friends and I once tried to fit three girls ( including me ) into one sleeping bag while STANDING UP. We ended up on the floor and one of my friends scraped her knee on the corner of the bed!

    These are only a couple of the many weird things about me. We all have quirks, and these are just a few of mine. But without these funny things, life would be pretty boring! Remember that these things are what makes you who you are.

    1 Peter 5:6

"So be content with who you are, and don't put on airs. God's strong hand is on you; He'll promote you at the right time."

    

Out of the Ashes

    Sanctified: Set apart as or declare holy; consecrate. Free from sin; purify.

    We have been brought out of the ashes. As it says in Isaiah 61:3,  "(He will) provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garmnet of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor." For me, personally, this means we exchange our ashes for his true beauty. But, how? Jesus sacrificed himself so that we can be called SANCTIFIED. We ARE redeemed! 

    Honestly, I havent always felt this way. I didn't even know what the word 'sanctified' meant! If you asked me two years ago, "what is beauty?", I would have said, "Someone with cool clothes, long eyelashes, and a pretty face, of course!" But, right now, beauty to me is a kind, servant heart. Someone who loves God with all of her heart and represents God's beauty. At that time, I really wasn't representing Christ. It took God's amazing grace and love to show me true beauty.... to show me what being sanctified truly means.

    

    He called me out of the ashes, and He's calling you too...