Help My Unbelief

I am really enjoying chapter two of Beth Moore's book Praying God's Word. It has been amazing, and such a great help in my prayer life. This morning I was reading Mark 9:14-24, which is a wonderful story about a father who wants healing for his son, and when he doesn't have the faith that Jesus requires of us, he simply says "I believe. Help my unbelief."

What I love about this is that, in one short minute, he declares a complete faith and then begs for help with his unbelief. The reason I love this so much is it proves that faith can be a blind thing. I think the words "blind faith" can get a bad rap sometimes. Sure, you won't want to give all your money to a stranger that walks up to you offering to sell you stock in his amazing company. That kind of blind faith is bad bad bad bad bad. But as a Christian, I am asked to believe in a God that I cannot physically see and trust in events that happened a very long time before I was born. Because I am human, this is sometimes a stretch of the mind, even though I know deep down it is true and I can feel God emotionally. 

So, when I feel my mind attempting to tell me that things like a virgin birth of God's son and a resurrection can't possibly be true I often have to fight it with blind faith. Even though it doesn't feel real to me at that moment, I cling to what I know with everything I am. I say aloud all the things that I know are true, and I keep repeating them until I get it through my thick skull that no human thoughts can drown out God's truth. I guess I just love how this father made the decision to trust and have faith even while admitting that he needs God's help to do that. One of those things that randomly speaks to me, I guess....

I want to share another bible verse-based prayer from her book today. I must admit I love these faith verses!

God, according to Your Word, You are not bothered by our requests. Once when others told a synagogue ruler not to bother You anymore with his request, You ignored what they said and told the ruler, "Don't be afraid: just believe.". Help me not to be discouraged to pray and not to be afraid, but believe!

The Substance Of Things Hoped For

I have always struggled with faith, I guess because it never made sense to me before. Not just faith in Christ, but faith in anything. I was always waiting for the good things in my life to disappear or to be ripped from me, and so I did not trust or have faith in anything or anyone, not really. Since I have been saved, I have felt my distrust slowly seep away, and it is amazing. Unfortunately I have always been easily influenced, and Satan is very good at using that against me. A month or two ago, someone that I don't even know suggested that Jesus wasn't the Son of God, that He was just a Godly man, and that the disciples suggested He was Lord after His death. Now, I know that isn't true, but my easily suggestible brain loves to sneak that in on me every now and again and make me wonder if my faith is false. 

I hate feeling this way, so I cried out to God and begged Him to take my doubts away. I have been praying this repeatedly for a few days and then, like the good Father He is, God gave me an answer clear as day: read the story of Jesus from the bible, start to finish, Matthew through John. I instantly knew this was the answer, for I know the basics of Jesus but I have not gotten to know the story of His life as well as I could. By knowing who Jesus was and is, I will be better able to solidify my faith. But this wasn't enough for my good and gracious Lord; He wanted to give me a little extra help. 

This morning I opened "Praying God's Word" by Beth Moore to start chapter two. Can you guess what is was on? That's right: faith. I love it when the Lord consumes my life with one subject, so that it totally takes me over and envelopes me, leaving room for no doubt that God's hand is directly in control of this. I hope that this never changes in my life. It was also really wonderful to see how God rewarded my direct plea for assistance with immediate help, because it means my heart is getting right with Him and back on the path He wants me on. He wants me to ask these questions of Him, rather than relying on myself. 

In the book, she points out that without faith, it is impossible to please God. We will be challenged to believe him from one season to the next, all of our days. We can't just believe in God, we also have to believe Him. 

Believe He can do what He says He can do.

Believe we can do what He says we can do.

Believe He is who He says He is.

Believe we are who He says we are.

To do this, we should cry out earnestly "Help me overcome my belief! Make me a person of belief Lord!". As she did with the first chapter of this book, she gave us some example prayers using bible verses. I wanted to share my favorite one with you today:

Father God, according to Your Word, without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to You must believe that You exist and that You reward those who earnestly seek You. Lord, I want to please You. Build faith in me so my life will honor the life of Your Son.

I am pretty sure this prayer is going to be said in my house a whole bunch over the next few weeks, maybe longer. I have to recommend this book if you have ever struggled with prayer, or with overcoming the addictions and troubles in your life. I truly believe that God has directly given me this book so that I can grow as a Christian and do what He has planned for me, according to His will.

God bless you, and thank you for reading this. Until next time...

I Want To Be A Blessed Mourner

This past Sunday morning, the message at my church service hit me hard, but it was nothing compared to Sunday night. The morning service was a light slap with kid gloves. The night service was a sucker punch to the gut, and I am so excited to share with you what God is teaching me and revealing to me about myself.

I have read Matthew 5:4 before, but I always assumed that the verse was talking about grief for a loss or having a hard time. When you think of like that, the verse is a balm to be used for every kind of hurt. But, as my pastor explained on Sunday night, that is not what this verse is talking about at all. And when you look at what it really refers too, this verse is less about comforting and more about teaching us the right way to repent for our behavior.

The sorrow in this verse is limited to the people who are mourning because of their sin. This is not a worldly sorrow, this is a Godly grief. Sorrow without a Godly reference has no blessings. If we are simply sorrowful because we are caught sinning, then we are not doing what is required of us as children of God. We should be sorrowful that we have sinned against a Holy God. We should not be repenting because of the consequences, either, for if we do that then we will go right back to our old behavior because there is no true repentance. 

I came to understand is that some of the things that I am going through right now are consequences of my past behavior. I have been praying for God to help me with these issues, but the truth is that God has forgiven me my sin and is helping with His word and His guidance, but that does not mean I am free from the consequences of past choices. The fact that I am no longer married, that I am lonely without a partner to love and cherish, is my fault. That is reality. I chose not to follow God, and not to treat my marriage vows with the respect that they deserved. Now, I am not saying that is why all marriages fall apart, just mine. And we can debate whether or not it was a good thing that my marriage fell apart all day long, but I am facing the consequences of my past behaviors. I am also facing the daily struggle not to pick up another cigarette or have another drink, all because I chose to pick them up in the first place and awaken an addiction in myself that I would not have had to contend with had I followed God.

The other thing that I wanted to talk about is a little off topic, but stems from something my pastor said, and is equally important. He said "Our altars should be full of people repenting" and as he said that I looked around and realized something very important: How can our altars be full of people falling on their face before God and repenting so that they can be closer to Him if THE PEOPLE AREN'T IN GOD'S HOUSE WHERE THE ALTARS ARE? This night, the house of the Lord was practically empty, just a handful of people. God was speaking very powerfully through Bro. Howard, and so many weren't there to hear it. 

I am so guilty of this. I can't help it when I have to work, but what about the other times? Not that I don't have good excuses, but now that I am truly looking at them, I am beginning to realize that no excuse is good enough for me to miss being in the Lord's house on the Lord's day. Not "I'm so tired" or "I have laundry to catch up on" or "I have to work tomorrow and need to get things done". Those were my favorite ones to fall-back on. So I guess no more excuses for me: if those doors are open and I am free from work or obligations, I will be there. 

Thanks for reading this post, and I look forward to tomorrow!

For They Know His Voice

First things first, can I say how much I LOVE doing a post back to back like this? I love posting, and so getting to do more of it is good with me. Secondly, can I tell you how pleased I was this morning when I was working on my bible study and I had to look up a verse. Now, up until now my bookmark in my bible has stayed on the page that tells you what page the books are on for easy access, because whatever memory I had of bible order from my church days as a child had long disappeared. However, this morning as I was looking up the verse, without even thinking about it I knew exactly where I was going. I think that is a good sign about how much I have been opening my bible. So, progress is being made. Now, on to the amazing things that God is teaching me...

So, apparently, yesterday God directly decided to work on my heart hard, and He used my pastor to do so. Between the morning and night service, my feet were definitely stepped on pretty hard. So much so that I took over 3 pages of full page notes for each service. Since I don't want to make this post forever long, I am just going to share my notes from the morning service. Tomorrow you will get the Sunday night notes, so be looking forward to that!

I loved this sermon. It was about how God speaks to us in our lives. My favorite question that the pastor put forth was "How can I know that it is God speaking to me?". And the answer was two-fold. The first point, and one that I think is stressed too little is that God will never tell me to do something contrary to His word. Ever. So no matter how good that sin looks, and how much I feel drawn to it, I can know that it is not God doing the drawing. Secondly, if I spend time with God through His word and prayer, I will know His voice.

The verse the pastor chose to accompany the sermon was 2 Timothy 3:16-17, but he also quoted the above verses from John, and for some reason those verses touched me deeply, so I wanted to focus on them. What I really liked it the fact that the sheep know the voice because they have been trained by the Shepherd to recognize it. Even in this, we are not the one doing anything other than accepting His guidance. God will help us to know His voice if we are willing to give Him our limitless devotion. 

The second thing that he said that really impacted me was that, when the Holy Spirit leads you to some lesson or knowledge, you have just had an encounter with God. And I desperately, desperately want an encounter with God, and I realized that in the middle of the message. I was so thirsty for it, and like the Good Father that He is, He gave me what I was seeking. But that was later in the evening, so you will hear about that tomorrow. 

The third thing that touched me through this message is that reading and hearing the Word of God is not enough, I must respond. Confession is agreeing that I have sinned, but agreeing with God that I am wrong is not enough. There is one more step I must take: I must respond to the truth in obedience: that is true repentance. When the Holy Spirit reveals our sin to us, it is not to make us miserable; He wants nothing to hinder our love relationship with God.

The point of all of this: to become closer to God, I must adjust my life to the truth. God's truth.

He Is My Fortress

I love this blog. I love the freedom that it gives me to share my testimony with others, and talk about all of the wonderful things that God is doing in my life. Spiritually, physically, and emotionally my life is being transformed right in front of me. No, not right in front of me. All around me. As I look behind me at my past, I am seeing my behaviors and actions in a totally different light. As I look to the side of me, I am seeing my present and the people in it very differently. Everything is changing, and I love sharing that here with you.

However, it has come to my attention that the infrequency of my blog makes it harder for people to follow, and harder to catch on to. Unless you want to go back and read the last two posts every time I add a new one, you aren't getting the cohesive story that I am trying to give. Because I am living this life it feels like one big long story to me, but for some who are trying to follow my story, it feels choppy and hard to follow. So....I am going to change the rules of this blog. 

Instead of strictly talking about the spiritual lesson that I have just currently learned, I will be adding in other parts of my life so that I can post at least once every couple of days. HOWEVER, it is important to stress that I am only able to do this because God is touching every part of my life. Anything I talk about will be based on how God is changing my life. The heart of this blog isn't changing, just the format. I truly feel like my whole story should be shared, not just the pieces that I think are huge. Maybe by doing it this way, you will be able to get a fuller view of all the amazing things that God is doing in my life. So here we go....

I am currently doing an amazing bible study, recommended to me by pastor's wife, called Praying God's Word by Beth Moore. I think the reason this study is helping me so much is because I have always felt kind of silly praying. Even though I want to talk to God, and want to have a deep and meaningful conversation with Him, I often find my mind wondering to other things. I felt odd just talking. For many reasons, my prayer life was not getting off the ground, and I was missing out on so many good things because of it. I wanted to have that closeness with God, but found myself unable to without some help. And whoa-boy is this study helping! It has already deepened my understanding of prayer, and of God, and I am only done with the introduction and the first chapter. 

I love that she is incorporating bible verses into prayer, and I think having them written down is really helpful to me. I am a very visual person, and having them right in front of me is helping me to focus on Who I am talking to. I have even taken to writing down what I want to say to God and posting that on my wall to read during my prayer time. I find my prayer time is getting longer, and that I am feeling more connected to God in it. My prayer area wall is quickly becoming covered by paper. I think I might need to devote a whole room to this if this prayer-obsession keeps going! Not a bad thing...

I wanted to share with you two things she said in her book that really touched me this weekend. 

• The most monumental leap we take towards freedom is the leap to our knees – acknowledging the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
• The most giant step in the walk of faith is the one we take when we decide God no longer is a part of our lives. He IS our life.

The other really big thing that is happening in my life is that I am finally taking my sobriety more seriously. I haven't not had a drink since August, but I am finding myself struggling more and more with keeping it that way. On my bad days, I miss the fun and oblivion that drinking to the point of unconsciousness offered. And that's how I remember it: fun and relaxing. However, I know that is not how it really was. How it really was is embarrassing, humiliating, dangerous, and counter-productive. I won't go in to the gory details, because I am not totally comfortable in talking about all of them yet, but trust me: it was the opposite of fun. I just had a really screwed up idea of what fun was. 

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

If Thine Eye Offend Thee

This past week has been filled with an intense panic. It wasn't just that something was wrong. It was more like something was missing, and I couldn't figure out what it was. And then two days ago I had a moment of understanding: I couldn't feel God, not at all. I felt almost as empty as I used to before. Before August. Before coming in repentance to God and accepting Him as my Lord and Savior. It was absolutely terrifying. 

Now, I know that I wasn't without God. I am saved, through Jesus, once and always. I also know that being saved isn't always about feelings. In fact, sometimes our faith has to be completely apart from our inconstant human emotions. But I should always feel God at the foundation of my being and of my life. So I had to figure out what happened. 

I know that God doesn't move, He is a fixed point, so I must have moved. I started to take serious stock of who I was and what my life was like, and I realized that I had backslidden without even realizing it. My old self snuck up on me, quiet as a mouse, and I let her have some control back without meaning to. So my next logical question was HOW? How did she show back up to the party without my inviting her? And that is when I realized that I did invite her, in a million small ways. I just didn't realize I was doing it. 

I guess there is a reason that the bible says many will fail to stay on the straight and narrow path. If you turn away, even for a second, you can easily end up miles off the path, which is exactly what I did. I let things that were supposed to be totally out of my life creep back in. And this is how easily it happened: 

1. I told myself that I didn't HAVE to listen to just Christian music. Classical music isn't bad. And so I added it in. 
2. I told myself that going to the movie theater to watch a movie once was different than owning a secular movie, so it wasn't the same. And to the theater I went.
3. I told myself that, as long as the music didn't have cuss words or bad themes, what was the harm? I mean, if soothing classical music is good, then soothing secular music can be good to. And so I added it back in. 
4. I told myself that I could save money if I rented movies from Netflix instead of watching them in theaters, plus it would give me a welcome break from all the hard work I was doing. And so I signed up for Netflix and added a bunch of movies that I had gotten rid of, because that was different than owning them. 
5. I started questioning what a cuss word REALLY was. After all, I am sure some of the words we consider bad were not even words back then, so it is not expressly forbidden. Besides, I was so much stronger now. I could handle it. And so music with cussing was introduced back in. 
6. I told myself that only watching movies during meals was stupid. I should be able to relax on my days off. And so I started marathon movie days again.

And that is how it happened. That is how, over two months, I baby-stepped my way back to who I used to be. I found myself watching three or four hours of movies/TV shows a day, listening to music that cussed and took the Lord's name in vain, but was having trouble finding time to crack open my bible or pray. And pretty soon, depressed and miserable Angela started rearing her ugly head. 

After realizing what happened, a bible verse came to mind. The verse that kept repeating in my head was Matthew 18:8-9. The basic premise: if something causes you to struggle with who the Lord wants you to be, get rid of it. Toss it out. But didn't I already do that? I got rid of everything, and yet it found a way back in. And so I decided that, if just getting rid of the bad stuff didn't work, then I would get rid of the thing that enabled me to have the bad stuff...and so I gave away my television and DVD player. I wanted them out. And just like that, I have tons of free time for bible study and prayer. The last two days have been amazing, and I feel closer to God again. I still have some ground to gain back, but I am steadily on my way. 

I also got rid of any music that isn't Christian. If it doesn't stick this time, I will get rid of my MP3 player and CD player. I don't want to, because music moves me, and my Christian music moves me towards God. But, if I find that I can't keep the old me out, then I will. I guess we will have to wait and see. Maybe one day I will be able to face these temptations and say no, but for now I will settle for avoiding the problem altogether. It may mean I am not as strong as others, strong enough to face them and say no, but it does mean that I am strong enough to give up everything that keeps me from God. That works for me. 

Thank you for reading this very long post, and for allowing me to share my struggles and triumphs with you. TTFN!