There's an App for That.

"The process is not your responsibility, yours is to believe God for the outcome."

My beautiful friend Kylie was telling me about her daily devotional app she had on her iPhone, and I thought that sounded pretty neat so I downloaded one too. It's called Spirit Meat and that was the title of the first devotional.

It was exactly what I needed to hear.  I've been so caught up with feeling overwhelmed by classes and being an RA again and tryin, trying, trying to balance a million things at once I've gotten distracted. I get caught up so easily in the process of everything that I lose sight of God's hand in my life.

Lately, I've felt God working in my heart specifically with the way I relate and have relationships with others. Normally I like to be friends with lots of people so I'm constantly flitting from group to group so I can be close to everyone but don't have to let anyone get close to me. Recently I have been praying for God to change my heart to stop avoiding relationships with people and I can see a very real change happening.

The greatest evidence of this for me is that I dropped a class this week.

Never, ever before now would I have even considered dropping a class. I have never taken less than 16 hours and to do so or to choose a class and then drop it, to my independent self says - "You weren't strong enough to do it. You are a failure." One of the main reasons was that I was overwhelmed and frustrated that I didn't have time to spend with people or to do my copious amounts of homework. Normally I would just spend less time with people and more time on school work because of my need to succeed.

God has changed the needs of my heart. Something else that has been really cool for me lately is that the more time I spend in God the more often I hear His voice. So I was in church this morning just listening to the sermon and letting my thoughts wander around and I started thinking about needing to find a replacement class, maybe an on-line one, to replace the one I dropped. Surely I could balance 16 hours and still maintain and grow solid relationships. So I started to pray about it that God would reveal the class I should take.

Now, here is one of my theories on God's voice. Usually I'm pretty sure it is His voice because he says the exact opposite thing of what I want to actually do. Anyway, the long and short of it is that He said something along the lines of - "Give me your time and let me show you what I can do with you in a semester."

Which is where the title of the devotional ties in.  I got so caught up in the process of trying to make my life fall into place and get every detail to work out that I lost sight of trusting God with my outcome. I know in my head and say out loud - "I know God has a plan for me to......graduate.....get a career......meet/marry a spouse.....insert anything else..." But then I get it into my head that if I don't take care of all the little detaails and work myself to death I won't get to the outcome I should, when in reality, I have zero say in the outcome of anything in my life, really.

So.

We shall see what God has for me this semester, because apparently He has a plan that requires 14 class hours instead of 16...

Philosphies

The thing about a blog is that it gets a little addicting to write in order to see the amount of posts grow and see the site develop. If you are wondering why I post at such odd intervals, it's because I have to constantly fight the urge to post simply for the sake of posting. I've been trying to put together some scattered thoughts into one cohesive post, so here we go!

Just the other day someone mentioned that they liked my philosophies. That got me to thinking a lot about what I would consider some of my life philosophies to be. Here's what I've come up with so far.

Philosophy: Let My Love be the Proof.

Ever since I heard For King & Country's song 'The Proof of Your Love' for the first time it got to my heart and spoke to me. Let my life be the proof of Your love? Those are some pretty strong, challenging words. In case you haven't picked up on it yet, I like being challenged, so this song is perfect. This whole song is a challenge to make my entire life proof that I am loved by Christ - I want someone who doesn't know me to be able to look at my life from any aspect and wonder why in the world she acts in a way so different from what they see around them in the world, that they see a light and a love and a heart for others that they can't help but be drawn to  and want to know why I seem so different.

Philosophy: Be Joyful Always. 1 Thessalonians 5:16.

If you want to get technical you could easily argue this as being similar to philosophy number one, but I get to write whatever I want because it's my blog, so yay for free speech! No where in the Bible does it say - "If you become a Christian and follow Christ, your life will be fantastic." No where. God does not promise a trouble free life, look at John 16:33, for example. I like being joyful, but please don't get the misconception that I have never experienced hard things. I think everyone has, however something God is continually teaching me is how to be joyful through those things. Something I had to learn as a sophomore in high school was that joy and happiness are two very different, un-related concepts. It is one of my constant goals in life to consider it pure joy when I'm faced with trials because those are the times that my faith is being tested and perseverance is being produced (See James Chapter 1). Full Disclosure: I think Satan bothers Christians who are striving to grow in their faith with many, many more difficult trials because it is his goal in life to keep me from Christ. So when the trials happen? I guess now I kind of see that as almost an affirmation of just how valuable and worthy I must be to Christ if Satan is working so hard to keep me away from Him! Neat!


Philosophy: Sports bra and no make-up.

The philosophy I easily admit I struggle with the most is accepting the fact that I am beautiful. Beauty from the inside-out is a concept the world doesn't really preach! But what I've figured out between perseverance, time, incredibly supportive friends and God's grace is that people love me just as much whether I spent a lot of time trying to look awesome as when I'm wearing a sports bra, no make-up, and my hair is a mess. To me, if a girl is comfortable enough to do that and feel secure in the knowledge that she is no less beautiful or worthy that way than when she puts in a ton of time and money into her appearance - that is super attractive.

(1 Peter 3:2-4)


There's some more philosophies, but I don't have them all detailed out in my mind yet. :)