It's All in The 'Tude- Connecting with God

The first situation that I want to talk about is how our attitude when we spend time with God can affect how we perceive who he is, and what he has in store for us. The Bible mentions time and time again that we need to be actively seeking God.  Deuteronomy 4:29 says, "But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find Him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul." The important thing to remember is that when we are seeking God is that we have to truly be seeking Him with all of our heart and soul. God doesn't want you to only seek Him half heartily, but he wants you to be pursuing Him with all that you have. For it is when you are all in, then you can truly discover who God is, and what he has to say about you. Proverbs 8:17 says, "I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me." I know that last week, I focused on working diligently in all that we do, no matter how boring. Trust me, there will be times when there are other things that we so much would rather be doing than just reading the Bible or praying, and God understands because he knows the sin in our hearts, but he enjoys it when you make time for Him personally. When you take the time to get to know Him, you learn things about Him that you might not have known before, and you learn things about who you are. Many of us, including me have questions about what our future holds, and we can catch a glimpse at our future when we take the time to connect with God so that he may show you. You just have to go into every time that you connect with God with an attitude of wanting to actively seek Him, an attitude that is willing to spend time with Him, and a attitude that will delight in who he is, and what he has in store for you.  

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for being so patient with me, and how I so often give you only the scraps of my time. I pray that I will go into each time that I spend with you with an attitude of one who is actively seeking you, and and attitude of one who truly wants to know you with all my heart and soul. Amen. 

In case you didn't read last weeks post, here they are. 
Working through the Boring
Working through the Boring pt2

It's All In The 'Tude

So I have been thinking a lot lately about attitude, and how our attitudes changes often. So today, I'm going to be writing many posts on the same topic, attitude, but each post in going to vary by the situations that I plan to talk about. So continue to check in today to see what I am going to talk about.

Working Through the Boring pt 2

I know that Wednesday that I said I would write about what I learned from being diligent in my work in history before my other post. Well I'm changing that up a little, by making this the post for the day. There was so much that actually happened this week, that I'm still trying to process what happened. I worked diligently in history with taking notes, and I was able to retain more information, even though it took me longer to complete. But I was able to hold a good conversation in class, because I took my time to understand the material. Hard work does pay off in the long run, even if you can't see immediate results right now.

I know that this isn't the longest post, but after what happened this week, I want to take time to digest what happened so I can explain it in the best way possible, because I learned a lot in a few days, and I want to be able to articulate what happened, and what I learned.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for knowing the plans in our life, and how they are going to play out before we do. I pray that you help each one of us to be diligent in what we do, and that if anyone is struggling, I pray that you will just be there with them every step of the way. Thank you Lord for all that you do. Amen.

Working Through the Boring

I was doing a Bible study in my devotional Bible when I came across this topic of persistence that I thought was really cool. It was based off the Bible verse 2 Chronicles 24:13 which goes, "The men in charge of the work were diligent, and the repairs progressed under them. They rebuilt the temple of God according to its original design and reinforced it." Now the construction of a temple is not the most exciting thing, and it is a lot of hard work. When you read the verse though, we see that the workers are very diligent in what they do. They are focused on completing this task and they are going to do it correctly the first time around. Diligence is all about being careful and being persistent in your work, no matter how boring or hard it is. Now stop and think of a class that you do that is rather boring. For some people it is math, for others it is English. For me it is history. I get distracted so easily, and it is rather boring, and most of time I would so much rather be doing anything else. So after reading this verse and studying it, I have a challenge for my readers and me. We all can name one thing that we find boring, but I challenge you and me to do that task or homework assignment with diligence, and I want to know what you got as a result. I will post what I found on Saturday before my normal posting. 

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for giving us things that we love to do, and I pray that you will help us to be diligent in all that we do, no matter how boring it might be. I want to be like the workers who worked diligently on your temple Lord. Amen.

Being Strong in School

I have mentioned my IB Theory of Knowledge class before, and I truly enjoy the class. For this class we had to write a big paper, and we had to do an oral presentation. The paper we had to write is called The Title Paper, and we had to choose a title and write about it. The title I chose was about how shared knowledge can become personal. For the oral presentation we had to give a ten-minute presentation about a real life situation and bring in the terms that we use in class.

Now I know that you love to read all about my projects that I do in class, but I know that you are excited to learn how my projects have anything to do with God. Well as Christians we are tasked to spreading the news about God and who God is. What better way to do this then in the papers and presentations that we give. I go to a public school, so I know how scary it can be when it comes to sharing your faith in a class. The results that come out of sharing can be very rewarding though.

For the paper that I wrote, I looked at the song "Praise You In This Storm" by Casting Crowns (big shocker there). I wrote about how the song had a personal impact on Mark Hall from Casting Crowns, the victims of hurricane Katrina, and how I had made the song personal to me. I didn't share this paper with the whole class, but I did go over it with my teacher and we ended up having a conversation about Casting Crowns, and their music. I found it cool to just talk about a Christian artist with my teacher freely. It gave me insight that teachers do have lives outside of school, (believe it or not) and that you might actually be able to connect with them on a more personal level.

For my presentation, my real life example was the song "Things Are Looking Up" by R5 (Yes another shocker there) and how it is categorized as a secular song. My presentation was about taking this secular song and transporting it into a non-secular category. The first point that I made is the language that is used in the song, taking examples from my Song Break Down that I did on this song. I then talked about the perception that the world has on this song and the perception that I have of this song. At the end of my presentation, I got good feedback. The big shocker came a couple periods later. We were in history and the girl next to me just started talking about my presentation. What we talked about for a majority of the conversation was that secular love songs could be non-secular if you are using them to sing about your love for God. Then later that period, my friends and I were talking about the implications of my presentation. It was a natural conversation just based off a ten-minute presentation.

Now, I feel comfortable with sharing God through my schoolwork because I do it often, but you may not. If you struggle with this, or you are afraid of what your peers would think, just know that God is always with you. Deuteronomy 31:6 says, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." God is with you when you share in class or you talk about Him with your friends. He is standing right beside you, so take comfort that you are not alone. I pray that you find encouragement in this post when you do your school assignments.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for being with us everywhere we go, and that we are never alone when we are sharing our faith. Help me to be strong to speak out for you during school, and thank you for the opportunities that you present me to share my faith. Amen.


If you want an idea of what the projects where like, here are the links to the post where I got the ideas from.

Title Paper
Praise You In This Storm
Dancing With Jesus

Oral
Things Are Looking Up pt1
Things Are Looking Up pt2

New Year, Same Stress

It is the beginning of the New Year, and I bet most of us already feel stressed. I have finals next week, (Yes, that is weird) and I have college scholarships due, and I have other activities like the musical that I need to focus on. Some people may be worried about the new semester coming up, or maybe it is a family problem, or relationship struggle that you are facing. The New Year is suppose to be about new beginnings and starting fresh, but we are only a week in and we have fallen into the same traps, the same things we stressed about in 2014. We all get discouraged when we fall back into what trapped us before. The thing is, the things that stressed us before, didn't go away  with the new year. I still have school and finals. Your stresses didn't just go puff with the new year. If that is true, then what is the point of trying to make a resolution to stress less.
If that is the what you are struggling with, may I suggest a change in focus. Instead of focusing on what stresses us out and wishing that they will disappear, focus on how you receive stress. We tend to focus on what is stressing us, and then we try to relieve the stress by ourselves, through multiple ways. But there is only one way that you're stress will disappear, and that is giving it to God. 1 Peter 5:7 says, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." When you cast all that stresses you onto God, he will take care of it. He is the God of the universe, and he can do the impossible, and he care about you and what stresses you. By giving it up to God, you are putting it in the best hands possible. He is able to take care of your stress when you couldn't. That doesn't mean that everything that stresses you out will disappear, but it does change how you deal with stress. I challenge all of you to try casting your cares on the Lord, and see what happens, I bet that you are a lot less stressed.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for caring for everything that stresses me out. Today I want to give you all that has me stressed, and I trust that you will take care of it, and that you will use it for what is best for me. Thank you for caring so much about me, and knowing me, no matter how small I feel. Amen.

The Future

I don’t care how much we try to avoid it, but we all have a future.

Some of us think that our future is so far away that we don’t need to worry about it now.  Most of us are just trying to get through school, or college, or whatever we are doing. But we should be thinking about our future and how our actions can shape it.  

I was reading the beginning of Lamentations, and for those of you who haven’t read it in great detail before, it talks about the downfall of Jerusalem with her sin and how everyone had turned away from God.  The one verse in there that stuck out to me was:  

Lamentations 1:9 “Her uncleanness was in her skirts; She did not consider her future. Therefore she has fallen astonishingly; She has no comforter. "See, O LORD, my affliction, For the enemy has magnified himself!”

When the people in Jerusalem were sinning and turning away from God, they weren’t thinking of the destruction that it would have on the city later. Then the future came, and they were in deep with their sins from the past. And even though this happened a long time ago, it still can happen to us. If you are just worried about today, then you might go get drunk, or sleep with your boyfriend before marriage. But in the future those actions can have consequences like having an accident because you are drunk, or having to drop out of school because you have to take care of your child by yourself. I’m not saying that you need to worry constantly about your future, but keeping you future in the back of your mind when you are about to do something, might stop you from doing something you will regret later.

Dear Heavenly Father
Thank you for knowing my future and the plans you have for it. Help me out prepare myself now for what may come in my future.. Help me to make the best of what I have now so that I will be able to test and approve your will for my life. Amen.