Safe Journey

Have you ever felt like you were, what is a good word to use, maybe paused? In your spiritual journey with the Lord? I mean like you are walking along, or maybe running or crawling, whatever your spiritual journey is like, and then all of a sudden things quiet down and then you just feel like you are standing or sitting in one spot? I think a pause in your journey is good. Like you have time to rest in the presence of God, and just soak, and be still. But then after a while, you want to get going again. You want to take the next step in the journey and you want to get closer in your relationship with your Papa.

I think this is where I am in my faith. I am at a point in my faith where I feel like I have been crawling, running, walking, jogging, fighting, and resting. Now, I feel like I am rested and ready to take the next step in my spiritual walk with Father. I want to learn more about Him, I want to have more spiritual experiences. I want to strengthen my faith more, and have my cup be more filled with more of Him, to just indulge in new revelations and be used more for Him.

I think there comes a time in every relationship when you are really in love with a person that you want to find out more things about them. And you find out more things about them by spending time with them, going on different adventures, and experiencing new things with that person to find out more about who they are. The same goes for Jesus. The way we learn more about Him is spending more time with Him, to have different spiritual encounters with Him to find out more about His heart. I feel like with humans, when you really spend time with someone you eventually learn almost everything there is to know about that person. Like when you have lived with your parents for 20+ years you kinda get to know almost everything about them. Or if you have been married for 20+ years you also find out a lot about that person. But it's different with Jesus.

First of all He is God. He is someone who no one will every be able to grasp fully or even come close to it. We constantly will be learning new things about Him. Things He loves, things He hates. Things that make Him smile and laugh, things that break His heart. The more you get to know Him the more He shows you who He is. The more He lets you into His heart. You will never have enough experiences with Him to fully know who He is, you will never have enough encounters with Him to understand His personality completely. But that's okay. Because the more there is to know about the person, the more we strive to find out. I mean if you know everything there is to know about someone, wouldn't you be stuck, or be in the "pause" mode in your relationship forever?  I guess that's okay for most situations. I mean I guess I would want to know all there is about my mom, or about my future husband, or about my future children. But I think to know that there is more to God than we will ever understand or comprehend or fathom, it just makes the relationship I have with Him all the more thrilling and exciting.

I never want to stop pursuing Him. Sure sometimes in our journey together I get super tired and cranky and frustrated and I need to plop down on the ground and just breathe. I just need Jesus to help me be still in His arms so I can catch my breath and just take Him in at that moment. But other times when I'm done resting, I want to keep going. I want to get closer to His heart and find out more about my Savior.

I want to find out what He thinks about when He sees me, I want to know what He feels when He sees His child crying or laughing, I want to know what He dreams about for His children. I want to know if my jokes make Him laugh, or if my questions make Him shake His head in annoyance or wonderment. I want to know if I make Him happy. If what I am doing with my life is what He wants me to do. If I am being obedient to His will. If I am being prepared to accomplish His will in my life.
The only way I will ever know these things is if I keep moving and keep getting closer to Him.

I not only want to keep moving on this journey to get closer to Jesus because of the many questions I have. I want to keep moving because when you really love someone, you feel like you can never have enough of them. Like you just constantly need more of that person. More of their time, more of their love, more of their presence. You just want to constantly feel them near you, and you want to constantly hear their voice. We crave this from humans, so how much more should we crave this from God? I crave it so much. I just want more of Jesus, I feel like I don't have enough.

My uncle once told me, that when you feel empty in your spiritual walk sometimes, like you are losing touch of Jesus when moments before you were so full of Him, it's not because you have done anything wrong, it's because your vessel is expanding. As your vessel expands it requires more of God to fill you up, more of Him to satisfy your soul. I pray that our vessels may be constantly expanding so that we may need more and more of Him. That we may never be satisfied with how much Jesus we have. Because, the more we seek God, the more He pours Himself unto us.

He desires for us to keep moving on this journey. He desires us to want more of Him. He desires to keep expanding our vessel. We must be constantly reminded that as much as we want to know more about God, He wants to share more of Himself with us too.

Wherever you are in your relationship with God, on your journey with Him, remember to keep moving forward. To not stay in one place too long. Rest up, and get up and keep moving. The best things are yet to come.

"Make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed."-Hebrews 12:13

Fight On

Have you ever felt like you are at a point in your life, when you feel like you are being chewed up, ripped apart, and then spit out. You feel like you have hit rock bottom more than three times and all you can do is lie there and scream because you have no strength to get back up? Sometimes you feel like you are chained against a wall and you can't get loose and it's dark. Yea, I've been there too. And no, you aren't alone.

You see, suffering and hardships, pain and chaos are every where. We see it in the lives of our friends, our closet family, we see it in the mirror. When I was in this time of my life, I would get waves of feeling broken, like I was being punched in the stomach over and over again and I couldn't do anything about it except just take it all in.

But I want to tell you something that I learned. This is a war. This is a battle. You have to fight, you have to march, you have to get yourself together and move. You may look around you and see others collapsing and falling, you may see them broken, but remember one thing, you are not like them. You may look like them on the outside, but on the inside you are different. You have the blood of Jesus Christ flowing through your veins, you have the power of the Holy Spirit moving inside you. You have the armor of God covering every inch of your body. You were made to fight. You were not only made to fight, but you were made to win.

Yes, it's hard, but you aren't doing it alone. You have armies of angels fighting with you, and for you. You may be blind to see them, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. You may feel weak and exhausted and that's okay. That weakness is to remind you that you aren't strong enough on your own, but with Christ, there is NOTHING you cannot do. That weakness is to remind you that your strength comes from God and from God alone.

Remember, as you walk on the waves, the storm might seem huge, the water might feel freezing, and you may be getting hit hard by the wind and rain. But if you remember to look in front of you, you will see Him standing there. His eyes locked on you, His arms extended toward you just in case you slip, and if you do, don't worry, it's okay, He will not lose a second to save you.

I don't know what you are going through. It might be academics, it may be your health, it may be family issues, it maybe be something that no one would understand. But know this, you are the child of God, you are co-heirs with Christ. You are made to fight the good fight, you are made to be strong. Have you read Revelation? You know what happens? Spoiler alert, He wins. JESUS WINS!
If you are part of Jesus, if you have put your faith and trust in Him, if you believe He is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, and that He gave up His life so we can be with Him FOREVER! Then you win too.

You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. Christ will always strengthen you. I am living proof.

" but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."-Isaiah 41:30

It should be all about Jesus

I am one who dreams like crazy. Not the falling asleep and being submerged into dreams that I can't control, but the day dreams. The day dreams that you have when you should be studying for MCATs or the day dreams you have when you are driving and suddenly realize that you are at your destination but you have no idea how you made it here. Yea, those kinds of dreams.

Well, I was having those kinds of dreams when I was studying, and in the dream I was imaging myself talking in front of a crowd of people, and talking about what I love to talk about the most, Jesus. Like most day dreams you can control what happens, what you are wearing, where you go, who is there, and this day dream had all of it, except one thing was different. In this dream I imagined myself walking up on stage and I imagined myself placing my pink Bible on the podium and then I imagined myself taking a dream breath with prayer as I began to speak. But something happened, something that I did not imagine, I said "the problem we have is that we don't make it all about Jesus." I quickly jumped out of my day dream and glanced around. What was that? Where did that come from? That was not from me. I figured if it wasn't from me, it had to be from Him.

You see, there is nothing wrong with dreaming. If anything I think it makes us more like Jesus. He is the greatest dreamer of all, and of course we would be too, I mean He is our father and as His children it would make sense to dream like our papa. But what is wrong with day dreaming is the content.

As children of God, we are called to be like Jesus. We are called to be holy like Christ is holy. We are called to love Him with all our body, mind and soul, always. We are called to make it all about Jesus. To think of Him, to live for Him, to talk about Him, to act like Him, and in everything to glorify Jesus.

This plot twist in my day dream really taught me a lesson. A lesson I had no idea I would learn in my day dreams! But praise God for His ways of teaching His children, in the ways that are best for us to learn. I realized that I don't make it about Jesus all the time, and of course that's okay to an extent. We do have responsibilities that God gives us that we need to focus on, but I think what is important as the children of God to understand is that, behind all of our dreams and ambitions and behind all of our thoughts and feelings, and actions and sayings, it should all be about Jesus.

Last night, I had a great conversation with God, I brought up things in my heart before Jesus and told Him to cast the things that are not of Him away, so that things that are of Him will consume those places. I do want all of who I am to be about Him. I do want absolutely everything of who I am to be about Him.

Think about it this way. When you are in love with someone, you think about that person all the time. You think of scenarios with that person, you think of the jokes you would tell them, you think of what makes them happy and make a to do list in your head to do those things, you make it a goal to be pleasing to that person. Basically you do everything you can to make that person feel as much loved as they make you feel.

 So why don't we do that with Jesus? We know that He is CRAZY in love with us, so why don't we think of ways to be pleasing to Him? Why don't we make it a goal to do whatever it is that makes Him smile and laugh? Why don't we go out of our way to bring Him joy? Because He does that for us. He says, "I know my daughter loves the smell of the air after it rains, so i'm going to send a summers rain her way today." He says, "I love the way her eyes are filled with the reflection of the suns light when it rises and sets, so i'm going to wake her up just in time to see those things." He says, "I know she is hurt and is sinning, but I love her way to much to let her be that way, so I'm going to go and take her place on her cross, so that she will always and forever have a home with me." I don't know if you can see it or feel it or taste, smell, or hear it, but folks, you have a God that is passionately in love with you. He makes it all about us, so why do we not make it all about Him?

Remember to make it all about Jesus cause He is all about you! Keep smiling and know you are so loved!

If you have any prayer requests or comments you can leave them below or email me at smilelikejesus@gmail.com.