Heading Upstream #16

As I sit down to write this post, I wonder how many people actually read what I say. Do people learn anything, do my experiences really matter or make a difference? Since I write this blog purely for myself I guess the answer to that question doesn’t really matter. However, it still doesn’t curb my curiosity. I wonder how many of my friends really know my deepest most intimate thoughts. I do put them out there for anyone and everyone to read, but I still wonder. 

Anyways, I wish I could tell you that I’m this amazing fantastic Godly person who is on the path to perfection, but that would be a lie. I’m human and no where near being perfect. I often feel like I should write amazing profound things in my blog, but then again, this is for me and God not anyone else. Lately I have been pulled in so many directions. Let’s see if I can touch on what’s been happening these past few weeks.

1. Re-Branding: I recently attended the MJ2Day Photography Workshop. I won’t go into too much detail because it would take over this entire post, but I learned way more information than I bargained for. I have been wanting to re-vamp my photography business for quite some time, but I wanted to wait until after this workshop to make sure I was headed in the right direction. To make a long story short, the workshop helped me see that re-branding needed to be the next step in my business. I hired Rosemary Watson as my graphic designer and she and I have been working on my logo for a couple weeks now. It really has taken more time and energy than I thought. I’m constantly thinking about it and exchanging texts/e-mails narrowing down designs. It’s pretty exhausting. After the logo will come new website/blog design. So this process if far from over. It’s exciting for sure, but taking a toll on my mental health 🙂 

2. Travel Plans: Travis won a travel voucher some time ago from work and it’s a pretty large chunk of change. We can use the voucher on airfare, hotel and transportation anywhere in the world. I’m sure you can imagine the possibilities. They are endless. So when my mind isn’t on my photography and logo designs I have been re-searching and exchanging phone calls and e-mails with our travel agent trying to come up with ideas of where to go. In case your curious, we finally decided to go to Cancun for 5 days at the all inclusive Gran Caribe 5 Star Resort & Spa!! Travis and I are absolutely ecstatic for a Scarlett-free Vacation. Not that we don’t love our 19 month old daughter to death, but we haven’t been on a vacation without her since she was born, so we are excited. I know some people don’t go on vacations minus kids until they are old and grown, but that doesn’t work for our family!! Travis and I value our time together without her and we will take full advantage whenever we can 🙂 I think all couples should do the same! 

3. Pampered Chef Business: I have also been devoting a lot of time to my Pampered Chef business. I’m making fantastic income, so I need to invest in my business to keep the paychecks coming. It’s been a bit of a challenge to balance everything, but I really enjoy what I do! At one of my past shows, a guest told me during checkout that she could tell that I loved my job and she she thought I had definitely found my niche’. What an amazing compliment from someone who doesn’t even know me. That totally made me so happy!

4. My Family: For anyone who is married you know that cultivating that marriage is a job in and of itself. When you’re single it’s easy to do what you want and spend your time and money however you choose but when you add a spouse into the mix you not only have someone else’s opinion to consult at all times, but you have to spend time & energy everyday keeping that relationship healthy. Add kids into the mix and that job becomes even more difficult, draining more mental and physical energy than you ever thought possible. So if my mental energy was already exhausted with my photography, travel plans and pampered chef add two more people into the mix, and you can see why I’m feeling slightly overwhelmed. 

I’m not sure if you can see where I’m going with this, but when you have too much going on in your life, it’s inevitable that other areas of your life begin lacking. Since I’m always honest in my blog posts, I have to say that my quiet time with God has been lacking. I still read the bible most every night, but since I read it on my phone it seems less personal. I would like to start taking out my bible and reading the chapters in my actual bible. I feel like when I read on my phone there is a huge disconnect. It doesn’t feel as real or as intimate  I’m also reading scripture when I’m in bed and ready to sleep so I’m reading quickly just to complete the verses and check them off as opposed to really mediating and letting the words sink in. Does anyone else feel like this when they read the bible? It’s more of a thing to check off that you know you should do. You want to feel like a good person so you do it out of habit but not with the right motive. I would really like this to change. I desperately want to know and grow closer with God, but the desire is not enough. I need to actually make a change. There has to be a plan put into place or good intentions will never be enough. 

The one thing that I do like about the bible app on my phone is that I can bookmark verses really easily. Then when I have some free time, or when I’m sitting down to write my blog posts I can check back through my bookmarks and find verses that stood out to me. I just finished reading the book of Romans a couple days ago and I had bookmarked quite a few passages. I will include one of my favorites below. 

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them-living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased with being ignored. 

Romans 8: 5-8

These few verses are incredibly profound. The bible is full of lots of words and concepts that are hard for me to understand, but when I come across verses like these, there is no room for misconception. The verses that resonate with me are these exact verses. The ones that are so plainly black & white. I find myself so often focused only on myself and things of this world. I mean it’s the easiest path. It’s easier to go with the flow of society and focus on me, me, me. The real challenge is turning around and heading upstream, against all the “normal” ways of life. No wonder so many people live for themselves. It’s definitely the easier path…IN THE BEGINNING. Think of it like this. We are all is our own boats. Some of us choose to go downstream. It’s definitely the quicker route and usually satisfying short term, but then we inevitably go adrift. Possibly we run into some mud that slows us down, steer our boat in the wrong direction or completely get stuck. Since we are trying to do everything on our own we don’t have any help. People just wave as they float on by. No one stops to help and we are pretty much on our own. We have to wait for someone else to bail us out…or maybe we are just there forever.

As a follower of Christ we need to get out of our boats, and head upstream looking for those boats who need our help. We rescue them and take them with us. Things may become difficult on the way, but we know that there is an eternal reward at the end. We know that life on Earth is not the end. We want to spend eternity with Jesus and the only way to get there is to follow in his footsteps and go against what society deems as “normal”.

Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice by dying on the cross so that we could be saved and eventually be in heaven with God. Without Jesus we could never enter heaven because God and Sin cannot co-exist. Which direction is your boat headed? Maybe your waiting for someone to come and rescue your boat. Maybe you’re not sure what to do. If that’s you I encourage you to jump in my boat and head upstream with me!! I’m not perfect and my boat sometimes slips downstream, but as I’ve mentioned before being a follower of Christ is a forever journey. You have to make a daily choice to follow him. If your boat is heading downstream beware of those people who will keep pushing you in that direction. Turn your boat around and forever let your life be changed. 

But now that you have found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master. 

Romans 6:22-23 

Are You Speechless? #15

It’s funny how speechless people become when you ask them about prayer, especially when you ask them to  pray aloud. It’s a bit of an uncomfortable topic for most.  My top priority this year is to be Spend More Time With God! I think a lot of spiritual and religious people have similar goals every year. Or maybe they hear a profound message at church that speaks to them and they instantly think “I need to spend more time with God…”, but then everyday life sets in and the goal or wish that they once had seems to slowly disappear. Maybe there are people out there that don’t go to church, they aren’t very religious but they do believe in God and want to grow closer to him, but it ends at that. Simply a wish or a thought. Wishes and dreams are nice, but without an action plan nothing will come of it. What if an architect just wished and thought about building someone a house. Well that would be all well and good, but without a plan or blue prints that family would remain homeless.

So what about you? Do you have the wish or desire to spend more time with God? Maybe your curious about who he is and what he is all about. I think the first step to growing in a deep relationship with God is prayer. I used to think that prayer had to be done with your eyes closed, hands folded, using amazing eloquent words that were spoken aloud making perfect sense, but that was just my childhood perspective of prayer. The model of prayer that I knew was the way a Pastor prays. So when I would go to pray I was trying to pray the “perfect” way, and since perfect is impossible I would get discouraged. As I got older I began to realize that perfect prayer isn’t what God wanted from me. All he wanted was genuine, thoughtful, truthful prayer. 

Sometimes you can know something, but not fully grasp or believe it. This is exactly what has been happening to me with prayer. I know that perfect sensible prayers are not what God intends for us to bring to him. I know that my juvenile belief in what prayer should look like isn’t always accurate. I know that all I have to do is come to God with authentic prayer.

Over the past few weeks I have really been working on growing closer to God. In my last post, one of the steps to help me grow closer to God was to pray continuously. I know that my struggle with prayer isn’t uncommon. There are lots of people who can relate. This past weekend at church can you guess what the topic was at church? Prayer. I mean REALLY!!!?? Come on…God is just amazing. I was so intent on listening and learning all that I could about prayer and how to do it. Pastor Bill talked about how people typically come to God when they need something. DING DING DING. That’s me and about a million other people in the world!! Don’t get me wrong, I do pray at other times, but I find myself most often turning to prayer when I need something. I mean we are human, so that’s our nature. Pastor Bill shared with us this 5 step process to use when we pray. I added in a few key words and phrases I want to use in my prayer along with a bible verses.

1. Recount God’s Greatness: Dear Lord, I just want to thank you so much for who you are. You are an amazing God. I surrender to your greatness and praise you for your mercy.

“Take a long, hard look. See how great he is-infinite, greater than anything you could ever imagine or figure out. Job 36:26 

2. Respond to God’s Purpose: Lord, I just want to reflect on what you’re doing in my life. Thank you for the many blessings you have given me. May your will be done in my life. 

” I know what I’m doing. I have it all planed out. Plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” Jeremiah 29:11 

3. Receive his Provisions: Sometimes it’s hard for me to come to you in prayer without automatically asking for your provisions. Please help me to stop worrying about tomorrow & feeling guilty for my past. Help me live in the moment today and accept the blessings you have for me right now. I know that you are a God who provides and I can come to you for anything, but help me remember it’s your will not mine!

“Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track.” Proverbs 3:5

4. Relate to God’s Forgiveness: You are a great and forgiving God. Please forgive me of my sins. I am far from perfect and I have made mistakes. Please help me to learn and grow from these mistakes so I can help others who struggle in their daily walk. Please help me forgive others they way you have forgiven me. I know in my heart that I need to forgive this person. They have really hurt me, but holding onto this grudge is only hurting myself. Please cleanse my soul and wash away all bitterness. I want to be filled with joy & happiness. 

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

5. Request God’s Protection: Thank you so much for who you are. My life is so full of joy since I have invited you to live in my heart. I trust you in every way to guide and direct my life. Please watch over me. Keep me safe and protected. Amen.

“Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

I encourage you these next few weeks to really focus on your prayer time with God. Your relationship with God is like any other relationship. If there is no communication, your relationship will suffer. Talk to God like he is sitting right next to you. Don’t feel like your prayers have to be perfect or make sense. Just start talking. I guarantee the more time you spend with him, the easier it will become. Try to avoid praying in bed. It’s too comfortable and you can always count on falling asleep in the middle of your prayer (I speak from experience). Lately I have been using transition times to pray. Any time I’m moving from one activity to the other I will say a quick prayer. I talk to God like he’s my best friend (well he actually is, but you know what I mean). He never judges me, there is never awkward silence, and he is the best listener in the world. The hardest part about prayer for me is listening. That will have to be a whole nother’ blog post, but I also encourage you to start listening for his voice. It may not be very loud, but I guarantee if you take the time to listen he will speak to you.

Lots of love to my readers! I hope you have a blessed day. 

Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7