my new favorite song :)

Lord willing...Africa here I come :):)

I really don't know how to say this...so here it goes!!

I'VE BEEN OFFICIALLY ACCEPTED TO VOLUNTEER IN

UGANDA!!!!!

This means I can move forward with booking flights and preparing everything I will need to get together before I leave. Lord willing I plan to leave in January and stay until May. I cannot clearly express in words my excitement for this chapter of my life and how it is all coming together. In the process of this journey God has taken things away in my life but of course He has also given. Given peace, given people, given encouragment through his Word. God is good. He has been continually blessing me and letting me discover grace.

the concept, the mystery, the action, the pure goodness, the amazing blessing of grace.

I realize that the next few months, the next year, the next 10 years are all important and it is okay to be excited with the future and what it holds, however it is also important to remember to live in the moment. The now. God is doing amazing things today and will do great things tomorrow if we commit ourselves to let Him work in and through us. So I will continue to keep my focus on Him, for if He is the centre, everything else shall fall in place in His perfect timing. Good and perfect timing.

--Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is --his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

-- God is interested in the journey, not just the destination.

what did I do to deserve this?

‘What did I do to deserve this?’ is a popular question that many people, especially those in hard situations or with difficult lives ask. A common question of
'why' 'why me' ‘why my family'.
What if we stopped asking 'why me', 'what did I do', and rather embrace the situation? Embrace the fact that you've seen death, seen poverty, experienced pain, felt despair, felt hopeless. Embrace this life you've been given and step forward with confidence in God?

It’s an opportunity to see life as though it is a challenge. A chance to prove to the devil that he holds nothing over you. A chance to daily conquer the nagging question of 'why' and replacing it with a thought or word of thank you.

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus
-1st Thessalonians 5:18

It’s not a matter of what you did to deserve your life. Quite frankly, you don’t deserve anything. The good, the mediocre, the ugly. God is blessing you with another breathe this second. Oh look, another one. He could easily take it away. This God, who intricately created the world and you, isn’t out to get you. He created, planned for you to be born with purpose, He is a God who loves you more than you could ever fathom.

For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.
-Jeremiah 29:11

Often what you see as completely stupid, pointless and painful turns out to be simply amazing. God has a way of working in his perfect timing. And the basic foundations of life; trust and faith come in here. But also, often we don’t see the purpose, the reason of why things happen in our lives. We get mad, turn and get unfaithful and ungrateful.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
-Romans 8.28

How you see your situation all depends on your human brain and since its human, its limited perception. We need to see our lives not as if we are being reprimanded or dealt a bad hand by chance. Your life is not happening by chance, but being divinely orchestrated by God.

We need to see ourselves as the called beings we are.
Called to love
Called to serve
Called to bless
Called by God

Whatever ‘this’ you don’t think you deserve, you need to recognize its part of a bigger picture. A bigger picture of God to extending grace and expressing His love through you and in you.

I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
- Ephesians 4:1

ponder this...

a life abandoned to Christ is never cut short. never.

death is the ultimate fulfillment for Christians. before you gasp, think about it. a life, a Christians earthly life, is never cut short. how could we say it's been cut short when Heaven is in the picture? When God has created each individual, blessed them, filled them with a purpose, a plan for life and injected overwhelming amounts of love and grace into their life? If a person is faithfully loving and serving the Lord, and even if they aren't, they will serve their purpose here on earth and when God decides to call them home He will. In His timing. His perfect, beautiful timing. And we can only hope and pray that we will all see each other in Heaven.

so we need to live with reckless abandonment.

live in moment. love because of Jesus. everything for the Glory of God.

because you don't know when your time is going to be up.

a thoughtful thursday

take the time to read this. it helped me and is very encouraging. allow it to
inspire you and trust God more fully.

Resolution (perseverance) Armed with Prayer XVIII (18)
‘Wait on the Lord, and let thine heart take courage.’ Psalm xxvii. 14 (27:14)

MERE courage may be very inefficient. It can be little more than high spirits, and subject to the swift changes of the surrounding temperatures. Courage may be only a chivalrous impulsiveness, a brilliantly attractive flare, but speedily relapsing into the cold greyness of the advancing night.
There is the courage of the single act.
There is the higher courage of prolonged action.
There is the still higher courage of waiting, when the relief of action is forbidden.
And therefore must we distinguish between the
[courage which is born and dies in a day],
{and that which stubbornly persists through the long, exacting years.}
One is flightiness (unstable behaviour), the other is fortitude (strength).

definition of fortitude : strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage.

Now the courage commended in the Christian Scriptures is an evergreen.
It is not brave impulsiveness, but strong endurance.
It is not the exhilarant spirits of a single battle, but the firm, resolute mood of a long campaign. It is not so much the impetuousness (passionate spontaneity) which can take Jericho by assault as the hardihood which can, if need be, tramp round seven times, waiting for the crumbling of its walls. This kind of resoluteness (determined) must itself be armed, or circumstances WILL maim and destroy it.
Courage can lose its blood, not only by disappointment and defeat, but by the lack of suitable food. The noblest courage must be armed by regular and appropriate sustenance (fuel).

Now prayer is the appointed means by which this highest kind of courage is fed.

We are to ‘wait on the Lord,’ and our heart will ‘take courage.’

Through prayer our courage renews its youth like the eagle. The heart is [invigorated] into fresh ambition and endeavour. Its grip upon high ends is established, and it to the dull road with a new song. It is not so much that we acquire good spirits as that we obtain deepened communion with the renewing Spirit of God. The praying soul is the dwelling-place of the Holy Ghost.

Such a soul ‘shall not fear when heat cometh’; its resources shall be equal to the demands of the fiercest drought.

He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. -Jeremiah 17:8
13 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. –Psalm 27:13-14

Springs in the Desert by Reverend J.H. Jowett, Studies in the Psalms published in the early 1920’s.