Willing.

God provides. And if He hasn't yet, He will.

I was talking to my best friend, Emma Dollings, today and I said something I would've never thought I would hear myself saying. "If God provided a way, I would drop this college business and go wherever He lead me."

Those words haven't left my head all day. And the more I think about, the more true they become. I thought maybe at first it was just "something God would want me to say" but now, the more I read, the more I pray, and the more I ponder, I realize how happy I would be if that were the case. If I could literally pick up, and move to another country where no one knew who I was, and just full-out live for God. Just thinking about it gives me chills.

This probably won't happen anytime soon, but nothing's impossible with God. It's so comforting to know though, that God has put this willingness on my heart :)

This was a song I sang during a missions camp I went to during high school. They didn't hit me like they do now. The words of this song is so powerful. Completely giving up yourself to God as a tool for furthering His Kingdom, with His hand having complete control over the work of His tool.

We Will Run
By: Arisen

Send us to the nations to the broken
lead us to surrender, we will go
Your voice is calling, You’re drawing near
we are Your servants, Lord take our fears
And if our God is for us how can we fail?
in the power of Jesus we stand
Send us to the nations, to the broken
lead us to surrender, we will go
We’ll feed the hungry, We’ll clothe the poor
We’ll lay our lives down to shine for You
And if our God is for us how can we fail?
in the power of Jesus we stand
Send us to the nations, to the broken
lead us to surrender, we will go
We will run and we will go to the world to let them know
Jesus is the risen King, He is God eternally

arisenband.com <-- check them out.

Convicting Dialogue

Friday bible studies with Brittany Tacoronte are nothing less than awesome. Every single week I walk away convicted, joyous, or both. This week was conviction. We're working through the book of Hebrews - just me, Brit, God, my Zondervan Life Application, Brit's John MacArthur, and of course BlueLetterBible.


Even though Chapter 3 was written to all believers (of course), it does emphasize and correct the common thought of that time of the Jews about Moses. The first 6 verses makes it clear to that Moses was in fact an awesome guy, but he wasn't God. He was merely a servant. Through this, the author uses the metaphor of a house and its builder. Verse 3 lays down and summarizes what is meant to be made known here..."Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself."


This is great scripture, don't get me wrong. But this next part is what hit me and left me feeling like I had a huge plank in my eye...

"Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, and saw My works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation, and said, 'they always go astray in their heart, and they did not know My ways"
-Heb 3:7-10

After reading this, I paused for a few seconds in thought, and then looked at Brit and said, "How stupid could they have been not to believe God was protecting them?" (Referring the the Israelites in the desert)

Give or take a few words, this was the gist of our dialogue:

Me - "I mean seriously, God rained manna from the sky, and manna isn't gross stale bread either...apparently it was like honey-flavored."
Brit - "Yeah dude"
Me - "And the entire journey He led them with a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud by day, telling them exactly where to go so they wouldn't be aimlessly wandering through the desert. And along with the manna, God made water come from a rock. In the desert. Water in the desert is a miracle in itself, and then to make it come from a rock...come on."
Brit - "Mhm"
Me - "And then if that wasn't enough, manna wasn't good enough for them so God was like 'Okay, here are all the quail you can eat.' Satisfied now? Nope. They lost hope in God so much that they took all of their jewelry, melted it together and made a statue of a golden calf to worship instead. A gold cow. Really? That's the best they could think of? That has to be the DUMBEST thing to worship."
Brit - "So true dude. But if you think about it, don't we do the same thing? Maybe it's not exactly a gold cow, but it could be other people, celebrities, sports, clothes, talent."
Me - Silent and feeling just as dumb as the Israelites. "True story Brit. I never thought of it like that before. I guess I better take the plank out of my eye before I condemn their actions."

Since this was so convicting for me, I want it to make an impact on all those who read this as well. Are you worshiping a "gold cow" because it's more tangible, more feasible, easier, or even more comforting? Knowing that you can see it and feel it, does that make it easier to trust it? God says no.

"and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory."

-1 Peter 1:8

Love Him. Even though you may have to wait a little while to see His results, don't lose
faith like the Israelites did. They were impatient, therefore they turned away and their hearts became hardened. God can't used hardened hearts. My Life Application bible said hardened hearts are like stale bread - God sees it as useless and worthless.

The lack of trust in God always prevents us from receiving His best.

We "are not"

"Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God."
-R.C. Sproul

I had to read this a few times for the meaning to entirely sink in. The most basic summary of this would be... God is great, we are not. But in order to figure this whole "we are not" part of this equation, we have to contrast ourselves with our Creator, and until we do that, we will never grasp the true perfection of God and His character.

Over the summer I was blessed to be in a bible study with 3 amazing women. The first time we met, the question was asked, "What word would you use to describe God?" Tough question...um, yeah. In fact, I really don't think there is one word to encompass to vast greatness of God. These are just a few that stand out to me:

1) Holy. Being holy literally means "sacred" in Greek. From the book Crazy Love, Francis Chan describes this saying, "To say that God is holy is to say that He is set apart, distinct from us. And because of His set apart-ness, there is no way we can ever fathom all of who He is."
-This alone assures us that our words don't even come close to describing who He is and what He is capable of. Isn't it a comfort knowing that we worship a God that can't be exaggerated?

2) Eternal. Referring again to the Greek meaning, eternal means "without beginning and end, everlasting, never to cease." The best part about this awesome eternal quality that our God has is that it is changeless. He is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and end. But yet, through it all, He stays the same.
-"But you remain the same, and your years will never end." - Psalm 102:27
Comforting? I would say so.

3) Omniscient. Not being able to find omniscient on BlueLetterBible.org, I looked up "to know" instead and it means "to understand fully, being certain of." So if we add all- to the front of that, well it just makes it like 10000x better. Understanding, and comprehending for that matter, that God knows everything is taking a big step into trusting His timing, His plan, and His reasons. It also gives such a sense of protection and eliminates such a huge amount of worry and stress from the lives of those who truly believe that He is capable of completely providing for and protecting them.

4)All-powerful. Powerful in Greek means "strong, mighty; firm, sure." With that, I think to myself, "If God is firm and sure in all that He does, who am I to question Him?"
-God doesn't owe us an explanation for what He does and why He does it. Who are we to ask Him what's He's doing. I think He has it under control...

So with this said, God is great. He is Perfect.

We are but just a mist. We "are not."

Balancing Is Harder Than It Looks

5 hours in the library + 2 packs of notecards + grande pumpkin chai latte = my afternoon

I realized today how much effort I put into studying for tests - outlines, notecards, reading, memorizing, re-reading, taking notes - it's quite a task. I know I probably don't need 2 different outlines, mulitple copies of the same information, and a mass amount of notecards that could have saved quite a few trees. But I do it anyway...why? The only reasoning I can find is that I want to be sure I catch EVERYTHING. I don't want to miss any one piece of information that could be of any significance. Fair enough right? That's just called being diligent. My parents would probably be super proud of me reading this right now.

But I'm not proud of me.

I see how much effort I put into learning, analyzing and comprehending all of the information for my health study classes, but why can't I do that when I read my Bible?

I'm being diligent in my studies, but am I being a diligent disciple?

Occupational Therapy is great, but God is Greater. The anatomy of the human body is interesting, but God is Captivating. So why can't my bed look like this desk during my quiet times...(not literally)

My point is, if something like school can get my attention like this...don't you think I should be giving God that times 10? I should. God is quite an awesome dude. During my 5 hour community health test preparation today, He finds a way to slip a thought like this into my head and convict me about it.

I'm not saying I'm going to BlueLetterBible every single verse I read during my quiet times, but what I am going to do is dive deeper. Read the verses for more than their surface appearance. Knowing the history, context, audience, place, etc. that the scripture was written will expose so much more to its reader, me.

"Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds."
- Proverbs 27:23

-It is clear God wants us to be diligent in our callings. But...

"But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."
-Hebrews 11:6

He wants us to diligently seek Him. We can't diligently seek this world and Him with the same amount of effort. He must get more.