Good morning! While my intention with this blog was to share my journey and prayerfully help someone else, im finding it hard to find the time to get on here. Iv heard you have to post 3 times a week to keep followers but i dont know if thats going to happen at this season in my life. My focus right now is on my Father in heaven. We were talking in bible study yesterday about our attitude toward God. About how when we hear someone has a word for us from Him ( which YES, still really happens ) we automatically get afraid and say Oh no, whats it going to be. Someone had a dream about me and they were sharing it with me and right away i was afraid that i was going to make this really bad decision and be in all kinds of trouble. But doesn't the Spirit of our Father speak, express Himself, and move to serve for some purpose. Doesnt the scripture say the gifts or the expressions of the Holy Spirit whether they are tongues, prophecy, words of wisdom etc...are for building up and edification. Even if they may not be pleasant, shouldnt we instead of going all doom and gloom on Jesus, be thankful for the heads up! I dont see anywhere in scripture where it was the way of our Father to show us our bad choices to come just to make us afraid. I do though, see time and time again where God says Hey, listen up, turn back to me or this is what's going to happen. Speaking to serve and keep us out of trouble. So my practice starting yesterday is to constantly be remembering that my Father loves me- which really is a foundational belief we have to have, or how can we ever trust Him. Isnt that why He got angry with them in the wilderness? Because they were always putting Him to the test and they never came to know His ways. They never came to know Him as their dad. Right away ( like me ) they are freaking out at the edge of the red sea. Never mind the amazing things they had just watched God to in egypt with the plagues, passover and oh ya, and everyone in egypt giving them all their money and stuff to get them to leave. Then God, our Father, parts the sea for them to walk through on dry land - not even any muddiness or anything and He then swallows up their enemies with the water. You would think that would be all they needed to ever experience about our Father to never doubt Him again. Nope! Right away, they are grumbling about food and water and moses bringing them out there to die and how they wished they could go back to egypt so they could eat whatever they wanted! Are you kidding me??!! Most of us would love to see those things, those miracles. And most of us probably believe that if we only could see those things we'd be able to believe in Him and trust Him. Iv thought it, havent you? But, i dont think so. And God says of them: they never came to know My ways. They never came to know He loves them. They didnt come to know that He would never leave them, that He would provide all that they needed and they never came to know He was out for their good. They believed He would let them starve, and even when He gave them bread from heaven which is a beautiful picture of Jesus, they missed that part and complained because they wanted meat. They believed He would let them starve, dehydrate, not protect them and just let them die out there in the wilderness. How can that be? How could they ( and us too ) be so unconvincible in their hearts about His love and good plans for them? After all He did and they saw in egypt, how could they not come to know His ways? Well, thats what im working on. And im certainly glad they are in there, because ofcourse we all mess up and yes, He does have patience and grace with us. But the scripture says they are an example to us of how not to be. Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts like they did in the wilderness where they tested Him for 40 years. There is a foundational truth that comes actually even before Christ dying for us. We all know it, most of the world probably even does. John 3:16 For God so loved the world...He loved us first and as an act of love and to show His great love when we were in our worst possible state He didnt just leave us out there to die or fend for ourselves.He didnt just say to adam and eve: well you blew it for the whole world, now im not going to help you go deliver yourselves. No, He took on the whole responsibility on Himself of covering us so that we could come back into His presence. Even if He never did another thing for us, dont we have the single most greatest picture of love demonstrated ever in Christ's death for us? Isnt that enough to never doubt His love and kind intentions for us? That -alone- should be. Father, help us to come to know your ways. Just like we know and are so familiar with the ways of our friends, husbands, wives and parents, may we spend time with you, look to you , have the courage to believe You are who You say you are. And may we strive to rest in Your faithfulness and in Your beautiful and undeserved love for us. I hate to end with this, but Im reminded of a scripture i think in jeremiah where God talks about how the people will go out of their way and strive to look for a lover and isnt that true? Remember when we first got married how we all were? Or even before we knew Christ? How you would give up food, sleep, tv time or whatever to talk to or be with that person. If we could just turn that attention toward God and seek Him with that same intensity in our hearts we would be less afraid and rest knowing He is our Dad and He's watching out for our good. This wasnt at all what i intended to write about this morning but i did pray Jesus would guide my hand and thats what came up. I will try to post again in a few days because i want to share some of the great things He is doing for us. :)