In Times of Adversity

Every single one of us has been through something tough. Because of these hardships every single one of us has questioned Gods love and power. Through my times of trial I have realized we must understand why we must suffer these times in order to be able to overcome them.
Sin has been on earth as long as the first people have been. As soon as sin started so did suffering. God was ultimately in control of Adam & eves fall but he allowed them to sin. Why? So we would be capable of loving Him. If we were created to be Gods puppets, unable to choose sin, our love for him wouldn't be voluntary. And if love is involuntary its not love at all.
I don't know if any of you are parents but sometimes we allow our kids to make mistakes. As hard as it is, we watch it happen. I allow my kids to do this because I know that if I rescue them from everything they wont be very successful when they're older. Similarly a lot of times we create our own suffering because of our own sinful choices. If the lord tried to rescue us from these actions in order to prevent our suffering we never would develop into mature believers.
As believers in Christ we will always have an enemy. Unfortunately our enemy is very strong, sometimes stronger than us, and we will always be under attack by him. Satan is out to destroy our lives and our testimonys, making us weak and useless for God.
Ultimately God is in charge of all adversity that comes our way. To deny His involvement contradicts His Power and sovereignty over creation.
For us to accept that God allows, and even sends afflictions we must see adversity His way. As believers were assured that no adversity comes our way unless He can use it to achieve His good purposes.
Reading:
Isaiah 45:5-10
Reflect:
Is your focus on the pain of the experience or the Lord and His faithfulness?
Next time you feel Gods not there do you feel these points may help you?

Keeping Whats Yours

My families home has been robbed. Not only did they take physical things, but they took our right to feel comfortable and safe in our own home. While these thieves took just about every thing we own, we have we still have our scriptures, our savior, our church and each other and that is what matters.
Because I myself have never been stolen from until now, I never realized how much it really does affect a family. They stole from us physical things, including things from my young kids and they stole a feeling that I don't know that we will ever get back.
I know that God has a plan. I know that for some reason He aloud this thief to take from us and this is a part of a greater plan. As a family we have really been focused on readings about thieves, stealing and robberies today and it has helped us to be calm and know that these thieves will be stopped for God has given us this information through His word.
Reading:
Exodus 20:15
Deuteronomy 24:7
Matthew 6:20
Reflect:
Have you ever been stolen from?
If so did this weaken or strengthen your faith in God?
How do of you think God may use a robbery as a part of his greater plan?

Showing Others Christ

Sometimes I feel that it's hard for me to discuss God with others and I know this is really bad. I should never be ashamed of embarrassed and if anything I should be looking for someone to teach about Jesus, but I don't!
Today's reading helped me find strength in converting others because of what an impact it had on Paul and Silas to show Christ to others.
I personally need to focus on not worrying about what others think as only worrying about what God thinks. Since I have started this blog I have learned that this is my biggest weakness in my walk in God. I am so focused on earthly things that I realize soon enough I have forgotten about the heavenly things which are what really matter.
Reading:
-Acts 16:23-36
Reflect:
-Are you focusing on God and what He wants from you or are you focusing on what people here on Earth want from you?
-If you are doing the latter what can you do to change this?
-Are you voluntarily spreading the word of the Lord as often as you can?
Goal:
I personally am now making it a goal to spread Gods word to at least one person per day. Whether it be someone in the store or a person on the street I will reach out his hand because I know God wants to work through me.

Overcoming obstacles.

Sometimes I feel that my prayers are never answered. I feel that I pray and pray for the same struggles to be overcame and they never are. Sometimes I sit there and cry for hours upon hours about how unfair life is. And most times I feel that God, as good as He has been to me, doesn't always make things "easy."
We can see an example of this in Judges. Gideon was an Israelite who prepared to fight the Midianites, the task seemed impossible but God told him he'd give him a decisive victory. After that Gideon put together an army of 32,000 but God said with that many men the Israelites might get the credit for winning and forget about God, so after several times of lessening his army Gideon was left with only 300 men. Talk about not having an easy obstacle! In the end though, Gideon's tiny army ended up defeating the intimidating midianites.
During this story I can't help but feel that God made Gideon's battle so difficult that the people had to trust him. I believe that God does the same thing inside many of us. He makes our day to day battles sometimes so difficult that we have to trust Him and provide Him with the victory after we overcome our struggles. Gideon and his army had to rely on God, not on their own strength, in order to have a victory.
Instead of relying on your own strength, what If you asked God to remind you that he's with you all day, in every problem and every fear? What if you no longer had to had behind false strength? You might start to see things like Gideon did. You'd see God as a whole lot bigger than you thought and you'd see your obstacles as a whole lot smaller than they seemed.
Reading:
Judges 7:1-24
Reflect:
-Do you allow God to have the victory or do you try to battle them yourself?
-How can you allow God to take your obstacles and win them for you?
-In order to be like Gideon what changes do you need to make in your life?

Humbling Ourselves

One thing I have never quite understood is why people feel the need to make themselves so "mighty and powerful." People allow fame, looks, intelligence, anything really, to go straight to their head. Many young people are afraid of who to be seen with because of their own reputation.
On top of that sometimes its just simply hard to do the right thing. How many of you see a homeless person and offer him food or money? How many of you clothe him? What about let him into your home? Many of us ignore these demands from Jesus because we chose to decide they're not for us or we have more earthly things to worry about. Is our greatest rewards our possessions on Earth? No, they are our treasures in heaven. By humbling yourself and allowing yourself to help people who you may feel are lesser than you, you will be rewarded. Maybe not right away, maybe not even in this life. But, these are the things Jesus sees. It doesn't matter what others think of you or that you may lose your sense of power by humbling yourself. This is exactly how Jesus wants us to live.
Do you think He would consciously drive by a homeless person? No.
Reading:
-Luke 14:1-14
Reflect:
-Are you a humble person?
-What do you do, or don't do, that needs to be changed in order to humble yourself?
Goal:
-Let's all do something to humble ourselves today. We could take a homeless person into our home or clothe/feed him. We could serve at a local soup kitchen. Anything that is normally out of our comfort zone, these are things we should all be working on.