Romans 14:22-23

"So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin."

We all try to avoid actions forbidden by Scripture, but sometimes Scripture is not always black and white, until the Holy Spirit speaks.. Then we should follow His voice. "Everything that does not come from faith is sin" means that to go against a conviction will leave a person feeling guilty or with an uneasy conscience. When God shows us something is wrong for us, we should avoid it. But we should not look down on other Christians who exercise their freedom in those areas. People have been giving me a hard time lately about my convictions, and I don't know if they believe I look down on them because our convictions differ. That is the furthest from the truth. God has given me such strong convictions in areas because I am so very weak. He revealed to me the distance I need to keep from certain things, and things I need to completely abstain from. I try with all of my heart, and it is not always easy. If I'm asked about my convictions, I discuss my reasoning based on Scripture. I care about others, and I think that sometimes my convictions could be beneficial to them, but God is the only One who changes hearts. With my convictions I'm going to be bold and not timid, but also loving and not condescending.

A wife of noble character is her husband's crown (Proverbs 12:4)

"A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life."
Proverbs 31:10-12

God has been burdening my heart about marriage lately. He's shown me what He desires for me and has asked me to wait. A man worth waiting for is only going to be found by a woman who waits. Last September God asked me to allow Him to write my love story. So I gave over my pen, and in no way do I want to take it back. I love how God teaches us. I can see the blocks He's been building on for the past year. Not only has He been teaching me what His Word says about marriage, He's been teaching me what His Word says about faith. Both are about trust, one of my greatest struggles. To trust in Him is one of the greatest barometers of spiritual growth. He has been changing my misconceptions about marriage for almost a year now. I have been given so much grace in this area of my life. I am not a wife of noble character. I am not deserving of God's plans for marriage and children. He is way too good in teaching me, and He is way too good in keeping me until the time is right. I do not understand, as always, why me?

I love how He has been Papa in this area of my life. He's making sure I am complete, and I am whole. Like a Father, He's making sure everything is perfect. I've learned that if we don't discover who we are in Christ we will go back and uncover who we were apart from Christ because the flesh always gravitates towards what is familiar and the Spirit toward the unfamiliar. If we try to build intimacy with another person before we have done the hard work of becoming whole on our own in Jesus, then all of our relationship will become an attempt to complete ourself, and that sets us up for failure. Completion is Jesus' responsibility. We were not created to complete one another, but to complement another. It is my privilege! A husband can be a great guy, but he makes for a lousy god. When we look for a man to be anything more than a faithful yet flawed man, we are setting ourselves up for failure. A husband is not meant to be a woman's source of love, joy, peace, etc. God never intended for a man to be everything I needed-that is an idolatrous mentality.

He's shown me the difference between expectations and ideals. They are not the same. Ideals are taken from God's Word and are God's standards for men and women. Expectations flow from what we think we deserve in a certain situation. Pride fuels our expectations because pride is an overinflated view of what we think we deserve in life. I have to remember that I am perfectly forgiven; I am not perfect. And the ideal man is neither perfect nor flawless. Jesus was the only flawless man. Therefore, every man has flaws. The difference between one flawed man and another is what he does with his failures. An ideal is a man who is qualified to help me obey God. If he loves me he will help me obey. An ideal a man will be running at the same pace as me in the direction of Jesus. He will allow me to continue in the direction of my life adventure designed by God. He'll allow me to stay in my racing lane, but he'll run with me as an encouragement. He has his own identity, and it is in Christ alone.

God is more concerned with who I am, then who I am with or what job I have, or anything else. My eternal security has to be found underneath the wings of Almighty God before I can ever rest underneath the wings of a godly man. I have to be a woman that is ready and willing to attend to others needs. I have to be strong in biblical character. I have to make trust a daily practice. I have a daily choice to believe truth or exchange it for a lie. I have to be willing to be pliable to be molded into the godly woman God desires me to be. I have to allow God to create in me a submissive heart and spirit. I have to allow God to bring me to the place where Scripture takes root, and I reflect Christ in my marriage. I have to be at a place where I love God and my husband for who they are, not for what they give me. I have to be a wife now who guards her heart, taking all thoughts and motives captive to Christ.

A wife of noble character is honored, righteous and morally upstanding. Her husband has full confidence in her. She does him good, not evil, allthe days of her life. It's beginning to love him now-that is esteeming him more important than me. It's giving him all of me. My presence is a gift. My conversation is a gift. My hopes, dreams and fears are a gift. My hugs are a gift. My kisses are a gift. My heart is a gift.

Sometimes I get made fun of because I give the Sunday School answer, and sometimes I get teased because I take the Word of God to heart. I cannot help my convictions though. I cannot take one part of the Bible and live by it, but not live by another. What God has been teaching me about marriage, I so desperately want to live by because it is His Word, and it's beautiful. So, if my relationship with my husband is to reflect my relationship with Christ then I need to consider it sacred too. Now. Not later.

grace.

i love how God's grace comes in so many forms.
tonight it came in a conversation with one my bff's.
she doesn't even know it.
in sharing life; in being honest...
therein, lies the grace of God.

"Suffering is an unlikely route to joy."

I know firsthand: anger and harsh remarks rise from an ailing heart. I struggled for many years with saying mean things and reacting angrily to people and situations, especially those I loved. Job 16:3 says, "What ails you that you keep on arguing?" That broke my heart. I was exactly who I had never wanted to become. Suddenly, I understood the source of the angry overflow: past hurt feelings from abuse, injustice, criticism, and rejection--all of these had been pressing on my heart, and the overflow was pungent. Forgiving so many who hurt me has helped my ailing heart get better and my angry mouth and argumentative attitude have become more and more of a distant memory. The past is not an excuse for our present anger, and it never justifies hurting people in the here and now. James 1:19 tells us to "be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry." Suffering can be a source of anger. Our trials and suffering should escort us deeper into God's heart and Word. We should consider what we might learn through suffering, and what God might want us to unlearn. God showed me a few years ago that when severe pain entered my life, instead of continuing on my journey of faith, I raged in anger toward God and pulled away. Many, if not most, of us do the same at one time or another. Consequently, my faith was shaken. When pain outruns our faith, bitterness enters the soul. I remember reading again a few months ago in an Esther Bible study not to let pain turn into anger. We can be relieved of this when we finally realize the source of all the cynicism that flows into our heart, and when we allow our Redeemer to take it for us. It's about accepting the grace given to us in abundance. It's realizing that we'd rather suffer with God than without Him. In the past few months God has been teaching me a great deal about faith, all different aspects. Faith does not take the pain out of suffering, but faith prevents the infection of despair. A faith-filled person has an unimaginable capacity to face unimaginable suffering. I have learned to let pain pull me toward my Creator and the Cross, rather than away from Him.

homesick.

i hadn't been to wednesday night youth in a month; i was sick, out of town, in destin too late, out of town again. i can't help but be at church whenever the doors are open. or serving. or reading. or praying. or singing out in my car. i felt so good tonight being there in the presence of God and sharing life with the youth. even in my quiet times sometimes i get so frustrated because i cannot get close enough. there's no place i'd rather be.

and tonight i feel so homesick. i just want to see You, Jesus. i just want to be with You. Come quickly.

Love//::verb.

//waiting instead of hurrying//
>showing up when there is no time<
::listening rather than talking::
(forgiving instead of holding a grudge)
**assuming the best**
//choosing kindness rather than anger//
[celebrating instead of envying]
^anticipating needs^
=choosing to be humble=
>never giving up-continuing till the end<

... because of God's grace, failure is never fatal.

i know that you are for me

So faithful, so constant
So loving and so true,
so powerful in all you do
You fill me, You see me
You know my every move
You love for me to sing to you

I know that you are for me
I know that you are for me
I know that you will never,
forsake me in my weakness
I know that you have come now
Even if to write upon my heart
To remind me who you are

So patient, so gracious
So merciful and true,
so wonderul in all you do
You fill me, You see me
You know my every move
You love for me to sing to you

i know that you are for me

--kari jobe

preparation.

I love God’s preparation. I love how He prepares us for the past, present and future. I love how He prepares us for hurts. I love how He prepares us for quiet times and the reading of His word. I love how He prepares us for beauty. I love how He prepares us for conversation. I love how He prepares us for true love. I love how He prepares us for disappointment. I love how He prepares us for the day. I love how He prepares us for friendships. I love how He prepares us for awkward moments. I love how He prepares us for news. I love how He prepares us for deaths and births. I love how He prepares us for marriage. I love how He prepares us for trips. I love how He prepares us for Satan’s cunning ways. I love how He prepares us to stand. I love how He prepares our hearts. I love how He prepares our minds. I love how He prepares us for missions. I love how He prepares us for service. I love how He prepares us for challenges. I love how He prepares us for joys. I love how He prepares us to trust. I love how He prepares us to bear fruit. I love how He prepares us to persevere. I love how He prepares us for faith. I love how He prepares us to forgive. I love how He prepares us to be bold. I love how He prepares us to love. I love how He prepares us for Himself.

Faith to sit still.

I love the moments where I am in such wonder I have no words to describe God and His goodness. No thesaurus would ever be enough. There are no words great enough to describe His awesomeness and the magnitude of His sovereignty. He is unexplainable. He leaves me in speechless awe. All I want to do is gaze at His throne.

I have been on a faith journey all of my life. He’s been building, but it has been subtle. Last September, by His grace, real faith started to leak out, and within the past month He has made it explode. I say this so often, but daily life only gets better with God. Every quiet time I have I say, “This is the best quiet time I have ever had!” Well, today, until tomorrow I am going to say, “This is an unsurpassed quiet time!” Today’s quiet time I felt like was 2-fold: I learned more about the seriousness of a covenant, and I learned a different aspect of faith.

Today I was reading in Genesis 27, the account of Jacob receiving Esau’s blessing through trickery. I have read and heard Genesis 27 on numerous occasions, and I have always wondered why couldn’t Isaac just take it back since he had really given it under false conditions. But today I realized that the Hebrews understood blessing to mean much more than Gentiles did (do). I began to understand this through reading also in Joshua. Joshua had made a treaty of peace with the Gibeonites. But he had done so without coming before God first. Often when new situations arise we forget to seek God’s wisdom and guidance first. When we learn the lessons of the past and apply them to today we save ourselves a lot of trouble. But a covenant before God is not to be broken. So, they had given an oath by the Lord. Ancient devout Hebrews never used the name of God haphazardly. So, although in Joshua it was a treaty, and in Genesis it was a blessing, both used the name of the Lord for the binding of the agreement; therefore it could not be revoked.

Isaac could have begun fretting over what had happened, or He could just trust God. Isaac was commended for his faith. Hebrews 11:20 says, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to the future.” He trusted in God’s sovereignty. I know, probably daily, I mix my faith with fretting. But I believe God sees “fretting faith as faithless fretting.” I do not want to be faithless.

Another aspect of my quiet time included how Rebekah played a part in all of this. Before Esau and Jacob were ever born, the Lord spoke to Rebekah in Genesis 25 telling her that two nations were in her womb and that they would be divided; the older would serve the younger. But still when Rebekah heard Isaac speaking to Esau about his blessing, Rebekah interfered and told Jacob what to do to deceive his father. “Rebekah appeared to do exactly what we’re prone to do. She volunteered to help God accomplish His will or fulfill His own prophecy.” God surely dealt with Rebekah’s manipulation. “God’s sovereign plans for the future are based on the foreknown. When Isaac grew old and the time came to pass on the blessing, he chose to respect God’s name and sovereignty even though he had been deceived. Isaac knew God well enough to discern when more might be at work than met the eye.”

Often times in faith, we believe, thus we act. But today I learned what I believe to be the harder facet of faith: when faith requires us to do nothing at all, while our human nature screams to interfere. Therefore, we believe, so we do not act. We gain wisdom in knowing the difference between the two.

Jesus trusted in the sovereign plan of God—by not acting on various occasions. In Matthew 26, when Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss, Jesus had the power to act, but He did not because He knew God’s perfect will. And again in Matthew 27 Jesus had the power to act when He hung on the Cross. Insults and sarcasm were being hurled at Him. He had the power to get down from the Cross and He had the power to call on the name of the Father, yet He did not act. He trusted in God’s absolute plan for Him and for us.

Today has shown me even more my need for God’s wisdom and empowerment to trust, wait, sit still and to not act. It is a challenge we cannot accomplish on our own. While praying and reading I was reminded of Matthew 26:41, “The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Praise God we have His Spirit!