I Want You To Experience...

..the riches of your salvation: the Joy of being loved constantly and perfectly.

Well. If this entry doesn't speak to some of my biggest struggles and downfalls as well, I don't know what does. And yet, this entry is telling us NOT TO FOCUS ON THAT. What?

I have the tendency to think that if I do not fix myself - break my bad habits, figure out the right path on time, say the right thing, where the right outfit - that my life will not work out the way that I want it to. Let's see who can find the most things wrong with that statement, shall we?

Okay girls, I am convince that if we do not get this, we will have no way of breaking away from the chains of this world and even the chains that can come with religion. I think that Sarah is pointing out a few things here:

1) We do not need to earn God's love. Never. Ever. So we must stop focusing on trying to earn His indescribable love by looking better or reading the Bible more. Now this idea is kind of confusing to me, because I tend to start thinking, 'Well, but if I read the Bible more then I can be closer to God, right?' This is true, but this has nothing to do with God's love for us. Our feeling of closeness to Him or our resemblance to Him has nothing to do with His love for us. He already loves us. Rest and enJOY that!

2) "When you feel discouraged, you tend to look inward so you can correct whatever is wrong." We must go to God with our discouragement. He is much better at fixing it, whether that means fixing us or fixing up a situation. He is better at this than we are, and we are given the privelage of allowing Him to do it!

3) "Rather than using your energy to judge yourself, redirect it to praising Me." Here comes to answer of wisdom of how to get closer and remain close to Jesus: thankfulness. Our God deserves praise constantly, and praise does a crazy thing - it takes our gaze off of ourselves, off of negativity towards a situation or circumstance, and off of hopelessness. God gives us this day so that we can fix our gaze on HIM, and then wait in expectation for His hand.

I think that the trouble that a lot of people (Christians and non) have with this is that it is hard to imagine that God - whom we don't techinically see, hear, etc. - would be able to take care of things. That we would be able to trust Him enough to handle the concerns we have of this world. But it is painted all over the Bible and in people's lives around us that God does indeed prove that He can be trusted with any and everything. And the effect that that sort of trust has on us is not that we suddently feel as though we can sit back and watch TV all day while He works around us, but on the contrary - this trust in God Almighty enables us to go about our days in radical acts of love and boldness, knowing that all is well because our GOD is in control. "I can't" is replaced with "He is able."

Let's fix our eyes on Christ instead of on ourselves and then watch how God gives you everything you need to live for Him! Peace, JOY, wisdom, strength... etc. etc. etc. It is all Jesus Christ, our Savior, and we can trust Him for everything.

(I'm not sure why, but my computer won't let me upload a picture. Imagine a picture of Aladdin asking Jasmine to trust him to go on the magic carpet ride. haha)

love you girls!!