Tag: 2 timothy

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Just NOW!

Have you ever re-watched your favorite TV series? When I first drafted this post I was on my third round of New Girl and now I am currently on round two of Gilmore Girls. Why do we re-watch TV shows? We already know the outcome, how each character develops and where life takes them. Their mistakes and wins. AND that is precisely why we (or at least I) re-watch TV shows. We get to play God or at least feel God-Like.

While in my current reality, my idea of God’s plan may not be playing out how I thought He wanted it too (or really how I wanted it too), So I load up Netflix.  I do that for two reasons: to escape my unknown reality and because I am satisfied knowing that each character’s life will turn out fine. I no longer have to worry, I just sit back and become apathetic with the time God has given me.

For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

2 Thessalonians 3:7 (ESV)

I know I am not the first to experience this desire to take God’s role away from Him. Jonah certainly wanted to stay in his home town rather than preach where he was called. Abraham and Sarah took God’s plan into their own hands. The funny thing is that even after we have played all our cards, striving for our own plan or what we think God’s plan is, He knew the hand we were dealt before we made a move. Our lack of trusting and obeying Him was already worked into His plan. God uses it all to bring us right back to Him.

For example: Over the summer I was rapidly growing nearer to God and then I moved to Manhattan, Kansas and it felt as if He didn’t move with me. I felt terribly lost and confused and uncertain that He would actually want this for me. I tried to figure out his plan rather than accomplish His plan with Him. After wrestling with this reality for awhile, I came to the conclusion that I must do life with God not for God.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.                                                                                                               

2 Timothy 4:7 (ESV)

I could blame my growing up in the technology era or I could admit that its human nature to want what I want now. God’s time doesn’t work in the constraints of 24 hrs, 1 week, 3 months, or 5 years. He works outside of our understanding and timing. Although striving to figure out God’s plan tends to be our default, bringing on stress and a lack of living in the moment, this is one puzzle you can never solve.  However, you and I can be with God everyday. Lean into Him and find out what He desires for TODAY. When we focus on today and enjoy each moment, we gain an abundance of peace.

Matthew 6:25-34 Reminds us of God’s daily love and longing for us to trust in Him. If God takes care of the birds of the air and flowers of the fields, He most certainly will give you all that you need, which exceeds your wildest dreams. He cares so much for us that we can experience a simple,  yet pleasant, over-flowing joy in Every. Single. Moment.

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Construction Zone: Slow Your Heart for God

I couldn’t repair your breaks, so I made your horn louder” – Mater from Cars

Have you ever gone for a drive but then there are traffic cones everywhere? Your Sunday drive has become a dodge of all the construction equipment, workers, cones and holes.

Have you ever considered that YOU are a construction zone??

Well let me be the first to say I didn’t think of myself that way until the other day when I was driving around town. There were orange cones everywhere. God was like “Hey, you’re a construction zone”.  In a world of plastic surgery and diet plans, you may think this is a cosmetic article.You’re wrong….I’m talking about the inner you.

Last November I started to be discipled. When I started, I thought that by the end I would be this perfect person, employee, friend and future spouse. Then this summer I started an internship at a church and thought after THIS I will be the perfect person, employee, friend and future spouse.

I was wrong…

You see when we read Gods word, sharing studies with each other, that’s the construction equipment; holes are areas that God intends to reveal to us. But, he doesn’t reveal them all at once, otherwise we would get stuck in the hole. Cones are things that God has said no more to or not yet. And workers are everyone you encounter, whether a family member, fellow employee, neighbor down the street or a long lost friend. Each of these aspects are in place to help us grow on the inside.

2 Timothy 4 English Standard Version (ESV)

Preach the Word

4 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sounda]”>[a] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. 

The take away is, don’t be discouraged but INCOURAGED!! you have come this far and GOD will continue till He calls you home. You just have to be willing to do what is seemingly unpopular and uncomfortable so that on that day you will hear, “Well done good and faithful servant”