God is Faithful

God Is faithful and will never leave us nor abandon us! Hebrews 13:5b For this, I am most thankful for!! Here recently I took a risk and climbed a steep and dangerous mountain in order to make a better way of life for me and my family...all while only clinging to God for dear life with one hand! My eyes stayed on Him the whole time but my energy, time and passions were fully on reaching the top of this mountain to claim the prize! An earthly prize that would allow us the opportunity to break free from the overwhelming workloads we carry from sunup to sundown, daily. The mountain was a 3 month fitness competition with a large grand prize. (Not that my husband isn’t doing a fabulous job of providing for us but I honestly hate seeing him work so hard running a cattle ranch and working full time) It has been a very hard balance trying to keep God first and unfortunately, most days I failed. Most days I ran out of time and energy to even sit with Him for 5 minutes. I simply kept Him on the sidelines, desperately glancing over to make sure He was still there guiding me and hadn’t abandoned me. Luckily, He knows my heart, luckily He knew how fearful I was of possibly slipping too far away from Him that I would neglect to come back. But once again, He is faithful!! Even though I was holding on with one hand He was holding me with both of His! He will pursue His children when we veer off too far. He will leave the 99 to go after one lost sheep. (Matt 18:12-14) I know because He has come after me before when I had become completely lost in darkness. Now, of course we should never test Him in this nor take it lightly but it is comforting to know that He knows our heart and He knows us very well! He knows our weaknesses first-hand because He became flesh and walked this earth. Experiencing all the struggles we experience (though being God, He did not sin) However, He does sympathize with our weaknesses. (Hebrews 4:15-16) This morning was my first day since the start of the competition in Jan, to get back to my normal schedule. A schedule that allows for some real time with God and I willingly and desperately ran back to my Daddy-God’s arms! I ran to the loving open arms that patiently and willingly took me in and comforted me from the battle I put myself through mentally, physically and spiritually. I hadn’t realized how much I missed Him and my coffee dates with Him!! And the reminder that He is faithful and never left me. He loves me too much! So now, I am eager to see what He is planning to teach me through this whole experience. I am eager to learn if the 3 month break from my spiritual routine was all a bad thing in His eyes or not. Because honestly I am on the fence about it. There was some good that came from it but I know that making something else a priority over God is never good. However, either way, I feel certain He will show me and teach me in the days to come! For starters He has already lead me to a new Bible Study for me to work through with Him, called “Proven” by Jennie Allen. And, like always, it’s perfect timing and perfectly applicable to this current season of my life. Here’s a little glimpse to show the relevance of today’s study in light of this journey...an excerpt from this mornings lesson: “IF I WERE YOUR ENEMY...” by Jenny Allen If I were your enemy, this is what I would do: Make you believe you need permission to lead. Make you believe you are helpless. Make you believe you are insignificant. Make you believe that God wants your decorum and behavior. And for years these lies have been sufficient to shut down much of the church. But now, many of you are awake. You are in the Word and on your knees. God is moving through you, and you are getting dangerous. You are starting to get free and lead other people to freedom. The old lies no longer bind you. So if I were your enemy, I would make you numb and distract you from God’s story. Technology, social media, Netflix, travel, food, comfort. I would not tempt you with notably bad things, or you would get suspicious. I would distract you with everyday comforts that slowly feed you a different story and make you forget God. Then you would dismiss the Spirit leading you, loving you, and comforting you. Then you would start to love comfort more than surrender and obedience and souls. If that didn’t work, I would attack your identity. I would make you believe you had to prove yourself. Then you would focus on yourself instead of God. Friends would become enemies. Teammates would become competition. You would isolate yourself and think you are not enough. You would get depressed and be ungrateful for your story. Or, You would compare and believe you are better than others. You would judge people who need God. You would condemn them rather than love and invite them in. You would gossip and destroy and tear down other works of God. Either way you would lose your joy, because your eyes would be fixed on yourself and people instead of on Jesus. And if that didn’t work, I would intoxicate you with the mission of God rather than God Himself. Then you would worship a cause instead of Jesus. You would fight each other to have the most important roles. You would burn out from striving. You would think that success is measured by the results you see. You would build platforms for applause rather than to display God. Then all of your time and effort would be spent on becoming important rather than on knowing Jesus and loving people. The goals would be to gather followers, earn fancy job titles, publish books, build big ministries rather than to seek the souls of men and the glory of God. And if that didn’t work, I would make you suffer. Then maybe you would think God is evil rather than good. Your faith would shrink. You would get bitter and weary and tired rather than flourish and grow and become more like Christ. You would try to control your life rather than step into the plans He has for you. The enemy is telling you that freedom is only found in finally proving to yourself and to the world that ... you are important; you are in control; you are liked; you are happy; you are enough. We must remember: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). So we have the most epic eternal battle on our hands every moment of every day. But Jesus says, I have come to give you life and to give you life to the fullest. This is a fight for your hope and joy and peace and satisfaction. Strike that. This is full-on war to steal the core of who you are and who you were meant to be. It is a fight for your life. It is a fight for our lives.”