Trust and Control

So come on and sing out
Let our anthem grow loud
There is one great love Jesus

 

Singing these lyrics to DCB's O, For a thousand tongues to sing at Impact, God really opened my heart to his love once again. "There is one great Love Jesus" This one line sent me into many other thought patterns. One was He wants good for me, not harm. And how I really need to start believing this fully. We have been studying through Matthew in lifegroup lately. And it is amazing how this set of verses have have read so many times, been taught on, and even written about previously has been challenging me:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

    “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!  -Matthew 7:7-11

The importance of asking my Father has been important to me lately. I want to live in God's good, perfect and pleasing will (Romans 12:2) even in the desires of my heart being his desires. However have been having trouble giving him complete control over the giving of gifts to me as I am asking. For example: In regards to a husband: I really do desire a man God would have for me, however when I pray and ask; I put limitations or have doubt, which goes back to not believing fully he will give me a good gift in marriage. This doubt goes back to not trusting him fully and not being able to freely give him control over this and other parts of my life. If I trusted him and that he knows how to give good gifts as in Matt. 7 then I should have no trouble giving him complete control over who, when, where, how etc in regards to my future and husband selection.

My prayer this week is to let Matthew 7:11 penetrate my heart, and I can already tell a huge change and such great Love I feel from my Father reminding me of this great truth, and opening my heart to it.

 

Wanting Control of our lives has to do with our trust, Trusting God allows us to give him control, so as our trust increases, so does the ability to increasingly give him control.

God's Provision: Part 2- Material

    “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11)

 

Part 2 of God's Provision is being written so far after Part 1 due to me not trusting in the Lord. My Confession time: I wrote Part 1 with Part 2 already in my mind, however I was thinking that God was about to fulfill another desire of my heart, and answer another long term prayer that I could add to this blog. Well this was not happening and then turned into it was not going to happen in the way I had planned it to. I put off writing this due to being upset, and still secretly hoping that God's mind would change on this matter. It was selfish, and that is very clear to me now. God knew what was best, that is what he did, and once again I am still the learning child. Which is a good place for me to be. Now praying to continue to learn obedidence to him out of love and respect.  

 

There are many things each of us ask God for, however many times others ask us how God is answering our prayers, and we respond well he isn't but that is what is best for us in that moment. But this is not true. God does answer us and provides for us daily/hourly/minutely, its just we either aren't listening, don't like the response, or forget about the blessing or "Yea, God!" moments due to not sharing them immediately with others. Sharing "praise reports" has started to be a weekly thing in my lifegroup. This is a blessing, which has added to not only share what God is teaching us, what we are struggling with, but also sharing how God is providing for use. Such encouragement for our faith. 

 

Some fun provisions, praise reports, or "Yea God!" moments (whichever you prefer):

• God has provided 2, yes 2, new small group leaders to join with me to minister to the huge group of 40, 6th grade girls. what a blessing! These women love the Lord, and I am so honored to be coleading with them. And I do think there will be one more joining us soon. This was a huge prayer request the last few months, as no one had stepped up, and I was hoping for someone to step up that I enjoyed being around and we worked well together in ministry with our believes and teaching styles. God provided all of this and so much more. These women are wise, trusting, and are super excited about getting to know each of these girls individually. 

• A new lifegroup leader was a prayer request for awhile. Our lifegroup had grown so close together and was growing closer to Christ, and our leader felt a call to move to Honduras. However that left us without a leader. Syd and I got together with Paul and Debbie to pray and discuss this, and they had an idea that had not even crossed Syd nor my mind, on who God might be planning to lead our group. There was a life group lead by Mark S and his wife Nicolle which was currently looking for a host home, and our group was looking for a leader so potentially they could combine. WOW! Mark S. and Nicolle only frequent Impact when Mark is speaking, so they had not even crossed our minds. I was super excited about this one because I knew it had to be a suggestion actually from God not Paul due to the novelty of it. 

The greatest thing about all these provisions was that in my head I was trying to figure out how God was going to provide for each of these needs in the only possible scenarios that could happen, however all of these people were not even close to on my radar to fulfill these needs. Once again how awesome is our God! he can create out of nothing, or provide even better than our own thoughts on what his provision should be. 

to end it......

"YEA! GOD"

 

God's Provision: Part 1- Knowledge

² May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. ³ By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. ⁴ And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. -2Peter1:2-4

On Sunday, I was driving home from an amazing weekend at Lakewood Retreat Center from camp with Baylife's middle school. I had just been stretched and challenged by a group of entering 6th grade girls. Sidenote: They are going to be a group of girls who love the Lord and are unstoppable as they get older, because they are already seeking God so well. Anyways, so I am driving home, praying thanksgiving over the whole weekend, and the provisions which I will talk about next time, and God smacks me with thoughts about other blessings he has given me.
Are you ready for this? It totally blew my mind, and as I have been talking to others about it, it has just grown into delighting so much in my Lord. So here it is.... God has revealed desires of my heart, and glimpses of my future in his perfect timing. Yes this thought is not completely radical. In Christianese, we hear all the time God's timing is perfect and he will provide for us everything (Matthew 6:19-24). And we spit these nice sayings out to our friends in need, but ultimately completely trusting the Lord in this, when we feel we haven't gotten everything we need, want or I dare say it think we deserve (this is a whole other discussion in itself). God's timing in revealing this: that he will bestow upon me knowledge of the many unknowns in my life when he wants, is so important and I am grateful for this thought process he gave me. My prayer is that I will continue to trust in that he will reveal in his perfect timing his plans for me.

Here are a few examples:

I have always been sure that I would want to work full time at my career. Not in a feminist type of way, but I enjoy working, and my job I get to minister to families in a giving way. However in the last year, my desire has been transforming into, one of it would be ok one day for me to be parttime and stay at home to care for a family or to do more volunteering. Now this is a radical change in my way of thinking, that could have only have come from the Lord because I have always been taught about having financial security, etc and to work hard for what you have. I know this change came at the perfect timing in my life, because if this would have been my desire to only work parttime in my life, then I most likely would not have gone to grad school to become an occupational therapist. And I love my job, and I moved to the city I am in now only for my job, and if I wouldn't have moved to this city I wouldn't have found my lifegroup, and wouldn't have had the opportunity to build the friendships I have now. And these friendships are amazing because they are based on accountabilty, trust, and a solid foundation of Christ centeredness. WOW! So one little glimpse too early from the Lord could have changed a lot of my life.

Second, since I have been working as a pediatric OT, I have a huge desire to adopt children one day (after marriage). I have always wanted to have a family, however never really considered adoption. We have so many foster children, who are amazing I treat and they just need a great home to be loved in. This provision is different from the first, in that, my life choices would not have been changed by having this glimpse too early, however I think God was protecting my heart so I wouldn't have this desire for too long. Which could have lead to anxiousness. If God would have revealed this to me when I was 15, and I am now 25, that would have been 10 years already that I would have had the desire to adopt kids, and in that I am not dating anyone right now, I still have sometime before I will be married and able to adopt. So that would have been a long time to have this desire, unfilled.

1st blog ever....

As of right now, this is only going to be a private blog for me to write my thoughts, and remember insightful bits of wisdom that God has given me recently. And maybe one day, I will allow other to read this, and so this is why I am writing this first post. I am so super excited about what God has been teaching me this past year, and want to try and retain as much of it as possible for myself and others, so this is my attempt at this. Tomorrow will be posting at 2 part blog on God's Provision Part 1: knowledge, Part 2: concrete. Stay tuned!!
P.S. Please notice my exclamation marks at the end, this is still foreign and very forced but my friends make fun of me for lack of emoticons or punctuation so this is my small attempt for them :-)