Faith: a sign of weakness or empowerment

         I was talking with a fellow engineer yesterday about the difficulties regarding faith, how some believe we are weak if we have faith in something. She made some valid points: we have faith in things everyday – we believe we are going to wake up the next day, we believe if we sit in a chair that it will hold us, if we turn on our sink we will have running water and so on. I agreed but then went on to say what about believing in good and evil and that there is an enemy that we refer to in the Christian community as Satan. This is a much more difficult topic to tackle because there has to be a point in your life where you have experienced the presence of good and evil in a real and powerful way. This is why it makes it difficult to discuss because if someone has never experienced some kind of turmoil, oppressing force or even the feeling of doing something good and seeing the contrast first hand they simply cannot understand what the rest of us are talking about. There are times when I have pulled close to God that I seem to be attacked from every angle –it’s like everything that could possibly go wrong actually does. As I alluded to in a prior post, there was a time when everything was falling apart on every front in my life. It wasn’t long before I got mad at God and the world. In this case, the enemy had won the victory over me – I gave up trying. I remember feeling like a piece of glass which someone picked up and threw on the floor and the pieces had gone everywhere. I remember trying to metaphorically pick up each piece and put myself back together again, which did not work. It was when I truly understood what Jesus had done for me – it was the first real encounter with His love that changed my perspective on life. My faith had been severely beaten up. When I tried to live apart from Him, it was the most helpless and depressing feeling – it was like all the hope had left my life.

         Yesterday, I was introduced to a gentleman who works in a different department than myself; but who is also a Christian. The three of us began talking, only for me to discover we all go to the same church. (very cool!!) The first question he asked me was how I became a Christian – I briefly gave him my testimony at which point he got tears in his eyes and said "it never amazes me what God can do in the lives of those who truly believe". I asked him about his story – he began to tell me that he had been an angry person and he was on the verge of losing his wife before he met Jesus 30 years ago. He said with power and conviction in his voice that Jesus was the one who helped him change and through this change the marriage was saved. He stated that he never has regretted his decision to have faith in God and is still standing firm even to this day.

Isaiah 7:9 b
"If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.”

         I began to ponder, what would be a force of change in someone’s life who has never encountered or experienced God in real and tangible manner? I did not come up with any conclusive answers: except for potentially a life or death health issue. For example: change your diet or you will end up destroying yourself. That would be enough of a motivator to change. How many New Year’s resolutions get broken after a few short days or for even for the fanatic a few weeks to months? Is just living a good life with the morals really enough? Wouldn’t that go under the category of monotonous and leave you questioning why am I even doing this anyway (what is the purpose)? To me there just seems like there has to be more to life – because I have had that real life changing experience. I have seen in my life the power of forgiveness and the healing that it truly brings, I have prayed and have had them answered, I have seen in other people the hope and the true change in their lives when they gave their heart to Jesus. Again, I ask what can make a person truly want to change and have the ability to go against the desires of the flesh apart from God? After all, isn’t it human desire to do what’s best for ourselves and not others? What makes the message of the bible so bad? To live an upright moral life by doing for others before yourself – if you were to imagine a group of people like this it would make for a very kind and generous society.

Proverbs 16:6
"Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the LORD evil is avoided."

So are we really raving lunatics? Ok so admittedly, there are some… HAHAHA but that is not the majority!!!!!! Honestly, I wish more Christians would live out what they truly believed because this contrast would be more evident. More people would understand the need for Jesus in their lives and the hope / purpose He brings. However, at the end of the day we are all human and imperfect – none are without fault. It’s up to the individual to find the truth for themselves.

Accomplishing something important or coasting through life

         The other day I was talking to someone whom I bump into on a fairly regular basis. It was an interesting conversation that left me thinking: how is it that some are content to just living the everyday monotonous life and some, like me, are way too ambitious. LOL!! Yes, it should be noted I am a very analytical person. I like to dabble in difficult questions and ideas and I love to be intellectually stimulated. It is difficult when I find myself in a position where I am supposed to be doing something and there is nothing to do. To which this person replied, just do what you have to do and make it look like you are actually doing something important. It was this statement that had me asking the burning question: how many of us live our lives like we are doing something really important when in reality we really aren’t? It was an interesting take on this particular conversation and instantly I could see the life application.

         How many times do we waste our days on frivolous things? I know I am as guilty as anyone on this note! It is an amazing thing how easily distracted I can get. Starting off with good intentions is only the first step, somewhere along the way I realize that I have contracted what I refer to as adult ADD. Before I know it, I have nothing done but a million things started! LOL It’s true I am busy but not doing anything that ends up amounting to very much. I‘ll tell you, since I am on a bunny trail from my original topic – technology is to blame for this! I cannot go anywhere nor do anything without my phone. I have to be connected to many different applications, email and texts it is a terrible addiction. (shhh don’t tell anyone but it really is a guilty pleasure) I am sure this has nothing to do with the onset of adult ADD!! **sarcasm** YEAH right!!! HAHAHA

**Back to the topic, hope you enjoyed the bunny trail. I am sure there are many of you who have the same issue and addiction to technology as I do.**

         For me lately, I have been striving to learn happiness and contentment when I really don’t feel it. (here is the tie into to the above paragraph before the bunny trail…lol) I often times feel like I am busy but not getting anywhere which causes this feeling of unbalance and discontentment. I have never been one of those people who could fake having it all together when in reality I don’t. I was talking to an mature lady last night at dinner about this issue; she always has great advice and biblical knowledge. To which she replied: “sometimes you have to go through the valleys in life in order to reach those mountain tops. There are lessons you need to grasp hold of in the here and now. Quite possibly God is allowing you this experience because every lesson you learn allows you to become closer to whom God ultimately longs for you to be.” There are times when we all need a gentle reminder that God does ultimately know what He is doing – it’s part of the human condition!

         OK here is another ADD moment – a metaphor that just came to me: Everything we go through can be looked at like a stepping stone – the stepping stones of life – take it one stone at a time. Sometimes that may require dodging the stone, sometimes it means RUN especially if it’s being hurled in your direction, other times you have to intercept it and it may be required to face it head on. By no means should you coast through life not paying attention to these “stones” because before you know it, it may hit you upside the head and knock you out. It’ always a good idea to learn from your life’s lessons (stones) and not to reinvent your mistakes!! (I wish more people lived this way!!)

Galatians 6:9: “Let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

         There it was my nugget of truth: in order to go from looking busy to doing something important is to remain faithful and not giving up. Stay on course, even when times are tough, even when it seems like nothing is going right, even if you feel like you’re the only one trying to do the right thing or simply there just doesn’t seem to be a way out. It is coming through a difficult season in life that we truly understand why we had to go through the struggle to begin with. The important thing to keep in mind is the lessons that are being learned along the way. I have always thought if I learn my lessons quickly maybe God will allow me to get to my ultimate destination faster. Although, I must confess, I am not entirely sure if that really works or not because I tend to become impatient or fall off the wagon prematurely at times.  So I will leave this post with a challenge: let’s all try to do something that impacts someone else’s life for the better , make a positive change, a positive choice, smile and laugh more – make someone else do the same, help someone in need….. and not just look busy without a real purpose and go through life monotonously.

College Life, Faith and the Pursuit of Truth

           At first this post idea started out as more a research topic- about the reasons why college students end up walking away from their faith. However, I am going to let my writing take a life of it's own. :) I know in my own personal journey through college - I graduated from a Christian high school then went onto a Catholic university. This was short lived because I really wasn't crazy about the major/ program I was in. Honestly, the Catholic presence was barely existent. It’s presence was felt by each student being required to take 3 classes of philosophy / theology credits. I guess I should be thanking them for that one! I actually learned a whole lot from my philosophy classes. I learned more about myself and why I believe what I believe and for the reasons I do. The theology classes, however, were a much different story! LOL The nun that was teaching (Yes I said a NUN! A little old, nun in a full habit!! She also taught calculus -- ohh that was "fun" -- NOT!!) she must have only read the bible a couple of times, perhaps in her whole life because she always confused the names of the characters and stories. Sometimes it was quite comical and unfortunately there was only a few of us who chuckled at the obvious errors. One such comical error, Lazarus was up in a tree trying to reach Jesus and Zaccheus was the friend who had passed away. (So there was a dead guy in the tree.) It was those of us who were brought up as church goers that really taught that class. It was a good experience when we weren’t annoying her by telling her to look up the story and read it again!  When she was particularly annoyed at us, we would all get writing assignments - so the versed became more knowledgeable and most likely more annoying . You would think she would have caught on. :) hehe

          After leaving Florida, I moved to Boston to finish up my college education. I had been majoring in Biology/Chemistry with several minors. I was just about done with the biology portion and went into engineering technology. I was a bit of a pioneer for my time I guess you can say – I was interested in the field of bioinformatics. Unfortunately, there were only a few schools in the early 2000’s that had this program so I kind of set out to make my own program. It was here in Boston, that I found myself in a completely different environment than I had ever been before. This was the first time that I was on my own and allowed to make whatever decisions I wanted. I was 20 years old in a different state, city and school. No family, no friends, no church- in essence no support system. Talk about a wakeup call!! Yes, it was but I was also very excited about the life I was going to lead. I wanted to be a person who would make a difference. I wanted to go somewhere and be somebody. This was the secular university experience and I sought after. I no longer wanted to be consumed by my Christian bubble I wanted to be relevant to the world around me, which almost thrust me into a whole heap of trouble. It wasn't until I had that in the mirror moment that I asked myself a vital question: Who and what are you really trying to be? I may have been fooling my friends but in my heart I knew I wasn't fooling anyone, especially not God. I only towed the line on certain issues but that was enough of a wakeup call for me. There was a lot of background noise going on in my life at the time with my family; which nearly threatened to destroy everything I had ever known. It was a time of some serious upheaval in a way most people could never imagine. I will never forget my step mom calling me and telling me, with a tearful voice, that she had heard a song on the radio and God had placed me on her heart. She told me she was going to buy me this CD and send it to me. All I can say is that it was the message from God that I needed to hear at the most perfect moment!! The song was God is in this Place. The lyrics of the song were gentle reminders that God knew the sorrow and pain I was going through, he knew my heart and everything I was and more importantly He longed to set me free!! I remember it was at that moment that I got down on my knees and asked God to forgive me for going and living my own way and for blaming Him for everything that had gone wrong in my life. I read a book by one of the guys in the band which ended up having the most amazing impact on my life back then and even today. I got down on my knees after reading this book and made God a lot of promises that I have kept to this day. (only by His grace!) I realized that while trying to live my own life and pushing God to the side my happiness and joy were stripped away from me. I no longer loved to sing and I no longer had a desire to go to church. I more or less told Him to leave me alone and that I didn't need his kind of love. How foolish of me! This downward spiral continued until that day in my dorm room I heard God call to me through music. This music had to first be heard by my step mom, she had to go and by the CD and send it to me in Boston – it went through quite the journey to finally reach me. It was in that moment, I realized that God must really love me to go through all of this trouble. Also, not to mention the numerous times he saved me from myself - from making terrible choices when I had brushed Him aside. He patiently looked for my return to Him. It was in this moment that I experienced God's true, genuine and unfailing love. It’s not the human conditional type of love but the kind of love that no matter what is always waiting for you. I have never been the same since! It should be said -- I don't ever want to go back to that hopeless period of my life, not after I have experienced the freedom and joy that comes with being in the center of His will for my life.
      
          In conclusion, it was while attending secular university that nearly robbed me of my faith. God wouldn’t let that happen and in fact I ended up learning so much about myself, the people around me, lessons on character / values and most importantly the kind of person I wanted to end up being. To me now this experience has been invaluable. It has deepened my relationship with God and allowed me more insight into who He is and also where the church seems to be failing these young people in college. The reason being is that they are not prepared to defend their faith, they are not versed in the truths and common myths - simply said there just isn't enough of a solid foundation to sustain the scrutiny and so they crumble. In addition, when you attend these universities you have access to everything and anything - it's practically handed to you on a silver platter. It takes a very strong individual to abstain from participating in these "extra curricular activities" there has to be a strong sense of right and wrong instilled in a person- this is something I am so greatful to have had instilled in me prior to entering college. It saved me from so much heart ache!! To top it off, you have professors trying to undermine the very nature and existence of God down to nothing.There is an agenda for higher learning- they claim in the name of intellectualism that evolution is the answer to everything. They claim it explains everything while leaving humans with a meaningless existence and they call this enlightenment. But for anyone who has ever studied a cell, DNA or some of the more complicated mechanisms like transcription, translation and duplication of DNA -- and to still say that a few molecules came together to form this highly complex system – it seems to be an impossible assumption!! Yet they claim this is the case -- it is truth. However, we are the idiots for saying so. Thanks to college universities and the doctrines they so willingly shove down our throats and call it truth—this I believe is the reason many college students lose their faith through the whole collegiate experience.

God: All powerful or meaningless by default? The choice is ours!

Although, I have surrendered my life to Jesus many -many years ago; I can see that sometimes it’s hard for me to claim His promises for my life. I have recently come to a profound understanding that God longs to do some really amazing things in our life but we have to be willing to believe - to step out in faith and claim the promises in His word. By doing this we in essence accept His presence in our live in a new and profound way! Seems easy huh? God needs to have that direct line established which is made possible by the Holy Spirit. Then the ground work is set to be a world changer - someone who is the change the world wants to see. However, what has happened? Where are these world changers, apart from the pastors and evangelists? I am seeing lately that this is not just true in my own life but others around me. We seem to diminish God’s power and presence in our lives. We put God in our own little perverbal box and confine Him to only certain part of our lives. It seems to me, that we have a one dimensional way of thinking; in that, if we cannot physically see or touch God we deceive ourselves into thinking He is powerless! There is so much outside the realm of our understanding that we so easily accept on a daily basis; when it comes to God that’s a whole another story.

His ways are not our ways and His way of thinking is not our way of thinking. He is the conception of infinity and beyond. Life’s storms can really beat us up and they take our focus off of Jesus and place it on the adverse event(s).  I think back to Peter, as he stepped out of the boat and walked on water to meet Jesus in the midst of the storm. As long as Peter kept his eye on Jesus, he did not sink. The very moment he looked at the waves crashing around him and not at Jesus - he began an to sink and panic set in. The same is true in our own life if we were to step back and really look at it.


Matthew 14:22-33 (New International Version)

22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. 25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” 29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” 32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

As life’s storms begin to rage – what do we do? Do we go to God and cry out for help? He has every resource imaginable and is just waiting for us to ask – but do we? No, we simply do not. For whatever reason, we try to solve it on our own or go to a friend. Before we know it we are so far away from God. In the process, we end up reaching out to things which take us further away from Him. Guess what, you, your friends, relationships, drug/alcohol or whatever that thing is for you - has very limited resources but God doesn’t! Also, God never destroys us in the process but the things we go to instead of Him have that ability! I propose this next question: how can we be expected to rise above our circumstances: if we never go to the One who can help us or spend time in His word /praying? Right here is where it all falls apart – we end losing our joy, contentment, happiness, peace, love, testimony and even our faith, etc! Why? We did not ask for help whereby living in defeat – our relationship with God then turns into religion, which is powerless due to not seeking Him. This religion is what the world hates! They don’t see a need for it – and you know what they are RIGHT!!! Without the relationship part with God - religion is in fact useless. Let’s challenge one another in love and compassion and let’s watch as God uses us to reach others for His sake – not religion!

Since I ended that last paragraph with challening one another - there is another point I would like to make:
we, more times than not, fail to be held accountable by our fellow brothers and sisters. It’s unfortunate that we too are afraid of condemnation – even with our own. If we can’t be open with each other how are we to live an effective life in the world for Christ? Who will hold us accountable? Who will walk along side and pray with us about our struggles if we don’t share them? How do we live in victory the way God intended us to live? It is in this process we end up living the Christian life in defeat and wonder why.

To start making changes in your life you first you need to ask God to reveal Himself to you  in a new, more powerful way. It’s an amazing thing how our problems often times end up feeling bigger than God truly is. In reality, take the reciprocal of that last statement: God is much bigger than all of our problems. When you are in the midst of some serious termoil the enemy knows how to turn our little feeble human mind around so much so that we can end up blaming God. God is not the maker of problems – humans were given a free will. They have made their own choices since the beginning of time what to do with this free will. The introduction of sin into the world was not God’s intention for His creation but He allowed us to do what we were so bent on doing. As a result, we have consequences for this sin. However, God still loves us even though we constantly go against what we were created for. He demonstrated His love for us by sending Jesus to die as a perfect sacrifice for our sins! This type of love is beyond our own understanding – you have to take this kind of love out of the box in order to truly grasp what God has done for us!!!

This got me thinking: Why is it that we have a hard time accepting God for all that He is and trusting in our creator? I have spoken to a quite a few people over the years who have a hard time believing that God actually loves us. Think about it – if you created something that is a living being, wouldn’t you want to have the ability to interact with it, provide for it so it could thrive in the environment, achieve the tasks for which it was created and know who its creator is? If your creation went off and did something different than what it was designed to do – wouldn’t you still care about it? After all, it’s still your creation and you have a vested interest in it. I think the same is true for God and us as humans. He loves us and He has a vested interest in each of us. He spent time creating and planning every aspect of who we are and He even knows how many hairs are on our head! We are His beloved creation, created with a purpose and through Him we can live victoriously rather than in defeat. However, it’s our choice are we going to open up our hands and hearts to trust a God we cannot see? Are we willing to accept that we do not know what is truly best for our lives? Are we willing to take God out of our own little box to realize that He is way beyond our imagination and that He is bigger than all of our problems? Are we willing to truly TRUST HIM?? Is it such a far stretch of the imagination that we were created with a great purpose? We cannot live the Christian life on our own strength and expect to come out victoriously!!  If we try on our own to achieve our own purpose we will never reach our greatest potential in life. We have to be willing to trust full heartedly in our creator. Living the Christian life goes against everything the flesh of our bodies craves. My question is how many of these craving are really worthy of giving your life to???? How many are strong enough to take the stand with Jesus' help and TRULY impact this world by being the change; whereby showing that God is truly ALL powerful!!

God’s love: The most misunderstood

I was listening to a Nashville radio station on my iphone this morning. They were talking about the story of the prodigal son in the bible. As I was listening –something jumped out at me that never had before. This is a parable that is comparable to the way God views each of us – His children. The son in this story squandered all of his wealth by getting tangled in all of the things this world had to offer. He found himself in complete disarray with not even a penny to his name. The only option left for him was to return to his father and be his servant; at least this way he can eat to stay alive. The part that jumped out at me was that this guys father was looking for his son to return to him. This implies that he was doing so actively with anticipation as if somehow knowing his son would return back to him. How much more does God look for us to return to Him? The father in this story did not judge his son but rather he got the best robe and a ring to put on his finger. He welcomed his son with arms wide open, with no questions asked! For some reason, a lot of people look at God like he is an unloving, hateful and that He is waiting to get us for any bad or unholy thing we do. The truth is he is actively looking for us to return back to Him so he can throw his heavenly arms around us. There are many people who think that God would want nothing to do with them because of the things they have done. Once Jesus was sent to earth, God took out all of the brunt and the consequences of sin and placed it on His beloved Son. Now, there is no sin that can keep you from the Father’s love through His Son Jesus! This story is a direct representation of how God views and looks at us and He rejoices when we come back to him!!

In this link below I placed below - you will see a skit that was performed. The girl at first is in relationship with God and then a man comes and distracts her, sex, love of money, alcohol, drugs and self harm take her away from her Savior. She fights to get back to God against all that is keeping her from Him. Christ continues to draw her to himself. Then Jesus stands in our place of condemnation and frees us from our sin. 

I remember doing these skits when I was in high school and they were such a powerful demonstration to put God's word on display. I hope you take the time to look at this and watch. It brings tears to my eyes every time in the best of ways! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9VfDhKA4p4

Luke 15:11-32 (New International Version)

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”