Truths

My heart has learned several truths over the last few months and I wanted to share them here.

• What it means to be a Christian- I just finished up the Follow Me Bible study. This study was the best one I've ever done. It makes you question your faith and learn if you are truly following Christ. Most of us say that we are Christians, but if we are not living our faith, are we really? Shouldn't it radically change our heart and life? I believe it should.

• Entitlement- This has been bothering me a lot lately. It seems that so many people these days, younger and older generations, believe that everything should go perfectly or how they think it should go. I took this quote from our school Facebook page awhile ago and it pretty much sums up how I feel about entitlement in general:  

"It seems that all parents here are perfect and lead perfect lives and therefore give them the right to do nothing but complain about a slightly less than perfect world. I can only hope that these parents are not spreading this same constant negativity to their kids at home. If you want to wrap your kids in a bubble, then start home schooling them. Just like the last several times, I've heard of zero accidents caused by school being back in session. You all need to go up North for a few weeks. They wouldn't have thought twice about having school with these exact same conditions. And yes, even where I lived up north, we ran limited bus routes at times, had a few buses not start and even a few slip and slide. But guess what...everyone lived. It's called life. My parents always taught me life isn't perfect but sometimes we have to suck it up. This is why our kids are growing up with a sense of entitlement. We live in a world of complainers." 

This was basically about the fact that there was still ice on sidewalks and parking lots. The roads were pretty good by then. Life is not perfect and we should not teach our kids that it should be.

• We don't have to be perfect or this or that to be qualified to share faith- I have read and heard several people saying this lately. It is so refreshing because sometimes we feel that we aren't "qualified" to share, but if you are a Christian, it is what Christ commanded us to do. 

• I've had tons of conviction about spending time with God- this one has been weighing on me a LOT. At the women's conference I attended, we heard from Debbie Stuart who had also spoken at our church recently. She spoke both times about spending 20 minutes with God everyday for the rest of your life. She said there are no excuses and it is something we desperately need to do. We need to find somehow, someway to spend that time with God.

• fear- I struggle with some fears and anxiety. I have been praying so much about this lately because I really don't want to live life in a constant state of fear.

• Life and death go together and we cling so much to this earth, but it's not all about us. Our society focuses so much on "me." We have a hard time seeing the bigger picture. We were created to glorify God and one day join God in heaven. As I get older and am faced more and more with death, I realize how brief our time is here. We literally should be storing up treasures in heaven, but how many of us are truly doing that? I believe that God WILL give us opportunities to share, all we have to do is look for them and ask God to show them to us. A quote from the Follow me study says that we should, sew the threads of the gospel into our lives whenever we get the opportunity. 

• Our lives should be spent spreading the knowledge of Christ, whether that means shipwrecks for us or not. Acts 27:25 “So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as He told me.” Debbie Stuart talked about this in the closing session of the women's conference. Basically, she stated that our shipwrecks may seem devastating to us and we wonder why God would have these things happen. All along, God has a plan and we cannot see the ending but He can. God told Paul to go to Rome, but then he ended up shipwrecking. But during the entire journey, Paul shared about Christ. He encouraged everyone on the ship, he healed people on Malta and pointed them to Christ, and by the time he arrived in Rome, the word had spread about his journey. He was shown favor and not taken to prison and had more opportunities to share his faith. "Paul stayed in his home guarded by a soldier for 2 years and whoever came to him to hear him preach about Jesus he welcomed into his home. Every time someone came to him he freely taught him/her the Good News. The Holy Spirit enabled Paul to use whatever situation he was in to point others to Jesus." http://ministry-to-children.com/paul-arrives-in-rome-lesson/ 

How awesome how God used that shipwreck to reach so many souls! Whenever we go through "shipwrecks," be faithful and trust God and His plan!

• Our to-do list will never be complete. This has become completely clear to me! I keep a running to-do list now, knowing that it will always have something on it. I used to get so worked up trying to complete everything on the list so that it was DONE! There is such freedom in not feeling pressure to have it all done now!