Happy Fourth (a day late)! It was amazing for me to think yesterday what it really meant for us to be celebrating the 4th of July. Not only is it a reason to hang out with friends and family and to watch fireworks, it's a great excuse to thank God for everything that he provides for us. 235 years ago, God gave a group of men the determination and courage to commit treason (an act punishable by death) to write a declaration of independence, and thus create a nation where people could be free. And to this day, he is (almost unfairly) blessing the people of America with everything they need to survive and much, MUCH more. On my way to work yesterday morning, I was just overwhelmed at how blessed I am to live in the United States of America and I just had an urge to share with you all how much we should be thanking God for. So let's try and keep that in mind the next few days as we go through our days. Let's give God the thanks and praise He deserves for the blessings that He gives us every single day!
Anyways, now on to this new project we have started. We're all learning to love other people and God in a way that would please Him more. Our first week's theme is Patience, a very difficult trait to learn. As my pastor likes to say, "asking God to teach you how to be patient is one of the most dangerous things that you can do. Expect a LOT of traffic in the days after that". All joking aside, this is so true. If you ask God for patience, He won't just make you patient right then and there. He will give you lots of chances to practice being patient, so it becomes a habit.
On our journey together, I think that it is important that we stay grounded in scripture, so that we aren't straying from God's actual word. When I was 10 or 11, I got this Bible called "The Student Bible". Inside, it has lots of little "notes" with information pertaining to the scripture that surrounds them, and articles about certain people or subjects that are being addressed. Also, in the back it has an index of topics covered in the Bible, along with exact passages where each topic is mentioned. In an effort to learn more about what God says about patience, I consulted this. The first verse (well, group of verses, really) that it listed was Hebrews 12:1-13. There were three different phrases that really stuck out to me. We're going to talk about the first one today, and the other two in the next couple of days. This is purely because I want to make my posts easy to read, and not too much to handle. Anyways, let's look at verse 1:
"let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
First off, this is saying that we need to get rid of sin, but not only do we have to get rid of it, we have to throw it off. This doesn't imply that it's going to be easy, or that we can just shrug the weight of sin off. We have to throw it off, and get it as far away as possible. Next, we look at the last half of this phrase, the part that tells us we have to "run with perseverance the race marked out for us". Two things about this really struck me. Perseverance-- the race isn't going to be easy. Sometimes we're going to want to quit. But if we keep running with everything that we have, even when we don't feel like it, we'll get to the end, and the best prize of all: eternal life with our Heavenly Father! Also, the race is marked out. We're not running blindly in the dark, or in circles around a track. There is a very specific race marked out for us. The way I like to see it is like those video games. There are checkpoints to help you know that you are going in the right direction, but between the checkpoints, you have to have faith in the Maker of the race, and trust that He knows what He's doing, and more importantly, He would never mark a race that he knows you cannot handle. The race will be challenging, but in the end, you always know that there's another checkpoint ahead. All you have to do is keep your heart in it.
What do you think? I'd love to hear from you!
God Bless you all!
God, keep your children under your wings this week, as we look to you to teach us how to be patient. Give us many chances to learn, and let us trust that although it may be hard, our reward is great. You are awesome and amazing and beautiful, and there is nothing that we would like more than to be more like you. Thank you for everything that you ever have done, and for everything that you ever will do for us. We love you!!!
This is such a joy and an encouragement to read! I cannot wait to see where this takes you (and me!). You are such a beautiful girl. You are already speaking into my heart with this. Love you sister!
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