Contentment

Well hello my friends once again. It’s been a couple of weeks and I just finished the first week of school. Already I can see God working within my life through my classes and through the lives of people. One topic that has been on my mind as of late is the topic of contentment. I have been wrestling with this idea a lot the last year or so, especially with last semester-aka Fall. When most young Christian college women hear someone say contentment, they are thinking more along the lines of “relationships.” Well this post is infact about a different kind of contentment and goes very close with thankfulness.

During Truth & Life Conference, one of the Home Economics professors gave a presentation on contentment. At first my pride started talking me out of it, saying why do you need to go. You’ve got this one figured out, but then I looked back over the past semester and realized how much I had struggled with this idea, along with security. We all have our comfort bubbles. I personally like to know what I am going to do with my life, and within the past year, it has been so turned inside out and upside down that now I don’t have a clue what God has for me after college. There is always dreams, but that is completely different than reality. Over the past year God has taught me so much about how I am not in control and really it is a reliance and dependence on Him that shows the true test of faith. That whole question of “Do you trust Me?” Oh that one’s a tough one for me. I want to be self-reliant and say “Yes Lord, of course I trust you.” But honestly if He looked directly into my eyes, my very soul, honestly would I have the same answer? Could I say, “yes Lord, I trust You completely in every area of my life, and have surrendered complete control and lordship to You.” To be honest I would have to say probably not. I couldn’t do it, because deep within, I know the truth. Deep inside there is still this fleshly human fear that lies to us, saying that God doesn’t know what is best and I should stay with the safe and comfortable. This fear that God will not keep His promises. We want control, we are still fighting the flesh that desires to make ourselves god and suppress the truth. It is this fear that we will be completely and utterly out of control that terrifies us to death. We fool ourselves into thinking that we know what is best for us when it is God who really knows what is best.

So how does this relate back to contentment? For me it was a matter of trust and control of if I really believe what God has said in His Word and His promises. That He is the way and the truth. That He is the one true God, and God alone. Holy and righteous and Christ will come again as conquering King. For me in order to be content, it was a matter of me surrendering what control I had in my life in order to leave it with Christ. It is amazing how so many heart issues we deal with can interrelate so much to each other. So for those of you who were not there, there are some of the key notes that were given on contentment:

Developing A Heart of Contentment
Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.” –Philippians 4:11-12

If I could change anything about my life I would….

“When you get what you want, do you want what you get?”

Contentment is something that has to be learned. It is something that takes work, a total revamp of one’s mindset and perspective.

Those who are content are those who are thankful. They thank God more than they ask of God.

One thing that was an eye opener was she mentioned that: “discontentment is a sin because it is a characteristic of someone who doubts the goodness of God”. This was news to me as I never had thought about this before.

I will leave you with this list of reminders that she gave us to think about. It definitely puts things in perspective for me.

1. Never allow yourself to complain about anything
2. Never picture yourself anywhere else
3. Never compare yourself with others
4. Never allow yourself to wish this or that
5. Never dwell on tomorrow→ tomorrow is God’s

So Long '09, Hello 2010

So over the last couple of days I have been presented with some ideas: the importance of prayer, how I have spent my time over Christmas break, and recently how I stand with my relationship with God.

This last week and a half or so I have had the opportunity to get involved a bit in my friend's church. Being the first Sunday of the New Year there is always this sense of hope and excitement to see where God will lead this particular church in the coming year. How the church will grow, how God will work within the lives of the people. What kinds of great things will He do in the coming year? It is a time of reflection and honesty and frankly it was quite an encouragement to me to be with a church that I would only be attending for a couple of weeks and still see their hearts, to see that they too, like me, wanted to serve God to the best of their ability and like me we all had the same goal: to glorify God in every area of our lives. There is something about this unity, the fellowship, and commonality about being in one in Christ that is like it doesn't matter whether your in Fresno, LA or anywhere else in the world we share one thing: we are all saved sinners by the blood of Christ and His resurrection. Wow. And that commonality makes you come to a point where we are all one before God. Amazing! Those differences in behavior or personality don't matter so much anymore. Rather they amplify the creativity of our great God and how He has made each of them different but can work in each one in order that we all worship Him.

Getting off of the rabbit trail, the church began what they called a PrayerFocus where the first week of the year 6am-10pm or so, everyday the church was set up for people to come and prayer, using the ACTS model. Now if you haven't heard of it, please don't take it as the "formula" for prayer. It is merely a way to help one put things in perspective and not be as self-focused in our prayer before God. This model won't get us any more brownie points than repeating the Lord's Prayer or Psalm 23 and not knowing what it means.

A- Adoration (praising God for who He is and what He has done ex. Psalm 8)

C- Confession (telling God our sins and how they do not line up with His Word I John 1:9)

T- Thanksgiving (thanking Him for what He has done for us )

S- Supplication (coming to God with our requests)

I had the opportunity to go to one of the prayer meetings, specifically for the college students and those who were in it. It helped me think more about why we prayer and how desperate we are for God. Prayer is how we can communicate with God and is part of the relationship we can have with Him. When we don’t pray, I think many times it is because we are too proud or arrogant to spend time with our Creator and not only that our Savior. It is almost like we go “Lord, I think I’ve got today covered. I don’t really need Your help, thanks anyway.” To summarize: when we don’t pray we fool ourselves into thinking that we are alright and that we don’t need God. We have all had this attitude whether we will admit it or not, and we need a reminder of who God really is. What always humbles me is I ask myself: who woke you up this morning? Who gave you the ability to open your eyes and roll back over? Scrat that. Who gave you that breath, and that one? Who is the one who gave you recall to remember what you’ve studied (or not) for that final? If you need more convincing read Job 38-41.

We are so completely and utterly dependent upon God it isn’t even funny. We can’t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps so let’s not lie to ourselves that we can. I could go on but you get the picture.

With this, it made me realized how little time I was spending at the feet of Jesus. What makes me think that I can know Jesus without ever spending time with?

And when I do pray, a lot of times it is about “Lord do this” or “Lord can you do that”. It has become so about me and not about Him, and it sickens me to think about. I disgust myself at times. And yet “it” is all about Him. The Bible, it isn’t about you, it’s about HIM and what HE did and what HE has done and will do! We look at the cross and go “thank you Jesus for saving me from sin” and it stops there. If that is all we see, we are jipping ourselves because there is so much more! We miss the big picture! It’s not about you. It’s not about me. It’s about God and His glory.

I could go on but I will stop there and wrap this up.

Thinking about all of this, made me ask myself how do I want to spend my time in the year 2010? What needs to change in my life that maybe isn’t necessarily wrong, but isn’t helping me grow in my relationship with God either? How can I be a better steward of the time that God has given me? If this be my last day, what is there to show that is of eternal value? Is it a day well spent for the Kingdom?

More thoughts to come later, but this will hopefully at least get you started.

Welcome

So for some time I have been wanting to start a blog but haven't really gotten around to do it. Then it dawned on me that I actually have the time to do so right now! Go figure. Needless to say, welcome to my blog and I hope through this, you all may be encouraged and delighted in hopefully some intelligent and thought provoking rambles.

May the adventure begin...