In the Beginning...

What a glorious day it is! The weather is beautiful after several days of nasty rain and storms. I’m always grateful when the sun comes back out. I am a sunshine kind of girl for sure! I haven’t written for a while and my mind is full today with thoughts, too many for just one blog. Sometimes I lay in bed at night thinking about blog ideas. I know that sounds crazy, but they sometimes pop into my head, or at times they bubble up deep from within my heart. They evolve from great joy and at times from deep sorrow. I keep a tiny notepad on my nightstand to write the ideas down. Some I use and others never go any farther than my little notepad. I love how God sends me these thoughts and then expands them into writings. This one bubbled to the surface after I read my Bible study notes this morning, and after a long walk through our neighborhood, enjoying the beauty of God’s creation. Creation truly does display God’s glory and it makes me want to write!

Today, I am feeling overwhelmed by the majesty of God and His creation. Last week, my ladies Bible study started back up and as I think I’ve mentioned before, we are studying the entire book of Genesis this year. I am SO excited about it. I cannot wait to dive into this beautiful book that is the foundation to all of the rest of God’s Word. There are two to three hundred ladies and about one hundred children who will be studying together from now through the end of next May. Within that group, I meet with a smaller group of about fourteen each week. I look forward to getting to know the ladies in my present group. Some of them have been doing BSF for more than eight years! I am in my second year and I know that I will learn so much from them. I know God has so much in store for us as we systematically study His Word together this year.

We have met for two weeks and I am so excited that I can hardly stand it! Last week, our teaching leader gave us an overview of the book of Genesis. This week, we learned about creation, our amazing Creator, and the different views on how creation began. I was not aware that there are SO many different views about how our Universe began. I knew of some, but not so many. I have always believed by faith that God’s entire Word is true and that He is our Creator, but not everyone believes that way. Our lesson notes taught us about those different views, but mainly they taught us just how incredible and powerful our God is. Reading through my lesson notes and back through Genesis 1 reminded me this morning that God’s name is mentioned over thirty times in that one chapter! He is the main Character of creation! The lesson also reminded me that God “created”, He “said”, He “saw”, He “called”, He “made”, He “set” and He “blessed”! And, He did all of this from nothing! When you and I make something, we already have something available to create start with. Not so with God. He is the Creator of all things! He started from scratch! This truth comforts me because it reminds me that if God says it, He will do it! In other words, if He thinks it, plans it, ordains it, promises it or commands it, it will happen in His way and timing. That is an incredible promise that we can count on!

One of the many other lessons that I was reminded of this week in our studies is that if we are His creation, and we are, then He has a beautiful purpose and plan for our lives! All over the book of Ephesians, one of my favorite books, we are reminded that God chose us before creation, He adopted us and made us His sons and daughters. We are His “workmanship”, created for the works and purpose that He has for us – and that purpose is to bring Him glory with our lives! (see Ephesians 1-2) God loves each of us so much that not only did He create us, but He created this magnificent earth as our home and for our delight, to meet our needs and to fulfill His purpose. He gave man dominion over the earth. He also created this earth so that His only Son could come here in human form to save us from eternal death. He is a loving and generous God! Now, there is one catch – we must choose God and His plans, He leaves that choice to us. He will never force Himself on us. I believe that if we choose otherwise, that life will be without true meaning and purpose. In my mind, a life without God will be a wasted life. I have always found that when I am following God’s purpose for me, I am most fulfilled and find the most joy. His plan is best! We were created for His delight and for His glory! I do not want to miss His best plan for my life.

I am no scientist or great theologian, but I do have faith and though some days it is only the size of a mustard seed, I firmly believe, without a doubt that God created all things including me, and since I believe that, I desire to start living more like I believe it. I want to live like I believe that He still has an incredible purpose for my life. As long as I am taking in air, I want to live for Him and serve Him. I want to seek direction and wisdom from Him as I continue to walk through the ever changing seasons of my life. I want my life to always demonstrate that I was made by Him and for Him. I want my thoughts and my actions to glorify Him. Just as God spoke light in the world, He has spoken light into my life and I want to live and walk in that light and spread that light to others. God is always doing a new thing and I do not want to miss it! I do not know what He has next for me, but I am excited and I want to trust Him in it and hopefully I am ready for it. But, even if I am not, HE IS! May He continue to give me grace to walk through whatever it is. God bless you and thanks for reading!

God is ENOUGH...mustard seed sized faith.

            God is enough…easy to say, harder to live out, at least for me anyway, I don’t know about you. I love the Lord. He is everything to me and if you’ve read any of my blogs before, you already know that about me. I cannot live in this crazy world without Him. I would never want to. However, I do not always live like I really believe this. Sometimes my faith is smaller than a mustard seed! Last night, during our mid-week service, one of our volunteer teachers gave us a message on that very subject, faith. He covered a lot of Scripture in a short time, he shared from personal experience, and he talked a lot about “mustard seed sized faith”. (that’s a tongue twister if you say it fast!) He even brought a bunch of tiny mustard seeds for each of us to see and touch. I am one of those hands-on kind of girls, so the seeds really helped to hammer things home for me. Holding something in my hand always helps me to grasp ideas or concepts a lot better.

            I wish I had a recording of the message so that I could just share it here, but I do not, so I’ll try to share some the things he taught us. I don’t think he’d mind me sharing. In fact, I’m sure he’d be glad I did. He started the message by saying that it is easy to believe that God exists. His glory is displayed all around us in His creation. (See Romans 1:20) He continued his message by saying that we cannot earn our salvation in any way. Jesus Christ already did that for us by paying for it with His own life, our job is to believe and accept Him as our Lord and Savior. It is DONE! He did it! Nothing we can do will save us, because it is by His grace and His grace alone that we are saved. I think our speaker wanted us to remember those facts before he broached the subject of faith. He wanted to us to think about Who we place our faith in. Good reminders.

            Next, he talked a bit about what the Bible says about faith. He shared several passages from Scripture about different people and their faith; the Centurion in Matthew 8, the official and his dying son, found in John 4, and the possessed boy in Mark 9. (Of course he also mentioned the faith chapter, Hebrews 11 and others) As we looked at these passages, he kept talking about faith the size of a mustard seed. He closed his message with some other thought provoking points. One thing stuck firmly in my mind…God is enough. He tied it all back to Matthew 17:20 and Ephesians 6:16. He reminded us that we need to take up the shield of faith each morning and he said that, “if God equipped us with a shield of faith that is the size of a mustard seed, then Satan’s arrows must be a lot smaller than we think they are. (He held up that tiny little seed and said that we only need a shield that big, or small). We give Satan a lot more credit than we should.” This statement made me think too. Do I give Satan too much credit? Do I really believe that God is BIGGER and that God is ENOUGH?        

            Our faith is a gift from God, and as my teacher friend said last night, “He gives us this gift just when it’s the right time to open it.” In other words, our faith is a gift from the Lord, and even if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, it is enough, and God will give it to us at just the right time. We will be able to open our package of faith exactly when we need to. Just like Thomas, in John 20, Jesus met him right at his point of disbelief; He will meet us right where we are too, with our tiny amount of faith and take us from doubting to belief, from questioning to trusting, and from fear or worry to a place of peace. He is enough!

            If we trust Him and place our faith in Him rather than in some “substitute” (you name your own substitute here…), He will meet us where we are. He will “water” our faith if we let Him and grow it from a mustard seed to a mountain sized faith. I’d like to close these reflections with some other Scripture verses that God has given me in these last few weeks. They are precious words from our Father about faith, peace, and worry. I brought home three little mustard seeds last night after the message and they are in the fold my Bible, right in the middle of some of these very verses. I picked up the little seeds this morning and was immediately reminded of the message last night and of these verses and promises from our Father. I’m so grateful that He has blessed us with the gift of faith. I am so grateful that I do not need to be some spiritual giant in order to experience His grace and blessings. All I need is that little mustard seed sized faith! I have things in my life right now that are concerning me. Do you? I’m sure most of you do and I know that some of these challenges are bigger than the largest mountain, I know that these words sound so simple and I know it is easy to say and hard to do, especially when life seems so impossible to face at times, but, let’s agree together to take them all to Him in faith. He is the Great Provider. He hears us, He cares. He will answer and He will provide. We can trust Him. Thanks for reading. God bless you today with grace and peace.

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.” Isaiah 26:3

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12

“In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” Ephesians 6:16

“He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:25-34

 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”Hebrews 11:1