Be Aware.

Recently I've been reading Proverbs with God and the phrase: 'Fear the Lord,' came up a fair few times in my reading. After the first few times, I stopped and questioned it; I wasn't really sure what it meant to fear the Lord? So this post is basically my exploration of this with God. 


The crux of my understanding so far being: Not to be scared of Him. But to be aware of Him.
(I'm sure it's an ongoing one, as He shows me new ways to do this!)

"Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline."
Proverbs 1:7 


Fearing Him doesn't mean being scared of God, He wants us to be in a relationship with Him, how could we do that being afraid? Fearing God, I think means to be aware of Him, to acknowledge Him in every aspect of our lives, to honour and obey Him.


Fearing God means to acknowledge how awesome He is! That His will should permeate our understanding and views of the world, our heart attitudes and our actions. Everything we do or say should align to His purpose.

So how can we do these things? How about choosing Him... first, everyday?Waking up in the morning and declaring that God and His will is what we choose to seek first today.
God's really put these 3 words on my heart, that I just keep repeating to myself (and repeatedly to a few others!) Seek His face. That's all we have to do, and it's SO much fun!


If we constantly seek His face, and spend time with Him, we will become even more aware of Him and even become more like Him. God's ready to chat to us and share things with us whenever: on the bus, at school, in our rooms in silent, when we're walking the dog... whenever and wherever.


God seeks our hearts:
"Listen! I am standing at your door. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will eat together."
Revelation 3:20

The key is in the "fearing."
Being aware of God. Acknowledging God. Listening to Him.


Consider this: if you 'leave the door of your heart constantly open to God, you won't need to worry about hearing his knock.'




C.
P.s. Just Seek His face. (Okay, 4 words now! :P)

Doodles.

Proverbs 1

A Father’s Exhortation: Acquire Wisdom

 ⁸ My child, listen when your father corrects you.
      Don’t neglect your mother’s instruction.
 ⁹ What you learn from them will crown you with grace
      and be a chain of honour around your neck.

Proverbs 2

The Benefits of Wisdom

 ¹ My child,^[a] listen to what I say,
      and treasure my commands.
 ² Tune your ears to wisdom,
      and concentrate on understanding.
 ³ Cry out for insight,
      and ask for understanding.
 ⁴ Search for them as you would for silver;
      seek them like hidden treasures.
 ⁵ Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord,
      and you will gain knowledge of God.

Proverbs 3

Trusting in the Lord

 ¹ My child,^[a] never forget the things I have taught you.
      Store my commands in your heart.
 ² If you do this, you will live many years,
      and your life will be satisfying.
 ³ Never let loyalty and kindness leave you!
      Tie them around your neck as a reminder.
      Write them deep within your heart.

Hey! (So I've learnt how to put pictures on here...woop! This will be a short but hopefully encouraging blog!)

So one day this week God told me to read Proverbs, so I embarked upon this not exactly sure what to expect... I definitely wasn't expecting what God said next! He told me that... I didn't need to sit down and read this in complete silence!

He told me to read proverbs, and as I went, allow Him to show me pictures/scenes in my mind, and then capture them by asking the Holy Spirit to help me express that visually. I had done this before, (but awhile ago!)  so I was SO happy to be learning about God and His word in this way. 

It made me smile that God was reminding me to use the gifts He's put inside of me, as worship to Him. He removed the box that I had put up, trying to contain strategies about how you should read the Bible and spend time with God. Sometimes, we can do this without even noticing! We can fall into certain patterns or ways of doing things, just because others do it that way, or because it's been a success before. However I believe that God does like to shake it up sometimes! He knows what's going to work for us at different times and in different seasons. 

 He showed me again that He enjoys sharing His creativity with me, and as silly as it sounds...once again reminded me of how well He knows me. He knows us. He knows how we think, how we learn, how we feel, what we enjoy, what excites us, and so on... so why shouldn't we do those things as worship to Him! Open up those doors with God and: 'allow Him to show himself to you in a new way.' We can often say that sentence, but I'm not sure we always live it out, I know I sometimes don't.

So, that's my challenge to you today. God's challenging us to seek Him, so let's have fun finding Him and learning about Him in a completely different way to how we are now. He wants to capture our hearts, and release us into something new in Him... 

C. 

Pass it on...

Hey,


So this post is hopefully going to be an encouragement to you, because God blew my mind with it!
God gave me this new revelation, about revelation yesterday! Basically, He showed me something that I didn't completely understand yesterday, but I knew it was a good lesson! (Everything from God is good!) I knew that God was going to explain it more, but I wasn't sure when and what it meant for me completely...


So, I went about my day as usual, until later that evening I had an amazing but spontaneous conversation with an awesome woman of God, in which God did something completely new! I wasn't having to think of what to say when it came to be my turn to speak and give advice; the Holy Spirit was stirring and just providing me words, there was no effort on my part, it wasn't head knowledge that I had just collated from other experiences, I believe it was heart knowledge spilling out. It wasn't until after the phone call, when I spent a few moments just reflecting on the conversation, that I realised what God had done. God had taken the heart knowledge he planted earlier in that same day and then got me to speak it out to this girl because she needed it too! 


God provoked me to question the way I perceived the concept of revelation. As I though about it, in the past whenever God's showed me something or taught me something, its been a habit for me to ponder on it for awhile before sharing it with others. I'd usually just think about for awhile or so, praying and reading the bible trying to figure out what it means more... when actually in my pondering I could be missing opportunities for God to use me to bring his breakthrough for someone else! Of course I'm not saying that sometimes this it isn't necessary to pray into something first before sharing it, but it's made me realise that perhaps we should seek God's purpose for sharing certain knowledge with us first, and ask Him if anyone else needs to hear this too and if so, who needs to know it.


So basically, my new revelation, is the fact that new revelation isn't any less than revelation you've had a while ago. It doesn't mean we have to hang on to new revelation for awhile before we can share it! Revelation is revelation. We should pass on whatever knowledge we have to whoever needs it... regardless of whether we have had it for long or only understand some of it! Because if its from God and it needs to be said, then the Holy Spirit can work things out with us! 


Ultimately, I ended up learning more about the revelation He gave me in the first place from sharing it with 
someone else, God's the best multi-tasker right?!


C.

P.s I'm not sure why my font has changed. 

Goodbye old drafts, hello new novel.

Hey,


I was out chatting with an amazing woman of God today, and I was struck by a comment she made. It was so subtle, that it almost fluttered by in the buzz of the conversation. However God brought me back to it this evening. She was basically saying, how amazing it is that we can come to God broken and hurt, and then as soon as we meet Him...He makes things new. We're different. We don't have to be who we were in the past, it's gone. We're made new, and we don't have to contain all that there was for us in the past, because there is so many new things for us to discover and learn with God. 


God spoke to me through this in a picture. There were some raggedy papers of old drafts of a story that never quite made it, just lying on the side. Then the picture zoomed in onto a glossy, shiny new novel (placed upon a wooden table, very shiny also!) That fresh book smell apparent and without any unbent pages.


God was saying, that He makes things new. When we meet Him, an amazing new novel with new chapters to explore is there ready and waiting for us to step into. We no longer need to cling onto our old ways, or who we used to be, because that no longer exists. Those old drafts have been taken, and replaced by this new exciting adventure, in which "we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." Romans 8:28


The plots of our lives will be thrilling, and completely in the hands of our Heavenly Father, who is the best writer there could EVER be, so we KNOW it's going to be a good read?! Just as we read books normally, the words are already printed; it's all been planned and intricately woven together by the author. Well, its pretty similar for us too, but we serve the Author of Time! We can completely trust in Him and His plans for us, because like The Bible says: He works things together for our good! 


It is going to be exciting, but the key is in the word trust. 


To
Really
Understand
Simple
Truths


That's the essence of trust, to really understand, means to practically live out the truths that God sings over us all the time. For example: 'He loves you...' Therefore we can live as loved people! 


We have to trust in His plan, and although sometimes it means we have no clue what's going to happen next; it's that suspense that's a page turner.


God's got it covered. (really understand that truth!)


C.