Survival Guide

Hey!


This post is inspired from an epic texting session me and my AP had the other day! Hope you enjoy!


Basically, God really sparked something in me a few days ago. He revealed to me that I need to throw out the survival guide.


Huh?
Yeah, that was my response too. 


Let's rewind, and start with the text. You know when you're speaking/texting/writing or whatever, and the words just flow and you end up with an EPIC revelation that by no means you could have come up with yourself? Well, this was that kind of situation, God showed up while I was texting.


He said this to my AP, but I believe that this is relevant for all of us!


"YOU have a calling on your life.
 YOU need to realise that you're significant.
 YOU need to stop comparing your walk with me to other's walks, because no two journeys are the same.
 YOU need to realise and believe that I have put something in you that the world needs."


Now to the crux of the text message that sparked this new revelation about survival guides (It will make sense at some point, and yes... it was a long text!)


"OPEN UP. LOOK UP. SPILL OUT."


That's the key. We need to be open to God, we need to look to Him and we will spill Jesus out. So, how did I get from that to the survival guide?

Well, God said, "You're not just surviving, you're thriving."

    This has really stuck with me. God's been showing me that in certain areas I've taken back control, referred to my own edition of survival guide and tried to fix or work out a situation myself. God's saying we need to depend on Him. We need to lean on Him. 


So that when things get tough, we can realise that God is saying in the midst of it,
 'Open up to Me more.'

When we feel down or 'struggling' God says,
'Lift your eyes to Me.'

When we feel pressured to let people know about God, God says,
 'Remember I spill out of you anyway.'


God created us to thrive and to sing of His name. When we lean on him whole-heartedly we will soak up so much of Him and learn so much, that it would be impossible to not thrive. God is for us. He cheers us on. He has everything we need to not just survive, but to thrive. 


Colossians 3:2


Living the New Life

 ¹ Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. ² Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. ³ For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.(New Living Translation)

I think The Message's translation is cool, check this one out too! 

He Is Your Life
 ^1-2 So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.
(The Message)


   It's so easy for us to get 'absorbed' in the activities of our lives, what our challenges are for today and what we need to get ticked off that 'to-do list'. God's convicted me of this recently, there is a bigger picture. He is more than willing to share it with us if we could only lift our eyes to Him, instead of pandering to the circumstances of now.
   When we get so involved and focussed on the 'now' it's easy to feel run down when things crop up or become too much. It's easy to feel like we are just surviving. But God has so much more for us, when we come to this realisation, that is when we thrive. Knowing that God is for us... wow.

And guess what? When we thrive with God, people will notice, and God will open up opportunities to sow into people's lives and tell them The Good News.

C.

Wipe away

Hey!
So God spoke to me this evening, as I was washing my face! I went to scoop some water into my hand and splashed my face, only after the first splash did I remember that I had forgotten to take off my mascara!
It began to stream down my face, like little rivers of black water... ooops. As I looked at my face in the mirror, God said to me: "Take it all off, just wipe it away." 


I was just thinking about this short sentence, what did God mean? I know He meant more than the obvious, so I asked Him. What God was really saying to me, wasn't about the application of make-up necessarily; (although girls, we do need to remember that God made us truly beautiful inside and out, and we should use make up to enhance rather than to hide, more on this in another blog!) but to be aware of the things that I try to 'cover -up' from God. 


God was telling me to take down all the façades, wiping away the illusions I try to create. To just be real and to just be myself with Him. We don't need to 'conceal' any parts of ourselves. God asks us to be completely raw and honest with Him, showing Him and letting Him into all aspects of our lives, even those shadows we can try to hide. He sees it all anyway, so how much better would it be if we let His light illuminate the corners of our lives, so we can begin to see ourselves, our situations and ultimately our lives, the way He does.


So I decided to put this into practice by basically just sitting on my bed telling Him exactly how I felt. Everyone connects with God in different ways, but I wrote it all down. (Writing may not be your way, don't worry! Do whatever it is that helps you connect with God!) I wrote down every last little thing that was fluttering around in my mind, even the faintest flutter of things in the background. You know what, it was great! It was so refreshing to just whack it all down onto paper and then say, okay God what do you say about this stuff? Show me what can/should I do? But basically just laying everything at His feet. Everything. 


I challenge you to try it! Come to God with all that you are, and all that you have, and all that you're carrying and allow Him to give you rest, for He says: "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light."(Matthew 11:30) 

C. 

Keep coming back.

Hey there!


Recently I've been listening to Jon Thurlow's tracks over and over again, I've found so much truth and life in these lyrics! Check the song out below, (Just click the little bit below!) and see what God speaks to you about!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NVv2x90XwE


So my blog today is about what God spoke to me through the lyrics of the song above.


"Keep coming back to me."


Amazing.
It's repeated over and over again. I imagine that is what Jesus is saying to us constantly. It's so simple. That's all we have to do. He has EVERYTHING  we could ever need; He already knows what we need, even before we do. Crikey.


So I asked Him why I personally find this difficult to do sometimes? (Encourage you to do the same!) And He said:


-You think you're bothering me.
-You think you should sort out at least some of the situations in front of you, and then let Me do the rest.


Wow. I didn't even know that I thought some of those things! So I had to chat with God more about what they meant...
-God said to me so clearly, "You could never bother me. I always love it when you come back to me. I love it when you chat with me. Always come back to me. Always come home." He says the same to you, we're His children! He loves spending time with us! He loves it! 
-God showed me that in my way of coming to Him, saying 'I've done this bit, could you do this bit' mentality, that I wasn't surrendering my situations completely. I was still hanging on for a smidgen of control. That's not what God's asking us to do. God asks us to lay our lives down completely, the good, the bad and the bits you want to sort out yourself. God sees it all. He's got like the premium TV set, with all the channels of our lives! Surrendering means to lay it all down. And when we don't, we can count on God to remind us to hand it over, because ultimately: GOD KNOWS BEST! Things are going to crop up, but the more we learn to surrender, the more easily we will recognise when we're holding onto something, that we need to lay at Jesus' feet. It's a process, and God can help us with it.

I definitely recommend running into God's arms, and asking Him to show you areas of your life that you're still holding on to. Our pastor today shared this: "Don't nurse your hurts, because it only makes them grow." We need to allow God to show us our hearts as He sees them, and be ready to allow Him to do some work with them.


I'll leave you with this quote:


"You can not mess up His promise, because it's His, you didn't make it."


All He asks is for us to 'Keep coming back to me,' because He has everything we need.


C.