trust and faith

when struggles and challenges come before us, especially those shaped as rather large sized mountains, facing them while trusting God with all your faith in Him, can become part of the challenge.

i personally, have trouble not going out and doing it all in my strength, my time and all by myself.

part of having faith and trust in God is going out with Him. part of trusting God is knowing that He has it all in control and asking Him for the right way to act.

So often through the bible God leads the way. God makes a way and fights for His people. God is the front runner in battles, the one who wins the fights. in light of this, some things that are required to be remembered are, that God is the one who fights the battles, the one who is able to be depended upon completely and who can be trusted. He never asks us to do anything that He does not equip us to do. He will prepare us and fight the battles with us and even for us.

with God, i don't need to go in in my own strength and i don't have to fight alone.

doubts and insecurities

we all have doubts and insecurities to some degree in our life. it's how we respond to these that has an influence over our lives.

doubts and insecurities can either cripple us and we are unable to move forward, stuck where we are. or they can cause us to act, providing motivation and purposeful action to overcome them.

how do you respond?

more often then not, at least for a while, people are haltered by doubts and insecurities not wanting to be hurt, exposed, or to be seen as weak. only after these fears are overcome can a person move on.

strength can come out of doubts and insecurities when they are overcome. people can find the truth, and be free from those things which were holding them back in life. now that's cool.

Helpless

often we view a state of being helpless as something that isn't good, isn't helpful and not something to aspire towards. in many cases i agree with this.

however, in prayer it's most helpful. when we come to God in prayer, we come helpless. we come to God surrendered, humbled in His presence, and needing Him. Helpless. this is not natural and not easy. a challenge.

when looking towards God, towards His sovereignty and power and greatness everything is put into perspective. I acknowledge me as being a small part of all He is and all He's doing. i know that I'm helpless without Him and am able to release the reigns into His control.

I'm helpless without Him.

Change

life continues to change.

i have moved 5 times in the past 5 years. at the end of this year i intend to have life rather different with the entering into the workforce and another move of house.

work, school, life, it all has potential to continue to change whether it be for the better or not, the control is in my hands. often my attitude towards it all makes the difference to it being great or depressingly terrible.

there are also other stuff, like our relationships with others. as we move through life these can end, change and we start others as we change our lifestyles.

opportunities come and go, our choices remain as to if we want the changes they offer or not.

Miracles!

when i think of miracles in the bible, i usually think of what Jesus did. now Jesus is pretty cool, he healed the blind, made the lame to walk, cast out demons and all those nasty things, raised the dead. And the biggest and coolest thing of all, overcame death and sin and all that. all that is really awesome!

but God was doing cool stuff all the way through the bible.

Balaams donkey is cool. a mans donkey saves his life! and he talks! (God was doing this before donkey and shrek). it's in the bible Numbers 22.21-39.

creation is rather mind blowing. who else can create the whole universe other than God.

God parted the red sea for the Israelites to escape, (Exodus 14.19-31) and then he rained food on them while they wondered around in the desert!

the prophet Elijah is great. i love what he does, he's even called a trouble maker. it stopped raining for 3 years and started again only after a competition between 450 prophets of Baal (a god dude) and 1 prophet of the Lord, Elijah. these prophets of Baal were to sacrifice a bull to him, but not light it themselves, Baal was to do that. They started at sundown and continued...

27 At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." 28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 29 Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention. Exodus 18

after this Elijah built an alter to the Lord, put a bull on it and then got these silly prophets of Baal to cover it in so much water that the trenches around it were filled. then he called to God and fire came down and burned it all up. it was all gone, water and all.

well, after God had been proved rather powerful the rains came and the power of the Lord allowed Elijah to run faster than a horse! how cool.

God does lots of miracles through the bible. he's continually handing huge armies over to His people who without Him wouldn't be capable of such a thing. He heals people and raises them from the dead, provides for His people from nothing, protects them from lions and fire and all sorts of things... lots of cool stuff! who ever said the bible is boring

God did all this a long time ago and i believe that He can and still does, do it today!