Have you ever heard, "good things come to those who wait"? This statement is so true in all aspects of our lives, especially when it comes to God's timing. I think that learning to have patience is a struggle for everyone, but once you learn how to be patient it makes life so much easier.
I (Savannah) can remember when I was little and I couldn't wait for my birthday. I would be so excited for my party and it would be all I thought about for weeks. One particular year, my parents had a huge Barbie cake made for my party. I thought that it was so amazing and I couldn't wait to show everyone. Well, my little 7 year old self decided I was going to take matters into my own hands and pick up that big Barbie cake to show everyone. How do you think that turned out? Yep, it fell flat on the floor and along with the cake, I was absolutely crushed.
Now, what if I would have waited on my parents to help me? What would have happened if I would have been patient and let them hold the cake? The outcome would have been much prettier, I can promise you!
Well, our relationship with God is very similar. Are there times in your life when you want to take matters into your own hands? I know that for me, it is something I struggle with often. Many times I think that I know what's best for me and I don't take the time to wait on the Lord. However, I have found that the outcome is never fully satisfying. Only God and His plan can satisfy your desires, dreams, and plans. Without Him working in your life, you will never be 100% happy with how life is going. In the end, if you try to take matters in your own hands, your cake will be crushed.
So, how do you keep from dropping your cake?
WAIT ON GOD AND HIS PERFECT TIMING!
I want you to think of something in your life that is causing you to be inpatient. It could be a relationship, a job, future plans, etc.
How is it going? Are you getting frustrated? Do you find yourself living only in the future and not enjoying the present that God gives you each day?
If this is you, I want to encourage you to give it over to God. Pray that He will fill you up with patience about the situation and allow Him to take control. Allow Him to take the cake out of your hands so you don't drop it. I can guarantee that it will take such a burden off of you and you will be able to start enjoying the present and stop worrying about the future. If we all start waiting on His timing and forget our own, big things will take place! He is going to begin to work things out in your life that you couldn't do yourself. You just have to be willing to wait. Good things come to those who wait. It's that simple friends.
"Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD." Psalm 27:14
I'll be honest with y'all, when I realized I would be writing today on God's patience with us I was kind of confused.. I was so lost on where to even begin. It's one of those things that I know is true yet I've never really understood the depth of the truth of God's patience with us. Once I started really digging in and reading my bible and discovering about God's patient with us I came up with two views of God's patience and I have really been rocked with this truth!! The first is that we can ALWAYS return to Him no matter what, he always stays the same! And second, God having patience with us is what gives us the ability to have patience with others!
In the story of the prodigal son in Luke 5:11-32 we are told the story of a son who strayed away from his father after he gave him his share of his assets. The son left town and went off and spent all he was given. Then a severe famine struck and he was left with nothing. Eventually he had to shamefully return to his father. He was sure his father would write him off because of the things the son had done, but instead, to the son's amazement, "while he was a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him." (Luke 15:20) This story is meant to reflect to us the patience that Jesus has with us. He doesn't care what we've done in our past. He wants us with Him. Regardless of the "bad" things we think we've done the Lord will rejoice ALWAYS and throw his loving arms around us when we return to Him. Our God is a God of love, mercy, and PATIENCE, not a God of judgement.
The second thing I think it extremely important when understanding God's patience with us is that not only is His patience a foothold for our patience with others, His patience with us is like a great comforter. God is actually called "God of patience and consolation" (Romans 15:5) because he has such great patience with us. We must become like-minded and imitate Christ's example when our patience is tested.
God's patience is a fountain of comfort because it is proof of His grace.
Think about it like this: If God has patience with unbelievers, think how much patience He has for those who live their lives according to His will. If God were not patient, salvation would be impossible. God's promises, despite of our weaknesses, still hold true. THAT IS GRACE.
My challenge for y'all as we continue through this week is to imitate God's patience as we deal with other people. I know it is SO easy to get frustrated with other people, trust me, I work in a Kindergarten classroom with 17 five and six year olds, I know how easy it is to loose your patience, but we would be unlike Him if we were to loose patience with others. To be patient is to show yourself Christ-like and prove that you know Him!!
"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect"-Matthew 5:48
I (Nicole) don’t know about you, but patience just might be the biggest struggle of mine. I’ve always been the girl with a mile long list of life plans. Since I was a little girl, I have “known” when everything would happen and how my life would go. But, like it so often happens, God’s plan has been different than my plan. And, to be honest, it has frustrated me. What if we want something that’s GOOD? Maybe you want God to move in your marriage, in your friendship, or in your work place. Surely God wants that, right? Absolutely!
God wants good things for you (Jer. 29:11), but those things might not happen in the way that you imagined. I was talking to a friend recently and as she told me about a current situation she was in she said this, “I just rest in the fact that God is helping me to pour into her the way he wants me to, even though my way would be drastically different.” Wow. What truth that holds. Even though we may want the same things that God wants doesn’t mean that those things will happen when and how we want them to. From the words of Paul in Romans 11:18 “You are just a branch, not the root.” God is the only one capable of making the decisions. He is the root. He is the one that knows all. We just grow out of him and without him we couldn’t grow on our own. Oh, what a vital thing to remember. Just the other day I had to remind myself, “Nicole, you are NOT God!” It seems simple and silly, but so often my actions don’t say that He’s God. They say that I try my hardest to do his job.
Waiting on his will is something I struggle with and it can be a place of discouragement for me. But, if we are planting good seeds, there is no need to be discouraged! Check out what Galatians 6:7-10 say…
Don't be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. So let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don't give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.
If we continue to plant in response to what God is calling us to do, we WILL reap the harvest… at the right time.
Are you discouraged that you don’t see God working in the way that you’d hope? Maybe God has different plans for that situation. Maybe his plans are BIGGER and BETTER for the plans that you have for yourself. Keep sowing the good seeds. Keep doing what the Lord wants. You will harvest the good crop exactly when the Lord planned it.
I hope that you've enjoyed being on this journey with us, because I can promise you that we are so glad to be on it with YOU! We are learning so much and being challenged by each post. I hope that the peace posts this week have spoken to you in a special way like they have spoken to us. I want to end this week with a song that I think speaks directly about peace. "It is well with my soul" is one of my all time favorite hymns. No matter what your circumstances are today, God is still the Lord of it all. Rest in Him and let Him refresh you. A little fun fact about this video: I (Nicole) have known these kids for ages and continue to get chills every time they sing together. Enjoy Daves Highway's version of "It is well with my soul"!
There have been many times in my life that I have prayed and prayed for peace over a decision I was having to make. I want to share one particular story with you that really changed my family's life forever.
When I was in middle school my mom had a miscarriage. That was a very hard time for our family and it was something that caused a lot of pain in all of our lives. It was a time where we sometimes found ourselves asking, "Why God?" However, we stayed close and we got through it together.
A couple years later, God started moving in my heart big time. Through a couple different circumstances the idea of adoption was put in front of me. My family had never talked about adopting, and I honestly had never really thought about it. However, the idea kept popping up in my everyday life. At the time, Steven Curtis Chapman had just released a song about seeing his first daughter for the first time in China. I began praying big time about this. I wasn't sure how my parents would react, so I prayed that God would bring PEACE into their hearts about this. When I first talked to them they were very surprised that I was bringing it up. It was somewhat random to them because like I said, we had never really talked about it. I began to explain what God had been doing in my life and told them about all of the things He had recently put in front of me pointing to adoption. After praying hard about this, I told them that I felt like our family was called to adopt from China. They said they would pray about it and that was pretty much the end of the conversation. A few weeks later, I asked my dad if they had talked about it again. He said they were still praying about it. I knew that it was somewhat scary to them because they were honestly still getting past the miscarriage. I finally confronted them one day and told them that God is giving us this amazing opportunity, and if we choose to ignore it He would move on. At that point, I think they really started praying hard about this. They began praying that God would give them PEACE about this and that they were making the right decision. A few weeks later, we started the paperwork and the journey began!
My whole family traveled to China in March of 2006 and God changed our lives forever. We adopted my precious sister, EllaKate at 11 months old. She is now a beautiful 6 year old and she is such a joy in our lives!
Well, the story doesn't end there, friends! Little did we know, God was going to keep working in our lives, and this time He spoke to my mom about going back to China. When she told us she felt like we should go back, we all were very surprised. However, we began praying for PEACE once more, and God provided it immensely! We began worrying about how we would pay for everything, but God took care of that too! He sent so many amazing and generous people in our life, and that continued to provide PEACE. In September of 2010 my parents and EK traveled back to China to bring home sweet ShayleeJoy! She has also changed our lives forever. She is the most tender-hearted little girl and we love her so much.
Well, God STILL wasn't finished! Guess where my parents are right now?
They are in China again and they are adopting my little BROTHER, Will Perry. God had to once again bring PEACE over this decision for all of us. However, He did and I'm so excited to meet my brother in a week and a half. Friends, God is so good!!! Imagine if we wouldn't have prayed for PEACE over all of these decisions. Our family may not have been blessed with 3 amazing children.
Here is a picture of the "littles", as we call them~
As Christians, we are faced with so many hard things in every aspect of our life. With hard circumstances comes hard decisions and many times those hard decisions can cause much distress and worry. However, we were not called to live a life of worry. God wants us to be at peace always, and I believe that if we are constantly praying for God's guidance and PEACE in every decision we make, we will be filled with PEACE! I also know that when we are at PEACE with a decision, we find ourselves in the center of God's perfect will. How amazing is that?
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give
to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not
be afraid." John 14:27
"Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you." 2 Thessalonians 3:16
"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:7
This past Fourth of July, I (Jessica) went kayaking down the Broad
River with some of my family and a great friend of mine, Jen. I am not one
to check the weather, and it definitely never crosses my mind to check it on a
gorgeous day. About an hour into our trip on the river, it starting getting
really dark and the clouds started rolling in. The next thing we knew it was raining
and then the floodgates opened, it was pouring. We continued down the river because
we thought it was just going to be a summer shower, turns out this was not
summer shower, at all. As the rain poured down and the winds started picking
up, I started to panic on the inside. A huge bolt of lightening struck in front
of us, and that panic on the inside turned into screaming and yelling in
terror. My heart was racing and the thunder rattled and boomed with great
intensity. I was flat out scared to death. We all somehow made our way to the
edge of the river and climbed up a steep embankment, and then the hail came
that pierced and pounded against our skin. To make matters worse the winds were
blowing so hard it was causing the trees to bend, which were nearly touching
the river. We all grabbed onto one another scared for our lives, and as I sat helplessly I prayed with all my might that God would let the storm
pass. After what seemed like hours, the storm finally did pass, I was in
disbelief that we made it through the storm. Lets just say I will never forget
the bang of that 4th of July. EVER.
As I think about my thoughts of fear and feelings of
helplessness in the storm I was caught in, I can relate to how the disciples
must have felt in the midst of raging storm on the Sea of Galilee. In the book
of Mark we find the story,
“A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the
boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on
cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we
drown?” I was thinking that too as the hail beat down on my skin, I was begging
for God to calm the storm because I struck by fear. During the storm Jesus
“rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet, Be Still!” (4:37-39).
So
there you have it, Jesus with all his great power stopped the storm with no
problem at all. We have to come to grips with the fact that He is always in
control and He can calm any storm no matter how great we think it is. Jesus replied to the disciples, “Why are you
so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” It is so important to realize that even
though we do not always feel that God is with in the midst of the storm is
really is right there with you, and the good news is that peace comes through
him when we put our complete trust in him.
What is Holding You Back ?
What do you do when the messiness of life comes flying at
you, which makes you feel scared, defeated, helpless?
What happens when you are so stressed
you feel like your suffocating?
Or maybe your relationship is so messy you
cannot find an easy way out?
Does money seems to always be an issue, are you in the hole and that debt is piling up?
Maybe someone has let you
down and it has broken you into a million pieces, how do you overcome the sadness and anger you are feeling?
Are you sucked into sin that
you cannot seem to shake, is the temptation just too strong?
I could keep going on and on because the Devil feeds us all this mess and He is good at it because He is trying to make you feel scared, defeated, and helpless!!! These feelings of fear is A LIE that the devil is pouring into you. I do not know why you do not have
peace, but I do know that God can give you peace if you let him in on the
situation. I know that you want the storm to pass because it is scary and it is
painful, I have been in plenty of storms.
So I will lay it out straight for you, everybody STRUGGLES
with something, but not everyone handles their struggle the right way. So you have got to get over your thoughts of my problems are
too messy to fix, everything always goes wrong, or maybe you are event to point
of feeling like there is NO WAY that God can bring you peace. Well I will say,
if you keep on with those negative thoughts then yes you are absolutely going
to continue to be in your hole of misery. . . keep playing your pity party game it will only get worse though. I have been in the midst of all the messiness before, and I
thought because my life was unsteady and broken that it was not even possible
to fix it, so I continued to shatter it more through continuous sin. Take this for it's worth, QUIT THINKING YOU ARE TOO FAR GONE and take
action and responsibility over you life. I know the storms are brutal, but I am
here to let you know that God will stand right by your side as you fight
through it, just let him in and he will bring peace.
No, I do not have it all together and I still struggle, but I do have great God that I have it alltogether with, and he carries me through storms all the time. I seek him and pray with my everlasting might, and he follows through with peace every single time. Maybe you just are not even buying that God can mend your brokenness
and bring peace into your life.
Well I am living proof that God pours peace out
freely to those who love and trust him. I was so caught up in sin that I could
not see the light of what was coming at me next, I was just fighting for a
breath in the moment of life to keep me going. I got fed up with the junk that I fueling my life with, it was ridiculous and I was a million light
years away from peace. So I slowly started pulling myself from negative
influences and surrounding myself with more positive ones, and with time God
showed me that he was a forgiving and loving God and that I did not have to
maintain the uneasiness of my life any longer. I let go and let God take
control, and I am telling you from the bottom of my heart that I have never
felt SO much freedom and peace in all my life. He wants you to obey and walk with Him in peace and we know we can find the truth in Jeremiah,
"Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they (Israelites) did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward." (verses 23-24 NIV)
I will leave you with this wise
man,Oswald Chambers, words, “Then look up and receive the undisturbances of the
Lord Jesus. Reflected peace is proof that you are right with God because you
are at liberty to turn your mind to him. If you are not right with God you can
never turn your find anywhere but on yourself.”
Challenge
Change your thoughts
memorize truth, &
ditch the lies:
Quit throwing a pity party for yourself.
"He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the muck and mire; He set my feet on solid rock" Psalms 40:2 NIV
Obey God and believe he will save you from your situation.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not own your understanding; in all ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight" Proverbs 3:5-6
Believe that you are an amazing person made by a GREAT GOD, who wants peace to be with you !!!
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27
I don't know about y'all but one of the things that I've really been having a hard time with over the last year or so is just having PEACE. I feel like I'm always planning my future and not living in the now. Up until recently I have just been in a place of discontentment. Just waiting for graduation. Just waiting to get engaged. Just waiting, waiting waiting. BUT WHAT AM I WAITING FOR? I only get one shot at this life and I would really hate to look back when I'm older and think to myself that I didn't fully live out my life because I was always constantly worrying about the future.
But what I've come to realize over the last few months is that God has my future, and he has yours too. We just have to find a place of PEACE and believe that He will take care of us. Because of His love and our faith in Him we can have peace. no matter where we are in our lives. even in the darkest, scariest, most awful times of our life we can have peace. One of my FAVORITE bible verses is in 1 Corinthians ch. 7 verse 17 [the message], it says "And don't be wishing you were some place else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God's place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there."I'm not sure there could be a verse that paints a better picture for us about peace.
Life is scary and hard and just plain dumpy sometimes.. but when your best friends with the God of the Universe you have peace that no one can take from you.
So this week as you think about the areas in your life that you don't feel peaceful, remember this verse...
Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, "I'll never let you down, never walk off and leave you.", we can boldly quote, "God is there; ready to help; I'm F E A R L E S S, no matter what. Who or what can get to me?"~Hebrews 13:5 [The Message]
and here's a little video for you that I think perfectly illustrates having PEACE in God's plan for our lives. "All of my life, in every season, you are still God, I have a reason to sing, I have reason to worship."
We are so glad that you found us here at Fearless. We are just four girls in our twenties who met through the wonderful world of blogging and have formed a connection we didn't know was possible. We have grown to love Jesus and love others through our relationships with one another. Our goal here at Fearless is to love God and love people. Stick around and see what it is all about!
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7
