Circumstances. Circumstances are incidents or occurrences, especially chance ones. Chance. Chance is a force assumed to cause events that cannot be foreseen or controlled; luck. Read that a few times, let it soak into your brain, and then take a journey with me...
When we wake up in the morning, we have a general sense of what we will do throughout the day. What we do not know, however, is the unknown. We may have a plan but we also have a God in heaven who trumps our plan. So if you will reason with me, our days our filled with occurrences or incidents. Even predictable ones are not so predictable because our circumstances are chances. Everyday occurrences happen by chance. We may have a general idea of how we think our day will go but the fact of the matter is we have limited control of our lives. Think about it. Can you control the other 6 billion people in this world? No. Can you control God? Negative. If you lived in a bubble by yourself could you control yourself? Yes, but remember that was only a movie...not real life. Let's take this a step further. Since you can only control yourself if you were the only one in existence, everything in your life happens by chance because you have no control. You have free will, not control. You can choose to do something but you can not know the outcome because you can simply not control the rest of God's creation or God Himself.
Okay so here's the application. This part is hard. This part involves trust. It involves trusting that there is in fact a God in heaven who will NEVER lose control. He doesn't turn His back on us. He has COMPLETE control over every aspect of your life whether you believe it or not. He does. I promise, and so does He. His promise trumps mine though. So to apply all of these facts to our lives, we have to trust that whatever comes our way, God is in control. Sometimes we all get frustrated in our daily lives by our circumstances, but we need to remember that behind those circumstances is a God who is crazy about us. You want some real life application at the heart level? As Jesus Christ was hanging on the cross HE NEVER ONCE COMPLAINED. He hung there because He knew there was something bigger than His circumstance on the horizon. He even forgave those around Him in the process. So our application is to not question our circumstances but to trust that God is seeing us through. Does it feel as if sometimes you standing still in life? Always remember that you are not in control, God is. Acknowledging that will help you move forward.
"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
Kelsey J.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Stairway to Heaven
"Trust in the Lord with all you heart and lean not on you own understanding; in will your ways acknowledge him, and he will make you paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6
Let's face it, life is hard. It begins to get even harder when you feel like people fail you or even worse, you feel as if you've failed yourself. It doesn't have to be this way. Because others fail us and we even fail ourselves at times, we have trust issues. We tend to forget that there is a God in heaven that will never fail us, never leave us, and no matter how badly we screw up He still loves us for eternity.
Think of it this way, your life is a series of steps. A staircase if you will and if you like Led Zeppelin, think of it as your stairway to heaven. Okay so if you are like the rest of the human race, you have an issue in your life right now that you can't seem to fix or get out of. You want to change but you never seem to be able to. It's as if you have one foot planted firmly on a step and the other foot in the air about to take the next step. The step in which you have firmly planted your foot are the things you are holding on to in the here and now such as thoughts, feelings, behaviors, or actions towards someone or something. The foot in the air is your desire, readiness, and willingness to change. You want to change but change scares you, hence one foot on the step behind you.
So how do we change? Stop looking down at the foot on the step. We get so consumed with our circumstances that we forget to look up. When we forget to look up we don't see that Jesus Christ is standing right in front of us with an outstretched hand waiting to help. He is always willing and ready to help. Always. It's easier to change when your thoughts change from yourself to the One standing right in front of you. In order to take the next step in your life, you must look up. In order to change, you must look up. "Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things." (Col 3:2) Keep your head up towards your heavenly Father. Keep your eyes focused on your Savior. Keep reaching out to the outstretched hand in front of you because when you finally grab on to the One who will never fail you, HE WILL keep you moving forward...
Kelsey J.
Let's face it, life is hard. It begins to get even harder when you feel like people fail you or even worse, you feel as if you've failed yourself. It doesn't have to be this way. Because others fail us and we even fail ourselves at times, we have trust issues. We tend to forget that there is a God in heaven that will never fail us, never leave us, and no matter how badly we screw up He still loves us for eternity.
Think of it this way, your life is a series of steps. A staircase if you will and if you like Led Zeppelin, think of it as your stairway to heaven. Okay so if you are like the rest of the human race, you have an issue in your life right now that you can't seem to fix or get out of. You want to change but you never seem to be able to. It's as if you have one foot planted firmly on a step and the other foot in the air about to take the next step. The step in which you have firmly planted your foot are the things you are holding on to in the here and now such as thoughts, feelings, behaviors, or actions towards someone or something. The foot in the air is your desire, readiness, and willingness to change. You want to change but change scares you, hence one foot on the step behind you.
So how do we change? Stop looking down at the foot on the step. We get so consumed with our circumstances that we forget to look up. When we forget to look up we don't see that Jesus Christ is standing right in front of us with an outstretched hand waiting to help. He is always willing and ready to help. Always. It's easier to change when your thoughts change from yourself to the One standing right in front of you. In order to take the next step in your life, you must look up. In order to change, you must look up. "Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things." (Col 3:2) Keep your head up towards your heavenly Father. Keep your eyes focused on your Savior. Keep reaching out to the outstretched hand in front of you because when you finally grab on to the One who will never fail you, HE WILL keep you moving forward...
Kelsey J.
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