Be Moved

"The beings could move in any of the four directions they faced, without turning as they moved...the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels, so wherever the spirit went, the wheels and the living beings also went." Ezekiel 1:17, 20

The prophet Ezekiel was given a vision from God and in this vision he saw four living beings.  They each had 2 sets of wheels that would move in the four directions.  They were moved by the spirit so that their gaze was always in front of them.  

Now let's dive in...

The movement that these four creatures had can be paralleled to our lives.  The four beings were moved by the Spirit.  They never moved by themselves; therefore, they never took their gaze from what was in front of them.  In the same way, if we live by the Holy Spirit and let this Spirit take over our lives, then our focus will always be on God.  We would never lose focus on God and His eternal plan, because we would let His Spirit move us wherever we went.  We typically move ourselves though.  We like to live our own lives and go our own way.  When we do this, we take our gaze off of God.  We turn to the left or the right to see where we are going and in doing so, we lose sight of God.   We quiet the Holy Spirit within us until we can no longer hear the directions He is giving us.  We have absolutely no reason to not trust in God and absolutely no reason to not trust the Holy Spirit that He has given us.  The Holy Spirit within us is our compass in this life and a direct line to God Himself.  Without the Spirit of the Lord, we are lost and lonely.  Before you accepted Christ, you were lost and lonely.  Now that you have God dwelling within you, embrace it.  Trust it.  Let the Spirit move and guide you in every area of your life.  When you do this, your focus will turn back to God.  Things will become clearer and when you take things out of your hands, things might become easier. The Spirit is leading you into Truth.  The Spirit is leading you into the will of God.  They Spirit is leading you into eternity.

Do you live a Spirit filled life? Or do you make your own way in this life?  Ask the God of all creation and the God who deeply cares for you to restore your focus.  Ask Him to help you live by the Holy Spirit so that you can focus on Him.  He is more than willing to help His children turn back to Him.  Ask these things with sincerity of heart and watch and wait for God to transform your life.  Keeping your gaze forward on God rather than turning from side to side is a guaranteed way to keep Moving Forward...

"But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative - that is, the Holy Spirit - he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you."  John 14:26

Kelsey J.

Don't Get Burned

"Can a man scoop a flame into his lap and not have his clothes catch on fire? Can he walk on hot coals and not blister his feet?" Proverbs 6:27-28

These verses are talking about sexual immorality and specifically, adultery.  I think that these verses can be applied to other areas of our lives as well. We are married to God.  When we give away our love to other things such as money, our sport, or another relationship, we are cheating on God.  The flame and the hot coals in this passage refers to sin and your clothes catching on fire, while your feet blistering refers to the consequences of that sin.

It is impossible to walk on hot coals and not blister your feet.  In the same way, we can not carry on with sin in our lives and not expect that there will be consequences.  God has freely given us grace but that is not an invitation to continue in our sin.  If we sin, we will get burned.  "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is constructive. (1 Corinthians 10:23)  Think of it this way, when we were kids our parents told us not to touch the hot stove.  Even though we were told not to, we still wanted to test our limits and see what was permissible.  We went against our parents instructions, touched the stove, and got burned.  Once we did this, however, we learned our lesson and never did it again.  We realized that we could do it, but it wasn't beneficial to us.  Our heavenly Father instructs us through His Word not to touch the stove (sin) so that we won't get burned.  Through our human nature though, we feel the need to test our limits before we can fully trust and obey Him.  So we sin, and we get burned.  

 What has burned you?  Don't do it again. Grace is free but it is not a ticket to keep sinning.  Trust your heavenly Father's instruction.  You can't place fire on your clothes and not expect to get burned.  When you stop walking on hot coals, you will find that it becomes easier to keep Moving Forward...

"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" Romans 6:1-2

Spiritual ADD

"Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matthew 7:13-14


We are all easily distracted.  We all have, to an extent, spiritual ADD.  We see something shiny and run after it.  But when we run after the things that distract us from the one true God, we are veering off on paths that lead to destruction and not on the path that leads to life everlasting.  The world we live in has distractions around every corner, so how can we stay on the straight and narrow?

Think of it this way, the Word of God is your GPS and your prayer time with God is like talking to God on  your cell phone.  You are trying to get to God's kingdom but apart from Him you have absolutely no idea how to get there.  To get where you are going, you have to remain in the Word of God (GPS) and in prayer (cellphone).   If you stop reading your Bible or praying to God, then you get lost and start to veer off on other paths.  It becomes easier to be distracted by the world.  Then you start to get cocky and think that you can navigate your way through life without any help from above. When you aren't seeking God, it becomes easier and easier to follow the wide paths that the world has made for you.  We think that we have the answers and that we know how to get there...but we have no idea how little we truly know.  The only way to find your way back on to the straight and narrow path is to read the Word of God and pray to your Father in heaven.  "I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE.  No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)  The ONLY way to navigate our way through this life is through Jesus Christ.  He has the GPS coordinates and He will talk us through each step of the way.  Why try and find your own way and get tangled up in the ways of the world when you could just submit to the way of the Lord and find true life along the way?


Jesus never said that the road would be easy. What He does promise, however, is that the road leads you out of destruction into life eternal.  Don't think that you can find the way on your own.  Keep your GPS and cellphone charged at all times.  You'll find that when you do, it becomes easier to keep moving forward...

Kelsey J.

New Chapter

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." Isaiah 43:19


Think of your life as a book.  Mine is the book of Kelsey Johnson and it has many chapters.  Some have already been lived and the rest have already been written.  God new our story from the beginning of time and he has already gone ahead of us and finished our book.  "...All the days ordained for me were written in you book before one of them came to be." (Psalm 139:16) He knows our entire story and He reveals it too us page by page and chapter by chapter.  He doesn't allow us to read to far ahead in our book because He doesn't want us to get ahead of ourselves and miss what is written on each page.  When one chapter closes in our books, we begin a new one.  It is much like when you are reading an actual book.  You finish one chapter and then quickly begin the next one because the previous chapter left you hanging and you want to find out what will happen next.  Right now, in my life, I have one very long chapter that has just finished up and I am on page one of the next chapter.  I have no idea what is in store.  All I know is that my previous chapters have been amazing and I can't wait to find out what will happen in this chapter.  I'm sad that I'm done with that chapter of my life but right now, I'm clinging to the Lord and the fact that He has already written the pages.  He alone knows what will happen.

So what can you take away from this blog?  If God is the ONLY one who knows the plans for your life, then why make your own?  God has a plan for your life and the only way to keep reading your book of life is to cling to God, trust in God, and follow God.  Your life plan will become more clear as you do those 3 things.  And who knows, you might find it easier to keep moving forward...

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11


Kelsey J.

The New "Normal"

This particular blog has been on my mind for awhile but I feel like I have just now grasped what I want to talk about.  I know for a fact that this relates to everyone.  It is in our human nature to get comfortable where we are and resist change.  Little do we know that when we resist change, we are essentially resisting the hand of God working in and through our lives...


To say the least, many changes have happened in my life through the past couple of months.  I normally don't talk about personal things in my blog but I feel as if I need to for everyone to fully grasp this topic.  In April a tornado hit Tuscaloosa and I see the destruction each day as I look from one of the few windows in my apartment without a board over it, I am currently living by myself for the first time in my life, in the fall I will have completely different coaches, and I will also have different roommates.  My life is going through a season of change and I resisted that change for a long time.  Little did I know that as I was resisting all of the changes in my life and not embracing them like I should, I was resisting the work of God in my life.  God brings about change in our lives to keep us from growing comfortable.  He wants to stretch us and use us but He will never give us more than we can handle.  When you stop resisting change and stop resisting the power of God in your life, you realize that it is one of the sweetest feelings you will ever have of complete intimacy with our Father in heaven.  


I titled this blog the new "normal" for a very specific reason.  There are a lot of things in our daily lives that we really don't notice anymore.  All of those things can be considered our "normal".  It is only when change happens that we notice that our normalcy has been disrupted.  We don't know how to act when change happens and we inevitably resist at first only to later realize that the change we once resisted has become our new "normal".  For example, the night of the tornado I was getting out of my Jeep to see if I could possibly get in to my apartment complex.  As soon as I opened my door, a huge gust of wind came .  My hand was still on the handle so the handle on the inside of my door snapped.  Over the next few days and weeks before I got it fixed, I figured out a system to maneuver the handle in such a way that I could open it.  I finally got my handle fixed last week and when I went to open my door for the first time, I started to do my little maneuvering act only to realize that I could open it like a normal person.  My broken handle had become my new "normal" and I hadn't even realized it until it changed again.


Change happens and you can handle it.  Whatever is happening in your life right now is for a greater plan and purpose.  You learn to adapt to the change much like I did with my Jeep handle.  You adapt and overcome.  Don't resist the hand of God in your life.  You will only find unhappiness until you finally submit to your Heavenly Father.  Embrace change.  Submit to God.  When you do those two things, you will find that it is easier to keep moving forward...


"I can do ALL things through Him who give me strength." Philippians 4:13


Kelsey J.

Fields of Grace

In this blog, I'm going to need cooperation from all of you.  You are going to have to read this and envision this with me.  Everyone will see this differently but my hope is that for the first time you begin to see your problems in a new light...


Everyone has something that they are struggling with and have been struggling with for some time now.  It's one of those things that you just can't seem to cut out of your life.  You know that you are free in Christ but for some reason, in this one area, you can't experience complete freedom.  In essence, you are waist deep in your own muck.  You're stuck.  The weight of everything around you is keeping you from moving.  You're not sure how you got to this point but you do know you want to get out.  But how?  It started out as just being ankle deep.  You were thinking to yourself that it was manageable and over time it would work itself out.  You were still able to move so no worries, right?  Before you knew it, it started to get knee deep.  You started to slightly freak out but, once again, you still had movement even if it was limited.  Then you got to this point.  Now you don't know what to do.


In a song there is a line that says, "I'm dancing with my Father God in fields of grace."  Next to our mucky mess, I envision a luscious green field.  On the bank of our muck, there stands Jesus.  He has been there the whole time.  He has never left.  He will never leave.  As long as we are in this place, He will still be there.  Not only is He there, but He is holding a hand out towards us.  At some point you may have grabbed that hand.  You realized your need for a Savior and you held on for dear life.  But as you were being lifted out of your own muck and it became easier, you rationalized that it was because of your own doing.  You loosened your grip.  You fell back into the muck.  Now you're back in.  It's gotten worse.  You don't know where to turn because you literally can't turn.  So what now?  You grab hold of the hand that has been there from the beginning.  You hold on for dear life and humble yourself before that Lord so that He can lift you up.  Don't think that you can get yourself out.  You can't.  If you want to experience complete freedom, grab hold of that outstretched hand.  If you want to keep moving forward, then you better hold tight.  Then you will not only being moving forward but you will be dancing with your Father God in fields of grace!


"Was my arm too short to ransom you?  Do I lack the strength to rescue you?" Isaiah 50:2


"Humble yourselves before the Lord and He WILL lift you up." James 4:10


Kelsey J.