Childlike Faith

It is not very often that it snows in Iowa Park, TX.  The stars were, apparently, aligned perfectly this year because the white flakes came down on Christmas day and did not stop until half a foot was covering the ground.  It is still a winter wonderland outside and I have woken each morning smiling like an idiot when I see the white stuff.

One of my gifts this year was a french coffee press.  If you have ever drank coffee from a press, then you should know that the coffee is Strong with a capital s.  Yesterday morning I made coffee with my new press and was wired for the remainder of the day.  Because of this over abundance of energy, I decided to go on a run...through the snow and ice.

For the past several years, I have had to play it safe.  I would never have gone on a run with ice and snow for fear of falling and breaking something.  I would have stayed in and run on a treadmill.  I hate the treadmill.  If I slipped and fell on ice and broke something, then I would not be able to compete in track and the renewal of my scholarship would be hanging over my head.  I was not as carefree then and fun came at a price.  But now, there is not scholarship, there is no coach I have to please, and I do not have an upcoming race.  I am carefree.

The roads in Iowa Park are still a bit sketchy and quite icy, but yesterday was too beautiful to not run.  It was 25 degrees, sunny, and no wind whatsoever.  I left my house and hopped from small patch of asphalt to small patch of asphalt.  Despite my hopping technique, I slipped a total of 3 times before I had even made it 200 meters.  I decided that running on the grass in people's yards would be my safest bet for a while.  I did this until I reached some of the old alleyways in town.  The alleyways are dirt and grass here and I knew no ice patches would be underneath.  The alleyways proved to be challenging and extremely entertaining.  Even though it had only snowed half a foot, the snow drifts in places were much higher and they were definitely much higher in the alleyways.  It felt like I was doing high knees the entire time but no matter how tired I was getting, I didn't care.  I was having the time of my life and smiling like a kid in a candy store.  I got out of the alleyways and reached Gordon Lake.  There is a mile path around the lake and some parts were melted but others were solid ice.  I slipped about 37 times at the lake and half the fun of this was trying to not fall flat on my face (which I did not).  I got back to the alleyways and ran through foot high snow again because, why not?  It was fun.  No matter how many times I slipped or how hard it was to run through high snow, I was having fun.  I felt like a kid romping around in the snow without a care in the world.  Then a thought hit me, what I was feeling is what childlike faith should feel like: free.  I was happy and I was free.

To me, childlike faith is not letting the stresses and circumstances of this world effect you.  Most children have no worries and no stress.  Their goal in life is to make any situation a fun one.  They have an incredible imagination and can play anywhere, at anytime, with anything or anyone.  Children are carefree and they have fun.  Childlike faith, to me, is being able to choose joy at anytime, anywhere, with anything or anyone.  This type of faith lets stress, worry, anxiety and fear roll away without a second glance.

Go with me for a minute, think of your life here on earth as my run yesterday.  There was a definite danger in what I was doing.  I was slipping on ice, I was traversing through deep snow, but there were also a few easy places to navigate.  It could have been very easy for me to get annoyed or frustrated with my run but instead I chose joy and I chose to have fun.  Life is full of easy places to navigate, it is full of places where we have the potential to slip and fall, and it also has places a foot deep with snow that may take more time to get through.  You can get frustrated with life or you can choose joy and choose to have a childlike faith through it.  You have the ability choose how you will walk through this life.  Either you choose to let things affect you and get frustrated or you can choose to take what comes at you like a child and move forward with a smile on your face.  It's your choice.  What will it be?

Kelsey J.

Fear Vs. Fear

Fear - A distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc. whether the threat is  real or imagined. 

We live in an imperfect world.  Within this imperfect world, there is a myriad of imperfect people.  You and I fit into this category whether you want to accept that or not.  There also happen to be people in this world who are imperfect and have the ability to be extremely dangerous.  Last week was a representation of that during the shooting in Newtown, CT.  It is hard for us to trust our surroundings and also to trust people that are complete strangers to us.  Whether you want to admit it or not, we all live in fear.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of our surroundings.  Fear of strangers.  Fear.  Fear is the emotion aroused by a perceived threat whether it is real or imagined.

The other day I went on a longer run.  I decided to run a loop outside of the city limits here in THE Iowa Park, Texas.  The loop was on back country roads without a single car on these roads.  A thought hit me as I was running.  It was a fearful thought.  What if something happens to me out here?  I became fearful.  I picked up the pace because of this imagined fear and kept running.  After a few more minutes of thinking things through, I realized something: if we live in constant fear about something that may or may not happen, then how can we ever live?  This world is 110% imperfect and there is nothing we can do to change that.  HOWEVER, there is a God in heaven who is 110%-times-infinity-plus-one who is perfect.

So, lets take a 180 on things.

Fear - reverential awe, especially towards God.

The only fear that we should have in this world is the fear of God Himself.  Here's the thing: Perfect love drives out fear.  What is perfect love?  Perfect love is God.  God drives out fear.  If we are consistently seeking after God who is perfect love and He says that perfect love drives our fear, then the only fear we should have is the fear of God.  A reverential awe towards a being high above, all around, and in everything that surrounds us.  A reverential awe for a being who created us out of dust and will return us to dust one day.  A reverential awe towards a being who created the entire universe and all that it contains.  A reverential awe of the one and only God and the one and only perfect thing in this imperfect world.

Don't live in fear or things out of your control.  You will never truly live if you are fearful about everything.  Live in fear of God.  A fear like none other.  A fear that, believe it or not, will allow you to live without fear.

Kelsey J.

Decisions

In a story, a character is faced with a string of decisions that must be made in order to move forward.  Our days are filled with decisions.  Do I want cereal or eggs for breakfast?  One cup of coffee or five?  Do I really want to run and workout today?  We face many a decision on a daily basis.  Some are small and insignificant such as those above, but some are extremely important and perhaps could even change the course of our lives.  Decisions.


I have been learning about decisions lately.  This has come mainly because I have been faced with important decisions.  What I am learning about decisions is that they should be made now without worrying about what the future may hold.  It is our naturally tendency to worry about the future and what is to come without focusing on the here and now.  We all do it.  If we are constantly living in fear of what may or may not happen in the future, then how will we ever truly live?  We will never make decisions in the here and now because our focus will always be looking ahead towards the future.  I'm not saying that looking ahead is a bad thing.  What I am saying is that it is a bad thing if we lose sight of where we currently are because we are trying to look too far into the future.  There is no verse in the bible in which God tells us to have a five year plan lined out.  Each day is a gift and there is no promise of a tomorrow for any of us.  We fear the unknown and we think by planning out our future, we will have some sort of control over the unknown.  This is far from the truth though.   We have no idea what our futures will hold and our efforts to control them are futile.  Try as we might, we can never truly control our future from afar.  However, we can make decisions along the way that could change our future.  Decisions.

For example, you could be in college months from graduation and already thinking ahead of what you will do after graduation.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but what are you missing right now because your focus is on the future?  You could be so set on having one particular job or living in one particular place.  There is nothing wrong with that but what are you missing right now because your focus is on one thing?  Decisions.

What are you missing out on right here and right now because you are focusing entirely too much on the future?  Our future is never certain.  Tomorrow is not guaranteed. When we truly realize that, we will start to make decisions today that have the ability to change the course of our lives.  Decisions.

Kelsey J.

Stop Being Eustace

Lately, I have loved reading stories and seeing them from a different perspective.  I am able to see them from a different perspective now because I see that our lives are stories and God is the master storyteller.

Because I have an inordinate amount of free time as of late, I am reading the Chronicle of Narnia series.  I am currently about 50 pages into the fifth book and something within these pages struck me.  I saw myself in a character.  Actually, I saw each and every one of us in a character.  We are all a boy named Eustace.  We need to stop being such a Eustace.

Eustace is an interesting character.  He complains a lot for one thing, and is never satisfied with anything.  Sound familiar?  Eustace gets dragged into a Narnian adventure with his 2 cousins through a framed picture of a Narnian ship in his house.  Don't ask me how this is possible, I am learning about stories not magic.  Anyway, Eustace is not there by choice and is very unhappy indeed. Eustace immediately becomes sea sick and begins a long string of complaints that I hope will cease as the book progresses.  What I noticed about Eustace is that I am annoyed by him because his perspective about his current situation is so skewed.  He sees his life and the world around him in such a way that is far from any truth.  Then I realized something, I am Eustace.  You are Eustace.  We are all Eustace.  

Eustace writes in his diary on the first night that waves were crashing over the side and he saw the boat nearly go under several times.  He also wrote that the boat is not much bigger than a lifeboat, the food is terrible, and he is currently living in a dungeon.  The fact of the matter is that the weather is completely fine and there has not been a storm, the boat is of good size, the food is the best in the land, and he is not living in a dungeon.  Eustace dislikes very much his current circumstance and because of this, his perspective is skewed.  Now, do you see that we are like Eustace?  As I was thinking about Eustace and his current "disposition" I couldn't help but think about myself, the reader, as God.  Go with me for a second: I was getting frustrated with Eustace because his perspective was so skewed and he couldn't see the truth but I could.  I am sure that God gets frustrated with us because in a circumstance we did not choose for ourselves, our perspective is skewed but God knows the truth.  He knows that our situation is not nearly as bad as we think it is.

In a situation that we wish to not be in and did not choose ourselves, we tend to complain and focus on the negative things.  We only see what we want to to further our point that our situation is terrible.  The fact of the matter is that we have the wrong perspective.  We forget that we serve a God who will put us in situations to grow us and make us rely more heavily on Him.  We forget that God will work everything out for our good.  We forget.  I forgot.  I was being Eustace.  My goal was to have a job and place to live in Colorado immediately after my internship ended.  I am at home in Texas and unemployed.  This is not exactly what I had imagined and because I did not choose this for myself, I started thinking like Eustace.  My perspective was skewed. I asked God to give me perspective into my situation, and He did.  The end result?  I stopped being a Eustace.  I realized that I am only a few weeks out of my internship and that I am just impatient.  I realized that my day doesn't have to be boring if I am proactive about making it interesting.  I bought a basketball for crying out loud.  Instant entertainment for at least a few hours.  I like not being Eustace.

How is your perspective currently skewed?  Pray that God gives you the right perspective into you situation.  I am more than positive that it isn't as bad as you originally thought.  Seek God.  Stop being a Eustace.

Kelsey "not Eustace" J.

P.S.- I am sorry if someone near to you is named Eustace.  This blog isn't a jab at your loved one.

Choose Joy

"Be joyful always, pray continually"

1 Thessalonians 5:16-17

Be joyful always.  Pray continually.

These were the verses I decided to carry into my summer as a camp counselor.  I knew that if I applied them to my life, I would be an effective counselor.  So, all summer I chose joy and prayed continually.  Because of this, I was more joyful than I have ever been in my life.  I chose joy.  Choosing joy is simple acts that translate into bigger ones.  For instance, I chose joy by choosing to wear a tutu and dance on a table during girl time.  I chose joy by racing my campers to the next destination.  I chose joy by playing a prank on the cabin next to ours.  Little instances of me choosing joy led to the bigger picture of me being joyful always.

I carried these verses into the fall but somewhere along the way, they got lost.  I was still choosing joy and I was still praying continually, but I forgot something important.  I forgot that there was another verse tacked on to the ones above. "and give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (vs. 18)  Towards the end of my internship this fall, I let my circumstances get in the way.  I was trying to choose joy and I was still praying, but something was missing.  My expectation was that I would have a job and place to live immediately after my internship ended.  This did not happen.  I became stressed.  I became anxious about my next step.  Then these verses, once again, came to mind.  Be joyful always.  Pray continually.  Give thanks in all circumstances.  I realized that I was not giving thanks in all circumstances.  I had forgotten about the verse tacked on the end.  

Today, I choose joy.  Like I said earlier, choosing joy is simple acts that will eventually translate into an overall picture of joy in your life.  I chose joy by driving to the store to buy a basketball so that I could shoot around after my run.  I chose joy by listening to the Katy Perry pandora station because inside everyone, there is a Katy Perry fan.  Do not deny it.  I choose joy.  Despite the fact that my circumstance is not the one that I would have chosen, I will choose joy.  I will pray continually.  I will give thanks in ALL circumstances.  How will you choose joy today?

Kelsey J.