Promises of Psalms 23...

The Lord is my Shepherd= That's Relationship

I shall not want= That's supply

He makes me lie dow in green pastures= That's rest

He leads me beside still waters= That's refreshement

He restores my soul= That's healing

He leads me in the paths of righteousness= That's guidance

For His name's sake= That's purpose

Though I walk through the valley of shadow of death= That's testing

I will fear no evil= That's protection

For thou art with me= That's faithfulness

Thy rod and staff, they comfort me= That's discipline

Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies= That's hope

Thou anoints my head with oil= That's consecration

My cup runneth over= That's abundance

Surely goodness & mercy shall follow me all the days of my life= That's blessing

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord= That's security

Forever= That's eternity!!!

Refining...It's gonna burn!

Refining is defined as the process of removing impurities and of purification.

When you begin to let God refine you, it's gonna burn. It's going to hurt and it is just plainly going to suck. It's going to be no where close to easy.

Burning all of you to be like Him and molding you into who He made you to be is going to be hard, to say the least.

Refining gold consists of recovering gold to its pure state so that the end product is free from impurities that may impair the quality. Substances are removed and the gold is burned in a furnace. It is a complicated and difficult process, but the end product is rewarding and worth it.

When God begins to refine us, it starts with getting rid of all the "stuff" that are not meant to be with us (i.e. sinful habits, unforgiveness, pride, etc). Depending upon our cooperation and our willingness to just surrender, the process can take forever. Then, we are burned by His Presence and molded and shaped into who he created us to be.

We are forever changed by this process and although it is tough, it is well worth it!

PEACE, Peace, Peace!!! Wait, where did it go?

I have learned a more than valuable lesson on peace:

I was so caught up in God's peace that I didn't want to do anything to get out of it or mess it up. I didn't think about the big decisions that I soon had to make or the repercussions of those choices. I just wanted to stay in God's peace and not worry about them.

The only problem with that is exactly what I did---NOTHING!
I was so caught up in His peace that I didn't search for Him or spend as much time in His presence. I had one of the most precious gifts, PEACE, and I did nothing to try to keep it, literally.

How do we keep God's peace without God? We simply can't. Soon enough, the peace will be gone. Unless we continue to seek Him, we will lose it.

When God gives us what we need, how do we show appreciation? Either we get close to Him or farther away. If it's going to push us farther away, we are much better off without the gift and to just continue pursuing Him. Having what we need does not constitute to let God go. We tend to think we don't need Him anymore once we have what we need, whether consciously or not.

We should love Him enough to seek Him out in abundance and in lack thereof.

Trust...at a whole new level

In John 13:7 Jesus says " You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

These are powerful words to a person like me. I try to understand EVERYTHING and find any significance to be lead by that. I have to know the whole picture and plan like my whole future out. With everything change, I just revise and develop a new 10 step plan. Well, God has decided to teach me a lesson in trusting Him at a whole new level. I trust Him with my life and I once claimed to trust Him with everything. But I have realized that I tend to have a control problem when it comes to the plans I made for my own life. I had a dream to be successful in the "Finance World" and to have a great career. But to be honest, it is right here at my fingertips and I don't know if it's where I will head. Although I don't forget the hard work it took to get here, it seems too easy. I did it on my own and a passion is growing in me to have a God-sized dream, something much bigger than myself.

I am now at a fork in the road as the saying goes. Even though this situation tears me down at times, I now I am being prepared for something BIG. That makes it all worth it. This lesson will not be forgotten because it is molding me and changing me drastically.

God told me, "You have to trust that I know what I'm doing." Perfect words to get me through this. Because how foolish would it be if I didn't. I don't realize it now, but later I will understand!

Healing HURTS!

If you think about when someone is physically hurt, the pain doesn't go away until they are healed. And sometimes, even after that, they may feel it again temporarily. But only after being healed do they even begin to start feeling better. When you are physically hurt (for example if you broke a bone), you are in pain until you are completely healed. You have no choice but to endure the pain and you hold onto the hope that it will feel better one day.

The same applies to the emotional and spiritual aspects of our lives. It hurts to get over the past, get through the present, and overcome the future. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! That's why most people choose not to deal with it and just bury it. But the scar is still there and the root of the problem has to be dealt with. And until it is, more hurt and issues are just going to pile right on top of it.

Healing and being HEALED=> There is a difference!
To be healed, you have to go through healing, which can be painful, but there is nothing like being healed and feeling that freedom.

---The present PAIN is worth the futue FREEDOM!!!

A broken heart left me...broken.

A long time ago, I gave my heart to the wrong person. It took me a while to fully get it back and to feel whole again. I held onto it tightly and began to build walls around it, so I could nver feel it break like that again. In doing that, I also blocked good people and good things from entering. In trying to not feel that pain, I couldn't feel joy or love either. I built the walls so high and so thick that I had no clue how to even begin breaking through them to cure the numbness. I prayed to God everyday to open it back, so I could just feel something. When it finally did, I gave it all to Him. I am not qualified to give my heart to any person. I am letting God be in charge of that. For a man to have my heart again, he will have to go through God. At that point, since God has had complete control of my heart, I will know how to love and receive love truly because all this time, He is filling it with His amazing LOVE and trust.

I learned to feed myself as a toddler...

There are many Christians who blame pastors and churches for not getting fed. Or they blame them for leading them astray and putting their own twist on the Word. Well, I learned to feed myself as a toddler. The church is a place for fellowship and a pastor is for leading and watching over. It is still OUR own, individual responsibility to hear from God and meditate on the Word outside of the church. Spiritual immaturity puts this responsibility on the pastor to feed you. When you are a baby Christian in faith, this works. But as you grow, you have to learn to also get fed on your own by spending time with God and in the Word.

Prayer...

"If someone asks God for patience, He gives them an opportunity to be patient.
If someone asks for courage, He gives them an opportunity to be courageous.
If someone asks for a closer family, He doesn't give them warm, fuzzy feelings, but an opportunity to grow closer."---Evan Almighty movie

Our prayers are not always answered in the exact ways that we expect them to be. We keep asking God for something and are sometimes ignorant to see that He has already answered that prayer, just in a more creative way. In the correct way, not in our way. He sees the whole picture, we don't. At times, instead of asking for the same thing 50 million times, we need to just thank Him for what He has done and to show us it when our eyes seem to be closed to it.

Start with LOVE...

1 Corinthians 13:13- "Three things will last forever-faith, hope, and love-and the greatest of these is LOVE!"

Once we love, everything else comes together. Love is in everything. We are called to love everyone. I read this many times in the Bible but can say that I have not began to truly practice this until the last couple of months. I CHOSE who I wanted to love. Basically I was choosing who I thought deserved my love. But the Bible doesn't say it like that. Matthew 22:37 says to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind and puts this as the first and greatest commandment. The second, which is stated as equally important, is to love your neighbor as yourself. Neighbor is defined as a person next to or near you. Well there are times when we choose who is near us. But there is also a huge part of our lives that we are surrounded by people that maybe get on our nerves, that have hurt us, that we don't even know. Guess what? We are still supposed to love them. Love is a choice, it doesn't have to be a feeling. Love is not zero-based in which the more you give, the less you have left. God is love (1 John 4:8) and He is everlasting. That would make love eternity-based and the more you give, the more you have to go around. There is absolutely no limit and we are ridiculous to think otherwise.

Love is amazing and will change your life dramatically. We have a hard time loving people because we think that it will leave us vulnerable and that we are apt to rejection. So instead, we choose not to love. We choose to love those that we are close to and that are "safe". But in reality, they can end up hurting you worse. We are to love all. Things are so much better and days are so much brighter when we just LOVE. It changes your heart every second that you walk in love. It changes you into a better person in probably the simplest and easiest way ever imagined.

Just Love...