Something Lighthearted for Once...

First for a life update

God is so good.. and I'm so evil
He has blessed me and has been a blessing to others through me in innumerable ways the past few days, all blessings that I'm not even close to being good enough to receive. Though i feel I'm still figuring everything out, i am so confident in Gods power.

On another note

I'm going to share with you some of the funniest things I've ever read. little known fact about me, i think stories made up by kids, with their weird ideas and really bad grammar & spelling, are the funniest things ever. Here are some stories that my sister wrote when she was about 8 years old. I'm going to keep her spelling and everything how it is written as much as i can.

This ones called..... The glob who moved to a tree

Once there was a glop that quickly mooved to a green tree today. He was a good jumproper and he could draw furry picture nicley and he could slowly think up big stones in his mind. He slowly rode a gray whale at the blue ocean. He even grew orange carrots in one day. He was very small. He quickly wished and still wished and he became very tall. He could play with a round basketball very well. He said I realy am vice with pretty cats. Suddenly he got a pretty cat. Then He went out nicely of his beautiful tree with his pretty cat. He went away quickley.
The End

This was another assignment... I'm not quite sure what the purpose was for it...

I have a yellow cat
I have normal hands
I have gray pants
I have blond hair
I have smoove close.
My cat is smoove.
I seen my cat eat like a big hog.
He sharpens his claws on the smoove soffa.
And he sleeps like a groovy cat.

I hope you enjoyed thoes as much as I have :D

Discernment

Today's entry in My Utmost for His Highest has spoken volumes to me and to the spiritual plateau I've been experiencing. I'm going to share it with you and italicize points that I'll talk about

Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get our past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself- begin to have spiritual discernment.

When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.

The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice..." (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know..." (John 7:17)

I feel like this needs to be preached in every church all the time. I know that it is a huge struggle of mine, if not one of the biggest struggles, and I am sure it is for many other people, simply knowing Gods voice and just obeying it. Isnt that what life is suppose to be anyway? Being in such a pure unfiltered relationship with God that we can clearly hear and know His voice? I guess the thing that he kind of left out is what to do if you find yourself in that place. He says what not to do (which is something I do all the time and have completely fooled myself into thinking that it is the right thing to do) which is making your own situation to look like you are obeying them. But I think, and I could be wrong, the thing that I am going to try to do is to simply just spend more time with my Father. And when I say time I'm not going to include in that the time it takes me to settle my thoughts down or the time when I think Im praying but really my mind wanders to other places (side note: I have grown to love so very much the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, isnt it so insanely true??? More than anything right now I have realized how prone to wander I am and how I can really feel that) I hope to take a larger chunk out of my day that usual to spend with God, really trying to listen to Him. And probably the biggest thing Im going to try to do is NEVER GIVE UP. I listened to a wonderful sermon by my Seattle pastor the other day and he talked about how we all get into a place where we become content with being in the "shallows" spiritaully and where we cant look past our own circumstances. And when we realize we are in that place and we truly want to change we get discouraged because at first it seems like we cant. Something that he said next is something that I've heard before throughout my life but am so happy to hear again every time I hear it is that WE ARE HUMAN we WILL mess up! God has and will continue changing us but it doesnt happen overnight. So if we mess up we must soon realize we did and come right back to our Fathers arms and continue again, never letting ourselves give up. Then when we continue doing that God WILL give us the strenght to obey and discernment comes! I never fully realized that that is where discernement is grown, in simple obediences. How beautiful!

Everyone say a prayer for every college student you know right now... we need it! (aka finals)

Pause for Contemplation or Word Vomit: Your Choice

Been thinking about many different things just recently....

All the personal emotional struggles I've had this year
All the struggles/wonderful things my family has gone through recently
My future
How I've grown
Other peoples ideas and growth through their lives
How fatal and impactful and real pain is not only in individual lives but in the world as a whole
How instinctively prone to harming ourselves and other we really are
How I am the MOST prone to that
How so far away and silent God seems at times
How much closer God is to me than my very flesh at times
Just starting to scratch the outer surface of how enormous Grace is
How there is no hope... at all in politics, money and especially people
How its so true that there is a great Evil at work in the world today
Figuring out just much I am not suppose to be secure in anything earthly and just scratching the surface of how fully and utterly I NEED to be secure in the promises of the Almighty
How truly I am needing/experiencing discipline
Realizing the width and the breadth of Gods love so much the point that it hurts
Realizing deeper than I ever have before my own depravity
Realizing deeper than I ever have before God's sufficiency
Being terrified and worried about the future
Being excited and at peace about the future
Starting to see and understand how much I love/have received love from the very important people in my life
Seeing that all of that love is really God
(One of my favorites) Seeing that one big thing God is is a Storyteller
Seeing the influence of art not only on my life but on everyones (in all its forms)
Seeing just how deep of a need there is in places like Africa
Really loving my friends and family
Realizing how truly I have not figured it out at all
Being surprisingly contented there, knowing that I know the One who does

Discovering I might have ADHD...... that ones a joke :)

I Timothy 1:15-17

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

I am so sinfull

And I dont even notice it.

I overlook my own faults and focus on the faults of others and wonder why my conscious feels so heavy laden.

God blesses me with an over abundance of all I need and I cant even give Him full gratitude because the one thing I think I need He has not given me yet.

Instead of being able to fully pour myself into other peoples lives and encourage them I'm here having a personal pity party.


Sometimes I really dont know why I'm here, why I feel a call, though somewhat unspecific but definatly a call, on my life and why God has chosen to save me. Now, probably more than I ever have in my entire existance am realizing just how truley and beautifully God has blessed me and to what great extent I do NOT deserve any of it.

Oh how confident I am however.. in the power of God the Father, through His Son Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit


Praise God for Himself

Cool Graffiti

My final painting is going to involve some graffiti elements so I was scowering the internet for common visual elements in graffiti. I found this website with someones top 30 examples of good graffiti. I'll show you my favorites of their favorites :D

"My yoke is easy... My burden is light"

Just had another epiphany moment with God today.

I've been really struggling recently with something that I've been bothered with my entire life which I guess I'll just tell you... wanting to be in a relationship. Its really annoying to me because it seems like whenever I come to a point of clarity and peace about a problem, Satan throws another one in right after it. The one thing that is most discouraging to me is the amount of time i spend in thought about my stupid problems. And yes, I know, alot of people tell me that its normal for me to be feeling this way and having this desire for someone else to be in my life. But something I've been trying to figure out recently is if God has intended for me to be single my entire life. Because that is something that He does occasionally with people. When I think about this for too long i begin feeling despair and hopelessness, that I will never get what I truly desire.

This morning when I went to pray I laid out my worry again before God, trying to constantly bring every thought that was not about Him to Him. I then was so frustrated with my inability, weakness and sin that cried out to God, "Please help me, i cant do this anymore" God brought to mind something strange. I pictured myself with 3 of my best friends and brother/sisters in Christ. We are all extremely close to one another and treat each other as siblings, including our one guy friend. I sighed and realized that is how it will be in the fully realized kingdom of God, we will all be children to the same Father and we will ALL be the bride to one Bridegroom. It was beautiful. All brokenness, loneliness and pain will be no more. We will have perfect community with our Creator and each other. Things will at last be how they should. So if i should receive that type of intimacy on earth or have to wait to receive it after, for that moment I was content in knowing that my Father knew the answer. For a moment i realized that He is the ONLY one who can truly fulfill any of the desires that I have. He is my Father, Brother and true Lover.

Though for now I feel I am at a point of clarity, and my soul is light once more, I recognize that I am not fully there yet and that i may again be clouded by the enemy's lies. BUT.... something that has stayed the same throughout my whole life is the constancy of God. Though i am untrustworthy, He is all powerful, all knowing, transcending God. And really at the end of the day it doesn't matter a stitch what I want or what happens to me at all as long as HE is Glorified.

I feel these words are so very true and power full and need to be heard more often,

"The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power." Oswald Chambers

Dont Know, Just DO

I have seen a better way

and i am not in that way

I have seen a fuller life

and i am not living it

I have seen a more pure Country

and i am not really a citizen



Oh that we all may be humbled as i have just been humbled. I feel as if i have seen Jesus just a few minutes ago. I took a walk to under the Fremont bridge to pray. Halfway through my time i decided it would be good to go to another spot next time i did this, as probably close to 100 people at one time or another passed by. But i was placed there for a reason today. The thing i've struggled with the most spiritualy the past while and really through most of my walk with Christ is simply knowing His voice and obeying it when I hear Him tell me to do something. As I was praying on the bench I heard someone come up the little hill, I looked and it was an older, might be homeless looking man who nodded a few times at me, picked up some garbage off the ground to throw away sat down and sat down with his backback and thermus for lunch. I felt God telling me to offer a granola bar i had to him after i was done praying ( i have little post its on the bars with Matthew 28:20 on them). So i did that. He said no thanks and showed me the chicken and mashed potatoes that he got from the store and said he was waiting for his friend. He asked if i was from SPU and i said yes and he told me he knew alot of people from SPU and how he would get beer for some of them. He then began telling me all of these stories, one involving a girl who he gave a pot brownie to on accident before she went to class and how he saw a naked guy running around by where we were sitting. Then me, being my fallen and stuck up self, slowly tried to leave after listening to a few more stories. His name was Joe. After i finally left Joe i kept hearing "go back go back" in my head as i prayed and started to feel really conflicted and really wondering what i would say/ what i would do if i went back and just really struggling inwardly like i always do with everything when it comes to obeying God. As i gave in to my selfish self and kept waking i saw a black man laying on another bench without a shirt on and with lots of posessions with him and i thought he was sleeping. I was then going to leave a granola bar for him there but as i got closer he moved around so i saw he was awake. Since i was just battleing with God i must have felt the need to actually listen to His voice this time and went over and offered him the granola bar. He said he would like one then read what i had written on the little peice of paper. He couldnt read the bottom so i told him it was from Matthew and he said, "Oh then you're a Christian" I said yes so he began sharing with me all of these verses similar to the one i had written about Gods consistancy and how He is here yesterday today and forever. He then gave the verse where Jesus says that we will do even greater things then he did. He talked about how the verse that says if we said to a mountian move and it will be done is not talking litterally but figuratively. He gave the example of someone who is obsessed with sex and how when gives that to God, whenever a thought comes to tempt him, he can move that thought from his mind. He said that our God is bigger and more awesome than any bad thing we can come across. He said "I talked to God today and he said I should work on my tan!" He asked me if i knew the reference to some of the scriptures and i said i didnt. I got out the Bible that I carry around with me and said that he could have it to use for that. He said thank you very much to me not only for giving him the granola bar and Bible but that because I gave that to him, he intern will share it with others. After learning his name, Mr. Jones, told him to have a good day and enjoy his tan. As i walked off i began to weep, bitterly. All the way home i was crying, my heart too full with blessing from this man who is living it, living this life that i say that i am living but am actually not. See the pure and beautiful eyes of Jesus Christ in this man has made me realize how far off we are from what Jesus wants in this society. And I think we all know it. The love and knowledge of the Lovely One this man showed to me, a perfect stranger, is of SO much more value than the little candy bar with a verse on it that i was pridefully going to give to him *out of the kindness of my heart* we are SCUM...... and the people we view as SCUM got it more right than we will ever hope to get it. It is so true. Any missionary or field worker you will ever talk to will tell you it: there is SO much more the poor can give us than we can ever hope to give to them. ITS THE KINGDOM OF GOD. the last ARE first, the first ARE last! It is incredible to me to see this already healed shining glorious kingdom inside the eyes of this man Mr. Jones....

i... am SO... unworthy

my disobedience... to the simplest of request

I added Joe and Mr. Jones to my prayer list.... I find it incredible the little that I did for them out of the pridefulness of myself is just shattered to peices by the things I've learned from them from less then 10 minutes of conversation.

I hope and pray if i learned anything from this event..... is to just follow where God leads. to not worry even about the state of your own life... just follow.........just follow