Do we truly Drink?!?!

You can lead a deer to water but you can't make it drink.. everyone knows this saying, and it seems so cliche', but you'd be surprised how much it applies to our walk with Christ.

People can teach you about Jesus, but until you take that drink and taste of His goodness, your just a deer chillin by a lake.


Something so profound that we overlook that is right in front of us. Going to church doesn't make you a follower of Christ. Being nice to people doesn't make you a follower of Christ. Following Him in all he calls you to do, trusting Him in all things, and loving Him above yourself, that makes you a folower of Christ. What does a follower do?? He follows. I wonder if people who label themselves christian understand the weight of giving yourself that label. Christian means little Christ, or to be like Christ. How often can you or i really say we are worthy of refering to ourselves as little christs. I'm not worthy of that title. I screw up ALL the time. Alot of the time we come to church on Sunday thinking we have fulfilled our christian duties, and we go to bible study because well, people might talk if we don't. What does tha say about your devotion to Christ? That it is based on how good He will make you look to other people What does that say about your thirst? I have come to realize recently, that Christ = life, all other things =death. I know that is a strong statement to declare, especially for me to declare. But it has become my reality. Wth so many people around me questioning everything i do, and who i talk to, or with whom i spend my time, i have realized that i am not capable of making everyone i my life hapy with the choices i make. There will always be people who second guess my heart, there will always be people who look down at me. But my life is not based and can not be based on what these people think of me. What Christ thinks is what matters most. If i am living a life that is of worship to Him every day. If i can thank Him for each thing He teaches me everday, and i can do al i can to know Him more and more each day, then that is all my life needs to be about.

Going to church is an amazing thing, provided you are going for the right reasons. i love church, i love worshiping God with other believers. I love when God speaks directly to my heart through what is being preached. But if we are just going to church and then coming home, and doing nothing with what we have learned or been taught that is a very big problem. If someone is starving we are told to feed them. Yet there are so many people who are starving for truth, for reality and for hope, and yet we keep our pretty little mouths shut, until the "perfect time" to tell someone about Christ. Thats crap people. Real crap because as scripture says we do not know the time or the hour. Now is the time, our hope that we have within us, is something urgent, it's not something that can wait till tomorrow. We are told to always be prepared to be able to give an account for the hope that is within us. Always..that's the word i want to concentrate on. Always doesn'tmean when it's conveinent, always does not mean, when you have the time, always means all the time. Your life is not on your schedule, it's on God's schedule.

If we are truly drinking in God's goodness, why are we being so greedy so as not to share that with others? Jesus says if ANYONE is thirty let him come unto me and drink. That doesn't mean the people that you believe should hear the good news. It is for anyone who wants it. If the church doesn't even want it, how can we expect, others to want it? If people can't look at our lives and say wow, so and so, is always talking about this God that they serve, or if others even within the body can't see our desire to know God more how are be going to be building each other up? If we don't have hope within us, except that we are good church going people how are we going to help those who feel hopeless and broken? I'm not only writing this for others but for myself as well, because i have had to take a good hard look at myself lately. I am asking myself these same questions, and my desire is to be someone who not only talks about Christ, but lives Christ.

Passion Found

"You need to find a passion" I was once told. And so i began to search.


So started out a journey i wasn't sure i was ready to embark on. A journey that was exciting and terrifying at the same time. I love being a part of peoples lives, i knew that much. And i like feeling like i am needed. I like to write, but it's not my life. So what is a passion..i don't know how many times i bugged people trying to get them to explain what that really means, or what it would mean in my life. And so i prayed about it, and i prayed and i prayed and then i prayed some more. I asked the people in my life who i trusted to help me on my quest, and asked contionously how they saw me and what they percieved my passion is. And the whole time it was right in front of me. I have a passion for loving people. For looking at things not as how others should see them, but how i would see them if i was in the shoes of the other person. I remembered my hurts, my lonliness, my heartbreaking memories of childhood, and there is where i have found my passion, for brokeness. I want to help the people who feel like there's is no more hope left. The people who wake up in the morning wishing they were ead. The people who have been hurt and burned so bad by people that they feel they will never redeem themselves to anyone.
I want to be able to share the hope i have been given while at the same time reminding the broken that through Christ they are no longer damaged goods. But priceless jewels. Like a diamond hidden in the rough, God can make something amazing out of their lives, if they let Him. This is my passion. To love, to care, to assist, and to show the way through the rain, and directly to the cross. I know what it's like to be hurt by people, to feel like people will always look at me and see a fool, rather then a woman of God. But my identity does not lie in people but in Jesus Christ. All the time i had been searching it was right in front of me. As much as it hurt for someone to tell me i had to find my passion, and that i needed a life of " my own", am grateful for it. Because i no longer need to find a place to belong, because i know exactly where i need to be.

My prayer is this:


1 Corinthians 9:21-23 (New International Version)
21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Blessed

Do you know what it's like to see your whole world crash around you, in front of everyone, and there is nothing you can do to change what has happened? Because of the circumstances people now have this picture or idea of who they think you are, when in reality they have no clue what's happening in your head or in your heart. That's how i've felt recently. Alot of people see me as this goofball who is 25 and acts like she is 10. They see me as someone who has all these crazy ideas that never seem to happen, or that i follow through with. I know that's how hey percieve me, and sometimes rightly so. But there is a side of me that alot of people don't take the time to know. The side of me that has been through soo much, and has been hurt and affected by the circumstances of life and reality more then most people know. Their is a side of me that loves to pray with people, that loves to encourage people, that loves to love. I screw up as much as the next guy, or well, probably more. And i struggle. I struggle alot. I struggle with things that hurt me deeper then most would care to know and with things that affect me every single day. But i have a hope. Not a hope to try harder, but a hope in someone greater then i cold ever be. When i stumble He catches me when i fall He picks me back up, and when i cry He holds me. I struggle with waking up each day and choosing to follow God rather then my own emotions and desires. Because life would be so much more pleasant for me if i just lived for myself. But God has me here for a reason. Sometimes it's hard to swallow that God's plan is geater then my own, sometimes i struggle with my own idols i have in my life. But i know that God is bigger the my struggles and bigger then my hurt and bigger then the people who continously hurt me. He is bigger thenmy shortcomings and my mistakes. And He has blessed me in so may ways. Though there are many people who have only seen me at my worst, God has put other people in my life who do you me. And i am very blessed to have that. I have some of the most amazing friends, who know my struggles and know my shortcomings and love me despite them. They pray with me, laugh with me and at times cry with me to. Our friendships aren't based on superficial friendlyness, but on Jesus Christ. On how HE says to love one another, on His Truth, and with Him as the head. Many people aren't blessed enough to have these kinds of friends, and i am grateful for God placing them in my life. I love you guys more then anything. And i am always here for you guys...m.b., t.d., b.g.,you guys are amazing! Thank you for taking the time to see me.

To Him Be ALL the Glory

So here's my newest poem, I hope ya'll like it.


To Him Be ALL the Glory
=======================


To Him be All the Glory
That is what i want the title to be of my life, my story
For others to hear this amazing tale
Of how My Savior fixed a loser destined to fail

A homeless bum, living on the street
But God saw something other then defeat
He saw someone that could certaintly be used
To bring His healing, to the broken and abused

I am nothing, He is ALL
Because only HE can restore me each time i fall
He knows where i'm strong and where i am weak
But despite my helplessness, He planned a future that wasn't bleak

My life is no longer all about me
Christ is what i want others to see
In my pain and in my strife
I want others to see, He controls my life

To Him be ALL the glory
For HE took a useless bum and created and Amazing story
A changed life, a miracle for real
Brokens dreams, beginning to heal.

A shattered life a battered dream,
Built up frustration, wanting to scream
But HE foreknew, His marvelous plan
To make me right with Him, through a man.

Not just any man, but His One and Only Son
Jesus Christ, My Savior, My God, the only one.
A life changed, a miracle recieved
A new Spirit i was given, the minute i believed.

So to Him be All the Glory given
Because He is the only reason, i'm still living.
So for my life, and for my story,
I give My Lord, ALL of the Glory.

Once again I am challenged

Wow has God been speaking to me lately about so many things. Especially though the sermons at church. Today larry taught on 1 peter 1:1-25. That's alot of verse and normally my mind would be zoning after the first few sentences, but he has been so on point lately it's been nuts. Or maybe i have just been listening more intently. Whatever it is, it's getting to me. The first thing that hit me like a ton of bricks was the scripture. Obviously, scripture is suppose to speak to your heart, but i felt like it was on loudspeaker to me. Verses 6- 9 were talking about going through hardships and troubles ut it also reminds you that it is only for a time. It then goes on to talk about why these hardships are occuring, and it is to prove your faith is the real thing. I feel like i have never read these verses and that it was like God telling me directly, heather, i know that your faith is the real thing. Because i have had many "good" reasons to walk away from the church. And i'm sure if i sat here and thought about it i could come up with a million more reasons. But i haven't walked away, as easy as other people sometimes have made it easy for me to do so. Then to top it off it talks about how when your faith still remians strong it will be glory to God. SoOOO amazing. I felt as though it was totally God encouraging me to keep going, to keep trusting Him and not to let others discourage me in doing so. It's so easy to want to give up when the fire seems to hot, when it seems as though your being scarred and scorched rather then healed and renewed. But when we come out of the fire, we are refined, and more beautiful then we could ever have been without going through it. God truly blessed me this morning, through larry. Then as larry went on in his teaching he was talking about how we are to love each other, as Christ loved us. And me, i'm all about the love factor. I love feeling loved, seeing smiles on the faces of people in my life, who are happy to see me, but how often am i happy to give love. I mean not when it's easy but when it's hard? When someone has just totally crushed my joy, how easy is it for me to run up to them and tell them i love them? It's not easy for me. It's so much easier for me to back off and be like you hurt me, you don't deserve to be a part of my life. It's so much easier to stop calling people because they don't always call me back, its much easier to completely avoid and ignore the people who have hurt me. But as i took self inventory of myself today, i realized something hard to swallow, i'm not very loving at all. And if Christ is love, and i claim to love Him and yet i can't be loving to my brothers and sisters, then i need to get with the program and ask God to teach me to love the very ones who tear me down most. And so.. Here i am, broken over my own sin.. Lord, please..teach me to love them, and to be able to show them that i love them. So not only was church challenging but it was also greatly convicting. Wow...

The church...issue

As i sat in communion this lovely sunday morning I came to realize something i hadn't realized before. The church is very much like the jews who crucified Jesus. You see Jesus was the new guy, He came in and wanted to start changing things, like the traditons, the comfy cozyiness, the cliqueness, and wanted to start including people who well..might corrupt everyone else. You know..the sinners. And the jews..they just did not want people like that around. They were too dangerous, and unclean, and just un holy. Problem is that we sometimes act like those very jews who thought Jesus was demon possessed. Sure we don't come out and say it. But our actions...man they're a dead giveaway. We don't like it when someone comes into our comfy little church and tries to change things. We don''t like it when people come into our lives that just see right through our crap, and lay it out for us. We don't like it when they mess with our schedule, our way of doing things. Or expect that we do more for those who are less fortunate. We like to be comfortable people. Do things this way, and treating people that way. How dare someone come in and expect them same inheritance as us, we've been here all of our lives?!?!?!? And then there was Jesus. Jesus.. who ate with sinners. Jesus who was in a hurry to go heal someone, yet stopped to heal a woman who had been hemorraging. Jesus who saw right through the rich young ruler, when asked what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus, who told the whole synagogue that people were trying to kill Him. Jesus..who calls us to love others as He has loved us. My question is..are we really living that out? Or are we too busy, too scheduled, too caught up on how we might be corrupted, to content with how comfortable we are to just like the jews, right Jesus off? What is more important to you, to your family to your friends? your comfortableness, ur schedules, ur safey net, or being the follower of Christ who lives out what they claim to believe. Actions speak louder then words. And if our words are saying one thing and our actions are saying another, then people have every right to call us hypocrites, because we are. How can we say we love God and yet hate our brother. We can't have two masters. It's one way or another. Or so i believe i have read in the bible that we are quick to point out to others is the Word of God.

A new year

A new year a new beginning, a time to renew
My hopes and my dreams, to give control back to you.
Attemptin to hold on, yet falling apart
Feeling hopeless as people break my heart.

Wanting to be loved, yet feeling pushed away
Holding on with everything i have, not wanting to stray.
The pain inside, now making itself known
Yet i rejoice in how in Christ i have grown.

I feel the pull from who i use to be
Wanting to once again make life all about me.
I want to get better, no more sleepless nights
No more arguements and no more fights.

A brand new year, to start again
Looking to be a servant, a true friend
A year to depend on God, to pull me through
A new outlook, to be selfless in the things i do.