2016, Ice Cream, and Acknowledging God

Happy New Year!

I am taking a little break from Project: Who is I AM? for a minute to tell you about something I learned yesterday, but I am still planning on releasing Part 3 on Jan. 3rd if possible.

So yesterday, as my family all gathered around and played board games and snacked on a variety of treats and portzelkie, (a doughnut sort of thing) I got to thinking about 2015, and the year ahead.

I was about to ask God for direction in 2016, for His leading and a clear picture of what I should be doing, when a verse came to mind.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5, 6)

It's a common verse, but somehow I had missed something.

The verse doesn't say "Ask the Lord to direct your paths," it's a promise. As long as you acknowledge Him in all of your ways.

I think our prayer for the new year should not be, "Lord, give me direction," but "Lord, teach me to acknowledge You in all my ways."

I thought of an analogy, it would be like if I said, "If you help me clean my room, I will give you an icecream cone." But instead of asking me where my things go, you, knowing that my desire was to give you ice cream, kept asking me, "Keturah, please give me an ice cream cone." That might be slightly frustrating for me.

Anyway, that is my verse for 2016, and if I accomplish nothing else this year but to learn to acknowledge God in all my ways, that will be enough.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. (Matthew 6:33)

Project: Who Is I AM? - Part 2

Hello people! 

In my last post, I talked about the names of God, and how different ones stand out to different people. (you can read it by going to my last post, Project: Who Is I AM? - Part 1)

One thing that really inspired me to write about who God is, was the realization that so many people know the same God, all coming from different backgrounds, different phases in life, and we all love Him. So I wanted to see just a little bit of why, of what God has shown all of these people of Himself that makes us all love Him.

So I asked a bunch of people that I know, "What is one thing that God has taught you about Himself through your life?"

These are some of the answers I got:

"One thing I've learned is that He likes the process, the journey. 

He's shown me how He cares about the small things in life. Often through answered prayer. After all, if He cares about the grass of the field enough to design each vein in every blade and preserve it day after day, He cares about details in my own life. " -Anonymous

"Nothing in the bible moved me more than reading God's response to Job..." "...God taught me through the book of Job that He is like no other, no one can ever come close to His power, majesty, sovereignty, etc. He taught me that he is GOD!" "...You don't experience God leaving feeling so much better about yourself, you leave in AWE about how wonderful and powerful HE IS!! I don't think I will ever forget the way I felt that day, and I wouldn't trade that lesson for anything! Some people don't like the thought of fearing God, I love it because I know that powerful, mighty, being is watching over me, protecting, and helping me!" -Adam (29 years old)

"I think it's impossible to capture that for me. I have noticed some themes in learning about God over the past days, weeks, months and possibly within a year but not through my life. I can't distill it into a short snippet. There has been so. many. lessons! Mercy. Grace. Forgiveness. The justice/mercy balance. Prayer. I guess that there have been so many varied lessons, and that may be good in that it helps me realize that God is infinite and will always have something new for Him to teach me if I'm open to it."

-Gordan (49 years old)

"He really does love His children."

-Iven (32 years old)

"I have learned--and keep learning, over and over again--that God's grace is bigger and deeper than I think it is, and that everything really depends on it. Almost everything I've ever gone through has come back to this one thing: it's about grace." -Rachel (31 years old)

You can learn so much about God through other people's experience of Him, I think one reason He shows different things to different people is to make us learn from each other. To make us listen to each other, and experience joy that we would not have known had we not asked, "What has God shown you?"

If I had to add to this, my one thing that I would choose is that He is so, so, so faithful. This too, I first heard from someone else who chose to be vulnerable and tell us (it was a group) that she was learning how faithful God is in her unfaithfulness, and that has always stuck with me.

God has continued to show me in SO many ways how faithful He is to me.

I will conclude Part 2 with the encouragement again, to talk to other Christians about Jesus. Whether they are older or younger than you, or have a completely unrelatable situation in life, you will find that people have great things to share.

Project: Who is I AM? - Part 1

Hello there. :) How are you? How is your week going? I wish this were like a real letter, where I would actually get a reply. If you would like to talk to someone, I am all ears. :) Send me an email or something. But anyway, that is totally a rabbit trail.

This is what I was actually going to write about. Remember how I said I was writing a really long post about God?

Well, it's not finished! Surprise surprise. ;)

Hehe. Anyway, I am going to break it up into parts so that it will be easier to write for me, and to read for you.

So here is the first part.

Since God is the be-all and end-all of everything, I figured it would be smartest to look at what He says about Himself, who He calls Himself, first.

"I, the Lord, am the first; And with the last I am He." (from Isaiah 41:4)

"I am the God of your father-the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." (from Exodus 3:6)

"I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and Death." (from Revelation 1:17)

Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth."  (Exodus 34:6)

"Before me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me. I, even I, am the Lord, and there is no savior besides Me." (from Isaiah 43:10-11)

"I AM WHO I AM." (from Exodus 3:14)

Exodus 3:14 was really the inspiration for this post, because it does not describe God, and yet it describes Him fully. If you look at all of the different names of God, each one describes Him, but none can capture every part of Him. He is too great to be described in a name, and that is why He has so many, and why He is called I AM WHO I AM, because it simply says, "I cannot be described."

That thought led me to think about His name. Names we call Him, and  names that He is called in the bible.

God puts a lot of emphasis on how great His name is. 

And the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?” (Judges 13:18)

Therefore My people shall know My name; Therefore they shall know in that day That I am He who speaks: ‘Behold, it is I.’ ” (Isaiah 52:6)

He also attributes the meaning of a name to the person who owns it.

"No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations." (Genesis 17:5)

So, if a name is the describer of the owner of it, should we, without further ado, look at some of the many names of God in the bible?

God, the Lord (ruler - master), Most High, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees, Jealous, Judge of all the Earth, Everlasting God, God Almighty, Fear of Isaac, The Angel, Mighty God, the Shepherd, Stone of Israel, the Almighty, I AM, God of gods, Lord of Lords, the Rock, Father, Jehovah, Yahweh, Prince of Peace, Jesus, Wonderful Counsellor, El-Shadai, Abba, Adonai, Alpha and Omega, Yeshua, the Word, King of the Jews, Christ, Messiah, the Deliverer, Son of Man, the Lamb, the Beginning and the End, Jehovah Jireh (Provider), the Excellent Glory, Holy Spirit, Savior, First and Last, the Amen, Lord God Omnipotent, Son of God, the Branch, the Vinedresser, Ancient of Days, Prince of the Host, Faithful and True, Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Root of David, Holy One, the Mediator, the Majesty, High Priest, Apostle, Anointed One, Bright and Morning Star, Father of Lights, Mighty One.

That is 62 names, and that isn't even all.

I was going to look through the bible and use as many names for Him as I could, but I soon found that there were just TOO many. Partly because some of the names were very repetitive, ex: God, the Lord, the Lord God, the Lord God of Israel, God of Israel, the Lord God Almighty, God Almighty, God the Lord... The list goes on, and on. 

So, I tried to avoid doing any that were repetitive, and any that contained the word 'of.'

God is God of everything. We don't need to list every single thing He is God of. I did do a few repetitive ones, and a few 'ofs,' simply because they were really cool, and I couldn't pass them up.

I found a website, as I was trying to find more biblical names for God, called 900 Names of God. Each one was from the bible. Talk about a lot of names!

This part of who God is, His many names, led me to yet another train of thought. Each name describes Him, yet some names mean more to some people than to others. For me, a few of my favorites are "You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees," (Hagar's name for God in Genesis) "Father of Lights," and, of course, "Jesus."

These mean a lot to me because of things about the character of the Almighty that He has taught to me. 

You could spend a long time looking at these names for God, and learn A LOT about who He is, but one thing I really noticed as I put this post together was that He is SO personal. Each person has their own experience of who God has shown Himself to be in their life, and so we each have different names that stand out to us, that are special to us.

Let me clarify, I do not mean to say that God is different for everyone. He is always the same, always consistent, and our ideas do not change who He is. What I mean is that for one person, when they think of God, the strongest thing about Him to them is His strength, His power. To another, it might be His love, His compassion. To another, His consistency, His dependability. All are a part of Him, but He makes His relationship with us so personal that we each know Him in a different way than everyone else.

There are many things that He is, that have not been shown to me  strongly. So, I had the privilege of interviewing a few people about it, but I will talk about that in the next post.

I hope you liked it! Have a great day!

Impossible Requirements

HELLO WORLD! :D

This past week I have been out of town at a dance camp in the Niagara/St. Catherine's area. I have been going to this camp for the past I-don't-know-how-many years, but for the past three or four years, it has been my favorite week of the year.

As a dancer, it's amazing. It stretches you, (literally) and pushes you to new levels of accomplishment. The teaching is amazing, the teachers are very uplifting and... Just awesome.

The best part about it in my opinion though, is that the week is focused on God. Every morning we gather for morning session in which the bible is taught, there is another hour set aside for bible study, we have some time for personal devotions, and often the evening session is focused on worship, prayer, etc. This year we had one day focused on sharing our testimonies.

In the end, I usually find that I have loved every minute of the week, but the most valuable thing to me is the way that God worked, and the ways that I have grown spiritually.

That was a little bit of a long tangent. The point I was trying to get to was something that I feel God has been teaching me through this past week.

It started on one of the days in bible study when our bible teacher, who is also my oldest sister, asked, "Do you feel like God requires something of you?"

Of course everyone said yes. The answers were things like Our lives, Obedience, Our trust, etc. For me, it was Faithfulness. All of the above, yes, but mostly Faithfulness.

She told us to make a list of the things that He required from us, but that was the only thing I could think of. In the end, I had only one thing on my list.

Then she asked, "Do you feel like you can't give God what He requires of you?"

YES.

This has been such a struggle for me. I always try to be faithful, I try to follow God, but it's like I am not strong enough and somehow I always fail. Eventually, I always feel like a untrustworthy servant, a disobedient child, and an unfaithful bride.

We had just been looking at John 4, where Jesus asks for a drink from the Samaritan woman.

Rachel, our bible teacher, pointed out something that I have never noticed in this passage before.

Jesus asks her for water. 

A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (John 4:7)

Rachel pointed out something here that gave me even more understanding of her reply, and that was that this woman probably was sort of an outcast. Firstly, the Samaritans were looked down on by the Jews because they considered themselves to be part of God's chosen nation, but the Jews knew that they were not. So her answer at first, "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" (vs. 9) is fairly defensive. 

If you add onto that what her position in society probably was, she had been married five times, which clearly says a lot of rejection. And also, women usually came to the well in groups, but she was alone, which means she was probably used to being an outcast.

In light of this, her reaction to His request basically shouts, NOTICE ME. I AM LEGITIMATE.

Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." (vs. 10)

The point that Rachel was making in this, (which was also apparent in a few other passages we were looking at) was that God asks things of us, but whenever He requires something of us, it is because He wants to give it to us first.

In our own humanity and weakness, we cannot give God what He requires of us, unless we first receive it from Him.

That struck me in a new way. Jesus was asking of me faithfulness, because He wanted to be faithful to me. And He wanted to give me the power, through His faithfulness to me, to be faithful to Him.

After that realization, I pondered it for the rest of the week, and time and time again my eyes were opened to ways that He was being faithful to me.

At the end of the week, we had all of our stuff packed up and we were cleaning before we left. I was scrubbing a toilet, while thinking about God's faithfulness and singing a line in a song which said, "I believe everything that You say You are, I believe and I have seen your unchanging heart."

And as I sang and scrubbed, my cousin walked into the bathroom and said, "Oh Keturah, you're so faithful."

She could have said anything. "You're so diligent," "You're such a hard worker," "You're such a servant," any of which I would have been extremely encouraged to hear, but she said, "You're so faithful."

I believe God put those words in her mouth. After she left the bathroom I could only thank God saying, "Thank you for that! Thank you for making me faithful!"

I still don't feel faithful. But I know that God is working in me, and His constant faithfulness to me is proof that He wants to make me faithful in return.

So I guess I will end with restating that God does not require something of you that He does not first want to give to you. And that is awesome.

END NOTES:

The dance camp that I talked about really is all and more than I said it was. If you are a dancer, want to be a dancer, or just feel like it might be fun to try out for a week, here is the website which has more information. http://www.one11ministries.com/artscamp/

My sister Rachel is awesome! She is an author, editor, and speaker with 1:11 Ministries. If you are interested in reading some things she wrote, finding out about her career, or even getting to know her, here is her website. http://www.rachelstarrthomson.com/

We Were Made for Jesus, Not Heaven

Hello there friends!

I have had a thought, which I would like to share with you. Please feel free to join the discussion in the comments either here or on Facebook.

I'm sure everyone who reads this blog would agree with me if I said that our culture has bought into a lie, the lie that says, "Everything is about me."

But may I suggest that even many professing Christians have bought into that lie on a different level.

When you think about sharing the gospel with someone, what is your hope for them? That they accept Jesus, right? Why?

I think most people would answer, "So that they can go to heaven," or, "Because I don't want them to go to hell."

When a Christian is on their deathbed, we find comfort in telling each other, "They know where they're going."

Or the opposite, if a nonbeliever is dying, we pray furiously, and send a pastor over to share the gospel with them, hoping that in their last few minutes they accept Jesus so they can be saved from hell.

Nonbelievers, at least from knowing how I thought when I was one, think that Christianity is all about going to heaven. Christians want to convert them so they won't go to hell.

But as a Christian, I can tell you honestly that the reason hell is scary to me, is not because of fire. It's not the thought of burning forever and never dying. It's the thought of complete separation from God, the only one who has ever been unfailingly faithful, and unconditionally loving enough to die for me.

God made me for Him, and Jesus' death was a way to restore a broken relationship, not a way for me to have a nice home.

I get a little bit sad when I hear Christians share the gospel with people as a way to get to heaven, but, (and this is where I would like a little bit of feedback) with the general public not being interested in relationship with God... I don't know how we would do it any other way. It may be that they just have to wait until they are a Christian, or until the moment that God shows them their need for Him, to be able to see that. I don't know.

Anyway, I love Jesus. :) I can't tell you how grateful I am that Christianity is not about getting to heaven, because I can be with Him here and now, and day by day He shows me how valuable that is.

I am looking forward to heaven, but again, I'm not looking forward to streets of gold and angels, I'm looking forward to a time when sin will no longer be in the picture of my relationship with Jesus.

Deaf Ears

I have begun to realize over the past while that I, along with many others, are deaf.

We hear what is going on around us, the surface things, but there is so much underneath, and above our world that seems silent to us.

I am pro life. I have siblings, and friends, who feel very strongly how much abortion needs to be ended. I agree with them 100%, but I have never had the same passion that they have, the same love for preborn children that they have been given.

Because of that, and a few Psalms, I began to realize a while ago that I don't hate evil very much. I don't like it, but there are things in our culture that are just sort of "normal," and so I tend to downplay it.

God put it on my heart upon that realization to pray that He would help me love what He loves, and HATE what He hates.

In no way am I there yet. I still have times when I have downplayed sin so much, that it doesn't bother me that much. But I have begun to hear a noise that stings at me.

I read Psalm 83 today, and the first two verses caught my eye.

Do not keep silent, O God! Do not hold Your peace, And do not be still, O God! For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; And those who hate You have lifted up their head. (Psalms 83:1, 2)

Your enemies make a tumult.

It struck me that God is omnipresent, He is everwhere at once, hearing every sound all at once.

Every silent cry of a preborn baby as it's chance to live is taken away, every shout of abusive words, every scream of a child unjustly taken away from their parents, every political speech announcing some new law of rebellion against God, they all collide in one great catastrophic tumult. And He hears it all.

No wonder He loves to hear His children sing praises.

The past few times that I have been aware of this noise, the evil too great for me to conquer, I begin to feel a distress and helplessness that is so painful.

I see an entire planet full of people who were made in the image of God, each one having such great potential. And yet, most of them are drawn into the crowd of people making the tumult.

But each time God has sent me peace in a thought of, "He has it under control. This noise is ugly, He doesn't like it either, this is why He died. But unlike me, God is not too weak to conquer it."

I think we need to hear the noise sometimes, it is what is really going on, we need to be aware of the darkness of the evil all around us. That is why I still pray, "Open my ears. Help me to hate what You hate."

But at the same time, I think we all need to hear the other side, we need to hear the sound of horses and chariots of fire around us on all sides. That is why I also pray, "Open my ears. Help me to love what You love."

And Elisha prayed, and said, “ Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (II Kings 6:17)

To: Keturah

I just... I can't... Aaaaahhhhhhhhh........

This is what I have felt like since Sunday morning. The inability to express what is going on within me.

It's even worse, because normally if I can't tell you how I feel, I can at least tell you WHY I feel this way, but this time I can only tell you the latter part of it.

The beginning is a story that I don't fully understand, I wouldn't be able to describe it because I don't even really know what it was. All I can tell you is that I should have loved God more, I should have sought God more, but I didn't, and I was left with a lot of unnecessary confusion and emptiness.

I wish I could elaborate even a little more to tell you when this started, but again, I have no idea.

It isn't that I fell away from being a Christian, or something like that, I just lacked motivation to do much about my faith for a while. So my bible collected more dust than it should have, and when I would talk about God with people I would get this little pang of guilt telling me that I was neglecting Him at heart.

Anyway, that is the beginning. The second half begins with a little bit of history.

As most of you know, I have been saving up money for ballet lessons for years and years. Recently I have been hearing a lot of talk from bible teachers about giving above and beyond ten percent of your increase, your tithe. 

My first thought when this topic would come up would be that I don't have consistent income, and I'm saving for ballet, so I can't give more than 10%. My thought immediately following would be that I am so selfish and stingy, and I need to believe that God can provide for me, so I should give above and beyond. I shouldn't even put limits on it, cause that is stingy. I need to give it ALL. Every penny to my name.

But that's not even wise... Would be the next thought, and that's true. If I were supporting myself, you could make the case that living by faith doesn't have to be "financially sound," but as I am not, giving away all of my money would simply mean that every expense I have in the future, my parents or my siblings would have to pay for, and I don't think that is what God is asking of me.

So anyway, a few days ago I was at a bible study where this came up again. I asked the leader my question, told him my problem, and he said he didn't know, but that I should pray. Make sure that my heart is in the right place, and be willing to give everything if that was what God wanted from me.

After the study I talked with my older sister who shared some wisdom with me, and after talking to her, I felt more at peace about it. (I am still praying about it, but I felt less stressed.) A verse that she shared with me during that conversation was "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart."

The next day, Sunday morning, I was sitting in the church pew and a gentleman that I don't know well came up to me. My initial thought was that he was going to talk to me about ushering, since I was ushering that day, and well, why else would he be talking to me?

But he handed me an envelope and said, "Can you hold this?" Oh, I see. He wants me to put it into the offering plate for him for some reason. "That's for you." When those words finally set in, he had walked back to his seat already, and church had started.

Looking down at the envelope in my hands, I read, "To: Keturah - Psalm 37:4"

Hands shaking, I opened my bible and turned to that verse. I had to hold back tears as I read "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."

I didn't look inside it until the end of the service, but I knew what was inside. I could hardly concentrate the whole time through the music and the sermon, I was having to hold back tears.

Really? Why?

Not only was it so cool that it happened right after I had that talk with the bible study leader and my sister, I felt so blown away that a gift like that would be given to me when I had been not seeking God for so long.

The verse said "Delight yourself also in the Lord," but although I would like to say I had done that... I hadn't really for a long time. I felt like that gift should have been for someone else.

But it wasn't. It was given to me.

It reminded me again of God's gift of His Son. I am the last one to deserve it, and yet...God wants me to have it. He gave it to me, fully aware of who I was and what I had done.

So the end of the story is that I have been blown away AGAIN, by the same story of love that amazes me all the time.

God encouraged me in my pursuit of my dream, to become a dancer. But even more than that, He encouraged me to follow Him again, to take up my cross and run the race for the joy that is before me.

Once again I stand amazed at the feet of Jesus. Even after blessing me with money for ballet lessons, if He wants me to lay down that career, I would do it, because He is worth more than any treasure I could store up for myself on earth.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)