Asking To Be Filled

http://www.ellerslie.com/sermons/eric-ludy/1-8-12/incorrigibly-cheerful 

(This is a sermon that I really liked, if anyone wanted to take the time to listen to it:)

   Oh dear. Chloe reminded me earlier that I had given a sneak peak to my next post! (I forgot completely:) Probably shouldn't do that again....

So often we as Christians continually ask God to teach us to be kind, gentle, humble and whatever other godly characteristics. But rarely do we stop to think that even if we were taught these things, it would still be done in our strength! Instead of trying always to be more generous, more self-controlled (which will never work), we are to ask God to fill us up with Him! If God were to permeate the area of my life where I should be more kind, He will be the one with the kindness, not me. I wouldn't be relying on my own strength, but asking God to rule in my heart. I'm not saying that all of the sudden being good gets easier, but that this is merely a step towards full reliance on God.

This is all I was going to say, I guess I should have finished it before:) Thanks for reading this teensy baby post!

Importance of Protection

I love my Dad. I was going through some pictures the other day and found these:) 

My Dad reminded me of something I've been thinking of lately: 

The Importance of Protection

I think sometimes I get a little too comfortable. I begin to think I really do know the best, that since I'm growing up I should be able to 'handle it'. But it reality I am terribly naive about the world I live in. I do not have the wisdom an extra thirty years would give me. I need protection. As someone who hates to admit weakness, this is not a comfortable fact. I don't want to be needy. 

But I don't want to be alone. 

Thus the great problem in my life: I want to be loved and cherished, but I want to do it "all by myself"

Thing is- "all by myself" is a lonely place, a miserable and full-of-failure place. Through God's grace I'm learning that I don't deserve to be loved. He is teaching me to embrace the fact that I am needy. 

I need Him! I need wise people in my life to help guide me! My Dad has years of wisdom and guidance for me- what sane person would forget? 

(I'm insane)

Vibia Perpetua, a martyr from 203AD said this: 

'In this trial what God determines will take place. We are not in our own keeping, but in God's.' 

This may seem completely unrelated to you, but to me this makes sense:) I am in God's keeping, His protection is always with me. This does NOT mean that I should go into whatever situation saying "God's got this!" without thinking of the consequences. God gave me people in my life to point me in His direction and protect me. I should say "God's got this"- but also make choices that honor him, not throw caution to the wind. It's getting close to bedtime, so I'll have to make this short: If you're stuck in this comfortable, dangerous place- wake up! God has given you people in your life who love you and desire to help you. Learn from them. 

Side note/ sneak peek for next post: Asking God to teach you kindness/patience/whatever DOESN'T work. You are still trying in you own strength to be what you cannot be- perfect. Instead, ask God to fill you up with his patience/kindness/whatever- let himself shine through you, and you can accurately reflect God!

Have a wonderful night,

Avery

Be impossibly on fire for God! 

Letting Your Guard Down

To be honest, I am often not as aware of the spiritual world as I should be.

Let't clarify what I mean by spiritual world: the metaphysical battle of angels and demons that occurs out of human sight. 

I'm aware of my sin- I experience it and it's consequences every day. But I don't pay attention to the spiritual world- the one that really matters. My first reaction is to say I don't experience it every day, but maybe that is a warning sign. Maybe I don't recognize what is part of the battle around me. 

That's where the title comes in. 

Imagine you have a castle to defend. Your enemies attack the front gate relentlessly, but you don't back down. Victory is certain, if you just keep the enemy from getting inside the castle. But something is wrong- men in strange armor are attacking from inside the walls! Your men are quickly overpowered and the battle seems completely lost. 

(Don't worry- you won't lose though!)

Letting your guard down is what loses the battle- it's when we assume that we have control. 

If I focus all of my strength on one temptation I have, and fail to pay attention to knew weaknesses creeping in, the devil get's a free foothold. A free way in to whisper lies.

(Not cool)

There are two ways to deal with this information: 

                                1) The way of the Flesh: This means I must aways pay attention to every area, I must never stop to rest because I might believe lies, I must always be fighting, always be casting down my enemy! 

Don't you hear the weariness in this relentless list of "must do's"? Even though I might think I'm actively fighting the devil, really I'm giving him a greater opportunity to creep in by keeping a close-fisted grip on control. 

This leads to the second way. 

                               2)The way of God: God is fighting for me- this doesn't mean I need to stop fighting, but I need to trust that God can handle this. I will be vigilant, not because I must but because I see the value of it! My desire is to please God, to seek after him, and in this act of worship the awareness of the spiritual world is learned. 

Bottom line for this post: 

Give God the control- true worship of him is what truly matters, he will give you what you need.

I have to go make dinner before life group- otherwise this would be longer… anyway, I'm praying for you all this week!

~Avery

Why Does Evil Exist?

We've been learning about this question in Worldview class lately, and this week I've come face to face with people having to deal with this question every day.

To start this post off, I'll begin by saying that I feel things. Even if I am not experiencing someone's emotions, I still feel them. I don't know why, but I do! This week has been a flood of other people's emotions:)

Last night I spent about an hour just asking God why, asking God how he can be good, and yet evil still exists. What I learned in Worldview has been essential to my struggle with this issue, so I thought I would share it with you! (From my perspective:)

Many people use this logic to say there is no God:

-If God was all-powerful, he would not allow evil

-Evil exists

-Therefore, God does not exist.

But this doesn't deal with the real question we are all asking- why do bad things happen to me?
I want to know why I have to have physical pain every time I eat, I want to know why other people can experience such grief that I can hardly stand to think about it.

There are three different types of evil, natural evil- by natural causes, moral evil- from human choice, and maximum evil- against the innocent.

Of those three, what bothers you most? For me, and I assume most people, it is maximum evil. It isn't fair for first graders to be murdered, it isn't right that they don't have a chance to live. Us humans think that we are innocent.

But we are not.

God gave us a free will when he created us, or we would just be his puppets! He didn't want a bunch of children who had to follow him, but people who chose him! God gave Adam and Eve the command not to eat of the fruit- but they ate it. In their sin, humankind fell.

We are all sinners. We are all guilty.

But we have a Saviour. God looked with sorrow at his people, and made a way for the evil choice to be redeemed.

God promises that he will come again. He promises that he will destroy evil! We have to wait here- but we aren't alone. The Christian God, our God, is the only one who suffers with his people. You are not alone in your sufferings, God's heart is breaking with yours, he is weeping with you. To him, all these thousands of years are just a moment, because he is outside of time. God hasn't obliterated evil yet, but he will.

So the answer to the why question?

Evil is evidence of the fallen world, and our knowledge that there should be something different shows that we are longing for our eternal home: heaven. God knows our sufferings and feels them with us, he cares. 

~Avery

When Praise is Forgotten

I think something I forget too often is Praise.

Take a moment and really think about what it means to praise.

Praise means to express one's respect and or gratitude. Think about this: how often do you turn around and thank God for his gifts? I don't know about you, but my answer would be a cringe-worthy "I forget". One of the devotional books I'm reading talked about this. It simply reminded its reader to remember. If you are a forgetful person like me- this seems kind of like a death sentence. My initial thoughts were "I can't even remember to do my laundry every week- how am I going to remember to thank God- to truly take the time and actually praise him?" but then this sad realization came to me:

Is God really that unimportant in my life that I forget about him?

When did I let that happen?

Do you ever feel like you know all the right things to do- but you never get to the actual doing?
It frustrates me that I can be in such slavery to sin, and yet be so forgiven! I don't understand why God continues to shower me with his love when I keep forgetting! The key is there can be no fine line, no balance.

I can be whole-heartedly for God, or lukewarm and stagnant in my faith.

I don't want to have God be a 'forget' kind of thing in my life. I want him to be a 'can't let go' part!
But to do that I have to change my attitude from assuming I deserve the gifts I've been given to an attitude of humble, grateful awe that God would choose me to love. At this point, if I were reading this I would assume the writer would now end the post. But that would be a depressing ending, there is no way I'm going to make that happen! I can't force myself to praise- it wouldn't be praise! I have to come to the understanding that there is nothing I am doing that brings me God's love. He is the one that can and will do it. I need to just be willing to ask for help. Right now I'm asking that He would give me a heart full of wanting to praise him, because if God gives me the desire, it will truly be praise that glorifies him.

A line in one of the songs we sang this morning talked about how God is drawing close to him the cynic and the proud.

That means me. I praise him that he wants me. What love he has that he would pour out gifts to people who forget him. He wants the prideful, selfish, haughty, jealous, angry, sad, scared, stressed-out person,. Not because they can do anything for Him, but because He LOVES them. He wants you, turn around and let him pursue you!

Praying for us all this week!
~Avery

Runningrunningrunning

Can I just say I love running? 

That's all that really needs to be said here, honestly.

I ran my first 5k (3.1 miles if you're wondering) this morning, and it was everything I thought it would be! I ran in the Annual Run Against Slavery- a fundraiser for K-state Freedom Alliance (a non-profit organization that raises awareness of human trafficking). 

Sign up at 7:30... I really just wanted to run, but we had to wait for other people to show up... 

Putting on our numbers

Yay! So excited! (I couldn't keep my feet still)

warm up until the race begins at about 8:00.

24:00 minutes later...

Finished!

It wasn't too hot, so at least I (emphasis on I) wasn't that sweaty:)

posing with the sign... 

Yay! Prize money! I made $10...

Dad and I both got second place in women's and men's divisions. It was super fun to get to talk to Dad the whole way, and have fun laughing at each other while we tried to navigate the twisty path! 

(Also, Mom and Deborah were awesome cheerleaders, Deborah did some of her homework outside her building for the morning, just so she could cheer for us for the 30 seconds we were in sight! Mom was gracious enough to come and watch us too:) 

Just saying, I cannot wait until my next race!

  

   ~Avery

Glorious Failure

It's fall.

What a wonderful sensation, typing those words.  Fall means I'm a year older, it means a fresh start, it means fun. It means work.

It's been a few weeks since we dropped Savanna off at Cornerstone(I don't know exactly how many...) It's strange how fast our family has adjusted. It's not a sharp pain like I thought it would be, just a dull, aching, 'something's not quite right' sort of feeling.

But that isn't what I wanted to write about:)

I wanted to write about idolatry. Or just sin in general. I feel sort of like that is a lot of what I wrote about last year... but I have learned so much since then that those posts seem so silly!

First, I have learned that sin is something that can't stay ignored for long, and if it does, you have some serious hiding skills. I've learned that I sin every day, just by not being overwhelmed by the grace I have been given to just keep on breathing. Sin is seeing God reveal his nature, and rejecting him. I have rejected God by choosing my own way. Why can I not just choose God? Why is it so hard? BUT- why am I relying on myself to choose him? Truth= I CANNOT. It is impossible for me to choose to say no to the flesh. (As Kevan from CYIA says: "DOWN SELF") I might be able to turn away for a little while, but I cannot resist the temptation of my own path. God has strength beyond measure. He tells me over and over that it is mine to have, I only need ask. I ask, he gives, I forget. 

Let that sink in. I FORGET the God of the universe, who's presence is inside me. How devastating. To be clear, I know exactly who God is, but I get so wrapped up in my world of small, insignificant ups and downs that I grow spiritually lukewarm. So much for burning with passion for Christ.

I've always wanted to know what makes certain people-missionaries and martyrs- so awe-inspiring to me. Something about how they talk, how they act makes me want to know their secret to being so content. But there is no secret, just the fact that they TRUST God. They acknowledge their need, and act on it, by throwing themselves onto his mercy. I want that. I want to hunger, burn, thirst for God's presence in my life! But I rely on myself. I try to make myself want God more. How can I change this pattern?

I can't.

But God can. His Holy Spirit, who lives in me, can!

I don't want this realization to fly over my head each morning. I want it to sink deep into my soul, and
change me. The best part is that even though I fail he still loves me, He knows that I am sinful, he knows that I can't do it. Still He loves me. So in my biggest 'I-can't' moments- that is when His power shines the brightest. So I can embrace my failure. It shows God's strength, God's mercy, that He still loves me even though I'm me! Praise the Father, how glorious!


In another post I'll talk about the second thing, I've rambled slightly longer than I thought I would! Thanks for reading the workings of my brain- which are probably hard to understand(all the commas!:)

~Avery

Rejoice!