Words of Life

   Facebook usually inspires me to write posts I would otherwise not even think about on my own. Obviously there has been a lot of controversy going on today, however the issue at hand is not exactly what I want to focus on.

   God has really been speaking to me about the prophetic, my words, encouragement and why it is so important. I think it was two weeks ago in one of my classes that the teacher was talking about prophecy, what it is and what it isn't. They were talking about it in the sense of leading worship but I want to show it's place in day to day life. This was the example that was used: You're leading a worship service and all of a sudden you start to feel a negative emotion. Now just because you are feeling that emotion doesn't mean you are supposed to address the emotion but it's almost like it's God's way of showing you "hey, this is what's going on in the room. I want you to sing out the opposite". By doing this you aren't bringing attention to the negative, but speaking words that will get rid of the negative and create a positive. A lot of people when they think of prophecy they think of it as for-seeing gloom and doom over a nation. I'm not saying God doesn't show us the negative but I think we often get into "warn the world" mode instead of use what God showed us to change the world. God is really showing me that when I feel something negative, or see something bad to use it to fuel my prayers and speak out the opposite. If I just see the bad and speak out the bad, it will only create more bad.

   So now we come to my point. I cannot stand when people complain about America! I absolutely hate when people complain about our President. That's not to say that I am ignoring the state of our nation or that I agree with our Presidents decisions, but complaining will not change anything. Complaining is the complete opposite of what we should be doing. When we complain, we don't speak words of life over the situation. We actually feed into the situation we say we hate so much! God gave us creative speech. We have the ability to change the world with our words! If that doesn't make you think about what you're saying then I'm not sure what else to say. The Bible says that LIFE and DEATH are in the tongue. Complaining brings death 100% of the time. You cannot complain and expect something to change. It won't. The state of our nation is obvious. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how we are struggling, but one way to start to change the way we think about our nation is to start looking for the GOOD that is going on! Start posting the good things happening all over facebook! Let's speak words of life into our nation. Let's prophecy what we want to see happen! Only then will we see change.

   God spoke the world into existence, lets speak the world into the kingdom of Heaven!

Decisions and God

    A couple months ago, someone told me I needed to put more faith in myself rather then God. That statement has impacted me in quite a few ways. At first I immediately shot back with, "You have no idea who I am without God" and it's a true statement but I think God is starting to use that persons words again to teach me something a bit different.

   It's clear as day that without God I would be a complete mess. Possibly not even on the planet, who knows! (good thing we don't ever have to find out) But I have been weighing some decisions lately. Some pretty big, life changing, scary decisions and my biggest fear is that I will make the wrong one. My mind convinces myself that there is a perfect way to live life and if I make a wrong decision it will ruin God's for real plan for me. What a lie. So I decided to listen to one of my favorite podcasts entitled "Decisions and God". Eric Johnson shares some of his experiences in decision making and what God spoke to him. He talks about how when you love God making the obvious decisions is easy, but what about the ones that aren't sin? What about the ones where you have multiple options and all of them would produce something good and you wouldn't mind doing them but when you go to God for direction, He is completely SILENT! And this is what baffles me the most, Eric goes on to say how there comes a time where God trusts you to make good decisions. Now honestly, if I were God I would ALWAYS tell me exactly what to do because I just make better decisions that way. At least I think so, but there's this element of co-laboring with God that comes into play. If He was just up there like a navigator, dictating my every move He wouldn't be a very loving God now would He.
I heard this really great example for co-laboring with God. Say you have a child and you take them out for ice cream. You ask the child what flavor they would like. What flavor is their favorite? And their response to you is, "Oh I don't care about what flavor I want, I just want whatever you're having". As a parent, you would continue to ask them what they want because you want them to have what they want, not what you want. You want to give your child what they want not always just what they need. You want them to have things that they enjoy and it's the same way with God. He is so loving that He wants us to make decisions with Him. Not just take directions.

   God has given us the agenda, we are to bring heaven to earth. How that looks doesn't have to be super complicated. Why should I let the enemy have so much of my time stressing out about making a decision. I have to trust that I know how to make good decisions because the fact is, God trusts that I know how to make good decisions. Sometimes there is a clear answer and when that happens, I am thrilled! Even if I don't necessarily like it. But when He leaves it up to me I have to trust in myself because lets face it, He is SOOOO good that if I end up making the wrong decision, He will cause it to work out for my good. It's because I trust in His goodness that I can be free to trust in myself.