I feel like going on a little adventure.  As a woman, we learn lessons at different seasons in our lives.  I am passionate about sharing those lessons with other women, empowering them to be more, do more, and expect more in light of having a little extra wisdom for their journey.

Want to come along?

I'm committed to writing a weekly blog based on some life lessons that are worthy of sharing.  If you have a particular area you'd like me to address, please feel free to shoot it my way if you have my personal contact info.  If not, simply comment below!

Today's lesson: God's Word is your lifeline.

Today, I finished a one year and 3-month journey of reading the Bible in chronological order in one year.  Did you catch that?  In January 2018, a dear friend invited me to read through the Bible with her.  It was a one-year reading plan.  As a person who takes pride in ticking off boxes and sticking to the plan, it irked me that it took me longer than the designed 12 months.  However, when I got over myself, I looked at the value of what I had accomplished.

I've always loved God's Word.  God so kindly deposited within me a love of reading and studying.  Yes, I was that girl in your class who read her homework assignments ... and even read ahead.  When I caught the vision that reading was different from studying God's Word, my life transformed dramatically.

What's the difference?  A pencil or pen, a notebook, a bit of time, and in my case, a cup of coffee.  Reading denotes taking in words for knowledge sake.  Good accomplishment.  However, studying implies reading for knowledge to be practically applied in real life.

As a young Mom, "studying" may have been 5 minutes in the morning to read one verse.  During the day, I'd ask God to show me how to apply that one verse, remind me of that one verse, transform my mind by the power of that one verse smack dab in the middle of life.  When I was driving little girls to soccer practice or ballet class or the library,  I'd drown out the chatter of their backseat banter and focus on my one verse.  What seemed to be small attempts to hide God's Word in my heart bore much fruit.

In this season of my life, I have more time.  More time affords more study.  What I learned as a young woman, juggling a hectic schedule, disciplined my habits to covet time alone with God.

Here's the deal.  There are a lot of words out there.  Words have power.  If God created the earth and all its mystery through words, I want to harness the power of them!

How?

Use them!  Use God's Word's because ... you guessed it ... they have POWER!  When I feel ugly, I use God's Word to remind me that I am His masterpiece, created by Him in His image.  When I wonder how a situation is going to be resolved, I use God's Word to fight my anxious thoughts by saying what He says:  cast your cares on Me because I care for you!  I use God's Word like a sword.  There are too many lies that I'm sold by the media, my Facebook feed, and my own inner voice that tell me who I am is not enough.  You feed what you focus on.  Let me say that again because that is so powerful:  you feed what you focus on!

Our brains are complex.  However, our brains do not have the upper hand.  When thoughts run wildly through places I am not designed to go, I have the power - through God's Word - to shut them down!

It's so cool to see God's plan for His Words.  In Genesis, God creates by the power of His Words.  In Revelation, enemies are defeated by the power of Words.  In Revelation 19:11,21, "The Rider of the white horse is called Faithful and True.  His name is the Word of God.  The [enemies of God] were killed with the sword that came from the mouth to the rider of the horse."  The Word destroys enemies.

The enemies in your life - those things that deceive you, despise you, call what is not true about you true and tempt you to chase thoughts that lead to no good - will be defeated through God's Word.  Know it.  Learn it.  And for heaven's sake, use it!

Adventure Awaits,
Christina

Sometimes I feel tiny.  Emotions run high and reality dims my focus.  Routines and schedules kick in and I loose the moments in worry.  Everything I know to be true gets surrounded by threats of things appearing to be more true and I freak.  I grab for solutions that don't come from that place within me that honors God, His timing and His wisdom and I push round looking solutions into square-peg sized problems and I always fail.  Always.

We have two young women in our lives who are in pain.  One, Annie, our niece who lives in Arizona, is recovering from a freak accident that took place in the Grand Canyon.  She has had two surgeries repairing skull and shoulder and is looking at 12 week recovery squarely in the face.  The other, Aubree, our 36-year-old cousin, has just had hands and feet amputated.  An initial illness required medicine that led to the end of circulation to those parts that are now no longer.  Her recovery will be ... endless.

Friends of ours just moved back to a country that has become home.  Cristi writes via Facebook of an apartment that doesn't feel like home and the desire to have an already signed contract broken so they can move into an apartment that better suites their family of four kiddo's who are in transition - again.  She's asking for a miracle.

There are private stories with their own levels of stress.  I've got a few of my own.  Information trickles in and logic fights faith.  On my own, I feel tiny (overwhelmed, hopeless, powerless).

This morning with overcast clouds on what should be a sunny August morning, the atmosphere fits my overall mood.  I sit down in my favorite oasis that happens to be a chair facing the exterior of my apartment and I ask ... I beg God ... to let me hear from Him.

Because walking with God isn't a crap shoot - never knowing what you are going to get - but a loving relationship with a good Father, He directs me to words that fill up the places that wrong thinking has crept into and settled loosely.

The Son expresses the very character of God and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.*

Command means Word.  Throughout the Bible, Jesus is referred to as the Word.  The Holy Spirit reveals the Word.  Word, according the New Living Translation Study Bible, is defined as "a force, powerful and dynamic that governs the world".

When people speak of God being real and hearing from Him, they mean that capable eyes read words in the Bible that are then filtered through their spirit - and because their spirit is connected with the Spirit of God - those words become a dynamic force that is a change agent.  Those connected with God receive direction, guidance, power and instruction from reading Words that were written from divine inspiration directed to other followers of God.  And that's when the SHAZAM! moments happen!

When I feel tiny, I've stopped listening as an activity.  Listening to anything other than God, His Word or His Spirit dulls my faith and opens me up to all kinds of crazy for which I was not designed!  Jesus, the Word, broke the power of the devil and death.  The power of the devil is fear, worry, stress, trying to find logic in the midst of crazy, and all manner of self-help ways to stay positive.  The mighty power of his command, the one who holds everything together by His Word, gives me solid footing in the middle of crazy life.

Annie needs to know that Jesus is all she needs.
Aubree needs to know that Jesus is all she needs.
Cristi needs to know that Jesus is all she needs.

It seems too simple to be true.  I know of no other teaching that says one Word holds, keeps, transcends every situation.  There is no magic formula.  It's about one Word, one person, and His power to transform it all.

I need to know that Jesus is all I need.

Tiny to feeling big in an instant,
Christina

* Hebrews 1:3

For years now, I have used the NLT Study Bible to dig into my study time.  This morning, I found the following little gem that can not NOT be shared:

"Being holy refers to purity gained by separation from the world and living a life so aligned with God that it reflects his passions.  Disciples are set apart by God, equipped by the Spirit and readied by God's Word to enter the world without being victimized by its darkness."  (NLT Study Bible; p. 1806; John 17:16-18)

 After talking with his closest companions, Jesus then spends significant time talking with His Father before he accomplishes the role he was sent to fulfill.  Jesus asks God to make those who believe in him and in the One that sent him to make them holy by truth.  He asked God to teach them His word, which is truth.  And then, because I think repitition brings home points, Jesus said that he gave himself as a holy sacrifice for his followers so they can be make holy by God's truth.

All this kinda sounds like abiding, remaining, living by the truth, taking God at his word, believing in the power we have through the Holy Spirit ... all the stuff the last 3 posts have led us to:  God's Word is Truth.

Words - true and holy - supernaturally transform our lives from average to holy.  If God spoke it, allowed it to be written down, I'm thinking he desires for us to use it.  Use it as we would a weapon and not relying on our intelligence, church attendance, clean image, political affiliation, good deeds, sobriety, rule following, or anything else that may climb up on shaky alters and exalt themselves as worthy.

It's time to trust God and take Him at his Word.

Fighting with words,
Christina

This past Sunday I sat next to a woman that I've come to love.  As we nibbled our lunches, I happened to share a struggle about aging.  She encouraged me.  I then shared a victory I had experienced in the past.  She praised the conquest.  When I hugged her goodbye, I didn't want the lunch to come to a close.  I wanted it to linger.  I wanted to continue to remain in her presence.

That, my fine feathered friends, is the power of right words!  Should it come, then, as any surprise that God says a whole lot about words?  He spoke planet earth into being, so I'm pretty sure He's putting a whole lot of weight on the things that come from our hearts, through our lips, and into the air called our words.

This morning as I sat in my new sanctuary, reading God's words and listening to  Apache and Katie (the horses) eat grass and swish flies with their mammoth tails, I read 1 Corinthians 14.  Paul, the author, uses his words to encourage this church to use their words to strengthen each other.  Why?

The church uses lots of words, but unfortunately we haven't learned the power of using the right words.  Words that build have power.  Words that come from a place in our Spirit, reflecting God's Spirit, that cause hearts and deep places within us to mutter:  "God is truly here among us" (I Corn. 14:25) seem to go unsaid.  If you don't believe me, consider the state of "the church".

I'm learning to really listen to the right words.  Words based on God's truth from His Spirit build. It's not that we never correct or reproach each other (the church) but we do so from a place of strength and in love.  The result is the outcome: building up and strengthening. 

Making another lunch date,
christina