Living Life for Christ Alone

"My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense; I shall not be moved." (Psalm 62:5-6) It is in stillness and quiet that we really see God. It is when our eyes are set only on seeing Him that other sights are able to dim before His glorious presence.  Silence. I feel like it's a lost art.  Most of the time, my own soul is full of noise. Worries and cares. Distraction. People I care about. Circumstances I often seek to control. Goals I aim for. Things I'm doing that I'm deeply engrossed in. I start the day all too often with what seems like thousands of thoughts swirling in my mind.  Our moments of "quiet" often amplify the noise in our soul. Ever noticed that?  Maybe it's because we are actually settling down to listen, and that's the first thing we hear.  How do we wait  in silence  for God?  Perhaps it has more to do with expectation than we realize. Maybe there is a l...

It has been a long work week, let me tell you. This morning, I had a 45 minute drive to work, and while most days I can’t wait to get to work and get the job done, this morning I relished the thought of being in the car, alone, for 45 minutes. Driving time has become a time where God invites me to pray and process my thoughts out loud to Him, or meditate on scripture out loud. I don’t always do this, but when I do, I’m really glad I did. This morning I was planning to spend the time praying and thinking about a passage of scripture I’ve been memorizing, but instead I landed on a mini passage I just read this morning that had stuck, in spite of how sleepy I was after the long week. “Who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high…” I began to quote. The passage was Psalm 113:5-6. At first, it seemed like an obvious question…. “Who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth?” I said it again. “Who is like the Lord our God…?” Well...

“’If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest?’” Luke 12:26 This question that Jesus posed echoed in my mind as I pondered the topic of anxiety. We have experienced another worldwide flood. Not a flood of water, but of anxiety. You can find it in almost every section of society. There is hardly a person who is untouched by it. I myself am not exempt from it, which is why I find myself writing about it today. This verse in the Proverbs sums up the hidden state of mind of those who are controlled by it: “Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression…” Proverbs 12:25 It explains why much of our world is depressed from one degree to another. It explains why at certain points in my life, I have plunged into depression too. Have you struggled with this? This morning, I decided to dig into scripture to see what God Himself says about anxiety. Maybe it will help someone out there. It certainly has helped me! Here are just a few obs...

For a long time, I struggled with the voice of condemnation. I desperately wanted to please God, but never felt like I could do enough to please Him. The voice of accusation and condemnation would speak, and I would fall into the trap of introspection.  To this day, there are still times when I fall for that voice. But God has been over the years teaching me to recognize when He is convicting and when the enemy, the accuser, is condemning. Because there is a difference. They are not the same. Characteristics of the Accuser’s voice: 1. When Satan comes, he tempts us to despair of our relationship with God. He takes his accusations and puts them between us and God, tempting us to believe that whatever we have done or have failed to do has become a reason for God not to want us anymore. He lies to us and says that our sin has separated us from the love of God. Have you ever felt driven away from God because of guilt and shame? That is not God doing that. God...

Pain. I’ve never gone looking for it and I’ve never seen it as an enjoyable thing in and of itself. I think we all can agree that this one four-letter word in our lifetimes -however short or long they have been thus far- has stirred up more doubts and questions about God than most other topics in the world. I have lived most of my life viewing pain as an enemy. Perhaps you have too. We weigh our decisions, the goals in our lives, the friends we will have, even whether or not we will come close to God by how much pain –emotional or physical- each choice will cost us. The majority of the world we live in has structured their lives around comfort and ease. Pain is not even an option. Nor is it a topic we really want to talk about. Not unless there is a way to avoid it. But today, I am going to talk about it. Maybe knowing this, you will close your webpage and read no further. That’s ok. This topic is not for the faint of heart. But if you are willing, God can give you g...

Several months ago, I convinced myself that I needed my very own power tools. Seriously. ;)  The first power tool I intended to buy was a drill. I had all these visions of me being able to quickly fix some of the broken furniture I acquire for resale without too much hassle.  Finally the day came that Kevin and I went to Harbor Freight to buy that power drill that I had so long dreamed about. It was an exciting day when I first put it to use! However, the very first thing I had to do when I got the tool out was charge the battery, because it arrived home powerless.  I could push that trigger all day, but nothing would happen until that was done. Once it was charged, I could use it. But I could only use it so long before the battery died again. That’s the case with all battery-powered tools, or battery-powered anything. (Disclaimer: I am not- repeat, NOT- and expert with tools! lol)  When I was looking around at all the options, I noticed that ...

Early each morning, I sit on the couch in my living room, one lamp lit on the table beside me casting shadows all over the room, bible in my lap. Sunlight hasn’t yet peered into the apartment and it’s almost eerie how many shadows can hide corners and crevices from the naked eye. But as the sun rises to full height, the apartment fills with light, and what was dim before becomes visible. I hope that is symbolic of the light Jesus is shedding in our hearts as we peer deeper into the workings of the flesh. I am not yet ready to shed light on how Christ truly sets us free, because I feel we need to unwrap the other side of fleshly living. I heard an enlightening message recently that helped me understand what happens next when my flesh puts on self-righteousness. Let’s pick up on the picture from the last post . My flesh has had me trying so hard to please God that I get sick of it. Every day seams worse than the last one. “Oh, just give up,” the flesh finally says one day...

One thing I do quite often before I see people (most girls do this, so I’m not alone!) is go to the mirror, fix my hair and put makeup on my face. I think as a whole, people –both men and women- want to be presentable when they see other people. We all have our way of doing it. And we all have our reasons for doing it. Certain events call for certain dress. At church, we dress up in our “church clothes”. At work, we wear the appropriate “work clothes”. None of that is wrong, but I want to talk about another dressing up we do that is very wrong, but appears to be very right. In my previous post , I talked about the flesh. In quick recap, if I were to put the whole post in one sentence, it would be this: The flesh has no power over Christ in you. Now I want to talk about one way my very own flesh strives to deceive me on a daily basis. Oh, how do I begin? Imagine with me that I am standing in Christ (to pick up on the scene from the previous post), and my flesh is hiding ...

I sit on my porch as I write this, a cup of chai to warm me up and perfect weather of sixty-something degrees with sunshine. These days confirm my natural belief that life is supposed to be perfect on this earth. But deep down, I know that is not true. A battle rages within me. One contestant in the battle is my comfort-seeking flesh, always trying to find a way to avoid pain and enjoy everything to the fullest at any cost. The other is the Spirit, gentle and kind, yet pulling back the curtain on my heart and letting me see that everything the flesh stands for leads to death and decay. The other day, I was sitting by my bedroom window contemplating this thought when I realized that there was something in the air that was affecting my breathing. I glanced at the window to see mold growing around the edges of the window pane. Sunshine was pouring into the room, but at the same time this black mold sat there, just barely exposed. Why was it there, you ask? The cold weather a...