Category Archives: Spiritual Growth

Imagination

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No eye has seen, no ear has heard and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9

Do you ever let your Imagination run wild? Do you meditate on the awesome things God can do you in your life? Do you stop yourself because the goal is to big, to lofty, it makes no sense right now? God doesn’t think that way. He just wants us to ask him. We have not because we ask not. (James 4:2-3) He knows what you want already, before we put it out there. When we are children we are encouraged to use our imagination, however as we become adults we are told to be realistic. The great thing about God is that he doesn’t want us to be realistic. He wants us to dream big! (Matthew 7:7-12)

Don’t let life weight you down. Give your dreams to God. He wants to bless you. (2 Corinthians 9:8) He wants to see you win, you just have to be willing to be obedient and to trust him.

Check out this sermon from Rick Warren. He knows about using your imagination and dreaming big.

Conversant

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Conversant-familiar or knowledgeable of something

Are you conversant with the character of God? As I work on my spiritual growth and move from just being saved but actually becoming the person that God wanted me to be when he knit me in my mothers womb, I have been studying God’s character. I often worry about disappointing God or sliding back into bad character habits. God reminded of one aspect of his character that I hadn’t given a lot of thought too. Mercy. The lord is merciful in the ways he deals with us. He is slow to anger and merciful. (Psalm 103:8) He doesn’t punish us for all our sins. He isn’t going to come in snatch everything away from me if I make a mistake. He sees my heart and knows my intentions. (1 Chronicles 28:9) I have a great cloud witnesses in heaven that are cheering me on and wanting me to do well. (Hebrews 12:1)

dont be so hard

Psalm 103 is great for getting more information about the character of God.

  • He forgives all my sins
  • Heals all my diseases
  • He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies
  • Fills me with good things
  • He won’t constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever
  • He is tender and compassionate
  • His love remains forever

Those are just the highlights.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20103&version=NLT

Action: Go back and read this Psalm in its entirety. Knowing the character of God allows us to remember the most important thing about our relationship with Him. He loves us, he wants us to win. He is not nearly as hard on us as we are on ourselves.

Conversant

Congregate

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Congregate-gather into a crowd or mass

What a great word for Sunday! Did you congregate at someone’s church today? Not online, a podcast or tv, but were you physically in the House of God? There is something to be said about the worship experience. It is designed in the way that it is for a reason. I am typically late to church every week because my husband doesn’t like praise and worship, so our compromise is that we get there in enough time to hear one song and the preacher start his sermon. This works well for the both of us. This Sunday however, he couldn’t attend with me, he wasn’t feeling well, so I actually got to church relatively on time.

I had been feeling an unrest in my spirit and I really didn’t understand why. I prayed about it yesterday but I didn’t feel like I got any clear answers. I wanted to stay home with my husband this morning, but something was telling me, get up and go.  I am so glad that I did. The dance team came out first and the song was “How much longer Lord,” boy did I feel that! It was exactly what I had been asking God the other day. How much longer? What else do you want me to do? When the dancers left, the choir came up and sang, “Hold on just a little while longer”. What?! Now my logical brain tells me that I’m the choir director and praise team got together to decide this line up, it wasn’t just coincidence. However, the spiritual person in me knows that God knew I needed to hear those songs in that order, in that way. If I would have gotten to church at my normal time, I would have missed all of that. If I would have stayed home and listened to the sermon online tomorrow at work, I wouldn’t have gotten any of that, just the sermon. I needed to hear the sermon, but hearing the music, feeling like God wanted me to hear that, settled me in a way that sermon did not.

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I talked before about going to church and I know a lot of people have issues with church. I look at church like going to the gym. When you go to the gym even when you don’t feel like it, you always feel better after the experience. I believe church is the same way. In all the times I have been to church, I never left thinking, wow, this was a waste of time. Don’t worry so much about the people who are there. It’s not about them. Its about you, growing your relationship, being obedient to God, getting everything He has planned for you.

Question: If you don’t go to church, why not? How long has it been? Could this be the year that you start going again?

Action: Try to go to church next weekend and the weekend after and just see how you feel. Let me know if you notice a difference between listening at home and being in the building.

Congregate

How to wait well

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I did not always wait well. I was angry at God and didn’t talk to him for a while. I was sad, bitter and jealous. I tried to bargain with God and as you can see none of that worked. I tried a lot of things but I never fully 100% threw my cards in with God. I finally decided that all the things I was or wasn’t doing, I wasn’t getting anywhere. I didn’t feel better and really I felt worse. Self care helped me a lot because it helped me narrow down how I was feeling and what I was going to do to change it.  I don’t look at self care as finding myself per se and more about being intentional about my relationship with God. I did need to block out somethings that were a distraction and start making different choices.

I had to really drill down and pay attention to the things God was telling me. Often times I feel like we have the answers but we are ignoring them because we want the answer to be something other than what it is. I read a lot of books. Two that were super helpful to me were, How to hear the Voice of God by Joyce Meyer and Wait and See by Wendy Pope.

wendy pope         joyce meyer how to hear

 

I wanted to make sure that the promise I heard from God was from Him and not from me. Knowing his voice is really key. We can put things on God that aren’t really from him. I started to read my bible more so I could find stories of situations that were similar to mine, that helped too. I also wanted to read my bible more so that I could recognize Gods voice. You know a person when you spend time with them, reading or listening to your bible is the easiest way to spend time with God. I started to notice some changes in how I felt, random verses would start popping in my head. I listened to more gospel music, so random songs would pop in my head but they would make sense. The verse or song would be relevant to what I was going through.

If you have been reading this blog you see that I have been trying to do more of what pleases God and less of what pleases me. I spent so many years begging God for a baby and not being content in the space that I was in, I’m sure he was tired of me. I am so glad that God is not like man.  I was sick of myself! I didn’t want to pray about it anymore especially when I knew that there were things I needed to work on. Recently, I have been working on getting myself off my mind as much as possible. If I am not thinking about me, then I am not thinking about what I don’t have. There is no room to complain or be sad if I am putting my energy towards something else. I have found things to fulfill me in the mean time, which has helped a lot. This blog has made a big difference. I have been volunteering at church more, something I haven’t done in years.

numbers 2319

 

I believe God’s word is true. I know that this will happen, but I don’t know when. I understand that faith is not about what you can see, that wouldn’t be faith. Hebrews 1:1. I know that God isn’t trying to hurt me by making me wait but trying to grow me into the person he wants me to be. 2 Peter 3:9.  I also know that is desire is from him because I have also asked him to take this desire away if it isn’t what he wants from me. His word backs all this up. I am so glad I have a reference I can look back on to make sure I am not crazy.

I am not sure what you are waiting on, it could be a job, a man/woman, a house, a new car, insert your thing. I’m not going to tell you its not going to suck to wait because that would be a lie. I will tell you that it will get better. If you decide to go in with God 100% you will not be disappointed. You will feel better but you have to stick with it. Just when you get tired and you don’t think you can do anymore, God will give you a boost. I know that to be true because I have been there. You don’t have to suffer alone..

Assay

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Assay-testing of a metal or ore to determine its ingredients and quality

noun

Synonyms: evaluation, assessment, appraisal, analysis, examination, testing

 

trials

God wants to test our ingredients, essentially see what we are made of and what we have been taking. He also wants quality assurance.

As you work on your spiritual growth know that testing will come. God will assay you. He will test you to make sure you are ready for the next level. Before you have success you will have stress. The testing is what is being done to make you better. When you are in the purification process it can be challenging but you know there is a reward at the end if you don’t lose faith.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/constant/

 

 

 

Waiting, Part 2

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My foundation was weak. I never thought about that before. I was doing all these things to show God I was ready for a baby but my walk was weak. I was rooted in the world. I wasn’t rooted in God. I was worshiping the promise but not the promise giver. I had made having a baby my idol because I put it before God. I had put it before God and I didn’t realize it. What is on your mind constantly? Is it finding a man? Is it a new job or promotion? Making more money, buying a new house? Be careful you could be making that thing an idol.

Self-care-dino-Resize

That is when I started my journey of self care. It was definitely a challenge. Self examination is a long process. I had to learn how to be content in the mean time. I didn’t want to do that because to me that meant that I was happy not getting what I wanted. That isn’t what it means though. I had to learn how to approach life differently. Would I continue to be happy and sad every 30 days, ruled by my menstrual cycle or would I get over myself? My friend often reminds me, everybody is waiting for something. This is a challenge I still deal on with on a regular basis. Six people I know had babies in 2017. I already know 3 or more pregnant women in 2018 and its only February! None of those women are me. I really do not understand why, the only thing I can say is that its not yet. Just like the captured Israelites in Babylon, I have to be ok because I could be in this space for a while. Jeremiah 29:5-14.

My pastor says, God doesn’t waste a hurt. You go through things so that you can encourage others that are in your situation or in a similar situation. I know this is a story that God wanted me to tell others. I always thought that it would After I was pregnant and had overcome this that I would share.

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However I see now that isn’t the case. God wants people to see me as I go through, not on the other side. God wants me to work on my image problem. I was ashamed. You are made to believe that women are put here on Earth to reproduce and if you can’t do that then something is wrong with you. In my telling the story after it happened I can control what people think of me. They can’t pity me or feel sorry for me, if its after the fact. That is what has taken me so long to say anything because when people ask why we don’t have kids yet and I say we are having trouble, I often feel pity from them. That’s my perception anyway. I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me. I am blessed. I actually had a person tell me my life sucks, which is definitely not the case.I have also gotten a lot of basic advice that I didn’t ask for, lol. This story is bigger than me though. If even one person is able to take something away from this then it was worth it.

Now that I got that out, in my next post I will talk in more detail about what to do in the meantime. How do you handle waiting on God? Essentially, how do you wait well?

Waiting, Part 1

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I have been wanting a baby a long time. A strong 5 years I would say. I still don’t have one but I’m not giving up hope that it will happen. I haven’t always had the mindset of not wasting my wait. Some years I was on it. No drinking, hard partying trying to get my body and mind ready for baby. Other years I was more let’s just see what happens. People get pregnant everyday with much worse life styles then the one I’m leading. I’ve been to specialists and all kind of things to no result. The only conclusion they could come to is that there is nothing wrong me. Fantastic! Before you think it, my husband sperm count is off the charts. The doctor went on about it so much that I started to develop a complex.

The worst thing about waiting is when you want something and there is no explainable reason why you don’t have it. I’m not old. There is no history of infertility in mother or grandmother. Unexplained infertility effects 20-30% of women every year. I’m glad to see celebrities like Gabrielle Union, Crissy Teigen and Tia Mowery-Hardict speak out about their challenges. It certainly helps ease the stigma.

What are they doing in the mean time? How are they handling the wait? I could be wrong but I dont see as much discussion about that. I’m sure you are going to set goals for this year. Unfortunately they may not all happen and it won’t matter how much hard work you put in or how hard you pray. I’m not saying that to be mean or a hater. It’s just a fact of life. What are you going to do in the mean time?

I did IVF (in-vitro fertilization) in Feb (had to stop) and then again in March of last year. As you can see it didn’t work. I was devastated, especially since there isn’t anything medically wrong with me. The doctor was sure it would work. He told us we were betting with house money. Nope! Got to the final stage of the process when he was like, oh I wasn’t expecting this. My bad for getting your hopes up. Welp. That was the end of that. I had to make a choice. Clearly this baby thing wasn’t happening right now.

I asked God want did he want me to do. What lesson was he trying to convey? What hadn’t I done that I needed to do? There were definitely some things I needed to tweak. My mindset, my attitude, my spiritual walk. God had been telling me to do some things for a while that I had been dancing around. This blog being one of them. I went to see a holistic nurse in May and she told me the same thing the fertility specialist told me nothing was physically wrong with me but I had a root issue.

When your friends spiritual walk doesn’t match yours

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What do you do? Start by asking yourself some questions. Are they hindering my spiritual growth? Are they keeping me from God? Am I being negatively influenced by this person or people? If you can answer no to any of these questions that is a good thing. Are they helping you grow in some other area in your life? Do they encourage you, give you sound advice? Are they a strong shoulder to lean on? Diversity is important. I used to hang around the same kind of people all the time. The experiences I was getting were limited so I decided to expand my horizons.

It has been good. It allows me to share my walk with others while also to learning things from them. Its a good give and take. 

My pastor says choose believers for your best friends. I have certainly have that even if their spiritual walk isn’t strong as mines. That can sometimes be difficult. If your friends are good people don’t ditch them but you need some people who are on the same level as you are or higher. You need people to pour into you as you are pouring out into others. Remember to not be judgmental because you were once in the same place they were. I’m not perfect. There are still things I need to work on. Just because I may read the bible more or not engage in the same sin they do doesn’t make me better. You either. We all fall short of what God wants for us. Thank God for new mercies everyday. 

wia

It’s hard because you realize you found something good, you want other people to have it as well. It’s an issue I struggle with often. I don’t understand why the people I love don’t always get it and I often don’t have the words to explain it. I just hope I am a good example. I have to remind myself that I only can do so much and I am not responsible for anyone’s actions but my own. I just have to pray and allow God to do only what he can do.

You may not want to be involved with conversations you used to have or want to go places you used to go. The pressure to fit in can be hard sometimes. My FOMO (Fear of missing out) can be strong! I want to know what is happening and be there when it does, lol. Continue to stay strong though, if they are your friends they won’t put you in positions that make you uncomfortable.

fomo

Try to find a group of people your age at church. I know a lot of people don’t like church and have their own issues with it but its a great place to find like minded people. If you really can’t do church try to find online communities, although nothing is the same as in person. I know people will disagree but if you want to grow spiritually you need to be a part of God’s community. I read a lot of books, watch sermons online, listen to podcasts and read my bible but there is something to be said about being in God’s house.

Image result for hebrews 10:25a

Being around your friends who may have different faith walks then yours is ok, just remember not to compromise your faith for anyone. The longer you consistently walk with God you will find a balance.

100% Authentic

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100% of the time. Are you doing that? I’m not saying you dont cuss out your coworker for asking you some dumb question. More along the lines of are you uncompromising in your beliefs all the time in action and in truth. That question hit me like a ton of bricks in Sunday School.

No. I am not. I’m close. I am myself at home, work, and church. I spend the majority of my time at the first two so that makes good sense. I’m trying to spend more time at church by going to Sunday school, serving etc. I haven’t been 100% honest in my dealings with my friends and it weighs on me. Outside people don’t know the person you used to be, so any changes you make, it makes no difference to them. With your friends its different to let your guard down because they have seen you at your worst, they were probably with you when you were doing it. lol. Seriously though, rejection is a hard thing to deal with. Your friends probably won’t reject you but will they start excluding you from things? Maybe. Will they care enough about you and less about the things you don’t want to do or hear anymore to not exclude you? Its a risk I haven’t always been willing to take.

I haven’t been completely authentic here. Not that the words I’ve said haven’t been true. It’s more that I’ve held myself back to not offend anyone or make people feel bad about their choices. This blog isn’t for that person though. I don’t want anyone to feel condemned but I do want you to feel convicted so you can make better choices. I had a reader send me a question about spiritual growth. Side bar: yay! People are reading and thinking about things. It was a great question but I havent posted the response because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I may not hurt their feelings  but the thought makes me sad that what I say could cause anyone even a moment of grief.

I think to much about what other people think and how they feel. In doing so, I slowly compromise on the things I believe. Every time I hold back my true feelings in fear of what someone is going to say or what they think I’m not being authentic. I don’t need to express every thought I’m thinking, especially if it is not helpful or building someone up. However, I know there were times when I kept silent when my opinion might make a difference. When I walked a statement back because it didn’t jibe with the majority.

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God called us to be set apart, not stand with the crowd. Standing alone is hard though. In some ways I envy these young kids, high schoolers and college kids. They are taught to be individuals, for better or worse they are themselves all the time. People don’t fault them for it either. When I was in high school all I wanted to do was fit in, I didn’t want to stand out from anyone. As I have gotten older, I have learned to be more of an individual but sometimes I waver. Its hard to stand alone but when I lie in bed at night and think about my day, I want God to say well done. Eventually if you are standing alone, God will send the right people to stand with you, if you continue not compromise, if you don’t grow weary of doing good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spiritual check

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We are almost 40 days into 2018. I know you are putting together goals and vision boards and speaking affirmations over your life. This is all great stuff. One thing though, have you thought about your spiritual goals at all? As we get settled into the new year you should ask yourself some questions. Are you any closer to God than you were last year? Are you consistently having a quiet time? Have you memorized any bible verses? Writing goals down is great idea but you won’t be able to accomplish these goals nearly as well if you aren’t putting God first in everything you do.

I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish and do in summer of 2017. I literally made out a list the weekend before memorial day and prayed to God to help me accomplish every goal that I had set. It happened. I was surprised! It wasn’t difficult at all either. I wasn’t really solely on my own skills or abilities. As we walk into this new year, take stock of where your relationship with God. Try to make that a priority in 2018 as well, just as much as you want to go further in your career, exercise, and visit your Grandma more often.

Here is the spiritual check I did last month. SpiritualHealthCheck by Trevor J. Partridge

It is easy to understand and is broken down in to different sections. Scriptural reading, stewardship, sharing your faith, etc. Its gives you a range from optimal to you still need to work on some things. It definitely provided some clarity and direction for me in 2018. I know I need to work on stewardship, sharing my faith and scripture memorization. If you can, find an accountability partner. Someone that is going to help you stay focused and accomplish these goals.

Proverbs 16-9

I know I want 2018 to be a better year than 2017 was and I know that I can accomplish that by giving God my goals. Actually praying about the goal or the plan Before I decide to do it, not after. Praying before allows God to help you formulate the best course of action and it is saying, I give this to you Lord, and I trust your process and results. Its not to late to decide the course for the year. I didn’t decide until May that I wanted to turn my 2017 around and I am so glad I did. Write out what you want to do and talk to God about it. The best thing about writing it all done is that you watch God do all things you asked him to do.