God's School of Wisdom

May 28 "Love Out Loud" Daily Devotional by Joyce Meyer

God's School of Wisdom

"I have taught you in the way of skillful and godly Wisdom [which is comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God]." Proverbs 4:11

True Christianity goes far beyond mere doctrine. We certainly need to know the principles of our faith in the form of doctrine, but real love for God is so much more than a set of basic beliefs; it is also a way of daily, practical living that comes from understanding the ways and purposes of God.

When we approach everyday situations from the perspective of God's ways and purposes, we ask questions such as: "How would Jesus talk to that person?" "How would Jesus deal with that person's obvious need?" When we begin to think along these lines, we are learning to be wise because we are seeking to understand the ways and purposes of God.

Moses was a very wise man, one who understood the importance of knowing God's ways. In Exodus 33:13, he cried out to God: "...If I have found favor in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You..." God answered Moses' prayer, as we read in Psalm 103:7: "He made known His ways...to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel."

Notice the distinction between what God made known to Moses (His ways) and what he made known to the children of Israel (His acts). Some people are only interested in God's acts--what He will do for them. But wise people are like Moses; they hunger for a deep understanding of His ways. Let me encourage you to cry out to God as Moses did.

Love God Today: Ask God to show you His ways and help you understand His purposes.

Oh Today...

Hey all! It's been soooo longggg since I've posted anything! I'm determined to try to at least somewhat keep up with this blog! I mean really, it's the least I can do.

Well, today I learned a valuable lesson. I overcame temptation! *Cheers* *Applause* Thank you, thank you. Okay, but back to a serious note. I don't know if anyone else does this (I'm sure you do), but sometimes I read a Bible verse and I'm like: "That's a great verse! I'm gonna remember this verse so that when I'm going through a trial or a struggle, I'll have it to back me up and lift my spirits." OHHH THE STRUGGLE. The verse I'm thinking of right now is 1 Corinthians 10:13. "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."

I'm not gonna lie, I didn't remember the verse word for word. I completely had to look it up on BibleGateway.com (which is a great site, by the way!). Let's face it: I HATE BEING TEMPTED. I'm not sure I know anyone who enjoys it, but seriously. It's not even a mindset of "Oh here I am being tempted again." No, it's "Oh my gosh, how am I ever going to overcome this?" (There's an emotional difference that I'm hoping you maybe can pretend to "hear" while reading that, haha.) But honestly, temptations aren't easy. They're not meant to be easy. If everyone could overcome every temptation easily, they wouldn't be TEMPTING to us. I like that BibleGateway has footnotes about this verse. It says "The Greek for temptation and tempted can also mean testing and tested." Whew, that's something to wrap your mind around! It's so true, too. When you are being tempted, you are also being tested. God knows this, and if you know it as well and trust in Him to help you work through the struggle, you will succeed in turning away from the temptation and turning toward God.

Temptations are enticing to us because we're humans and we make mistakes and we enjoy a thrill (which is why temptations are also bad for us). Giving in to a temptation doesn't make you a bad person. It further solidifies that you are, in fact, HUMAN. The dictionary on my computer defines temptation as "a desire to do something, esp. something wrong or unwise." Well if that's not blunt then I don't know what is. Remember, we're humans, which means as intelligent as we are...well, we're also stupid sometimes. We all know that temptations are "wrong" and "unwise," so why do we give in? Because, as the dictionary even knows, temptations are DESIRABLE. Something attracts us to the sin or wrongdoing that we know we may or may not be about to carry through with. But we can overcome.

One of my absolute FAVORITE verses in the Bible is John 16:33. "I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." That is always SO encouraging to me. I'm gonna struggle. I'm gonna go through trials. I'm going to encounter temptations and hate them and wish they were gone, but the truth is, they'll still be there until I commit to doing something about them, whether that is giving in to my selfish ways or rising above all that with Christ.

Today I chose to rise above. Although that statement may prod you to commend me on a job well done, I don't want to take any of the credit. I don't deserve that. I'm not trying to be overly modest or humble about it, but I'm also not being braggy. I am proud of myself, though. It's amazing that when you're going through a struggle, while you're in the midst of a temptation, prayer is the powerful force that helps you climb your way out of the pit you've fallen into. The one that you have happily dug for yourself while toying with the idea of saying yes to the temptation right in front of you. But the great thing about prayer is that even when you don't feel like you're praying a "good prayer," your heart knows better. Your heart prays what your mind and words can't, and God hears that. He offers you a hand and helps you up out of the pit and embraces you in His love, and all because you chose Him over sin.

I don't know, maybe this sounds like such a trivial thing to you, but to me, it's more than that. Temptations come in all shapes and sizes, and the more you overcome them with Christ, the more you are strengthened in Christ.

"One day, you'll be standing in front of God, and He'll show you just how easy it was to say no." A very special person in my life likes to remind me of these wise words, and he's right. That's also something that keeps me going when I'm in the midst of trying to resist a temptation. As much as I want to give in (remember, it's tempting because it's desirable), if I just stop and breathe and really think about it for a minute, I realize that the payoff of saying no is much greater than the adrenaline rush from saying yes. An adrenaline rush doesn't last, but the lesson God teaches you from saying no...that's something you can hang your hat on for the rest of your life.

So long story short, don't feel alone if you're going through a temptation. For one, you're human, so you're going to be tempted. It's completely normal. For two, you have so many brothers and sisters in Christ (friends, family, church family, whoever!) who are more than willing to listen to you in your time of need. Do not ever hesitate to contact someone when you're being tempted. The devil wants you to try to face it on your own so that you'll give in, but God wants you to turn to your Christian family and Him, so that we all can help you overcome and grow from it. And I promise, the growth you receive after overcoming is SO worth it :)


Much love,
n.

Redesigned!

Did some redesigning of my blog! New background, new fonts, new pictures :)

I mean I've updated my life recently, so shouldn't my blog be a part of that too?


Enjoy :)

Time is Nothing But My Friend

I'm making changes in my life. Slowly, but surely, I'll end up where I want to be. I'm not completely satisfied with everything yet, including myself, but I will get there. And instead of stressing about all of this, I'm content with it. I'm ready to take part in this journey in my life and be who I want to be, and learn to love myself for who I am, on the outside and on the inside. It won't happen overnight, but I'm okay with that. I'm ready.

Not only am I ready for this journey of learning to love myself and be happy with myself, but I'm also ready for these next few weeks in general. Next week will be spent preparing for finals, and that weekend I'm going on vacation with my family. Not just my immediate family, but my entire family. I literally can't wait. The week after next is finals, which won't be fun, but honestly probably won't be horrible either.

Then the 19th, I have my heart surgery. *dramatic silence for serious effect* Haha but no, really, I am so ready for this. I just don't feel nervous. Not yet, anyway. I'm sure when I get there and it's about to happen, I'll flip a switch and freak out. But right now? No, not yet. I'm just peaceful about it all. I know it needs to happen, and with as much as my heart has been bothering me lately, I'm beyond ready for this ablation. I know I will be better off after, and also, I'm ready to spend my week of recovery at my parents' house with them. There's just something about leaving Empo and being 3 hours away from all my friends. I love my friends to death, and I love ESU so much. And as much as I say I hate my hometown, I really don't. I don't even really hate anyone from my hometown. Honestly, I just dislike the small town mentality that everyone there has. The mindset is so selfish, all about taking and not at all about giving. As cheesy as this sounds, now that I've been away from home for so long, I feel like I've started living. Honestly, when you live in a small town, you're stuck in your own little world, your own little comfort zone. And until you move far enough away to become your own person, you're sort of okay with that. But life is so much bigger. Moving away was probably the best thing I ever could have done. Yet, as much as I say I never want to move back there, I don't mind visiting. In fact, sometimes I crave visits to back home. I miss my little small town SEK so much.

Anyway, I'm just feeling content and peaceful right now and it's been a long time since I've felt like this. It's a wonderful feeling, really. You should try it sometime :)
This is really all I have to write right now. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day :)

xoxo,
n.

Poem Anyone? Yep, I wrote it.

Hearing voices again
It’s nothing but the wind
Bringing back memories
Remembering miseries
Too realistic to ever relive

Mending hearts of fear
Doubt too real, too near
Pain so careless
Embers aglow
Tears fall now, cascading

Surround yourself with love
Yet all alone you’ll be
Mind is weak
Body is frail
Faint is your soul, you see

Despondent, destroyed, useless
Never looking up, hopeless
Life is brutal, cruel
Love is delusive, misleading
Unreachable…breathe your last breath.

Packrat Much?

I'm putting some CDs in my iTunes that I thought I had on there already but apparently didn't, so I'm taking this time to blog.
 So I came to the realization today (a few minutes ago, actually) that I am a HUGE packrat. I thought moving half my stuff to the dorms last year was bad. Ohhhh no. It does NOT even compare to what I am going through right now. Moving almost all my stuff to an apartment is SO much worse! My room looks like a tornado or hurricane or some powerful unwanted force of nature has just completely torn it to shreds. Okay, that may be exaggerating a bit, but honestly, I can hardly walk in it! Granted, it's been a mess for a year or so now (probably longer if I'm going to be 100% honest about it), but right now it is just filled with piles of CRAP. The piles aren't even useful. Probably half of them, if not more, are just filled with random stuff that I don't need, nor do I even have any idea what to do with any of it. The thought of touching anything in my room and actually putting it somewhere is horrifying, not because it takes effort (haha, although I am lazy!) but because I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT. I have two trash bags full of clothes I need to get rid of (I think? I'm not entirely sure what is inside them, I still have yet to work up the nerve to look. All I know is it ISN'T trash lol). And I also have a trash bag full of shoes I need to get rid of. And anything I haven't worn in the past year is also being tossed out (and by tossed out, I mean sold or given away). My bed has currently been taken over by piles of neatly folded clothes that also need to be sold. I just don't even know what to do with myself right now. I keep thinking, "Oh, I've been organizing/cleaning for a while now, I'm sure I've made tons of progress" and then I take a step back and cry (Usually I just stand in my doorway and metaphorically cry. Even I'm not that much of a baby lol). The goal to all of this going away and being accomplished is to have my mom help me with it. Yeah yeah, I may be 19 (almost 20!) but it will really be beneficial and to everyone's immense pleasure if my mom helps me with all this. Mainly I just want her help so that A) I don't have to do it all by myself and wallow in my self-pity from becoming a horrible packrat of useless crap over the years, and B) So my piles of said useless crap don't eat me alive. At least if she's here she can pull me out if a pile swallows me whole.

Anyway, I went over to Amanda's new house today and it is ADORABLE. Hence the reason I came back home and wanted to get all my stuff packed up and organized. Well, THAT didn't happen. Oh well. Slowly but surely it's getting done. I just don't have time for it to "slowly and surely" get done! I move in 10 days!!! You know, Amanda gave me some boxes she was done with. Maybe I should bring them in and start packing stuff into them. That mighttt be a good solution to my problems. Just maybe...

Oh! And yesterday I went for a drive. Big news, I know. Well I just needed to get out of the house for a while, and that's one benefit of living on dirt roads. They'll take you wherever you want to go but give you alone time at the same time. So there's this little dip in the road a few miles by my house. And when I say "little dip in the road" I mean it's basically a small valley. And by "little dip in the road" I also mean that the road basically drops down so low at this point in its course that the creek going across it actually DOES go across it. I drove through some water during my country cruise. So as I'm about to drive through this creek (don't worry, no harm was done to my Baby E. That's my car, FYI), I see this HUGE turtle. And I got all excited because it's really the first turtle I've seen all summer. Okay, maybe the second, whatever. So I'm gonna get out and take a picture of him (or her? Is it possible to tell the gender of a turtle?) when I see this truck coming down the road toward me. Now being a tiny girl and not wanting to get kidnapped/sold to slaves/abused/any other horrible sounding thing, I kept driving, with a downtrodden heart. So I drive on down the road and end up turning around, because darn it, I am determined to get a picture of this amazing turtle friend of mine! So as I'm driving BACK toward this little dip in the road/huge creek covered road-valley, I see this SAME truck coming back toward me! At this point I start flashing back through all the great memories of my life, because I am just SURE I'm going to get dragged out of my car and murdered, by him and his adorable-looking dog in the front seat beside him. AND he was on the phone so I'm almost 99% sure he was plotting my death with his drug lord or something. Anyway, I make it past him (ALIVE!) and lo and behold, THE TURTLE IS GONE! I even stopped my car in the middle of the creek/road thing and looked for him/her/it! (At this point I just don't even know what to call the turtle.) I'm also 99% sure that man stole my turtle friend, and I was very upset with him.

Okay soooo, I'll be the first to admit that whole story was overly exaggerated. But it really did happen! And I really do think he stole my turtle friend. But honestly, it was a little creepy that he had turned around and I had to pass him again. Granted, I did the same thing, but STILL.

Obviously I am entirely too bored right now because this blog post happened. But I hope it has proved entertaining to all of you. I'M entertained by it and I'm the one who wrote it! :)


Anywhoooo. I'm gonna end it here because I'm really running out of witty things to say.
On that note, have a good day! :)
xoxo, n.

Did Some Redesigning!

So is it just me or do you guys think the word "redesigning" is a weird word? Yeah...maybe it's just me. But anywayyy. I did a little redesigning of my blog, changed up the background and the fonts and made it prettier :) which is always for the best!

So my mom and I went garage sale-ing in KC the other day. I got LOTS of goodies for my new apartment :) I got tonnns of kitchen stuff and a little bit of cleaning stuff, plus one of my favorite card games, Uno!
I'm so excited to move into my apartment. I move in 12 days! (That's August 6th for those of you who can't count. No judgment.) I'm not sure it's actually hit me yet that I'm moving out of my parents' house FOR GOOD. Yeah, it's my second year of college (I'm a college SOPHOMORE. It's wack!) so I technically "moved out" last year when I went to college, but this is different. This year I will be sharing an apartment with my friend Heather, and our lease is from August 2011 to August 2012. I was talking to my best friend about it and she was like, "You realize you'll be sleeping on the couch when you come back home to visit." That's when it sort of hit me. I was like "Oh my gosh, I'll be 20 in two months and I'm growing up and becoming more independent." But life is good :) I'm so blessed and I really can't complain about anything because my blessings outweigh my complaints.

I hope everyone's summer has been fantastic, and enjoy the last of it while you can! :)
Also, does anyone else think it's crazy and messed up that it's hotter here (in KS) than it is in Florida?!

xoxo,
n.