Loving the Creator more than the created

“…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather then the Creator who is blessed forever.” Romans 1:25

I recently finished reading Joshua Harris’ book, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, a book I had been dying to read for a while. I must say I believe God used that book to remove the blinders from my eyes, not only when it comes to dating but also in other matters of the such as purity and making the most of the season that I am in. It’s some of the ideas raised in this book that got me thinking about how I tend to get so easily distracted by the desires of my heart sometimes. Has anyone else ever wanted or needed something so bad that it seems as if every discussion with God and every prayer always wound up leading back to that thing? I will be honest and admit that I tend to get like that. I mean it is good that we go to God and lay before Him the things that we would like. Yet sometimes it becomes more like nagging God about it. I’ll also confess that I tend to obsess over things that I want, A LOT! I remember my older brother once promised to get me a new phone. I told him exactly what I wanted and he said he would get it. Instead of taking his word and carrying on with life I took it to a whole new level. When he didn’t respond as speedily as I expected to my whining and nagging I prayed to God ALL THE TIME about this phone and how my brother was disappointing me. I “declared” that I would get it by a certain date and still it never came. Ultimately I gave up on my brother’s promise and got upset with him and God too for not answering my prayers. The point of this little story is not to discourage anyone from wanting anything or asking God for it, but to show how easy it is for our desires consume us if we are not careful.

Many people encounter this problem in many areas of life and it seems to even be taking over parts of the church. Many people no longer seek the face of God but the hand of God. This scourge has permeated through many churches and has led people to seek God for His blessings and not for relationship with Him and fellowship with others. I do believe that it is God’s desire to bless His children, His Word makes that clear in Psalm 84:11 when it says “ For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory and no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”  It is clear from this that our only concern should be to seek to live right through seeking God, and God out of His goodness and not any form of obligation, will grant His children the things their hearts yearn for.

The fact of the matter is that when we treat God as sort of a genie in a bottle we lose sight of who He is and our purpose. I truly believe that even if God had never done anything else for us but create us, He would still be worthy of all praise. Yet not only did He create us, He saved us, redeemed us and adopted us into His family. No one would feel okay with being taken advantage of or only being wanted when there is a problem; so why would we treat the One who has done more for us than anyone ever will that way? Idolatry wears different faces friends. Often times we think it’s just bowing down to man made statues or golden calves, but more than often it is usurping God’s place in our hearts and lives through things and people. With myself, I have realized that the idolatry I struggle with is as a result of selfishness. It’s because I look inward at me, my needs and wants so much that I forget that I am meant to be looking to The Cross and to Jesus. Focusing too much on ourselves is a tool the devil uses to try and distract us. Yet the Bible is clear, “The sorrows of those who run after another god will multiply,” Psalm 16:4. Selfishness and idolatry is never a good thing. Though we are fallen, God’s grace and mercy are sufficient to purge out the selfishness in us; but it starts with a daily and intentional decision to give God His rightful place in our lives. Nothing and no one should ever become more important than Him.

“Humans make great people, but terrible gods.” – Heather Lindsey

Stay Blessed

xx

Why the drama?

For most of my life I have always found it easier to get along with guys as opposed to girls. Maybe it was because I grew up with boys or even because girls tend to have seemingly petty disputes (I mean it's kinda true), and I'm just the kind of person that  didn't want to be bothered. Whatever the reasons though, the fact is that even up to today, most of my friends are male and it seemed to be working out just fine for me. Until recently God started speaking to me on the amount of hate and drama that surround us, His daughters. I mean the reason why I wasn't a fan of many female friendships in the first place was because "girls are petty, dramatic, bitter, hateful" etc. So I decided I couldn't be bothered. 

However God has been gracious enough to show me the error of this kind of thinking lately. I found myself wondering why I was a lot more comfortable with guys than girls, I mean it's pretty clear that they are male and I am FEMALE! There are some struggles that are unique to women, and some roads only women can travel on. As I have continued to grow in Christ, doing my best to allow Him to mould me into the daughter He has always wanted me to be, I began to realise that I didn't really know a lot of people that were on the same road as me. It is at this point that God showed me that I needed to align myself with other daughters of God that could help me along the way and through God's grace, that I could be useful to as well. Yet as much as us girls may be "daughters of God" , those characteristics that have long since given me an aversion to female friendships still exist within us. I have even noticed it in myself. I too have been petty in some issues; I too have allowed bitterness and unforgiveness to rule my heart even losing some friendships along the way; I too have disliked other girls for no real reason and I too have played a part in tearing my sisters down just to make myself feel better. The reality is that ALL of us women have done this if we are to be truly honest with ourselves. Our own brokeness often leads us to seek to affirm our worth by being "better than her." And it is because of this that many women are so broken. We have unknowingly created a cycle where the damage in us causes us to damage others, and this is the scenario that keeps playing out. Of course life also deals us blows from other places, men, relationships, families, school and work also bring their share of hurt. Yet instead of us women helping each other shoulder these burdens we have made them heavier. "Why should someone else's problems become mine?", a question many, including myself have asked at some point. I mean we all have our issues right! Indeed, but the answer to this question, I personally found in the Bible.

"Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbour" - 1 Corinthians 10:24

There is a phrase that goes "Hurting people hurt people." It is the damage that exists in us that finds joy in bringing others down, and even more so that takes us to a place where we don't care how we treat others. As women it is important that we stop the drama and focus on building each other up. Though the world tries to teach us otherwise, we are all responsible for each other because that's what God has called us to do. As always God doesn't always tell us to do the easiest of things, yet as He is the All-Knowing God, it would be in our best interests to do as He says!

My encouragement to all women is to change our way of thinking. To grow from immaturity to maturity, from selfishness to selflessness. And to know that helping another woman realise and embrace the good in them does not take anything from us. Our worth and value are in CHRIST, and Him alone, not in whom we outdress, outsmart, how pretty we are or the bodies we have. God took His time to craft us all individually and uniquely for a reason. Coke and Fanta cannot compete to taste and look the same because they are DIFFERENT! It's the same with us. I'm also learning to embrace this lesson and make changes in my life, and so far being obedient to God has paid off! I have met some amazing women lately who are constantly pouring into my life. If we reversed the cycle of women from that of destroying each other to that of building each other up, I truly believe we will make a huge difference, in others and in ourselves.

"Let the ruins come to life..."

I finally got a chance to listen to the whole Hillsong Glorious Ruins album (delayed I know!) , and as always they did not disappoint! The title track of the album, also called Glorious Ruins seems to have however stuck out the most for me. I feel as if it adequately describes the place I feel I have been in recently; a place of brokenness, where so much of what I knew fell apart around me and where many of those I counted on disappointed me. Basically, a place of ruins.

As my main goal in this life is to follow in the footsteps of Christ, I have realised I need to take a cue from 2 Timothy 2:3 and "..endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." And that realisation has brought me to the journey I am on now, one of rebuilding and starting afresh in most areas of my life. Yet please don't get me wrong, I am not a ninja warrior who just took everything in stride! It took a while for me to get to this realisation. For months I sat in the rubble of the life I had become accustomed to and cried for " the way things used to be." As silly as it sounds I even hoped that things would just surprise me by "fixing themselves" but they didn't. It took a while before the fog cleared and I realised that things were never going to be the same again, and that this was possibly one of the best things to happen to me. When I stopped staring into the past and focused on God, it began to dawn on me that the past really wasn't as great as I allowed myself to believe. I had gotten comfortable in sin; in a relationship where we pulled each other away from God as opposed to closer to Him and in friendships where we promoted the worst and not the best in each other. I had left the path that God predestined me to walk in and was well on a journey that was fast leading to my destruction. So God came and ripped me away from all of it. He took a wrecking ball to the life of sin I had started to enjoy living in, and it hurt like mad, it still kinda does. But now I understand that He had to save me from myself. That's how much God loves us, He is prepared to hurt us for our good. He is not afraid to give us some tough love, because sometimes the greatest threat to our destiny is ourselves.

Sometimes God will reduce some things in your life to rubble so you can start again right

So now that I understand why basically everything I loved had to be reduced to ruins, I can start again. I can begin again and lay the foundations of my life with God at the centre. I can consult Him in this life I am trying to build, in the dreams I want to accomplish and the desires that are rooted so deep in my heart. And that is why the song Glorious Ruins speaks so profoundly to me. Because I know with God, out of these ruins will come forth something I believe will be amazing, and out of these ashes God will bring forth beauty. So to anyone out there who may feel like everything is falling apart, you are not alone. My encouragement to you and to myself is to let God be God. If He lets your house be reduced to rubble, He has a better one in store. His plans are always greater than ours, and His ways higher than ours. So let's cling to Him in faith, believing that He will bring the ruins of our lives back to life.

" Enter through the narrow gate..."

Matthew 7:13-14

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

I have been contemplating starting a blog for more than a year now, and I will admit that the number one reason I have not done so until now is FEAR. Fear that no one would read it, fear that people wouldn't like what I have to say but most of all, the fear of exposing myself. I have feared that people would get to see how messed up I am. That despite being a Christian, I am not as "together" and "holier than thou" as people seem to think Christianity is all about. One of my biggest prayers this year is that my life become a "talking testimony" if I may call it that. That my experiences, successes, failures and fears may be made apparent to the world, not that I may get attention or that people can see ME, but so that they can see the GOD that is doing His work within me. So as much as starting this blog freaks me out, if wearing my heart on my sleeve is the next step I have to take in allowing God to continue making me more like Him then I am prepared to do so.

And so, "Entering through the narrow gate" seemed like such a fitting title because it accurately describes the place I am in right now and the things I am striving for. I'm 22 years old and somewhere between the transition from being a girl to becoming a virtuous woman. In a world that tries so hard to mould us, I choose to walk through this life with Christ as my example. Oddly enough this has made me more "weird" than "normal" in the eyes of many... yet everyday I strive toward the goal. I hope that this blog and the experiences and thoughts that I share will show just how imperfect everyone (including Christians), really are. And to show that as I try to navigate this life, I encounter the same highs and lows, temptations and victories that many "normal" people do. So here's to entering through the narrow gate, and to all the things I will encounter along the way. As I strive to place my hand in that of God's everyday, I know that He will never let me stray.

*Remember you are loved!*