I’ve been doing a lot of driving this past week as I have been back in Indiana visiting family. Of course, I listen to music most of the way and jam along with my pup in the front seat as if we are on some great American road trip.

One of the songs that came on during this time was Brand New by Ben Rector. It’s a fun song with a good beat and fun to sing along to. So I was jamming along and having a grand old time, and then really started to listen to the words and think about what it means to “feel brand new” as our friend Ben says in his song.

The lyrics for the chorus are:

Like when I close my eyes, and don’t even care if anyone sees me dancing.

Like I can fly, and I don’t even think of touching the ground

Like a heartbeat skip, like an open page,

Like a one way trip on an aeroplane,

It’s the way that I feel when I’m with you – Brand New!

While Ben Rector does have some Christian music background, I am sure that he is probs talking about his wife, but I think this is a lot how a life lived with Jesus can look like.

Hear me when I say that struggles will come. THEY WILL COME. And they will suck. And people will suck. And sometimes you will do things that suck too.

[Jesus said,] “I have told you these things so that you may have peace, In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have over come the world.” – John 16:33

Jesus told us flat-out that we will have some struggles. But he also didn’t let it hang there – we can take heart! He has overcome the world by living a perfectly holy and righteous life!

[Jesus said,] “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.” – John 10:10

Jesus came to give us LIFE to the FULL. Yes that means an eternal life with the Father, but eternal life starts NOW. Today. Pronto. Immediately. (Hints the word eternal.)

(Inside look at Jami’s writing process: This is the moment in my blogging “process” where I tell myself to bring around to the point and stop typing every thought that comes into my head. As in, I literally just said that out loud to myself.)

We have a reason to dance like no one is watching, and like we just bought a one-way ticket to anywhere. Even when there are sucky things happening to us or because of us. We have a savior who has come to give us life to the full. He has overcome the world, and made us brand new! And His mercies are new each morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). We are being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).

We have been made brand new by the blood of our Savior. And we have a brand new start each and every day to take hold of the abundant life that is waiting for us.

Let’s go get it.

 

This week is short and sweet. I’ve been feeling thankful this week (and always, but somethings are more specific for this week) and have been realizing that God’s blessings are often waiting there for us to unlock if only we take the first step where he leads.

10. My pup, Penny and the constant happiness and joy she brings to my life every day.

9. My Bible Study Fellowship small group – I am so glad I got placed with you ladies.

8. My church family.

7. New connections with new people or people I’ve known for a while, but haven’t connected with.

6. Opportunities for income while unemployed.

5. Friends who are always there for deep conversations and hilarious moments.

4. Family who is looking out for me and cheering for me from 3 states away.

3. Unexpected quick replies to emails.

2. Conversations with new and old friends at church on Sunday that were encouraging and came at just the right time.

1. God’s unconditional love and blessings that are daily if only we seek to find them.

I have been “searching” for a job for about 2 months now. I use the term “searching” lightly because I haven’t put in a ton of effort toward it until recently.  Sure, I have been looking at jobs, and deciding what I think I might like to do, but it has only been the past few weeks that I have been truly applying and getting down to business.

In the beginning I thought that I was avoiding it because I needed some major healing from a situation I wrote about previously in my blog Get Behind me, Satan. And I believe in part that was/is true.

However in working this morning on my resume and looking at different jobs that I could do, I feel hopeless in it.

What’s the point of even working on my resume and applying for jobs, when I don’t really have many networking connections, or that much professional experience to speak of, or a master’s degree in anything.

I am not saying that I don’t feel like I don’t have something to offer to an employer. I know that I am a hard worker, and a quick learner, but I also feel without more experience or a specific connection, what is going to make me stand out from the crowd? Why would someone choose to put my resume aside to look at further.

It all seems hopeless. Pointless. I will grudgingly  continue to do it. But I don’t see the point other than to do it so I can make money and pay the bills. And that’s difficult for me to say. Even typing it, I started to tear up. I don’t want that to be my existence, but it’s the only thing that is really motivating me currently. That I have to make a living somehow.

We’re born, we grow up, we make money, then we die.

But wait! There’s more!

Even in the midst of all of the crap that has happened the past couple of months, I know that there is something bigger and better waiting for me on the other side. And that my life on this earth was created to serve my Creator in whatever I do – work, play, life.

So I will press on with the only hope that is true and that satisfies and that is that Christ has won the victory over death for me and that one day I will be in paradise with Him. And until then, I will praise Him in the good and the bad. In the pointless and in the fulfilling moments. In every moment, I will praise.

Here’s a video: With Everything by Hillsong United

 

I’ve been at this blogging thing for 3 months now. And I am going to be honest with you (since that is what this blog is all about), It’s been getting harder and harder to come up with things to write about.

Perhaps after writing some blogs and then hearing from various people how much that meant to them, I feel like there is an expectation that needs to be met and don’t know exactly how to meet that expectation.

Maybe I am just in a writer’s slump and am currently lacking some creative juices.

It could be that now that life has slowed down a little bit, I have less exciting things going on in my life and therefore have less things to write about.

Whatever it is, it is getting more and more difficult to write these blogs each week. And I have 9 more months of this to go… Hooray.

But I am doing it. I am sticking to it. Why? Because God has asked me to do write a blog and I have followed through… this time.

To be honest, there are a lot of things that God asks me to do, that I don’t follow through on. We always have a choice to listen to God’s calling and do what he has asked of us. But we don’t always follow through.

I think part of it, is that there is no one physically there to disappoint. It’s a lot harder to see someone face to face and own up to what you haven’t done than it is to know that you can not do it and not have to worry about facing them in the future.

Another piece might be, as petty as it sounds, that we know God will forgive us. Countless times, and countless more He will. So it “doesn’t really matter if we do it or not.” (I do not believe this is true, but I do think it can be a common mindset for believers.)

But one day, we will have to face him. And it will be glorious. And we will have to face all of the things we did and the things we didn’t do. Hear me correctly, I am not saying that if we don’t do those things that He will forsake or we will lose our inheritance in heaven. I know, and I hope you do too, that my spot it secure.

What I am saying is that I believe that God still holds us accountable. We have already received his grace, but now because of that grace, we have a job to do. We spend the rest of our earthly lives living for him and letting him guide us and shape us into a more Christ-like version of ourselves every step of the way.

To put it in perspective, I am studying Revelation with Bible Study fellowship this year. One of the gals in my group said that her grandma would say to her, “When you are doing something, think to yourself ‘Would I be proud of what I was doing if Jesus came back right now?'” Shoot. Grandmas know what is up. They’ve lived lots more of life than we have and we have a lot to learn from them.

But that’s what I am talking about. We aren’t guilted into following the Holy Spirit’s lead or living our lives the way scripture has laid out for us. We want to make our Poppa God proud! He loves us so much to send his only Son to live, die, and rise so that we can have eternal life, and now we get to spend our lives learning from him and listening to him and making him proud by doing what he asks of us! How awesome!

It’s not easy. He often asks us to do things that are outside of our comfort zone. And there is grace waiting for us when we come to him and let him know that we didn’t do what he asked of us. But there is so much beauty in listening closely to your Abba Father and following what he is calling you to do – big or small.

…So there’s that. That just sort of came out and I don’t plan on reading it back before posting. Hopefully you were able to follow along and perhaps even get something out of it! Because I know from experience that even when you reluctantly follow God’s call, you’re still following it and He is bigger than your attitude and can do immeasurably more than we can ever ask or imagine in his name! Amen!

Sidenote: If you have suggestions for something you are going through, have wondered about, or like to hear about – comment below, and I would love to write a blog on it! It will be mutually beneficial – you’ll hear about a topic relevant to your life, and I will have some more writing material for the next 9 months!

Thanks for following!

Tonight is the closing celebration for Youth Encounter and its 51 years of ministry. Just thinking about tonight and all the comes with it is incredibly overwhelming. Just thinking about seeing some amazing people, reminiscing on the past, and reflecting on the ministry coming to an end is enough to make me tear up without even experiencing it.

But at the same time, I am excited to celebrate with the Youth Encounter family. With the people who I have never met, but who have shared a similar unique experience as I have. I am excited to laugh hard, and cry hard, and to lift our voices in harmony to our risen Savior!

This is the joy that we have in the fact that our God is living an active – that tonight we celebrate! We don’t mourn what is lost, but celebrate what has been done, and what God will continue to do through the ministry through which he gave us the opportunity to experience him more fully.

In my mind, tonight will be a tiny, minuscule glimpse of heaven. The church Raising our voices to Jesus in loud praise for all that He has done! We get a biblical glimpse of what this is like in Revelation 19: 6-7:

Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: 

“Hallelujah!
    For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
⁷ Let us rejoice and be glad
    and give him glory!

Tonight we celebrate! I am looking forward to it, friends! Even if you cannot be there in person, I pray that you join us in lifting up thanks to our God who made it all possible!

 

One of my favorite images of Jesus is the depiction of him praying in the garden of Gethsemane. What I think I enjoy about it the most is that it is a perfect example of his humanness, but also of human faith.

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them,“Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”                              — Matthew 26:36-46

Jesus was overwhelmed. He knew what was coming and what had to be done, and it overwhelmed him with sorrow.

He was so overwhelmed with sorrow that he asked God to change the plan, to make it so that he didn’t have to endure what was coming next.

And yet, even at this point of being overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, he puts his trust in his Father and asks for God’s will to be done and not his.

We pray for a lot of things, and I think it’s great that we have a God who hears each and every one of our prayers. But sometimes we forget that at the end of the day, it’s not about our will being done, but God’s. He is the one who is mighty, sovereign, and omnipotent.

I wonder what the world would look like if we spent more of our prayer times asking bodly for the things that are on our hearts, but above else praying for God’s will to be done, not ours.

Tomorrow I am taking a day of reflection and prayer as Jesus did in the garden. I am focusing in on who God is, who he has made me to be, and praying for my desires to line up with His – that HIS will be done.

Will you join me? Even if you don’t have a whole day to dedicate, Spend 1 hour, 30 minutes, even 10 reflecting on the faith of Jesus to take on the sins of the whole world even while being overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.

And for your reflection, my favorite Good Friday song: Garden by Needtobreathe

Peace, my friends.

I write a lot of blogs that are relevant to what I am going through at the time, or that are lessons that I have learned along the way.

It is funny though because sometimes I go through similar situations and I have forgotten the lesson I learned, or what I learned about God during the process.

Life is chock full of ups and downs, of laughter, tears, joys and struggles. We can see God through all of them if we choose too. But we can also lose sight of the fact that God is in everything. That he is always there with us, and that he knows that things that happen to us before they come about.

Lately, I’ve often lost sight of that fact. That God is in all of it. That he is in the happy times that I am ever grateful for, he is in the valley when I feel like I could never climb the next hill without his own, and he is in the plateaued parts of life as well – the part that I struggle the most to remember who God is.

When things are neither this nor that, I seem to feel more distant from God. When I feel a lack of direction and passion for anything, I feel far away. I mean, shouldn’t God be placing those desires on my heart? Shouldn’t he be directing me to what’s next?

I think that he certainly does do those things when he’s ready for them, but I feel that there are times when God is silent, not because he doesn’t care, but because he is calling us to quietly rest in him and bask in his glory during these “plateau” times.

This is most difficult for me as someone who loves to be doing something, or serving people, and loves a challenge whether it be for work or for play. To put it very frankly, I am bad at resting.

When I don’t feel a direction or a movement from God, I feel that something is wrong and that there is just nothing next for me. I’m stubborn (as most of you know). I don’t want to just stay still and listen and wait and bask. I am no good at basking.

Yet, this is God’s will for me. To bask in his  goodness and mercy. To spend time with him and to just do every simple thing with him. Do I always do this? No. But I wish that I did. And I strive to do so.

God is calling you in each and every moment- the mountain tops, the valleys, and the plateaus – to rest in him and grow closer and closer to him and in deeper understanding of who he is!

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.” — Psalm 46:10

I have been knitting a lot in the past couple of days. My roommate walks in the door and sees me sitting there, watching TV, knitting, with a blanket and 2 dogs on my lap, and laughs at me.

I enjoy knitting because I think that it relaxes me and it is a tangible task that I can see the end result… AND the end result is always something practical. How much better could it get.

When you are knitting, each stitch matters. Each stitch is important to making up the whole item that you are making. If one stitch is wrong, or a different tension than the others, it is noticeable. You can go back and fix most knitting blunders, but it takes time, and often tedious work of the hand and eye.

It got me thinking about the verses in Psalm 139.

“For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.”  – Psalm 139: 13-14

God is a master crafter. He has knit everything together in creation perfectly. But most importantly, he has knit us together perfect. He knew exactly how he wanted us to be before we were born, before we were even thought about here on earth. Every stitch of who we are was carefully knitted together to create his most prized masterpiece.

AND… we’re useful too. He has given us an immense and important job to do. To take care of the Earth that He created, and to tell the world what He has done for us through his son on the cross. Unbelievably in our sin and brokenness he most often chooses to use us to do His work.

God intended his knitted creations to be perfect, but because of sin in the world we sometimes have stitches in our life that are noticeable – to us and often to the people around us. Our crafter never intended this, but they are there. Those pesky little stitches that make it seem like the masterpiece is ruined or that we would never want to show to the rest of the world.

However, like I mentioned above, those stitches can be fixed. It takes time, and is tedious, arduous work, but because we have the redeeming power of Christ’s death and resurrection, we have the strength that does not come from us to do what it takes to undo our knitting a little to get to the root of the problem , or take the time to do the tedious work to get it right and get one step closer to looking a little more like our Master Knitter intended us to look like.

Be encouraged, dear friends, that God created us the way that he wanted us to be created. Spend time with him to find out where those sinful, messed up stitches are so that you can take hold of the grace that has been given to you and become more like Christ each day. 

Why is it so difficult for humans to fully and completely trust God?

We are all at different places in our walk with the Lord. Some are able to more often than not, let go and fully trust in God’s plan and some of us cling on tightly to our lives in this world and won’t quite give it away to Him.

Overall, when I think about it, I do really trust God. I believe that he is who he says that he is and that he has done what he says he has done, and that he will do what he says he will do.

But it’s a little more complicated than that.

My natural reaction when something happens isn’t often to pray about it and hand it over to God. It’s often to try and figure out a way that I can fix it myself, or try to solve the problem in my own human ways.

So many times throughout scripture, God tells his people to “remember” his promises and what he has done. Why? Because we forget! We always forget what he has done!

Take a look at the Israelites (I REALLY feel like I have posted something like this before, so sorry if I have). God constantly provided for them over and over again to escape Egypt, to be cared for in the wilderness, and to eventually reach the promised land. But what do they do instead? Grumble their way through it all and complain about the things that they want or need, and they turn away and create false idols and sin their way through their journey. I mean these people witnessed some of the most incredible miracles of God and they freaking build a golden calf to worship! “What is wrong with them!?”, we say when we read through the Old Testament.

But aren’t we exactly like them? When we complain because our lives aren’t the way that we want them to be, or because we feel that we don’t have enough of this or that. We worship false idols with our beloved technology, or with the food that we eat, or with the time that we spend on things that we put before God.

Why can’t we just remember what God has said to us? God keeps his promises. Always. God will remember us and what he promised. God has promised us so many things throughout scripture, and he has always followed through on everything he has said.

All we have to do is remember.

God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. – Exodus 2:24

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today. – Deuteronomy 15:15

He remembers his covenant forever, the promise he made, for a thousand generations. – 1 Chronicles 15:16

I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. – Psalm 77:11

Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.- Ezekiel 16:60

Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise,without hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ -Ephesians 2: 12-13