Coming off my high

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." -2 Timothy 1:7


Hello all! Today is a beautiful day outside! I am stuck inside at work however, but I know that I should be thanking God for providing me a job to come home to instead of complaining being here till 11pm .


So today was rather interesting. Unfortunately, my 6:50am alarm did not go off in time for me to get to that extra 8am church service this morning. I was really bummed. I had been looking forward to it all week and I ended up waking up on my own around 7 till 8am. As frustrated as I was, God did give me that extra time this morning to help me become a responsible adult/ Christian. I turned on my TV, which I get a whopping 3 channels because I can't afford cable, and Meet the Press was on this morning. Lately as I've gone through the realization of maturing, I discovered that I really knew almost nothing about my country's politics and current affairs. Despite the fact that I wasn't able to make it to the Lutheran church this morning, I still got to go to my church "job", and learn a bit more about my country. God knew that I had an unknown need to learn about what's going on in my country. How can I expect to serve my Lord and Savior if I don't know what's going on in the world around me? I need to make myself be more aware, be a better listener.


I am comming off of the high I felt in KCMO about having a new understanding of my faith/ revise the way I was living my life. It kind of scares me, because I know that this is when I will be most vulnerable to falling back into old habits and ignoring what God pointed out to me. But I also know that I can't base my faith on my emotional status alone. Emotions are fickle and if one focuses too much on how they feel, they loose site of the fact that our faith is the core of who we are, not how we feel about faith. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Keep the main point the main point"? It's so true with our faith. I can catch myself falling into the emotional part of faith and only focusing on that. When we focus only on our emotions, we loose our focus. Christ should always be our focus, not our emotional tie to Him. I'm not saying that our emotional tie to Him isn't important, it is, but it's not the main point.


God can use our emotions to bring us close to Him, but Satan can also use our emotions against us. Right now I'm starting to feel back at home and in the swing of things before I left for OIO. The emotional high that I had with God at my parents house is wearing off more and more everyday. Part of that is that God has answered my prayer and taken away my fears about death, at least at this time in my life, I'm sure they will arise again. God has also allowed me to keep myself busy so I'm not alone and able to have those fears. I'm at work where I'm helping people for the majority of my shift. I'm back with my friends. God has given me these wonderful gifts of comfort. He's helped me to have a possitive outlook on life and how I should approach the precious time He's given me.


Here's where the not so good side of my emotions comes into play. Yesterday and today I've had thoughts that what if I'm doubting God since I don't feel as close to Him as I did in KC? Am I loosing my faith? Am I going back into my old bad habits? The answer is simple, no I am NOT loosing my faith.


******Extremely powerful words of comfort to follow******


"My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand." -John 10:29


"Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." -Philippians 1:6


"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works." -Hebrews 10:23-24
"He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." -Isaiah 40:29-31


"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." -2 Timothy 1:7


"Be of good courage, and He shall strenthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord." -Psalm 31:24


"Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!" -Psalm 27:13-14


"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." -Philippians 4:6-7


"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me...Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world give do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." -John 14:1,27


"But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel; 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine." -Isaiah 43:1


"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 8:38-39


"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love." -1 John 4:18


How powerful are those words? VERY! Basically in short, my faith was given to me by God, who is eternally faithful. As a Christian, we will have our spiritual and human nature constantly struggling with each other. Since my life, my soul, and my faith are God's, and as the first scripture example stated nothing can snatch them out of the Father's hand. Which means that I can't fear myself out of God's control and protection. What I call my soul and my faith, in reality aren't mine, they're God's. He is more powerful than Satan, and certainly more powerful than my fears. Even as I write this I have a peace about going into this semester. God promised His peace which surpasses all understanding, which is truly the best way to describe it. I know that going into this upcoming school year will be the easiest time to backslide, but I know that God will give me the strength and the tools I need to overcome temptation. What a comfort to know that we can't seperate ourselves from the love of God, even by our own fear .


Dear Lord, thank you for constantly giving strength to my weak and sinful spirit. You are such a compassionate and caring Father and I'm not worthy of the love that you have shown me. I know that as a sinful human being I can let my emotions get the best of me, help me to keep my faith the main point. I'm so blessed to have a Father that will let nothing seperate me from your eternal love!

God Bless you all!