Today's reading.

I LOVE You fervently and devotedly, O Lord, my Strength.

The Lord is my Rock, my Fortress, and my Deliverer; my God, my keen and firm Strength in Whom I will trust and take refuge, my Shield, and the Horn of my salvation, my High Tower.

(Psalm 18:1, 2 AMP)

How do you start your day?

I'm so guilty of starting my day with Facebook. What did I miss? Who's doing what? What drama has unfolded while I was sleeping?

Does it really matter??
No.

I've found myself having some rough mornings. Trying to get myself ready with a 14 month old running around is quite a challenge! I get angry. I get frustrated. The littlest things can set me off.

Well, duh.

So this week, I'm going to make the effort to check my Bible first. It's too easy. Pick up my phone, open my Bible app and there ya go. I've started a devotional on that same app. How handy is that?

Not too say that from now on I will have the perfect mornings, but my reactions , I hope will be better.

Today's reading was from 1 Corinthians 1 where Paul teaches how God uses the people others think are foolish.
To expand on this, God uses people who are flawed and broken. You may think I've done this or that, I haven't gotten a good education, I have too much wrong with me for God to use me. We are exactly who God wants to use. He chooses us because of those flaws and shortcomings because then we can't say we did it in our own power. It was all God! He gets the glory as He should. Not us.
And I don't know about you, but I'm ok with that. He's God, He can handle the praise and glory. I can't. It would be too much for me to live up to.

God, use me.
In my weakness, use me.
In my brokenness, use me.
With all my flaws, use me.
I want to be used by You.
I want You to get the glory.
You deserve it!
You are mighty, God!
You are awesome, God!

Don't conform, transform

Romans 12:2 

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

I feel like all my life I've tried to conform, tried to be what whoever needed me to be at that time.  I've put so much pressure on myself that I've driven myself nuts.
When you see the first part of that verse, the first thing that comes to mind is "Don't conform to the world".  That's what the NIV says and the KJV.  That's what I've been taught.  Don't conform to the world.  Don't drink, don't smoke, don't dance and don't hang out with those who do.  Stay in our box.  Do what we do.


But what if it means, more than just the "world", but means anyone or anything?  What if it means so-called, "Christians"?  Should I do what they do?  Should I just listen to what they say?  No.  They fail.  They sin.  Sure, we should try to live our lives right and be an example, but they are not the plumb line.  They are not the standard.  They are not NOT who we should be looking too.

It's Christ.  It's the Son of God.  It's the only perfect, sinless, blameless human being that's ever walked this earth.  

I have got to stop thinking I have to measure up to whoever and just focus on God.  
THEN, I will be able to see what His will is for me.  For Nickie.  Not for Pastor Joe or Sister Susie, but Nickie.  God has a plan for ME.  It may not be the same path others have taken.  

Did Christ walk the same path as the religious of his age?  Nope!  He allowed His Father to make a way and he followed it.  Jesus was focused on His Father.  No one else.

Micah 6:8 

Mankind, He has told you what is good and what it is the LORD requires of you:to act justly,to love faithfulness,and to walk humbly with your God.

Matthew 22 

34 When the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. 35 And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test Him: 36 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

It all comes down to Love God, walk with Him and love others.  

A New Thing...

Isaiah 43:18-19  


“Forget the former things;   
  do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing! 
Now it springs up; 
do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness    
and streams in the wasteland.

This is a Scripture that God gave me back in 2007 when our church split.  It was such a hard time.  My church family meant a lot to me and to see us split like that was heartbreaking.  We made it through that.  God did bring some new things in my life.  There was Seminary and I was working almost full time.

Then I fell.

It's been almost 2 years that we've been going through this.  Trying to recover from the fall.  Problem is we, Troy and I, have been expecting things to go back to what they were.  It's not going to happen.  The past is gone.  God is doing a new thing.  Things are changing, I have changed.  

Biggest change, of course, is the new life in our family.  Little Emma, big impact!  Such a joy!  Her brothers love her, her daddy loves her and I just adore her.  She may  not have been planned by us, but she was God given.  She has brought a lot of healing to our family.

Time to figure out who Nickie is now.  Wife, mother, daughter, Christian...check check check check...

What's my purpose now?  What's God's plan now that I'm on another path?  Would love to get back in to school.  Ministry?  I don't know...

Ok, God.  Let's see what happens.

Let go and let God...what?

I have to do my presentation and bring a devotional tomorrow in my Teaching Methods class. I thought I would try out what I want to say here for the devotional.

I get a lot of email devotionals. Some I read, some stay in my inbox until I delete them. Friday, I decided to read a couple of them. There was a theme going on...

First devotional from Proverbs31 Ministries.
The Scripture was, "Then David continued, 'Be strong and courageous and do the work. Don't be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. He will see to it that all the work related to the temple of the Lord is finished correctly.'"
I Chronicles 28:20 (NLT)

Second Devotional was from Anne Graham Lotz:
Scripture was: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. 2 Thessalonians 3:10, NKJV

Third devotional was from TAG (Thinking about God)

Scripture was: "For nothing is impossible with God" Luke 1:37

What I got out of it was that first of all, I have to buckle down. I have 3 projects to do for school that are due in the next month. I have got to focus on that. Second, God is going to be with me every step of the way. He wants me here and wants me to learn and He will enable me as long as I keep connected to Him. I can't let other things distract me from His will. That's one of the reasons I'm not on Facebook. Huge distraction! What's strange is I really don't miss it much. LOL!

I have to "Let go and let God"! I've heard that all my life and now I get it.

Let go of fear and let God work in my life.
Let go of meaningless and let God bring meaning.
Let go of self and let God be Lord of my life.
Let go of my will and let God do His in me.
Let go of my ideas of who I should be and let God mold me.

God speaks

I remember God speaking to me as a child.

One experience that is special to me is when I was 9-10 years old. We lived about a mile or so from a mental hospital. (Surprisingly enough, my parents never brought me there!) Once in a while, a patient would escape and come to our house. I remember this one patient asking my dad if he could use the phone and of course, he didn’t. What I mainly remember about this man was an afro!

Later that night as I was in my bed, I heard noises. I looked at my window and thought I saw the shadow of that afro. It was probably a tree, but nonetheless, I was scared. I prayed and God brought a Scripture reference to mind. It was John 3:8. I got up quickly, grabbed a craft had done with a paper plate, turned it over and wrote down the reference. Rushed back in the bed and I was able to sleep after that. That morning, I got up and looked up the verse. “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.". I believe that was God telling me that it was just the wind that I heard.

How important is it to tell children that God can speak to them? Very!! It doesn't matter the age. Just imagine what our children could do if they learned that God wants to talk to them and show them things. All they have to do is listen for His voice.

As I was typing this, I just thought that I don't think I've ever told my boys that story. Why is it such a novel thought to me to tell my boys my testimony? We're taught to tell other people, but never think of those other people as our family. It's always a stranger or maybe a friend.

Hmmm...I think I know what we can talk about at dinner!

BTW, please pray for me as I put together my presentations for school. That's what I'm supposed to be doing right now. LOL! But thinking about my subjects for my presentations is stirring up some ideas and old memories too. Good things, but I want to focus on the presentations. The creative part of me wants to see where this leads, but the practical part of me is needing to keep focus on school. Ack!

Life on God's Terms

This past Sunday, our Discipleship Pastor spoke on being a disciple of Christ. It's been a subject that has been preached and spoken about for a while at our church. Something clicked with me when he read Romans 8:1-11

In the Message Bible, that passage is titled, "The Solution is Life on God's Terms".

Why is it so hard to live life on God's Terms?

For me, some of it is fear, but I think a lot of it is selfishness. I like my life as it is and I don't necessarily want Him changing it. Because, you know that if you try life on God's terms, He may ask you to do something or give up something you don't want to.

I don't want to give up my freedom...my time...my money...my time...

No, that isn't a typo, I said time twice. I like being able to do things whenever I want to. Having days free...

Wait, free? Freedom? But what is true freedom? Ok, yeah, I know!! I know! *sigh*
Living life on God's terms.

Look at the passage, verses 5-11

^5-8Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.

^9-11But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!

Ok, so focusing on us and what we want leads to an empty, dead life, but focusing on God brings life and freedom.

When we give up something, God will replace it with life.

We have to let go of ourselves so that our arms are open and ready to receive what God has for us.

Another way to think about God's Spirit in us.
Yesterday, as I was sitting in class thinking I'd be taking my turn making my presentation, I began to get nervous. Then, I began thinking of this passage. God's Spirit is in me. If I am being led by the Spirit and working in the Spirit, then what do I have to fear? I may not have the charisma of some of the pastors in my class, but I have the same Holy Spirit they do. He just works in different ways in my life. I have a different calling. Not called to be a pastor, but a minister to children and families. Isn't it so awesome to think how God can develop and mold each one of us into people He can use and work through?

I know this was kinda long. I mainly wrote this to work it out in my mind. I hope it made some sense.

I'm praying that I will be open to what God wants to do in my life. I feel like I'm opening little by little and so thankful that God works it all out in His time because you know it's perfect.