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.