In the Hands of My Sovereign Lord

Let us test and examine our way, and return to the LORD! 

Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven.

Lamentations 3:40-41

I have experience the power of God in these past few weeks more than ever in my life. I want to share with you guys some personal experiences I have had. And dear one, when you read these things may you praise your heavenly Father above for the grace he has poured out on this daughter! I am nothing without my Lord! 

I have been on a roller coaster of “emotions and feelings” for these past six months because my identity has been in finding the “right guy.” If we want to be completely honest, that is where I have been for the past 6 years. Relationship-broken heart, relationship-broken heart, relationship-broken heart. You think I would have gotten it after the first couple of times. Oh but friend, the amazing part is that God’s sovereign hand has been with me through all of these experiences. You see, I would give my my heart away, get it broken and then give it to another guy. For six years that has been what I have done. Not until this past month had I given my heart back to the Lord to mend back together. I just kept giving a broken, messed up heart to another guy. What good is that for a relationship? The Lord had been patiently waiting on me, His daughter, to just stop giving my heart away! 

Listen closely to what I am about to say. God told me to never give my heart away again. NEVER. Not to a guy, not even to my husband! My heart belongs to MY Savior! Not to some fleshly person. I want to return to my first love, Jesus. Yes, I want people to see my heart for the Lord, but never do I ever want to give it away again. 

When the Lord had brought me to my lowest, most desperate position of my life I found myself begging for confirmation to make some tough decisions. The same day I had written in my journal that I needed God to SPEAK to me. Later that night, I was at a restaurant with two of my close friends, Tara and Sloan, and I had just prayed for our meal, and even in that prayer I again just asked the Lord to confirm my decisions. Probably about 30 seconds later a sweet-spirited young lady came up to the table and simply said, “I wanted to tell you that the Lord is pleased with you and that you have favor with the Lord.” My friends, if that isn’t the Lord speaking confirmation to you, I don’t know what is! In that moment I knew that the Lord was calling me to higher things. I was settling for less than what the Lord wanted from me! It also showed me that his hand has been on me this whole time! 

The Lord is definitely clearing my path for where he is taking me. It is an exhilarating feeling to know that absolutely no one or no thing is holding you back from where God wants to take you! 

Striving or Thriving?

Perfection is impossible here on earth. You will never be perfect or live a perfect life. Perfect means to be complete and whole: complete and lacking nothing essential. We will not be perfect, or complete, until the Lord returns. Yes, it is our goal to become more like Christ everyday, because he is the depiction of perfection, but God doesn't expect us to be perfect apart from the Lord. God is in the process of making us perfect through santification, but we will not be complete until the day of the Lord. We don't see anywhere that God commands us to be perfect in our own strength. You see, if we try to be perfect on our own we begin to strive towards something that is completely impossible.
God does, however, tell us how to live a pleasing life for him. The word "pleasing" means to take someone's [someone being God's] wishes into consideration in deciding how to act or proceed. God tells us some ways to please him throughout the scriptures.

Colossians 1:10
"...walk in a manner worthy of the LORD, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."
In this verse we see that to please the Lord we should bear fruit and increase in the knowledge of God.

Hebrews 13:6
"Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."
This verse tells us to do good and to share what we have.

"This is great and all Hannah, but I do all these things. I am a good person and I give to the poor. Oh yea, and I also give my tithes." What I am getting at is this; are you just striving to live a "perfect" life, or are you thriving on the opportunities God gives you to please him? I know that too many times in my life I am just going through the motions. I will do all these good things that make me look like a great person, but am I really making the most out of every opportunity to show and share the glory of who God is?

Be real with God, guys. He is not asking for perfection. He is not asking you to strive for an unattainable goal on your own. He is simply asking you to please him by thriving on opportunities. Let conversations go further than just, "hey how are you?" How about we start being concerned with the stark reality that the person you just said hey to may be headed towards a path of destruction in an eternal hell. That is thriving on a situation. Do something crazy for the Kingdom. When you start caring less about the approval of others and start fearing the Lord, you will start thriving and stop striving.