Joy when God says “No”

Have you ever found yourself praying fervently about a situation and God says “No”? How many times have you been upset that they Lord told you “No”? We’ve all done it, it’s because our human flesh wants it’s own way.
This past week I was praying for direction from God over a situation. I really wanted direction from God, I didn’t care what He chose, I just really wanted an answer. I had been reading about giving everything to the Lord; every desire, plan, thought, everything. And I did, I gave it all to the Lord. I was still praying about it but not dwelling on it.
On Monday I received an answer from the Lord. During my devotions I read about how we give everything in our life as an offering, sacrificing it to the Lord. Sometimes He takes it and never gives it back, other times He takes it like He did with Abraham and Isaac and gives it back to us. He just wants to know we are willing. Later that morning during chapel I got a direct answer from the Lord saying “No, not now”. He was impressing upon my heart, “I care about your situation, and I want to give you my best, but that best you want is not now.” It was amazing that God answered so directly and I knew that it was Him, not myself.
The best part was the peace and joy that came with hearing the answer of “No”. Most times when someone tells us “No” it upset us and we just have a hard time accepting it. But with God we have the free will to choose how we respond to His direction; we can readily accept it or rebelliously reject it. Why do we always seem to reject it? There is such a phenomenal amount of happiness that we gain when we accept His will for our own. I was just rejoicing that day, literally my heart was overflowing that my Father had answered, and He even said “No”. But I knew it was from Him and that made all the difference in the world.

What's Stopping You?

Have you ever gone somewhere like college or camp or some conference and you felt like you were right in the will of God? You had joy and peace and you were contented where God had you. You were in awe of your God. But then when you go home you feel that at times you can't even figure out where God is and why it seems He left you.
I don't know about you but I definitely feel this way sometimes. Especially when I am here at college. I'm learning, growing, serving, falling, getting back up, but when I go home I feel like I'm struggling. Greer and I were talking about this last night, trying to figure why it is we feel that way(and no we don't run by our feelings) and I'm going try to explain what we found out.
When we are here at school we are in the Word of God all the time, and we set out schedules. If we feel overwhelmed and just need to be with God, we just sit with our Bible and read and pray. We don't even have to go to another room, the others just know they wanted to spend some time with God. Now when I say this I'm referring to times other than you normal everyday devotions which you should have everyday. We also established at the beginning of the semester that between 10-10:15 we start a wind-down mode. By 10:30 we are all reading our Bible or another "self-helps" book, this helps us at the end of the day get our thoughts re-focused on the Lord before we go to sleep. We forget the troubles of the day and think on Him.
Greer and I both have the same struggle: when we go home, we love our families, and there are those times when we want to be alone with the Lord, yet we don't want to be rude to our families and just go hide somewhere. Neither of us have our own room, we share it with siblings, making it difficult to find a place at night to read. But we realized that we have to learn to find other times to get alone with God, God will present them.
We've got to learn to deal with our situations because this could be God preparing us for the future when we have families of our own and we can't just run away and hide, though I'm sure we will want to at times. We've got to find ways to keep that peace and joy of being in God's will real in our lives no matter where we are.
These were just some thoughts on it, I might post more about it later, once I ponder on it more.

Daily Struggles

I wrote this in my journal the other day and haven't had time to post it until now.

I seemed to have such a struggle today with the flesh and the mind, thinking of things in the past, things I don't understand, things that I long for. All throughout today I kept asking the Lord to keep my focus on him, to keep my thoughts pure and holy. But tonight I was reading about how singleness is a season and an enjoyable one. We shouldn't spend it on longing for a different season.

"God took care of me today,
I didn't need a husband.
God takes care of my needs."
-Greer

Our outward obedience
is a show of
our inward love for God.

One Thing I Would Outlaw

In creative writing class, Lizzy thought about using the topic: If You Could Outlaw One Thing, What Would It Be? So I'll tell you what my choice would be.

Insincerity in Christians

Some one comes to you expressing their love for God and desire to serve Him, yet they turn around and continue in sin. Do they not understand? God cannot use someone who continually disobeys Him and His laws. Yes, I understand we all sin, but to say one thing and then deliberately disobey is a different situation. God longs for sincere Christians who say what they mean and do what they say. There is nothing so unnerving as someone talking nice about your God, then dragging His name through the mud. If I had the power to outlaw one thing it would be insincere Christians who fake their devotion to God.

Unashamed Waiting

"For they shall not be ashamed that wait for me."
Isaiah 49:23c.
"Yeah, let none that wait on thee be ashamed:"
Ps. 25:3
Isaiah 50:7c
"I know that I shall not be ashamed."

These three verses and others talk about not being ashamed, primarily not being ashamed for waiting on the Lord. When people make fun or you-and they will- don't be ashamed or embarassed for waiting on God's timing in any situation. No matter what it is, singleness, God's will, standards you are working on, don't be ashamed. Your decision to wait on God will be blessed if you keep waiting. Don't give in when the pressure of your friends come. No time is wasted waiting, if waiting on the Lord!