24 Hours

My second blog is actually a copy of something I wrote in 2007. But it is incredably relevant now as well.

When life gets to be to rough, you have to remember one thing... 24 hours! Within 24 hours God could turn your entire life around. There will be times when life stinks and instead of getting dispondant and falling into hopelessness, that is the time to say, "OK, This stinks. I do not like it and I don't know what to do about it, but I am NOT going to let it keep me from the blessings God has for me. It will not take my hope or joy away. This is the time when you find the difference between faithfulness and loyalty. Faithfulness is showing up in body but being a knickknack Christian (cheap, useless object just sitting around collecting dust) or being loyal which is an act of will. Choosing to go deeper with God and in my case choosing to sing Praise songs even though I felt like I had nothing to praise God for at that moment in time. In Psalms 23:5 it says that God prepares a table for us "in the presence of our enemies." Human nature is to wait until your enemies are vanquished before feasting, but God says feast, while the enemies of your life (work, school, family, bills, stress) rage around you. Find time to sit at the table with our Heavenly Father and have a spiritual feast, not after the bills are paid and the school work is done etc... but in the middle of it all. Do not be an anorexic Christian, starving yourself by hoping that it will get better and you'll have more time when you get everything straightened out. You will never have more time and you will never get everything straightened out. So is the nature of life. Do not let life determine your time with God, let your time with God determine your life!!

So to make a long paragraph even longer, after several hours of praising and dancing by myself in my living room I found that I do have things to praise God for: like His words that help me find my way, like the fresh water of His Spirit that renews me when I am feeling lost and alone, like His often unseen guidance, like His Faithfulness in the midst of my hopelessness, and I then found that I could even praise Him for the Valley of Shadow that He was having me walk through because I trusted Him with my life. And when the song sang "... and I ... am desperate for you, and I ... am lost without you," I knew the depth of the words and meant them from the deepest part of my heart.

God is good.

Rebecca