Saturday, December 1, 2012

blog post from a dear friend

this is is a guest post from one of my best friends. we met this summer at work crew  and i am just so encouraged by her on a daily basis. Alyssa is one of those people that lives life in such a way that you want to be around her all the time. The way she genuinely cares for her friends and intently listens to them just brings people to Jesus feet. This year Lyssa will be placed at a high school in Ohio as a young life leader and i cannot wait to witness the way the Lord is going to work through her and bring teenagers to Him. The plans the Lord has planned for her are huge and i am just so lucky to be a witness to it. But anyways here's Alyssa everyone (:



Hi, I’m Alyssa, one of Hailey’s friends from Work Crew. She asked me a while ago to write something for her blog and sadly I thought it was a joke. But she was serious and said that she felt that I had something to say. Hmmm…what? I didn’t even know I had something to say, but I trust her so I thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it some more. I then prayed a little, but just wasn’t feeling the Lord talking to me, telling me what I needed to say. So honestly, I just kept putting it off until I would hopefully feel Him telling me what to write. I kept questioning Him when that moment will be. When will I be told what to do?
I suppose that that is something I struggle with constantly, not feeling the Lord’s presence and not hearing His advice to me. All through high school I waited and waited for His response to my questions. I was stubborn and I wanted to challenge Him and force Him to answer, because that what the Lord does, He answers prayers right? So of course I was not getting what I wanted. Even today I struggle with that. I am always finding a way to challenge God to answer me and to get what I want. These I call my ruts. When I wasn’t getting what I asked for from God I would go in to a rut. These ruts caused my view of God to be skewed and single-blinded. I continually relapsed into these when I felt the Lord drifting further and further away from me. And I wanted everything to put me back right next to Him; however I wanted God to do it for me.
But thankfully the Lord does answer prayers and thankfully again, he does on his own time.  I was reading my bible when I came across these verses that hit me hard:

Proverbs 3:5-12
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.
Honor the Lord with all your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.
My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

This right here is all I need! But it requires me to work at it. A relationship isn’t only one person it’s two! Two need to work at it to improve it, fix it, and perfect it. I despised the Lord’s discipline when I should have been accepting it and acting on it. He’s telling me that he challenges and disciplines me because he loves me. He wants me to grow closer to him through my weaknesses. So now whenever I feel as though I am drifting away from the Father, I just need to remember that He loves me and is not drifting away but He is giving me the opportunity to get closer to Him.
If you ever feel as though you are not as close to God as you should be or that you are drifting away from Him, remember that that is your opportunity to join Him and to better your relationship with Him. But you have to first recognize that you are not a part of that relationship and that you need to do something about it. So are you ready to get closer to God or do you need to start that relationship? I am proof that he does answer those prays because not only did the Lord help me find what I needed to say but he helped me fix something in my heart. He helped to rid me of these ruts that prevented me from growing closer the Him.

No comments:

Post a Comment