Challenges

Wow it's been a while since my last post but it would life got in the way! But here's something that I've been thinking about over the last few days that really came to mind this morning...

Life throws us challenges each and everyday for us to overcome and by the grace of God we do. God gives us the courage to complete tasks that we not like, that we find difficult but at the end of it we always come out stronger. And then when something else comes along or the same thing, we know how to deal with it, we still don't like it and we still find it difficult but because we have already faced it we have some idea of what we're coming up against but God still helps us through it! I hate to say. Ut life will never be a piece of cake and there will be drama in all our lives whether that's good or bad, whether it comes from someone else's life or your own, there is no way out challenges except to go head first and to not shy away from them, because unfortunately you can't hide under the bed covers until it's gone because it won't but like I said, with the grace of God we can come through them!

Now that's ll great but that's not really what I wanted you guys to think about to day but I think it's important to know and to understand as it is something we deal with everyday. What I really wanted to talk about is when other people challenge us, whether that be on what we believe, how we act etc. I know from experience that it's not always that great and even if it's a simple question to get me thinking I still somehow take it as criticism but sometimes we need those close to us to challenge who we are some don't go off and do ridiculous things. It is also healthy for our a beliefs to challenge and to be challenged so then we don't stray into a sort of stagnant state, it also reminds us and helps keep us strong in our faith to be challenged.

I have two friends, both of which I look up to, and both challenge me regularly which I don't always like because 99.9999999999% of the time they are right but by being challenged it helps to give me a different perspective, something I didn't think about. I think it is important to challenge our friends as it can be interesting to see what they believe etc but it can also be scary to challenge them as it can almost seem like we're crossing that line especially if it's something difficult that we challenge on but at the end of the day it is always good to be challenged, even if we don't like it! So my challenge...who are you going to challenge, is there a friend who needs you to challenge them, or is there something you need to challenge yourself in your life?!

Devil's Lies!!

It takes seven positive comments to replace one negative comment!

When the Devils plants a lie in our heads and we start to believe it, it begins to root and it stays there. The roots make it Ll the more harder to to remove. Even if we get rid of the plant, the roots are left behind enabling it to grow back. If I write a word on a whiteboard and the rub it off, sometimes the word can still be faintly seen. We have to rub really hard to get rid of it completely.even then it may still be seen. If we write over it, them what's underneath, what was there previously can no longer be seen.

When the Devilluts a lie in our head, they can still linger after we've moved on and fought off that lie, it can still come back, but if we write over it with one of Gods truths, the lie can no longer be seen and that becomes the idea planted in our heads!

Bill Johnson said that if we pray for the things we already have how can the Devil bring us down from that, if God has already provided!?

Stop. Look. Listen.

Stop: just pause for moment.Just stop everything. Put your life on pause just for a moment and see what happens, you might just be surprised.

Look: turn your eyes to the Cross. What does it mean to you? What is it telling you? How does it make you feel? What does it make you think of?

Listen: listen to the sounds around, the sounds you may not really notice during your busy lifestyle. What do you hear? Listen to what God might be trying to tell us. God speaks to us constantly but we have to choice to hear Him.

The times we pause and focus on God are the times we get 're-charged' in a way. We get replenished with His grace and His peace. In this busy lifestyle society pushed us into, it's hard to find time to just stop, look and listen. I challenge you to find time in your hectic life's to stop, look and listen and see what it can do!

Where do we go from here?

It's that time of year where students are getting offers and trying to work out which university to go and what they want to make of their lives. It can be quite a nerve racking time, especially if you're like me and you like to know where you are going, where your next step is but actually we don't know, we have to take many leaps of faith in this time and hope we're making the right decisions as the decisions we make now may affect the rest of ours lives (not pressure!) However, you could also say that this is the most exciting time our life! This is the time to make mistakes, go crazy and embraces life, after all you're only young once!

Thinking about the future can be scary as we have no idea where we will be in 1,5 or 10 years time and some people thrive in these kind of situations but others need to know where they are going. At the moment for me, I have no idea what I am doing! I mean I know where I want to go and what I want to achieve but I have no idea how I'm going to do it. I'm taking a year to try and figure this out but at the moment it's just looking like a year of taking any work given to me. I'm not excited about going to uni and I'm trying to work out how to achieve my goals without going which is looking very difficult! But the thing that excites me about the next 5 years is that this is my time! I can do what I want make mistakes and do crazy things in the hope that they will lead me to the place that I want to be.

Even though the idea of "where will I be in 5 year?" scares the life out of me I know that God has a plan for me and I know that I can make all sorts of plans of what I want to do and how I'm going to get there but what's the betting that He will turn those plans upside down and take me on a completely different path, one I never thought I would be on! But I know He will get me where he wants me to be :)

Another thing that is on my mind is the idea of all my friends going off to uni, going off and doing different things and the idea that I'm going to start having to say goodbye to people I've seen pretty much everyday for the past 10 years, and for someone who doesn't like change is quite a scary thing. But I hope and pray that I will stay in touch and here about all the amazing things that they get up to other next few years.

So for those who are stressing out about where do you go from here, don't panic! You will get there in the end and if you make a mistake...so what? We're young and this is our time to be us and in the end God will get us there, it may not be the way you thought it would be, or even where you thought you'd be. But this is the time to make memories to look back at and smile at :)

Time is of the Essence...

I have been very busy over the month or so. I have my first set of A-Level exams in just over a week and a half and well, I have focused all my time and energy on them making sure that I get all my revision done and panicking at the same 1) that I'm never going to get it all done, 2) I'm going to fail, and 3) this is never going to end!! It's been a very stressful and busy month for me and now I am near the end I have had a revelation...this is going to end! I won't be stressed out forever and relatively speaking these exams will last for a very short time in comparison to the rest of my life. And also, if I don't get it done or if I do fail it's not the end of the world...God still has a plan for me.

Now I'm not saying don't stress out at all and wing it, which is tempting, but there is a limit! I still get stressed now but I just focus on the positives...IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD!! Stressors will come into our lives all the time but it's how we handle it. I will admit...I'm not the best at dealing with stress but I have learnt so much over the past month. But the way I have learnt to deal with it is to focus on the end...see myelf at the end of the race and focus on the fact that once it's all over I can relax and that it WILL end at some point, it's not going to last forever, there is a light at the end of the tunnel!!

I have put my all into revising over the past month. Time. Effort. Energy. But this mornings service made me stop and think. The speaker said this;

"Sometimes when I go for a walk I like to put my headphones in and listen to the radio but there are times when all I hear is static. Sometimes on our walk with God that all we hear is static, we have to tune our hearts the hear Him."

For the first time in a long while I just stopped. I stopped thinking. I just sat and looked around. I had pushed everything and everyone away and had souly focused on myself and my exams. I have been meeting up with my friends less during the weekend, but I see them during the week at college but i had seen my family less as I was either, at college, in my room revising or at work and only really seeing them at meal times. Also I had restrcited myself to how much and how long I was to spend time with my boyfriend. All these had been tough especially not seeing ym boufriend as much but I knew at the end I'd be able to spend as much time with him as I wanted. But I had also stopped spending as much time with God, this is not necessarily a great plan. I relaised this morning that I had tuned my heart away from Him.

The fact is that God is with us all the time, unlike family, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends when we can spend time apart. God is there constantly and even though we may tune away from Him, He is constantly speaking words of love nad comfort to us but it is our job to tune our hearts to Him and listen. My challenge this week for myself and I also challenge you to make time for your loved ones and for God. Stressors will come and go but family, friends and God will be always!

New Year, New Start?!

So it's the beginning of 2012, the beginning of the end of the world right? Not that I believe this stuff about the end of the world, beginning a Christian I believe that we don't actually know when the earth will end but I hope it's not this year, I have so much planned for the rest of my life. There's a common phrase, "live each day as if it was your last". I think this is an amazing phrase but it is not a philosophy I hold to my own life and I wish I did and maybe this year is the year?! Who knows! But why not live this year as if it was our last? I was sat in the car with my parents on the way back from a day out, the radio was on and the news came on and what a depressing load of rubbish! The headlines were; a shooting of 4, a stabbing of 1 and the death of a sportsman. Great! All that is in the news these days is murders, resession, climate change, death, war, uprising. No wonder we are so depressed these days. I'm not saying that there isnt happy stuff in the news but it very rarely makes the headlines. I think everyone would be much happier if we sharded news about the better things in life, love, engagments, birth, achievements etc. but hey, I'm just one person voicing an opinion but isn't that what all this here's about, voicing an opinion.


So a new start for me....I'm rubbish at making New Year Resolutions, so this year I haven't. I'm just going to try and get through this year and at the end of it not having to think "well i didn't stick to that" "I failed and doing this". No, at the end I'm going to think "I achieved this", "I survived my A-Levels" (which will be a HUGE success for me). But so far I'm looking forward to this year, there haven't been any major troubles...yet... but I don't want to speak to soon! I know this year will tough. Hell, I'm sitting my A-Levels, it's going to be one of the toughest yet but I know I have the strenght to get through...some how and I know that God will give me the grace to do so :) So I ask myself, and I challenege others, is this really a new start or are we going to just carrying on like we did this time last year or are we actually going to make a change so we can truely say at the end of the year, "2012 was the year I made a change"? Is it really a new year, a new start?