Surrender

Tonight, as I was going my devotions, God really spoke to me. To be honest, I've gotten away from having my personal time with Him. And as a result, of course, I kinda fell apart. I've been overwhelmed with schoolwork that I should be doing, but being the procrastinator I am, I obviously have a lot to do tomorrow to finish up the second quarter of the year. I think it's so ironic that when we busy up our schedules too much, and we are being busy all the time, that's the time that we need Him the most, but that's the time that we push Him away the most. I think that if I would've been spending time with Him this week, I wouldn't be this far behind in school work. We pack our lives so incredibly full that we don't have time for Him, and as a result, things start to fall apart. And the sad thing to me is, that we go about our lives as if we're being really involved with God this week and we've been acting like we've been keeping Him really close, when in actuality, we've been pushing Him away. We put on these masks all the time when we're around friends at school, at church, and even sometimes at home. We appear to be doing really well, and that everything's alright, when we're really not. Sometimes we don't even know we're not alright, sometimes it's the "last straw" that makes us fall apart and realize we haven't been okay, that we've even put on a mask to ourselves!

At our youth group a month or two, my pastor showed us a music video that another youth group from Texas made. It's to the song Stained Glass Masquerade by Casting Crowns. It perfectly describes us! So many times, we go to church and "worship" God. Sure, we sing the songs and listen to the pastor preach, but do we truely mean the words we sing and do we truely listen to the words the pastor has to say to us? Or do we get so focused on the distractions of this world and forget to truely worship Him? Most of the , I think it's the ladder. And if so, we seriously need to change that!

Worship isn't just comming to church on Sunday morning and maybe Wednesday night group, don't get me wrong, it's the way you live your life every single day. It's when you wake up and decide you're going to live this day for Him. It's when you decide you're going to say something nice to your boss, even if he might be a jerk. It's when you decide to say no to the peer pressure that comes from school. It's saying no, that you're not going to look at those images on the computer, that you're going to keep your thoughts pure instead. Worship is when we live for Him, and truely honor living the way He wants you to live!

Are you TRUELY worhipping God with all that you are? I hope the answer is yes, but if not, why?

Faith

Faith. What is faith? Well, according to dictionary.com, it is defined as, "Confidence or trust in a person or thing." So many times I forget how powerful and awesome God is and in turn, I start relying on myself with certain things. It's like God's not good enough to take care of me and He's not good enough to make the right decisions for my life.

Okay, seriously, a God who BREATHES stars into existance isn't big enough to know and understand what little things I'm going through? I think not. We just get carried away with what WE ant to happen and not what HE wants. We just need to wake up and realize how puny we are and how little control of things we have. God breathes STARS into existance! Stars, rocks big enough that we can't even concieve in our minds how big they are! How stupid and rediculous we, people on tiny little Earth, are!

It's like you're traveling on a road, and suddenly right in front of you is a fence. A fence you can't see over, but the person you're walking with can. You have to trust Him when He tells you when it's safe to open up the gate because otherwise, you've got to rely on yourself, blindly.

We've got to learn to trust Him when finances are in bad shape or when a loved one has become very ill. You have to trust Him that everything will turn out the way He wants it to and not the way you want it to. He has a master plan for your life and He knows what's best for you, no matter what the outcome is!

We have to learn to have faith in the One who created you and who made you come into existance! We've got to learn to swallow our pride and give it to Him!

Brand new blogger!

Bethany Dillon- Hallelujah

Hello, everyone!

Okay, so I'm brand new to this whole blogging thing and this is my very first blog. God has been teaching me so many new things recently, and so I wanted to share some of them with all of you! So here goes...

So much has been going on with my family the past month (by the way, for all of you who didn't know, I'm kid number 4 out of 10 kids). My little brother Joshua, who is only 6 years old, has spina bifita (we adopted him from China because of his special needs). As a result of this special need, his spine had become tethered. We (Mom and Dad) set up a date to "detether" it on December 9th. They thought that way the surgery could be done and over with, and hopefully healed by Christmas time (we were going to North Carolina and Pennsylvania to visit our extended family the day after Christmas, as our usual tradition.). It's funny how we can plan things, and how God changes those plans! So, God had a better plan for our December 9th-January 11th.

To make a very long story short, Joshua had a lot of problems with the graph from the procedure seeping spinal fluid into his lower back. As a result, he has spent 4 out of the past 5 weeks in the hospital. We spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years Day in the hospital with him. During this time, my mom would be at the hospital for the day shift and my dad would be there for the night shift, leaving the oldest teenagers with most of the responsibilities around the house (and help with taking some of the day shifts for/with Mom). I had done pretty well with dealing with it all and trusting God with the situation. Finally, a week ago, Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday night, I finally cracked. I was feeling down, "depressed," and in a pretty grumpy mood. I started to blame God for all of the pain and for the reason everything didn't turn out how I had wanted it to.

As I was going through this, I realized I had gotten away from my quiet time with God. I had been skipping my time alone with Him and as a result, I was grumpy and upset. But as I picked up that time with Him again, I was much happier and very trusting of God with it all.

When you think about it, most of the times we're down, discouraged, and upset are the times we're not spending enough time with Him. Talking and being with Him is what helps comfort us and helps us to feel better. Those are the best times!

It feels just like it feels when someone you can always count on to be there for you isn't able to be with you (whether it was their fault or something that was beyond them). We get down and discouraged. But as soon as we pick that time up again, we start feeling better and we feel peace. We need God to help us through EVERYTHING we're going through, the good and the bad. It's our responsibility to make sure we're spending enough time with Him!

God, please help us not to skimp out on our relationship with You! Help us to always run to You when we need you! Help us to always remember that You're there for us no matter what we're going through and that You'll always be there to help as long as we ask You to!