My goodness I am excited. I get so excited when the Lord works in me, around me, or through me; It makes me excited to see what He is doing and what He has in store. Right now I believe that beginning this blog is the next thing He has in store for me.
If you know me, you know that I love to journal. Now when I say that, you may think the typical girl-type journals where you write all about your day, the friends that were mean to you and the cute boys that you like; maybe even the ones that looked at you or smiled your way on that particular day. But my journals don't quite look like that; (no need to worry Benny, I don’t write about any other cute boy in my life besides you, and maybe my cute little nephew Cayden!) When I journal it is a very personal and meaningful thing to me. I don't often share my journals with others because my journals are me talking and spending time with God.
Sure, this takes different forms each day: Some days I am praising and thanking God for who He is, what He is doing, the way that He loves me and blesses me, the beautiful things that He has created, the list goes on and on… While on other days I might be crying out to Him because I am worried, anxious, confused, stressed, or on the verge of tears for absolutely no logical reason. And still other days I might have questions or maybe I just want someone to talk with who completely understands me and wants to listen.
That is the best thing about talking with God and journaling; I have His full attention, He hears me, He listens, He understands even if I don’t, He cares, and He will get me through whatever it is I’m struggling with. Doesn’t that sound like the perfect friend we all wish we had?! Though I may not always feel like I hear Him, that He may not always give me the answers I want, or speak back to me, I know that He wants what’s best for me and that He loves when I come to just spend time with Him.
“Just SPEND time with the Lord??” You ask… “How do you simply just spend time with Him, it sounds so casual and…simple.”
Exactly. It is. The times that I have felt closest to the Lord have come in many different ways, so each person’s time with God will look different. For example: there was a season in my life during college where I would go to the prayer room by our chapel and just lay on the mats to spend time with Him. Sometimes in there I would read my Bible, sometimes I would pray and other times I would literally fall asleep! ( I remember one time I woke up and had no idea what time it was, how long I had been in there, or who had maybe come in and seen me sleeping!) But I would always feel at peace when I was in that room, spending time with God and being in His presence. There was also a season in my life where I studied abroad in Australia. My time with God there would be spent out by the beautiful ocean or somewhere where I could see the beauty of His creation and just be in awe as I spent time with the person who created EVERYTHING around me. Sometimes I feel close to God through worshipping, dancing, or spending time with people. And other times it has been in a room, in a car, outside, inside, ANYWHERE where I am alone and have my Bible with me.
My freshman year of college I took a Bible class called “Introduction to the Bible”. Little did I know that that class would change my life. It gave me a passion and a love for God’s Word and I am forever changed because of it. It also helped that I had a super amazing professor who was hilarious and brought such life, fun, enjoyment and realness to the scriptures. It began to make sense to me; the things I had learned about all my life but never really understood, finally began to come together to make a whole picture that I understood.
So WHY am I telling you all of this? Well first of all, I suppose I better warn you now because you will soon find out: I tend to tell long stories, and include small details and things that aren’t important to the story. My family and friends make fun of my for it and my friend Kevin Workentein once said, “You are the only person I know who can say a whole sentence without ACTUALLY saying anything.” Though it is not something to be proud of, it is who I am and how I work… so you have been warned.
However, there is a point to all that I have been telling you and it is this: though there are MANY ways to spend time with the Lord and seek him, reading and spending time in SCRIPTURE is key. Spending time in God’s word has so many benefits that I hope we will touch and learn about as we journey together in this blog; but I think the greatest benefit is that we begin to get to know who our God is.
I like to think of scripture as a letter-of-love written to us from God. The Bible is written by humans who were inspired by God in what they wrote. So, although God may not have LITERALLY written it, the words inside are what He meant for us to have and they still very much apply to us today. “…the word of the Lord is flawless” -Psalm 18:30
Scripture allows us to follow the story of God’s people, His love for them, and how He continues to draw them back to himself and bring about His plan of redemption and hope to the world. They continue to draw away from Him; rebelling, sinning and worshipping other gods; and yet God loves them and draws them back time after time. So it is a story about God’s love for us, and it is written to us.
So what better way to get to know God than to spend time in His Word learning more about who He is, how much He loves us, and how awesome and powerful He is?!
Remember that “perfect” friend that I was talking about above? Well since God is the perfect friend to us, we also must be a friend to him. How would you feel if EVERY time you hung out with a friend of yours they never seemed interested in you, they never really talked to you, never asked you questions and didn’t really seem to care about who you were?! How would you feel if you were ALWAYS the one putting forth the effort and your friend seemed to only want you when they needed something?!
I’m not saying that God NEEDS us, because He doesn’t. But I believe He LOVES when we acknowledge Him, spend time with him, and seek to get to know Him as we would do with any other friendship here on earth. We get together with our friends; we spend time with them and the more we are around them, the better we get to know them. I believe it is the same with God. The more time we spend in His word and in His presence, the more we begin to get to know him and the more we desire to spend time with him.
It is my hope to explore some of scripture with you. We can spend time with God together. My prayer is that God would speak to you; that you would leave here encouraged, challenged or uplifted because you have heard more of God’s word and listened to the truths of who our God is.
My prayer is that God would speak through me; that these words that I type would not be my own but that God would speak through me. I pray that this blog would be all about giving Him glory, honor and praise for who He is. And I hope that together, we can begin to get to know our Creator, Lord and Savior a little more each day.
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