2008 Roundup

I made a list today of all of the things I feel like God has taught me this year.

It was, um, a huge list to say the least. But here are some of my faves:

1.) When I take fear out of the equation, my decisions are a lot easier to make.

Because as my friend Julie says, "Fear is the absence of faith in God."

"Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Matthew 8:26

2.) In every moment, I am either moving towards or away from God.

Every moment. Every decision I make. Every thing I do. It either pulls me to His throne or further into myself.

3.) I have nothing to fear from being imperfect. My imperfection is an unchangeable fact until I see Jesus face to face.

Which means I have no fear in being transparent and honest about all my failures and shortcomings. I am more sinful than I could ever imagine and yet more loved than I could ever dare hope.

4.) Whatever is all over the floor of my life was inside of me to begin with.

Paige Benton Brown pointed out that when a water bottle gets knocked over there will be water on the floor because there was water in the bottle. Life will knock me down, it is inevitable and unavoidable. But if there is bitterness, frustration or sorrow on the floor of my life, it is not because I got knocked over. It is because those things were inside of me from the very beginning. Life just happened to reveal them at this moment. It all goes back to what the condition of my heart is.

5.) I can't change other people, I can only change the way I react to them.

Thank you Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend.

6.) That God is a gentleman.

He will not force Himself upon me. He will allow me to choose. Will it be Him or something else?

7.) I receive peace not when my prayers are answered but when they are offered.

Thanks to a Biblical Hannah for demonstrating this.

8) God will not play my mind games.

When I worry about a particular situation that could happen, that is a mental reality that exists without God. He will not show up in my daymares. If the actual situation occurs, He will be there. But it is useless to worry because He won't play the game of showing me how every problem in my imagination will be solved IF it happens. He will only show me how it is solved if it does happen.

9) All suffering is weighing God's character against my own wisdom.

And my wisdom is EXTREMELY limited and fairly useless.

"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. " - Proverbs 3:5-6

10) God loves me.

This year I discovered that God is a God of boundaries. He does not tolerate sin. So the only way He can tolerate us is if that sin has been paid for. That is His boundary. But, He loves me so much that He paid for it Himself. Wow.

Happy New Year. Welcome to 2009.