Late Night Talks {Guest Post by R.B. Denney}

Hey all! Sorry for no posts in so long. It's been a crazy couple of months. Today, however, we have a special treat! R.B. Denney from Writing is Home to Me and Foundations 274 has granted us with a guest posting!

Thank you so much, Rachel Beth, for agreeing to guest post! I know how late I am in getting this out, but the message is still, and always, relevant.
Here it is!

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Yep, summer has definitely given its grand entrance and is now enjoying its dominion over our lives. That sounded rather harsh--but for me, especially when it comes to doing my devotions, I struggle with summer.

I love the bright, warm days with friends, iced Americanos, and sandal tan-lines, but on a personal level, I struggle most with God during the summer.

And ever so much have I been wrestling lately.

During the summer months I take anywhere from one to four weeks off (from my regular life) to work at Cocolalla Lake Bible Camp. This place is my second home, I connect so much with God when I'm there. It's a lot of hard work, but I love it--and I love the people. I am always so refreshed when I'm there, I feel so alive and so in God's will. Those are all good feelings, but then when I'm on my own again at home, I topple.

Okay, so it's not that bad--I still do my devotions pretty regularly and I live for the Lord, but it's so much harder when I'm not constantly surrounded by my much adored Christian friends.

I have entitled this post "Late Night Talks" because at the moment it's a little after midnight and I'm just now getting my quality time in with God. Don't get me wrong, I talk with God throughout my day, but there is something special about purposefully setting aside time to just be with God.

It's important for every Christian to be spending time with just God and themselves, be it in prayer or in reading His Word, we all need to be growing in God on a personal level.

So, how do we fit God into our busy summer schedules?

First off, I would give you one of my favorite quotes.
"You have plenty of time for whatever it is you choose to make time for."

The idea is not to guilt you into spending time with God, but much rather to remind you that you have the power to make what you love most a priority in your life.

I know, reading through books like Deuteronomy, Judges, and so on are not always super "exciting", for lack of a better word. But God does everything with a purpose, so ask yourself this, "What can I see of God's character by reading this?"

To close, remember this: there will always be busy seasons in life, but God is always available. Seek Him. Love Him. Trust Him.

Psalm 33:4 "For the Word of the Lord is right and true; He is faithful in all He does."

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Hello! I'm Rachel Beth, so I'm typically pretty bad at introductions and/or telling about myself, but here it goes. My heart belongs in the woods, I would be lost without my towering trees and endless mountains. Black coffee is where it's at. I've always adored the art of writing since I was young and about four years ago I seriously took it upon myself to tell the stories that are in my thoughts with the words from my heart.

Am I doing pretty good so far? Hope so. Continuing on--I want to explore, and by exploring I don't mean just being there, I mean meeting the people, getting to know where there is, wherever there may be. I want my life to honor my Savior and it is my prayer that His story would come through all of my stories.

I simply adore my folk music. I have no idea what I would do without music. I play guitar and a bit of piano. I grew up in a family of music and it has always been such a way into people's hearts, it mak
es me smile when someone tells me about a song that pulled at their heart.

Oh yes, and I read. A lot. I enjoy all kinds of genres, but I really enjoy reading things that have been around for a long time. I enjoy trying to figure out why it is that particular books have lasted so long, hearing what they have to say.

Hope to get to know other young writers out there, and to encourage you all.

~Rachel Beth

Proverbs 3:5-6 {Think it Through Thursday I}

Happy Thursday all!

I'm starting this new thing called 'Think it Through Thursday'. Where I'm planning to go with this is on (hopefully) every other Thursday, I'll select a piece of scripture (usually a few verses) and pull it apart. This means definitions, cross-references, thoughts on it, etc. I'm really looking forward to trying this out! May God use it how He wills.

I've recently graduated from high school. Many times graduating entails receiving cards from people.
And some of those cards I received had "Proverbs 3:5-6" written in them. So, obviously my curiosity was piqued. I read Proverbs 3:5-6 and thought about what each part means. As far as I can see there's five distinct parts of the two verses.

"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."

1. 'Trust in the Lord'
Basically we need to trust Him. This goes hand in hand with Loving Him and Fearing Him. It's a respect, it's knowing He has our best interests in mind and that His will is perfect. |Isaiah 30:15|

2. 'With all your heart'
We need to give Him everything. Don't hold back. It's so easy to hold a part of yourself back and not even realize it or know what you're holding back. We need to surrender and let Him move through us and in us. Let Him have your heart and mold it and fill it with His love. |Ezekiel 36:26-27|

3. 'Lean not on your own understanding'
We don't know everything. I don't know everything. You don't know everything. We think we know all the sides of something, what we should do, what God wants, but sometimes we just have no clue. Our understanding is different from God's He is omniscient. He knows all. He is the Creator. Frankly, my understanding is so little, I'd much rather have God's understanding. |Romans 12:2 ; Isaiah 55:8-9|

4. 'In all your ways acknowledge Him'
We didn't get to this point in our walk with God all by ourselves. We aren't better than anybody else in this world. He has given us the free but oh so costly gift of salvation. Give glory to God for everything He does and as done. Give thanks! Give Him praise. Talk to Him throughout the day, see where He wants to take you. Continually seek Him. |Hosea 10:12|

5. 'He will make your paths straight'
Or 'He will direct your paths'. God rewards. He's our Father and He loves us dearly. If we hold on to Him, give Him our heart, trust Him, ask for His guidance, He will definitely direct us. It's so hard to figure out what to do sometimes, making decisions is not my strong suit. But if we lean on God and truly seek Him, He will show us the way. His way. |Isaiah 30:21|


God Bless the rest of your week!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday {Rough Edges}

We all have our tendencies. We all have our habits.  We all have our struggles.
We all have our rough edges.

And here's a cool thing about God: He sands down our rough edges until they're smooth and pure and beautiful.

Does this mean that He nurtures our vices until they grow and fester and becoming worse and worse?
Uh, NO.

This means that He corrects us, gently as we are His children, but he shows us the Way. As we spend time with Him through prayer, worship, and study...He shows us what needs some work. Sometimes it can be a whole renovation project, but sometimes it can be just molding us a little bit in that yucky area.

"'My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lost heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son.'" Hebrews 12:5-6

I mean, He's the Great Potter, right? He can form us, if we allow Him to.

"Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the Potter; we are all the work of Your hand." Isaiah 64:8

We can be going along, doing good and growing in God...when all of a sudden that disgusting rough edge rears its head. For some this means snapping at somebody, or being impatient, or maybe being defensive.
And then we go through the rest of the day wondering what in the world is wrong with us--we feel guilty and beat down because we'd broken.

But we forget some key things:

1. Christ died for the broken! "'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'" Mark 2:17

2. We live in a broken world. "There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God..." 2 Timothy 3:1-4

3. We are not perfect! "'Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?'" Matthew 7:3

Now, these aren't excuses to go on sinning and letting our rough edges become rougher. This is incentive. That list is reasons why we should yearn to get better and grow closer to God!

Christ died for our broken souls...and because of that...He makes us whole through Him.
We live in a broken world...but we aren't of this world.
We are not perfect...but Jesus is perfect and He will help you if you let Him.

We always have two choices in front of us, guys.
1. We can choose to follow Jesus--shedding ourselves of the sin that entangles.
or
2. We can choose to follow the world--allowing our sin to take control. 

"Therefore...let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross...Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Hebrews 12:1-3

Don't know about you, but I'd much rather let the Author of Life be in control...
When we make mistakes and break, letting our rough edges scratch, we can choose to let it get worse and worse...or we can choose to turn it over to Jesus and let Him change our hearts yet again (this is a daily and sometimes more than one time a day thing).

And you'll be amazed at how much He can do when you relinquish control and let Him soften your hard, rough edges into gentleness, patience, love, joy, and so much more.

God Bless the rest of your week as you seek after Him!

Reflections {What Are We Fighting For?} [Easter Sunday]

He is Risen!

Christus Victor--Christ is Victorious! Thank God.

So, during this past weekend I've had some different points of reflection.

And, when it comes down to it, there's a question we have to ask ourselves:
What are we fighting for?

You know, each day it's so easy to skip spending time with Jesus through the study of His Word or through worship or prayer. We tell ourselves we'll do it later, and, before we know it, we're in bed and we then tell ourselves that it's too late.
So the cycle goes.

But what really strikes me is this:
Even through our times of being unfaithful to God, He is always right next to us, loving us, calling us, interceding for us...
"...if we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself."

His Love for us never, ever gives up.
He chose to go to the cross and die for you, for me. For all of us crazy sinners. He pictured us in his eyes, mind, and he still chose. He saw everything that would happen to us and everything we would ever do. And he still chose to die for us.
He knew we'd forsake Him, betray Him, ignore Him, disappoint Him, but He still chose us.
And He knew how painful dying for us would be.

Take a moment to just imagine Him hanging there on the cross with scars and nails and thorns and blood, struggling to breathe...but picturing you...and knowing one day you would chose Him. 

So if He's who we're fighting for, then that's the bottom line, right?
If He's who we're fighting for, then we have this thing called Hope.
Even amid our suffering, trials, hurts, fears, everything, we have Hope in the One who we're fighting for.
We have Hope in His Resurrection.
That's why we believe what we do--why we believe in Him.
If He hadn't chosen that cross, to die, for us, then there would be no point.
But because He chose a painful death on the cross, taking our sin on Him...He ROSE.
And that's why our Hope is in Him. He ROSE. Everything we believe lies in His Resurrection.
That's where our reasons are.
Because of His Resurrection, we have His Holy Spirit, we have Hope, we have Life, we have Love, we have Strength, we have Purpose, we have Passion, we have HIM.
And because of His Resurrection, we can go forth FEARLESS in His Name.
And that's just about the most Amazing thing EVER. 

Amen. Thank you, Jesus.
Christus Victor! He Reigns above all!

"If we died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we disown Him, He will also disown us; if we are faithless, He will remain Faithful, for He cannot disown Himself."
2 Timothy 2:11-13