Wednesday 30 March 2011

Longing For More!

Well I have finally decided I really want to get into this blogging thing. I had a blog but I found this blogger template which is a lot more user friendly! I'm looking forward to sharing my heart with you. I hope you will feel free to comment and share your thoughts and heart with me as well.

I want to start off this blog with a little synopsis of a book I just finished reading. I got it when we were in Chicago at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference. This woman named Ruth Haley Barton spoke one night...so I bought one of her books. It's called "Longing for More: A Woman's Path to Transformation in Christ". VERY GOOD! Seriously girls, just let me know if you want to burrow it, or I'm sure you could get it on amazon for a good deal. Here's a picture of the cover:

The books divided into 11 chapters, a few of which I want to discuss here. The chapter that most effected me was called "Saying Yes to God's Purposes"- I read it twice!

One question she asks, which I'll paraphrase is "What gifts, experiences, passions, opportunities, and burdens is God blending together in my life to make me of special use to him?" hmmm.. good question!! I've been thinking about it for a while now. One other thing she said that really resonated with me was: "This is the place to dream the dreams that God is whispering to our hearts- even the ones that seems so far-fetched we're almost afraid to put them into words." Finally, I'll quote one more statement that really spoke to me:

"God is putting together a package in each of our lives, preparing us to make a unique contribution to His Kingdom. We need to ask ourselves, 'What have I come to the Kingdom for? Why has God brought me to this particular time and place?'" 

This is not an easy question to answer, but I think it is one worth deeply pondering and praying over. I am so thankful that God has a unique purpose and plan our lives. Do I always clearly see and understand why am I on the specific path that I am? No. Sometimes. But I DO know that His plan is perfect and that I don't need to fear. A verse that really struck me recently, as though I was seeing and understanding it fully for the first time is 1 John 4:18 "Such love has no fear, for perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment. And this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love." Because of Christ's perfect love for me, I never need to fear. I need to be reminded of this constantly!

As I work through some of the questions posed to me in this book, I'm praying that God will give me a spirit of confidence in Him- in the fact that the experiences, gifts, passions, opportunities, and burdens he has put in my life are there for a very specific reason and purpose!