Month: February 2016

  

I have found this verse, Isaiah 40:31, very calming & helpful thus far. I feel like someone out there needs this verse today as well.  

We all struggle with something in our life and we all have a fear or failing or not being able to live up to expectations in some way. But this verse is here to tell us that it’s going to be ok. Whatever your faced with, whatever your scared of, whatever your fears are, God will help you through them. 

It tells us that if we “hope”, or in some versions “wait”, upon the Lord he will Renew our strength. See he knew we would get tired. He knew we would run out of “go-go” juice. God knew that someday see would feel “overwhelmed”, “a failure”, “not good enough”, “not ready”; but he tells us we will be renewed. If he gives us strength; wouldn’t he also give us peace? 
We will, it doesn’t say “might” or “maybe”, it says we “will” soar on wings like Eagles. We “will” run and not grow weary. We “will” walk and not grow faint. That really means we will be kinda like the energizer bunny- we will just keep going & going & going….. 
Whatever your facing today, know that God loves you so much that he promised never to leave us nor forsake us. He promised not to give to more than you could bare- which at times seems impossible to understand. He has plans for each and everyone. They are plans of good & not evil. 
So even if it’s rainy outside, even if your going through a hard time dealing with anything, God is there. Yes he does hear you. 

Maybe your asking, “But why isn’t he speaking or replying back to me”?. Remember this; “The teacher is always quiet while give a test.”…. 
Hope you found this helpful….
Have a good day! 
-Marli 

  

With all the technology today fitbits have become popular. They are a bracelet that tracks your sleep patterns and miles walked each day. What if we had a spiritual Fitbit? What if it tracked how much you read your bible, prayed, or just talked to God through out the day… Would you reach your “set goal?”. 
I would hope that I would reached my goal but I probably wouldn’t. How many of us try to set down and read our bibles before we start our days? I do. Do I fail? Yes . Sometimes I sit down to read and I drift in and out of sleep because it’s 5 am. Other times I read it and I can’t remember the passage I read. I keep trying however. 

If we had a spiritual Fitbit, would we be more motivated to walk our Christian walk? Silly to think of I know, but some would be more motivated. One day this world will end. When? I don’t know. We may live to see 3012 or we may be gone tomorrow, but what ever happens I know where I’m going. I wonder though who’s coming with me. It’s hard to tell who my fellow Christians are sometimes. 

Today there are many people that say they are Christians. They say that they believe in this “religion”. I’m sorry to say that this “religion”, isn’t going to save you.

 You can say your a cat , meow like a cat, but does it make you a cat? Now days – its questionable. People truly think that they are a cat, but we know there not a cat. It’s the same way with Christians. You can say your a Christian. You can carry your bible & never open it. You can wear the cross necklaces and t shirts. You can attend Christian concerts and go on mission trips, but if you haven’t asked Jesus to save you; your not a Christian. Your just acting like you are.

And that’s just it. To many people today are just “acting” like Christians. They don’t believe that the bible is true. They don’t believe in praying, or anything that the bible tells us. They think it’s “out dated”.  If you don’t believe what the bible tells us is true, then how can you be a Christian? Even the devil himself knows that the bible is real. That’s why he try’s to distract us when we start to read it daily. That’s why he make us forget what we read or try’s to make us feel like we need to be doing the dishes. It says the demons tremble at the sounds  of the name of Jesus…. So if they believe- why don’t you? 

You see as a Christian we do have a spiritual Fitbit. We get it when we ask Jesus into our hearts. Our Fitbit has a name- the Holy Spirit. It helps us reach out spiritual goals day to day. It helps us to stay focus. Many times though we forget to “charge the battery”, so it doesn’t work at times. “Prayer” is our Fitbit “charger”. It helps us reboot so we can function throughout the week. “Church” is our gym. We get to meet people and work out in the spirit with them. We get to strengthen each other. We get to lift spiritual weights and meet with our “trainer” who is our pastor. How low is your battery? Are you completely dead, or are you on a Half a battery? Maybe your fully charged. Are you meeting your goals? How long has it been since you’ve been to the “gym?”. Maybe you need to meet with your “trainer”? 

As you go on throughout the week, I pray that you start checking your spiritual Fitbit. Because spiritual fitness is just as important as physical fitness. You can only get stronger if you work at it. Let’s be the best Christians  that we can be.  Let’s help out one another and get to walking our spiritual walk, one step at a time. 
-Marli 

Social Norm. 

  

You need to be: Tan, on a diet, wear name brand clothes, contour your makeup, be thin, have every hair in place, be on “fleek”, & you have to perfect in every way. The media puts so much pressure on girls to look a certain way, but guys feel the same way as well. 13 year old girls are worried about their makeup, 8 year olds are on diets, and by the age of 16 girls and boys develop some type of eating disorder. Why can’t we see ourselves as prefect the way we are? Why can’t we see our self worth? We go to the gym to lift weights & do cardio because it helps us be thin. We eat a handful of food only, because to many calories won’t fit into our pre numbered food count. We run/walk 3 miles a day; and we are told “don’t sweat- because it’s not necessary or beautiful.” Why do we conform to such torture? We search for someone who understands us. We take & post Selfies to be seen and liked, but are they selfish? We check how many likes and followers we have from them and if we don’t “gain a follower” – we begged to be “#FollowedBack”. 

We cry alone, because your not supposed to cry in public. We mainly cry over things we thought we could handle in our own or pre-planned events in our lives. Do you hear yourself? I wonder what God thinks about our society…. Does He cry? Does He resent us? Why does He love us? 
It doesn’t matter how many followers we have or likes we get. Hitler had millions – Jesus had 12. Jesus was hated, beaten, and mocked… Why would you think our lives would be any different? We are told to think of only ourselves. We are the “Me” generation. How does this benefit me? How does this make me look? We are defined by our Facebooks, Twitters, Instagrams. We are looking for something that we think will “push us up to the top”. We search out fame, fortune, and likes so we can be fulfilled. We think if we surrender ourselves we loose our worth….but in reality it’s the other way around. We would gain so much. 
In Philippians 1:21 it says, “For to me, to live is Christ, & To die is gain.” Why? What’s the point? “If we can’t post it, tweet it, or like it, did it even happen?”. 

Even though I’m a Christian I am not perfect. I’ve questioned my walk with Christ. I’ve asked, “Is is worth it?”. That is our human nature. We can’t see God’s plan for us. It’s never easy, but if we just let go of our stress, of ourselves; that is when we will understand why we are living for Christ. Is it easy? No… Is it worth it yes. 
You know this world is going crazy. Everywhere you look there is evil. It seems that there is no good in the world at all, but there is…. Where? It’s hidden in you & me. We are the light in the dark. We are the good in the evil. We are the hope in all of the hopelessness. Why? Because if we are truly Christians – than we will show love to the unlovable. We will feed the hungry. We will cloth the naked. You see there’s a passage in the bible in Luke 11:10-13, “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, & to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from ANY father among you, will you give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?!”. 

If you give them a rock when their hungry, what good does that do? Everyone knows the answer to that. I don’t have any children, but I know my family wouldn’t have given me a rock to chew on if I was hungry. And you probably wouldn’t either. If you see someone in need and all you do is say a prayer, is that feeding them if there physically hungry in front of you? I love that he said, ” If Any father among you.”- meaning anyone. Anyone who sees this, anyone who is asked these questions, anyone who knows the answer to these questions…..Anyone…. 

At times yes, God will send someone to them- but what if that someone was YOU? You are the “anyone”, I am the “anyone.”. We have to stop passing your duties to the next Christians, because we say, “Oh I prayed for you- someone is coming to help.” Why can’t you help them? Because we would have to be different and we can’t do that. 
I guess I’m speaking out about this, because our society thinks that this is ok. Our churches thinks this is ok. Our Christians think this is ok…. I’m not old, I’m not wise, & I’m not rich… But I know this isn’t ok. I’m not bragging or trying to place a guilt trip on you, but if I can pack one shoe box to send overseas to help a child in need , why can’t you? If I can clean out my closet and find someone in my town that needs clothes, why can’t you? If I can pray for an opportunity to share Gods love, than why can’t you? You see if we don’t share the gospel of God through love , than how is anyone in the lost world going to know what a true Christian is? We can say- “God is love.” All day, but if we don’t show it- we are doing everything in vain. 
It’s time we get up off our rumps (even me) and stop waiting on “Dr.Phil” to fix the problems of the world. I’m sorry, but Dr.Phil, Dr. Oz, Judy Judge, or Oprah isn’t going to fix this world. We can… If we choose to. We have to wake up and work together in the church. We have to stop beating each other up and start helping each other through this. We are a family and families have fights, but we also love each other. Isn’t that the golden rule? Isn’t that how we are to show the world that we are truly Christians? In John 13:34-35 it says, ” A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this they will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – If we can’t show love for each other, than how can we show love for the lost? 
In the Old Testament in Isaiah 8:19 it says, ” And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums & wizards, who whisper & mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on the behalf of the living?”. Even back then there was a problem with Christians seeking out God. Yes even in the bible there were wizard, but God told his people to stray way from that and to seek him. They still had troubles with that… We may not seek out a medium ( some do ), but we may follow our own thoughts, our own rules, our own way; because we want it now. 

Isn’t that like us? Instant, now, today…. We can’t stand to wait in line for more than 5 minutes. If someone doesn’t text us back within five to ten seconds, we assume they don’t like us….? That’s what the world of today is coming to…. God may not give you his answer in a an hour, a day, a week, or a month…. It may take 1 year, 3 years, 20 years, or never. We get impatient and rude if we have to wait. God told us to be patience and kind. – Wow what a difference.- It’s not societies normal thing to do so. 

Doesn’t that make sense then? If you haven’t caught on – we are to be different than the normal! I bet your looking at your screen thinking, “But if I’m different they will look at me weird or make fun of me….” . Jesus was beaten & killed (for you & me) because he was different. Stephen was stoned to death because he was different. If your still alive and living for Christ- your doing good! Yes, we will get made fun of, our trust in God will be tested, we will be beaten down emotionally, but we live in a place (as of now) that allows us to tell others about Jesus. There’s going to come a day where we can’t do that…. (Like many countries around the world.) What will you do then? Will you pray more than? Read your bible more than? Attend church more than? Sorry to say this but probably not. If your not doing it now, why would you do it then? 
As Christians we are not to conform to the ways of today- meaning “Be Different”. As a kid I use to sing, “This little light of mine.” & it says – “Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m going to let it shine.”. A simple song that means so much. We should be a city on a hilltop, with the lights on, and people can see us & know where to go. 

Instead we are the city that is in hiding. We turn all the lights off by 5 o’clock and lock ourselves inside, because we are comfortable & do not want anyone new to come into town. 
I know this blog maybe hard to read, but it’s something I felt heavy on my heart to say. It’s taken me a few days to write this, and each time I start on it I feel like I’m being to harsh, but if we don’t stand up now, then look at what we are loosing…. Lost souls who don’t know Jesus. You’d be surprised at how many in our nation don’t know Christ. Christianity can be gone & wiped out in one generation….And I won’t stand on the sidelines and allow it to be my generation that wipes it out. Take a stand, live differently, & live for Christ. 

Thank you for reading, liking, & sharing. 

It means so much, 

– Marli 

 
 

  

As I was walking today, I heard a song on pandora. It was called blessings. It talked about healing and how we think it should come from God in certain ways. Don’t we always try and tell God what to do? Recently I have found myself thinking hard about this. We grow up and life comes at you. Bills, home plans, car payments? When did I become old enough to do this?! 
As we grow so does our faith, but like exercise- we slack. I know there are days I don’t want to move. Do I need it? Yes… But it’s not always fun. Take that to our walk with God. Adam & Eve walked with him daily. As we “count the steps”, God wants us to “enjoy the talk.”. 
As we went to the capital this Wednesday to stand up for life at the 25th Rose Day, we walked up & down the steps, we got to laughing, talking, and enjoying fellowship with each other. We laughed so hard at Sandy & Lyn’s previous night & how crazy it was. She was screaming and hearing things in her sleep. Lyn was putting her in a head lock and walking the hallways to secure the home in his. Even though it’s funny to think about it, there was a part of the song that said- “What if your healing comes from every sleepless night, and That’s how we know your there?”. How true is that? We don’t always think of it at the moment, because we want to sleep. In the morning we know.
God is on his one time, but we try to fit him into our plans. Shouldn’t that be the other way around? A year with him is like ten thousand. Sometimes 5 minutes here fells like 3 hours . So as I walked this afternoon, I prayed that I will let God lead me in his path. Just like the road I walk on, it’s rocky, uneven, falling apart, up hill, and has valleys. He guides my steps even if I fall he catches me. Where he leads me – I pray that I follow. No matter how grown up, hilly, washed out, or rocky it maybe. He will always walk beside me. 
So as you go through life, try to think of those sleepless nights as a blessing. Laughs & memories you have- Yes…..but maybe God wanted to show you something more. Allow God to lead your path. He is the only one with the map. Even google can’t show us the future……but my God holds tomorrow. 
Maybe this helps someone today. Thank you for reading these blogs. It really humbles me. Now I guess I better get back to me walking. I wonder what God has me write about next. 

God bless, 

– Marli