Highlighting God's Presence to Inspire Your Life!
Inspiration to help guide our lives can come to us in many different forms—through music, art, photography, people we interact with, writings, books, and even some movies.
Have you read any books or seen any movies that you could really relate to, and they make you want to share them with others because you believed in the message so much? Continue reading “THE BLIND SIDE”
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These second chances are pure blessings from the Lord to help increase our faith and show the Creator’s mighty power.
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For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. –John 3:16 (NIV)
Every life is truly a special gift from God.
What you do with it, and how you live it, is YOUR gift to God.
Have you viewed YOUR life as such?
Do the things you busy yourself with reflect that view? How about the decisions you make, the places you go, the people you interact with?
Your life is a story that only YOU can write to our Creator, God Almighty. No two people have the same story; each and every story is unique!
Your life is made up of some circumstances you have control over, and some things you do not have control over. Every day brings many decisions. The choices you make shape and mold YOUR life’s story.
Your story is made up of many chapters–it could be based on the stages of life–infancy, childhood, teenager, young adult, adult, elderly person.
The chapters could also be represented by significant events in your life.
When you start out as an infant, you depend solely on your caregiver to meet all of your needs, but as you begin to grow, you have some control over YOUR gift to God.
As you become a teenager, you have even more options in deciding how YOUR story will be written.
**Will you stand up for your beliefs or will you follow the crowd and compromise your faith?
When you are a young adult, you have even greater control over writing YOUR story to God. The opportunities are endless and you have more freedom.
Probably as an adult, you have the greatest potential for writing YOUR story to God. You are now on your own and responsible for yourself.
How you react to the various situations in your life is a big part of YOUR story.
**Are you going to choose to be happy despite possible “bad” circumstances or will you let sadness and loss of hope overtake YOUR story?
**Will you let Jesus guide your path?
With God’s help, you have the power and freedom to write YOUR personal story–your gift to Him.
Photo credit by BK under Creative Commons License (CC BY-SA 2.0)
It is never too late to begin anew if YOUR story is not what you want it to be.
**If there is a chapter in your life that you don’t like, you can seek God’s forgiveness and move on to bigger and better things.
God is always there waiting for us and waiting to guide us.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, when you are an elderly person, or at the end of every chapter in YOUR story, you can look back and say that you are satisfied with YOUR story?
YOUR story is YOUR gift to God!
You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. –2 Corinthians 3:2-3 (NIV)
How many times do we, as humans, resist change in our lives?
Do you ever get set in your routine and ways, and don’t think that change is necessary?
We are probably the creatures that have the hardest time with change. As I look around this beautiful world God created, it occurs to me how the Lord made everything to change.
Maybe we can learn some lessons about change by looking at the world around us.
Some birds change colors with the various seasons; some birds migrate to different places in order to survive each year. Their environment is constantly changing, but they adapt in order to survive.
Sometimes the waters are calm and serene, while at other times they are rough and full of waves. At two different times each day, the tide comes in and then goes out. The oceans serve the purpose God has in mind for them.
Photo credit by Lara under Creative Commons License (CC BY 2.0)
In the spring the trees grow new leaves that are green, and in the summer they grow bigger and bigger. When fall comes, the leaves change such beautiful colors, and then, as the weather cools, they eventually fall off their branches. In the winter, there are no leaves, but the trees are preparing to start changing again. The trees bring us a sense of awe and wonder in their change, but they are really fulfilling the laws of nature that God has set in place.
Photo credit by Ted under Creative Commons License (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Sometimes there are clouds that bring in rain, sometimes snow. And, sometimes the sky lacks even the hint of a cloud–it is just crystal clear blue. Sometimes the sky shows God’s beautiful red sunset. Again, this is such magnificent beauty, and a plan of nature set in place by God.
Did you ever stop to think how little you were when you were in your mother’s womb? Your physical body endured many changes before you made your grand appearance on this earth! And for the next 18 or so years your body grew in leaps and bounds. Maybe you suffered some ailments when you were a child and actually outgrew them as you got older because of the way your physical body changed. Personally, I was thankful when I finished growing as a teen so that my scoliosis did not get any worse. After enduring years of allergy shots, I was blessed to outgrow my allergies. Even as adults, our bodies continue to change. It is all part of God’s plan.
The next time change comes into your life, remember how God made everything in the universe to change–it is a natural part of life. Change can help us grow in ways we never thought possible.
Since the Lord made all these “things” to change in so many ways, how much more must He expect our hearts and spirits to change throughout our lives?
He wants to continually change us—to make us more in His image.
He can only do this if we are willing to accept change and to surrender our lives to Him.
We shouldn’t be so afraid of change since the Lord wouldn’t lead us astray, and He is always with us no matter what!