As this year on staff is coming to an end and the new year is beginning, I want to reflect on this past year.
Living life abundantly has been a highlight of this year. The verse John 10:10 has constantly come to me throughout the year. It's a verse that God has given me to meditate on. And to be honest I didn't at first because I thought 'oh that's nice, of course I'm doing that. I'm working at this place that is doing amazing things.' But the truth is, I wasn't living my life in abundance I was living my life through the context of YWAM. YWAM is a great place and I love working here but it's not all that my life is.
So this past year has been a year of discovering what it looks like for me to live life in abundance and recognizing when Satan was trying to steal and destroy life for me. There have been many moments when it's been hard and part of me thought that it would just be easier for me to go back to the way that I've always lived my life. But the truth is that it's not me that wanted that, not the person that I am in Christ, but the flesh in me. The part that's lazy and stuck in my ways(I know I'm young but it's still hard to change sometimes).
This is such a small part of all that god has been showing me and teaching me about myself and Him in this year. I just wanted to give a little overview of it all.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
A conversation I had yesterday
Someone that I work with said something yesterday that started a 15 minute conversation on love.
She said I realize more and more that I really need God and apart from HIm I can do nothing. Then she said that she realizes that she needs to know how to love people because she doesn't know how best to love everyone around her.
Even if we had the exact same testimony as someone else(which isn't really possible) we wouldn't know how that person internalized things. What lies have they believed? How do they process things? Where are they in their relationship with God? These are all question that we can't really know the answer to.
And it's true we do need God to show us how to love those around us. To give us words of wisdom, so that we can know how to speak to them without making them believe the lies even more.
However, it's also true that we need to love in the way that comes most natural to us. How do we love? How can we be ourselves and still show those around us that we love them?
A book I read said, "Stop looking at the love languages of others and trying to love them how they love. Love in the way that comes most natural to you. They'll feel most loved when they get to see who you really are. When you allow others to truly see who you are." It also said that when you're not feeling loved by those around you ask yourself the question, " Am I trying to make them love me how I love? Am I trying to make them meet my expectations? Or am I able to appreciate them and how they love? Do I see them?"
Yes, there are moments when we need to sacrifice for each other. Moments when we need to step out of our natural way and love them in a way that's specific to them. However, if that becomes our constant way of doing things then I believe we lose who we are. That people will not truly know who you are. That the people you're trying to love will never feel truly loved by you because they don't get to know you. They don't get to see who you are.
So yes we do need God's wisdom and insight, because we can't know everything. We don't know the things that go inside the hearts and minds of the people around us. We don't know the lies that they have believed. However, God made us. He knows how we love even more so then we do. He says that we each have something to give in the way that we love, because we are made in the likeness of HIm. Don't undermine who you are, who you are created to be.
She said I realize more and more that I really need God and apart from HIm I can do nothing. Then she said that she realizes that she needs to know how to love people because she doesn't know how best to love everyone around her.
Even if we had the exact same testimony as someone else(which isn't really possible) we wouldn't know how that person internalized things. What lies have they believed? How do they process things? Where are they in their relationship with God? These are all question that we can't really know the answer to.
And it's true we do need God to show us how to love those around us. To give us words of wisdom, so that we can know how to speak to them without making them believe the lies even more.
However, it's also true that we need to love in the way that comes most natural to us. How do we love? How can we be ourselves and still show those around us that we love them?
A book I read said, "Stop looking at the love languages of others and trying to love them how they love. Love in the way that comes most natural to you. They'll feel most loved when they get to see who you really are. When you allow others to truly see who you are." It also said that when you're not feeling loved by those around you ask yourself the question, " Am I trying to make them love me how I love? Am I trying to make them meet my expectations? Or am I able to appreciate them and how they love? Do I see them?"
Yes, there are moments when we need to sacrifice for each other. Moments when we need to step out of our natural way and love them in a way that's specific to them. However, if that becomes our constant way of doing things then I believe we lose who we are. That people will not truly know who you are. That the people you're trying to love will never feel truly loved by you because they don't get to know you. They don't get to see who you are.
So yes we do need God's wisdom and insight, because we can't know everything. We don't know the things that go inside the hearts and minds of the people around us. We don't know the lies that they have believed. However, God made us. He knows how we love even more so then we do. He says that we each have something to give in the way that we love, because we are made in the likeness of HIm. Don't undermine who you are, who you are created to be.
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