LiveFreeLoveHard

So, this morning I had to reel my thoughts in several times to get through a one minute prayer.  "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for waking me up this morning and thank you for this day [ok, today I want to make sure I drop off the letter in the mail and wash the clothes we need for this trip] and help me to focus on you, Lord. [I'm gonna set a reminder to call Susan back later this morning (grab my phone, Facebook pops up, begin scrolling...10 minutes later) Lord, I love you, in Jesus' name I pray, Amen. It's not a very productive prayer.  It's not a focused prayer.  It's just what seems to happen when I sit down and desire to spend time with God.  I am so easily distracted.  I am flooded by thoughts, to-do's, happenings of the day, that getting quiet with God for Him to speak in my life has become that challenging.  And with the limited time I do have to devote to sitting down with him in the early hours of the morning, if I can't commit my thought...

Do you remember when you first learned your ABC's?  In order to memorize them, we sang songs, wrote them down, did picture associations, and drowned ourselves in the alphabets until we had it down.  We played with letter blocks.  Everywhere we turned, someone was trying to show us an alphabet.  Sound this word out.  What letter does "airplane" start with?  If you have young children right now, this is likely on today's agenda. Why do we do this?  Because we want to learn it, know it, and have it be a part of our natural understanding.  I've been a Christian a long time, but I realize that I have to approach the word of God with the same diligence as I did when learning the alphabets.  I have to study it, say it out loud, memorize it, hear it back, make word associations, revere it and spend time in it.  Why?  Because I want to learn it, know it and have it be a part of my natural understanding - how I process the world I live in. ...

I asked before, what are you believing God for?   Now, I’m going to take it one step further and ask what are you living like you believe God for?   From the outside looking in, what might a friend say about what you believe God for?   Are you working toward something that is bigger than you, and you continue to press in and press on, knowing that God will help you along the way?   To truly live by faith, we have to be willing to live with a bigger vision than we could ever truly accomplish.   Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen.   Well, I don’t hope for things that I can do on my own.   I don’t hope to make it to the store and buy food when I have a pocket full of money and a car to get there.   I hope for what I don’t have.    I hope for things for my future and my family.   The evidence of things not yet seen, I believe is the action behind the belief that we will ...

Sometimes I’m really hard on myself.   There is a disparity between where I am and where I want to be.   I’ll never be perfect, and that’s never been my burden.   I’ve always wanted to do my best.   And I feel an incredible sense of satisfaction when I’ve given my best effort.   When you know you’ve left it all out on the field, when you’ve given it your all, when you’ve fought till your last breath.   There is a sense of peace when you live there, and I want to live there more often than not. Living there requires passion.   That’s where some get lost.   Not knowing what their passion is.   To give your all, there has to be something that you care enough about that you’ll exhaust yourself, staying up late to get it done.   You’ll wake up early to get closer to achieving it.   There isn’t anything easy about it, except loving it.   So, that’s what drives you to keep pressing toward it.   As the apostle Paul said in Philipp...

Matthew 12:33 states, "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit." Our thoughts roll off our tongue.  The things we've been thinking about, eventually come flying out of our mouths whether we like it or not.  And it's definitely challenging to stop thinking wrong thoughts or to start thinking right thoughts.  Many authors have declared the importance of right thinking and getting our thought life pure.  Joyce Meyer's book, Battlefield of the Mind , is one of my personal favorites, as it highlights the weapons of praise, prayer and the Word to fortify our minds. Why do we have such a hard time controlling our thoughts?   Because we leave them on automatic playback. I have such a hard time with this because the enemy has already created strongholds in my life from my past that still plague me today.  I consider myself a "strong" person, but I struggle with trust i...