Change of Plans?

         Ok, so the moving to South Carolina/Georgia thing didn't really work out to be able to go to Bible college.  Through a series of a bunch of failed tries to "make" our way down there, nothing turned out. I personally believe that God allowed us to go all the way down to Hephzibah, GA to look at what we "thought" and were told was going to be a nice place to live only to find out that it was an ENORMOUS "dump" was because He was trying to tell us why we should wait and make sure that something is His will AND timing first before starting off to do it.  Now when I say dump, I mean it was completely trashed with mounds of garbage taller than I am all over the place and to top it all off, the job we were counting on wound up not being available until the beginning of next year anyway, which would have been way too late to start saving for Bible college.
          When my husband and I were getting right with God back in April, he knew that God wanted him to get back into the ministry as a pastor, youth pastor, or some kind of preacher like that in a church somewhere.  The main problem was that my husband felt as if nobody would want to hire him because although he has training in these fields and knows how to do things, hardly anyone will believe that without it all written down on paper (a Bible college degree).  So God told him if that's what he needed to overcome the obstacle of following Him, then that's what he needed to do first.

       Well, right after all the things were messing up with moving for Bible college such as not being able to find a single house to move into or a job to support it, my husband found an opportunity to work down at a church in Arkansas without any Bible college degree necessary. So far, everything is working out in all the areas of job, home, etc that weren't working out before with the move down towards Georgia.  We both know without a shadow of a doubt that this is what God wants us to do to follow Him through His opened doors and because of His closed ones.
       Make sure that you are able to spiritually discern the opening and closing of a door from God and Satan's opposition though.  Just because there are obstacles in your way doesn't always mean that God is closing that door or opportunity in your life, but sometimes it does. You have to keep a close walk with Him, stay in His Word, talk to Him regularly, and stay in church to be able to have the wisdom necessary to discern those things that are God opening and/or closing a door or just Satan trying to trick you into something away from God's will. Always trust and follow God, and He will take you where He wants you to be in the end, and you will find out that His will and way were much better than anything you had ever dreamed of or imagined before anyway.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I've been so busy over the last few weeks that I haven't really had time to sit down at a computer and actually think of a blog post to write at all really.  We're in the process of moving from North Carolina to South Carolina or Georgia depending on where we can actually find a house worth living in at.  And I know some of our family has helped us and have been way more busy than we have, and I'm not trying to complain about that, but needless to say, blogging has not necessarily been on the top of my agenda.
In the process of trying to move all my stuff and figure out where to put it all I have one tip for all of you out there whether you are planning on moving away in the future or plan on staying where you are until you die or Jesus returns because either one is fine with you.  That is this: Don't be a pack rat or try to save everything! Throughout our lives people give us things that are special to us or we acquire more furniture than we need or have way too many dishes that we don't use.  It's just too much of a hassle to try to keep everything and just let it pile up and accumulate around the place and then you wonder where all your living space went or if you are moving you have more than you can handle with trying to go through everything and pack it all up too.
When we moved into the house in Timberlake, NC that we just moved out of, we pretty much had an entire room of our house designated to boxes full of random items that we either didn't know where to put them at or we didn't even know what they were.  Most of that stuff was thrown away because it was trash in the first place, but you should probably come up with a general rule of a "time limit clause" or something like that for majority of the items in your home.  I'm not necessarily talking about sentimental items or stuff that family gave or made you that is special and important, I'm talking about the stuff that sits around our homes that we let do just that - SIT.  We never touch it, use it, move it (unless it's rearranged from one side of the room to another), or even need it for months and months at a time or even over a year.  I'm "preaching" at myself when I say that we all should probably have a 3-6 month rule that if we don't even use it in that time period than it means we don't really need it and it is safe to donate it to a thrift store somewhere or just throw it away.
Following that principle would have saved me and my family a lot of work and lost sleep had I done that or thought of that before now so this is just a suggestion of something you might want to implement in your lives to help you not have so much unwanted, un-needed items just taking up space - never to be used again.

Mama always told you not to play with it!

"Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?"

Proverbs 6:27,28

Sometimes fire can be a very beautiful sight to our eyes. Just think about how romantic it is to sit in front of a fireplace in a cozy living room with your husband (or wife if you're a man - Amen!) and snuggle up together and enjoy the sight of the fire glowing and crackling in the fireplace. Or you could think about how fun it is to go on a camp out with your friends and sit around a bonfire roasting wienies and making s'mores right before you begin telling stories and singing songs and having such a good time.  But even though fire can be athstetically pleasing at those moments it can also be very dangerous.  We see all the time on the news where houses have been burned completely to the ground or a victim from a really bad car accident involving a fire has third degree burns all over his or her body as a result of the fire from the car.  Now I know not all fires are started as a result of someone actually making a conscious decision to "play" with it, but a lot of fires and damages from them do happen from people being stupid and careless when it comes to fire.

As a child your parents or guardian probably always warned you against playing with fire because you were inevitably going to get burned.  You might not get burned the first time you mess with it but eventually, whether you get burned from fire itself or from something heated by fire, you will probably get burned in some way, shape, or form in the duration of your lifetime. I've been burned from lighters, curling irons, steam, irons, and even from carelessly grabbing a pan that just came out of the oven in fear of getting in trouble from dropping the food on the floor when I was helping my mom out with supper when I was younger.  Unless you are a pyro-maniac or something you probably don't enjoy just flippantly "playing" with fire after getting burned as a result of it.

Our parents are not the only ones who try to tell us that playing with fire will result in us getting burnt. The Bible says so too in the verses above from Proverbs.  But the fire that it's speaking about can also be compared to our sin. We see sinful things that look appealing to the eyes and don't seem to be causing a lot of damage in other people's lives or seem "innocent" and "harmless" to us but if we are not careful we will begin "playing" with that "fire" of sin and will get harmfully burned every time. If we would just obey God and His word and apply it to our lives like we should we could avoid having a bunch of "third degree burns" in our life from messing with sin and wouldn't be in spiritual "burn trauma" like those that have "played" with it before us did.  If you see someone walk up to a candle, stick their hand in it, get burned, and be in pain you most likely wouldn't want to wind up doing the same thing.  But when we see someone turn to drugs or alcohol, become not in their right mind, do something stupid, and get themselves hurt or in trouble we don't take a warning from that and think it's OK to do it ourselves because we are the exception? You are not the exception and you will get "burnt" from playing with that sin.  Determine that you won't make the mistakes of others before you and stay away from the sins of this world and don't make the decision to play with them and get yourself burned or worse even killed.

Remember what your parents said about fire and what God says about sin!

Just Try It! I Guarantee Your "Taste Buds" Will Love It!

When we see all this food we are probably either thinking of how good it would be to eat that all right now or what we could possibly make with it that would taste good to us (unless you just ate and if that's the case just play along for example's sake). Some things we would all agree on being good and others might be kind of "iffy" since we haven't tried those things before.  Usually when we see or hear of something that doesn't look so appealing to us or if we just have never tried it before we will automatically turn up our noses at it without ever even giving the food a chance for us to begin to like it. A lot of times you will find that the food you just turned your nose up at is something you would have actually liked had you actually taken the opportunity to try it.  Now I'm not trying to convince you all to go eat some chicken livers or goat brains - and if you actually like those things more power to you - but I'm saying just because something is "NEW" to you, that doesn't mean that you won't like it or you shouldn't at least try it.

"O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him." Psalm 34:8

For some of you God is something you have never "tried" or "tasted" and never will because He's something "new" or "unappealing" to your spiritual "taste buds".  In the Bible we see that Jesus told us that He is our bread from heaven in John 6:32-35 -

"³² Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. ³⁴ Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. ³⁵ And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."

and in John 1:1 and 1:14 we find that Jesus is also call the Word of God:

1)In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

14)And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

so that would mean that God's Word is also "Bread" to our souls and something that we can "taste" for ourselves. Taste means to try or test the quality of something. Psalm 34:8 says those who trust in the LORD will be blessed. To trust in something means: to rely upon or place confidence in someone or something; have confidence in; rely or depend on; believe. So by trusting in God and his Word we will be blessed and able to "taste" the Word and see for ourselves that it's good and will find out that it will never fail us, go bad or out of date, and will never run out like any other bread out there.  God's Word/Bread will never go stale or be lacking in flavor and you will never have to worry about being hungry after eating it; it will always leave you full and satisfied it you will just be willing to "taste" it for yourself!

Regurgitated Food Anyone?

"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." Proverbs 26:11

So I'm guessing that not many of you reading this would jump all over the opportunity to partake in eating their own or someone else's vomit. I'm sure you also couldn't imagine why anyone or anything would willingly eat it. So why do those adorable little (or big depending on the breed)pets we call our best friends resort to eating it? Dogs have very voracious and indiscriminate appetites. What does this mean you ask? Well voracious means craving or consuming large quantities of food and indiscriminate means lacking in care or judgement, haphazard, or thoughtless. Dogs will eat and eat and continue to eat even after they are very well more than full as long as there is food still accessible to them. This will oftentimes cause them to vomit, but because that is also edible, they will proceed to eat that also. As humans we realize that this is a repulsive and disgusting habit and that it wouldn't even be a good idea to think about, let alone act upon.
Vomit can be defined as any food or drink that is repulsive or anything that is contemptible, despicable, or worthless. A fool, or person lacking sense or judgement, will return to his folly (a costly or foolish undertaking; wickedness) just likes dog returns to his vomit. He'll continue to make wicked, unwise, costly decisions in his life until he mentally, spiritually, and/or physically "vomits" and will then turn around and "eat up" those actions all over again by doing the same thing that caused the vomitting in the first place - no matter how bad it was or how "repulsive and disgusting" the actions were. We need to quit acting like a bunch of "Foolish Dogs" making the same mistakes over and over again and need to turn away from the the wickedness in our lives that induces vomitting so we can quit returning to it and can start living instead for God.

So Glad God Has Other Plans

How many of you when you were a little kid or where in your teen years just KNEW what you wanted to be when you got older, where you wanted to live, or that the person you liked was the one you wanted to marry when you were old enough? Don't deny it, we've all been there.  We were so determined to have things our way that we didn't care what hoops we had to jump through or what strings we had to pull - we were going to have our way with how our future turned out.  We would daydream about our future jobs and how much money we were going to make, what our "perfect" homes were going to look like, and how much of a "saint" that person we were determined to marry would turn out to be.  Now I'm not saying that all of these necessarily apply to me, but are here for mere example's sake.  Our "dream world mentality" that we had was so selfish and we never once thought of what it was that God wanted for our lives. We would pray fervently every day about how we wanted Him to give us what we wanted - well at least that's what we called it anyway.  That form of "prayer" isn't really prayer at all.  It's just our way of spiritualizing the fact that we were demanding God to give us what we wanted daily.
It was like those little kids that go with their parents to the grocery store and always begged for the same toy that they wanted and kicked and screamed and threw a fit when they didn't get it.  And you know what happened next time they went back to the store?  They would partake in the same childish, selfish, demanding actions in hopes of getting what they wanted, how they wanted it, and when they wanted it.  Now the parent, on the other hand, knows that the toy their child is demanding and begging for may not be necessarily the best thing for the child to have.  I don't think many parents or adults would be willing to give in to a three-year-old having "pop-its" or that "sling shot" that they are begging for every week especially when they know they shouldn't have it because they have been told "NO" every week.
It's the same way with everybody though.  We "pray" (if that's what you want to call it) to God demanding Him for the things we want day after day that we know probably aren't right for us.  We think that just because we want it so bad that we can "justify" to God why it is right and why we could make it work out if He would just give it to us.  But God, just like the parent to the demanding, yelling, three-year-old, knows that we do not need what we are "asking" or demanding Him for.  We would all be so much better off if we would just stop being so selfish and childish and ask God to give us what He would want us to have because what He has planned for us is so much better than anything we could have ever wanted or hoped for or even dreamed of.  There is so sense (if money or cost of the meal is no issue and you actually like steak) to go to Outback and order a kid's meal of a hamburger and french fries and a little coloring sheet with crayons if the cook was going to give you a free meal including the finest steak in the house with all the best fixings you could imagine to go with it.  I'm so glad that through my teen years at some point in time that I learned this truth.  Nothing I could have possibly asked for would have been better for me than the path that God is leading me and my husband on right now - and I actually wouldn't have my husband if both of us hadn't been willing to let God provide us to each other instead of chasing after someone we knew wasn't the right one for us.  Be willing to let God lead your life and take what He wants you to have.  Don't make God your co-pilot - make Him the pilot of your life and trust Him with everything you have and you will be so much more happier for it in the end.  I can personally guarantee it :)

Sinuses and Allergies?

They stink! 'Nuff said