Are You Running a Marathon or a Sprint

Psalm 66:16 says, come and listen all you who fear God, and I will tell you all He did for me.
We need to be encouraging one another with our experiences with The Lord and with His word.  The beauty of God’s word is how it imprints our hearts and ministers to us in our times of need. 
The truth is, whether we are running life as a marathon, renewing and committing ourselves to God daily or running as a sprint under our authority and sufficiency; both are challenging.    What the first gives us that the latter does not is perseverance and the ability to reflect the character of our Savior not the chaos of our situations.  We can fall in all the pot holes along the race, only to rise, dust ourselves off and keep running. 

When we are right with God, the circumstances and conditions of our race do not define us, but they depict Who lives inside of us.  I would much rather be eternally equipped for the marathon of life, than dependent on myself or someone other than Jesus, to run this race with me. 

When I fail to present myself consistently before The Father, renewing my mind daily, life gets messier than usual.  

Are you pacing yourself for the marathon or sprinting towards the next check off the list?  I often need to remembered , repent and rest.

Yesterday I Put Myself Down

1cb4c5290e3e370b1cb822cd5ec03122Yesterday I put myself down.

I put myself down to a friend; a new friend that I had not even known five minutes.  She was kind enough to speak truth back to me.  You see the thing about light is; I am really good at speaking it into other people’s lives but not always my own!

I put myself down yesterday, not even an hour after I wrote these words; ‘To believe we are anything less than His beloved is to deny the work Jesus finished on the cross. I do not want to do that, but I do every day when I feel or say I am not enough.’

Yesterday with my new friend my flawed theology confronted me.  I walked to my car, and my head was hanging.  The mind missiles started to fly to the roar of something like this; “What kind of person tells everyone else to believe they are enough but cannot believe it about herself?”  “You should be ashamed!”  And I was, ashamed.

By the time I got to my car, I knew I had to go to The Lord and repent.  I didn’t need just to repent for what I said, but also for my unbelief.  I am very grateful I put myself down yesterday because The Holy Spirit used the circumstance to convict my heart, and it was a successful conviction.

Many times I have to go through an experience to have a conversion.

It is in the midst of deep exposure that I evolve.  Praise God He does not leave me where I am.  His instruction usually stings, but purpose is always a product of pain if I have the proper perspective.

So, today, as I have been meeting the demands set before me, I have been intentionally practicing my status as a beloved daughter of The King.  I repented there in my car yesterday for my unbelief, now the battle is in the fight to believe and rest in my identity as His.

Thank you, Jesus, for loving a ragamuffin like me!  Where are you not believing you are enough, friends?  Will you ask The Lord to show you if it is not already clear?  Lets fight to believe together!  Proverbs 27:17~ As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.