Visions and Decisions

God brings people into your life for one reason I believe and that's to be an encouragement somehow for each other. A dear friend of mine spoke on intercession and talked of how when God gives you a vision or promise the next step is to pray for the next step. While she was sharing this with me this is what I heard in me.

God has a promise for you. He's told you and shown you what He's going to do in your life. And then when it doesn't happen right away you get anxious and decide to make it happen when you think it's time and go about fulfilling it it the way that the world has done it before. If you don't think that your decision to move before God will bring any reprocussions or affect any one else's life, just take a look at how Sarah took the promise God gave to her husband and made things happen before God moved and tried to fulfill His promise the way that the world has always brought an heir. We are still seeing the affects or consequences of her decision today in Israel. It is not our job as a wife to take the vision God has given to our husband and make something happen but to support him and encourage him in prayer as he listens to God.

As women we tend to want to fix things and make things happen so others and happy. We can't try to interpret what another person has heard or sees. What we can do is lead them to the Word so that they can continue to hear and listen to the voice of God.

This encouragement is a part of friendship that can be taken to deep levels if we allow our heads to stay out of the way and allow the Spirit of God to lead. It's at that place where you are quick to rebuke the pride, judgement, jealousy, and strife that poisons the potential that can be made when two are united in the Lord.

I believe that the world will know we follow Christ, that we are Christians by the unconditional love we have for one another.

Websters dictionary of 1828 says friendship is defined as...

1. An attachment to a person, proceeding from intimate acquaintance, and a reciprocation of kind offices, or from a favorable opinion of the amiable and respectable qualities of his mind. Friendship differs from benevolence, which is good will to mankind in general, and from that love which springs from animal appetite. True friendship is a noble and virtuous attachment, springing from a pure source, a respect for worth or amiable qualities. False friendship may subsist between bad men, as between thieves and pirates. This is a temporary attachment springing from interest, and may change in a moment to enmity and rancor.

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

There is little friendship in the world.

The first law of friendship is sincerity.

2. Mutual attachment; intimacy.

3. Favor; personal kindness.

4. Friendly aid; help; assistance.

5. Conformity; affinity; correspondence; aptness to unite.

What stuck out to me the most was "There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."

When we can enter a friendship in confidence that you won't expect anything in return, it will be a beautiful long lasting friendship.


At least that's what I think :)

Thoughts from an afternoon

As I sit upon this grassy knoll reminding me of psalms so beautifully written to remind me of His presence here with me I hear the cries and laughter of those on the ride of steel. Seeing only the soliloquy of life represented in this moment I am panged to think that they are within feet of knowing the one in which they seek. That the thrills in which they chase on the ups and downs and twists and turns of this man made beast could never compare to the son of man. That the knots of this ride isn't what will satisfy but only the knots of a tree. A tree carried by a man so innocently bleeding across these knots...the knots...the blemishes that serve to remind of a disease that deformed the original design but after being worked on by the Master is carved and polished to be beautiful and desired. These knots on this tree carried by the one who was sent be the thrill that I search for, that I long for, that I desire...this knotted tree from an ordinary field not raised to be anything eloquent or carving so glorious but simple known from seedlingly that the One wino breathed life into the seed knew that it was to grow into the tree used by the Master to set this world free so that the one that is driven by the thrills of life would some day come to know the One who loves him so, every knot, every up and every down was there to be breathed on and one day used by the Master. It's on this moment that I realize I am here. Here to sing of His love so amazing, so unchangeable, so astonishing and His beauty and magnificence that is mine to sing, nay to shout to the one on the man made beast HEY JESUS LOVES YOU!

starbucks and the samaritan woman

I’m going to warn you… what I’m about to say you may not want to hear for once you’ve heard you will be held accountable for your own actions…

Recently my little brother came home for a friend’s wedding and during one of the days in which we actually spent some time together we took a little drive thru one of my favorite places for a little pick me up… Starbucks :)

Now we’re in the drive thru and all my brother is saying “Hey kid how's those slave camps treating ya” and “Hey local coffeeshops that are being shut down and dreams that are crushed” and “Hey babies that can't talk due to there being aborted” (I just copied and pasted those quotes directly from his twitter feed @sethcaleb so any misspellings are his and his alone) and I’m like “Shut up”

But then later that night as I partake in my nightly ritual of scrolling through the facebook and twitter feeds to tire my eyes so I can actually go to sleep, I see the above mention quotes on my brother’s twitter feed and I’m suddenly appalled and angry and disappointed all at the same time…

….I’m a woman, I can do that…

And then this thought hit me… “do I really contribute to the very things I fight against?” I support charities that rescue girls from sex trafficking and slaves from camps and local shelters for women to get counseling and not abortions and I want to open my own little coffee shop.

With my small addiction to Starbucks am I in turn putting the money in the hands of these people and every other organization Starbucks supports? Just like the state farm commercial (or whatever that insurance company is) where the husband bought a falcon because of the savings he made from switching insurance companies.

Am I?

This is a serious concern…no seriously it is

Like I want those things that I do to bring God glory right? So in my every day walk I have to make decisions to do that and by going to a business that operates under ideals that are contrary to the Word of God itself is that in turn sinning because I consciously ordered my Non-Fat Iced Grande Mocha?

That’s the line that I’m at. There’s no way to avoid the world because we’re in it. But like what does the Word of God say about these situations…I have to pay taxes…unavoidable…even if you’re on Obama’s cabinet…but what about the pleasures of life like coffee. And chocolate. And Ice cream…

You get my drift? What is the end line here…

As to each decision a person makes in their life and just as the Samaritan women whom Jesus spoke to at the well, her own village didn’t believe her till they say it for themselves, this choice is one in which I will need to procure a revelation to. As will you.

We can’t take the ideals of any one person until we receive a revelation of it in our hearts.

And I hope…they’re right

my nephews//...

Tonight was the opening night of a kids kamp my church hosts every year. They brought in this group of, well two, guys that can break concrete blocks and rip phone books and as the team leader was talking about “sin nature” it dawned on me something so clear…

I am who I am because of Christ. I have been taught and shown by the leaders around me. I remember when I was 5 and got saved for the first time. I remember looking up to the middle schoolers thinking they where the awesomest people in the world. I remember when I was 12 and wandered off from my group in Kingston Jamaica.

And now, I’m a godmother of 4 boys and I am with them all the time.

Right now they are watching me…seeing how I’m going to react or respond to situations.

They are looking for me to implement the Word of God in my life so they can come to a realization that God wants to be part of their life each and every day.

These boys, they are young men, needing to know Jesus as their Savior and Friend.

I can’t just continue to think “oh they won’t really remember that, or it doesn’t matter what I say”

But it does…cause I can see how they react to each other and see things that I’ve done.

I am responsible for myself and how I behave.

I am responsible for how I behave and how I show the Love of God through my actions.

What I learned and saw when I was 9 still impacts me today.

And I want the impact that I leave on my “nephews” to be a Godly lasting impression.

It takes a village…it takes a man or woman of God…it takes the body of Christ to regenerate itself in the next generation so that it can survive and persevere.

It takes this generation alive today to stand up and live the Word of God.

Stand!