Resolutions

So my friends we embark on the journey that a new year brings. This year will be an interesting one for sure. I will be turning 21 and making the transition into my last year of college. The time has for sure flown by. It seems like not long ago I was trying to get things finalized before getting accepted at Bethel and graduating from high school. There have been a lot of on my life both positive and negative. Through all that I have grown a lot. I've met many people that I can't. Imagine life without, several within the last year. I love them all so much and they are all amazing people. Some are friends I met and ended up living with, going from strangers to those I can't imagine living without. One is a young woman who I met by chance who has a great heart and passion for other people that I admire greatly. And yet another is a professor and a doctor who truly cares about not only her students and the subject matter of the class but about what the student actually gets out of the class. She is a true hero based on the amount of work she puts into her students. And there are many others.

So every new year people make all kinds of resolutions and promises for the next year. I don't make it a habit of making promises because of how hard it is to keep them. In other words, when I say promise, I mean it. This year instead of resolutions, I'm picking goals for things I'd like to do within the next year. The first one being that I'd like to read one book a month. 12 books in a year is honestly not that much considering I have 5 on my kindle that I haven't read yet. The one I'm reading first is called "When God Writes Your Love Story" and it's by Eric and Leslie Ludy. I also want to make it a point to read my bible more. I'd like to read the while bible in a year, at least the New Testament. I also want to blog more and write poetry more. You may catch me killing two birds with one stone by posting poetry here lol. I want to do better with my homework and and classes. I would like to go to vespers and other things like that more. We'll see what happens.

So what are your goals/resolutions/promises or whatever you call them?

Hello Again and Christmas Time is Here

So it's been a couple of months since I've been able to blog, and I've finally found the time. Sadly I had to wait until Christmas break to do it lol. This is being written to you from my brand new iPad :) hopefully because I have this now, it'll be easier to blog wherever I am. I tried blogging on my phone but it was too time consuming and too small to read. But this is much bigger :)

So it's Christmas break and I'm enjoying time at home. I've spent almost the whole time I've been on break away from home. I packed up all of my stuff from school and headed straight to my aunt's house. It was nice to see my aunt and her family again after a long time. From there I went to the family Christmas party to visit my dad's side of the family. We all had dinner together and the kids opened presents. After that we headed over to my aunt and uncle's for the "after party". There were more gifts and desserts to be had. It's always good to see my extended family. We don't see each other often enough. Every year I'm reminded why I love each one of them. I see babysitting in my future. Lol
Saturday was spent cleaning and then having dinner with some dear friends from church. Sunday was church day plus cookie frosting and decorating. I did all the frosting this year for the sugar cookies and the thumbprints along with dipping some of the cake balls in chocolate.
Then it was time for Christmas Eve. Every year we have the tradition of going to dinner before church. So just after 4:00 we were at our usual Christmas Eve haunt: Outback Steakhouse. We never go there, except for this holiday. After that, we headed to church early, so my dad could practice with the band. This years church service was great :) I didn't burn myself with hot wax like I usually do lol. Once church was over, we headed back home to finish up some last minute things before today.
Today's agenda is as follows:
Getting up with Daniel, who continues to sleep in my room every Christmas Eve, to go open presents.
Breakfast with the grandparents
And then at noon, the party starts; soup is on all day for any friends and family to come and fellowship. It's a great time to get together with some people that we only see once or twice a year and also with those who we live dearly and want to spend more time with.
We'll see what happens from there, because some people don't leave until very late.
Add missing my roommates to the list. I hope they are all enjoying their time at home and having a nice relaxing break. :)

For the rest if break my list if things I want to do is growing. Painting, reading, and writing are on the list. I have several projects I want to finish along with reading at least one book cover to cover. I want to write more poetry. I haven't written in a long time, and I've missed it. Also, I have several painting projects that I've been planning on finishing but haven't had the time. Hopefully I can get this all done over break. If not, it's no big deal.

Well Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to you all! It's nice to be back. :)

So I fail at blogging...

There's been so much going on lately that I haven't really had time or energy to blog. Totally my fault, no excuse. I have enjoyed blogging though, but I feel like it only really fits during the summer. I'm going to postpone my blog where I was until maybe Christmas break and then again until summer.
In the meantime, follow me on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/bythebook2010. I don't use this too much, but you know how I am lol
Follow me on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/rachelbythebook/. I tend to post a lot of funny things that I enjoy, so you might also :)
Follow my poetry: http://allpoetry.com/poems/by/bythebook2010. I plan on posting as close to daily as possible. Some of my poetry is kind of dark though, because I channel that well emotionally. This is probably the best place to follow me if you are interested.

So those are some other avenues where you can find me :) Enjoy life guys. I'll be back eventually!

Week 3: FG Chap 3- Theology of the Holy Spirit 101

First off, today at Sunday School we were talking about Mary and Martha which reminded me of the song "Lament" by Audrey Assad (found here). Give it a listen if you'd like :) Also we had a conversation about the 5 love languages, which are touch, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and quality time. Personally my love language is affirmation, followed by quality time. My lowest is touch. I'm just not that kind of person. The struggle with love languages is learning to use someone else's love language for them when it's not the same as yours. If you don't know what your love language is, I encourage you to take the online test here. Just pick which category is closest to you. If you can get your closest friends or roommates or spouse or whoever to take the test as well and then compare. When you find out what there's is, use it. Showing that you care will mean a lot more when you use something that they appreciate more than if you don't.

Forgotten God: Chapter 3- Theology of the Holy Spirit 101

This chapter is focusing on how the thought process to your actions is also important. A good theology can lead us to live godly lives, and bad theology can lead us to bad decisions. When I get on a good thought path, I don't know if you've noticed this like I have, it seems like everything is going right. The whole world just seems to come into a better view than it had started. The opposite is also true. When I start contemplating things that are negative, life just seems darker. You can almost talk yourself into doing things yous should or shouldn't based on how you are thinking at the time. Also this can depend on who you're with at the time. When I am with someone who thinks more positively, I tend to think more positively as well. Now I'm not saying that when you are depressed or thinking negatively that you should just start thinking happier. That doesn't really help anything. People have on numerous occasions just told me to think happier and life would get better; it never does. So I'm not saying that. I'm saying though that by surrounding yourself with people who think more positively than you do, you can alter your view a little bit. This can be true with the Spirit as well. If we are always thinking about how distant we are from Him or how He won't do such and such, we will continue to spiral down in the wrong direction. But by thinking more positively and using hope we can see the light in things and make room for growth.
Something that keeps coming up when I hear things about the Spirit is "Boldness'. I'm not sure how I feel about that word. To me it's frightening, because personally I would hate to be bold. I'm just not that kind of person. But, bold looks different for each person. Your boldness could be walking up to a stranger and witnessing to them on the spot, whereas my boldness may be more like asking a good friend if I could pray for them, which I have only done maybe twice. Paul preached to thousands and brought them all into the Kingdom. Sometimes I feel that we all need the faith of children. I was watching a comedy special and I heard something that kind of struck me as pretty deep when in the right context. When kids are little we tell them that a huge strange man is going to come into our house and eat our food in the middle of the night, but it's ok because he's leaving you presents. And, they are ok with that. They don't see how that could possibly be wrong. Same with God. We tell the kids that God is always there for them and that they should pray and read the Bible. They believe that He is there without question. They have so much faith that they can not see how God could not exist. Whereas adults are constantly doubting their faith. No wonder Jesus wanted all the children to come unto him.
The Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is Eternal and Holy. The Holy Spirit has His own mind and prays for us. The Spirit has Emotions. The Holy Spirit has His own desires and will. The Holy Spirit is Ominipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient. These are all valid points that we need to remember about the Spirit. The one that I'm going to focus on remembering is that the Spirit has emotions. He loves us unconditionally and hurts for us when things are not going well.
Just something to think about. :)

Week 2: FG Chap. 2- What are you afraid of?

This week since I was camping and did not have wifi, So I'm a lil late. I apologize :)

Anyways. This weeks chapter is called "What Are You Afraid of?".
Well before we even start the chapter, I can say that I have had plenty of fears in my life. Too many to really count. Some that are normal, some not so normal, some manageable, some not so manageable. I'm sure everybody out there has at least one thing that they are extremely afraid of. I'm not afraid to admit that one of my worst struggles has been social anxiety. If I were to just sit here pray to God and ask for boldness, honestly, I would be scared to death. I feel the exact same way Chan does when he is writing this section. He says writing this book makes him nervous because he doesn't know how people will respond and such. I would be lying if I said that I never got nervous about what I was writing on my blog or second guessed things that I wanted to put in here because of how it may look. Fear is natural, but it is true that we shouldn't live in fear. When we are called by Christ to give everything up for Him, He is also talking about our fears.  I don't know what's scarier, actual fears or the fear of giving them up. We become so used to being afraid all the time that we just don't know what to do when we aren't afraid.
Here in the book Chan addresses some of the fears that Christians go through including "What if God doesn't come through?", "What if I pray for the Holy Spirit and nothing happens?", and "If nothing happens, does that mean God failed?" For me, I don't tend to ask God to do things when I pray. Prayer is controversial across the many denominations anyways. I don't usually pray for miracles or healing for myself. So the fear of "What if God doesn't come through?" doesn't apply to me...or so I thought. Maybe if the deeper reason for not praying for miracles Is because I'm afraid God won't come through. So am I just supposed to believe that everything I pray for will happen? I fall into Chan's next category of those who try to "cover for God" by praying for less, asking for less, expecting less, and then being satisfied because we are afraid to ask for me. I believe that this is true for me. At the same time God doesn't need to be convinced that something is a good idea. God is more than willing to give us gifts. We just need to let go of our fears and ask Him for it. I didn't ask for my gifts, and at first I didn't think it was a good idea. Obviously God has a better plan for all of us than what we plan for ourselves. We need to "pray confidently for what God has promised." and "Don't put your hope in what others promise or what you've been told you'll 'get' if you are a 'good Christian'". We can't focus on the gifts, but place all our focus on God alone. Basically it's a trust thing. Do you actually trust God?  Can you look God in the eye and confidently say that you trust Him? If you're like me you probably doubt that you can.
"Do I even want this?" If we aren't sitting here worrying that God won't come through, we're probably worrying that He will. "What if God asks you to go somewhere or do something that's uncomfortable?" Are we actually willing to follow God's plans? A friend has said to me before that they can feel God's pull to do something, but they struggle with actually doing it. It can be awkward or nerve-racking. It may be embarrassing or you don't feel like it's the right timing. Sometimes it just depends on the circumstance. I know before that I've felt God calling me to do something or say something to someone and just before I go along with it I freak out. There's an unknown list of possibilities that this situation could take a turn and come back to haunt me. In the end, when I go through with what God has asked, I feel better and nothing bad comes of it; if I don't, I feel uneasy, because I know I should have done the right thing.
"The whole idea of giving up control (or the delusion of it) is terrifying, isn't it?" Yes it is. Control is something that everybody feels like they need to have in their lives. If that feeling goes away, and you feel like you don't have control over any aspect of your life, in my experience, things don't go so well for you. In actuality, we aren't in control of anything, ever. God has control over our whole existence, but we delude ourselves into believing that it's us that are in power. The thought of letting go of the control is terrifying, even though the control doesn't actually exist. The Spirit is meant to lead us, to guide us down the right path. Sometimes we just can't give up the paths we have decided upon, because giving the control to something we can't even see is beyond our comprehension. In the process of giving up control to the Spirit, we can lose our selfishness, pride, and fear. Ultimately good things, right? Then why is it so painful to go through that transition? Sin. The Spirit is literally ripping the sin out of us, and it's painful. That's why we do things bad that we know we shouldn't. It is not the intention of the Spirit to hurt us. So let go of the fear. Once you let go of the fear, then you can let go of the control, and the Spirit can lead you where you are supposed to go.
"Is My Reputation in the Way?" What a question. In our society, appearance is everything. We care about what others think of us. Has there been a time in your life where you really wanted to raise your hands during worship or you wanted to join the altar call, but were afraid to do so because of other people's opinions? For me, I can say yes. It could be even simpler, like bringing your Bible where you are going or putting a Bible verse as your facebook status. We don't want people to feel like we are shoving Jesus down their throats. We are afraid that our past will get in the way of the future, or that our emotions will cloud our judgement, and that ultimately if something bad happens that it's our fault. But, we can't let other people's opinions stop us from doing what we feel is right. The only perception of our lives that actually matters is Jesus'. When we get wrapped up in our physical appearance, our spiritual reputation, our "coolness", and our acceptance, we are too focused on this world's opinion and not God's. In God's eyes we are all "cool kids" and popular. But, trying to change our mindset on this is not easy.

Concerns, questions, comments? You know where to find me :)
Next week's post will be on Sunday. See ya then :)

Week 1: Forgotten God (FG)- Intro and Chapter 1

One more day and I move back to school. Wow time has flown by the last couple of days. Today I went to the adult Sunday School at church for the first time and I really enjoyed it. Here's all the notes that I got out of today's class and service:

When we get to heaven we will get answers and gain a new perspective on life and things from the past. In heaven we will be in constant praise of God, and we will enjoy it. Some misconceptions are that everybody will be there, God didn't actually create a Hell because He's so loving, you will get your own planet to reign over, and it will be boring/Hell is a party. Everybody won't be there because some people will go to Hell. God is the judge of where we end up. Jesus is not ethnically white or has blue eyes etc. Misconceptions about faith are that there is more than one way to get to heaven, that all religions are aspects of the same God, meaning they are all right, and reincarnation.  Christ said specifically that there is no other way to the Father than through Him.
Jesus is the Christ. He is the Savior. He had a 5-fold mission including: preaching the good news to the poor, binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming freedom for the captives, releasing the prisoners from the darkness, and proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor.
What's it to you what God's plan is for someone else? It's their path, not yours, so stop comparing yourself to other people. Those who are the most humble are the greatest. Like children we need to be more focused on ourselves and our relationship with God rather than comparing ourselves to other Christians and their walks.

Service: Guest speaker- David Wheeler
Famous Last Words of Christ
Acts 1:6-11

What was Jesus all about? Or on the other hand what was not important to Jesus?
The disciples were often self-centered and focused on a "What's in it for me?" mentality. When a man learns to die to himself, he will then learn to live. We are supposed to be on God's mission but we are too worked up about what other people think. The disciples were more worried about what other people thought about what they were doing than the actual work they did.
In order for Him to increase, I must decrease. It's not for us to know the plan or what will happen, but for us to trust that He knows what He's doing.
Our purpose as Christians is to Glorify God, and our function is to join God's mission.
The thought that you will not learn to love God until you love yourself is false. If you love God, you will love yourself because He made you and is inside of you.
So How can we spread Christianity?
4 questions that you may think about when contemplating witnessing to someone or not:
Where is my boldness?- verse 8a
- Introverts have the ability to relate to other introverts, so you don't even need to be bold to reach someone.
Why should I share my spiritual story?- verse 8b
- We will be held accountable for the people we had the opportunity to share with but chose not to.
-We are not defined by what we do or have done, but what we are. Sharing faults and failures will help people to relate.
Where?- verse 8c
- Everywhere; Don't go on a mission trip if you aren't willing to do the same thing in your own neighborhood.
-The gospel is individual and inclusive. Everybody who comes to faith, comes individually.
What's the point?- verse 9-11
- Jesus is coming back! Don't worry about when He is coming back but what the state of the world will be in when He does come back.
- "If we'd have known you were coming, we'd have gone and got more people" mentality. We already know that He's coming, So where are the people?

Forgotten God: Intro and Chapter 1

Introduction-

Chan states here that by "Forgotten God" he is actually referencing the Holy Spirit. That we, as Christians, tend to focus on God and Jesus Christ, but lose focus on the Spirit. Many Christians feel when attending a church that they are "missing something", and Chan believes that this "something" is actually the Spirit. When we lose sight of the Spirit, we are limited to only accomplishing tasks that can use our human strength. A whole realm of things that we can do is gone, because we forget that with the Spirit we can even do them.
"I also believe that the Spirit is more obviously active in places where people are desperate for Him, humbled before Him, and not distracted by their pursuit of wealth or comforts." This goes along with what I was saying earlier about the greatest people being those who are the most humble. When we humble ourselves and forget about our own desires, we become more open to the Spirit to take control. Anything that we accomplish without the Spirit is of no consequence. We cannot live up to our full potential and even the church becomes irrelevant.
Chan describes the truths that he will lay out for us in the book as "Obvious, Neglected, and Crucial". He also hopes that these truths will help us look to the future and not stay stuck in the past. I'm hoping the same for myself and that I can do what he says next and "lay aside your baggage and stereotypes so you can be open to what God wants to teach you". I hope the same for you too, reader.
I love what Chan says about a "healthy balance". We truly cannot say that everyone needs a healthy balance of the Spirit or of God in their life, because that would imply that some people have too much. I don't know about you, but I can never have enough of God. You cannot be "overfilled" with the Holy Spirit. You can take and take and take as much as you want and there will always be room for more. The issue is not necessarily that we don't have enough, but that we are holding back too much. That when someone only has a "little bit of God" they are really unwilling to give up parts of themselves to Him. There is always more of God that we can experience, but we have to be willing to ask for it.

Chapter 1: I've Got Jesus. Why Do I Need the Spirit?

I agree with Chan that there is a problem with churches nowadays. More and more people are saying that they believe in God, but not in organized religion. The key to fixing that problem may very well be the Holy Spirit. The reason why people find organized religion to be faulty is that it's more like organized spoon-feeding. We sit, listen, and believe what we are told, but we don't challenge or look to see for ourselves why it is true. We know that what we believe is right, but we don't look to see how or why. We just accept that "that's the way it is".
After Jesus had died and was resurrected, He told the disciples to stay and wait for the Spirit to come. Chan says that the disciples obeyed because that's what people do when someone rises from the dead and gives you instructions LOL. If I saw that happened, I know for sure I would have obeyed as well. But as a people we don't "expect" the Holy Spirit to do anything for us. We don't "need" Him. Just because things are stirring and things seem to be working out, doesn't mean the Spirit is at work at all. We CAN do things on our own, but we can do so much MORE with the Spirit. You should be so caught up in the Spirit that if someone saw you for the first time they would know from your actions and lifestyle that you are a believer. The sad thing is when a nonbeliever has a lifestyle more "Christian-ly" than you. So what needs to happen is that when we encounter the Spirit, a change needs to take place and our lifestyles need to be affected. Truthfully, if we are so taken by Jesus and we are completely affected by Jesus's work in our lives, shouldn't we also be taken by the Spirit and completely affected by the Spirit's work in our lives? In the trinity there is no piece that is more beneficial or stronger or more necessary than the others. They are all powerful, all knowing, and all equal. So why do we not consider the Spirit as important as Jesus? Even Jesus said it was a good thing that He would die because then the Holy Spirit would come and take His place. Also, knowing of the Spirit, and experiencing the Spirit are two different things. I know in my life I have more head knowledge of the Spirit then I do experiences. So the goal for this book is to not just learn more about the Spirit, but to learn to be more aware of the Spirit.

Now to go pack more :)

One More Week

So we are now on the last week before school starts. Yesterday and today I got to spend time with Beth for her birthday along with a few of her friends and some girls from school. I enjoyed the break and such before getting down to business and actually packing and getting everything done before I leave. This year is going to be a blast.
I forgot to mention in my last post that I finished one of my goals of finishing a book before getting back, by reading Ridley Pearson's Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark (found here). Although this book was a really easy read and a little bit childish I really enjoyed it. The premise of the book is similar to Night at the Museum 2. In this book five middle schoolers are chosen to be Disney Host Interactive guides. They are hologram tour guides that run during the daytime hours in the parks. The main character, Finn, quickly finds out that a tour guide was not the only reason why the DHI's were created. I liked the book because it was not only adventurous but the author didn't go into lengthy details describing everything. I'm glad I finally read it after buying it several years ago.

I've also come up with a plan that I would like to stick to and I hope you all will help me keep it up by yelling at me if I forget. My plan is this: I have obtained all of the Francis Chan books, which are Forgotten God, Crazy Love, and Erasing Hell. Sundays are going to be my Sabbath day and I plan on reading one chapter, starting with the first book, and writing a blogpost about it as a reflection. I also plan on not doing homework on these days, so it may take some time management on my part to get my homework done on all the other days. The only exception to this rule will be if I have a test on Monday and need to study. If that happens I will make sure that I spend equal the amount of time reading my Bible or something like that. In addition with working on Remedy on Wednesday nights, I'm going to be making that a prayer time so I can pray for the chatters and such. I already started a prayer journal keeping track of some of the requests that I've been getting. So in other words I should have a post up every Sunday and if I don't feel free to remind me :) I also plan on going to Friday Night Fire every week and Wednesday night Vespers when I can. I appreciate your input and if you would like to join me you can find the books here, here, and here. I will be starting the first chapter of Forgotten God this Sunday. I recommend getting the kindle editions because they are cheaper and don't require shipping and such.
I hope I can keep this up along with everything else I have to do, but I'm remaining optimistic about it :)


Today I:
Saw- Beth Love her :)
Heard- Britt Nichole Love her music.  
Smelled- Nothing spectacular
Tasted- Tacos
Touched- a weird rash that broke out randomly on my hand. 

Hoodies designed: 19
Poems: 14.25 (one in the works but it's going really slow)