Faith

I used to wonder how my faith in the Lord compared to other people's...not that it mattered. I know God doesn't love certain people more just because they have a stronger faith in Him than others, but the thought crossed my mind that God is really the only One who knows our level of faith. WE don't really even know it, since we have nothing to compare it to. Does that make sense?

I often think about what it means to have "child-like faith." Believing that He can perform miracles...He can heal a blind man, and instantaneously cure cancer, and handle my situation.

Sure He can do all those things.

I had 100% faith that He was capable of all of these.

It wasn't until He said to me, "Trust me with this," that it hit me...it's not about believing that He can do all of this...it's believing that He will.

There is such a difference in these two ideas, and I didn't realize how little faith I had in believing He WILL take care of everything until He told me to let Him do so.

This means not worrying...

Not trying to work out every detail myself to make sure it's taken care of (this is not easy for me!)...

Not questioning what He told me. If He told me something, then it's so.
Imagine you have a child that, at age sixteen, comes to you and says, "If it's possible, can you buy me a car?" Your answer to them is, "Yes, I will buy you the car."
After that, imagine that they kept coming to you saying the same thing, "Please, can you buy me the car????" Eventually, I would want to smack them upside the head and say, "I told you that I would buy you the car! Stop worrying and let me work out the details in doing so!"

Get what I'm saying?

The Lord clearly answered "yes" to our request, yet because it hadn't actually happened yet, I kept asking for it. He is such a gracious God though, and thankfully, instead of reprimanding me for constantly asking Him, He kept reassuring me that I heard Him correctly, and showed me ways He was already working out details that I thought I'd have to worry about. One way He spoke to me and reminded me that I heard correctly was by reminding me of Hebrews 11:1.
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (NIV Version)

So I'm at the point now where I've started thanking Him that He said yes. Even though He hasn't "proven Himself" yet and showed me that it's true, why does He need to?

He is God. The Creator of everything.

I can trust that His yes means 'yes,' and His no means 'no.' He also reminded me of this through James 1:17, which says
"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." (NKJV) (Emphasis added by me.)

So once again, I will say, "Thank you Lord for what's to come!"

Rescuer

On Sunday at church, we sang God of Wonders.

While we were singing "God of Wonders beyond our galaxy" I thought about how He is the one who created the galaxy and the universe...how majestic is He because of this?! How awesome He is. After thinking about that, He whispered to me, "Emma, if I created all of that, and I created everything on earth, then why would handling your situation be a problem for me?"

Phew! Ok, God, I got it! It really is ridiculous sometimes that we (or at least I) have a slight fear that He won't be able to work it all out.

Uh, ya know the beautiful gift of life, and how the way children are created is a pretty awesome process?

Yeah, God created that process.

And ya know how a seed is planted and grows roots into the ground, and then it sprouts above soil, and even if you don't have a green thumb (like me) and you keep killing the top part of the plant (like me) it still sprouts up because the roots are still alive?

God thought of that process too.

Or how about the beautiful process of weather? It must rain to keep everything alive, cuz ya know, a land with only sunshine turns into a desert. (I mean that metaphorically too.)

That was God.

And ya know how the earth is the perfect distance from the sun so that we don't freeze or burn to death?

Yep, that was God too.

If God is capable of, not only maintaining, but CREATING these things, why on earth would He have any trouble handling my measly situation?

I studied 2 Peter 2:4-11 this morning, which just hit it all home for me.

2 Peter 2:4-11 NIV:
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell,^[a] putting them in chains of darkness^[b] to be held for judgment; ⁵ if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; ⁶ if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; ⁷ and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless ⁸ (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— ⁹ if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. ¹⁰ This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh^[c] and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; ¹¹ yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from^[d] the Lord.

Verse 9: "...the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials..."
Why wouldn't He?

We serve an awesome God. A God that is capable of so much more than our mind's can even fathom, yet sometimes, I still put limits on Him of what I can fathom.

I don't need to worry. He's got this.

Friends and Family...

If you’ve known Kelly (my mom) or me for awhile you have, at some point, probably heard us talk about the workout challenge. It was originally started as a means for us to motivate each other to eat healthy and work out regularly. Later, we invited others to join us and the official Workout Challenge was born. We have been through many different phases, trying to get it “just right” for everyone, without losing the original focus of why we created it in the 1st place.

The last 6 months or so we have struggled with what direction to take and many times we thought we’d just let the Workout Challenge go, even amidst friends encouraging us to continue because of what they had gained, or lost, in most cases! But each time, something would happen that would lead us to believe that, for some reason, God wanted us to continue. So we started to consider other ways we could make a difference, and fighting hunger seemed appropriate, since many of us are where we are because we’ve never experienced hunger in our own lives. So now we had another great idea, but we still lacked the money or resources to do anything with it.

But, once again, God moved, and things that we never thought would happen have happened. Mainly, all of the pieces have fallen into place for us to launch our very own fitness website, complete with diet and exercise tools like eating plans, a recipe builder, exercise demos and the ever popular food and exercise logs - because one thing we know is, in order to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume, and nothing helps more than keeping track of it all. We would love for you to check out our new site at www.workout-challenge.com, and in order for you to see all that it has to offer, we’ve created a sample account. You can login to this account using “login: demo” and “password: demo”. This website is a huge step for us and what we feel was the main missing component to our previous challenges.

In line with God’s perfect timing, a New Year is approaching and many of us have a New Year’s resolution involving diet and/or exercise. We are hoping our new tool can help you in this area and are asking you to consider joining or at least to tell others about it. Yes, something this big has costs involved, but we have tried to keep them to a minimum and also include the “prize” component that has worked so well in our other phases.

So here are the main points:

*Cost is $5/month and includes all of the tools on the site. We are asking for a 2 month minimum, so when you click “Join Now” you will be taken to PayPal and charged $10. After the first 2 months you will automatically be charged $5 monthly and you can cancel at any time.
*Each month we will draw for $25 cash (we will draw one name per 100 users). Points are earned while tracking workouts and food, and for weighing in. Every 100 points earned per month gets you one entry in the drawing (max 6 entries per person).
*At least 10% (or $0.50/mth, per member) will go to fight hunger here in the US. We will be donating to the Hope Center in Macomb County, Michigan, as well as national organizations such as Feeding America and Bread for Life.
*Once we reach 100 members, our administration costs will drop and we will be able to double our donations to at least 20% (or $1/mth, per member). We are very anxious to get to that mark!

We appreciate your time in reading this and hope you will consider joining us! Please feel free to forward this information to anyone else who may be interested.

Thanks!

Emma (& Kelly)

For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’ Deuteronomy 15:11