You're the God of this City!

Kris Allen Singing "God Of This City" {American Idol} from Rick Smith on Vimeo.

Wonderfully Delicious Cake!

Ok so my Fishing series didn't go as long as I wanted it to. Sure I could have taken a spin on the reel on a lot of different subject but lets get serious here, how many more blogs do you need to read about casting out your hook and reeling in the fish...in other words fishing for souls. Seriously, this blog is suppose to be about my personal walk with God and if you get blessed by it great and if not great....seriously it's not really out here for you or for me to gain readers or popularity. I hope to minister to my readers but if not then I hope it glorifies God!

A friend of mine sent me this little story and it ministered to me. I needed to hear it tonight and thought instead of it just ministering to me I hope it will minister to others. I have NO idea who wrote it just know it has lots of truth! Enjoy!

Sometimes we wonder, "What did I do to deserve this?" or "Why did God have to do this to me?" Here is a wonderful explanantion!

A daughter is telling her Mother how everthing is going wrong, she's failing algebra, her boyfriend broke up with her and her best friend is moving away.

Meanwhile, her Mother is baking a cake and asks her daughter if she would like a snack, and the daughter says, "Absolutely Mom, I love your cake."

"Here, have some cooking oil," her Mother offers.

"Yuck," says her daughter.

"How about a couple of raw eggs?" "GROSS, Mom!"

"Would you like some floour then? Or maybe baking soda?"

"Mom, those are all nasty!"

To which the mother replies: "Yes, all those things seem bad all by themselves. But when they are put together in the right way, they make a wonderfully delicious cake!"

God works the same way. Many times we wonder why He would let us go through such bad and difficult times. But God know that when He puts these things all in His order, they always work for good! We just have to trust Him and, eventually, they will make something wonderful!

Celebrations (#3 in series)

Every day we went fishing I witnessed my kids celebrate every fish caught, whether they caught it or someone else did. There would be yelling, such as :"Yay Jaron, Eli, Sara or Kris, You did it, you caught a fish...that's awesome!" It didn't matter if the fish was 2 inches or 6 inches long, they supported each other. Yes occasionally there were a few times when someone would be mad that they hadn't caught a fish yet but someone would encourage them to keep trying. We saw that a lot when it took Kris a few days before he caught his first fish!
Honestly this was the first time I have seen this happen in our family. You know how kids are, if someone gets something they all want it. The fact that they were all supporting each other and were not demonstrating the constant jealously attitude was great!

Celebration! We need to praise the Lord through all things and in everything give Him praise. The Word of God tells us that if we do not praise Him the rocks will. It also tells us, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord (Ps 150:6)!" In our church on of the oldest members just recently became a grandma again to a precious baby boy. We celebrated with her! What a blessing, God is increasing her family! When friend bought a new house we celebrated with her! When one of the kids in our church worked hard in school and made the honor roll, I watched the other kids celebrate with him! When our power was restored we celebrated...even Kris yelled, " Thank you Jesus!"

We were created for fellowship with Christ, we also were created to praise Him. Praise is an attitude of the heart! Last week we had reason to flip out and get mad, we lost our power which caused us to lose all the food in our fridge and freezer. On Friday our tire was punctured and it had to be replace and then Sean realized that the other back tire needs to be replaced. On Sat. our dryer died and with a large family a dryer is an essential tool that is used daily. On Sunday morning I CHOSE to stand and give God praise no matter what comes our way! We really could have been upset about the food issue but God provided our daily needs and we gave HIM praise for that. Thank you Jesus! Now here's something to shout about...we were just given $125 specifically to cover part of the food that we lost! Isn't God great! Had we chose to blame God for the storm and the ultimate loss of our food we may not have been blessed. We totally believe that it was because of our sacrificial praise that God has supplied.

You see we have to chose to praise Him! Last week was tough and we could have been grumpy and yet because we chose to see God's goodness and praise Him for who He is and what He has done we were blessed. Choosing to praise the Lord even for the small things is a conscious decision. You have to choose to celebrate or be grumpy. In the body of Christ we all need to celebrate with each other's accomplishments, great and small. We all need that support, sometimes it comes from family and friends, other times it comes from the knowledge that Jesus Christ is sitting next to His Father praying for you! We all need to be anchored to something and my hope is YOU are anchored to the cross!

Today I choose to celebrate all that He has given me, great and small! Do You?

Lord I thank you for all things! I give You praise no matter what! I will not let the rocks cry out for me today, I will not let the trials and dissapointments steal my joy. Today Lord I choose to honor You in all I do and it starts with giving You praise for the flowers You have created, for the home You have provided and for the family You have blessed me with! Thank you Lord!

Tangles ( #2 of the Fishing Lines Series)

One of the many things I love about fishing is that it isn't really about catching the fish. Well for me it isn't. It's being able to just relax and be quiet. BUT when you take 4 excited kids fishing there is little peace let alone quiet! No those things do not go hand in hand with the kids and fishing. In fact tangles happen more often with kids when you are teaching them how to cast and reel in their hook.

This one instance I was helping Sara remove a hook from a fish she caught and here comes Eli, crying and mad! Mind you I am in the middle of removing a hook and into my lap he throws his fishing pole. Looking down I can see the cause of his discontentment. A massive tangle!

Let me tell you something, a tangled fishing line is not something you want to deal with...but it builds character and determination. I would love to say that I was able to magically untangle that line or at least say it was untangled within 5 mins. But the truth is it took me over an hour to untangle the mess that was more like a birds nest on his pole! UGH!

In that time God started to show me a few things about that tangle and how it applies to our lives. Our lives are just like that line! How you may ask?! The whole reason that this tangle was created was do to impatience! Eli was having difficulty reeling in his line because the hook got stuck on some underwater plants. Instead of slowly reeling it in or even asking for help he took matters into his own hands and yanked it. When he yanked, the line somehow got wrapped around the pole. He is 5 yr old mind you, so he at that moment had no idea what to do. The best thing would have been to bring it to me or lay it down but instead he started swinging the pole which caused even more issues. Until he threw it into my lap.

Now how many times have you and I done this? We are following God's direction and seeking His will for our lives. You know which way to go and are heading that way but hit a snag, that slows you down or impedes you from going forward and instead of waiting for help or going to your Heavenly Father for guidance you yank! You take matters into your own hands trying to make things happen the way you want or expect them to be done. What do you end up with? A HUGE TANGLE! Once you have this tangle, you like everyone else including me, throws that mess into God's lap. I am sure He must get weary with our messes and having to weave through the mess to get us back on track.

Sometimes God lets us hit those snags to slow us down on purpose! Hello did you read that? GOD LETS US HIT SNAGS TO SLOW US DOWN ON PURPOSE! Yes His word tells us He knows the plans He has for us (Jer 29:11) and sometimes those snags are there on purpose...usually to slow us down so we can get our focus back or to teach and train us in those difficult times. But if we hold on to those promises - that He has a plan and trust Him to get us through those times then we will not deal with the major tangles. Tangles slow us down even more so than those snags!

What snags are you trying to speed by? What tangles have you created because you decided to take matters into your own hands? Today, trust that He KNOWS what is best for you and let go of the line and deal with the snags of life. Maybe instead of trying to fix the snag you should pray for God to remove it or help you through it.

Heavenly Father, I am so guilty of this in my own life. Trying to speed things up when I need to slow down. Lord forgive me for not trusting You for the fine details and trying to control the outcomes. Help me to see the snags in life are your way of helping me get my focus on You and not about my plans.

God and the fishing line.

Ok so yes that's a strange title, I'll admit it! But there's a reason for the title. You see last week when our area was hit by a storm that took out our power for over 5.5 days I took the kids fishing daily. Sometimes for more than 3 hours at a time. Which I have to say for our kids to stay focused on one activity for that long is a miracle. Even today the kids asked if I would take them fishing when they get home from school.

Anyways during our fishing trips God has been showing me some things. When I started writing this today I thought it might just be a short little post but I have realized that what I am learning and God is showing me is a lot more than I thought. So this may be a series, not sure how long it will go but I will let you know if it's over. Just keep coming back and checking.

So how does fishing line apply to our lives? Have you ever wondered why it's important to have some kind of weight on your line? Ever casted your line with no weight? What happened? Ever reeled in you line and got so anxious that you jerk the line? What happened? Have you ever caught a fish without using any bait? Do you celebrate even when you catch something small or nothing at all? Have you ever gone fishing unprepared? These are just a few things I will discuss in the next few posts. I hope this series will encourage you in your walk with the Lord. Make sure to leave me a comment and let me know what you think! (please)

So Let me share a bit here before I go any further. A few of these things happened to my kids last week, such as casting with out an anchor (weight). I sat back on the first day I took the kids out and watched Jaron repeatedly cast his line and it plop down in front of him. He was extremely frustrated and almost quit. It was his first time fishing and he had it in his head that he knew what he needed to do. No granted I am not a fisherman. I have only fished when I was his age with my brothers and the kids in the neighborhood. But I knew what part of the problem was. When he could take no more he threw the pole down and said, "I quit!" I asked him if he needed some help and he was so angry he wouldn't listen to me. So I took over. I added a small weight and a bobber replaced the bait (worms-so fun!) and casted the line. When he saw his line fly through the air yards away he was amazed. He asked me what the difference was and I smiled at him and said, "I added the anchor and it helped the line fly!" Had Jaron just completely quit that day he would never have caught the fish he did on that cast.

We are just like that line you know! When we try to do anything in our lives without an anchor in more instances than we realize, we plop! We need an anchor that will help us fly! That anchor is Jesus! We don't plop when we trust in Him and seek His will in all things! Sure things don't always go our way. There were many times Jaron cased out his line to reel in an empty hook but that's just how things happen sometimes. Does this mean God isn't there or that He causes things to happen....NO! There are times when it may seem that way but seriously, is your focus on giving God the glory in all things or is your focus more on you and how He can serve you?

Our Heavenly Father is not a waiter to serve us! In fact we were created to have fellowship with Him and if we are seeking that fellowship, serving HIM will come from the love we have for Him without conditions! So many times I have heard people (including myself here) say, "If God will do this I will do that!" It's bargaining with God and God DOESN'T bargain! There is no instance in the Bible that says He will bargain with you for YOU to get your will. Our purpose is to serve HIM and if we get blessed while doing so great! But if not even more so I will serve Him.

Today are you anchored in the Lord? Are you trying to cast your line in life without an anchor that will help you soar? Why not cast your cares on Him! The one true anchor that will never leave you or forsake you!

Lord in my life I pray I will stay anchored to you and no matter what comes my way I know that You alone will help me succeed in all I set out to do if it will bring YOU glory!

** come back tomorrow to read the next insert in this Fishing line series!

The Search for Relevance by Misty Edwards

He Loves Us