Three Golden Nuggets...

I took this picture of a bird getting ready to take flight over a beautiful large bay.  You were created to fly high - to soar! What is holding you back?

Throughout my twenty-seven years of being a  Christian, there are precious nuggets of wisdom I have picked up along the way. What better thing to do than share them?  After all, that is what we are called to do.   "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." (Proverbs 27:17)

1. Be very careful, then how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15-17) - God is no respector of persons - He loves you, He wants to communicate with you.  That is why it is called a "personal" relationship .  He doesn't need a "third" party involved to communicate with you, His Holy Spirit is enough.  If He wants you to know something and you are opening to listening to Him, make no mistake about it, He will reveal His will to you. I would be wary of people who think they know what God's will is for your life unless somewhere in your spirit you are in agreement with what it is they are saying. Now I'm not saying God doesn't work through people or that He can't give someone a rhema word to give to you - He can, BUT if your spirit is not in agreement with what they are saying chances are they are talking from their own point of view or own desire and not from the point of God.  If you don't feel a confirmation in your spirit over what they are saying I would seriously question whether or not it is indeed from God or from that person themselves.  Your relationship with your Father is just that - your relationship, bring everything to Him in supplication and prayer. He's not going to reveal something to someone else about you that He has not in someway revealed to you Himself, or at least given you a feeling of agreement as to what it is you are being told. I have risen my eyebrow many a time towards people who have told me they "think" they know what it is God has planned for me before He has yet revealed it to me, myself.  This is where wisdom comes in. If God gives you a spirit of discernment about someone else, use spiritual maturity and pray for who ever it is He has spoken to you about, don't assume that you know more about what it is God wants for that person than they do. God doesn't work that way and chances are more than likely that it will put that person on the defensive and what "you" think God is telling you for them will not be well received and may make that person run in the total opposite direction.  Better for you to pay attention to what God is telling YOU about YOU then what you think He is telling you about someone else...
2. "Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart and lean not to your own understanding, in ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path." (Proverbs 3:5)  This one is hard to do because we are use to looking at things with our physical eyes and not with our spiritual ones.  It is hard when you are going through a situation to do this.  But it is walking BY faith and not by sight throughout the Bible we are given examples of people who have done this.  Some examples?  Noah - He was commanded by God to build a boat with NO water around Him.  The people in Noah's day must have thought he was out of his mind crazy!  But still Noah did it!  David went up against Goliath - a giant!  God used Moses to deliver His people Israel from Pharoah, in the physical realm all of this looked impossible, but with God ALL things are possible - even the situations you are worrying or fretting about. God is bigger than your problems no matter how impossible they seem.  Believe and trust Him for a solution and praise Him and watch it come to pass. We are given examples of people and situations throughout the Bible for a reason - to know that they still struggled with the same things and situations we struggle with today.  We are to learn by their stories just as God gives US situations to go through to share and pass on with others, so that they can learn. God knows your needs, He's aware of them.  He wants to see how you are going to respond.  Trust Him.
3. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God  and His Righteousness and all else shall follow." (Matthew 6:33) - God desires your undivided attention.  He is a jealous God. He wants you to put Him FIRST. Seek Him first.  Honestly, there is no greater feeling that being in love with Him.  Reaching a point in your life where what you desire most to do is to please Him.  I think for me that has come with having done the opposite and realizing that that doesn't work.  There is a very deep part inside of you that was created (just as your heart, your mind, your body was made) that is meant to be filled totally and fully with God.  As you grow older in your walk with Him you mature as you learn (or you should be...) and you realize there is no greater joy that being in love with God.  It fills the deepest utmost part of you in a way that nothing else can.  There are no suitable words to describe how wonderful a feeling it is to know that God loves you and to be able to express that love back.  You can't "out love" or "out give" God.  It is the ultimate relationship and anything else falls short of that relationship, it is the most important relationship you will ever experience in your life.  Everything else is - frosting.

Three nuggets of many that I have gathered on my walk  that stands out to share with you, maybe they are nuggets that you have also experienced in your own walk... God teaches us things so that we can grow and mature in Him and pass on our experiences and wisdom to those who walk alongside us or who are new Christians, they are meant to learn from and share.  "We are many members but we are one in the body of Christ" (Romans 12:5).  As long as we have breath in our bodies we should be growing, maturing and learning in Him.  It is one of the greatest parts of being a Christian, if you are feeling "stagnant" it is a sign that you should pray and see if there is something that God wants to change about you.  

"Lord if there be any evil in me or anything displeasing about me to you, I pray that you would reveal it."  

And then trust, because He is your Father, that He will.  After all, He loves you special...