A week ago from today I was in a very different situation than I am right now. You see a week ago I was living in the house I've grown up in for 18 years, and today I'm writing from my college dorm room. Where on earth has the time gone?? I can honestly tell you that I am not a huge fan of change, especially one as large as this. Moving away from whats comfortable and known is terrifying, but I've also never been challenged so much. I went to a public high school, so I'm not unfamiliar with being around people who have different values aside from my own, but college is a whole new ballgame. I've never met so many people that believe so many different things, but I've also never met as many people that believe in the same things as me. I'm blessed to have an amazing roommate with whom I've bonded with extremely fast and also fantastic suite mates. All four of us share very similar values which makes living together a lot easier. God really had everything worked out for me before I even got here, so why was I so worried? Before I got settled in here, I was living in fear of what might be. I was scared of meeting new people with new perspectives, I was fearful of new forms of peer pressure, and I was nervous about my own personal strength. The thing about fear is that it has no room to take over your life when you let God have control of the steering wheel. I wasn't trusting that God had this all planned out for me before I even knew this school existed, and because of that I let fear get the best of me. The funny thing is, God already knew all of this was going to happen. He knew I would be having doubts, so he placed certain people and events along my path so that I would see that I was not alone and to see he was not finished working in me. That's the thing about being rooted in Christ, you never stop growing.
Colossians 2 "7 Plant your roots in Christ and let him be the foundation for your life. Be strong in your faith, just as you were taught. And be grateful." Before you can start thriving in Him, you first have to be planted. The foundation on which our faith is built upon is arguably the most important step in our walk with Christ. He even tells us in the Book of Matthew that we need to build our faith on something that is strong and will not fail, verses something temporary and inconsistent(chapter 7:24-27). Building that initial relationship with Him will give you a sturdy beginning to what will soon be the best thing you could have asked for. But our relationships with Christ do not stop after we plant ourselves in Him. Just like seeds, we must continually reach for the source of our growth and renewal. We have to trust in what Jesus has in store for our lives; we must cling to Him. The definition of Thrive is to prosper; be fortunate or successful. I personally do not believe our relationships with God are fortunate, I believe they are purposeful and intensional. The key word to me from the definition is successful. If we put our hopes and dreams into something or someone that is not Jesus Christ, we will fail. Putting all of our trust in Him will bring us more success than anything else. God gives us a lot of opportunities in our lives to thrive in Him that we may just see as inconveniences. Take every open moment you get in your life and use it to better your relationship with Christ. For example, being single is one of God's greatest gifts. You have so much time to yourself. If you use that time to thrive in Jesus and better your relationship with him, your next relationship will have a stronger foundation because you first strengthened your foundation with Him. Some people may view being single as a bad thing, but it can oftentimes be exactly what you needed. When you thrive in him, you will have a better understanding of who you are and that can entirely change the way you view the world. My challenge for you is that you build your relationship with Christ and continually thrive in Him. Do not stop your walk with Jesus just because you feel as though you are rooted in him. He is never finished working on us and we must continue to grow and reach towards him. Never stop thriving, WOW! I am so overwhelmed with how many of you shared and read my last post. Thank you so much for all of your love and support with my blog. I was not expecting the response I received and I am so grateful that many of you found it useful. I hope you enjoyed this post and will continue to read future entries. Thank y'all so much!! God bless, Sydney
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“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5: 14-16 Recently there has been so much negativity going on in our country and it saddens my heart to see all the hate. It's no secret that America has a past relationship with hostility and adversity, but when will it truly become the past. I'm no history expert, I'm actually terrible at it, however, I feel as though we've reached a new kind of negativity. One where we start riots and rallies just to spread hate even if we don't believe in the cause, one where we're arguing over things that could be resolved simply by listening and one where the news emphasizes it all. As an eighteen year old, I haven't experienced much of this, but I feel as though I've seen and been through a lifetime of it just in the past year. It makes me question where God is in all of this, but I've come to realize he's been here the whole time. It is extremely easy to put the blame on someone(God/other Americans) instead of doing something to stop it, or to think someone else will take care of the issue, but that's not the case. There's a reason we're all living in this generation, and it's not just to sit back and watch all of this happen. One of my favorite verses from the Bible comes from the book of Esther chapter 4 verse 14 and it says, "Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created". Kinda powerful right? You weren't randomly born to live through these events, God placed you here to make a difference. You hear it and read it all the time that the world needs a little more love, but what exactly are we doing about it? I think a lot of people have the mindset that in order to make some sort of difference, they have to do something huge, however, I personally think that isn't the case.
1 Timothy 4:12 "Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young. Instead, set an example for the believers through your speech, behavior, love, faith, and by being sexually pure." This verse is popularly used when telling young kids that they shouldn't let their age/size determine their worth. To me, I think it's God's directions on how to act during times such as these. If you replace young with an adjective that pertains to you, it may start to mean something a little different. For example, you could switch it out for old, sick, black, white, republican, democrat, or really anything. Some of us might get caught up on the first line of this after we change the adjective and forget about what comes next. We read don't let anyone look down on you because you're blank and think that gives us a right of entitlement, but then comes the second verse. So basically we're not supposed to let others look down upon us and when we'd normally respond with anger, we should respond with love to set an example for others. Well, how exactly do we show God's love when there's so much bad going on? I came up with some examples of how we can use small, everyday things to start making a positive difference in the world. Post and share positive, uplifting messages on social media Instead of filling your friends feed with negative, heartbreaking events and pictures of things that are happening, try sharing something positive. It could be a uplifting quote or funny video, but my favorite stories to share are the ones that don't get shown on the news. Share the videos and stories of people doing humbling things and you're friends might just start sharing them too. Imagine how uplifting social media would become if we all shared the positive things! Be a listener We've all heard the line, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all and its honestly one of my favorites. It's a quote that doesn't just pertain to when you're young, but one that's important at any age. Sometimes it's just better not to say anything. Send someone a encouraging message It takes less than a minute to send a friend an uplifting text or bible verse and it could make all the difference in their day. Pray God doesn't leave us high and dry when life gets difficult and it's important to keep him first. Talk to him about your concerns and ask him to reveal to you the difference you could be making in the world. Did I also mention praying relieves a lot of stress?? Don't watch it I'm not saying to ignore what goes on, but sometimes it's just better not to watch the news. It's also important not to look up a ton of stuff about something negative because 9/10 you'll end up way more upset then you were before and most of the time it isn't true. Put God first The ultimate way to make the world a better place is by putting God back on top. As soon as we start putting others things before him, the sooner we get away from him, and the sooner our world falls apart. With all of the recent events going on, I've been praying on how to write about it. These are just a few of my ideas on how we can make the world a happier place. I realize that these won't pertain to everyone, but I hope they helped spark some new ideas! Happy Wednesday y'all. God bless, Sydney I never had the desire to get one, in fact, I didn't understand why people got them. Why would anyone want something that would permanently be on them? I had nothing against tattoos, I just simply didn't understand. For the last several months, something had been stirring inside of me about the idea of getting a tattoo. I kept drawing crosses on my wrist and on the inside of my fingers. For some reason, I still couldn't commit to getting it permanently put on my body. As I'm writing this, I look down and see the tiny cross on my wrist and know that God is always with me.
Where did I get the idea? One of the most well known stories in the Bible comes from the book of Mark and Matthew. 33 Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” God gave up his only son that day to die on the cross to forgive you of your sin. We are called as followers of Jesus to pick up our cross daily (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23), but what exactly does that mean? It is often believed that your cross is supposed to represent some sort of burden whether that be an illness, relationship struggle, doubt, etc. and you are meant to carry that burden as you follow Christ, In Jesus' time that's not what was seen or thought of when someone was carrying a cross. When you saw someone carrying a cross, it meant that they were to be killed by the most painful and humiliating means at that time. They literally had to carry what they were about to be killed on. Can you imagine that? Crosses back then weighed upwards of 300 pounds and Jesus carried it for miles. To put it in perspective, think of the most painful form of death that is put on criminals today. Jesus willingly went through that pain to save us. So when God calls us to pick up our cross and follow him, I think he is saying that as christians we need to be willing to die in order to follow him. Pretty scary stuff right? We've heard stories in the news of shooters who have asked people if they are Christians and then shot them. We've seen videos of people in other countries being persecuted because of their beliefs. Would you be willing to pick up your cross and claim God as your father in a situation like that? What's the point? So what does all of this have to do with a tattoo?? I am not someone who does well with change and a lot of changes are coming my way. A week from today I will be moving into college to start a new chapter of my life and that's scary. I will be challenged in my faith and what I believe in and it may not be a life threatening situation, but it is still an opportunity where I need to claim my God. I knew that the one thing I wouldn't regret having on my body for the rest of my life, is a symbol of what I believe in. On Thursday, I got a tiny cross tattooed on my wrist to remind me of the cross I need to pick up daily. A reminder to always follow Jesus, It may not be as extreme as a tattoo, but we all have something to get us back on the path when we stumble. For some of us it may be a song or a quote. For others is may be a cross hanging from our rear view mirror. We all have ways of keeping God with us and as long as we have him, life will always be perfectly imperfect. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you have a safe and happy Saturday. God bless, Sydney |
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