Good morning everyone and I hope that your week is off to a great start! We had a great Sunday. And considering all that happened yesterday we had one of the most relaxing Sundays in a while.
But it’s a new week so we are leaving all of that crazy behind!
Breakfast time….what is on the plate this morning::::
Coffee (as Usual) and yogurt with Granola and maybe some egg whites
Looking around the house::::
We have some general clean up and my bedroom needs some work for sure!
On today’s to do list::::
I have some planning to catch up on
LOT’s of blogging
catching up on some Bible Study stuff
School stuff
Currently reading::::
Get out Of Your Head
Bible
Hello Fears
Practical Dreamer
365 Ways to save time
Amy Carmicheal biography with the kids
On the TV this week::::
Promised land
On the menu this week::::
Monday – Tacos Tuesday – Pasta, garlic bread and spaghetti squash Wednesday – Meatball subs Thursday – Food on the go for the kids (Hubby and I need to take something to bible study) Friday – Chicken Patties and French fries Saturday – Chicken bacon Ranch Casserole Sunday – Chili and Biscuits
If I have a few minutes to myself, I will::::
Enjoy the outdoors
New recipe I tried, or want to try this week::::
Nothing- this week needs to be simple
One of my simple pleasures::::
watching my kids worship. it’s my new favorite
Something fun to share::::
Have you checked out my #inktober2021 series yet this month? You can find it here
Favorite photo from the camera::::
Nugget loves to cuddle! She was hugging my arm and every time I tried pulling it away she would pull it back.
Praying for::::
♥♥ A friend and her baby in the hospital- the friend came home but her baby is still in. ♥♥ friends and family going through struggles ♥♥ the kids playing soccer- safety and good attitudes ♥♥ school ♥♥ travel ♥♥ Decisions on churches
Hey everyone I hope you have had a fabulous week!! Welcome to another installment of #inktober2021. Inktober is a daily art challenge based on a prompt…or not.. Our week was very busy and it was hard getting some of this pictures done this week. It’s been hard too because the prompts aren’t ones I would usually draw.
Well Let’s jump into this weeks “a Time to play Post
Day 4- Knot
Who doesn’t love soft pretzels and garlic knots.? They are some of my faves
Day 5- Raven
Birds- specifically ravens are not my forte!
Day 6- Spirit
I’m not really into ghosts but after 3 attempts I broke down and did the very first thing that came to mind when I saw the prompt
Day 7- Fan
I love hand fans- I always have
Day 8- Watch
Another case in point that I was too afraid of what came to mind first when I saw the prompt- so I did something else and it was horrible to I attempted- and I am pretty happy with the outcome.
Day 9-Pressure
This picture came to mind very quickly and I just drew it. It is more symbolic – Sometimes parents and schools put too much pressure on students and it feels like its going to make the gray matter ooze outer ears.
Day 10- Pick
A Pick (AXE)
I have been really please that along this journey I have only briefly looked at pictures leading up to the picture and that I haven’t really needed a reference picture. I am trying to rely on my memory and muscle memory to grow my drawing skills.
Thank you so much for joining me on this Journey of blogging for 100 days. You can check out the rest of the Choosing Courage posts.
Good morning everyone and welcome to day 9 of the #31days2021 writing challenge . We are going to focus on the positive influence trait of faithfulness. As I have been prepping for this post I struggled with the fact that we are generally unfaithful people- we a wishy-washy. We get distracted so easily and we lose sight of our priorities and what is the most important,
When I think of faithfulness I think about how faithful God is to us.BUT because God is faithful we are called to be faithful as well. And that got me thinking about who we are to be faithful to.
Faithfulness in a nutshell
There are two groups of we should be faithful too.
God
People
HA! that takes care of everyone! But seriously though those are who we should be faithful too. But before we can talk about what exactly that looks like, we must first understand WHAT faithfulness is.
Faithfulness
The definition of being faithful is remaining loyal and steadfast. In light of this we see that we are truly a very wishy-washy people. And the interesting thing is the only way we can do this is by denying our selfish ambitions.. (are you beginning to draw the same conclusions I am as we dive deeper into these positive influence traits?).
So what does our faithfulness look like ?
To God
A number of years ago I was in the middle of a bible study. And even though I KNEW what devotions are (even though we “know” stuff sometimes it takes a while for it to sink in and when it does be become responsible to apply it to the best of our abilities.) I came to a deeper understanding of what devotions meant.
So let’s talk about devotions.
Devotions I know I have talked about this a couple of times in the past. But I think we toss around the word “devotions” or “devos” without fulling understanding what exactly it means. Having devotions is the outpouring of being DEVOTED to God When you are devoted to someone or something is means that you are very loving and loyal…..Hmm there’s loyal again.
Loyalty
Loyal means giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution..
I know that life happens and schedules are busy but it’s during those times when we say even if I am crazy busy, my relationship with God is too important to me to let go of , so I will still take the time to spend with him. Sometimes that means a few minutes and other times that might mean an even bigger chunk of time. But that is what being faithful is about! Making that choice to be loyal even in the middle of the mess- even in the middle of the busy- even in the middle of the hard. It is the attitude and commitment of “even if….I still will…”
And then there the people.
People
People are hard. It’s because of that selfish ambition we keep talking about. Whether it’s theirs OR our own.
People hurt us and we hurt people. We let our own circumstances get in the way and we forget that our friends and family have their own hard things. And it’s easy to get frustrated and assume intentions and blah blah blah. It’s easy to get lost in the all of the emotions that come with selfish ambitions.
But we can choose to not harbor those emotions and frustrations and see things from others perspectives. Choosing to be loyal and still show care and concern even if it’s not reciprocated. That’s being faithful. Why is this so important? Because that is exactly what God does for us! Remember a few paragraphs ago when I said that things get in the way with our walk with God? Well even when we become less faithful with our relationship with God- he NEVER stops being faithful to us.
Do Unto others…
We all want our friends to be faithful to us…even when things are going bad for us. SO we should be faithful to them when things aren’t going so well for them. BUT a huge problem stands in the way. ENTITLEMENT (AKA selfish ambition.)
Sometimes we get so clouded by what is going on in our own lives we lose sight of our relationships. And if our family or friends don’t seem as interested in our problems as they once did we get offended or frustrated that they have become too busy for us. We forget that we can’t assume we know what is going on in their lives. We forget to ask them how they are doing because we feel forgotten. And we forget to treat them how we want to be treated. And before we know it we have lost those relationships.
Being faithful to our friends and family requires setting aside all the emotions and hurts …And saying even if…..I still will. ….
I will still Choose
love,
patience,
not to be jealous, boastful, proud or rude
not to demand my own way
not to be irritable
not to keep a record of wrongs
not to rejoice about injustices
to rejoice when truth wins out
not to give up
not to lose faith
to be hopeful
to endure through EVERY circumstance
Now there’s a picture of what true faithfulness for those we care about! That’s the definition of true love! I don’t know about you but I look at that list and I see shortcomings and failures. I know I have let people down in many of those areas.
AND YET…..
Things come full circle when I realize that despite ALL of my shortcomings and ALL of my failures, God is still faithful and he forgives me and takes those broken failures and turns them into beautiful redemption. He is in the habit of redeeming broken things and turning them into something completely beautiful. And that makes me want to be more faithful than ever before.
We can trust him with those tings…BUT we have to choose to! We have a choice to be faithful to God and to those we love. We have a choice to keep our commitments to them.
Now it’s your turn
At each turn along this journey we come face to face with hard questions we need to ask ourselves. It’s hard heart work. But it is absolutely necessary if we want to grow in the Fruit of the Spirit,
Are we willing to set aside our own hurts and pains and ask God to help us be faithful to our friends and family? Are we willing to say even if things don’t go my way am I willing to be faithful to God and to those I know and love?
And are we willing to say Lord not my will but yours AND mean it?
Let me know what is your biggest struggle in the comments below.
Good morning everyone. Can I ask a question? Besides that one! When you think of the word gentleness, what comes to mind?
When I think of the word gentleness I think of BABIES!!! These tiny bundle of a blessings come into the world completely helpless and fragile. It’s absolutely necessary to be gentle with a baby. You can’t toss a newborn, you cannot swing a newborn. You need to cuddle and care for a newborn. You need to watch over and feed a newborn very carefully. Gentle touch soothes a crying newborn and a soft word calms a fussy little one.
But somewhere along the line we loose that gentleness. We let irritation, anger and annoyance come into play. We forget that gentleness is a necessity not just for a newborn- gentleness is required for EVERYONE. It is one of the attributes of a believer who is growing in their walk with God.
What you need before you have gentleness
LOVE- You cannot have gentleness without first having love. Love IS the ground work for Gentleness
JOY- believe it or not JOY is huge – Joy encourages our gentleness
PEACE is the root of our gentleness. It dives deep from our love and gives our gentleness strength.
PATIENCE is the backbone of our gentleness It gives our gentleness stability
GOODNESS is the REASON for our gentleness.
FAITHFULNESS keeps us gentle, even when it is hard.
Gentleness is the practice that leads to self-control (Yep that comes tomorrow).
Gentleness is an outpouring of all of the previous traits of a believer. And that gentleness seen in some believers is the greatest positive influence believers could ever have. Imagine of ALL believers had and practiced this kind of gentleness.
A quick study of the word gentleness/gentle in the Bible will land you in Proverbs,
Proverbs and Gentleness
Verse 1- A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.
This is the other thing that pops into my head when I hear the word Gentleness- this verse has been HUGE in my spiritual walk!
Verse 4-Gentle words are a tree of life; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.
Verse 28- The heart of the godly thinks carefully before speaking; the mouth of the wicked overflows with evil words.
In Light of verse 4 and of the godly attributes listed in Galatians 5:22-23 This verse just goes on to speak of gentle words. And these verses come from just one Proverbs chapter- Chapter 15.
So many times we have this idea that gentleness is all about a soft touch but when we look at the Bible we see that most of the time gentleness is mentioned it’s about our speech.
And it is starkly contrasted with harsh speech Hence verse one of chapter 15.
We have a choice to make
Like all of the preceding traits we do have a choice to make. Are we going to deflect anger or are we going to fan the flame of it?
That’s a very hard heart question and one we have to take very seriously because our words are so influential. They can build up or they can cut down. They can encourage someone to reach their dreams or they can poke holes into the hearts f those who trust us. We have great power- we just need to choose how to use that power- The power of our influence- the power of our words AND our actions.
So what needs to change? We will ALL need to grow in this area throughout our lives. But what choices and changes can we make now to change our influence from a negative one to a positive one.
I am so glad that you have joined me today and I pray that these posts have been an encouragement and a challenge to your heart!
Goodness– The quality of being morally good or virtuous. (Oxford Languages)
As I looked at this definition I made a connection from our study over the last few days. And something finally made sense or maybe was made even more clear than ever before..
Going back to Love we see that in First Corinthians 13 that the opening verses 1-3 (specifically 3) is talking about goodness and good things and Paul is saying we can be “good” in all sense of the term but if you don’t have LOVE than all of your goodness is in vain- worthless. And then I look at the steps of the Fruit of the Spirit and I see that :
Love. comes first. Then Joy, Then Peace, Then Patience and then Kindnss and right there is the middle is goodness. And my brain swirls with the realization as children right up through adulthood we are told that goodness comes first.
Luke 6:45
And as promised from yesterday we will Focus on the beginning part of Luke 6:45.
It states:
“A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart”.
“From a treasury of a good heart”. A Treasury is something that is stored up. Usually a financial term- A king has a treasury that is usually filled with gold, money, jewels and TREASURES. So let’s take a tiny step back…
As a believer if you have taken the time to grow in LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE, and KINDNESS and you have stored them in your heart (That’s your treasury) then you will do good things, and you will be a good (RIGHTEOUS) person.
BUT if you take the opposite of those things HATRED, GRUMPINESS, ANXIETY, IMPATIENCE, RUDENESS they aren’t good or righteous things they are evil . (Be patient with me on the anxiety thing it’s not what you think)
AND NO MATTER which one you choose you also choose what kind of power you influence has….A positive OR A negative influence.
Actions and words are an outpouring of what’s in your heart (Remember the end of the verse?). Goodness is the very character of God. We CANNOT be a Christ emulator- an image bearer of Jesus and have evil in our hearts- You just can’t.
Some passages to Study
James 4:17-17 Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
2 Corinthians 5:17-17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
Romans 6:1-8:39 (6:1-4)–Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives
1 John 3:4-11-4 Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. 5 And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. 6 Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.
And I could keep going.
I plan on dealing with a lot of this when we deal with the opposite of goodness in the Negative influence traits starting next week But from Galatians 5 I want to take a few just to demonstrate what Goodness is and isn’t.
What Goodness is and isn’t
Galatians 5:20-21
Goodness puts others above ourselves- we call it dying to self. This is setting aside our desires and wants (aka selfish ambition). Goodness isn’t self focused. We choose to set aside our preference. Once upon a time we called them sacred cows- things that we thought were Biblical but upon study of God’s word we realize they are just preferences. We need to lay those sacred cows on the altar and offer up to Jesus our will over his so that there isn’t some bovine distraction keeping others from Jesus.
Goodness is self-controlled- it doesn’t have outbursts of anger.
Goodness is filled with Peace It isn’t defined by quarreling. Have you even been around children or adults who are constantly bickering, It’s downright destruction to an atmosphere of peacefulness. BTW. quarreling is usually two individuals/groups fighting to get their own way! (AHEM SELFISH AMBITION).
Goodness is rooted in love not hostility. Have you ever met a hostile person. They are full of bitterness. And it oozes from every word and action. They can bee very conniving too. Always seeking their own way- their own agenda. AND they will do whatever it takes to get it.
Goodness is unifying-it does NOT create dissension and division. It doesn’t seek to drive a wedge between groups of people and create problems. We have actually heard people say it was their job in church to “stir the pot”. To create problems. To create disunity. That’s not GOOD!
Heart Influence
Goodness (or evil) is an outpouring of what is really in our hearts.
When we have thoughts that go against the goodness of God it is sin. And that is really what becomes our greatest influence. We all struggle with these thoughts and feelings- It’s what we do with them that is so very important and the first step to getting these things right with God is repentance. That is the act of asking God for forgiveness and then TURNING AWAY from that sin. It’s a 180 degree turn in the opposite direction.
It’s Your turn- Hard questions
Is there something you are haboring in your heart? Does it spill out into your actions and words? Do you think it is your job to “stir the proverbial pot?” Do you think of yourself better than someone else or that your opinions, desires or boundaries are more important than someone else?
Then let me challenge you to take these things to Jesus! Ask him to change your heart and THEN turn away from it and make choices that take you in the opposite direction. Run away from it. As fast as you can.And when you do that your influence will shift and the very act of making that change is a HUGE positive influence.
