He Names Us Blessed

I am officially back in Athens and oh how good it feels. Although I am missing my family tremendously (hey mom and dad), I feel at peace knowing I am back in the same city as my closest friends. This year, I moved into a house right on campus with three of my friends. I’ve been here a week and it has already been 1000x better than my living situation last year. Our house is beautiful and very well taken care of by our landlady and I am extremely fortunate to be able to call it home for the next year. As most of my roommates and friends have been doing sorority recruitment this past week, I have had the majority of my day to myself. I recently came across a website that provides daily devotions on a certain topic. It has filled my part of my day with joy as I am guided through parts of the Bible. The website is www.shereadstruth.come and I HIGHLY suggest checking it out. I’ve loved both the studies I have done so far.

I am currently reading through the Ruth study and just finished reading Chapter 1, which is filled with heartache, faithfulness, love, and encouragement. At the beginning of the chapter, Naomi loses both her husband and her two sons. All that she has left are her two daughter-in-laws, Orpah and Ruth. Naomi insists they go back to their families to begin a better life for themselves. Both are hesitant but Orpah leaves and heads back to her family. Ruth, however, cannot be persuaded to stay. She vows to do six things with Naomi: travel, dwell, claim her people, worship her God, die where she dies, and be buried where she is buried. Ruth as ALL in and Naomi could not argue.

They begin their journey back to Naomi’s hometown, Bethlehem, where the people of her town greet her. She says she is no longer Naomi (Pleasant), but Mara (bitter). She has reached the end, she is encompassed in heartache and doesn’t know where else to turn. She went away full and came back empty. YET, she does not get angry with God, she does not renounce her faith. She acknowledges God without blaming Him. She believed God was sovereign, even in her tragedy.  Naomi couldn’t not even begin to fathom her bitterness becoming beauty, but her sovereign God could. How incredibly encouraging is that? Naomi, a woman who just lost her husband, two sons, and a daughter-in-law does not blame God, does not get mad at Him, but instead chooses to trust in Him and believe that He is sovereign even in her darkest times.

Naomi may have named herself Bitter, but God names her Blessed. In fact, He names all of us Blessed. He names us Forgiven. He names us Beloved. He names us Redeemed. These names hold true even when our circumstances may say otherwise. When our tragedies, our loss, our sadness covers us, these names still ring true. And why is that? Our God is a God who is mighty over our afflictions, our bitterness, and our past because he sees and provides our blessings, beauty, and future. He sees what is ahead, He knows what is coming. And even though our circumstances may change, they DO NOT change our God or the saving power of Jesus Christ.

YOU are NOT named by your circumstances, but are named by a loving, forgiving, redeeming God who loves you more than you will ever comprehend. So take hold in that truth today and the rest of your days. Because even in your darkness times, God is whispering your name: Blessed, Forgiven, Beloved, Redeemed.

Have a great week!

God Bless,

Mallory

Embrace God and What He Does

This summer, I have been reading through Romans. It has been a slow process, but a much needed one. Romans seems to answer all my questions and comfort me with the truths of the Gospel. I recently got a new Bible where I have room to write on the sides of each page, a glorious thing for me, as I love to write notes as I read. I have been going through my previous Bible and transferring over some of my past notes that I wanted in this new Bible. Today, I was transferring notes from Romans and came across Romans 4. I think in the past I have kind of skipped over this chapter. I mean I have read it, but I never really processed it all. As I was reading, I also pulled out my Message Bible to help me better comprehend the chapter. Oh man did that open my eyes. Abraham is an incredible man with an even more incredible faith. In Romans 4:1-3, he trusts in God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own. Abraham relied on his belief in God, rather than in his works for he knew that he could not boast about his works before God. Abraham is justified by faith. He is fully satisfied in God rather than in his works.

In the Message Bible, verse 16 says, “This is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and His way, and then simply embracing Him and what He does.” Trusting God has never really been issue for me. I mean every now and then I have my doubts, but who doesn’t? Embracing what He does in my life has been and is my constant weakness. There have been so many times in my life where I have just not understood why God has done what He has done. And I get so frustrated. I trust and then I completely abandon that trust when something doesn’t go my way. But oh how glad I am that things don’t go my way. As much as I wish I knew what was good for me, I haven’t the slightest idea. I cannot even begin to imagine how different my life would be right now had everything gone the way I planned it too. And that is why the embrace is so important. In the good and the bad, embrace what God is doing in your life. He wants what is best for us because He loves YOU more than you can ever imagine. And maybe right now you can’t see that. Maybe right now your life is just not where you want it to be. But that is the beauty of it. You can only see what is right in front of you. God sees the whole picture. He knows what comes next, He knows that whatever you’re going through right now is only leading you to something better. So trust Him. And embrace Him and what He does, no matter where it takes you in life.

The second half of this chapter, which is where verse 16 is found, is labeled “The Promise Realized Through Faith” in my Bible. As I read through this part of the chapter, I was in awe of how much trust Abraham had in God. Verses 19-20 says, “He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.” Abraham continued to trust in God to make him a father even though he knew that he could never do it himself. Abraham lived a life where instead of seeing what he couldn’t do, he saw what God could do. And that in itself is one of the most incredible things I have ever read. Instead of looking at all the things that Abraham knew he could not accomplish, he looked at everything that God could accomplish. And “For nothing is impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37) He saw the glass half full all the time.

I think about how this could affect my daily life, having the mindset of Abraham. Where instead of looking at a problem and saying, “this cannot be done, I cannot do this”; I say, “I may not be able to do this, but my God can.” How powerful, comforting, and reassuring is that? To know that even though you may not be able to do something, God can do it.

Take comfort in knowing that God can do the impossible. He can do the impossible for you. Because He loves you so much and wants the best for you. So be like Abraham today and all the days after. Don’t look at what you cannot do, but rather what God can do. Have faith that can move mountains. Glorify God through that faith. Be fully convinced that God can do the impossible. And watch how your life changes day by day, moment by moment. And then, simply embrace God and everything He is doing in your life.  

God's Place for You

It has been awhile.

And I am sorry for that.

Boy has it been a crazy few months, almost six since the last time I have posted on here. In these six months I have left my teens, changed my major, grown into myself, made wonderful new friends, and grown in my faith.

 It has been a huge growing year for me.

Many lessons have been learned and many battles have been fought. Whether dealing with my excessive amount of schoolwork, struggling with the amount of responsibility I have in making sure my apartment is safe and clean, or keeping up with my extracurricular activities, it seems I never stop moving. But I am okay with that. I have learned that I enjoy being busy. Being busy means that I don’t have time to sit and overthink things.

In this busyness, especially this semester, I have been struggling with how to fit in spending time with the Lord. That being said, I have been trying so hard to be intentional in devoting some part of my day to the Lord, whether in prayer or by reading the Word.

To backtrack a little bit: in my last post, I talked about getting accepted into the College of Education. I also talked about my desire to become a Child Life Specialist. This semester, I began taking my Early Childhood classes and soon realized that teaching was not necessarily what I thought it was going to be. My plan was to go through with getting my teaching degree and then transition into becoming a Child Life Specialist. As I continued with my classes, I became more and more aware of what all I will have to do in order to graduate with a teaching degree...and none of that stuff will help me out in becoming a Child Life Specialist. I prayed a lot about it, as I am not good with change. And this would be a HUGE change. I finally decided to change my major and drop out of the education program. Although I am still in my education classes this semester, I am no longer considered to be in that major. I am very excited (and nervous) about what the future holds and cannot wait to start my classes next semester!

On the subject of decisions, the topic of Cru the other week was “How do I know what God wants me to do?” Alan, our campus director, talked a lot about God’s will which is something that I have always had a hard time grasping. He said:

It is the will of God…

·      That you be holy (1 Thessalonians 4:3)

·      That you be thankful in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

·      That you be obedient to His word (Psalm 40:8)

Overall, God’s will is about pleasing God. He cares more about who you are than what you do. This really hit home with me. A lot of times I tend to have debtor’s mentality, meaning that feel that I need to “pay” for all that God has done for me. Basically, this is gratitude gone awry. And I am all too guilty of it. I have been struggling with this since the beginning of the semester, which I think is why I would label this semester a “growing” one. I have been trying to focus more on who I am rather than what I do. And in focusing on who I am, I have really grown. It has been huge for me in my friendships and my life in general. In knowing who I am, a confidence of sorts has come out of that and really shown this semester.

A verse that has been huge for me in the past few weeks, and one that I wish I had known a long time ago, is 1 Corinthians 7:17.

“And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your success, defines your life. Don’t think I’m being harder on you than on the others. I give this same counsel in all the churches.”

Where you are, wherever that may be, is exactly where God wants you to be. How encouraging is that? Even in the hard times, the times where you cannot see a way out or you struggle to see the good in the situation, God wants you there. And that is everything. So love that place, live well in that place, be happy in that place. Because to do anything else would be to not believe that God wants the best for you, to believe that God doesn't know what He is doing. And let me tell you, He sure knows what He is doing. And I for one cannot wait to find out what that will be. 

So I wait. And while I wait, I enjoy. Enjoy the present. Because to enjoy the present means to enjoy God's place. A place that is full of love and joy, even when it seems like there is none. 

I apologize for the messiness of this post. But I thought (and my mom thought) it was about time that I wrote one since it had been awhile. I hope you enjoy and I will definitely try and post more often.

Have a blessed week and weekend!