November 2022
Photo by Sianna Fenstermacher
My Pastor said something that I think will forever change my life:
There's a certain man who does marriage counseling, and he'll only meet with the people three times. If nothing changes, he'll send them on to professional help.
1. The first session he finds out whats up.
2. Then if called for he says, "I'll meet with you again, but I want you to have read the entire New Testament in the next week."
2. And if that still doesn't solve things, he says to read the whole Old Testament in the following two weeks.
I don't know why it had never reallllllllyyyyy occurred to me that you could do that.
No one is looking over their shoulder to make sure they actually do it. But when they "do their homework"? Their lives and perspectives change.
Why?
Because the Word of God is powerful.
It is living, perfect and useful. And spending time in it changes us. Lavishing in God's presence changes our perspective and gives us wisdom.
It's funny how we never really think it will. But it always blows our minds as it does.
Just hold it in your hands. Open it. Read for a bit. Just stay for a while.
**Now, sometimes we need professional guidance. That's just a fact and tool. An unbiased, third party who's sole goal is to help you figure out your actions/feelings, how your brain functions and how you can re-frame and move forward.
I haven't read the whole New Testament this week but I've read a majority of the Gospels. So it IS possible haha! That doesn't make me a "good Christian", only God is good. We all are... well... you know. If anything it has shown me how incredibly poorly I "do Christian". But it's funny: when I pushed through the falling asleep phase, when I pushed through the how-many-more-chapters-to-the-end phase, I found out I didn't want to stop. It filled me.
I say this to encourage you to read the Bible. As always. What I've pulled out of this last month or so is that we should pray, read the Bible and rejoice a lot. If someone has trouble, let him pray. If someone needs wisdom, let him dig in the Word. If someone wants to do God's will, rejoice, for that is the will of God for you Scripturally. There are so many things I look at and I'm like... "Oh God how can any of us be saved?" The disciples asked this, too. We fall so short. Even our best efforts fall so short. And Jesus says, "With man this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible." We don't have to do it without God.
And God wants you.
Oh brother or sister, God really really does want you. And you won't be the exception today, no matter what you did this morning. I could tell you what I did this morning, I walked the opposite direction God had. And then my heart was grieved, I turned back to God and it drove me to write a worship song. Beauty comes from ashes all the time. God's in the business of it.
I've been praying specifically for an obedient mind to Christ. For God to change my heart. For reconciliation and unity. Lots of things. Take a minute to pray on purpose.
Anyway.
I'm still stuck in July somewhere so I don't want to hear that it's almost Christmas time. Looking at my apartment I don't think I have room for a tree and I'm cool with that. -- I don't even recognize myself.
It was sunny on my birthday for the first time in my existence. I'm officially 23 as of a bit ago. So that's exciting. I get to let go of all the expectations I had placed on this age when I was younger because I am nowhere like where I thought I'd be when I was sixteen. But I am everywhere I am supposed to be. Soaking in Jesus and making Him known and trying to be a functioning adult.
I had four photoshoots this week so I will have more blogs eventually haha.
Here's a video, if you're wondering why I do these it's straight up because I enjoy it. A lot. Plus I'll combine them at the end of the year and all those random phone video's I'll never watch again suddenly have a place and purpose.
So this was originally supposed to be done to the song Sweet Disposition ideally. If you want a major change in vibes, mute it and play that over it haha. And in addition, if you caught this blog in the first two days, I had a song over it I'd written. But although it was well crafted and catered towards 5% of how I felt, since it wasn't really fully true to me I just couldn't haha, it wasn't for here right now.
So instead have this very chill one just sitting at my keyboard...
Once again I'm here to remind you not only to read God's Word, but to be present and read His Word. Why do I say this all the time? Because it's that important and I think it's something God has laid on me to share over and over. If you're leading God's people but not in God's Word, He wants to talk to you. All of us are leaders on some level. Meet with God for yourself. And meet with Him for others to know Him better, too. He wants you in there. And so do I.
P.S. If you want to pray for my Grandma, my family and I would greatly appreciate it. Her name is Carole, she loves Jesus and all of us so well. She doesn't have white blood cells and it's been a rough go of it to say the least. She is super strong and has the best of attitudes, I am very proud of her.
Love, Sarah
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