Faith Journal

22. Bris. Aus

[journeyofabeliever-blog]

Entry Eight

I’m actually so sad to see February go. This month has been incredible. This month not only gave me the opportunity to evaluate the direction I want to take this year but also made me leave things behind that I have been carrying for years. I learned this month how important it is to surround yourself with the right people. I’m not talking religiously but with people who will support you but also be honest with you when you need it. For so many years, I have struggled with showing my true self. I would generally put on this happy persona until I couldn’t cope with holding up the friendly smile and tone. I see now how important it is to seek God in even the little things but not just, so he helps me through them. I have been so used to praying to God for solutions that I forget to build on the relationship with him. All he wants is for me to seek him, but I have been so caught up in him providing solutions. There is something so much more beautiful and uplifting then him just answering my prayers. I know with full faith that he is capable but when I seek him, all of him, attentively and wholeheartedly, the peace that he lays is undeniable. The peace that no matter what experiences are thrown at me, he will always be there. He will always still be there especially when I seek him. It is so easy to get caught up in blessings that blinders go on and then forget where the blessings actually came from. He is a Father, not a genie.

One of my goals this year is to be consistent with my prayers. To be consistent I’ve learnt that I need to be intentional and to make time, even when I come home late and I’m exhausted, I’m going to make time to pray and reflect God. I can’t stress enough how good it feels to share the day and to give gratitude to him. Learn to say thank you to him for everything, even the small things and be bold and unafraid to pray for the little things.

I’m so thankful for the experiences, the lesson and most importantly the people he has placed in my life. I’m sad to send February off, but I’m excited to see what is to come as I enter the beginning of what will be a hectic but life-changing month to come.

[journeyofabeliever-blog]

2019

Going into 2019 was something that absolutely terrified me. I was worried that I was going to enter a year that was not  to be different to the one I was leaving. I wanted to have high hopes and a different expectation of how 2019 was going to start but I just couldn’t.

I was approaching a one year. A one year anniversary of when I entered my rut. A rut that I still felt I was in. I didn’t feel that I was getting any closer to breakthrough. I just went about my day as though it didn’t bother me. When 2019 ticked around, I felt that I was holding my breath. I felt that I was walking on thin ice. Expecting that I was going to fall at any given moment. Then, as cliché as this going to be, I had a shift on the first Sunday service of the year. I heard a song that now is my anthem for the year. There is something in the lyrics of “Raise a Hallelujah” that made me let go, and not just in that service.

This song helped me discover a revelation. I have been looking and raising my fears higher than God. I had been dwelling in my fear of my back not going to heal, my back preventing me in getting a job and many more. I released that I can focus on these concerns and plan multiple blueprints but I can’t make a plan and just ask God to bless it when he has a plan for me. How can I attempt to take action when I don’t even know what direction I’m taking. How can move in situations that I can’t control when God is the only one who can.

I had a “oh well” kind of attitude. But not the “oh well” that made me want to sit in a corner, more of a “oh well, I don’t know what to do, I will pray to God for direction”. I had to be careful with this though. I couldn’t just look to what I wanted God to deliver. I couldn’t just hope that he will deliver if I just believe. I had to dig deeper than that. I can’t just look to God for the outcomes that he brings. My relationship with him shouldn’t be a take that works in my favor. There is more to God than he the outcomes. He is such a gracious, merciful and loving God. He wants a relationship with me, so why should I just want the blessings. The ultimate blessing is being in his presence.

Each day, I’m deliberate in giving him my thanks and worship. Each day, I seek for his presence, not the deliverance of my answered prayers. I have faith in the timeline he has for me and I know that it is different to the timeline that I have. I know that in each season, even the rough seasons, something more wonderful than I could ever imagine is coming, but the focus isn’t on that, the focus isn’t the end game, the focus is looking and relying on the loving, grace giving, merciful God.

In 2018, I wanted my injury to be fixed within 3 months, instead it took a year. I didn’t look to God as often as I should have in 2018 but in the early days of 2019, when I was scared, I lloke to God, I relied on him, I let go of the fear, the unbelief and my desired timeline. I had faith in his plan and I trusted him with it and I raised a wholehearted hallelujah. In an exact year, not only did he answer the prayer of healing but of opportunity. I’m more than thankful for him answering my prayers, but my focus is not on the opportunity or what is next to come, I’m keeping my eyes and my soul fixed Him.

[abovearth]

Untitled by Brendan Lynch

[tvoom]

_voyage

[journeyofabeliever-blog]

Entry Seven

2018 has been quite a memorable year. This year, I have been stretched so far that there were times where I thought I was going to break. As I sit and reflect on this year, I feel quite unsettled. This year went by so quickly that I still can’t comprehend the day or month. I believe I feel this way because of the experiences that I have faced. I was made to be still for this entire year and for me that is extremely difficult because I love and thrive off being busy.

This entire year I have been battling my health which has been quite a thorn in my side when trying to go back to work and study. I don’t like being still, and I don’t like being home all the time. I just can’t sit still. Thinking back on how I tackled this year I have been either trying to strengthen my health or absorb assignment to get me closer to graduation. I feel tired, and surprisingly, I’m still sore. I find it a little sad that I’m feeling this way at this time of the year because I don’t particularly want to be a “new year, new me” person.

Though I may not have gotten all of my strength and flexibility back, or went back to work, or stayed in the course of study, I actually accomplished so much more this year. During this year I found myself closer to God, the relationship isn’t perfect, but he showed me the areas within myself that I needed to work on and most importantly, he not only showed me but gave me the opportunity to live a small snippet of the path he wants me to be on. This year, while most of my biggest fears became realities, he made me so much stronger and more appreciative of them. It takes a lot of guts to take on your, but it takes a stomach of steel to live through those fears.

I may not have completed or obtained society’s goals of having a fixed amount of money in my savings, finding love, getting a promotion, which yes, are great things but I obtained something so much more important, I found self-love and acceptance. He taught me that there is so much more than the stuff I just listed. Being in such a fast-paced society, I felt that I had failed because I had not obtained any of those things yet. God has a timing for those things in my life. I can choose to stress and re-write what his timeline (which will never end well) or I can live and enjoy life while I wait.

Things go wrong in this life, and that is something that I can’t control, but what I learnt this year, is that I will never be alone going through those troubles because there is nothing that God isn’t capable of doing. He is right by my side to guide me through or around that trouble. There is no limit to what he can do.

2018, it been quite the tango. 2019, I’m scared, but I’m ready for you.

[activeoblivion-deactivated20210]

alone because

[journeyofabeliever-blog]

Entry Six

When things are all running smoothly, I generally feel quite content and that this must be exactly how God wants me to run my life. Happy, stress(ish) free and almost everything I’ve prayed for or imagined is happening, nothing could go wrong or if they do, they won’t be that big because God is doing wonders in my life! (sarcastically laughs) It is effortless to get caught up in life when things are going smoothly, so when things don’t go to plan, one can become extremely frazzled.

I remember being in this situation. Things were going exceptionally well in my world, sure not one hundred per cent perfect, but not enough to knock me down. But one tiny thing had not only knocked me down but flipped my world completely upside down. I was in a place of uncertainty, thinking that I must have done something wrong. What was it that I missed? I was reading the word of God, trying to find comfort in him, but the word wasn’t giving me much comfort or clarity.

When I was in this place of uncertainty, I was in a waiting room, waiting for results that were either going to be good news or bad news. I knew that the bad news was going to take me out of the good place that I was in and would prolong whatever plans I had for tomorrow. Then I opened a devotional which read:

“If you have the World’s peace, everything going your way, you don’t seek My unfathomable peace. 
Thank me when things do not go your way because spiritual blessings come wrapped in trials. 
Adverse circumstances are normal in a fallen world. Expect them each day. Rejoice in the face of hardship, for I have overcome the world.” (Jan 24, My Peace)

I know that doesn’t sound the most comforting, but an entire peace fell through me in that waiting room. Whatever the result, I will have God. God was there during the good, even when I was too oblivious to see the works he was doing then. He was about to do works in me during the hardship, and that gave me the courage to get through not only the appointment, the following months, and even inspire me now. God is our father, and of course, he wants us to be happy, but he also shows us what we need to learn from. We learn through the good, and we also learn through the bad. Like most parents, there are lessons they teach that at the time, being so young, we don’t understand why, but as adults, we appreciate it or internally we do, but we know, that they made us who we are, and that my friend, is what God continues to do. So if you feel like he isn’t listening, because things aren’t going your way, it’s most likely a season of growth for you, so stay close into him and pray.

[90377]

autumn in the forest by witoldp

[lsleofskye]

SECRET GARDEN | marcograssiphotography

Location: Mount Fitz Roy, Patagonia, On the border between Argentina/Chile

[te5seract]

Viiksitimalinaaras safkaamassa jäätyneen ruo'on nokassa Viiksitimalinaaras korrella

by Janne

[m1male2]

Autumn light

[jalouise]

quiet and misty mornings

[journeyofabeliever-blog]

Entry Five

Before I came to faith, I found it extremely difficult when my dad’s anniversary would come around. Obviously, it is a natural thing to grieve on that day, but my entire body would go into shut down, and I would not be able to get out of bed until the next day. I found it so hard to function on that day because I couldn’t physically or emotionally handle the reality of the situation. When he passed, I found it very difficult to not only come to terms with his death but being in a religious family, I found it even harder to understand how God could let this happen. I had prayed, I had such hope that my dad would make it through, so when he didn’t I was disappointed, and I became resentful to God. I felt I was now on my own and that I didn’t need him because he wasn’t listening to me. I was sixteen, heartbroken, confused and angry trying very hard to make some sort of sense of the situation.

Coming to terms with my grief was such a battle, but surrendering that pain was another. When I came to church, and I had devoted to making this a part of my life, I didn’t think of how quickly I would be able to surrender my grief. Now let me just point out that “quickly” wasn’t in my second week of going to church, I believe it was the second or third month. God makes situations clear when he knows that we are ready to understand them. In time he made it clear to me of my dad’s passing. As a teenager it was hard to comprehend “it is/was his time”, but as an adult, I’ve come to understand that phrase. We are all on our own journeys in life, and my dad had lived such a marvellous life, and his journey had come to an end. It was painful for me because mine had barely started and the most influential person in my life was no longer going to be a part of it. I personally believe that we all have different experiences with pain and with grief, we hand over those weights to God in our own way and in our own time.

In those few months of not only attending church and surrounding myself with positive people but intentionally spending time in the word, I found it to be quite beneficial in clearing the heavy gunk of pain in my chest. Reading the bible was a little intimidating, but I found, that the bible plans on the Bible app (not an add) were so helpful as they were based around specific themes which were like the stepping stones in entering the bible.

So, when his anniversary came around this year, my body returned back to what it knew best. I felt physically ill and struggled to get out of bed, but I did something different this year, I looked to the Bible, I read through several devotionals, and I prayed. Like it states in Psalm 34:4 “I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears”, and let me tell you, he did more than delivered me from all my fears that day, he blessed it.

[journeyofabeliever-blog]

Entry Four

The person I was before I went to church wasn’t the greatest person but she also wasn’t the worst. A lot of my “mistakes” were made in my adolescent/ early young adult years. Which wasn’t that long ago. I’ve only just embraced being a young adult. In this stage of my life I’ve come to understand that a lot of those choices were made purely based from my emotions and not logic. I am very aware that I was in control and that I could have been smarter in my actions, but I can’t undo what has been done. I used to dwell on those thoughts and they would really knock me down, and sometimes they still do but the weight that they once pressed on to me, isn’t as bad as it used to be. Thoughts and events that would replay in my mind that would stay with me for weeks and completely mess with my emotions and how I behaved on a daily basis, no longer have those effects. They are quick thoughts that I process, remember I can’t change and I give them to God.

Sometimes when I give my concerns and troubles to God I expect that he will never let them bother me again but sometimes, God will not completely take it from me and I come to terms with it whilst looking to him for guidance. Sounds a little silly? Well, in some of the troubles I have worked through have made me stronger and I honestly do not believe I would have grown from it, if he had just taken it. If anything, I would have just relied on God in the wrong way to just deal with all my issues and I wouldn’t and I could go on living like a fairy on cloud 9. NO.

I’m human, living an ordinary human life and there are going to be troubles, but I won’t be alone.

[paradoxdesign]

Wouldn’t we all like to know what awaits beyond the bend of the road in the autumn of our lives?

I would…

[brittnylee-deactivated20250427]

The Other Side

[mobilkko]

Midnight Beach