Journal of Faith: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling Philippians 2:12

The life of many people now has become so busy with work, home, and other obligations that the prospect of carrying on any good relationships doesn't look possible.  What happens when the relationship you are trying to nurture is your relationship with God? Many people find church to be a good place to cultivate that relationship, but I am pretty sure that the Bible says we are suppose to work out our own salvation.  What I am saying is that church can encourage us to build on our relationship with God, but church itself is not our full relationship with God.  We need personal time with him.  I need personal time with him,  but where in the world is this time going to come from? I already feel bad for being away from my son so much, I work more than I ever wanted to, and I need to be there for my family.  I rush home from work trying to make it to church sometimes, and I feel like I never get enough sleep. From the human perspective I don't have time for Go...

So the other day I was feeling kind of down because I am tired of living the single mother life.  We all know it's not going to be easy, but some days it just seems like everything is just too hard.  On top of that I was getting to see, at very close proximity, how everyone else in my family was getting help for different things from their husbands or wives to the point that I was even more sad about my situation.  The most recent event was my sister-in-law having her BEAUTIFUL  baby girl on Monday.  Their family looks so beautiful and complete.  It is wonderful to look at them except that it reminds me how my family isn't complete.  I got sad and then I got angry at my son's dad again, then I got mad at myself for being sad.  It was not a great day for me on Tuesday.  Thank God this wasn't the end of the story. On Wednesday,as I was cleaning in preparation for the baby coming home, the Lord showed me something about ...

 I am burdened for people to know that I love them, my family, my friends,and people that I don't even really know.  Do they understand how special they are? Do they feel loved?  Do they see that they matter to me?  Do they know that I am not playing a role, that I seriously love them?  I can see now how sometimes I have craved to receive love and so I gave it with a tag line of  "love me back please."  When I wouldn't get the response I thought I should get it grieved my heart.  I felt bad that they didn't accept that love of God that I had for them, but I also felt like I was unloved and rejected by the world. I believe that the feelings of grief and rejection weren't (and aren't) just my heart but a manifestation of the spirit of God within me.  God loves the world and they reject him all the time even though he gave his own son to die for them. It grieves him that people don't accept his love for them.  ...

As a young single mother it is easy for me to be angry because my son's father is out living his life while it seems that it would take a private investigator to find mine.  I don't think that I have really ever been mad about that.  I made a choice, and I have to live with that.  What I finally realize I am so upset about is the fact that a young woman who gets pregnant and then marries seems to get the royale treatment.  Baby showers, money, excitement, blessings galore. I feel like I tried to make a wise decision in the face of a hard life to come and am now getting ingored and passed over in favor of others who were guilty of the same sin. Not only that, but those who have had abortion or fornicated while managing not to get pregnant get a free pass in society.  This is not how it is suppose to be in the church especially.  I have repented and I am trying to take care of my family as best I can while being a good example, and all people can see is ...

This is a continuation of the thought from my previous blog because I just feel in my spirit that God is really revealing this to me.  It may be old news reworded, but here goes.  I know that some gentlemen or ladies may take this as an insult, but the truth is that God is the only one in our lives that is both necessary and sufficient.  Those are just science terms to say that God is the only one who is enough to fulfill all that we need in our lives. No husband will ever be enough, no wife will ever be sufficient, no child will be enough, no career will be sufficient, nothing is enough without God filling in all the empty space that these people and things can't.  I heard someone say once that because God created us to be in relationship with him that he placed a desire in us that only he can fulfill.  I am finding that to be so true right now for me.  I am not some sob story girl with a bad family history or anything like that.  I grew up in the chu...

I had an encounter with a strange woman today on my own email!  She was trying to instant message me for some inappropriate club.  I was in shock at first that this was happening through my very own email, but after that I decided that maybe she needed to hear the gospel.  I introduced the idea of Jesus into the conversation and quickly found out that she prefered to receive the satisfaction of being on a camera.  I tried to be real with her and offer an alternative to what she was doing, but she didn't want to hear a word of it.  I felt like this woman needed to feel the love of Jesus so badly that it broke my heart a bit that she didn't accept it.  I am to the point in my life now that I am realizing if people truly experience the love of God they won't accept the artificial man made commercial love that they have been accepting and then expecting to operate as the agape that only God can give.  I am no exception to this happening or I wouldn't be a ...

I took some quiet time with GOD because I felt like we needed it, and I didn't even know what I was looking for.  I just wanted to talk with GOD.  I wanted him to speak into me whatever I needed because I have gotten to the point lately where I don't even trust what I think I need anymore.  I don't trust myself to make the right decisions because I don't believe that anyone is trust worthy anymore. That is partially the result of a series of really unfortunate events that have happened recently and over the course of a few years as well.  GOD keeps telling me though "you can trust me.  Just try trusting me."  I know that I can trust GOD, but sometimes when certain things happen I really feel the need to check back and say "LORD, what are you doing?  I don't get it."  I felt in my spirit this morning that the LORD was reminding me of something that I heard a while ago.  GOD will only allow a certain precise amount of disaster in our lives....