Devo for the (future) children: Love yourself, Love God

Dearest, most lovable child of mine,

Today I want to talk to you about love. Not the cheesy idealistic, overrated, but completely enchanting to watch, romance in the movies, but real honest to goodness, I’ll be there for you, unconditional love.

If there is anything I want you to have learned from your father and I is how to love. Not just a special someone, but everyone that you meet. This is something that I know Jesus hopes you understand as well. I hope you are beginning to understand in this stage of life (however old you are) that everyone has worth and value in their life. Due to this, we, as Christians, strive to love and bring out that worth and value in the people we meet and have relationships with (friendships, family, significant others, strangers…etc).

The Bible states that the law of the Old Testament can be summarized into two statements (Love your neighbor as yourself and Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength). These two sentences encompass books and books of the Old Testament -39 to be exact, as well as being a major foundation in the teachings of the Jewish and Muslim religions. By this time in life you’ve probably heard it called the golden rule and is also referenced (through different wording) including the Baha’I faith, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Native Spirituality, etc.

So you’re probably starting to think that this concept must be pretty important right?

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Right.

So what does it mean and how do we go about it?

Well Psalm 139 talks about how we are made in the image of God and how he knit us together in the wombs of our mothers. Joshua ( ) talks about how He has divine plans for us and ( ) talks about how He is preparing the steps for us to take.

This means that everyone who walks on this Earth is here for a reason. Every person who has ever taken a breath was designed by God, and each of those individual’s has a deep, longing desire to be loved, to be noticed, and to be appreciated.  Filling those needs in people is a very simple way to show love. 

This can be done through acts of service (mowing someone’s lawn, listening to their problems, standing up for them at school, or even just sitting by people).

It can be done through words of affirmation (encouragement, telling people compliments about what you like about them, and telling them that they were really good at XYorZ that you saw them do or try to do).

You can also give them gifts, feed them, play with them, help them with their homework, hug them, or write them kind notes. Each of these things falls under God’s commandment to love and value our neighbors and each of these things will help uplift our neighbor’s spirits and help them realize their value in life.

So how does this relate to loving God?

This is one that I struggle with right now (I’m 21 years old and am writing this on June 2^nd, 2014).

See I wish God and I could go out and drink coffee and I could just spend time talking with him about things that are going on in the world and hear Him give little quips of humor and insight.

I wish that God could cuddle me at night or really hug me tight. I often envision Him doing so. I also wish that He and I could dance with me wearing a long flowing dress.

Well this is getting kinda girly, so if you’re a boy this could relate to wanting to play football or video games together. You could envision yourself going on bike-rides or finding frogs with God.

Basically spending quality time together.

However, I’ve found that even imagining myself doing that with God isn’t enough to satisfy my soul. So I read and pray, and mostly spend time reading Biblical fiction, listening to music or drawing my spiritual emotions out to God.

This is something I want you to focus on. The last few ideas are things that I’ve personally found help connect me to God, but I want you to experiment and try to find what makes you feel closer to God…what’s your spiritual personality?

Are you close to God in nature?

When reading about Him?

When singing to Him?

When telling others about Him?

When you do things for others?

When you journal your thoughts?

When you write your own Biblical fiction?

When you pretend you’re a Biblical character?

There aren’t any right or wrong answers to this. As we’ve talked about, God has made each one of us unique and that also relates to how we experience and feel close to God.

If you’re still stuck try to think of what you’d do with your free time and see if you can make it about God.

But never forget, your experiences with God are about being in relationship with Him. Not about what you do or don’t do with Him (so don’t get stuck on rules about reading your Bible this many times a week, or only listening to Christian music, etc –unless it’s how you connect with God and something you feel convicted about.).

He wants to spend time with us and He wants us to do it in a way that makes us happy…He doesn’t want to make us miserable to spend time with Him.

So with the rest of this devotional thought I want you to think back and reflect on the times that you have felt loved by others and a time that you helped love someone else. (Write or remember one story for each).

I also want you to think of your favorite moments with God and try to spend at least one hour this week (or more…as many as you want even….not that it’ll get you out of chores, or school, or homework :P )…doing what you love and devoting that time to God.

And remember, you are loved, you are chosen, you have value, and I am so blessed that you are mine.

With love,

Mom.

10th Hour Devo Talk -9/29/13

Yesterday I did a devo talk that God had been preparing for an entire month. This was presented to me right be fore the school year started and I knew exactly what God wanted me to speak about as soon as I opened it up. Through the next month God continued to tweak it and add onto the message. And this is the gist of what it was:

So when I was asked to do the 10th Hour talk, I was immediately intimidated by the idea of it. What did I have to offer? How could I compare to the people who were going to talk that had 10 more years of God experience than I did or those with PHD's or had gone to seminary? Who was I compared to that?

and in the moment after those thoughts, I heard God say, you are mine. You have my story and what I have done in your life. No one else has experienced me exactly the way that you have -share that.

So here I am.

But those thoughts that God gave me led me to think about the fact that none of us, if we were completely alone with God for our entire lifetime, could ever come close to getting to know God. This is because our personalities only allow God to reveal certain things to us. However, when we dwell in community, we learn about God through what He is doing in the lives of other people around us. In that way, it is through community that we can learn about God fully.

So I think about the Lord's Supper. I think about taking communion with God and what it would have been like to be a disciple who actually walked with Jesus. What it would have been like to see Him do miracles and still not get the full picture of who God was.

I think about Peter. Oh Peter. He's my favorite. I learn so much about God through him because our personalities are completely opposite. He is always so ready to follow after God -even if he doesn't follow through. He's energetic and mostly he isn't afraid to fail.

And I love to watch how God treats him when he does because I often don't do anything unless I'm sure I can succeed in it. I'm generally afraid to step out of my comfort zone and try something new when I'm not sure how others will take it. So watching Peter in the Bible is refreshing to me.

But I think about what Peter was thinking when Jesus died and he felt like everything was over. Where did his faith go during that time? What doubts were going through his mind? (what doubts are going through my mind about what God has told me?)

Then I think about the transformation that happened when Jesus did rise from the grave and sought out Peter. I think about the change that Jesus resurrection had on the disciples lives. Peter, was able, through the Spirit, to do things that he never thought he could do, and he was able to follow Jesus to places he never had the strength to do before.

The spirit transformed Peter and transformed his ministry.

And that's what God did for me.

When I was younger, I was not good at community. I have never let people in and I've had a hard time trusting them. I became depressed when I was a freshman in high school because I didn't trust that the feelings people shared with me were real. I thought people loved me because they had to, because society said they should, rather than real feelings.

It even goes further back than that. I got saved around the time that I was five. I was at AWANA and my Pastor asked anyone who wanted to get saved to come forward. In my little heart I said no, I did not want to do it in front of people. When I got home that night I tried to ask God into my heart and I cried because I didn't feel any different. Then my sister came into the room and saw me crying and asked me what was wrong. I told her "Jesus doesn't want me. I asked Him to come into my heart and He said no." (paraphrased...because...it was a long time ago) and we went through the Roman's road together and I got saved.

         This shows three things: 1. Little kids can really believe it God. Note I didn't say that God didn't exist, but that He didn't want me. 2. Shows how broken I was at a young age (it ran deep). 3. God wanted me to be saved in community -showed His promise to me for the future (one of those hindsight things)

And this is something that I've tried to work on my whole life. But God didn't want to yet. He didn't start transforming my ability to do community until I was a junior in College. Until I already knew what my calling was in life and I knew I was not going to be able to do it without Him. Until I knew that my transformation in community was not going to happen outside of His strength is when He said we'd work on it.

He gave me three prayer drawings from the span of April 2013 to August 2013 that shows the journey that I went on. The first one is God's hands holding water over a little plant. This represents my walk with community. The dry ground represents the dryness of my community and how it was barren and couldn't produce anything. The plant was the sprout of my community, and the water was my tears.

You see, God has been holding my tears about community since the first teardrop fell. He has been collecting them, waiting for the right time in life. My ground was so dry that each tear would have been sucked up by the ground too fast for any growth to happen. So God held them and collected them and slowly let my tears drip to the ground in the correct timing necessary in order to create growth. His "lack of doing anything" was really making sure that I would have long term growth.

The next prayer journal that I am going to show was the one of my insecurities. In the picture, all the brokenness in on the outside, but the strength is on the inside (with my relationship with God). God had me draw lilies and sparrows in the eyes to signify that He was watching over me and was going to take care of me like He takes care of the Lilies and the Sparrows. It was His promise to me.

The last prayer drawing is where I'm at now and what God has done in my life. He has made me into a lily. The little sprout that He was carefully tending has now sprung up into a lily. A flower that resides by water (not dry ground). That's how much He has changed me and taken care of me.

He also had me put the words "He makes beautiful things out of us". This is the truth in itself, but it also relates back to Gungor's song Beautiful Things. In the song the lyrics are:

"All this pain, I wonder if I'll ever find my way.

 I wonder if my life could really change, at all. 

All this earth, could all that is lost ever be found. 

Could a garden come up from this ground at all."

....

"All around, Hope is springing up from this old ground.

Out of chaos life is being found, in You. "

...

"You make beautiful things. 

You make beautiful things out of the dust.

You make beautiful things.

You make beautiful things out of us. "

I feel like this song was written for me and what God is doing in my life. He has healed me and this last school year has been amazing. I am a part of a new social club and I'm mentoring and getting to know a lot of new girls. 

God is doing NEW things. God is making ME new! God has made me NEW!

All the community things that I am able accomplish today and in the future is because of God. I am literally nothing without Him. He is the reason that I thrive today. I am made new because of the resurrection power of God. 

The same Spirit that was in Jesus when He rose from the grave is the same Spirit that is in me. And friends, it's the same spirit that's in YOU. The HEALING that God has done in MY life is available in YOURS. God IS holding your tears and He's creating growth. He's creating you into something new! He's doing it in HIS timing. HIS goodness. HIS glory through YOUR life.

Don't give up. Don't think God isn't doing anything. He's in the process of making all things new -making YOU new. 

Trust Him. Trust the process. Trust Him when you can't see what He's doing. 

Trust the supernatural when you can't see Him working in the natural. 

Trust me, He's doing great things in your life is you surrender to His timing and His process.

Love you,

Kate Nowak