My Story

On By happyreignIn Heather, Reflections & MusingsLeave a comment

I feel like there is power in sharing our stories and sometimes the best place to start is the beginning.  Recently, I was given an opportunity to share how my relationship with God began and I thought I would share it here as well.

I went to church with my family sometimes and even learned stories from the bible as a child, but I went to church for years and never really remember hearing about Jesus or what he did for us or what he thought of us.  I remember trying really hard to figure out when to stand and when to sit and how to make my voice go up or down with the music notes I didn’t know how to read in the hymnal.

Fast forward through my parent’s divorce, our moving to a new location, and lots of high school parties.  At one point I was grounded because of driving lots of drunk people at like three in the morning when I was sixteen.  I hadn’t been drinking.  While I was grounded, my mother gave me a book, as she is an avid reader.

This book was fiction and written by a Christian.  In this book, the author clearly explained how a certain character in the book was impacted by Christ and the holy spirit working in her life.  I remember just saying “Yes” to God in my basement and feeling his presence fill the room and a conversation between us began that hasn’t stopped to this day. (You can read more about this subject here.)

God continues to help me.  How to respond in my marriage, how to view the mistakes of my past, what decisions I should make concerning how I live my life.  He is the peace within me, and his love is my breath.  He continues to remind me of my value and my worth.  I have fallen in love and he continues to show me how to love myself and love others.  The end–or actually–just the beginning.  🙂

A New Beginning

On By happyreignIn Heather, Reflections & Musings2 Comments

I usually come here with a message I want to share but today I just really wanted to come here and write without knowing what!  There is an exhilaration in living life in the unknown and so a part of adding joy to my day is doing this!

I just want to write that the purpose of life is so much more than what we produce!  Did you know you can have a perfectly wonderful day apart from being productive??  That the moment we leave this earth, all of our to do lists cease and everything we were intending to do never gets done and the earth still spins without us??  There are thousands of people around the world with no job or no career that wake up and exist, some with joy even, and are their lives not still full of value?!?

I would speculate that the purpose of our lives is to experience the exchange of love, either between us and people, or us and God, and hopefully both.  And money, whether it is elusive or we have plenty, only fits into this equation of purpose when used as a tool to experience this LOVE?

We are even good at turning ministry into a work and can lose joy trying to make as many people possible experience this exchange of love!  God’s calling never asked you to set aside your piece of experiencing heaven on earth for the sake of others; we share what we walk in, whether a worker mentality or a son or daughter of God mentality.

Did you know the fastest way to your eternal productivity is to rest in God’s orchestration and providence in your life and be faithful to the people he’s already placed around you in life?!?  Did you know we are not supposed to pour out our soul for the sake of trying to make something happen that God can do so easily on his own and in his own timing?!?

There is grace and joy when heaven is behind the work of your hands, even when enduring hard or difficult obstacles, where there is nothing else you would rather be doing with your time and energy.  Did you know that rest IS powerful?  Did you know that trust IS productive?

No matter how hard Moses tried in the natural he could have NEVER liberated hundreds of thousands of his people from the Egyptian empire, but when God wanted it to happen, Moses participated but God did all the work?  When we trust God for him to accomplish his ideas through us, it always is supernatural beyond our own abilities?  Deliverance wasn’t even in Moses’ mind!

God’s ideas are the best for us to partner with and sometimes it requires a lack of our own understanding of the how or the why or the timing.  This is great!  You are not doing anything wrong, you are trusting for something bigger than your ability to orchestrate the outcome.

Trust and rest in God’s impossible!  May you truly experience the awe of his manifest glory and presence and orchestration in your life.  Peace and blessings!

Recognizing Kingdom Opportunities When our Joy Goes Flat

On By happyreignIn Heather, Reflections & Musings3 Comments

Partnership with God is fun but not always easy…at least our resistance to it sometimes isn’t easy.  🙂

Some people think of partnering with God to pray for somebody, or do a bible study or serve in church.  These may be ways to partner with God but I assure you EVERYONE has the opportunity to partner with God in their daily lives and it might not just be in the way you are thinking.

In life, when we are working in business, interacting in our home, going about our daily interests there are thing that may happen along the way when dealing with other people that really trip up our joy.  For instance, someone in business who trys to skirt a bill, or give you a cheaper product than you’ve paid for.  You may have a boss that doesn’t see your talent or has a lot of character flaws.  You may be served horrible food at a restaurant or have a family member living with you that doesn’t respect you, or even like you.  Maybe a roommate or friend gives you the cold sholder and judges you for WHO KNOWS WHAT.  NONE of these sound like fun, do they?  These are the exact opportunities to partner with God I am talking about.  YAY!  Sounds like so much fun right???

Sometimes people in a religious mindset will see things relating to religious things as pertaining to God and kindgom, but don’t neccessarily walk out the grace of heaven in the practicals of family and business.  THESE TWO ARE ONE AND THE SAME!  They are all people and God doesn’t say, love me and love your church members.  God said love me and love your neighbor, everybody you do all the daily stuff with!  I would even go so far as to say it matters MORE how you treat your family, housemates, and business partners more than how you treat people in the context of any religious setting or conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

God cares about your character more than your performance!  When you want to wring somebody’s neck is the perfect opportunity to advance the kingdom of God!  Not by wringing their neck but by recognizing how you feel and choosing something better and bigger than your own emotional reactions!   In those moments we want JUSTICE on behalf of ourselves!  And in those moments God invites us to give his JUSTICE that he gave us!  Yay, he doesn’t wring our necks for all those things we have done and said that have hurt people or cheated people in the past!

When we are angry, or offended, or bitter, or hateful, we are acting in a way that shows we think everything is about US!  You should’ve treated me this way.  My life should’ve looked this way.  That shouldn’t have been done to me.  BUT LIFE DIDN’T happen the way you wanted or were expecting it to with God or with that person.  NOW how are you going to choose to react to these offenses?  This is the place our partnering with God can shine.

Forgiveness costs us nothing but our pride.  When we hold onto our justice or our reputation or our expectations over releaseing them into God’s messy plan that is bigger than our understanding, we are missing our opportunity to grow.  We are shortchanging ourselves of the heaven that lives inside of us and could live through us, if we let it.  This might be the only defining line for me on how somebody walks out their life, are they someone who holds onto unforgiveness that rots their own heart, or does heaven live inside of them where there is room for mistakes in the midst of relationship?

Just wanted to toss these ideas out there in case someone was missing their opportunity to partner with heaven today.  😉  Blessings.