Impossibilities

So lately I’ve been studying about Gideon… turns out he’s a pretty cool guy: just your average dude, chosen to lead the Lord’s army against the enemy. Seems like it would be an impossible task for a “nobody” without any experience or connections, right??

Well the cool thing about it is our God is in the business of doing the impossible.

You see, I’ve found that He likes to make things supernatural sometimes, solely so He can get ALL of the credit and ALL of the glory. Sometimes, He allows us to be in situations where only His power could pull us through, so that we have to look to Him for the strength. That’s what Gideon had to do… trust that God knew what He was doing.

Often times, I think we get caught up in this idea that God’s will for our lives is hidden somewhere and we have to be on the lookout at all times or we will miss it… But the truth is, if we are spending entirely too much time looking around for God’s next assignment, we are probably not doing a very good job on what He has us doing right now.

Trust that when you are doing the simple things that the Bible tells you is the will of God, HE will reveal the next step:

Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone. See that no one pays back evil for evil…. but always try to do good to each other and to all people. Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in ALL circumstances. For THIS is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:14-18)

God revealed His will, His next assignment, to Gideon: God downsized Gideon’s troop from 10,000 men to a mere 300… that is not very many guys in this scenario.

Scary? Yes.

Logical? No.

Ultimately God-glorifying? Absolutely.

Gideon took a huge leap of faith and obeyed. And the crazy part?! Gideon won. GOD won.

Perhaps God is downsizing some areas in our lives too?

Friends. Money. Stability. A job. All of those things that make you feel secure.

And although you may never understand why He does that in certain situations, can you trust Him without fully understanding?

One mark of a mature Christian is accepting God’s ways without having to completely understand them.

Confessions of a Habitual Speeder

It’s funny how God tends to teach us things through even what seems like the most insignificant matters. Ok, it’s time for me to fess up. I speed.

Like it is slightly ridiculous… I have a problem that is in desperate need of being fixed. If I’m frustrated, in deep thought, or simply distracted, I have the most intense lead foot you will ever find. I honestly don’t always intend on going fast, but I get comfortable… and then, once I glance at my speedometer, I’m going 20 mph faster than I had initially begun. It’s not even necessarily that I’m a bad driver, because I have never even been close to being in an accident while driving (to my knowledge anyways), I just drive entirely too fast. And recently, this little habit has landed me in a lot of trouble.

Over Labor Day weekend, I was driving with my best friend Courtney to Mississippi to visit some friends. We were talking about life and drinking Sonic raspberry tea and jamming out to 90’s music… it couldn’t be a more picture perfect roadtrip.

It was at that very moment that I spotted him… a policeman had pulled out right behind me (then again, it’s was kind of hard to miss the blue lights flashing in my rearview mirror.)

I got pulled over in Forrest City, Arkansas (which actually happens to be home to the State Trooper Department... who knew!?) and got a ticket for going 90mph in a 70mph zone. To top it all off, the policeman was a complete jerk about the whole thing. That is one way to just completely ruin your day, AND your trip… the worst part was coming home to tell my parents. Needless to say, I had never been in more trouble in my whole, entire life.

I had to suffer the consequences for that choice. I had to go to Forrest City for my court date. I had to pay a $165 ticket (which is a lot when you are living on a Nanny budget…). And I will have to have that on my driver’s record for a while.

But I swore I would never speed again.

Funny how those promises usually last a grand total of 24 hours… Ha. The very next day, I look down and I’m going 5mph over. Now, I realize that that’s not too incredibly fast, but that’s against the point. The point is that I was speeding again, after I had JUST had to deal with the consequences of my first actions. I would catch myself and slow down, but then, the next time I was in a hurry, there I would go, speeding “just a little bit” again.

But then I got to thinking.

I’m the exact same way with sin. You get caught crossing that boundary, and you have to suffer the consequences. Getting caught in that secret sin is no fun, but what is even greater danger is NOT getting caught. Sometimes it takes the sin’s surfacing in order for us to realize it needs to be removed from our lives.

Often times, we make empty promises to ourselves and to God… “Oh, I will NEVER do that again, never!” just to fall right back into our old sinful habits. Why is this the result? It is because we have hearts that are not truly broken over the actions, over sin. We say that we are sorry, but are we really? Do we truly know what is at stake when we make those decisions? So often, we don’t really grasp how much of a sacrifice Christ paid because of our stupid actions.

Those boundaries, just like those speed limits that are placed by the government, are there for our own safety… we don’t always like them, but ultimately they are there because we NEED them. Without them, we are just a bunch of idiots that do stupid stuff for no reason…

…just like going 5mph over the speed limit.

It doesn’t matter if everyone else is doing it and it’s not “that bad”, it is still wrong. And no matter how much we try to justify it, a sin is still a sin.

Tragedy

I have been really praying about it, and I really feel like now is not the time to share with you guys the biggest issue that has been a part of my life the past two years, simply because it involves other people that are really trying to get help and make things better, and by sharing the past struggles with people in this crucial time of healing, I’m very likely to reopen scabs that just need some time to seal… Perhaps soon I will be able to share a little of what has taken place.

But for now, I WILL share a few of the other struggles I have faced.

First of all, this year has been a huge season of loss and tragedy in my life.

My grandfather battled cancer for over a year before going to be with the Lord in the early fall of 2009. This was really hard on me because, due to some issues at home, He was seriously the compassionate Father-figure in my life at the time. He spent his last days at home and up until about the last week, He was in fairly good health. However, those last 6 or 7 days I spent in Heber Springs helping my grandmother were heart-wrenching... just seeing my once-strong grandfather in that feeble state of health. Not to mention the emotional toll it had on my mother. Mom is like one of my best friends, so it hurt me even more to see her hurting. It was already a sensitive time in our lives, and I really couldn’t understand why God would take Him from us at that time. Not until recently have I learned the truth behind praising God in the midst of troubles… and that the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.

Just when things seemed to be looking better, tragedy stuck again. One rainy day, right before Christmas, my Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Junior were driving through Forrest City when a car hit them, head on. Uncle Junior died on impact, and Aunt Bobbie was med-flighted to Baptist. After many surgeries, we lost Aunt Bobbie as well. The driver of the other car was a teenage guy that is now permanently paralyzed from the neck down.

I don’t always understand. And I’ve realized that I don’t have to.

As cliché as it seems, God IS always in control.

And that has never been more real to me.

Transparency

Hi. Remember me?? Yes, I realize that I haven’t written in a while, a very long while to be exact… and for this, I apologize.

I’m not sure that anyone even reads these things, but I do like to have a place where I can vent my thoughts. I keep a private journal, just Me and God, but it has just been that, until recently, I have had an extremely hard time actually sharing any of those thoughts with others.

You see, when things go downhill, I’m a bottler. I keep everything inside. My emotions, my thoughts, my EVERYTHING.

Because when I store it up, I can spend just a few hours pretending that it’s not happening.

Because when I keep it to myself, I’m not vulnerable to being hurt or betrayed.

Because I have had this completely skewed perception that being a “good Christian” meant putting on a happy front and keeping everyone at an arms distance.

Because I felt that sharing my burdens with others was just a hindrance to them.

Because I have bought into the lies for far too long.

But tonight, I have something to say.

THIS year has been the absolute worst year of my life. For so many reasons that I can’t even begin to explain. Many of you already think that I’m being dramatic… and perhaps I AM blowing things a little out of proportion, because I realize that a lot of people have it a whole lot worse than myself. But if you knew all of the gritty details, I promise you would agree that this year has been pretty stinking tough.

However, if I were to tell this to the average Joe that I come in contact with on a day-to-day basis, they would just laugh at me, because I have become a positively incredible actress. Like, I should get a Grammy for the part I’ve been playing. Most people are like “Oh, Molly Bowman? That girl has it perfect.” Honestly, most of my very closest friends don’t even know the entirety of it all…

I’m not going to go into all of the tedious details right now, because that is a lot of healing for one night, but I will share a few of them with you over the next few weeks. A month ago, I would have thought I was crazy for sharing such things with people, anybody. But recently God has taught be a very important lesson.

You see, I have learned that there is one extremely crucial part of being influential for Christ:

Transparency.

Without it, you are useless. It is an essential ingredient for your life in order for God to use you to the greatest extent in which He is able. Without transparency, you are just another fake, another phony, another actor playing the part.

Please don’t misunderstand me… I’m not saying that the JOY I have had in Christ has not been genuine, because if anything has been stable in my life over the course of the past year, it’s my Heavenly Father. Those sweet moments spent with Him have never been sweeter. And I have learned to trust in Him despite ALL circumstances (which may, in itself, be worth all of this craziness I have gone through). It’s just that we aren’t called to put on a face of false perfection.

I love that place in 2 Corinthians where it talks about how His power is made perfect in our weaknesses, that He is made apparent in our shortcomings. That is why we MUST be transparent… For HIS glory. He has not called us to be perfect, He has called us to be redeemed!

And all of the lessons we have learned through situations in life and all of the times that God alone has pulled us through, those times are meant to be shared. He can be glorified through our hurts, and if we allow Him, He can make even the darkest times of our lives into something absolutely beautiful.

It never fails, does it?? It’s always the nights when I need sleep the most, like a night before a huge basketball game, or in this case, a final exam, when it seems like I just cannot get to sleep... but at the same time, I wouldn’t trade these nights for the world. Maybe it’s just something that God wired into my system when He created me, just that every so often I have a night where I just lay in bed and think and talk to Him... and that’s all I’ve been doing tonight lol. I think of them as my “Goodnight Kisses from God” (thus the name of the blog). They are just sweet moments which allow me to reflect on the love of my God and who He is. It’s nice to sit and write about it, and get my thoughts out of my head before they somewhat make my head explode, and I don’t know if anyone even reads these, but I will try my hardest not to bore you. lol.

Tonight I’ve kind of been thinking about “life”. Simple isn’t it? Haha but not really.. I mean, I’m not speaking of just like the time we are given on earth, but actual LIVING. like I take more pictures than just about anybody I know… and the whole point is to capture a moment, but still, you can’t capture “living”. For example, sometimes I wish I could take a picture of… October. Haha I know that sounds weird, but think about it... The world seems to erupt about that time of year- the trees go crazy, changing into all different colors of gorgeous oranges, reds and yellows… apple cider and football games and huge orange pumpkins. And you can take all the pictures you want, but that feeling, that life and emotion and peace, cannot be captured in ANY photo.

But then that makes me wonder how much of living have I already missed out on… I love being involved with anything and everything, that’s just how I am, and I do it because I don’t want to miss out on anything, but then I get so caught up in the busyness that I end up missing out on a lot of just, living. I forget to capture the moment and put it to use, but instead, I roam through life like a preprogrammed robotic, just doing enough to get through the day… and I’m not saying that busyness is necessarily wrong… because like filling our time with stuff that matters to us and activities God has created us to enjoy can be a good thing, but then there’s still that place in psalm where it says “be still and know that I am God”…BE STILL... Sometimes that’s the hardest thing for me to do. Maybe that’s why He made a few nights like these where it’s absolutely impossible for me to go to sleep, because then I have no choice but to “be still and know”.

I love that God likes my whole life, like He’s not just around when I’m doing church stuff... He’s into all the details of me. We can give Him glory through every little bit of it, but I still think that He wants to give me something in these few quiet, sleepless minutes.. I don’t know, but maybe its just Him whispering a promise to me… you know? Letting me know that at the end of the day, when everything else in life stops and nothing is left, He is still there, and He is the same as He was when I woke up that morning... and that, I love. :)