Blog post (11/5-12/02) Update about me 1/3
OKAY. I WILL BE POSTING HERE FROM NOW ON. I AM SO SORRY FOR ANY CONFUSION. MISSIONAL LIFE WAS JUST GETTING VERY COMPLICATED. okay thats all sorry for yelling, love you guys. enjoy. This is the post from the other platform, im just reposting here because not many people were able to access it.
Good Saturday family,
Hope everyone is doing absolutely wonderful, I miss y’all a lot. I am enjoying the race so much, truly, and I love being here and am confident this is where the Lord wants me, however, it’s pretty often that I find myself missing home. I appreciate every aspect of the race: the way it challenges you, pushes you, increases intimacy with Jesus, strips you of all comfort to teach dependence on God, and offers experiences that I may never experience again. Though, I do miss home a lot. It can be difficult at times when I start to remember the comfort I had at home, that I was able to get in my car and drive to go get coffee anytime or go to the store, hanging out with different people, my own room, a consistent income, internet (I love being without it, but it can be hard not being able to talk to people often), ya know- the comfortabilities. So, of course I absolutely love it here, but I realized that circumstances are never really where I found my comfort. Jesus is the only one that will satisfy, because the truth is that if I continue to look for other things to make me happy (aka the things I “wish” I had), I will be waiting forever. Grass is always greener on the other side- right?
So, I wrote that first part on the 5th of November- I just wrote the last 3 sentences to make for a smoother transition. If you couldn’t tell, I was reallyyy missing home. It’s so weird because I spent so long waiting for the race to come, but now that I’m here, sometimes I am just consumed by thoughts of being somewhere else. Which is weird, too, because I have a hard time within my head because I think “it’s only 9 months out of a lifetime, focus, be present”, but then I struggle when all I can think of is literally anything else. See my dilemma? I’ll get to my realization in a minute, but first I just wanted to say, don’t wait for the right time, because you’ll be waiting forever in dissatisfaction, allowing life to pass by. It’s an old quote, but the older that I am getting, the more it rings true. For so long I was “waiting” for the race to come so that I’d be happier, to be closer to God, and in my head it would be a time I would be able to settle down and enjoy life more. Then I got to the race, I began to think often about how much I missed at home and how much I let pass me by, and looked forward to being home to have it all back again. Noticing a pattern? History will just repeat itself if you don’t choose to make a change. Believe me, I know it is so much easier said than done, but it’s something I’ve been focusing on. The Lord calls us to be patient and wait for His timing, but He also has gifted us a life, and wants us to appreciate it! He has given us so much to be grateful for, and He calls us to be full of gratitude and wants us to be fully present. Romans 12:2 says “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — His good, pleasing and perfect will.” meaning He has renewed us every day, each day is a gift, therefore, don’t allow distracting thoughts to consume your mind so that you are clear-minded for what the Lord has for you. This also feeds into Matthew 6:34 “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own”. Each day has it’s own worries, so hey, let loose and enjoy the times, He also says there’s a time for everything. Take advantage of the now and let each time handle itself.
As I realized that this was something I was struggling with majorly, the Lord began to reveal scripture to me that would help me take captive of these thoughts and bring them to the Lord. Hold on, there’s a few.
Proverbs 4:23 Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life
Philippians 4:8-9, Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
2 Corinthians 10:5, We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
1 Peter 5:8 Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith…
Sorry, that was a lot, but I’m going to try to piece it all together. BASICALLY, I realized that I have been so distracted because the enemy wants me to be distracted. He doesn’t want me to be focused on the Lord, he wants me to be focused on the world. So, anytime I begin to think of how things were or how they could be, the enemy (like a lion waiting for something to devour), attacks the thoughts and enlarges them, which consumes my thought life, and then ultimately distracts me from God. Okay, am I still making sense? I’m typing as I think, so I’ll have to proof read these. But, what I’ve learned, is to take back my thought life and hand it to God. He says to take captive of our thoughts, so I’ve been working on whenever I notice that my thoughts are not centered on the Lord and I get to be overwhelmed, to try and remind myself of truth and what God has said. The truth is, i think life is a lot simpler than we make it out to be. At least I have learned to think so. Like the word says, each day has enough worries of it’s own, so one day at a time is all we can really do.
Sooo sorry if that was kinda heavy, the Lord has just been teaching me so much and I wanna sahre EVERYTHING.
Okay now to some lighter stuff…. God has been teaching me to rest in His presence lately and it has been so beautiful and so freeing. I have felt a lot more joyful and have been really enjoying my time here. I will make another post about where we are at in a minute, this one is just about me and what I’ve been learning. Also, I just had my 19th birthday!!!! Soooo exciting. I literally have felt so loved recently. As most know, this year has been extremely difficult on many levels, so it was so sweet to be able to be celebrated and had my mind taken off a lot of things. Here’s to a WONDERFUL year for both me and Miss Ronny Griffin 🙂
