Talking to My Dad

Yayyy for another blogpost!!!


Well, God is continuing to be awesome-I mean, does he ever really stop? And has shown me and revealed to me so much this past week of school that I really don't know exactly where He's gonna take this blog post I'm writing right now. But here's where I want to start.

"Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? he should call the elders of the church to pray over him and annoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so thatyou may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." ~James 5:13-16


So a couple of my friends in choir hold a weekly Bible study, and a couple nights ago we talked about prayer, and what it is...and it really got my thoughts stirring, and the Holy Spirit started to do some really cool stuff.
So maybe ya'll have heard this analogy before. It's like..we all have a best friend, or a group of friends or a family member we are really close to. But what would happen if we just stopped talking to that person? if we stopped communicating with them completely? Inevitably, whether over time or quickly, depending on the relationship, that friendship would probably start to suffer a little bit.
Now think of our relationship with Christ.  How often do we go through our day, and not acknowledge The Creator of the universe at all? I have this problem-when things are good, yeah I might throw up a little thanks, a shout out to Jesus...and when things are bad I'm pretty consistent about telling him to fix the mess that I most likely made myself.  But that's exactly it. Until just recently I viewed prayer as something routine, something that I just sort of 'did' in my relationship with God.
Well if you read that passage I posted from James..you'll see that that's not what prayer is about.
Guys, prayer is a gift. Ya'll it's not something that should be viewed as a chore, or as something we HAVE to do. It's open communication with the God who loved us enough to die for us!
Think about it this way.
God sent his son to die for us, but imagine if we had no communication with Him after Christ died, If we had no communication with Christ-no solid rock  to turn to?  We aren't deserving of this communication with him at all! But the fact that God is great and loving enough to offer this gift-even though we constantly sin, and are constantly messing up...That should be enough to make us want to pray ALL THE TIME!
"I cried out to God for help; 
I cried out to God to hear me.
When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands
and my soul refused to be comforted." -Psalm 77:1-2


Something I love about prayer, that I'm growing to love, is knowing that God hears me. And like...yeah I always knew in the back of my head that he heard my prayers..I mean we get that every sunday when we go to church practically-that God hears us. But I feel like, since we're humans, and we won't ever be able to fully comprehend Christ in so many ways..it's hard for us to get that when God says he hears us...Guys, he HEEEARRRRS US! I mean, I fully believe that when we sit down, or go for a walk, or do whatever to just spend time, intentional time, with the Lord..he's not just like.."Oh, hey, hannah wants to talk to me...Cool." Guys, I picture Him getting so pumped, so stinking EXCITED just to spend time with us-even if it is just for a small amount of time. Guys how amazing is that? That God really wants to hear what we have to say!!!! I wish I could fully appreciate that.
But here's something else cool about prayer-and praying for others specifically.
It keeps us in touch with the Lord. After going to this Bible study and learning a little about prayer, I tried something the next day, AKA yesterday, at school. I have multiple friends who aren't believers, and one in particular I walk with going to and from one of my classes. And as we walked, God put the desire in my heart to just..'shower her with prayer'. I know that may sound cheesy, but it was so fulfilling not even knowing the full extent of what was going on in her life, and just praying for God to work in her life that day. And who knows-maybe He revealed something in her heart. But throughout the day I started doing that-picking a person in my life, or even an issue in my own life...or even something I was thankful for, or something that I was upset about..and I Just told God about it or them. And guys, my joy was so much more COMPLETE! I was able to focus on the Lord in such a more real way-and prayer became a privelege..
Ya'll, prayer is so important...and it is truly, truly POWERFUL!
Love ya'll! Keep living for Christ!

Radiance

Hey guys! It's been forever since I've posted, but I'm gonna try and be more consistent.
I want to talk a little about radiance.

Radiance: brightness or light. warm, cheerful.

The first time I heard the term radiance, the first thing I thought of was the sun. I mean radiance, the word itself, isn't really a word that I regularly use every day in my vocabulary (if you do...cool!). But yeah, I thought of the sun. I know for everyone that experienced the Texas heat this summer..it was HOT! The sun was RADIANT. While I'm pretty positive nobody was walking around outside talking about how cheerful the heat was, you have to admit: the sun was noticeable. It was light.

"Therefore, let your light shine among men, so that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." -Matthew 5:16

So I've heard that verse up there a lot in life, and legitimately right now as I'm writing this I'm beginning to see what it means to have a light that shines.
Of course, of course of COUUUURSE we are called as lovers and followers of Christ to witness, to be bold, to share the gospel and carry out Christ's great commission. And I know a lot of times I hear people say that you can do that two ways: through your words and through your actions.
Well what about the way you respond?  What about the way that you carry yourself?  Guys, here we are, and not only are we given this insane gift of having access to communicate with the creator of the universe, but we are presented with joy, unending joy, because we get to spend all of eternity with a God that loves us more than we could ever imagine-and yet we don't go through every single day completely and totally joy-filled, radiant! (granted..we're only human!)
But look at the Psalms:
"Come let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song." -Psalm 95:1-2
That's just one section of one Psalm out of that whole book of the Bible-the longest book of the Bible, too! It's filled with praises, and adoration to the Lord.

Guys, I want to challenge you (and myself!) to stop basing your joy on things that are circumstantial. Because while every good and perfect thing comes from the Lord, and He sure does give generously, we live in a broken world, so inevitably rough things are gonna happen-we're gonna have hard days, we're going to go through difficult times. If we allow our joy to be based on whether we are having a good day or not-we're going to fall short, and that 'joy' isn't joy anymore. It's happiness. now NOTHING is wrong with being happy, please don't get me wrong on that. But anyone can be happy-what shows radiance, what shines the light for everyone to see- is when you carry around the hope that Christ has offered us-the hope of eternal life, and you let that define the way you go about your life..people are going to notice.
We can't do this by ourselves...Pray that God can shine through you, and that He will teach you to be radiant.