Refocusing on the goal!

Ok it's been almost a week since my last post. I know that atleast one person has wondered what was going on with me!

Bloggers block? Well it would take trying to blog for that one to happen.

Too Busy? Well I can't say that this week has been overly hectic, but it was busy.

Lost focus? Yeah I think this is the real one. This was one of the first weeks in a while where I did not have to run to do a lot of things for others. It was a time where I could just be. It's amazing how busy you can become when you have nothing really planned.

This was also the final week of my class, which I must say I am glad is over! My team in the last week has been anything but motivated and I ended up doing most of the major work myself on wednesday night.

So now that I've realized that my life has been out of focus, how do I refocus? Returning to things that are good for me, like blogging. Like taking the Sabbath off from school and reconnecting with friends. Asking God to help me to hear his voice on what I should do next.

Refocusing means giving up the distractions. Now I'm not talking about the ones that other people put in your life, I'm talking about the distractions we make in our own lives.

Today, I was driving back from Target and really wanted to stop and go shopping at Old Navy. Now I'm trying not to spend money on things I don't need, but did I distract myself? Of course!

Proverbs 4:23 The Message
Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that's where life starts. Don't talk out of both sides of your mouth; avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip. Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions. Watch your step, and the road will stretch out smooth before you. Look neither right nor left; leave evil in the dust.

I'm refocusing and keeping my eyes straight ahead. Avoiding the distractions, especially the ones I put in front of me, is hard. But with God's help I can do it.

Lord,

Keep me from the distractions this life brings. I'm having a hard time keeping focused on what is important. Please open my eyes to see the important things in life.

Brie!

Seeing through the roses!

When I was younger I used to hear people telling you always to stop and smell the roses. I've thought about this over the years. Is stopping to smell the roses a distraction?

Today started out to be a extremely miserable looking day. It was gray and gloomy, there was even fog in the air that made things even more misty. Church had all the lights on and but because of the tinted windows it made outside look even gloomier.

But there was Warmth! There was a fire, deep inside our hearts as we began to praise God in our sanctuary. The room was lit with the hearts and songs of our church members. Our Pastor gave an awesome, invigorating sermon.

Were the gray skies and gloominess a distraction? I took count of the second service and noticed that the number was a little down today. Did our members and guests decide not to come because of the weather? It's a shame that some people missed what God did at church today.

It's amazing the things the Devil does to keep us down and distracted. I brings people into our lives to bring us away from our goals. I know that one of my good friends is struggling with this one right now. When can you decide that a person is too much of a distraction? Can you decide to not focus on the distraction? How can you cut the distraction out of your life if that happens to be your friend?

We are all masters of distracting ourselves and others from what really matters. How do we know when we are being distracted. How can we keep ourselves in check?

Luke 10: 38-42 NIV

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Mary chose what is better. She chose Jesus. Instead of giving into the distractions, she gave into Jesus. Instead of worrying about others, she focused on her relationship with her Lord.

If we continue to focus on God. We will be more able to discern the distractions. That is all we need!

Lord,

Help us to see through the distractions, help us to keep walking down the path with our focus. Keep us safe and in your care.

Brie!

Friends Forever?

Ever have an old friend keep popping into your mind? I've had a couple instances over the last few weeks that have brought one to mind, once when I was at the hospital and ran into a mutual friend who asked me how he was doing, and the other was running into a guy that reminded me of another mutual friend.

It's really funny how things like that work. So tonight on my way home I called his old number, not even knowing if it was still his number because last I knew he had gone back to Africa. I was amazed that he answered. He said he had just been back about a month and that his trip had put him into a new and better frame of mind.

I know before he left he had run into many problems with being unemployed and other really rough times.

We talked for almost a half an hour making plans to catch up later this evening. I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined reconnecting with him today. The really kewl thing was that I could feel his smile through the phone. I could feel him happiness and warmth. I realized that the time off for him had given him a new lease on his life.

The last time we talked he sounded so down that it make me sad. But today I could feel the smile on his face through the phone. He actually picked me up after being down and exhausted today.

It was awesome how quickly God brought this friend back into my life. How he knew exactly what I needed. How he instantaneously recreated the friendship.

God does the same types of things for all of us everyday. When someone unexpectedly smiles at you for no reason. When that car on the beltway lets you in when you have to change lanes. The person who offers to help you with your bags. The kid that held the door for you. All of these things are God working to make your day a little better.

Times are always going to be rough, but leave it to God to show you that bit of sunshine in your day. He is there to help us to get through.

Psalm 121:1-2 NIV

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?

My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

Lord,

Thank you for turning my day around. It's been such a blessing hearing from my friend again. I pray that you bless him with the happiness that you have brought to me. Be with all of my friends and family tonight. Give them each little glimpses of your love.

Brie!

To Share or Not To Share?

Sharing your personal feelings is really hard and can really set you up for disaster.

A couple weeks back, I decided on a whim to share my blog with two people that have been really influential in my life. Both of them have been inspirations for me over and over again. God definitely has been working through these two guys for his kingdom. It's amazing how humble each of them are about it though.

Well, I know that both of them have been reading my blog bringing my overall readership to a number that I can still count on one hand. One of the people that I mentioned earlier is my Dad.

My Dad and I have our list of things that we talk about. Vacations, Backpacking/Camping, the Jersey Shore, Our Family, and anything I need done to my car. These have been the general topics that we always seem to talk about. Well, the last few times I've talked to my Dad he's brought up my Blog. In fact last night when we talked he was full of words of encouragement that really meant a lot to me.

It's amazing once again how God works in our lives. Don't get me wrong, my Dad and I have talked about religious things before, but with the addition of this blog he was able to support me in a new way. I never realized when I began this chapter of my walk that it could bring me closer to my father while bringing me closer to my Heavenly Father.


Proverbs 13:20 NIV
He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.

Proverbs 13:20 KJV

He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.

Guess that's what happens when you walk with the wise!

Lord,

Thank you for giving me such wise people in my life. I know that I would be far worse off without their shining guides. Help me to keep my eyes focused on you! Please continue to stretch out your healing hand to each of my friends and family. I praise you for all that you do!

Brie!

Deception, real or imagined?

Have you ever been the receiver of deception. I'm sure that all of us can say yes!
How many times do we hold grudges against other people because they have deceived us?
Have you ever deceived yourself? Now stop and think about it honestly!

How many times have you not quite checked that box that puts you out of the normal category? Do we deceive ourselves to try to fit in? Do we put on ideas and try hard to convince others that we are correct to attempt to deceive ourselves?

I know that I have done the exact thing before. I've convinced myself that I needed to get someones approval adding all of the justifications I had come up with so that they can confirm my deception. But have I really deceived myself?

I have a friend that is just starting to get on the correct medications to help her to deal with everyday life. But I can see her taking the trail to deceive herself that she doesn't need it. I can hear her trying to get the approval of anyone by saying:

I don't need that medication, I'm perfectly fine with out it.

She is looking for that person to agree with her!

Another friend is starting down a road of destructive behavior that will most likely lead him to falling into addiction once again. Also looking for approval he states:

I'm back hanging with Mr. X.

He's looking for the same thing.

How is it that Satan can deceive us to the point where we deceive ourselves. Internal reasoning in humans is so flawed by sin. It's obvious that our brains were not made to constantly deal with deception. We so easily give in and let someone validate our incorrect thinking.

Genesis 3:1-6 NIV
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Can you see Eve giving Adam the fruit. Was she trying to convince herself that everything was going to be alright by getting Adam to agree and eat the fruit? Has nothing changed over all this time.

The only thing that can help our feeble minds is Jesus. He is the only person that is able to discern our deceptions and dispel them. He can help us see through the cloudiness of our minds and see His will for us. I pray that Jesus clears the way for each of us.

Lord,

Thank you for always bringing out the light just when we need it. If there are any deceptions in my life that I need to deal with please enlighten my eyes to see them. I praise you for my Friends and Family. Thanks your for keeping us safe and bringing us through another week.

Brie!

Who can you trust?

Have you ever felt like you can not trust anyone?

It seems like no one is exempt from being let down. A friend of mine has been having a hard time knowing who she can trust. The problem with this is that she is pushing everyone back instead of just focusing on the people who have let her down.

How often do we do the same things in life? How often do we just give up on everything? Work? Friendships? Relationships?

When you push people away and shut them out of your life, you take away any hope of them being able to come through for you. How can we shut out the ones we love?

There is another friend that is slowly becoming a fair weather friend. Now, for those of you who don't know what a fair weather friend is, that is when a friend is around in the good times, but is no where to be found when you need him. I feel he would come through if he had to, but he really does not seem to be genuine in showing his friendship at this point. When times are good, he's there. If he's requested to be there he will show, but he will not offer to be there.

How do you deal with friends like this? If you push them away is that wrong? Can you trust a friend like this? What would God do?

Psalms 37: 27-28 The Message

Turn your back on evil,
work for the good and don't quit.
God loves this kind of thing,
never turns away from his friends.

I love how it says God never turns away from his friends. This is where the answer is. I realize that I have to continue to love my friends. I have to accept when the shut me out and when they push back. I have to show compassion and love through the hard times. I can not be that fair weather friend.

It's a hard decision to make in some cases. It's hard to turn your back when evil has struck and left you wondering why your friend would do such a thing to you. But I'm gonna keep on working on me and not quit.

Pray for my friends and especially me!

Lord,

I do have a real hard time accepting my friends again when I have been shut out. I do have a tendency to forgive, but I make sure they hear about it along the way. Please help me to step back and accept them again, and do what you would do by just never turning away.

Brie!

Directions?

Who has the directions?

I have an uncanny ability to never get lost. I get it from my Dad's side of the family. No matter where you take me it seems like I can always find my way. My nephew got the same ability, as a young boy he told my friend Debbie how to get somewhere at the campground where we spend part of the summer. Now my other nephew seems to have no idea where he is most of the time. He's probably get lost walking down a street with no turns. For people like him we have directions.

Most people need directions to get somewhere. Directions are suppose to help us find where we are going, except if they are outdated or wrong. There is nothing worse then having bad directions.

I'm sure through the history of the world bad directions have let to many disappointments. But the question remains, who has the directions.

Last week my roommate was going from her office in DC to Bethesda. She was saying that when she first printed out the directions it took her over into Virginia and up the GW Parkway to the beltway. Something like 26 minutes. It was suppose to be the shortest time route. but it was like miles longer. She reran the direction looking for the shortest distance route and it was 27 minutes. Most people would have taken the first route just trusting the directions.

A while back, I overheard a discussion at work over which website offered the best directions. I was really shocked that people had such strong opinions about something as simple as directions and where to get them from. Mapquest? Google? Yahoo?

One guy said that he prints out all three and studies each one to find the best route. How can you really know the best route to a place you have never been before.

Do we ever learn which directions to trust and which ones to assume are bad? How can we tell the difference?

God is the master at giving directions.

Jonah 1:1-3a
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.

Then it takes a whole two chapters, three days and three nights in the belly of a "fish" for Jonah to finally come to his senses. Which is a lot considering that Jonah is only 4 chapters long!

Jonah 3:1-3a
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: " Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you." Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.

Directions right from the Lord. Think Jonah's directions were clear enough? Imagine if we heard God as clearly as that. Do you think we would have run like Jonah did?

Well believe it or not we can have a walk with God like that. The more that prayer becomes a part of your life, the more that you work on that walk with Jesus, the more clear your directions will become.

The Devil will also be there to try to add to and change the directions to make them bad, to make us want to go to Tarshish instead. But if we seek God's will he can fix the directions and keep us focused on our goal.

The Christian walk was never promised to be easy, but it's a little better with directions you can trust!

Lord,

I pray that you are with us through this tough decision making time. Please guide each and every one of us to make the decisions that you would want for us to make. Help each of us to be patient with each other. I thank you for such a loving group of people who can come together as a family.

Brie!

Ups and Downs!

For those of you who don't know it, I'm a basketball fan. I was watching the Wizards play the Atlanta Hawks tonight, and the game hit me to the point that I wanted to blog about it.

Now for those of you who read my blog on a normal basis you are probably really wondering where this one will go!

The Wizards walked into tonight's game on top of the world. They had just beat the Raptors last night 129-109. They had found out that three of the Hawks starters were out. I mean talk about the road being paved for victory.

They took an early lead being ahead by 11 points at one point in the first half. I'm sure at a half time they were still on top of the world. BUT, the third quarter brought disaster. The Hawks closed the Wizards lead and by the end of the quarter the Hawks had taken the lead in the game. The Wizards ended up loosing the game 100-97.

When did the whole thing go wrong? It seems like they at first were so sure of themselves that maybe they relaxed their guard. Maybe they let their heads get the best of them. Maybe they just underestimated their opponent.

How many times do we go through life and do the same thing. When our heads get the best of us, our hearts take a back seat. That promotion should have been mine! I should have been recognized for my work at church. How dare they not realize all I have done.

We so many times underestimate the hard work that Satan does. We forget that he is ready to get us down however he can.

When cancer hits a family, it hits hard. Many times the family has to pull together to help to get through. My family was hit especially hard these last few years. Just when you thought things were fine, BAM! Like the Wizards third quarter you are left looking at life wondering what happened.

How many times have you been blindsided by things?

I was talking to my Uncle once and he was saying how hard the Devil was working to get our family down. I figured the Devil must see our family as being strong to give us such trials. Again back to the text from a few night ago. I don't like to repeat texts, but here it goes.

James 1: 2-3 NIV
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

Such an inspiring text. Having joy though your trials. Job had it! Jesus had it! I can have it too!

So when things hit you the hardest. When you feel like you are almost down and out. When you feel that you reached the end of your rope. Reach to God. Claim your joy and build your faith!

Lord,

Thank you for helping to build my faith so much this last year. I know that this road is long and hard, but I'm trudging through taking one step at a time, with your help. Be with my family and "family" tomorrow. Keep us all safe and reaching for you!

Brie!

The Calm Before the Storm!

Tonight, once again they are calling for snow tomorrow. The prediction of 2-4 inches of snow during the day tomorrow. Once again the weatherman predicts, once again we are unsure if they will be right, but everyone is talking about it.

Why is it that even though the weather is often incorrect we still hold it to be true? People walk around in stores, bars, Starbucks, hospitals, and work talking about the snow we are going to get tomorrow. How come after all the let down they still assume the weatherman is going to be right.

Look at the two major storms we have had this year, both predicted very wrong! The first one was suppose to be freezing rain and snow, we got three or more inches of sleet. The second one a bit of freezing rain or rain. Bam! Three inches of pure snow. Who's to say that tomorrows prediction will be right? Can we really trust it enough or do we just plan for the worst?

Soon my roommate will be returning with her sister in tow. Can I predict what will happen? Will this change make the household dynamic totally change? Is there going to be a storm? A tornado? or just a gentle rain?

Am I qualified to predict? What makes the weatherman qualified to predict? People used to predict the weather based on history. Now a lot of it is done using computer models that are suppose to make it more accurate. I remember teaching weather when I was a nature director at Camp. We had no real tools to predict with, but every morning we gave a weather report form our best guess. Do we often do this in life?

I can see the possibility of a storm in my future. But will thinking about it bring it to life? What is my possibility build on? History, well no we have not all lived together before so who knows what will happen. What else is there to build the prediction on?

The Bible makes a lot of predictions that are proven later in time. How did these people make these predictions? Did God inform them of what was going to happen? Many times the answer is yes!

Jesus is the greatest prediction in the Bible. Imagine the fact that when God predicts,there is no questioning. It's not based on history, but on fact! God knows the end from the beginning. God knows how much snow will fall tomorrow! God knows if my new home scenario will work out! God takes the question out of the prediction.

So where am I going with this? I'm going back to trust. I have to trust that God knows what is going to happen. It does not make my life better worrying about how much snow we are going to get. It also does not help my life to worry about my roommates. I just have to trust!

Out of anyone in the Bible, Job was one man that never could have predicted what happened to him. He lost everything in his life and yet Job still trusted. He imagined the worst case scenario here in this text.

JOB 13:15a

NIV
"Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;"
The Message
"Because even if he killed me, I'd keep on hoping."
KJV
"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him:"

Imagine feeling completely hopeless. So far down the only prediction you can make is death. But Job still had trust. He still had hope! I can not predict tomorrow, but my God can!

Lord,

Protect me and my "family" tonight. We are getting ready to make some big changes in our living situation. Give us your protecting hand over our home. Help keep the thunder and lightning to a minimum. Help us to only hear the blessed pitter-pat of a quiet shower! Keep us focused on the sunshine that follows the storm!

Brie!

Life!

Wow, how much can one thing change your life. I've never been to the hospital so many times in a one week period. I think the people there are beginning to recognize me.

This has also been a very powerful week for me as well. I'm not going to blog too much tonight, but I wanted to take some time in my exhausted state to remind myself that this prayer journey is here.

I had an incredible Friday night at church. We had miracle and healing night, talk about an uplifting experience. People gathering around to uplift you in your struggles in life. It was one of the most powerful nights of my life. We even took out time to pray for a good friend of mine who is struggling with reconciling his Christianity, but as my pastor said on sabbath it's about revising your map. It was an awesome sermon. http://lookingforachurch.org


James 1: 2-3 NIV
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

I'm guessing that through all the trials lately that I'm really developing some perseverance skills!!! OK tired and not thinking well tonight.

Lord,

Thank you so much for the ups and downs of the last week. The trials that you have brought me through and the joys and happiness that have occurred along the way. Keep me in your care.

Brie!