“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” Romans 15:7
Acceptance is a huge thing. And it’s something that I know a lot of people struggle with. There could be a lot of reasons why someone doesn’t feel accepted. They could feel like their group of friends doesn’t accept them for who they are. New kids at youth group can feel that way a lot. And many other reasons. Think about it. God loves ALL of us. He died for ALL of us. Why don’t we accept people? Cause’ their not “cool” or “popular”? Cause’ they don’t share the same interests as you do? Cause’ they are different? Cause’ they are younger? Those aren’t good reasons, are they? If we all weren’t different, this world would be pretty boring. Put yourselves in their shoes. Kind of makes you think differently doesn’t it? When you see new people at youth group or church or school or anywhere, put yourself in that position. I mean, we all probably were that person at some point in our lives. Even if you’re just saying hello and flashing a smile, they will remember that you went out of your way to say hello to them. And sometimes that itself is enough.
If you are someone who feels like you aren’t accepted by people a lot, I want you to know that you do not need to change yourself to “fit in.” You don’t need to be like everyone else to be a part of a certain group of friends. If they can’t love you for you, then they aren’t worth it. Because God made you the way you are, obviously. He loves you just the way you are. He doesn’t want you to be like someone else. Embrace the person that God made you to be, and wants you to be. You are amazing, and special and your real, true friends will realize that. And so will so many other people. Don’t get discouraged. I know it’s so easy to. But, just be you (: Cause’ you’re the best you you can be.
So, go say hi to some people. Smile here and there. It’ll pay off (: Love you guys.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18
I like this verse. Those words, “brokenhearted” and “crushed” are such strong feelings that I know a lot of us have felt before. They’re not easy feelings to cope with either. You can’t really just push them aside and move on with life. I mean, they’re self explanatory. Brokenhearted, crushed. When you’re crushed you feel let down, empty, broken inside. It’s not fun to feel crushed. Or brokenhearted. Think about the times you have felt either of these. Most of the time it’s because of someone or something that is very important to us, and they/it lets us down. A friendship doesn’t go the way we want it to. A relationship doesn’t go the way we want it to. An opportunity doesn’t go the way we want it to. We don’t get something that we really really want. Sometimes, we don’t realize or see stuff that’s right in front of our faces. We’re blind to it. If a friend is treating you badly and not being a good friend what so ever, but you care about this person and want them in your life, you’ll look past the hurt they are causing you because you don’t want them to walk out of you life. You don’t want them to leave. So we go all out to try to keep this friendship going. Honestly, if they are treating you badly and not being nice at all, they are not truly your friend. I feel like, God puts us through heartbreak and being crushed because he wants us to open out eyes. And see what’s happening right in front of us. Before we get more hurt. We need to guard our hearts and be careful. We need to trust God with everything. Whoever he brings in our lives and whoever he takes out. It’s all for a good reason. And we may not realize that right away, but in the future we will appreciate it and be thankful for it and about it. Because it will benefit us. It will. God can heal broken hearts. No doubt about. It seems like when we are crushed or brokenhearted that’s when it seems like we have no one. That’s when we get afraid to let people in because we feel like we’re just going to get hurt all over again. Trust God. I’ve said that before, I know. But he brings people into our lives for a reason. And he takes people out of our lives for a reason. Not only do we need Gods strength, which is most important, but we need support from our friends. And we need our friends there so that when we maybe can’t see something going on or see what something is leading us to, those friends will be there to help you open your eyes. And to help keep you on the track. Don’t turn your friends away when you’re hurting because they are here to help you. Most importantly don’t turn away from God when you’re hurting because he is the only one who can make you whole again. He is the only one who can put the pieces of your heart back together. When we’re hurt, we become somewhat vulnerable, and desperate to feel loved again. A lot of the times we try to fill those holes and gaps in our hearts with things that we think will make us better. Most of the times it’s not good stuff. Stop following your heart. It’s not about what your heart wants. It’s about what God wants. Start following what he wants. Because it’s definitely better for you, and better for your life. Don’t indulge in the desires of your heart if they’re not desires that God put in there. Cause they aren’t always the best thing for you. Goodness I jump around a lot. Haha. I’m sorry, I hope you’re still following me here. We don’t need to look and search for things to satisfy us. We have God. What’s better? What more do we need? When you’re feeling crushed, or brokenhearted run to God. Run to him. He’s right there. Pray and talk to him. Can’t put your feelings into words? Just cry. God knows what each and every single one of your tears is trying to say. And sometimes that’s the only way we can get things out. You’re not bothering God. God isn’t overwhelmed by our needs. Big or small. I’m going to leave you with one things today.
God doesn’t see them as giant needs; he sees them as giant opportunities.
I hope everyone is having a super great Friday! I hope you enjoyed this post. Love you guys.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (NIV)
“All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (The Message)
- I posted ‘The Message’ version also because I liked how it was worded.-
This is another one of my favorite verses. It goes on longer but I just wanted to post this part of it for today. But I encourage you to go read The rest of it because it’s good stuff. Anyway.
“-the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles,” Wow. That’s kind of crazy to think about isn’t it? That no matter what we go through, Gods there to comfort us. There isn’t anything we go through that God doesn’t know about. He knew it was going to happen. And he knows how you’re going to get through it. So let’s talk a little bit about hard times and struggles. I’m pretty positive that every single one of us has gone through hard times. Some tougher than others. I know that it’s not fun to go through stuff. But sometimes we need to go through things to realize something important that might be right in front of our faces but we are looking past it. Going through stuff makes us stronger. I think it’s important for us to remember that when we go through stuff we need to run to God not away from God. We can’t get through anything without him. We need him to be our strength when we don’t have much left. I know how easy it is to have hope and faith that things will get better when they seem awful. Don’t doubt that things won’t ever be better because that’s a lie that the devil wants you to think because he doesn’t want you growing closer to God. When bad things happen focus on the Lord. And just completely trust that he does have everything under control and he is going to make things work out for our good.
“You can’t lead anybody out of what you’re still bound by.” - Jonathan Shuttlesworth. Think about that statement. It really is so true. If you’re struggling with something, and someone else is struggling with a similar problem, you guys can be there for each other but it will be hard for you to help them get out of that situation when you yourself can’t get out of that situation. I hope that makes sense. It’s good to have someone who can relate to your situation and who has gotten through that situation because they can be there to support you and share what they’ve learned with you.
I’m going to leave you guys with a few things today. First of all, the devil can’t keep you from what God is going to do in you. He can try, and oh he will. But you need to stand strong with God. He is your strength and your shield. He will protect you from the enemies attacks. After all, he is stronger. And we need to continuously remind ourselves of that so that we never forget it and that we know full heartedly that it’s true. You’re here, on this earth, to do Gods will for your life. He’s going to make sure that you do that. He isn’t going to put you through anything he knows you can’t handle. Nothings impossible for us, cause he holds our world in his hands.
Secondly. We are breakable but the power within us is from him. Sure, we are going go through things that at times will seem unbearable and we might just want to give up and quit trying and waiting for things to get better. We are going to have break downs in our lives. But the power within us is from him. Think about that. God’s love and his power is inside of us. Living inside of us. Dwelling in our hearts. That incredible to me. Nothing can happen to us because we have him. And that’s just amazing.
I hope this made sense today. Haha. And I also hope and pray that you are all having a very great day today and if you’re not, I hope and pray it gets better. Love you guys.
“But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the LORD I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill.” Psalm 3:3-4
This is probably one of my favorite verses ever. I just love it. “But you are a shield around, O Lord:” Alright, think about that for a minute. God, who, compared to us is so big and so so mighty. Is a shield around us. Do you realize how amazing that is? What can happen to us if we let God be our shield and our strength? Nothing. No matter how hard we try to fix problems in our lives on our own, it rarely ever works. Ever. Like I somewhat mentioned in the last post. If God wants something out of our lives, he’s going to remove it. And he doesn’t want us to want it back. He wants us to trust that he has better things in store for us. A lot of the time we don’t see problematic things in our life because we don’t want to. Does that make sense? Like, say you have a person in your life who has maybe hurt you a lot and puts you down a lot but you’re really close friends with this person so you don’t want to walk out of their life and you definitely don’t want them walking out of yours. So you just try to look past everything and make things better on your own. Thinking that you can. Don’t feel like you messed up if you’re reading this and saying that that’s you. Cause I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there at some point in our lives. But it’s those kind of things that hurt us when God starts to take it away. Because he wants us to realize what this person or thing is doing to us and doing to our lives. If God wants to take something, let him have it. Guaranteed he has something better for us and our lives. Maybe not right away. Like, don’t expect God to take something away and automatically put something great in it’s place. God does stuff on his own time. He’s got a whole plan and he knows what he’s doing.
I don’t know if this is switching gears here but I really want to talk about this.
Trust. [truhst] –noun- reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.
Well, I feel like I got very off subject today. Haha. But I feel like this was a successful post! And I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you all are having a great day today (: Love you guys.
Hey everyone! I hope you’re all having a great day today.
So today I wanted to talk to you guys about the verse that’s on the picture up there under the blog title. Ephesians 3:20.It says...
“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” Ephesians 3:20 NLT
“God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!” Ephesians 3:20 (The MESSAGE)
Now, read through that verse a few times. It’s really quite amazing if you think about what those words are saying. For Christmas, one of my best friends got me this book called “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan. It’s about just how amazing and incredibly great Gods love for us is. In the first chapter he tells you to go online and look at this video. Watch this. Really, really watch this.
Kind of makes you think doesn’t it. It kind of blows your mind, right? I’m sure there are people out there who didn’t even know that that many galaxies existed. I know I didn’t. When you look up at the stars at night, what do you think? What crosses your mind? Do you think how they are pretty and twinkly and such? Or do you think that God made those stars. He placed them exactly where they are. Exactly where he wants them to be. They didn’t just show up one day. This is something that has always left me in awe. Look outside. All you see is snow, right? A whole lot of it. Think how many snow flakes are on the ground right now. Individual, tiny little snow flakes. Not a single one of those snowflakes is the same. Isn’t that crazy? Not even ONE is the same as the other. Wow.
“to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” Everybody has goals in life. Everybody dreams of growing up and pursuing the career of their dreams. Whatever it may be. God knew us before we were born into the world. He made us. He created us. He took time out of the creation of the whole wide world, to make us and mold every single detail about us. To mold our hearts. Our lives are a story that he has written out. He knows what lies in the next sentence, paragraph, and chapter. Sometimes what we want isn’t what God wants for us. He’ll take stuff out of our lives if he doesn’t want it there. That’s hard. When things get taken away from you. But it’s for the better. God knows what best for us. And we need to trust that. And have faith in that. Have faith in him. It’s important that we trust God because it’s so easy for us to just jump to negatives and worst case scenarios when things go wrong and when things don’t go as planned. (which is usually always) One day, you may think you know how you want to spend the rest of your life but then the next day God could change your mind. For the longest time I wanted to be in the fashion business when I grew up. You could always find me sketching clothes, or hidden in a fashion magazine. I was for sure that that was going to be how I spent the rest of my life. Until this past fall. At my youth groups fall retreat. Let me explain, bear with me. I’ve always loved helping people when they’re struggling and just being there for people when they need me. I have a big heart, you could say. At fall retreat, I don’t even know how to explain it. Something hit me and stuck with me in the back of my mind for a while. The Wednesday after we got back I remember looking around at everyone and just thinking that I really do care about everyone. Helping people as best I can is what I love to do. And I remember thinking “well, you could be a youth pastor.” Of course I just started crying. Haha. But recently God has showed me a lot and I feel like that’s what he wants me to do with my life. I’m going to be a Youth Pastor. And although I’m nervous about it, I’m so ecstatic and more excited about that than anything else. God’s got plans, you guys. Plans that we can’t even fathom, or grasp, or wrap our minds around. I want to leave you guys with this today. Be open to what God has for you. Nothing is impossible for him. He wants to use to be a light and a fountain. He wants you to show people the love and the fire that’s inside of you. Fire spreads. Don’t stop it. Be willing to put yourselves out there to glorify him. He loves you unconditionally and has so so SO much in store for each and everyone of you today, tomorrow, and forever. I hope you all have a great day (: Love you guys.
Why hello there! You might be thinking what the heck this blog is and why in the world I made it. That's why I'm here to explain to you, and share my heart on why I made this. So here goes.
I made this blog simply because I notice how alot of people are struggling lately. Actually, not just lately. All the time. And I thought how I could try to encourage you guys. Wheather you're having a good day or not. So basically everyday (depending on if I can get on and update that day) I will post a verse and I will "dig deeper" into that verse and share my thoughts on it. Or somedays I might just bring a topic up that I would like to share with you and talk to you about. I hope and I pray that you find encouragment in my posts but most importantly I hope that God shines through these posts. I hope that maybe one day one of the verses will be exaclty what you needed. God has given me a heart that simply just wants to help anyone and everyone in any way possible that I can. A heart that desires to share Gods love with people, especially young people. So I'm going to do just that with this blog. I hope you enjoy it, and love it, and that God shows you things through it :) Thanks for reading.
