A drop of strength

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Image by timscap via Flickr

Some days we don’t have the energy to do much or to process much. Just hold onto the Word of God and place it in your heart to get you through.

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand”
Isaiah 41:10

Blessings

The undesired mission

The first thing I read this morning was about Moses talking to God about why was he the chosen one to free the Israelites from Egypt. He was not thrilled with God choosing him for this mission. I love the book of Exodus and Moses is one of my favorite characters in the Bible, so I can’t deny feeling for Moses on this one…LOL!

In Exodus 3:10-4:13, you can read the conversation where God tells Moses to do. Moses gives God every reason why he’s not the right person for the job. God basically tells him, I created you therefore I’ll equip you and poor Moses comes back with a whine… Why me? Send someone else…

How many times have we been in that situation? God places in your heart to witness to someone and it happens to be someone you don’t like much. Or he calls you to be part of a ministry but that’s not what you like to do. Better yet, just like the parable of the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) where you are asked to leave it all behind and start from scratch. Can you hear that whiney noise in your head yet?

One of the things that I’ve discovered in my life journey is that everything in our lives has a purpose and it becomes useful at different stages. If we believe in a life with purpose then we would need to admit that our missions are handpicked for us.

As I meditate of why Moses would had been the person for the job; not only he was an Israelite which connected him with God’s people, but he had been raised in the palace with Pharaoh. He knew the ins and outs, how things worked. It’s kind of like being bilingual, you’re the perfect person for the job if it involves being in the middle of things that involved both languages or cultures.

But just like Moses we don’t tend to see how we are perfect for the job and its mostly because we don’t want to do the jobs for whatever reason: fear, feelings of inadequacy, out of our comfort zone, disobedience, etc.

I remember a trying time in my life where God placed people who had gone through some of my trials and worse. I remember saying, “it’s not that I’m happy with your suffering, but I’m glad you understand”. Every test in our life is a testimony in the making and it’s a tool in our belt for the next mission. So with that in mind, how will you respond the next time you are called into action?

Could you imagine what would happen if our armed forces or our law enforcement officers declined their missions? Food for thought soldier of God!

 

 

Blessings!

Doing the right thing is not always fun

I recently encountered a situation were I was in a group and someone without provocation ( I promise) came and was very rude and disrespectful to me. My reaction:nothing! The people in the group where I was congratulated me for my reaction, stating that I had done the right thing, that the person’s attitude had been uncalled for and that I had taken the high road. So if I did the right thing, how did it not feel good? 

I said nothing, I did nothing. Inside there was a volcano of all the things I wanted to say and do, but nothing came out. There was a voice inside of me telling me how much of a wimp I was that I had not put this person in their place and tell them A, B, and C. How much I didn’t know how to react to situation like this. Sounds familiar? Yes, it’s called Satan! But at the time I was to angry to realize it.

I went home and I was pacing still reviewing scenarios in my head of what I should have said and done and all of the sudden I stopped. I remembered something I’ve told many people who can’t let go of a situation: Why are you carrying this person with you? Are you willing to have them move in with you?

Did you know that’s what happen when you hold on to a resentment? Yes, the person moves in with you and sleeps with you and eats with you and watches television right there by your side. I decided that I didn’t like this person enough to have them move in, plus I had made steak for dinner and it was very good and juicy and I only had one and didn’t want to share.

I moved on to why is this bothering me so much. I made reference to my own series in offenses. Why did this offended me and what was God trying to teach me?

The answer to the first one is pride. I was very uncomfortable by the fact that this was done in front of people and that I held restraint. Instead of being proud of myself for doing what I was supposed to do, my pride was hurt by the fact that I didn’t get even.

What was God trying to teach me through this situation? I meditated on this quite a bit. I think my lessons here were, definitely treat others as you like to be treated. I don’t think I’m rude to other people, but it always important to be watchful of how we do things. The other lesson is to keep your emotions in check and not allow them to lead you, which I didn’t and I did. The situation where we all were was a very tense one. This other person could have been reacting to the stress of our surroundings. In a way, I did the same thing by getting angry even though I didn’t show it.  Last but not least, that taking control of the flesh is not always fun, it’s painful but worth it.

Be blessed!

Jesus on Twitter

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

Continuing some of this technology talk, I was going through a phase of condemnation about my quiet time with God. Every morning I try to at least read a verse and meditate on it, but I usually don’t find that verse in my actual big bible on my nightstand. I felt bad thinking that because I was not opening the book all the time I was not doing enough.

First of all, I discovered that reading the Word of God is for me and not for God. I always felt that reading the bible was my ritual of worship and that it was done to please God, so I would read some, kind of like you read a billboard on the side of the road and my duty was done. As I’ve grown in my faith I’ve realized that although reading the Word of God it is an act of worship, it’s my heart and meditation in the Word what makes it an act of worship. Also, the bible is my manual to seek God’s wisdom and will for my life, so it’s actually for me that I should read it.

I had this idea that in order to do it “right” I had to do it with the actual big paper book and that’s why I was feeling bad about it. So I stopped being religious about it and realized that I had been reading, meditating and studying the Word of God, it was just in less traditional ways. So I wanted to share with you some of the ways I do so, maybe it will help you expose yourself more to the Word.

  • Biblegateway.com- Sometimes when reading the word you get a particular message about what God wants to say to you, but sometimes you want to know about what the bible says about a specific subject and it can be hard to find things, especially if you don’t have too many memorized scriptures or if you’re like me that I know the bible says something about that but I don’t know where. This site has a keyword search field that makes it very easy to search by topic or keywords.

            This site also has daily newsletters that come to your e-mail and are very educational.

  • Bible.com- it’s very similar to the one above. To me the distinction is that this particular site has some bibles studies about some very specific topics.
  • Twitter- Yes, believe it or not twitter has several “tweeps” that post scriptures all day. If you have a Smartphone and you have twitter on your phone, you can follow these people and wherever you are you can meditate on a verse. There are people who actually pray on Twitter everyday, twice a day (@Virtual_Abbey) some of my favorites are: @TopBibleVerses, @GreatBibleVerse, @DailyVerseTweet, and @Gods_Lighthouse You can stop and meditate wherever you are. Of course there are pastors, preachers and speakers who are on Twitter that also post very good things, but I’m focusing on those who just post scriptures. (side note: and if you’re on twitter I hope you’re following us as well @therisingmuse)
  • Bible on your phone- most people have smartphones these days and there is a free bible application available for most of them. I have a blackberry and the one in my phone not only allows bible reading in most popular versions, but it allows keyword searches and has some bible studies as well.
  • Facebook- I’ll be honest, I don’t use this one. I do have facebook on my phone, but I rarely look at it, but I’ve seen in some of my friends news feeds some bible verses pages.

 So being a technology geek should not keep you from feeding your soul.

 Do you know of any other sources and want to share? Feel free to comment we would love to hear from you…

Blessings

Process of writing this blog

I was asked how long it usually takes me to write a blog post. The answer, it depends. I try to write often because it usually means that I’m connected to the source of my inspiration, God.  Also through the process of writing I can learn and understand the spiritual impact of my surroundings and compare it with what the Word says regarding my experiences. There are days were I can be sleeping, and I’m awaken and I just turn on my laptop and start writing and the words flow. Sometimes just a scripture or a situation triggers me to be inspired and write.  If I’m connected and inspired I can even write two or more postings in one day and save the extra ones for rainy days (days where I can’t even remember my name).

On days when I’m not inspired or not connected with God and I’m trying to write just to make sure that all my readers don’t think that I’ve fallen from the face of the earth, a post is like pulling teeth. Nothing makes me flow, nothing makes sense and I end up writing ramblings that I end up not publishing.  This is an inspirational blog, so if I have nothing to say that can enrich my reader’s lives, it’s better for me to shut and see why I don’t have anything enriching my own life that day to share.

After I write the content, I look for the specific scriptures that will exemplify what I’m talking about. I know the words in the bible but not the biblical references and that’s when biblegateway.com becomes my friend.  For example I know that the Word of God says he will renew our strength and that we will be able to fly like eagles, but I have to look up where it says that. (It’s on Isaiah 40:31 by the way)

The last part of the process is the visual additions. Looking for the perfect picture or the perfect song to add can take some time, especially when Google is not cooperative or when our internal WordPress Zemanta (an image system) thinks that we’re talking about dogs when we’re talking about burgers  and it gives you all the wrong images.

Back to the original question, how long does it take me to create and publish a post? On a good day, thirty minutes. On a hard day, which is a day when I can’t find the right or perfect images or sounds, then it can take me up to two hours in any given day.

So now you know the secret behind this blog’s writing.

Have a great day and enjoy this song!