The Ability To Glorify

So, the other day I was having a really rotten day. Not a normal rotten day, but a really rotten day. I was struggling, I was fed up, I was angry, I was not someone who you wanted to be around that particular day. So, I went outside to clear my head. To think. To try and reason things out.
There's a place in our yard to the side, behind a island of tree's near our woods, where I used to go when I was a little girl. I smiled despite feeling rotten as I walked down the trail towards my little "corner", I remember walking this trail many times before, with a stick in my hand, pretending it was a golden scepter and that I was a princess in my own imaginary world. Life somehow is so much simpler when we're younger...
Anyways as I reached my corner I sat down on one of the fallen logs and started to think and to pray. I sat there for about half an hour. I cried out to God asking, why again, did we have to go through this? How many times, God?
I have a habit of leaning my chin into my hands when I think, so I stared at the ground while I was thinking and praying. When I was done I looked up, and somewhere in the near far distance, I heard a bird singing. I looked around and noticed that the tree's were starting to loose some of their leaves. Some of the leaves on the ground had already turned yellow and red, and then some were still on the tree's shinning a magnificent green color. It had been raining that day and the sun was just coming out from behind a cloud. I started to think about the bird I was hearing. It was so cute and so happy to hear him (or her) just singing out, like no one was listening. I thought about what it takes to hear a little bird singing. It takes ears and ear drums of course, but it also is the ability to hear. I looked around at the all the different colors of the leaves and the sun shinning and it takes to see. It takes, eyes and all the muscles in your eye's, but it also takes the ability to see. Sherlock Holmes once said, "There are millions of people who see things every day, but do not observe." It takes ability to see and hear. It takes thinking about things to notice them because we take all of this for granted. What about if there was a different way of communicating with each other besides hearing each other? What if God just made the world black and white? What if God didn't give us the ability to hear things and see things?
So why did God give us the gift of seeing colors and hearing beautiful things? To give glory to His name.
Psalm 19:1
"The heavens declare the glory of God and firmament shows His handiwork."
He gave us the gift of our senses to glorify Him.
James 1:17 

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning."

So every gift that God gives us is from Him and Him alone and He gives it to us for His glory. Pretty cool huh? :)
It's so easy to get caught up in our daily lives and become so absorbed in what we are doing and just take for granted everything around us. I do it every single day. So today, remember to stop and maybe listen to the birds, look around at all the colors of the outdoors around you, look at the baby you hold in your arms, and marvel at the work that God has done. Praise Him from whom all blessings flow. Give Him the honor due to his name. Thank Him for His good and perfect gifts. Above all remember to give God the glory.
"May the Lord bless you and keep you and the Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you, may the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace."
Numbers 6:24-26
~Emma :) 

The Beauty Of The Storm

So I know in my last post I did a introduction to what I said was going to be a series of post about the armor of God, and I fully intend to do the series of post, I am excited about them, but today I felt like the Lord was leading me to write about something else.
Recently I have been learning about trusting the Lord. Learning to trust the Lord is a hard... very hard thing. Why is it so hard? I think it's because we, as humans, think that love is to be shown through giving me everything that I want. This is plain selfishness This of course is normal to sinful human beings. We are all guilty of it. I am not saying that celebrating someone (a birthday for example) is wrong. Totally the opposite, your celebrating life. But when it becomes a thing where all you want is people to "worship" you and give you what you want, then that is sin.
But God loves in a different sort of way. A way that isn't selfish. God loves us, that's why He sends opportunities like hard struggles for us to trust Him. Wow! That's a little confusing isn't it? I know it is for me. I keep thinking, "God you love me, why did you let this happen to me?"
I wonder if God ever shakes his head and says, "You just don't get it do you Emma?" Or "How many times am I gonna have to teach you this lesson?" I know I would if I was Him. ;)
The past two weeks have been a struggle for me. There was many a time I wondered what exactly God was doing, and if He really cared why would He let this happen to me? In the back of my mind I knew that God did care and that God wasn't going to let me walk through this alone, but still I began to doubt... doubt is a terrible thing, because once its in your head, it's there and it can totally bring you down. With struggling with my doubt I began to feel frustrated with myself thinking, "Emma! You know the truth!! How many times have you been through this before?! You know God is still there and He loves you and is never going to leave you, so what's wrong with you?!"
I began to think yesterday how I needed to stop focusing so much on what was wrong in my life and start focusing on the blessings in my life. So I was saying in my head what I was thankful for throughout the day. That night in our family devotions my dad read this scripture;
John 10:27-30
"My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one."
Poppa then asked the question, "What does Jesus promise to those who follow Him? How does that make you feel?"
I felt like I had been hit with a sledgehammer with the name realization. It was a peaceful kind of hit with a sledgehammer though. I felt like doing a face-palm right then and there and saying, "I GET IT!"
I smiled as I said, "He promises and no one can snatch us out of His hands. We are His children. That makes me feel comforted."
And comforted was the exact word. I felt more peaceful then I had in a long time. I felt the comfort of knowing that God was with me, He loved me, not because anything I had done to deserve it, but because He is a merciful grace giving God. And that He wasn't going to leave me. That He would help me through not just this struggle, but all of my struggles.
I walked outside last night to get some fresh air and stopped to admire the sky. It was just about to rain, and I could hear thunder in the distance, but the sky was beautiful. There was a circle of storm clouds and through the middle of the circle there was a ray of sunshine, and it made me think, "Wow, God can make the most beautiful things even out of a storm."
God can make the most wonderful thing come out of a struggle, just like making a storm beautiful. All we have to do is trust Him. Because how loving is He, after He saves us, to call us His children or sheep, and promises that no one can pluck us out of His hand. I cannot think of a more loving Father.
Maybe your going through something hard. If so, I hope that somehow God has used my ramblings to encourage you. I hope and pray for you that you will grow in your struggle and learn to trust the Lord. And that you would remember that God is a loving Father and that He, "Will never leave you, nor forsake you."