Photo Contest

Avast! antivirus is having a photo contest where you have to take a photo of yourself with an apple. If your photo gets the most votes, you can win a mac laptop! My friend Katie and I have both been having a hard time figuring out what to do with our photography, so we decided to go on a photo expedition just for fun! We had such a fun time, we decided that from now on, it's going to be a monthly thing, so I'm super excited about that! We're going to pick a theme every month and go out for an evening and just take photos for that theme! It's going to be so great, and just what I need :) Here's some of my favorites (so far) of the evening - I have more to come!

Amazing God

I like to think I've come a long way since high school. But lately I've begun to notice more and more that I really haven't. When it comes to my faith and growth, I feel like i'm in the same boat I was in when I was 18, and it's frustrating. It's discouraging to look back over the last 4 years and wonder what has changed spiritually. I see so many other people around me flourshing and growing, and many of them much younger than I am, and all I can think is "God, where is the joy? Why do I feel like a dead man walking, when so many people are so full of life and encouragement?" I long to be alive and feel alive and joyful in the faith again; to get that fire back. These have been my constant thoughts for a few weeks now, and I've been trying to figure out where the fire has gone.
Then I prepared my sunday school lesson, and got slapped in the face.
This week has been about God's majesty; recognizing God's greatness. And it seriously slapped me in the face. The contents were so close to my heart, a few times while reading I thought I had prepared the lesson myself.
Day one was "The Greatness of God" It opened with this scripture:

" I exalt you, my God the King, and praise your name forever and ever. I will praise you every day; I will honor your name forever and ever. Yahweh is great and is highly praised; His greatness is unsearchable. One generation will declare your work to the next and will proclaim your mighty acts. I will speak of your splendor and glorious majesty and Your wonderful works. They will proclaim the power of your awe-inspiring acts, and I will declare your greatness. They will give a testimony of your great goodness and will joyfully sing of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in faithful love. The Lord is good to everyone; His compassion rests on all that he has made." - Psalm 145:1-9

After reading this scripture, the next part of the book says:

"This is knowledge that Christians today largely lack, and that is one reason why our faith is so feeble and our worship is so flabby. We are modern people, and modern people, though they cherish great thoughts of themselves, have as a rule small thoughts of God. When the person in the church, let alone a person in the street, uses the word God, the thought it rarely of divine majesty."

Wow...*smack* finally it's starting to make sense. You always hear the saying "don't put God in a box" but that's exactly what's been happening, and has always happened. My view of God has rarely been mighty. I believed that he could do anything, and I mean anything he wanted to, but that he wouldn't do it today, and he wouldn't do it for me. In my mind, God was mighty enough for everyone else, except me. He would do anything for everyone else, just not me. I didn't realize how deeply embedded this belief was/is into me until I read this part of the lesson and cried:

"And just as there are no bounds to His presence with me, so there are no limits to His knowledge of me. Just as I am never left alone, so I never go unnoticed. 'O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar...you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.' I can hide my heart, and my past, and my future plans from those around me, but I cannot hide anything from God. I can talk in a way that deceives my fellow creatures as to what I really am, but nothing I say or do can deceive God. He sees through all my reserve and pretense; he knows me as I really am, better indeed than I know myself."

I cried because I am so ashamed of myself; so ashamed of who I am. So ashamed that he can see me, all of me. And the funny thing is, I knew all this before. I knew it in my head, but I had no comprehension of it. It amazes me that you can know things in and out, backwards and forwards, but until you truly grasp and understand it, it makes no impact. You can teach people whatever you want, but until they completely get it, nothing will change; nothing will grow. I think that when you finally start to understand that you can't hide anything from God, then you begin to at least understand a bit of His majesty, how gloriously wonderful He truly is.

"God has not abandoned us any more than He abandoned Job. He never abandons anyone on whom He has set His love; nor does Christ, the Good Shepherd ever lose track of his sheep...If you have been resigning yourself to the thought that God has left you high and dry, seek grace and be ashamed of yourself. Such unbelieving pessimism deeply dishonours our great God and Saviour."

I have been discouraged, and frankly depressed much of this week because I have been so aware of the people who are so alive in Christ, and being so envious of that. I've been longing for God to bring his wind into the valley of the dry bones and bring me back to life. That's why when I read this next verse this evening, I cried yet again. I've read this verse so many times, but God always seems to make the same verse encourage in so many different ways.

"Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, oh Israel, 'My way is hidden from the Lord, and the justic due me escapes the notice of my God'? Do you not know? have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might he increases power. Though youths grow tired and weary, and vigorous youn men stumble badly, yet those who wait on the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary." Isaiah 40:27-31

Even though I feel I haven't come far since highschool, there is still a faith in me that is holding on, and always will. When i get so down and discouraged God continually picks me up and I need to remember that. I'm not normally a person this open to an internet blog, but I am tired of trying to cover up everything because I'm afraid of what people think. I guess this is why they created a diary, but somehow it helps to know that people out there know how I'm feeling, and they might even relate...who knows. I'll leave with this thought:

"The most universally awesome experience that mankind knows is to stand alone on a clear night and look at the stars. Nothing gives a greater sense of remoteness and distance; nothing makes one feel more strongly one's own littleness and insignificance. Our minds reel; our imaginations cannot grasp it; when we try to conceive of unfathomable depths of outer space, we are left mentally numb and dizzy. But what is this to God? 'Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing (Isaiah 40:26) It is God who brings out the stars; It was God who first set them in space; He is their Maker and Master - they are all in His hand and subject to His will. Such are His power and His majesty."

"Behold Your God!"  

-quotes taken from Masterwork devotionals from lifeway. Articles by J.I. Packer - Spring 2012 week of May 6