Friday, June 23, 2006

Beth Moore Conference

I am so looking forward to today. Myself and seven other of my lovely friends from church are headed to Oklahoma to attend a Beth Moore conference. I love Beth Moore and have done several of her Bible Studies. I can't wait to see her and hear her speak.

More than that, I am looking forward to the three and half hour car trip chatting with my girlfriends, staying together in a hotel...no doubt staying up late...having meals together and then the three and half hour car trip back. I love my girlfriends and spending qualiy time with them fills me with exictment! We are going to have a blast and be spiritually fed at the same time.

I almost didn't go. Money is so tight for me right now and the $90 is was costing gave me pause. But, I realized I couldn't afford not to. After the stress of the last few months I need this time away, I need girl time and I need to be filled up spiritually.

So I'm off today on a road trip to recharge my batteries and hope to come away refreshed.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

What Drives You?

This question has been on my mind over the last couple of days. What drives me to serve Christ? What is it that makes me want to follow after him, to become more like him? I have come up with a few answers....some of them good solid Christian reasons and some, well.... maybe NOT good solid Christian reasons. So here they are.....

Because I am in love with Jesus! Sunday at church we sang a song that had the line in it "I am so in love with you Jesus” I can't even remember any other line of song, just that one. It has stuck in my mind. I can truly say I am absolutely sold out to loving Jesus. My heart just overflows with love sometimes that it makes me want to express it in some crazy way...like shout it out in the middle of a crowd. Sometimes I am in awe in how much I love him, someone I've never met, someone just through pure faith believes in his existence. Love it's a powerful thing. It leads people to do things that are out of the ordinary, it changes people’s lives. Yep...love for him drives me.

Faith….something I struggle with I admit...but faith in a life eternal. Something wonderful that’s waiting for me. Something that my human mind can not possibly even imagine or wrap my thoughts around. Come on....streets of gold, robes, crowns, jewels! Oh...and the most precious of all, eternity spent with Jesus. To finally be able to see him face to face. To be able to express that love I have for him...to him! You know that song that is so popular "I can only imagine" well I do that sometimes...imagine. I don't think I come anywhere close to how it will be, so I drive forward in anticipation, knowing that one day I will find out. Yep...Heaven drives me.

Being the best person or role model to those around me. Everyday I strive to be a better person, believe me sometimes I fail at this but I never cease striving. I want to be a person that people see as different, a person that lets the light of Jesus shine from me. I want my children to see a mother that has changed in the last couple of years into a better person, a better mom. I want them to learn about God from my life and all that he has to offer their lives. Most importantly I want them to want what I have. Yep....a good role model for my children drives me.

Bootstraps. Yes, I said bootstraps. Have you ever heard the saying "Pull myself up by my bootstraps" (there are a few variations to it). That's me sometimes...okay a lot of times. Sometimes through pure force of will I keep going on. I have had people tell me they are inspired by my strong will to see something through or impressed by my ability to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I have had to learn to. I have gone through some hard, terrible things in my life-mostly in childhood-and I had no one to pull me up..so I had to learn to do it on my own. Sometimes this stubbornness serves me well, sometimes it does not. I don't like to give up. But sometimes I don't want to pull myself up by my bootstraps anymore. Sometimes I want to sit down on the floor, release my grip on the bootstraps and take the darn boots off! But they won't come off, because my will to survive, to go on is stronger. Yep...my bootstraps drive me.

Fear of what happens if I don't . This may not be the best reason to follow God, (I warned you!) but I have to admit that sometimes this really plays a big part in my walk with God. If life gets difficult or burdensome with following God...then it scares me to death to think of what it most be like to be apart from him. Sometimes when I think of giving up, feeling that this Christian path is too hard to follow anymore fear overtakes me and I think of all the things that could and probably would go wrong in my life. Wrong choices bring bad consequences. Yep...fear drives me.

So there you have it the good and bad of what drives me to be a follower of God.

I like the first one I wrote about the best. It’s my favorite reason.

So....tell me what drives you?