God is GREATER still

So it's been awhile again. This summer is F L Y I N G by. It's just plain craziness to me.

I'm DONE my summer two class and it feels oh so good. All I have left now is junior block and student teaching, no more gen eds! Woohoo!! I definitely didn't have such a fun time with that summer 2 class called political communication (bleh)..and it sure took some getting used to balancing school work with full camp days, but after the first couple weeks I can honestly say that I got used to it and it wasn't SO terrible. NOW it's weird that I don't have to come home and post my thoughts on the discussion board or take a quiz...I sort of forget how to just relax..hah. (sort of..I know that won't take long to get back into though ha)
The best part about it is that God totally helped me through it and to relax and not stress about the work too much. And I WAS fine. I ended up getting an A..and I'm truly amazed. It's amazing how God takes care of things we entrust to him.

I feel like I've been learning (or re-learning) a lot these past two weeks. I've come to a few realizations.

1) That for the past like month I've just been SO up and down with my faith or the feelings I had towards God. I would have moments where I felt things were good but those moments really were few and far between. I felt so lost. For every time I felt okay I would usually go through days at a time of feeling so confused and doubtful and stuck in that feeling of not knowing who I was or who God was. It was weird, I'm telling ya.. BUT I've been realizing that that's what was happening.

2) I need to spend more time with God in His word and praying to feel more connected so I won't be so easily shaken again. (Not because I should do those things but because I WANT and need that to strengthen my relationship with God)

3) Everyone goes through some sort of season of doubt in their life. This was spoken in a sermon I heard last Sunday and it was really perfect timing. It made me feel comforted because of the fact that at one time or another EVERYONE feels confused, or doubts/questions their faith and it's just a season. Those times are opportunities to reaffirm what you know to be true and cling to God all the more.

4) God always loves me and offers me His grace regardless of how I am feeling. I listened to a sermon this morning on my ride back home from Millersville. It was from a grace series by new life church, the sermon was called "Grace really is amazing" (from week 4). Through this sermon I was reminded that
- "I am a human BEING, not a human DOING".
-Regardless of how I am feeling, I AM in righteousness (right standing with God) because I have Jesus and believe that He died to make me free from my sins.
The sermon talked about how Christians "feel good" in God when they are doing what they feel are the right things.The sermon said specifically that "Most of them feel the way they feel based on how good they are at keeping their list of stuff." But when people feel like they are doing bad, God must be mad. In the sermon he kept saying "Do good, God's glad, do bad God's mad". He connected it with the fact that we as believers a lot of times feel that we are not blessable, and we don't have a chance of being blessed by God if we're doing bad, but if we do good then we'll be blessed. But he says in the sermon it is definitely NOT biblical under the new covenant.. God died to make us free and He wants us to live in that. I was a m a z e d because I'm pretty sure I wrote about a time when I was feeling that exact way. I felt like I wasn't "right" with God because I wasn't DOING things the right way. I felt like I couldn't come to Him until I DID something to get right with God. But I realized today that

THAT IS SO WRONG!!

God loved me even then. He cared about my state of being not what I was DOING. He wasn't mad. I wasn't any less saved or cared for. The sermon said exactly what I had been feeling that some days "Christians are hot, then they're cold, they feel good then they feel bad..and they're all over the place because they don't grasp the concept of GRACE."
We all have that state of mind sometimes but it's not the truth and it doesn't reflect who God is. We have been given the gift of right standing with God. It is a definite state of being and not a deed to be done.

5) The more I seek God in total surrender the more I can hear His voice, and the more I am able to let go of things and trust Him.

So those are some of the things that I've been thinking through and learning/re-learning. It amazing what peace and joy can come from surrendering everyday to God. :)