Category Archives: Humility

Jan4

DAY 4 (2015)

Posted on January 4, 2015 by lsgrlr

By faith the seed dies, so the flower can bloom. Each new bud is the realization of the seed of faith.
(Picture by Lisa R.)

Although Buffalo is beautiful, and even though I know 100% it is God’s will for me to be here. Today, I missed my home church, so I grabbed my laptop and joined them online, and I was super happy I did. I knew it was the right choice when Pastor Doug said this, “God can take our brokenness and make it something beautiful”. I needed to be reminded of that. 2014 was hard in many ways, but many times God took those hard and dented times and made them beautiful. Life is never predictable and the roads we travel is filled with twists and turns, road blocks and potholes. But God is the ultimate civil engineer creating pathways for us to travel that are filled with beauty and lessons to learn, but in order for us to get to the smooth roads, we first have to be willing trudge through the bad ones. Today just a reminder that God will take our brokenness and make it something beautiful.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3).

So what am I thankful for today? Beauty from brokenness.

Dec29

Random (hopefully inspired) Thought

Posted on December 29, 2014 by lsgrlr

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I have hidden Thy word in my heart.
(Picture by Lisa R)

2 Samuel 23. “The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me: ‘He who rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, like the tender grass springing out of the earth, by clear shining after rain'” (Verses 3-4). To rule, to serve, to do what God calls us to do (no matter what that is). We must first be just, showing no partiality. Our yes, must be yes. Our no, must be no. Secondly we must do all in the fear, and name of God. Being a “right” representative of His will and purpose. Lastly we must shine clearly and brightly so others can see and follow. Above we must all walk in the humility of God’s love.

Dec18

DAY 352 (2014)

Posted on December 18, 2014 by lsgrlr

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So true!

So it’s been a while since I have written a “DAY” post. There are many reasons for this: Life, worry, fear, laziness. Right about know you’re thinking those are perfect reason to write a post that reminds me that God loves me and has a plan and a purpose for me. It is in the moments that life is the hardest that we realize our need for God’s grace and love. Today as I spent time in devotion God showed me that not only are those times a time of realizing Him, but it is also a classroom. It is the place we learn about about ourselves, our limits, and our desperation. Today I ran into an issue that I was not expecting… I dislike those moments, because I make a plan and I walk towards it, and then… BAM, out of nowhere something happens that I was neither planning for nor prepared for. Those moments, stink… can’t lie. Normally the plan of attack is to by-pass God (cause we’re am smart like that) and go straight to desperation. It is almost as if we think, “what bad decision can I make to fix this“. Today I have to be honest, the first option was desperation, but God in his ultimate wisdom slammed the door shut. This caused me to take a step back, pray, and ask Him to show me “the option that wouldn’t make the situation worse”. Then He did. What makes me sad is that it wasn’t my first option. My first thought wasn’t God what do you want me to do? Today I am disappointed to announce that my first thought was NOT take it to God. However, He loves me enough to get me to where I need to be. He led me to a solution that would fix the issue, but not make it worse. In fact it made it better in some ways, because it taught me a lot about someone I love (to that person.. THANK YOU). Life throws us curve balls, sometimes it feels like they’re all that’s being thrown. However, don’t despise the curve balls, take it to God. He’ll teach us how to catch them.

“But in my distress I cried out to the LORD; yes, I prayed to my God for help. He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry to him reached his ears” (Psalm 18:6).

The lesson: God first (yup it’s that simple) 🙂

Dec13

Random (hopefully inspired) Thought

Posted on December 13, 2014 by lsgrlr

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I have hidden Thy word in my heart.
(Picture by Lisa R)

2 Samuel 12. “Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun'” (Verses 7-12). There is no such thing as a secret sin. God sees it all. We can hide and pretend like all is well to those in front of us, but not to God. He knows the deepest, darkest, and dirtiest of sins and secrets that we hold. The amazing part in all of that is, that despite knowing, He still wants to love us, He still wants to make us whole. This chapter got me, I know I have things that need to go, areas in my life that I hide from others. Which is silly since God sees it anyway. But I love the fact that even after this horrible sin that David committed, God still called David a “man after His own heart”. He punished David’s actions, but saw David’s heart. He does the same for us. Our sins will be punished, but our hearts will be seen by the One who knows our hearts the best. That’s GRACE.

Nov18

Random (hopefully inspired) Thought

Posted on November 18, 2014 by lsgrlr

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I have hidden Thy word in my heart.
(Picture by Lisa R)

1 Samuel 31. ” Then Saul said to his armor bearer, ‘Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised men come and thrust me through and abuse me.’ But his armorbearer would not, for he was greatly afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and fell on it. And when his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword, and died with him. So Saul, his three sons, his armor bearer, and all his men died together that same day” (Verses 4-6). Remember the words of Samuel from the beyond (read Chapter 29)? Saul and his sons are dead, just like Samuel said. However, that is not the point for today. So what is? God. He always does what He says He will do. He told Saul that he and his sons will be cut off, that the line of Saul would no longer sit on the throne. Had Saul simply accepted God’s will this whole story would have turned out differently (yes that is my personal belief). Saul’s sin and desire to win over God led to his death and the death of his sons. We can’t beat God. But then again why would we want to beat the One who has our best interest in mind at all times? God’s judgments are always right, and yes at times they can be painful (because they show us our inadequacies), but if we obey they will always leads to our good.

Nov12

Random (hopefully inspired) Thought

Posted on November 12, 2014 by lsgrlr

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I have hidden Thy word in my heart.
(Picture by Lisa R)

1 Samuel 27. “And David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites,^[a] and the Amalekites. For those nations were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as you go to Shur, even as far as the land of Egypt. Whenever David attacked the land, he left neither man nor woman alive, but took away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the apparel, and returned and came to Achish. Then Achish would say, ‘Where have you made a raid today?’ And David would say, ‘Against the southern area of Judah, or against the southern area of the Jerahmeelites, or against the southern area of the Kenites.’ David would save neither man nor woman alive, to bring news to Gath, saying, ‘Lest they should inform on us, saying, ‘Thus David did.’ And thus was his behavior all the time he dwelt in the country of the Philistines. So Achish believed David, saying, ‘He has made his people Israel utterly abhor him; therefore he will be my servant forever'” (Verses 9-12). So this is interesting, David joins the camp of the enemy, but he completely works against them. talk about keeping your enemies closer… Here’s the thing while I understand David’s logical, he knew Saul wouldn’t go against the Philistines. In David’s mind the enemy would be the safest place. But God had kept him safe so far. He had even delivered Saul into David’s hands, not once, but twice. Yet David still chooses the easy way out. We all do the same from time to time choose the easy way. David will eventually reap the consequences of his actions, it happens to all who choose the easy way out. Don’t chose ease, choose God.

Oct23

DAY 295 (2014)

Posted on October 23, 2014 by lsgrlr

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Life is seasonal we change and we grow. We have to go through Winter to get to Spring.
(Picture by Lisa R.)

For all of those who read my DAY posts. I wanted to take this time to say I am sorry that I have not kept up with them. Someone very close to me recently said this, “you need to get back on that (meaning DAY posting) you don’t realize what a difference it makes and how encouraging it is.” The words touched me, but it they also made me realize something… That while, it is awesome that my posts encourages others, God uses them as a way to refresh and restore me as well. He uses them to remind me He has a plan, a purpose, a reason for the things that seem so unreasonable… so to all my readers 정말 죄송해요 (I sincerely apologize). Lately I have been feeling, meh. Nothing bad is happening, but things just feel, well, meh. Which explains the lack of writing. Because I have been so wrapped up in my “feelings”, I wasn’t really noticing the cause of my meh-ness (<–I think I may enter this word in the dictionary 😉 ), which is (and was) trusting, but not accepting. Yup it is as ironic as it sounds. God brought me here, told me He had a plan, confirmed in many ways that this was His direction for my so life, so I trust. But things aren’t falling into place the way I imagined, the road is right, but there are multiple paths and the right one doesn’t always have neon signs. So I am struggling to accept God’s choices. Today God used the change in seasons to re-teach me something I had forgotten. I am going to share it with you:

The first picture is what all the trees in Western New York looked like at the beginning of Autumn. The leaves are brightly colored, the air is brisked. You feel as though you are living in a dream world. It makes your heart feel happy and light. This is what that same tree currently looks like. See the life picture? Is it the same tree? Yes. However, the tree is going through a different season, a different period of its life cycle. It went from brightly colored leaves, to NO leaves at all. The tree is the same, but the season it inhabits is NOT. This does not only happen to trees, it also happens to us. However, our changes are more subtle, they are often times not as easily detectable as those of a tree in Fall, not even to the ones going through the change. Today God whispered this, “I am changing you. Bringing you to a new season in your life. Your leaves need to fall off in order for you to get where I want you to be.” Ahhhh… Life is seasonal, we have our Fall and then our Winter. But we have to go through Winter to get to Spring. And who doesn’t love SPRING?

“The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8).

Today I am thankful for seasons and change.

Oct7

Random (hopefully inspired) Thought

Posted on October 7, 2014 by lsgrlr

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I have hidden Thy word in my heart.
(Picture by Lisa R)

Ruth 2. “So she fell on her face, bowed down to the ground, and said to him, ‘Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?’ And Boaz answered and said to her, ‘It has been fully reported to me, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before. The Lord repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge'” (Verses 10-12). This is a beautiful portion of scripture. It is the blessing of obedience, and a picture of the blessing that comes from keeping your commitment. Let’s change the characters for a moment, let’s makes Boaz, Jesus. make Naomi, the Holy Spirit, and make Ruth, us (human beings looking for their path). Now let’s go back to the story. The Spirit tells us to go, but we cling. Then we meet Jesus, who blesses us for making a choice to follow His Spirit, letting go of our past. See the correlation? See the picture that is being painted with this story? It is the very same offer Christ makes today. His Spirit gives us the choice to follow Christ or stick with what we know. One path leads us to “emptiness” the other path leads to everlasting life and adventure. However, the “empty” path is lively, bright, filled with color and many follow because from the outside it seems better. While the new life and adventure path is dusty, dirty, and hidden in the bushes, you have to seek it, to find it. Orpah chose the easy path of going back to what she knew, and we never hear of her again. Ruth chose to follow the path “less traveled”, and walked right into a blessing.

Oct3

Random (hopefully inspired) Thought

Posted on October 3, 2014 by lsgrlr

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I have hidden Thy word in my heart.
(Picture by Lisa R)

Judges 20. “Then Israel set men in ambush all around Gibeah. And the children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day, and put themselves in battle array against Gibeah as at the other times. So the children of Benjamin went out against the people, and were drawn away from the city. They began to strike down and kill some of the people, as at the other times, in the highways (one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah) and in the field, about thirty men of Israel. And the children of Benjamin said, ‘They are defeated before us, as at first’… But the Benjamites did not know that disaster was upon them. The Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel. And the children of Israel destroyed that day twenty-five thousand one hundred Benjamites; all these drew the sword” (verses 29-32, 34-35). I encourage you to read this Chapter. Heck I encourage (if you haven’t been doing so), to pick up your Bible and read God’s words for yourselves. After receiving the message from the Levite man who’s wife had been murdered. The Israelites gathered together to discuss where they were before the Lord, and what they needed to do to rectify what had happened (it took body parts in the mail, to get you to open your eyes? Really!?). Israel tells the Benjamites that they need to turn over the men who committed the crime, so that God’s anger would subside. However, the Benjamites refused. They go to war. Israel seeks God about who should go out first. He says, “Judah”. However, Israel is defeated. They come before God again, and He says. “Go.” But yet again Israel is defeated. They fast, pray, and weep and ask, “God should we try one more time?” This time the answer is, “Go, for I will deliver them into your hand.” The Benjamites are defeated. Don’t miss the lesson. The Benjamites didn’t want to repent, and for a while it seemed as though they’d be victorious in their sin. Sin is fun, it feels like a victory. No one would sin otherwise. But it ALWAYS leads to death, ALWAYS. There is no escaping the consequences, for sin only has one ending. Note, the first two victories had the Benjamites so confident they could not even fathom that they might lose. God was not even a thought in their minds. However, the two defeats brought Israel to a place where God could use them, they humbled themselves, humbled their hearts, and came out victorious. Sometimes it seems as though the world is winning. But sin only has one ending. Instead of looking at the world, we need to look inward and find out where our heats are before God. Victory comes to the humble of heart.