God is so proud to be your Dad

God is proud to be your Dad

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt like God is disappointed in you, that He sees you as a failure, that He is beyond frustrated with you, etc. 

The elementary teacher in me wants you to raise your hand nice and high, but no worries if you’d rather keep those thoughts to yourself. 

Both my hands are up.

These thoughts have assaulted me more times than I’d care to recall.

They can become like background music, adding drear to what could be a wonderful day.

Despite the consistency of them, they are lies.

I get how bolding a word doesn’t make it a reality in your mind, but I need to emphasize this word. Jesus is starting to show me how He’s not frustrated with me, but very much so with these lies.

I can sense this urge the Lord has to delight in me, and my constant urge to reject that delight. Why? I could give you one million reasons why I’m not worthy of Him delighting in me.

I could tell you just how impatient I feel, how judgmental my mind can be, how hateful my thoughts are at times. 

I can tell you the sins I struggle with, the times I’ve asked God to help me and then the times I’ve failed Him again and again and again…

These failures start to add up, till I’m absolutely positive God is mad at me and has no desire to delight in me. They add up till I’m sure I’m the exception to His saving powers, how I’m the one who’s too broken to ever be truly fixed.

I will say, I’m better than I used to be. 

 I used to believe God was constantly disappointed in me. 

I was having a hard week in 2022 and remember collapsing on the living room rug in tears, asking God if He was mad at me. 

I opened my bible to this verse and froze…

Micah 7:18

You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy.

His favorite emotion is not anger; it’s mercy.

Another truth that really attacks the lies mentioned above:

Draw near to me and I will draw near to you. James 4:8

This verse baffled me (along with others that state how He is drawn to weakness and is strong in them -2 Cor. 12:9-10). 

Surely He’s not drawn to me when I’m at my weakest and failing the most. 

He speaks to me through my second graders often (super humbling), and did on this topic recently…

As a teacher, I have to give many tests. Some of these are on computers and I’m not allowed to help my students throughout their assessments. 

Back in January, I gave them a middle of year math assessment, which contained some questions that were meant for higher grade levels. 

I watched one student in particular start to cry while taking her test. 

I watched as my once confident second grader began to allow this failure to become a part of her identity. 

She kept raising her hand for me to help. She kept telling me how much she wanted to get it right, but didn’t know how to do it on her own.

I wanted to shut the test down immediately. Watching her cry and beg for help felt like daggers to my heart. 

I felt so drawn to her weakness, wanting so badly to give her strength and truth.

If that’s how hurt I felt, imagine how much pain a perfect Father feels when we are failing and asking Him for help. Imagine the Father’s heart as we start allowing the failures, the sins, or mistakes to cause us to think so little of ourselves. 

Imagine how badly He wants to scream truth over the lies,
especially the lie that He’s disappointed in you.

I challenge you to allow the Lord to delight in you today. Allow yourself to find how perfect your Father is in your day, not how perfect you aren’t.  

Matt. 3:17 “This is my son in whom I’m well pleased”

         You are a child in whom He’s so well pleased with.

He’s so proud to be your Dad.

Truths to reflect on:

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

2 Cor 12:9-10
⁹ But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Gal 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Choose Joy

Pain. We’ve all experienced it in one way or another. Physical pain can be pretty bad, but emotional pain is always the worst. Most of the time you can see a physical pain, but emotional pain isn’t always as easy to detect. It’s pretty safe to say different people cope with their inner pain in very different ways. Some respond to pain by letting it show, such as through tears and venting to others about what’s upsetting them. Others are more discreet about their pain, keeping up a good front around others, but secretly hurting on the inside. Sometimes one simply cuts off all relationships in their lives to focus on their pain-filled hearts, with constant self pity parties. This usually leads to a long road of depression. There are so many ways human beings react and cope with pain. We act as if it’s a completely natural thing we must do, that carrying our pain around is simply supposed to be apart of us. There is so much pain, suffering and corruption in this world, handling all of it on our own would be extremely unbearable and not what we were created to do.

Psalms 55:22, Psalms 37:5, Psalms 103:1-5,Jeremiah 17:7,8,  Matthew 11:28-30 and so many other verses are placed in the bible for a specific reason; for us to know He is the only One who can take away our pain. He is asking, commanding, begging us to trust Him with our most sacred possessions; our hearts. Not only when they are happy and joyful, but also when they are wounded and broken. We are so quick to trust a billion ways to deal with our pain, without even thinking about giving the God of the universe a try. Remember, above all else, we’re supposed to guard our hearts with all diligence(Prov. 4:23). That includes the way we manage with our pain. Only One has the strength, ability and endurance to take on all of our pain and suffering; Jesus Christ. Perhaps drugs, alcohol, a significant other or even your own self may look they can subside it, but it will still be there hidden in a corner of your heart, unless you give it all to God. Jesus is so incredible, He can take our pain and make it into something good and helpful for us. James 1:2 says “Count it all joy, my beloved, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” So, that right there tells us the perfect way to deal with pain. That no matter what our circumstances are, we must choose joy! I know, It’s not too easy.. for us. Being joyful while hurting is a pretty impossible venture for us to try alone, but with God, it’s more than possible. I think what’s most helpful is simply repeating throughout the day, “By His strength, I will choose to be joyful.” Remember, we have full control over our emotions. We can either decide to stay upset over something or obey God and be glad. No matter how difficult it may seem, praise Jesus; even when you are at your weakest. After all, His strength is made perfect in our weakness(2 Cor. 12:9).

So, the next time your heart feels like it’s breaking or you’re just having an emotionally exhausting day, surrender all your burdens to the Lord. He is the only One that can take our brokenness and make it into something beautiful.

Love.

Love. The word’s value and meaning has been completely and immensely degraded and edited. Some believe it is as measly as a physical attraction. Some believe they must impress others and strive for perfection to be loved. Some even believe love’s only for fairytales, and it doesn’t even exist in the real world. I strongly believe none of these to be true. There is a love that does exist. There is a Love that is available to all regardless of life status, beauty, education, wealth or charm. It is divine Love that is accessible to anyone. We were created to live in it (Jn. 15). Sometimes learning to be loved is harder than learning to give love; but, being loved is the beginning of living in love. Even if you feel no one on earth loves you, Jesus loves you like His Father loves Him. That far surpasses anyone eles’s love. Abide in this love if want to learn to give it to others. We love because we are first loved. (Jn. 15:9,12) I love being loved. I love knowing someone cares about me, will be there for me and sincerely likes me.  I’m pretty sure everyone does. At times, I begin to only measure the amount of love I have from people alone. This is a very dangerous thing to do, since our hearts need so much more love than people alone can give. God gave us hearts that crave a love that is so strong, only He can provide it completely. So easily and quickly we forget there is a God who loves us enough to die for us. He is jealous for our hearts. He delights in us, we are His very favorites. He died for us to live for Him, not for us to wander around searching for love somewhere else. Before I got saved, I thought God hated me. I believed it impossible for a perfect God to want anything to do with me. That’s one of the largest and most convincing lies Satan has. “You’re not good enough..He doesn’t care..no one’s listening..you’re worthless.” The devil is a LIAR. God wants you. He likes you. He loves you. He cares. God of all creation, His eye is on you. God of all creation, He wants you. He LOVES you.

Happy Happy Happy

Happiness. Everyone is searching for it. Whether we’re looking for a new relationship, career, car, anything we believe will for sure bring us happiness. We worship the idea of happiness. It can become our only desire, what we strive for the most, what we can end up living for. A friend once told me she would do absolutely anything to make herself happy. She was willing to pay any cost to make this happen. Because as long as she was happy, everything would be fine, right? The only problem is, happiness is temporary. It’s fun to have, but sooner or later, it fades away. Your relationship will have it’s trials, you’ll get tired of that once fantastic career, your new car will become old. We can’t allow earthly things to dictate our happiness for this reason alone. If you look around in a public area, it’s pretty rare to see someone smiling while walking, driving or working. Do you think those people are letting Jesus dictate their happiness? Probably not. I’m not saying that everyone who doesn’t appear generally happy isn’t in love with their creator, but I doubt it’s a common sight. Asking the Lord to fill you with His joy is the most efficient and best way to receive ever lasting happiness. Allow God’s love for you to dictate your happiness. It will never fade, get old or die.

Don’t Settle for Less Than the Best

Don’t settle for anything less than what God has planned for your life. So many people limit themselves, believing the falsehood that they were only destined for so much. They think they know what’s best for them, and by ignoring God’s will, miss out on something so much greater. We think we know what we want, what will make us happy, what will satisfy our desires, but ultimately, only God knows that.  He knows us more than we know ourselves. He knows our deepest desires more than we do. Sometimes we (Or at least I..) think if we want something so badly for our lives, it’s obvious God is against it. That isn’t always true.  The Word says to delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Though sometimes what we desire for our lives and what He desires do turn out to be different. That’s not because God wants to make you live a life you hate living. He changes our desires into His desires simply because He wants us to be happy. If you live out His will, you will be a million times happier than living whatever life you had planned for yourself. He loves us, and when you love someone you want the very best for them. I surrender my entire life to Him, because I know He loves me so much more than I love myself and want’s something even greater for me than I do. I’m not saying this is easy as pie, because it isn’t. It can be very difficult giving up everything you thought you wanted for your life, but God promises His will is worth it. Trust Him with the life He gave you. Let Him design it into the beautiful thing it was created to be. 🙂

YOLO

So lately, a lot of people have been saying you should live life to it’s fullest, and this world teaches you the proper way to do that is to live for you and you alone. To live for yourself and whatever pleases you most, go for it! Because, YOLO! I mean, you do only live once, right? Except not really, you may only live once here, but what you do with this life you’ve been given affects where your eternity lies. This is just something I feel like the Lord is teaching me at the moment, hopefully it might help somebody else as well.

Living in dependence of Me is the way to enjoy life to it’s fullest. You are learning to appreciate tough times because they simply amplify your awareness of My presence. Tasks that you once dreaded doing become rich opportunities to enjoy My closeness. When you feel tired, remember that I am your strength; take pleasure in leaning on Me. I am pleased with your tendency to turn to Me more and more frequently especially when you are alone. When you’re with others you often lose sight of My presence. Your fear of displeasing people puts you in bondage to them, and they become your primary focus. Whenever you realize this has happened, whisper My name and this tiny act of trust brings me to the forefront of your consciousness, where I belong. As you bask in the blessing of My nearness, My life can flow through you to others. This is abundant life.

Beauty

This world has an extremely messed up view on beauty. Society manipulates us into thinking we’re not beautiful until we have that new mini skirt, certain mascara or even plastic surgery. Society has a very materialistic view and inner-beauty isn’t a word they’re familiar with at all. We rely on them to show us what the definition of beauty is. 71% of American girls think they’re fat and 87% think they’re ugly, all because of this stupid society who thinks it’s their place to tell people their self-worth. A beautiful God created us in His beautiful image. We were not created in Lady Gaga, Britney Spear’s or Katie Perry’s image.. so why do we try to be them? We were fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s perfect image, and He is the only One worthy of imitating. Our self-worth or amount of beauty is absolutely not some number on a scale or image in the mirror, it is how the King of King’s sees us. Only His opinion matters. And when He looks at us, He sees something beyond beautiful.

Teenage Hood

I hate how we’ve created this faze called “Teenage hood”. The word teenager is not found anywhere in Scripture. It definitely does not say “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child and reasoned like a child; then I became a man, and looked like a man, sounded like a man but still acted like a child.” What happened to throwing off our childish ways? Maturity and common sense are two characteristic lacking in most teens and young adults in this generation.  My theory is as children have started acting like children for longer and longer periods, society has accepted and even greatly encouraged this.  It’s like, “I’m a teenager, so I’m going to go continuously screw up because I’m a teenager, so I can get away with it.” So, society is telling teens in their most crucial time to start preparing for adult hood, to go party and have a good time.  TV shows, movies, pop stars, everything just screams to spend it being as rebellious as possible, because after all, you do have a great excuse. Then we wonder why we have so many adults acting like children. Wellll, all that drinking, smoking and partying wasn’t exactly the ideal preparation for adulthood..  “Teenage hood” is actually a perfect timing to get rooted and grounded in the Lord. That alone is the perfect preparation to take on the real world.