Prepare My Heart – Day 8: Seek God With Your Whole Heart
The world has many preconceived notions about who God is. Everyone has their own personal ideas of who “The Big Man in Heaven” really is. Where did He come from? What does He look like? How old is He? You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 Do you ever find yourself wondering more about who God is? I know I do. Although our human minds cannot begin to comprehend all the wonders of God, He is not a complete mystery to us. In fact, our Heavenly Father wants to reveal Himself to each one of us. All we have to do is…
Prepare My Heart – Day 7: God Is My Strength
Whether you are a student, a career woman, a wife, a mother – or all of the above – we all have experienced a time or two when we needed a helping hand. Maybe you needed a bill paid or a day of rest after a big project. Honestly speaking, every hard-working man or woman would appreciate having someone around they can count on when they need it most. Our culture constantly feeds us the idea that as women we should always be strong, beautiful, bold, confident, and fearless. Although these are great qualities to have, many of us are trying to be all these things all the time because we don’t want…
Prepare Your Heart – Day 6: Trust God Wholeheartedly
Culture has programmed us not to trust anyone or anything. Every time we turn on the television or browse the internet, we hear about more lies or claims of fake news. As an adult living in today’s world, life can be hard. For those days, I wish I had a built-in GPS to help navigate my life. Although we may not have physical navigation devices built into our bodies, God did give us His Spirit to help guide us through life. For that reason, we have to learn to trust God in every area of our lives. We must trust God when things get hard. We need to trust Him when we don’t…
Prepare My Heart – Day 5: Guard Your Heart
People love to use the phrase “follow your heart” to encourage one another. Although the cliche phrase may put a smile on someone’s face, God does not want us to be led by the feelings in our hearts. In fact, Jeremiah 17:19 tells us that our hearts are wicked, and not to be trusted. God gave us feelings to be able to experience raw emotion such as love, joy, and peace with one another. However, because humanity is flawed, we don’t use our emotions to glorify God the way He originally intended for us to. People choose to be led by their feelings instead of being led by God. Have you…
Prepare My Heart – Day 4: Get Rid of Distractions
In Bible times, many people worshipped idols. The Israelites worshipped a golden calf, the people of Canaan served idols, and the Egyptians worshipped many gods. Idolatry replaces God with another person or thing – and this is a huge sin to God. In modern culture, we may not bow down to statues, but we worship idols in the form of distractions. We concern ourselves with the cares of this world when our first priority should always be our personal connection with God. Distractions come in many forms. Browsing social media for hours at a time is a distraction. Hanging out with the wrong people can become a distraction. Playing “superwoman” and catering…
Prepare My Heart – Day 3: He Will Lead You
Learning to trust God is not always as easy as it seems. Being led by God is an ongoing process; we must always prepare our hearts to listen and obey Him every chance we get. I learned that lesson eight years ago. In 2011, there was local women’s retreat I really wanted to attend. I didn’t have the money to pay for the retreat, so I started saving money for my ticket months in advance. Every week, I went to the local recycling center to redeem our cans and plastics for cash to put towards my savings for the retreat. Exactly one day before the retreat payment was due, I made…
Prepare My Heart – Day 2: Search Your Heart
Have you ever heard the phrase “fake it until you make it”? There were many times in my life when I pretended to be OK when I really wasn’t. For many of us, it is easier to ignore our feelings than to deal with them. Someone may ask “How are you doing?” and you respond “I’m fine,” when you are really hurting inside. She chooses to give a compliment to someone else, knowing deep down she needs encouragement for herself. We pretend to like someone or something to spare another person’s feelings. We have all been there. There is no “faking it” with God. He knows every motive and intention of our…