Posted By Phylicia on October 16, 2009 | 1 Comment

It has been on of those days.  Not just one of ‘those’ days, but one those DAYS!  It started out last night as I fell asleep over a broadcasting assignment that was due today.  Then my phone rang five times in the three hours I slept (I have never been that popular), which by the final ring brought out an ungodly emotion in me that my roommates have probably never seen before.  Apologies were necessary.  I guess I was still tired because I slept through my alarm and through my English class as well, waking up just in time to race through the rest of my day.

But now… now I am in my dorm room, alone, with a cup of tea and a bag of granola made by my gourmet cousin Livvy over at LivLoveLaugh.  It’s the weekend, and I couldn’t be more delighted.

With all that said, I am really not keen on going to dinner at the present.  I need to, because of my meal plan, but I don’t really want to see people right now.  I love them, but I just am not that full of energy at this moment.

The ‘Rot can be intimidating:  walking into a dining hall full of people.  I have always struggled with insecurity and going to eat where everyone can observe you, and you know you will see at least forty of your closest acquaintances, can be a little unnerving.  Yet at the same time it’s been the best thing for me.

Insecurity and pride go hand in hand, because insecurity is a product of over-focus on self. When we think everyone is looking at us we think we are really worth that much attention — when in reality, we aren’t!  Not to say that we aren’t lovely each in our own way, but none of us are so worthy of the world’s adoration that we need to be concerned about the entourage awaiting us at the dining hall.  Nobody is as concerned about how you look as you are.

There’s a mentality shift necessary to achieve a right attitude toward others as a Christian woman.  The selfish mind is fixed on itself, rotating in an endless circle of “I look good -> I feel confident -> People will like me -> I will be secure -> I need to look good”.  The mind that is fixed on others, however, ceases to consider how the body looks because it is seeking to bless others.  Oh, I struggle with this!

Insecurity is only overcome by replacing the “Here I am!” attitude with the “There you are!” mentality.  This heart-attitude filters all our conversations, thoughts, and goals when it comes to relationships of every kind.  It isn’t about how much I can tell about myself in one sitting, or about how many laughs I can get or give — it’s about seeking people out to make their day better.  And not for us.  For Christ.

Category: Singleness/Dating

Posted By Phylicia on October 13, 2009 | 2 Comments

What do you want most out of life?  What do want most in life?  In each of us there is a desire for something.  It could be more money or financial stability, it could be a better education, it could be a spouse, or it could be a better car.  Perhaps it’s not something tangible — maybe it’s good friendships that you desire, or peace about a decision to be made.  Whatever it may be that instigates it, the bloom of hope inside you is the desire of your heart.

With every desire comes the need to reconcile personal urgency and God’s timing.  It’s human nature to ‘want what I want and want it NOW’.  How often do we feel that if we don’t have our hearts’ desire fulfilled ASAP that it will never come to fruition at all?  I know I have felt that way.  I often picture God at these times with a patient smile on his face, watching my own face contort with anxiety as I worry over when, where, and how:  “My Child, where is your faith?”

Today in my ladies’ bible study, Discerning the Voice of God (by Priscilla Shirer), Priscilla talked about the desires of our hearts.  She quoted the life verse of my high school years, a verse I still treasure very much:

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.   (Psalm 37:4)

When I was young I thought that this meant if I spent as much time as possible with the Lord, and truly made him my joy, then he would give me the things I wanted out of life.  This is partially true.  Yet there is a greater concept hidden in this verse, one that Priscilla brought to light:  as we seek God, making him our utmost priority, he changes the desires of our hearts to fit his will for our lives.

No matter what our desires are, if we refuse to relinquish them to God this indicates the same effect on our character:  worship of the desire, rather than of Christ.  We cling to our hopes and dreams because we are afraid that if we give them up God will never give them back. This is not true.  Not all of our desires need be changed.  But it is not for us to decide which need changing and which remain the same; our duty is to seek the Lord with all our heart, mind and strength, allowing him to do with our dreams as he will.

So many people long to know ‘the will of God’; yet I wonder how many actually yield their hearts’ desires up to him for his purposes.  I know I refused him many times.  We think we know what we want and that submitting our longings to God will result in never seeing them come to fruition.  This is fear.  God cannot work with fear, but he can work with faith!

This is the truth:  God has a will for each of us.  If we intend to follow his will we have to seek him, know him, hear him, and obey him.  By doing this we draw so close to God that our heart is united to his, and our desires naturally change to fit his plan for our life.  It isn’t painful and sudden; it is a gradual transformation of our heart’s atmosphere.  The painful part can be the initial decision to surrender.

If anyone would come after me, let her deny herself and take up her cross and follow me.  For whoever would save her life will lose it, but whoever loses her life for my sake will find it. (Matt. 16:24-25)

In order to have ‘that which is truly life’ (1 Tim. 6:19) we have to give up that which we think is life.  Faith believes that God’s will for us is better than anything we can manufacture ourselves.  Faith makes the desires of the heart come true.

Category: Christianity

Tags: Christianity, church, desires, faith, God, heart, hope, jesus christ, love, psalms

Posted By Phylicia on October 5, 2009 | No Comments

I am not going to put a pretty picture on this post.  I may stop putting up pretty pictures for a little while.  Sometimes the words on the page need to suffice, and if they are worth reading a picture won’t make them better or worse… even though it may be worth a thousand more words.  But I don’t want a thousand more words today, I want to keep this succinct.

The Lord has been working greatly and in ways I cannot always comprehend.  I do not understand what he is doing, where he is taking me, or what he is molding me to be at this point.  But I know he is working.  I can see it in the speakers I listen to, the verses I discover, the conversations that begin, and the friends that he brings to me.  He is doing something good, something great, and I do not yet know what that something will be.

At the same time, however, I keep finding that the power of the speakers, the verses, and the friends that he orchestrates is held back from its fullness in my life.  While I can hear a message and hope that it will have the promised effect I simultaneously allow my personal desires to block God’s will from full effectiveness in my life.  I know it is happening; I believe the Spirit of God has convicted me of this.  But all the same I continue to battle between the opportunities God lays before  me and the immediate wants of my human self.

This is plain and simple:  I am struggling against the will of God.  This is the very will I asked him to reveal to me so I could follow, and he stands with his hand on the open door, while I refuse to go through it.  It isn’t a clear door — like a specific job or home or place to go.  Rather, it is the door to obedience and surrender, a door that will lead to those things my heart desires but when God desires them for me. 

Faith in Christ is simple at its core, but when I add the frills, fluff, and ribbons of my personal dreams to my faith in him I am left with a decorated, but hollow, worldview.  No; faith must stand alone.  I can’t force the Lord into my time frames and dreams, my hopes, my goals, my wants.  He gave me talents but he also gave me a purpose, and he does not want to hide that purpose from me!  He wants me to know his will.  I do not need to play Scavenger Hunt for the great map of my life.  He is ready to reveal it.  But am I ready to obey?

It’s very plain.  It’s very simple.

Category: Personally...

Posted By Phylicia on September 24, 2009 | No Comments

My first Sunday at Thomas Road Baptist Church, our worship leader, Charles Billingsley, announced to the crowd, “Today we’re going to learn a new song, so follow along, and we’ll get more familiar with it as time goes on.”  The music began to play and I immediately recognized the melody as one of my favorite songs:  ”I Have a Hope”.

The lyrics are:  I have a hope/I have a future/I have a destiny that is yet awaiting me/My life’s not over, a new beginning’s just begun/I have a hope/I have this hope”

The chorus then begins, “I will yet praise him/My great redeemer/I will yet stand up/And give him glory with my life/He takes my darkness and he turns it into light/I will yet praise him, my Lord my God.”

Every time I hear that song it revives my heart from any feelings of anxiety or hopelessness.  Sometimes it comes to mind in the shower or when I am working on school.  Often it comes to mind when I am feeling alone or without direction.  It is a song of joyful declaration that hope is always there as long as God is.  God will be with us for eternity — therefore hope will be as well!

I have hopes for a lot of things.  As I have been working through my devotional, Discerning the Voice of God, I realize how many dreams and goals I tell the Lord about.  I have so much that burdens my heart, that I want to see accomplished or to accomplish myself.  Sometimes my faith fails me and I begin to wonder when my hopes will be fulfilled… if ever.

Priscilla Shirer said in my book that while the righteous woman trusts God to fulfill his word, the proud woman  (self-reliant) depends on herself to bring things to pass.  She ends up distressed, hurt, wondering, and confused.  I realize now how often I have submitted a dream to God and then rather than simply pursue the duties he has placed before me today, I have tried to manipulate my dream into existence prematurely.  I have been self-reliant rather than walking by faith.

The verse she referenced was Habakkuk 2:3, a new favorite that I had never read before:

The vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail.  Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come; it will not delay.

That is hope.  That is a future!  We have a destiny awaiting us that no one can take away except ourselves. Only we can shorthand God by refusing to let him work.  Only we can keep him from leading us on by stubbornly pulling against his goodwill.  I don’t know about you, but I want a future and a hope, and I am not going to try to run my own life if it means forfeiting that future.

Category: Godly Womanhood

Tags: future, God, good, hope, Jesus, life

Posted By Phylicia on September 22, 2009 | No Comments

… And that’s when I was like, “Are you kidding me?!” and he said, “No.” and I totally cracked up!” Our table at the ROT (Reber-Thomas Dining Hall) erupted into laughter.  ”I thought I didn’t have an accent and all you Southerners say I do!”  I protested over my plate of cheesy grits and mystery meat.  ”But ya’ll do have accents,” argued Abby.  ”Ya’ll say, ‘Chay-llenge’ and ‘Fain-tastic’, and that just ain’t right.”  The Northerners at the table burst into laughter again.  Abby looked confused.  ”Whaaaht?  Whaht’s so funny?” “You’re one to talk!  Your accent is positively primeval!”  Abby chuckled and agreed that everyone has an accent but they don’t hear it until another person points it out.  When you’re used to hearing your own voice, you don’t catch the differences of inflection.

In a world where one’s opinion is often considered first priority, we don’t always notice the truth about ourselves.  Sometimes, like with my accent, we get so used to being the way we are that we think it’s ‘normal’ and that anything different from our system is ‘abnormal’.  We don’t stop talking and listen to the inflection of other voices.  When our mouths are running, our ears aren’t hearing.

This applies to any personal communication — basic conversation skills and such — but more importantly it applies to our relationship with God.  Prayer, for example, has been for me a sort of intense grocery list for God to take with him to the cosmic Piggly Wiggly in answer to my entreaties.  Often I bombard him with my requests and keep talking until I think he’s gotten the exact details of what I need.  But God already knows what I need before I tell him.

Prayer definitely necessitates telling God our requests, because this is an indicator of faith.   However, it is even more important that we stop and listen to God during prayer and throughout the day.  If we pray without anticipating a reply we will not hear him when he does reply.  God is faithful to answer us, but when we “don’t hear him” it is usually because we aren’t listening for his answer or we don’t like the one we got.

Jesus said in John 10:27:

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

We are his sheep, and if we spend time with our Shepherd we will know his voice and follow it.  We will listen for it so we can obey it to the letter.  If we don’t listen for him, and if we don’t spend enough time with him to recognize his voice, then we won’t follow his leading.

“And a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him!”  (Matthew 17:5)

Category: Godly Womanhood

Posted By Phylicia on September 22, 2009 | No Comments

I am so excited to share with all of my readers the new study I am doing with my church here in Virginia!  I have joined Thomas Road’s women’s ministry, and as a member I am participating in their “Mountain Blend” morning study.  The leaders have chosen Priscilla Shirer’s Discerning the Voice of God. Like a lot of Beth Moore studies we watch a short video beforehand and fill in our workbook, then do homework during the week.

I have been so delighted to meet the ladies at my table.  It has been great being away from home but hard as well, because I don’t have my parents or my siblings, and in college you only ever see two kinds of people: college kids and elderly professors.  It’s refreshing to see babies and middle aged people again!  In all seriousness, however, this study has already proved to be exactly what I need at this point in my life and I am excited to begin it.  I will probably be sharing some of the insight I get from Priscilla’s writing as I go through the next six weeks.

God Bless!

Phylicia

Category: Bible Studies