God Is...

This is part my blogging series "Challenge Filled February"
I'll be blogging every day about who God is
To start from the beginning click HERE

I have a confession
I made the conscious decision not to blog yesterday. Which might seem strange since I was trying to do a 28 day challenge where I blogged EVERY DAY.

But as someone who has been trying to live a more "Grace Filled Life" rather than guilt-ing myself for not feeling like blogging - I thought I'd let myself off the hook.

God's mercies start anew every morning and my actions can't change how much He loves me.

The final passage in the YouVersion "God Is" study speaks directly to both of those things -
God's LOVE and his GRACE.

4But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus

Ephesians 2:4-7

In conclusion for this month, if I believe that God is REAL, then I also must believe that:

God is RICH IN MERCY because of his LOVE FOR US!

And today I want to live like that is true.

Today I want to be God's witness to this truth in my life.

I'd love to hear from those of you who chose to take this journey with me.

Or even if you didn't...

What have you been learning about God?

What witness are you showing through your life's story?

God is {HOPE}

This is part my blogging series "Challenge Filled February"
I'll be blogging every day about who God is
To start from the beginning click HERE


4Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.7Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Today at work was CRAZY.
From seeing co-workers off, to newsletters, to curriculum orders, to packing boxes for my bosses who leave tomorrow for the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, to Youth Pastor calls... the list could go on.
I had to run an errand in the late afternoon, so I hopped into the stylish LT mini van and flipped on the CD player to discover one of my co-workers left a CD in there.

And not just any CD

but a All Sons & Daughters CD

(someone I've been listening to on Pandora a lot recently)
Take a listen to this song - Brokenness Aside

Yes my friends
God is HOPE

and he lays our brokenness aside

and makes us beautiful.

God is {FRIEND}

This is part my blogging series "Challenge Filled February"
I'll be blogging every day about who God is
To start from the beginning click HERE

9As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. 12"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

John 15:9-17

I've read this passage over and over again - even meditated on it the summer I worked at camp because verse 13 was our theme verse
And please don't take this next statement the wrong way because I try to really value what my God did for me by giving up his Son to the painful death of a cross -
but even more valuable than verse 13 to me is

verse 15

That God lets me in on the plan. 

Jesus did not try to hide why he was there on earth. He told the disciples daily what the plan was. Sure, sometimes it was through cryptic stories, but others he outright told the bold harsh truth:

I must suffer

I love that daily, He is speaking to me and telling me, as a friend, what he has planned.
Some days I'm not looking or listening, but that does not mean that God is speaking any less.

We start each work day in a time of worship together as a staff. Over the past two months we've been reading through the Psalms and then talking about ways we've seen God. Honestly, it's been a little tough lately. But I keep going, and I keep listening to my co-workers speak of the ways God is letting them in on His plan.

So to finish this out for tonight I'm just gonna use some words penned by one of my new favorite blog finds

Because beneath frustration and imperfection I believe in the goodness of our moments and our lives, especially the kind that take some fighting for.

How are you hearing from God today?