But Daddy Said

Well... Christmas just blew by, didn't it?! And now here we are -- New Year's Eve!!!

So, with Christmas flying by so quickly I didn't get to post all the things I had wanted to for the 12 Days of Christmas blog party I participated in this year. I was happy that I was at least able to do two posts, but there was especially this one that I had pretty much finished that I was planning to post Christmas Eve... but unfortunately, I never actually got around to it. But instead of waiting another whole year, I decided, why not just share this post now and have a little after-Christmas party? So... here it is! :)

Growing up, our parents never did the whole Santa thing with my siblings and me. We've joked around about Santa Claus sometimes, and even usually leave cookies and milk for "Santa" -- but we were always told and knew that it was really Mommy and Daddy leaving us presents, and that the jolly old bearded man who is said to live in the freezing North Pole with his happy little elves, making toys for good children and mining coal for the bad ones, was all just make believe. So, of course, when my parents told me he wasn't real, I believed them. I trusted them, not giving it a second thought.

But when I was around five or six years old, my trust was put to the test. One evening (I think it was Christmas Eve) me and some of the other kids at our church were standing outside on the church porch after a service, probably getting ready to leave to go back home.

So we were out there chattering and such when one of the older girls pointed up suddenly and said to me, "Look! It's Santa's sleigh! There!"

I jerked my head up and searched the night sky for a second. "Aw, you missed it," she said.

And then our conversation continued something like this...

"You were just joking," I said back to her.

"No! I really saw it; Santa's sleigh was really there."

I stared up at the moon bright in the sky that night, searching deep into my thoughts for some explanation. And then the thought hit me... IS Santa actually real? Is she kidding? But why would she lie to me? She keeps saying it's true... Maybe it... IS true...

This older girl kept insisting it was indeed true, that his sleigh really was just in the sky. I can just imagine now the mischievous fun she must of had messing with my innocent little five or six year old mind.

It wasn't too awfully long before I came to myself, however. Daddy and Mommy told me Santa wasn't real. They wouldn't lie to me. I knew that. So, I chose to believe them instead of this girl. I put what my parents said above what she had said.

Most of us would probably say that we trust our parents more than other people we don't know as well. Especially when we were little, and didn't know doubt like we do now, we would believe and trust anything our parents told us was true because we trusted them.

So, I was thinking... How much more then should we trust and believe our Heavenly Daddy and in what He tells us is true above what others say?

Even if our parents are the best parents in the world, God is still a much better Father to us than they could ever be. Like Jesus says in Matthew 7:11, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"

If we've had good, loving, caring parents all our lives, we've built a trust in them. We know we can trust them because we know their character. But sadly, a lot of people, even confessing Christians, don't seem to know much about God's character -- so because of this, they don't fully trust Him. They think He's the one causing all their problems and is out to get them; they think they can never know what God will do. They think He is breaking and hurting them.

But this isn't what God is like at all! God is a trustworthy Father. He is faithful. He is love. God doesn't give us problems -- He gives us answers! I think there are actually many times when we forget that there's a devil in this world, too. God isn't the bad guy. The devil is the one who's doing the killing, stealing, and destroying here on this earth and in our lives -- not God! God is working to help us out of those messes the devil tries sending our way. And He sent Jesus to this earth to give us life -- and not only that -- but life more abundantly! (John 10:10)

If we knew just how good our Heavenly Father is to us, more than even our earthly parents, then how easy it should be to trust in Him and what He says! When we know we can trust God, we can, much easier, be able to take Him at His word. When the devil tries to play with our head and throw a lie in our face, we can think back to what our Daddy told us is really true. When the enemy tells us the lie that we can't do something, we remember the truth that our Daddy said we could do all things through Him. (Phil. 4:13) When the enemy tells us that we're all alone, we remember the truth that Daddy said He would never leave us or forsake us. (Heb. 13:5) When the enemy tells us we're a loser, we remember the truth that Daddy said that we're more than conquerors through Him who loved us. (Rom. 8:37)

We can be like Jesus when the devil tried to tempt Him in the wilderness. (Matt. 4:1-11) When the devil throws a temptation or lie our way, we should be saying right back to him, like Jesus said, "'It is written!' What my Father says is the truth of the matter, and I choose to believe and trust Him -- not you."

God really is good. He loves us so much. And one big way you can especially see His love is through the Christmas story -- when he sent His only Son, Jesus into the world to die for us and pay for our sins. He did all that so we could have relationship with Him, have an abundant life here, and be able to be with Him for all eternity.

When you grow up a Christian your whole life, I think it can sometimes be easy to become passive about the whole Christmas story and Jesus' resurrection. But maybe we should think about it in this way... God didn't have to send Jesus for us. I'm sure God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and all the angels up there could have just stayed right where they were and had a fine time up in Heaven without giving another thought to all of us down here after Adam disobeyed in the very beginning. God didn't have to make the extra effort for us by sending us His Son to save us... but He did. He chose to. Why? Because of how much He loves us!

John 3:16 makes it very clear just how much God loves all of us -- he "SO loved the world"! He didn't just love us -- He SO loved us! And that is why that first Christmas happened. Because of God's great love for every person here on this earth. There would be no Christmas if God hadn't "so loved the world". But He did so love us. That's why we celebrate Christmas.

And that's why we truly can trust our Daddy and in what He tells us is true. <3

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas, and I pray that you will have a fresh revelation of God's Love this New Year's Eve and throughout the coming year! Happy 2019 to each and every one of you, and God bless!! Write to ya next year! :D
~Faith

A TODAY Mentality

Happy 2018, everyone! It's hard to believe that a whole month of this year has already flown past us! How could this have happened??? But let's not be discouraged! We still have 11 months left of this thing. We're far from over with 2018. We're still just getting started!

Maybe you didn't get much done in January. To be honest, I myself didn't get a whole lot done of what I wanted to do. I didn't start out this year with that big bang I was hoping for. For one thing, I was planning to post a lot more and do more with this blog at the beginning of the year. Did that happen? Well as you can see... no, it didn't. This is actually the first thing I've posted this year, so...

It's easy to get discouraged when you don't start out the New Year the way you hoped. When time seems to just keep flying by, not stopping long enough for you to catch up, it's easy to just give up on the things you had first planned and set out to do. But let me encourage you guys (and I'm talking to myself here as well) that it's a new day every day -- it's never too late to get started on goals or projects you may have for this year. You still have time!

BUT REMEMBER, don't take that as an excuse -- an excuse to not get things done. And maybe it's not like this with everyone, but I know that with myself, I've done this way too many times. "Faith, what are you talking about?" Okay sorry, let me back up. When you're at this age, teenage/early twenties, you have many people tell you things like, "You're so young, you have plenty of time to do that!" "Don't worry about that, you have plenty of time to get that done!"

Now, I'm definitely not saying that that's wrong to say to someone. That can be a very encouraging thing to say. I know it's been encouraging to me when I've been feeling like I've wasted a lot of time already, and it helps remind me that my life is far from over yet and that I still have plenty of time ahead of me to get the things done that I want and need to do. But... I think sometimes we take this "plenty of time" thing the wrong way. I think we do this without even realizing it. When we get it into our minds that we have "plenty of time", for some of us (not all of us, but probably quite a few) it gives us an excuse to not do anything right now. Because we tell ourselves, "Well, I have plenty of time to get that done, so I'll just put that off for now... I'll do that later... I have plenty of time..."

And, YES, we have a lot of time. We have our whole lives ahead of us. And NO, we shouldn't just rush into things because we need to hurry up and get 'er done! We need to seek God's will and not bolt into something just because everyone else is doing it or others are telling you that you need to do a certain thing.

BUT we also need to not always be putting things off for tomorrow, for next week, for next month. We don't have an unlimited amount of time here on this earth. We're all going to move on from this life eventually. Even if we live to be 120, we still need to use our time wisely here and not just sit around, waiting for that sudden burst of motivation to rise up in our veins every now and then to get us going out and doing something. We can't always do everything right away, and sometimes we have to be patient and not rush into everything right now; sometimes we need to wait until tomorrow to do the thing. But there's always SOMETHING that can be done today. Maybe you can't do the whole job today, but you can do a step. That's how we ultimately get things done, right? One step at a time.

God has a plan for your life. A GOOD one. He has things for you to do. But it's up to you if you want to follow that plan, and do the things He has for you to do. He usually doesn't give you His whole plan and a bunch of things you need to do all at once. He guides us in steps. One step at a time. We can walk in His plan for us if we'll only listen and take the steps He tells us to take. What step is God guiding you to take TODAY? What He's telling you to do might make no sense to your head right now... But if you're faithful to do that one thing, He'll give you another thing -- another step -- to do, and little by little, it will suddenly all start to make sense. God would never lead us down a path that doesn't go anywhere, or down one that leads to destruction or confusion. He only has GOOD planned for us. So let's not be afraid to follow Him, to do what He's instructing us to do, and to take the steps He's wanting us to take with Him.

So, let me ask you... What's you're goal? What's that thing that's been pressing on your heart that you know God's been leading you to start? Maybe it's just a small personal thing that you've been desiring to accomplish, like eating healthier. What can you do TODAY towards reaching that goal?

I challenge you, as well as myself, to have a today mentality. What can be done today? A lot of times I find myself always thinking to tomorrow, to the next thing that needs to be done, and not the thing that needs to be done right now, that needs to be done TODAY. But, don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that you should never make a plan for things ahead. Plans are very important! Getting a plan together is one step in getting things done. But if we're only focused on our plans for the future and never on the here and now, we'll miss out on a lot and never actually get much of anything really done.

Psalm 118:24 says,
"This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." 

This is the day. Today. Right now. We're not talking about tomorrow... THIS day -- TODAY -- is the day the LORD has made! So come on, guys, let's go out and do something with this day the LORD has given us!

~Faith

What are the goals you want to accomplish this year? Share them down in the comments if you'd like! :)