What/Who Are You Worshiping?

We are currently reading Wired: For a Life of Worship by Louie Giglio for a class here at Sandy Cove.  I really love this book because there are so many wonderful points.  I wanted to share some of the highlights that really hit home with me, I am hoping they will make you think and reexamine your life as it did mine.  So here are some of my favorite quotes from the book…

“We become what we worship.  If you don’t like who you’re becoming, take a quick inventory of the things on the throne of your heart.”

“Our words mean most when they’re amplified by the way we choose to live our lives when we are faced with various opportunities and temptations.”

We are supposed to be worshiping continually because God says… “Everything you are—is Me.  Everything you have—is Mine.  The life you live is My life that I’ve freely given you.  And I want worshipers who will be constantly reflecting My goodness and grace with that life.”

“You can worship God wherever you are…doing whatever it is you do!”

Mr. Giglio also wrote about the time that he used to work a photocopying machine.   He wrote in the book about his experience and how he would spend hours with the copying machine doing the same thing over and over and over again.  God worked with Mr. Giglio because eventually the copy room turned into a place he loved.  He was able to improve his workmanship, but mainly he loved it because he got to spend that time with God. “Time to talk to Him.  Time to worship. Time to listen. Time to pray.”  This got me to thinking specifically when I am doing housekeeping on weekends.  It can be very repetitious.   We can either be folding sheets and towels for hours or making beds for hours.  I know I kind of blogged about this before but this story kind of brought it home for me.  My witness (can be) my work…and my work (can be) my worship.”  So I want to challenge those of you who are reading this blog to think about it. How can you “turn your place in life into a place of true worship”?

“Everything on earth (except sin) can be done as an act of worship to God

To Eat or Not to Eat

When we first arrived here at Sandy Cove we were asked to pick something to fast, and then fast from it for six weeks.  We were supposed to pick something that whenever we thought about it we were supposed to pray or spend time reading the Bible.  Well I decided on desserts along with Meghan and Renee.  You know how girls are, we like our desserts and our Chocolate. I am going to be honest, I didn't really take the fast serious at first.  It was a way for us to connect with each other as a group because three of us were doing the same fast and then the others were teasing us at first.  At the beginning of the six weeks we had kind of decided that to break our fast we would go to the Cheesecake Factory!!! So on the night of our fast I ate a huge piece of the Reese's Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Cheesecake, and boy was it A-MAZING!!!

Anyway it sounds like I didn't learn a thing during the fast but I really did.  There were so many times were we had to flee from the temptation of having dessert and there were other times were we couldnt flee we had to just deal with the temptation right in front of us.  For example: we baked cupcakes at Camp Sandy Cove, there were two times where we were handing out s'mores, and we were putting out cookies and cakes for different groups.  But the one thing I learned the most happened at the very end.  We were breaking our fast Thursday night and Wednesday night we happened to be up past midnight where it was technically Thursday and technically we could have breaken our fast.  And I was going to do it with a cookie.  But then I thought about it and I decided I didnt want to settle for a lousy cookie from our freezer I wanted to CHOOSE to wait and have the real thing at the Cheesecake Factory.  So basically I learned that dessert doesnt own me/I dont need it I CAN CHOOSE TO EAT IT OR NOT TO EAT IT!!!!! 

Acts 17

We have been going through Acts the past week or two for class.  It has been cool to learn about the birth and the growth of the Christian Church.  This week we were studying Acts 17:16-34, which Paul shows us about how to evangelize.  Paul basically went into a city and saw a need and met it right away. He saw the idolatry in the city and decided to confront it. (Why was it so easy for Paul to confront people way back when and we can’t confront other, even fellow believers, in their sin?)  Paul used every moment to share the gospel he went to the public square daily to speak to anyone who would listen.  Why do we get so caught up in our everyday life and not take time to help the lost?  I know why…we are afraid of rejection. 

Acts 17: 32- When they heard Paul speak about the resurrection of the dead, some laughed in contempt, but others said, “We want to hear more about this later.”

 People will reject the good news, but people will also accept it to.   Several years ago I went on a six week mission trip and one of our goals was to share the gospel everywhere we went.  Everywhere from Wal-mart to McDonalds.  It was so hard…because it is uncomfortable.  But it was totally worth it because we did see those certain people accept the Lord.  We never know unless we try. I am preaching/reminding myself just as much as whoever is reading this.    I hope this makes you think.

When all else Fails...try try again!

So apparently you can choose to have a good attitude…I guess I never really thought about it because it is so much easier to have a bad attitude about something.  Today I worked in the kitchen with Kristina and we were preparing salads for a banquet.  We were told that we needed to make 376 salads…so we started going at it.  Well about half way through, another supervisor in the kitchen made a comment about having a banquet of 32 people.  So we had to undo all of the salads we made.  It would have been so easy to just grumble and complain (Phil. 2:14) but we chose to have a positive attitude.  When something bad happens, 9x out of 10 it could have been worse.  In this case, we could have made all 376 salads and then have to undo all of those, instead it was half.

The first day we arrived here at Sandy Cove we received a devotional book, The Message//Remix: Solo, and we are supposed to be doing it every day.  Basically, you read a passage from the Message and then have to think and pray about it.  Well for some odd reason I felt like I wasn’t getting anything out of it so I was a little discouraged which made me in the long run have a bad attitude about it. Well after we discussed it in our class the other day I tried having a better attitude about it, because even if sometimes I don’t get something out of it, it is still God’s Word.  Anyway the next couple days the girls and I decided to make it a little more interesting, so we decided to do it together.  Of course we got a little silly.   The one time we were supposed to read the passage 5x.  So the one time we went around and we read it one word at a time, the next time we read it very dramatically, then in 3 different versions.  After reading it we took time to discuss it and kind of take it apart.  Last night we even got to apply what we were learning in our one class about how to study the Bible.

Even though I just was saying that you can choose to have a good attitude, I am having a hard time choosing to have a good attitude when there are people who work different than me. Satan knows that is a weakness of mine and he is putting those people right in my path, so I could use some prayer on that these next several months.