Wednesday check in <3

I didn’t show up here yesterday because I had an aggressive to do list and a lot of that Fall energy and adrenaline I spoke about on Monday. 

I managed to stay on task for two solid days and I am hoping to have a three-peat today. 

I’m telling you…Fall is my season. 

When Russ got home I made him walk around the house so I could show him all the things I accomplished…it’s like living with a kindergartner…bless him <3

I have so many thoughts bubbling around in my head so today I am just sharing a couple of them and then we can move on with our day <3

October is the anniversary month for starting this blog. In the summer of 2013 I attended a writer’s conference even though the only writing I did was in spiral notebooks like you buy at the start of the school year (wide rule please, to accommodate my messy handwriting.) I also sent out a newsletter to about a hundred people and had the audacity to schedule a meeting with a publisher who was so very kind, she looked at my material and smiled sweetly and said the most amazing thing. A hundred people is a good-sized church, you know. I have kept that in my heart. One person encouraged on a given day is enough in the Kingdom. One weary saint who feels understood. One person who doesn’t feel alone that can be reached through this…it’s amazing. 

I am getting so much out of the Kelly Minter study “Finding God Faithful” and one of the aha moments from this week came from a new look at 1 Peter 1:3-9. Looking at this passage through the lens of Joseph’s struggles and heartache when he was unjustly imprisoned gave me a new perspective. 

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

1 Peter 3:7 NIV

It occurred to me as I read these passages that I have misconstrued this in my life.

I thought my trials were a pass/fail and after I go through them, God will look at my faith and see if it was the real deal and either give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down and the whole thing probably developed early in me from a works-based type of religion that I refuse to blame anyone for. 

The process of learning about Jesus and what He did is a lifelong process…and yesterday some more scales fell off these blind eyes. 

I realized that the “faith” that is in me is the faith given as a grace gift from God when I received Christ as my Lord and Savior. 

When I go through trials and testings, that faith IS gold. That faith makes it through because it is indestructible. And when I get to the other side, I can clearly see that the faith in me is the real deal.

So every time I endure a trial or a testing, as I lean hard into God and seek Him in the midst of it. As I struggle with my old fleshy-selfish-idolatrous nature and with His help overcome it….that faith that was given to me comes through unharmed. 

And the result of it is – beautiful and pure worship and praise of God because that faith was a GIFT from Him!!!

Something I cannot attain when I am full of myself and my worth. 

Here is what I wrote in my study page:

I am seeing this verse from a new perspective. Is it that the faith given me can only be shown its true value and character in times of suffering and trial – stripped bare of all that I thought was blessing and favor? In the heat of loss, betrayal, doubt – the faith that comes as a gift of grace its shown for what it is: an underserved, unearned gift. And then I see with clear eyes how great our God is. And my worship of Him grows more pure and deeper because of my own sin and self burned away in the fire of trial. This is why I rejoice greatly in my trials.

I am forging ahead today with another Facebook live and sharing some other things gleaned from the study. If you do Facebook – check it out. If you don’t, carry on with your day blissfully free of all that is social media.

I pray today in whatever you are facing, you can begin to see that the faith that is in you IS pure gold…you are not being tested to fail.

You are being tested to be proven genuine. There is a world of difference <3