God | Heartstone Journey

Man Up And Stop Blaming Everyone!

Ok, time for a gut check.

Are you a person that takes responsibility or a person that blames?

Are you quick to point the finger at someone else and say, “It’s your fault!”?

Ever wonder why our knee jerk reaction is to blame? Is blaming a new thing? When did it all start?

You are not a failure until you start blaming others for your mistakes.

—John Wooden

Lets dial the story back to Genesis to one that you may have heard of before. It’s a pretty famous story of a dialog between God and the first two people that ever lived — the story of Adam and Eve.

Why Does Egypt Always Look So Good In The Rear View Mirror?

It was during this place of desolation, my journey to His Mountain that the Lord spoke to my heart with a resounding clarity; “Truth, love, obedience, and do My will!” This refreshing revelation would become the very foundation stones for the path that He was preparing before me, the path that I had to walk.

We felt like we’d been sent to death row that it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally—not a bad idea since he’s the God who raises the dead! And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he’ll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing. —2 Corinthians 1:9, 10 (MSG)

As I began to slowly release my grip of the fear rooted in my brokenness, the soft gentle wind of His Spirit began to prepare me for my exodus out of the Egypt I had created in my life. This journey would be brushed with plagues, an angry Pharaoh, many times of doubting God and overwhelming obstacles to overcome. Remember, it didn’t take much time for God to get the Israelites out of Egypt, but it took years to get Egypt out of the Israelites. I was no different.

How To Break Free Of Who You’re Not!

In Isaiah 43, God shares that He is doing a new thing and it is springing forth. The big question He challenges us with is, will we see it? …will you even be aware of it?

Its a prelude to something incredible, it’s a reality that God is doing something awesome. I’ve seen the context of this verse in scripture used for various circumstances, but today lets wrap it around life after signing up for this Jesus thing.

In every day life, there are things waiting for us to see. Ever wonder why there are some people out there that seem to always seem capture moments of opportunity and have extraordinary lives? And you don’t because you’ve convinced yourself that the universe is out of whack? Or that somehow God is playing a trick on you by doing everything you want to someone else that you know?

The rub here is that God is offering opportunity to us and offering us an extraordinary life, but many of us don’t have the eyes to see it! Because…we are so focused on living the lives of others.

God is saying to us…”I am doing a new thing…will you even be aware of it?”

When we sign up for this Jesus thing, it’s written that we are a new creation…we are new in Christ! If we’ve connected to God through Jesus, everything inside us is new…even if we don’t feel it right away. We are all made for a purpose and that extraordinary thing that God calls us to is to become what we already are — what He created us to be!

Have you ever tried to be someone you’re not?

How God Uses The Wilderness To Shape Us

Life hurts in many different ways; through disappointments, disease, loss of loved ones, betrayal, or financial disasters like losing a job. We live in a fallen and broken world, a world that aches and every one of us at some time or another will feel the hurts of life. Have you ever had a best friend betray you? Or how about the time you pulled an all-nighter studying for an important exam and still failed it? Do you know someone who has walked through the anguish of a miscarriage or an abortion? Have you ever worked diligently and faithfully at your place of work expecting a promotion and lost out to a coworker? This list is endless…

Life is not an injury-free sport.

The pain and the anguish of this journey called “life” somehow seeps deep down into the recesses of our hearts and beats us down day after day. Some of us can let the tears flow and find relief while others buy into the lie that we don’t feel those things.

The author of Lamentations finds himself immersed in the tragedy and pains of life. To better understand the real circumstances of that time we have to know what it was like during the final days of Jerusalem before King Nebuchadnezzar breached its walls. The days before the destruction of Jerusalem marked the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s words about the coming famine, pestilence, and sword. They were dark days full of terrors and horrors.

On The Other Side Of “Be Still, And Know That I Am God”

One of the places I unplug in the workplace is my daily devotional reading from Streams in the Desert. Whats great about spending time with God in devotionals, reading His word or in prayer…is you never know when something will be stirred in your spirit.

Reading the devotional from January 26th, I was reminded of the time I hiked up Mt. Lafayette to escape the rough and tumble of divorce. I remembered standing on that rock on Mt. Lafayette, a place of desolation, where the call from to “go forward” echoed in my heart as the battle of my destiny moment began. I’m sure you can relate that when life gets tough our complaining gets going. Of course I wanted God to snap His fingers and make everything tight, but there is a timing to His plan.

Man Up And Stop Blaming Everyone!

Why Does Egypt Always Look So Good In The Rear View Mirror?

How To Break Free Of Who You’re Not!

How God Uses The Wilderness To Shape Us

On The Other Side Of “Be Still, And Know That I Am God”

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