Sermon notes from Tuesday Night Experiece at CFNI!

Courage...what keeps us from having courage? Fear. The problem is that so many of us are bound up by fear. A lot of times it is the fear of what others will think or do. Courage beings when you come to the point where you just don't care! So, #1) You have to figure out who you are. When King Saul told David that he could not fight because he was only a boy, he replied saying " Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from it's mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by it's hair, struck it, and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." Saul said to David, "Go, and the Lord be with you." (1 Samuel 17:34-37) David knew who he was! He knew that if he could take down the lion and the bear, then surely with the help of the Lord he could take down Goliath. What's the "bear" or "lion" in your life? Don't dance with the bear or flirt with the lion... take them down in the name of Jesus! #2) Know who you are not! Verses 38 and 39 tell us that King Saul tried to dress David in his own tunic and armor, but David said he could not go out in them because he was not used to them. David knew who he was not! It is time to shed the armor of trying to be someone else! #3)When you go to battle the enemy says "Be Frightened, Be Scared!" but God says "Be Courageous!" Who will you listen to? Know that when you stand up to the enemy, he will despise you for it. (vs. 40-44) #4) Recognize the presence of God in your life as David did. After Goliath tried to intimidate him David replied to him. It says beginning in vs. 45... David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands." That is a very powerful verse passage! Do you recognize God's presence in your life? When is it that you yell out for someone? When they are far away, right? So why then do we sometimes yell out for God? Usually it is because those are the times when we feel God isn't near, but He is! Praise the Lord! We just need to recognize His presence and all it takes is a whisper to tell him "God I need you." And He will be there in your time of need. It is through Him and Him alone that we can find the strength and the courage to do what needs to be done even when we are afraid. If you don't recognize His presence and you feel that God is distant, you need to take a look at the 3 Ts. Time, Talk, and Thoughts. What do you invest most of your time in? What do you talk about the most? What are your thoughts about? Are they about God or something else? Whatever you put the 3 Ts toward will begin to grow. So instead of feeding something else, take time for God. Talk about Him to others and what He is doing in your life, and think about Him through out the day. Then you will begin to recognize His presence! #5) vs. 48- "As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him." David was probably a little scared, but he did not let that stop him from doing what needed to be done! It is okay to have fear as long as the fear doesn't hold you back. Instead, run to the battle line and deal with it! The rest of chapter 17 tells us of the great victory the army of Israel had that day over the Philistine army after David killed Goliath. With only a sling and a stone, David struck him to the ground, went over and drew Goliath's sword, killed him, and cut off his head just as he said he would. And so the final point is this...#6) When we do as the Lord has called us to do, allowing Him to work through us H will give us the courage we need to overcome. He will take whatever it is that the enemy intended to use to harm you or to scare you, and He will use it for a victory in your life! It's time for the giants in our lives to die! It's time for fear to loose it's place in our lives! Time to be courageous! Wow! I have never gotten so much from this story! Thanks to Pastor Tom Elmore for a great sermon at the Tuesday Night Experience at Christ for the Nations. Check in next week for my sermon notes!

Tuesday Night Experience

On a normal Tuesday evening, I come home from work, change clothes, and Leonard and I hop in the car to go to the Young Adults Life Team at my friend Judith's house in Garland. I don't get home until 6:15, so we stop at Taco Bueno before jumping on the highway since it starts at 7:00p.m. I was really excited when this life team first started. I was glad to get to spend more time getting to know the people close to my age on a more personal level. Now this group is my closest group of friends. I love hanging out with them, but as for the Bible study itself I'm not satisfied. Every week we have a more in depth discussion about the topic from Sunday's sermon. Well, the weeks that I hear the sermon, it's not so bad. However, Leonard and I both work in Kidventure every other week and don't hear the sermon. Another problem is that we often get distracted and chase rabbit tails. I feel that most of the time, I am the one who talks or leads our discussion off topic. I feel as though I am the distraction. I don't think I am the only one, but I know a lot of times it is me. I think I have just grown comfortable with our group and sometimes I just want to sit and talk. I have trouble focusing. I love my friends, but I am just not getting much out of going to the Bible Study. It just seems like a waste to rush home from work, eat dinner in the car, and drive all the way from Irving to Garland when I am not growing or being challenged. Well, like I mentioned in my post "My Spiritual Journey", God is really stiring up some things in me right now and I need to be in a place where I can focus on God, and where I get hear good teaching of God's word, and where I can grow! I'm hungry for more! One of the big decisions that I am in prayer over right now is about going back to school. I have seriously been looking into going to Christ for Nations. So this past Tuesday Leonard and I went to their service that is open to the public. It's called Tuesday Night Experience. It was amazing! The worship was Spirit-filled and very high energy, the prayer time was incredible, and the sermon was great too! Of all of the times I have heard the story David and Goliath (having grown up going to Sunday school every week that's a lot of times!) I have never been so moved by the story like I was on Tuesday. I left there feeling empowered! Leonard and I are still thinking about where to go on Tuesdays. I think we are leaning toward alternating between the life team and the Tuesday Night Experience at CFNI. We are still praying about it! We will see how things turn out.

Ready To Surrender!

On May 27th, 2009 my husband, Leonard, and I will be celebrating our third anniversary. Six months into our marriage we decided to toss out the birth control and trust the Lord to give us a baby when the time was right. In my mind, I thought I would be pregnant in the next couple of months. For Leonard, sooner or later wasn't an issue. He knew he wanted to someday be a father but wasn't in any rush to have a baby. I went into each month thinking "Maybe this will be the month!" Time passed and still nothing. Over time I watched several women that I know get pregnant and have a baby. Some of them were unmarried girls. I thought to myself..."Here I am, a married woman, with a loving husband and she's not even married! I deserve to be a mother, not her!" And there were a couple of friends who were married but not trying to have a baby. I thought to myself..."Why? Why does she get something that my heart aches for? I deserve to be a mother, not her!" I was very bitter. It was an emotional roller coaster for me. SO after a year of trying I had some basic testing done and everything seems to be normal. I really struggled with the thought of "What if I can't have a baby?" I have known for a very long time that I am meant to be a mother. I have a love for children inside of me that is so strong. I've just been very impatience and it has really caused some emotional downs for me. Well, I am finally ready to surrender! Over the past week the Lord has given me a peace about the whole situation. I'm not sure what changed, but I am finally accepting the idea that maybe God wants to use my passion for children in areas other than motherhood. I know someday I will be a mother, whether it is having my own or adopting, but if now is not the time I am okay with that. I feel such a burden lifted off my shoulders now that I have come to a point where I can just completely trust God and let go. It's amazing how great it feels to be able to say with an honest heart "Here I am Lord! Take me where you want me! Use me for Your Glory!" So, coming to this point means two things. #1)For my best friend... If you read this, I am ready to be excited for you and the 2nd baby on the way! I'm sorry I wasn't when you first told me. I am happy for you and I'm sure I will love this one as much as I love your first baby! And if it's a girl, I still think you should name her Kristin! LOL! I love you and I'm looking forward to you coming back home later in the year so I can give you a baby shower before your little one arrives. #2) All of this changes my job situation. Let me explain... When I first started trying to get pregnant I was working for Thompson and Knight,LLP. The plan was to get pregnant, work through the pregnancy, and the quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom. When I lost my job at T&K, I decided to get a job doing something I would enjoy until I could get pregnant and then I would quit and stay home. Well, I got a job in childcare working at the Primrose School in Valley Ranch. I love my job and I think it has been a blessing for me. During a time when all I wanted was a child of my own, I was able to take care of lots of little ones all day long every day. Not to mention the fact that I have learned so much about babies and toddlers that will someday help me as a mother. I will go into motherhood being two steps ahead because of what I have experienced in my job. The problem is that I never intended for this to be a permanent job. It was only to have a job until I got pregnant. Since that hasn't happened yet, and I am now accepting the fact that it might not happen for a while, I feel differently about my job. I want more. I think there are greater things I could be doing with myself. So right now I am praying for guidance. I have this feeling that God is leading me somewhere else. I am considering the possibility of going back to school. It's a fresh idea, and definitely something I am going to be praying over for a while. If I do decide to do this it will be Fall of 2010. I have an idea as to what I want to do and where I want to go but I'm not going to say just yet. Before that can happen anyway we are going to spend this year paying off some of our existing dept and I am going to take the state exam to get my massage license. So we will see how things go! I am excited to see what God has in store for my life over the next year!

My Spiritual Journey

God had really been working in my life lately! He is teaching me so much and leading my life to new places. For so my own benefit of keeping track of things, and as a way to share with others what the Lord is doing my life, I thought I would write everything down here on my blog!

Kristin