Everyone has regrets. It could be something as small as wishing you said hello to the stranger you felt compelled to say hello to, but didn't. Something as meaningless as choosing the wrong movie or choosing the wrong phone case. Something where at the moment you stand faced with a choice and you choose the item that you reasoned was best and when you finish the movie or whatever you chose you wonder if that was really the best choice.
Then other times it's something a little larger. What if you had turned on a different street that day? What if you had chosen not to go on that walk? What if you hadn't craved that white mocha coffee? These regrets are what we could call the "what if regrets."
Lastly, we have our large regrets. For me it's wishing I would have continued ballet, I hate myself for being so stubborn. My Mom pushed and prodded but nothing could get me to go back to my beloved ballet classes. My Mom's big regret is not continuing piano when she was younger. For my Dad it is the fact that he quit making a habit of working out in college. These regrets tend to be the ones that plague us for the rest of our lives.
As I stated earlier, everyone has some sort of regret, big or small.
Here is my kicker, if we followed every poke and prod of God's would we have any regrets at all? Whether you have formed an opinion or not, hear me out, please.
God is a sovereign God, He is an all knowing God. In Jeremiah chapter one verse five He says:
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations"
God knows exactly what we will do in the next five minutes, He leaves the choice up to us but He knows what our choice is going to be. He knows what kind of impact we will make upon this world, big or small. He is using us all, whether we touch only a couple of peoples lives or millions of people. He has His plans.
So, if He knows all, if He is omnipotent, why don't we turn to Him in our choices? I have often been compelled to smile at a person, say hello, start a conversation, sit by a stranger, and so much more. I feel nudges from God to do simple things that could make a huge difference in a persons life. Sometimes I obey God's request and other times I think about everything that could happen and I talk myself out of it. Ironically enough, every time I don't follow the little urges I'm filled with regret, but when I do commit the little act I am filled with a feeling of great happiness because most of the time the person is relieved by me doing whatever it is I did. God obviously knows what needs to be done, why must we have a hard time trusting that God knows what He is doing?
Same has to go with large decisions. My Dad has very recently taken on a new job. This a big milestone in his life. You can bet that this decision was made with countless hours in prayer and also listening to what the Lord wanted us to do. Big decisions are always what people think about when they pray about being lead by God. But it's our every step that needs to be guided by Him.
If we lived with our hearts and our lives totally devoted and dedicated to God and followed His every urge I think we would live without regret. Of course, we are sinners, we will always let Satan work his way into our minds and convince us that we are too timid to ever step out and do God's will. God knows all so, why not give our all for Him? No matter what.
It takes 30 days for a habit to be ingrained into a persons mind so, for the next 30 days every time you feel led to step out of your box, go for it. Live your life God's way and live without a worming regret! You will mess up, accept that! We are sinners, we are fallen people, we are imperfect. That is why we have Jesus. God knows we mess up, it breaks His heart, but He forgives.
So, make a habit of stepping out of your box! Have a never ending conversation with Him, He will lead you the way He wants you to go!
Live life without regret, live life God's way!
Abbie
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Getting lost without being lost
Sorry for my absence, school has started back up again and so, I'm working on getting back into the swing of things. I have a lot of fun classes but they all promise to be a challenge for me. On top of all of that tennis conditioning has started up and season will be in full swing in a month or so.
Any way I had the privilege of going on a bit of an "adventure" before break ended and I never had a chance to fill all of you in!! The idea came from the book "How to be an Adventurer of the World" that I dedicated a post to earlier. The instructions were simply to go on a walk and every time you thought, "oh I'll go this way" you had to go the other way. The book explains it as, "getting lost without being lost."
So I set out on my journey to lose myself in my awe of the Maker but still know where I was. It was a tad bit nippy out but I was nice and bundled up! If I saw something I wanted to explore, you can bet I went.
I found myself at a neighborhood park right by one of the pools I worked at this summer. I plowed through snow drifts that met up with my knees and touched everything that was of interest to me.
I'm going to make another reference to Lord of the Rings, just because the movie is that great! In the first movie Frodo quotes Bilbo:
"It's dangerous business Frodo, going out of your door, you step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."
I wasn't swept of to some crazy amazing place and I didn't find anything too amazing either. But I did find something of great importance to me, my sanity. I lost it over break after being constantly surrounded by people. On my walk I was able to connect with myself again! I was able to explore my curiosities without being questioned about what I was doing. I wandered from the beaten path and left my prints in the untouched snow.
I have so many Lord of the Rings references I could use right now but I won't use them. I'll save it all for a LOTR post I just decided I'll make in the future.
I kind of rambled on in this post, I apologize. I will try to start keeping up with posts as well!
So, if all goes as planned, so long until tomorrow!! And hopefully my post is better too!
Abbie
Any way I had the privilege of going on a bit of an "adventure" before break ended and I never had a chance to fill all of you in!! The idea came from the book "How to be an Adventurer of the World" that I dedicated a post to earlier. The instructions were simply to go on a walk and every time you thought, "oh I'll go this way" you had to go the other way. The book explains it as, "getting lost without being lost."
So I set out on my journey to lose myself in my awe of the Maker but still know where I was. It was a tad bit nippy out but I was nice and bundled up! If I saw something I wanted to explore, you can bet I went.
I found myself at a neighborhood park right by one of the pools I worked at this summer. I plowed through snow drifts that met up with my knees and touched everything that was of interest to me.
I'm going to make another reference to Lord of the Rings, just because the movie is that great! In the first movie Frodo quotes Bilbo:
"It's dangerous business Frodo, going out of your door, you step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."
I wasn't swept of to some crazy amazing place and I didn't find anything too amazing either. But I did find something of great importance to me, my sanity. I lost it over break after being constantly surrounded by people. On my walk I was able to connect with myself again! I was able to explore my curiosities without being questioned about what I was doing. I wandered from the beaten path and left my prints in the untouched snow.
I have so many Lord of the Rings references I could use right now but I won't use them. I'll save it all for a LOTR post I just decided I'll make in the future.
I kind of rambled on in this post, I apologize. I will try to start keeping up with posts as well!
So, if all goes as planned, so long until tomorrow!! And hopefully my post is better too!
Abbie
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Living life God's way
Happy faces, rosy cheeks, shouts of glee, the scraping of metal against ice, the holding of hands, and the falling on bums. I'll bet you can guess where I was today!
I laced my feet into a pair of figure skates and became the dreamer of skating dreams. It took me awhile to warm up but ten minutes in I was skating like a pro.
I spent this lovely day with my Aunt, Uncle, Cousins, and Grandparents. Out of our whole group my two year old cousin was the most ambitious. In the beginning she wanted nothing to do with the ice but after seeing her Cousins and Mommy and Daddy skate, she wanted in. She took to the ice like a fish to water and after seeing a couple of other little kids skating backwards while holding a grown ups hands she let go of my Uncle's hand and grabbed both of mine. She then says "I want to skate backwards."
I think we can all learn from my cousins bravery. I once read that as soon as a child worries about the future is when childhood is given up they start to become an adult. Like any child my cousin did not worry about falling, she saw something she wanted to try and trusted that I would not let her fall.
Why can't adults and adolescents be like that? Why do we worry about what will happen when we want to do something. Now granted, it's a good to think about the consequences. You don't just do, say drugs just because you want to. Most people know not to do drugs because they thought through the consequences.
I'm talking about things that we know the consequences wouldn't be too grave. I'm talking things that God approves of, things that God says, "I want you to do that." Why can't we just trust that God would never have us do something that wouldn't shape us into the person He wants us to be? Just like I wouldn't have let my cousin skate backwards if I thought she would be hurt from it.
Why can't we just go head long into any adventure God okays for us? It could be the adventure that we tell our grandchildren about at our knee someday. Do you want to miss that opportunity? Just like how Bilbo Baggins said yes to his adventure, after much prodding, but thankfully he went along, otherwise we would have no Lord of the Rings and he would have no story to tell.
Ignore the fact that I just referenced LOTR if you have never seen the movies or read the books (you should really watch/read them though, they are great!) But I want you to understand what I am trying to say here. Adventure is meant to be had and life is meant to be lived to glorify God. So, jump in, don't be scared, if God approves you would be crazy not to hurry on your way and do His bidding. Think of how amazing this world would be and how interesting people would be if everyone allowed their every step to be guided by God Himself. It would be a lovely world.
So, next time you feel God urging you to do something unexpected, big or small, I challenge you to go out on a whim and grab life by the horns and go for it!
Abbie
I laced my feet into a pair of figure skates and became the dreamer of skating dreams. It took me awhile to warm up but ten minutes in I was skating like a pro.
I spent this lovely day with my Aunt, Uncle, Cousins, and Grandparents. Out of our whole group my two year old cousin was the most ambitious. In the beginning she wanted nothing to do with the ice but after seeing her Cousins and Mommy and Daddy skate, she wanted in. She took to the ice like a fish to water and after seeing a couple of other little kids skating backwards while holding a grown ups hands she let go of my Uncle's hand and grabbed both of mine. She then says "I want to skate backwards."
I think we can all learn from my cousins bravery. I once read that as soon as a child worries about the future is when childhood is given up they start to become an adult. Like any child my cousin did not worry about falling, she saw something she wanted to try and trusted that I would not let her fall.
Why can't adults and adolescents be like that? Why do we worry about what will happen when we want to do something. Now granted, it's a good to think about the consequences. You don't just do, say drugs just because you want to. Most people know not to do drugs because they thought through the consequences.
I'm talking about things that we know the consequences wouldn't be too grave. I'm talking things that God approves of, things that God says, "I want you to do that." Why can't we just trust that God would never have us do something that wouldn't shape us into the person He wants us to be? Just like I wouldn't have let my cousin skate backwards if I thought she would be hurt from it.
Why can't we just go head long into any adventure God okays for us? It could be the adventure that we tell our grandchildren about at our knee someday. Do you want to miss that opportunity? Just like how Bilbo Baggins said yes to his adventure, after much prodding, but thankfully he went along, otherwise we would have no Lord of the Rings and he would have no story to tell.
Ignore the fact that I just referenced LOTR if you have never seen the movies or read the books (you should really watch/read them though, they are great!) But I want you to understand what I am trying to say here. Adventure is meant to be had and life is meant to be lived to glorify God. So, jump in, don't be scared, if God approves you would be crazy not to hurry on your way and do His bidding. Think of how amazing this world would be and how interesting people would be if everyone allowed their every step to be guided by God Himself. It would be a lovely world.
So, next time you feel God urging you to do something unexpected, big or small, I challenge you to go out on a whim and grab life by the horns and go for it!
Abbie
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