We all have shows or other forms of entertainment that we consider to be guilty pleasures.  Many of these are what people will consider “trash television.”  These are not meant to be taken seriously.  They are meant for pure entertainment, even some very unholy entertainment.   Some of my absolute favorites are Dance moms, the bachelor/bachelorette, and Youtube commentary/gossip channels.  Why do I love these so much?  I don’t really know.  However, I just know that I find them incredibly entertaining.  I would not say that I am proud of myself for enjoying these shows so much.  I suppose the reason they are called guilty pleasures is because we are not necessarily proud of watching them and we know there are issues, but we still enjoy them for their pure entertainment value. 

Let’s look at Dance Moms.  If you have never seen it, it is a show that has young girls who take dance classes and are a part of dance competitions.  The big drama of the show, though, is that each dancer has a mom who fights with the dance teacher on a regular basis.  They also sometimes will fight with each other and lastly, they can fight with other dance studios.  This is very interesting and fascinating to watch.  Then I also love to watch the bachelor or bachelorette which includes a lot of drama between couples or women/men who are fighting for the same significant other.  There is always drama between the contestants and then there are some times when there is fighting amidst the couples.  

However, part of me wonders if I just love to watch these shows because I love to watch others with their struggles.  The same thing goes for drama.  I will be honest when I say that sometimes it is incredibly entertaining to hear about the drama that is happening within friends or at the workplace, within a couple in town, or a big-name celebrity.  I suppose I am not the only one, as there are people who make it their livelihood to capture celebrities’ and politician’s personal lives and demise in tabloids.  It can be easy to feel that way about these people because they are on a show, or they are famous, therefore their lives really don’t count.  Or maybe they are so disconnected from your life that you don’t have to care about what is happening to them.  They count, but they are not on the same level as I am.  I can watch their demise because they have put themselves out there.  However, I do not believe this is the start of a good habit to look at others who are also image bearers of the Lord.  Their lives do count, even if we are not directly connected with them.  

There are verses throughout the Bible that discuss the problems of gossip and taking pleasure in others’ demises.  We see this throughout the love chapter in 2 Corinthians 13 that love holds no record of wrongs.  The kind of love that we should possess as children of God does not look at another person and count all that they have done wrong as whether or not they are worthy of love.  Similarly, we should hold no record of wrong or be holding on to the different ways someone is less deserving of love.  Then another verse is from Proverbs about loving these dramatic problems.  Proverbs 17:19 says, “Whoever loves a quarrel loves sin; whoever builds a high gate invites destruction.”  Proverbs are incredibly direct.  The idea of loving those gossip stories to be the same as loving sin really upsets my heart and mind.  I don’t want to think of loving a sin, even if I want to argue that it seems small.    

There are definitely some takeaways from this.  The first is that we need to be aware of how we see conflict others are experiencing.  There are some questions that we can ask ourselves in the moment of seeing others’ rough situations.  Do I look at this gossip as something I can find as entertainment?  Am I looking at this situation and believing myself to be morally superior?  Will I laugh at other’s demises?  Again, I am not asking these questions with a form of moral high-standing because I have definitely fallen into the rabbit hole of being infatuated with other’s problems and drama for all the wrong reasons.  I just described the shows that I love to indulge in because of the fights and the drama associated with others in their lives, so I know how hard and difficult it can be to fight against the desire of these shows or dramatic pieces.  

I think another good idea is to find something in a show that is dramatic but in the form of mystery or fantasy.  Television and movies need to include a kind of plot that includes drama, but it doesn’t have to be the kind that makes us desire bad things to happen to people.  There are plenty of books, television shows, and movies that have drama filled plots that still can have a whole moral value.  There is usually conflict, but there are many where the villains or the antagonists are able to also complete some personal reflection.  We love a good story, good stories are great to be around, but when the piece of the show makes us idealize a sin, we should stop and reflect if we are giving this show too much power.  

Of course, then my challenge for all of you would be to think about the shows and the entertainment in your life.  What are the positives to those shows and what are the negatives? This is a challenge for me, obviously, as well.  I am not necessarily saying that it is something that you need to remove from your life.  I think that will come from your personal reflection and prayer.  I do wish you luck in any endeavors of getting rid of bad things in your life, even our “guilty pleasures.” 

There was high energy in my Sunday school class last week.   The six kids that were there were ready to run.   They wanted to jump and play.  It did make sense as it was actually 30 some degrees as opposed to -30 windchill outside.  I too felt the effects of the “heat” and I was also ready to play, getting excited for the days when spring will actually be here.  To counteract some of their energy, we played some old-school games like red light, green light, as well as hide and seek.  

I discovered something, as a 27 year old grown woman, which is that it is not easy to play hide and seek in a room designed for 3-5 year olds.  There was nowhere for me to hide! The best option was behind the door, but still then it was a close squeeze, and I was usually the first one found.  Granted, I wasn’t necessarily trying that hard, but it would still have been nice to have at least somewhere I could have hid to fully play the game.  The kids still enjoyed “finding” me when I was basically in plain sight, so I suppose that is what really matters.  

Sometimes, we may want to hide.  Sometimes we may want to hide from the world and other people, or we may want to hide from God.  We may want to hide from him because we are ashamed.  We are ashamed of some sin we have committed or our thoughts that are constantly running through our heads.  However, God can see us completely.  God can even read what we are thinking.  He can see our thoughts and knows anything we are experiencing.  There is no reason to hide, and there is no reason to even want to hide.  God doesn’t want us to hide, not so he can punish us or treat us badly, but because He loves us and wants to bless us.  

Our church service strengthened this idea when we started talking about Hagar.  Hagar was the servant of Abraham and Sarah.  She was impregnated by Abraham when Sarah gave her to him because she herself could not have children.  (Well she was promised children by God, but she was struggling in her faith to believe in his promises).  Hagar decided to run away after Sarah was cruel to her after she became impregnated.  However, she found she could not run away from God.  God found her in the desert, alone.  He called to her, and he told her to go back to her home with Abraham and Sarah.  She does, and she has been touched and felt blessed by being seen by the Lord.  In Genesis 16:13, it says “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”  Isn’t that awesome?!  She has realized that God sees her.  He sees her for everything that she is and cares about her well-being.  

I imagine that any time we try to hide from God, you know the master and creator of the universe, able to see all things, we are just like me sticking out easily in a preschool classroom.  We can’t hide.  We will always be seen by him who created us and ultimately loves us.  I know there have been times that I try to hide.  I have especially tried to hide when I was struggling with my anxiety and my bouts of anger.   I don’t want to act as though I have anxiety with God.  I want to look as though I have complete faith in God and in his plans.  When in reality, there are times I am just insecure in his plan.   God knows about my anxiety even when I try to hide it, so there really is no reason for me to try to hide this fact from him.  

The best way that I have learned to avoid hiding from God is being completely honest with him.  God doesn’t need us to put on an act in front of him.  He doesn’t need us to be something we are not.  He knows that we are going to have struggles, and we are going to be anxious.  He knows we will get angry, jealous, and even defiant.   Not saying that he is necessarily approving of this behavior, but he would rather us be honest than lying about how we are really feeling.  Being completely vulnerable and honest in my prayer life is the best thing to keep me from wanting to hide from God.  

My challenge for you this week is more serving as a reflection.  My challenge for you is to think through any times where you may want to hide yourself away from God.  This doesn’t necessarily have to be your soul intention, but it ends up happening as your shame or fear starts to take over.  After you have reflected on that, I would highly recommend spending some time in prayer to God to ask him to help you fight against the desire to play hide and seek.  

Last, I want to end with this verse from Psalm 144:3 which says, “O Lord, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere motels that you should think about them.”  The Lord does think about you and me.  It is amazing to believe that the Lord, the God of the universe, and creator of everything would spend time thinking about you and me, but he does. This is why we can’t hide from him; he is always thinking about us.  

For my Bible Study, I have been reading a book about community.  This book is called, “Find your People,” by Jennie Allen.  She introduces the importance of community by introducing the research statistics of community and friendships as fundamental for health.  There has been a lot of research related to this topic.  Even though the United States, for example, has access to a wide array of resources and medical professionals, our health, both our mental and physical, is becoming worse as people are becoming lonelier and lonelier.   

“Research says that more than three in five Americans report being chronically lonely, and that number is ‘on the rise.’  These stats are indicators of a grave and costly crisis.  Anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts are all on the rise.  Scientists now warn that loneliness is worse for our health than obesity, smoking, lack of access to health care, and physical inactivity.” (Jennie Allen-Find Your People.)

This was a fact I found hard to believe.  Living in America, the idea that being alone on a regular basis is unhealthy is the opposite of what has been instilled in me, starting at a young age. America has adapted to a very individualized approach to life.  We love to live on our own, work on our own, and do our errands alone.  Then after we have had our full day of working, exercising, running errands, and other various tasks, we will make time for some casual friendships and relationships.  This statistic and therefore, most of Jennie’s book is looking at doing the complete opposite of that.  This book is challenging us to look for relationships being a main foundational piece of our life.  

Community is highly important when it comes to our physical health as well as our religious and spiritual health.  The Lord talks so much about community.  He also shows this.  There are not many stories about Jesus when he is preaching and when he is performing miracles where is not surrounded by individuals. He is constantly surrounded by his disciples.  He is with his really good friends.  Jesus was also a part of a community even before he came down to earth.  Jennie through this book helps me realize that God was a part of the community with the Trinity.  It is Three in One, which is three separate entities together forever.  (I’ll be completely transparent here that trying to describe the Trinity accurately is not my specialty.  I am not a Theologian.  But the point being here was that the commitment to community was so strong that they symbolize community.  So close that they are bound together.)

The important thing about community in our religious and spiritual settings is that we need to make it about growth and finding our overall joy in Jesus.   A verse I really want to highlight is Matthew 18:20 which says, “For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them.”  This is a great thing to realize that God will meet us where we are. The Lord wants a part of our relationships because he really cares about them and loves them.  It is important that we use our community to sharpen us as iron sharpens iron.  We can tell our community our struggles and ask for prayers, so we can grow to be better representations of the church and, therefore, Christ himself. 

This year has been a very hard year when it comes to teaching and the stress that has been involved in it.  I have felt very discouraged by many different moments in life.  I have also made some mistakes and struggled with stress, anxiety, and even, sometimes, anger.  I had to spend that time being incredibly honest with my small Bible Study group about this.  I was asking for deep prayers because I know that I need to grow to be better.  Telling them my truth and the items I was struggling with was freeing.   I knew I needed to let go of guilt and shame.  I knew that I wasn’t trying to put up a front that I was really strong and was doing everything perfectly.  I could be authentic, and I said what I was really feeling.  It was important that I had this community around me.   

Remember that God cares a lot about growing the church.  This does not just mean the physical location and place of the church, but rather anywhere a body of believers is meeting in order to grow in God’s love and help others do the same.  My challenge for you this week then is to think about who your community is.  This may not necessarily be the people who are already friends or already in your circle, but who have the potential to be.  Who are maybe the co-workers you seem to enjoy, but you have not yet gotten to know very well.  Sometimes we just really have to put ourselves out there to build the community that we want to have around us.  I pray you will find your community.  I pray this will help you continuously grow closer to God. 

I really love being a Sunday school preschool teacher.  I love getting to work with really young children for an hour a week.  It is definitely a change of pace from my usual of working with high school students.  However, I have definitely had a lot of learning when it comes to teaching a younger age.  I have to think through the lesson for younger minds for them to really understand all the love that Jesus has for them.  Jesus told his disciples to learn from the little children, and it is a very easy thing to do.  I take away something every time I work in the Sunday school room.  

I will often do a worksheet with them that comes from working packets through my particular Sunday school curriculum, as well as read through the lessons.  On this particular day, I was doing the coloring activity with the kids where there were so many shapes, but they were only supposed to color the shapes that included a small cross.  All of the other shapes were supposed to be left alone.  The question and topic was “Who alone should be worshiped?”  When the kids got done coloring the shapes that only had the crosses, it of course, spelled out and showed God. God is the one alone who should be worshiped.  

I loved this activity.  There are many times where we as leaders can be impacted more than the kids.  I really loved that the image was obscured, until we revealed the shapes that solely had the crosses.  This made me realize that there are many times our circumstances can get blurred, and we can become distracted by all the crazy events in our lives that we find it very hard to find Jesus amidst it all.  We know he is there, but many are hard to see.  There is just too much happening.  The stress, the anxiety, the jobs, the people in our lives, and anything else just seem to get in the way.  

Then this lesson was reinstated when I attended church.  We are going through Genesis, and the story of Abram (soon to be Abraham).  We are in chapter 15 verses 1-6.  The Lord came to Abram and provided him with an amazing sentiment and promise:  “Do not be afraid, Abram.  I am your shield, your very great reward.”  God promised Abram that he would be his shield and he would be the reward of his life.  He didn’t need anything else because he had the Lord. However, Abram does not necessarily respond with immediate joy.  He will later, but first he is focused on something he does not have, which is an heir.  He doesn’t yet have a child.  

I am not going to say this would not be difficult.  I have personally never had a child, but I also have never had a desire to have a child, and I don’t have a significant other at the moment to desire a child with.  I can not say what it would be like to continuously desire a child, but to not have one.  That being said, how amazing that Abram just had the experience with the Lord.  He just had the Lord talk to him and tell him that he will be his shield and his great reward, yet he is not completely awed by his presence.  He is not 100% content at the sight of God.  He is still thinking of earthly desires, even if it is a very pure and wholesome desire.  

One verse I want to highlight that reminds us to focus on the cross that pops up later in the Bible is Matthew 6:33.  This says, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and then all these things on earth will be given to you as well.” Abram would learn how to seek God’s Kingdom and righteousness and this is why he would be blessed and gifted in so many ways.  Of course, if we know how the rest of the story goes, we know that Abram does eventually be called Abraham because he is a father of so many.  He has a child named Isaac, but through him, there would be the whole kingdom of Israel.  Because eventually Abram learned how to trust God and to believe in him being the ultimate savior and the ultimate glory, then he got everything he also could have wanted in the world.  The Lord did end up using him to be a great father to a great and mighty nation, that ultimately would be where Jesus came from.  

I know I have been incredibly distracted by many different items in my life.  I have been so very anxious about my future career and where I will go on living.  I have been so focused on what I should do, what my parents want me to do, and what would get me the most money.  I have also been distracted by my stress with my current job and my current life situation, that I often get so in my head as opposed to thinking about focusing on the cross.  I want to do the job that God has planned for me and for his glory.  I want to focus on the cross as I seek to fulfill this next calling in life.

The truth is we are going to always have other things in the world that are going to be distracting and are going to be in the way.  The great thing that we need to learn is how to focus on the cross, even in the midst of the business and the stress.  Even when we are busy, and we are surrounded with people, we need to find ways to focus on the cross.  Even when we are discouraged, we can find a way to the cross.  My challenge for you this week is to think through what your main distraction is from the cross.  Write it down, say it out loud, or tell a friend.  It is important to know those distractions.  Those distractions can become weakened when their presence is known.  The cross is always there, even if the image does seem a bit obscured.  I pray you see the cross daily in your life this week.

For those who know me, they know my favorite band is Switchfoot.  Switchfoot is a contemporary band.  Their songs talk a lot about love and hope, and it is very apparent that they are believers, but they are not necessarily singing worship songs.  I love their song lyrics.  Listening and trying to fully understand the song lyrics is my favorite part about listening to them.  There have been many times where I have been struck by a comment or a lyric.  It makes me sit back and really try to process everything it could mean. One of their songs is “Saltwater Heart,” with the lyrics “All my landlocked dreams, maybe I can believe.”   

I love the illusion of landlocked dreams.  Being landlocked as a country means the country does not have access to a large body of water.  Being close to a body of water is good because it would give access to travel, and it would also really give the country access to trading partners. With the addition of air travel, landlocked countries are not as limited, but they still do have limits compared to countries with water surrounding them.  When those countries were landlocked, it would be hard to think of achievements beyond what their eyes could behold.  

Sometimes I think we can have landlocked dreams.  Our dreams are always limited, and they will only reach a small distance.  I can only see so far ahead, so I don’t have big dreams for the future.  I keep my dreams to something that seems practical.  I don’t let myself dream for something bigger than I had originally expected.   While being realistic, practical, and responsible is necessary, it is also important to remember that God is a big God who can make some pretty big things happen.  God is a God who wants us to have good dreams through him.  He wants us to believe in him.  That is why the second part of this lyric in this song is “maybe I can believe.”  There is a prayer for belief.  It is a prayer of hope to believe in what could be achieved through God.  

Remember there were many times that Jesus would tell his disciples to believe in him as a bigger God. Jesus often had to remind the disciples that they had little faith.  The disciples needed to know how important it is to have faith in God.  Jesus often completed miracles while the disciples were awestruck by the amazing things Jesus could do.  Some examples of these miracles include Jesus sleeping on a boat while there was a huge storm.  Jesus was awoken by scared disciples until he finally calmed the waters. (Mat.8:23-27), Another time was when Peter went to walk on water (Mat.14:22-33), and when Jesus raised a man’s daughter back to life (Mark 5).  

The story I really want to highlight is when Jesus helped teach the disciples how to complete a miracle.  There was a man who had a son with epilepsy.  He was suffering a lot.  The father first went to the disciples, but the disciples were not able to cure the son.  Because of this, the father then went to Jesus himself.  He knelt and prayed to Jesus to cure his son of the disease, and Jesus did just that.  Jesus was a bit upset though.  He was upset that the disciples did not have enough faith in order to cure the boy’s epilepsy.  

The disciples asked why they were not able to cure the boy, and Jesus said it was because they did not have enough faith.  They didn’t believe in the power from God that was going through them.  This is when Jesus would remind the people that believers just need to have faith as small as a mustard seed.  “He replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’”  Then Jesus cured the young son, and there was great joy.

Again, I am not saying this means that you have to go out and do something irresponsible.  But it does give us reason to dream bigger than sometimes we as practical, unbelieving humans may want to. I know for me that I am currently pursuing a job in some other place.  I am highly considering a different career path and now I am taking the necessary steps of applying to different jobs.  I am fearful that I will not get anything.  However, that is not me dreaming big. I also have a dream to be able to write books.  I want to be a published author where I will have many others who want to read my books and my words and learn from them.  I want to get my life lessons that I have learned out there to many others who are in the world.  

My challenge for you this week is to think about your dreams.  What is the maybe slightly crazy idea that you have had, that you never really thought could happen?  What are the dreams that seem too far off, across the ocean, not attached to the land?  Do you think there is a way these dreams could be achieved through faith and prayer?  The second part of my challenge, after reflecting on your dreams, is to pray to the Lord our God for that faith to complete all that he has put in front of you and all the dreams that are in your heart.  

At church, we have been going through the book of Genesis.  I will be completely honest to say that this was not a desire of mine.  I am not always the biggest fan of the book of Genesis as far as Bible Studies go.  Because of going through this book so many times, I believed I understood all that I could from the book of Genesis that I needed to.  Boy was this wrong!  I have had a lot of insight and connections to my own life that I have been able to make recently as we have been going through Genesis at church.   I never would have imagined that there is so much of Genesis that can connect to my life today.  

We were reading through Genesis 13, where Lot and Abram separate.  This was after Abram, (who will eventually be Abraham) had learned a lot of life lessons.  He learned that lying is not beneficial.  He learned this when he lied about who his wife was to a king.  He was starting to grow in his faith and dependence on God from this experience.   When Lot and Abram choose to separate because of their personal prosperities and starting to quarrel, Abram gave Lot the first choice of the land.  This would be incredibly selfless, while we see Lot has no problem becoming selfish in this decision. This can be found in Genesis 13:10-12, 

“Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.”

The story of Lot will take downward slides after this point.  The text even directly states that Sodom and Gomorrah will be destroyed by the Lord.  The people would start to fall so far away from the Lord and become so wicked, that there was no other option but to destroy these cities.  Why would Lot want to go to this area?  Well, we see that first, Lot looks towards Jordan and that would hold the town of Sodom.   As Lot looks this way, all he sees are the good things, he doesn’t see any of the bad.   Then as we see in the text next, Lot pitched his tent outside of Sodom.  He didn’t fully go inside the city, but he was very close and nearby.  Then lastly, what I do not have in this text particularly, Lot will eventually move into Sodom.  Later on in the book of Genesis, Abraham will have to pray to God in order to save Lot from becoming one of the people who would be destroyed and taken off the face of the earth.  

The speaker at my church, Scott, connected this to our life with sin.  We often don’t wake up one day and start an addiction or start a sin that keeps coming up.  It is a lot of decisions that ultimately wind up leaving us in the place where we don’t want to be.   We may just start out looking at a potential sin, but then that turns into entertaining the idea of sinning, and then finally we are knee deep in sins and choices that we would never have made in the months previously.  It is those little, day by day decisions that leave us in the position of destruction.  Originally Lot would not have thought about moving into a city that he knew was so wicked.  He just saw the good things of the area.  It was tempting.  Slowly he became entrenched in the city and all of its destruction.  He was in the city, completely.  Maybe, he was not as wicked as others in the city, we do not get that description, but he was fully surrounded by the sin and the wickedness.   

This reminds me also of the song, “Slow Fade,” by Casting Crowns.   Some of the lyrics are, “It’s a slow fade when you give yourself away.  It’s a slow fade when black and white turn to gray.  And thoughts invade, choices made.  A price will be paid when you give yourself away.  People never crumble in a day.”   This is so true.  There are a few small choices that are made and then that keeps people enclosed in a particular sin.  People do not crumble in a day.  It may seem that way on the outside, but really there is a slow fade that starts to tear people apart, day by day, small choice by small choice.  

I think I am personally struggling with this in the way I am struggling with my anger.  I have had a rough year when it comes to teaching.   There have been a few problem behaviors that I have not had in the years prior, and this has led me to have a great deal of discouragement.  I don’t want to be filled with bitterness.  I don’t want to be filled with discouragement and anger at others around me.   Because I have been hurt, have felt rejection, and have been personally feeling as though whatever I do is wrong, I have started to let that anger build and build and build.  This is not healthy, and I know there needs to be something that changes inside of me.  Because of this, I have started to talk with others about my struggle with anger.    I know that I need to stop the constant chain of bad thoughts that keep the anger from popping up again and again.  I have been working on becoming more and more transparent with the people who are in my life as well as my therapist about my downward slide into anger.  They have been encouraging and helpful as I seek to fight this slow fade into bitterness.  

I know this is a hard topic of discussion, but I do believe it is an honest one that we all need to have with ourselves.  Is there a sin or a desire that we are entertaining more than we have in the past?  Is there something that is becoming more and more tempting, even when we know we should look away from it?  Is there a slow fade happening in our hearts that we need to start reflecting upon?  I would recommend taking some time to process this in prayer.  The Lord will reveal the struggles that you feel in your heart.  You don’t have to be afraid of our mighty counselor we have in God.  He will be there for you.  

I have just finished this book called, “Misquoted,” by Russell Muilenburg.  This book gave insight to phrases we often associate with the Bible and are often said by Christians, when they are not actually used in the Bible, or they are not used in the same context as is often used by the world.   These are not phrases that are written in the Bible and some do not even have necessarily Biblical truth to them.  Some of these phrases include “God helps those who help themselves,” “Let Go and Let God,” “Charity begins at home,” “God will not give you more than you can handle,” and “Everything happens for a reason.”  There were a few others, but these are the ones that really stuck out to me.  

A majority of the phrases mentioned do start with a general Biblical idea.  However, then they were taken and changed to be something different than their original or desired significance.  They have been spun out of control for the negative.  For example, the first one, “God helps those who help themselves,” is not always a great saying to preach to Christians when they should be seeking to help all the people that are around them.  If we really truly believe that God only helps those who help themselves then any person who is struggling with poverty or with a disease or some kind of emergency needs to really help themselves.  We can’t do anything.  We don’t have the answers.  It puts way too much focus on working for everything in life.  Yes, work is God-ordained and created, but that does not mean we are to be people who base our whole identity on work-ethic.  Similarly, we can not expect others to do everything for themselves.  We are called to be servants.  

The main idea from this book was to make sure that we as people and as Chrsitians are always being perceptive and discerning of the information we receive.  We need to make sure that we don’t hear something and then instantly think that item is true.  Just because something sounds correct, and maybe even sounds like it would be good or even Godly advice, doesn’t mean we should take it without some backing and without some checking of source material.  This can apply to more areas than just in our Christian world.  It is important that when we hear a statistic from someone, that we don’t instantly start spreading that statistic without looking at research.  

As a teacher and someone who works with youth, this is something I try really hard to teach my students to instill in their own lives.  I have heard my students tell me pretty crazy things that they have heard.  They could have seen this on social media, on the news (or fake news) or from their friends in school.  This does not mean they are true.  They may not be true or factual in the slightest.  Because of this, these students would be very unwise to start spreading this information to more and more people.  I make sure to tell students to fact-check the information they are receiving and processing.  I want them to double-check their work and make sure they are looking at good sources. 

It is very important that we as Christians do the same thing.  This is especially true when we are trying to spread God’s word with others.  What is the place where we should do our fact-checking and information processing? This is, of course, God’s Word.  John 17:17 describes this perfectly when it says, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”  The Lord has provided us with truth.  With a quick google search, I discovered that there are over 31, 000 verses in the Bible.  This gives us as believers a lot of chances to find great advice and great pieces of wisdom that we can spread to others.  This gives us a lot to memorize and to consider.  With that great amount, there isn’t really a reason to include sayings that are not in the Bible.  This means that we shouldn’t make up pieces of what God has said when he hasn’t.  He has told us enough-31, 000 verses to be exact.  

It is also important that we read things in the correct context.  This does mean that we should read verses just by themselves but in their larger chapters and larger stories.  The verses will provide great truth, but some of them will be a bit strange until we look at it in the larger story.  Majority of the phrases that come from the book I was reading came about because they are from the Bible, but they are not from the larger context.  These verses and wisdom from the Bible become misconstrued and become used not in the correct way it was intended for.  These phrases then become unhelpful and sometimes, even unkind, advice.  

My challenge for both myself and for all of you reading is to spend time thinking about the phrases and the pieces of advice we give to others, especially the ones we use because we believe they are from the Bible. When our friends are hurting, and they are seeking comfort, what are the common words we speak to them? When someone asks us wisdom, specifically from the Bible, we need to make sure we have the full context and the complete words from the Bible.  This is one of the reasons I am a big fan of scripture memorization.  When the verses are memorized word for word, then there is less chance that we are going to not use these holy scriptures inaccurately.  Let us go out this week and pay more attention to the wisdom we are speaking from our mouths. 

I have said it before, and I will say it again; I hate cleaning.  I have definitely grown better at cleaning as I have started to live on my own.  Not that I necessarily enjoy it, but I am now aware that I will not be able to pawn it off on someone else. I would actually say that I am fairly good at cleaning today.  I regularly put everything away, and I will usually take the time to dust, vacuum, sweep, etc.  

However, I can keep some places incredibly unclean.  One of those places is the fridge.  I stuff my fridge full and forget to remove the food that is in the fridge until way after the expiration date and when they can sometimes get really gross.  I also will often have very cluttered cupboards or closets.  I often develop a mindset of “as long as it is put away-it is pretty much clean!”  Never mind that the closets pretty much explode everytime I try to open them.

There are a few negative side effects to having ugly and dirty areas, even when most of my apartment is clean.  For one, I sometimes can’t find something.  When I tend to put a lot of materials in one closet, there are a few items that really get lost and unfindable.  One time I even found my glasses, (after I had already bought a new pair) in one of these closets.  It was incredibly important, and it was something that I needed for necessary and daily life, but I couldn’t find it because I was unorganized.   I also know that in some instances this can actually be unhealthy.  When it came to the fridge, there were a few foods, especially like the orange juice and the strawberries that were either horrendously old or moldy by the time they were put in the garbage.  It is not good to have these disgusting foods next to the healthy foods.   

I started to think that there may be areas like this in my heart.  Maybe, I can put out a persona that my heart is completely clean, but if you give closer inspection, I have some very unclean places deep inside.  These may be sins I am trying to cover up and hide and pretend as though they are not there.  This may be a shame I don’t want anyone else to see.  This could be a burden I want to forget that I have to carry.  This may be the unforgiveness or the anger towards another when I am the one left in pain.

I was struck again while in church as we continue to go through the book of Genesis.  Genesis chapter 4 brings us amazing insight to what can happen when we do not take good care of our hearts and look deep into what is happening in there.  Genesis 4 shows us the story of Cain and Abel.  To give a short run down, Cain does not give God his best when it comes to his sacrifice, while Abel finds his best meat from his best animals to give to God.  Obviously the better gift is one where someone actually cares about the gift, so Abel’s gift is accepted while Cain’s is rejected.  

Cain becomes angry and jealous.  God comes to Cain to talk to him.  “Why are you angry?”  With this question, God is not only showing his love and care for Cain, but he is also giving a warning.  He is warning Cain to think about his anger and his jealousy.  He is giving him a chance to evaluate his heart before he makes a mistake.  Cain does not heed God’s warning, and will end up murdering his brother in the garden.  His unclean heart led to complete destruction of a person and would ultimately lead to a lot of downfalls for his future family members.  

This is all a good reminder that we need to get a handle on what is lurking in the shadows of our hearts.  These are the things we would rather keep in the shadows.  The places we do not want to clean, like a messy drawer, a full closet, or a stuffed refrigerator.  God provides some wonderful ways we can try to keep our hearts clean, but it does require us to have a deep level of vulnerability.  First, he provides us with the ability to pray.  He is not a God who wants to ignore his people.  He is a God who loves us and wants to hear all of our deep thoughts and our unyielding pain.  He allows us to come to him with everything, so we can have the opportunity to get rid of any grievances we may have had previously.  

Second, God has instructed us to invest in the lives of others and have them invest in us.  The beauty of fellowship is often highlighted in the Bible for the productivity of the followers who participate in it.  I have recently started going to therapy with a Christian therapist.  The reason I started to go was I realized that my anxiety and my negative self-talk was getting to the point that I could no longer ignore.  It was causing me incredible pain, and my heart was not well.  It has been good to talk about the items that give me hurt and make me insecure.  It has been incredibly helpful to talk through how to better talk to myself and to think about the relationships around me.  

Lastly, God also gives us his word, which is the giver of all encouragement.  The word will be a beacon of light when our hearts are feeling dark and unclean.  One verse that I want to highlight is Psalm 51:10 which says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”  The Lord wants us to have a clean heart, and a whole heart.  A complete, whole, clean heart does not include those dark crevices.  We often learn that the heart is a big decider of what we will do and where we will go.  When we have the impure or the ugly, dirty things that are left behind in our hearts, more often than not, they will show up somewhere in our life.  Good news for us shown in this verse is that God wants to help us renew and create our clean hearts.  

Another year has gone by, so therefore I have another reflection from this year of 2022.  Just like every year, there were incredibly high moments and low moments.  There were things that went incredibly well and some things that didn’t.  There were exciting times and there were things that I definitely learned.   If I had to narrow it down to the main ways I have grown, this would be through exercising and coaching, my writing goals, and overcoming my mental health struggles.  

One big highlight was running.  I know that I write a lot about my love of running, but this year I have really developed a deeper appreciation.  I didn’t set a mileage goal, but I ran more miles than last year. My goal this last year was to gain speed and to have better times than I did in previous years.  This was going to be shown in running a 10k in under an hour and to run a half marathon faster than I did last year.  Both of these happened.  I trained for both of these events with a lot of ambition.  I really put the mileage in before my half marathon, so I was able to run my half marathon 20 minutes less than the previous year. 

This last year was also good when it came to coaching cross country.  I talked about this a lot with so many people in my life as well as continuously on my social media.  This includes my blog, but my cross country girls team made it to state this last year.  They worked so hard, and I am so glad that their hard work really paid off.  I am so proud of them.  It was also an amazing opportunity to run with them as often as I did at practice.  I was so happy to run next to them and offer them advice and communication.  The girls and I really became close, and it was an uplifting part of a job (job being coaching and teaching) that can be really difficult at times.  

I have also grown in my writing.  This last year I have written more than I ever have in my entire life.  I spend time thinking about how to polish my writing to make it the best it can be.  I even joined a writing group in order to receive constructive criticism for my writing.  I have the opportunity to read through their entries, so I can give them helpful pointers on their particular pieces.  I have grown as a reflective writer through this process, and I am so glad that I have these other God-fearing women in my life who are also aspiring writers for the Lord to instill wisdom into myself through their writing and constructive criticism.  I am not only learning how to be a better writer through this environment, but I also am learning more wisdom through their individual entries.  They write about the life lessons they have learned and the wisdom they have received from God, which will forever be helpful to me.

One of the main downsides of this year has been my mental health and anxiety struggles.  This last year my mental health has taken a bit of a downward slide.  I can’t say that it is completely because of this particular year, but it has most likely been a culmination of the past few years.  I have always been honest that I have struggled with anxiety.  I come from a family where anxiety and depression run rampant.  I know my family is not the only one.  There are more and more individual people as well as families who are coming out and speaking about their respective mental health struggles, which I do find incredibly helpful to those who do struggle.  I say this all in respect and encouragement to anyone else reading who is in a downward slide of anxiety and depression.  

This year, though, I am trying to find more and more helpful ways to overcome my anxiety.  I have started to go to therapy, where I am able to talk through my emotions and my ever-present and spinning thoughts.  The ability to talk to someone who is there for me, without the personal connection has been really helpful.  She doesn’t know me in real life, but she listens to me, and lets me talk through my thoughts. She wants me to succeed and to see my overall mental health become better and stronger.  I have also walked away from Snapchat.  This is a very new item in my life.  I found that the social media app, Snapchat, was becoming incredibly toxic in my life.  It was starting to only negatively affect my thinking patterns.  It did not provide many positives.  I wanted to hold on to it for the few positives or the potential positives, but I found I could not hold out for the potential positives when there were so many negative side-effects.  

The Lord never promised this world would be easy.  He said there would be trials, but we have him to constantly look to for comfort and support.  Psalm 46:1-3 describes this perfectly: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.” As I am about to embark on the year of 2023, I am hoping to make even better strides in all areas and walks of life.  I definitely need to continue on the pattern of growth when it comes to overcoming my mental health struggles, but I also want to grow financially and speak about my love of Christ to others.  My challenge for you is to spend some time this week reflecting on what God has done and taught you through 2022 and what you hope to accomplish and grow in for 2023.  

I have mentioned a couple of times that I teach Sunday school at church every week.  This is for preschoolers.  It is a bit of a change of pace because I teach high schoolers during the week.  It has been a really great experience, and I have learned a lot about how to be a better teacher, even if it is for an age that is significantly younger than my usual demographic.  I have also learned from observing and reflecting on certain items that happen in preschool that I can apply to my own life.  

I do really love my kids and they are really kind and helpful, and they want to be good friends.  However, they are kids, so there are times things go awry.  For example, there was a time when two kids were fighting over a small toy of grapes.  Yes, you heard me, grapes.  It was a part of the new food toys and both of them wanted to “cook” with these grapes.  I had to talk to them about sharing and how we can make a compromise work in very basic terms.  After a few minutes, they were fine, and they had stopped fighting. They even learned to share and play together, even with the coveted grapes.  

I couldn’t help thinking, “Why in the world, would you fight over that?  Of all things, you would fight over toy grapes.” I wasn’t trying to think too harshly or badly of my kids, but really, what in the world? Grapes!  This made me realize that there are times in life that we can be like the kids fighting over grapes.  There are times when we as adults and people who have fully developed brains become incredibly upset for a long period of time for things that ultimately don’t matter. One example is the time I got really angry about breaking the mirror off of my car door.  Now, this is not necessarily great.  I obviously had to call someone, so that I could get it fixed. It did cost money, but really at the end of the day, it was not that big of a deal.  It was not something that I needed to throw a temper tantrum over, yet that was the exact thing that I did.  

I imagine there are times when God wants to look down and say the exact same thing that I wanted to when my preschoolers were fighting over grapes.  I have even looked back at the items in my life and been a bit perplexed and a bit embarrassed by the items I have been majorly upset over. One caveat I do want to mention is that it is good to feel emotions.  I am a person who experiences a lot of emotions and will definitely voice them.  I know what it is like to have a complete range of things to be upset over.  I would much rather feel the emotions and get past them than stuff in those emotions.  I think God would too, as it is much healthier. But do I always take these thoughts and emotions to God in a healthy way, or do I just let myself feel the emotions and feel sorry for myself? Sometimes we can choose to stew over these thoughts and emotions rather than bring them to the one who can fix everything, and that is not healthy or helpful at all.  

Getting back to the example in preschool Sunday school, instead of fighting and running after each other for the same toy, they could have come to a compromise amongst one another.  They could have talked it out and come to me, their teacher, for help in this situation.  Obviously, I know they are preschoolers, so this is a bit of a high expectation for them.  However, this can be a good example of what we should do with our Lord, our heavenly father.  When we start to look at the things in this world as more important than the Lord, we need to go to the Lord in prayer and even our emotions.  He wants to help us and work through everything.  Don’t hide away in anger or shame.  Bring them to the Lord, so they can be rectified.   

Matthew 6:19-21 says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  It is important to take those items in the world and realize that they will not last forever.  That trophy may break, the titles may be forgotten, the expensive items may be stolen or lose their value.  However, the Lord and the items that he has in heaven will never get old or broken.  This will always be there.  

In conclusion, we can learn a lot from kids.  They can be so innocent, forgiving, loving, and kind.  They also can be very reflective of our lives.  When they make mistakes that we may find ridiculous, it can be something good to reflect on for ourselves.  This may show us that we can act a certain way at certain times as well.  My goal for you this week is if you find yourself ever getting upset, whether this be with a co-worker disagreement, the copier breaking down at work, or hitting every stop light, to even the bigger items, to take those angers immediately to God.  He doesn’t want you to stew over those emotions.  He wants you to grow and to learn from them.