With God, We Will Grow Older And Better

Society is filled with television programs, articles, and advertisements telling us how to stay young, lose weight, and be more desirable.

I think sometimes new is equated with better. Maybe that's why the divorce rate is so high. A marriage bound by beauty only lasts as long as the beauty.

If I can just get a new husband things would be better. New things are often used to buy happiness. If I had a new house, or a new body, then I would be happy. New things can't make us happy. Why? Because the new soon becomes old.

Thankfully, God offers us better hope than this. With God, we will grow older and better. Despite the emphasis modern culture places on youth, a person whose self-esteem and self-identity are rooted in a relationship with God is a person who can age with dignity and grace. If we invite God's spirit to live in us, then our spirit will be made brand-new every day.

You're not old unless you get wrinkles in your heart!

Blessings,

Dalinda

Stress Is Dangerous

Stress is dangerous, very dangerous! 

Stress is everywhere. We stress about our finances, we stress over our jobs or potential jobs, we stress over our to-do lists, we even stress over the little things like our internet connection and speeds. 

The thing about stress is that we never react as well to it as we would like. It affects our emotions, our physical health, our pride, our self-possession, and even our self image. Stress attacks our body, mind, and even our soul! Of all the detrimental things that stress does in our lives, the worst is how it affects our relationship to God. 

Stress drives a wedge into our walk with God, first by eating our time that we spend with Him. It takes more of our thought and concentration to deal with stress and we suddenly have less time to spend in prayer and study. Secondly it throws doubt into our minds. “Does God really have everything under control? I don't see anything getting better”. Finally stress tends to drive us to more self-concentration and preservation. We just have to take care of this one issue. We take control back into our own hands and away from God who can see the big picture. Once we have that control back it is even more difficult to give it back to God again.

God tells us to give Him all our burdens, all our worries, all our cares. Let Him deal with everything. He is more than capable, and more than prepared to deal with anything that can stress us. And though sometimes it seems that He is taking His time or not dealing with it, when we look back we can always see His guiding hands working through the problem, and always differently than we would expect Him to.

Blessings,

Dalinda

Remembering The Fallen

Remembering those that made a sacrifice for our freedom. Happy Memorial Day!

Blessings,

Dalinda

Renewed Perspective

Sometimes, the thing we most need in our life is to see clearly or to view things in their true relations.  In other words, what we need is to have the proper perspective.

One should seek out life and not death IN ALL ASPECTS OF LIFE.  God is everywhere, even where people have not yet found or acknowledged Him, He is there, to be found! 

We cannot allow ourselves to be weighed down by the facts, our feelings, or our failures.  Instead we must learn to give glory to the things God has shown us.  We have to let God remind us of his promise so He can renew our perspective. 

In the noisiness of this world, God makes known His love and care for us through creation (Psalm 19:1-4). The beauty of a sunset, the height of a mountain or the glimpse of a shooting star all were created by God's words. In that same way, we’re reminded everyday God spoke life into us, showing His affection for us through creation (Psalm 19:7,12-13). We had no say or part in it, but out of God's goodness He reminds us that we are His sons and daughters.

Blessings,

Dalinda

A Confident Person Is One Who Walks In Faith

The prefix, “con” means “with” and the root “fid” means faith.”  So a confident person is one who walks in faith.

Confidence isn't something we lose. It's something we forget to apply. Confidence comes from God. Anything we do outside of God is insignificant. So the first step toward applying confidence to any situation, is to trust God to handle it. 

Confidence means trusting God and walking in that trust. Confidence is having the faith that the LORD will do everything He has promised. Confidence is knowing that the source of your faith and trust is bigger than your circumstances, bigger than your problem, bigger than your illness. 

Blessings,

Dalinda

Hope Isn't Something We Wish For - It's Something We Already Have

The world is in ongoing trauma. Everybody is uncomfortable! We are in transition and we have to get okay with that. We are in a labor and delivery room, so to speak, until the day we die. Let me explain, when women are in labor they are uncomfortable because of the pain. But they have to experience the pain to get through the transition to give birth...to bring new life. Same with our lives here. We are in labor daily and experience discomfort, but we must take up our cross (sacrifice) and follow Jesus in order to transition to new life....Our eternal life in Heaven.

True contentment is having an identity outside of the moment...I'm stable regardless of the circumstances...I'm connected to something outside of the circumstances. People think if circumstances change, it will fix the heart - the contentment they are longing for. But true contentment comes only from God. - Matt Williams, Grace Church (See Phil 4:10) Saturate yourself in the Word today. It's comforting to know that God's Truth rises above our troubling circumstances and calls us to see life from a perspective outside of our screaming realities. - Lysa TerKurst

All that you are designed to be finds its fulfillment in the world to come. We will be transformed so that we will fit there. And in Heaven, we will be set free. If you have that kind of hope then it frees you to be powerful now. 

God's perfect plan is to bring each of us into fellowship and communion with Him, and so he allows circumstances and incidences which bring our wrong attitudes to our attention. 

Jesus didn't promise to change the circumstances around us, but He did promise great peace and pure joy to those who would learn to believe that God actually controls all things. 

Because of Jesus, I am God's child. That's my identity. That's the reality of who I am. I am accepted in the Beloved. When I live in this reality, the affirmation of others, or even myself, is not necessary. 

I'm finding my balance, slowly but surely. In the beginning I was just holding on for dear life. 

Jesus is all about choices. I've heard people say they could never believe in a God who let's bad things happen to good people. What they're really saying is that they can't believe in a God who would allow people freedom to live their lives according to their own choices. These people want a God who legislates love. 

The real God is above that. The real God allows His creatures to make evil choices, and He will not negate the results of these choices. But He died to give us freedom to repent of those choices if we choose, and He will redeem the evil as it affects our lives if we let Him. Often, however, we are too busy screaming and protecting our wounds to let Him. 

The future disciplines the present. This is a moment of preparation for something else. It's not about our comfort. There is a part of you that is noticeably collapsing (your earthly body) and their is a part of you that is getting stronger (your soul- spiritually) So be encouraged, our present struggles are only for a short time....Praise the Lord!

Physical death is coming like a train. It is a curse and a blessing. Death is a product of sin. Death is unnatural. It was not an original part of life. But it creates transition to be relieved from this sinful world....to new life....a life of true freedom....in Heaven - all because of Jesus Christ.

We are all in transition. Some of us are content in our circumstances because we have an identity outside of the circumstances. 

My identity is in Jesus Christ. I am a Child of God because of His sacrifice, and because I chose to accept Him as my personal Lord and Savior. As believers, we need to be pursuing those who are searching for their identity. We need to be verbal about our faith. Your faith is personal, but it's not private. I want my light for Jesus to shine so brightly that you'll need a dimmer switch!

Blessings,
Dalinda

Purpose For Every Year Of Our Lives

My family and I will celebrate my 43rd birthday in a few days. As we get older, birthdays can be somewhat depressing. It is too easy just to think about the negatives of growing older. We may see a new wrinkle and several more gray hairs and forget that each birthday is a gift…to us! Instead of seeing age as our enemy, we need to think about the fact that God loves us the way we are. Even though those signs of aging may not fade, God wants us to live our lives to the fullest. Jesus said, "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). He wants to rejuvenate our spirit and give us purpose for every year of our lifetime.

On Monday, I will celebrate another year, knowing that God is at work in my life to accomplish his will. "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28).

Life is a journey of learning, growing, risking, falling down, getting back up, learning, growing, and moving forward again. We are ALL a work in progress.

Blessings,

Dalinda