snowflake

this weekend at Snowflake was... interesting. I was really looking forward to the weekend and i wasn't let down. it was a lot of fun to be able to get away from day-to-day life for a weekend and spend time worshiping and learning about God with my Christian friends. for me this year was totally different than last year. last year i was at a tough point in my walk with God. i was pretty much choosing whether or not to give him presidence in my life or to put him on the backburner and live life my own way. but this year wasn't like that at all... or so i thought. this year God had control of my life, i was trusting him and working really hard at becoming the woman that he wants me to be. but last night i was doing my Bible study and that's when it hit me. In 1st Sameul Hannah asks God to give her son and says that if he answers her plea she will devote her son to God. But Hannah didn't just ask God, she trusted that God would not only hear her, but that he would answer her.
How can you have a trust that big after God has denied your desire so many times before? I thought that was crazy. I want that. becasue so many time you think you're trusting God, but in reality you're not. it doesn't even have to be about anything big, sometimes we just don't trust that God knows what he's doing.
This weekend God taught me a lot about humility. I think humility is one of the hardest things to learn becasue it takes a lot of effort and little recognition. Last year at Snowflake Kevin said that if you ask for humility, be ready to have the test of your life becasue it's hard and sometimes it hurts. and at the time i was like" yea right... it can't be THAT hard"... boy was i wrong.
humility is one of those things where everyday you have to lay down your pride and your wishes and just let God shine. it's like you become invisible. you have to trust God and not get upset when other people don't pay attention to you or recognize your acts fo service. and trust me, i am far from humble. being humble is something that will take an entire lifetime. that's what hit me so hard this weekend. I've been praying "God make me humble" and not really having to do much. but humility isn't about the big things, it's about the small stuff. that's what i learned. so i have to work on the little things... but this morning i realized that lately i have screwed up major in the humility department.
now why am i telling the entire internet public this? well first, becasue i know who reads my blogs and i know that if i share my struggles they will pray for me. and also, hopefully they can learn form me too.
so yea.. i had screwed up major, but i didn't even realize it because it wasn't the type of screw up that you really notice. it's not like i had done something and not gotten recognition so i was upset or thought that i was better than someone else. it was that i failed to search my own heart before i jumped to conclusions. i failed to realize that you can't expect something if you aren't willing to give something too. you can't expect God to do something if you don't trust him. so i learned that before you expect something form someone, whether it's God or anyone else, make sure that you're willing to give a little too. it comes down to what Jesus said "love your neightbour as yourself." and i'm not talking about what we learned about loving your enemies though that is majorly important too. i'm talking about treating others like you want to be treated. about not judging or jumping to conclusions, but looking at yourself and humbling yourself before God. it's not about "God why aren't you doing this for me?" Hannah didn't ask that. She asked God to give her a son but only after promising him something in return and trusting in her heart that he would do it. it's about "God i'm going to ask you to do this and im going to trust that you know what's best for me. i'm going to give you my entire life."
as the new radicals would say "You only get what you give." so be humble. look at your own actions before you tell someome, especially God, that they aren't doing a good enough job. a relationship, especially a relationship with God, takes time. you have to move slow to build a founation that's going to last. it doesn't all come at once. that's what i learned this weekend. humility and patience... thanks God :)