Yesterday is dead and over....

This is a line in the much quoted song "This Is Your Life" by Switchfoot. God has forgiven me for all of my sins and He has forgotten them as well. I know that many times it's hard for me to forgive myself, and to forget. I also have been able to realize that sometimes my friends don't forget them either.

There's something that I was struggling with and somewhat still am... to be honest. Most people have found out about it from one source or another. Most people know about the struggle and about the compromise that I was considering to consider... I was mostly posing lots of what if questions to myself in my mind. I also started to consider all the different possible outcomes. I have had many influential people in my life that have shared a lot of wisdom with me. It was during this time that I was remembering things that they have told me before.

Then there was the time that I faced it head on. I think I actually cried. It's hard, it's a struggle and a desire that I realized I needed to stop.

So I did. Since then I have been able to stand true to that. I have not considered compromising anymore. I know that it's not always easy. When I communicate with the person that I considered compromising for/with... I continue to tell him that I still stand where I did before. I will not compromise for him or anyone else.

God has helped me from compromising my entire life. He has actually made it impossible multiple times. He has helped me stay pure. With God's help up to this point, I know I can continue until the day that God has prepared for me. I am not willing to compromise in any way ~ not emotionally, spiritually, or physically. Obviously, the emotional one is the hardest, and this is the only area that is hard to overcome.

Yesterday is dead and over.

I know that I need to make TODAY the day that I am an overcomer. I know that I need to be like God and try to forget the past so that I can move into the future that God has prepared for me. Today is the day that we can change and take those scary steps that we have been putting off. Today is the day that we can live in complete integrity. Today is the day that we can get past and over the mistakes that we have made and that others have as well. Today is the day that we can work our hardest and be who God wants us to be in all areas of our lives.

Thank You Lord that You didn't just die.... On the days in between Good Friday and Easter, You were able to say that yesterday is dead and over and tomorrow is the day that the new life was created for everyone. Thank You Lord, that we can accept that new life, the new way of thinking, and the new way of living today, tomorrow, and every future day of our lives.

Skillet
You are my Hope

Times are hard
Times have changed
Don't you say
But I keep holding on to you
It's hard to keep the faith alive day to day
Leaning on the strength I've found in you
You're the hope of all the Earth

You are my hope
You are my strength
You're everything
Everything I need
You are my hope
You are my life
You are my hope
You are my hope

Far beyond what I can see or comprehend
Etching your eternity in me
Nations stream and angels sing, "Jesus reigns"
And every knee bows down
You're the hope of all the Earth

You are my hope
You are my strength
You're everything
Everything I need
You are my hope
You are my life
You are my hope
You are my hope

Carry on and I sing of how
You love and I love you now
All the times that I start to sink
You come and you rescue me
You are my hope
You are my hope

*************************

I am so thankful that I have hope. I can not imagine what life would be like day to day without it because it's one of the things that God gives us that I depend on everyday. I need hope to know that I can truly be dead to yesterday. I need hope in God that He will help me through all of my trials and that He will help me be an overcomer. I need hope that He will answer my heart's cries and that He will answer some of my dreams. I need hope that I may live day to day for our God....Thank you Lord for being my HOPE.

And for those that were at college group on Friday, this is the song I was trying to think of. :)

Better Together

Is a song written by Jack Johnson... who I will be seeing in concert in August... oh yeah... but there are so many lines that remind me of my relationship with God. When I look at my life when I was trying to run away from God and I see how I was getting drunk and high a few times a week and that I was being a complete hypocrite... It didn't take that long, in retrospect, for me to realize my life was better when I was with God. It is still true. I know that the decisions I try to make without God always go a little wrong.

Thank You my Lord, because It's always better when we're together.

I've never liked music as much as I have lately. In fact, I don't just like music anymore, I love it. I now notice how much it effects me. It has really been speaking to me and moving me in ways in which other people have spoke about in the past, but I've never experienced for myself. There are many secular artists that encourage me spiritually and can be considered "prophets"... as PM always calls U2 and just recently called John Mayer. Well, even though I still love Mraz, DeGraw, Mayer, and Tolcher....It's currently Jack Johnson that has been speaking to me through his music...Even as I'm blogging this, I'm hearing his song "Where'd all the good people go?" Oh how many times I have wondered that when I'm dealing with hard to deal with people at work or just around me. Yet, just when you start losing hope about people, that's when God does something amazing.

When my friend brought the J.J. album over to my desk at work and I put it in my CD player, I felt like I was dreaming. I felt like I was in one of those dreams that I've never experienced myself but that I have seen in movies ~ one where there are rolling hills and then there's someone spinning around with their arms wide open, with their face looking upward toward heaven. After listening to it a few times through, I looked down, and the album is called In between dreams.

One thing in his song called Never Know, that I think all of us go through is the thought and experience of:

We're breaking and rebuilding and we're growing, always guessing

Another part of the song that speaks to me is:

Never knowing
We're shocking but we're nothing
We're just moments, we're clever but we're cellulose
We're just human, amusing and confusing
We're trying, but where is this all leading?
We'll never know

I can think of the countless times that I have wondered:

• What is the right thing to do?
• What is the way in which I can share the love of God to the greatest degree?
• What is the way in which God would be the most pleased?
• What is it that I should be doing, hoping, and wishing for?

Even though I don't have the answers to these, it's all about learning. I can see that there are choices that we have in this world and in our everyday lives.

We can choose to:
Stand on our own or fall on our faces before God
Make our own choices or seek the Lord's guidance
Continually fail in our trials or allow our friends and God to help us conquer them
Be deaf or hear the things people are speaking to us
Close our eyes to the world or open them to see how the Spirit is moving
Feed ourselves crap or taste the heavenly fruits
Be numb to ourselves and this world or feel how God is able to work within us

These are the things that we can choose, that we don't have to guess what is the right answer. These are the things we know, we just need to make the choice to do them.