Birth Pains

Every time my wife gets pregnant, we get excited. Even though she didn’t look any different on the outside yet in the first few months, we start on planning and preparing for the new baby. Then as time goes by, sometimes the joy fades. That is when my wife becomes uncomfortable, swollen, morning sickness, she can’t sleep, her back aches, complaints of leg and joint pains. And things to seem to get the hardest right before you give birth. Most specially the last few weeks and months of the actual delivery date.

You know what my friends, same with our lives. When we have something in our heart from God, at first it is exciting. It is easy to stay encourage and full of faith during that time. But the real testing comes when you are about to give birth to that gift. The real test is when we go through the actual birthing process. My question to you now my friend, are you willing to keep a good attitude even when we are uncomfortable and things aren’t going our way? Yes, you may feel pain, discomfort, pain, but if we keep believing and trusting God that the birth pain will push through.

If you are in a process like this, keep believing, keep standing. Even though you don’t see it happening. Hold on to that promise even when it’s uncomfortable because soon you will give birth to that dream and plans the Lord has place in you. 

Thoughts

Admit it my friends, when we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we had difficulty, we had more challenges, we had more battles to overcome. Yes, in the Bible, it says we will all have hard ships and trials and tribulations and battles to overcome. But I also read in the Bible, specially at the back of it, that Jesus overcame and won that battle. When we accept Jesus Christ, His spirit becomes one with us. He actually lives in us. When you say lives, it means it dwells, His thoughts and His power should dwell in you. And one of the ways Jesus empowers our thought is through the power of our thinking and imagination. He wants to empower our thoughts to direct our lives to achieve that Victory we are looking.

If we keep thinking negative thoughts, that “I will not pass this exam” “Why is my life like this,” “I hate this job,” “I don’t like my manager,” “I hate this one and that.” “I will not get out of this debt.” If we keep on saying these negative words, God will not be glorified, you are letting Him out of His place. Just like in a house, you are pushing Him out of His temple. Try welcoming God to your heart by saying positive words, encouraging words, uplifting words. Yes you may have said negative words yesterday; yes you may have sinned and had some setback the other day. But today is a new day. Today is a better day than yesterday. When we line up our thoughts in His words, we can be sure that we are thinking His thoughts. Let us choose to focus on His thoughts.

I am blessed and so are you my friend.

Colors of Life

Have you ever felt like you have wasted years of your life? Don’t get me wrong, but lately, I have been meditating about my life and I feel like I have wasted a lot of time, wasted with a wrong place, wrong job, wasted time with the wrong people and doing the wrong things. But the Bible tells of a time when Jesus fed a crowd of thousand people with only five loaves and two fish and of course with the help of the boy (You know the story). On that certain day, everybody had more than enough to eat, and there were enough baskets full of bread and fish for leftovers. Actually, more than enough!  Not just twice, not just thrice, but thousand times. Because we serve a God of multiplication. I love what Jesus told the disciples to collect all the leftovers “So that nothing is wasted.”  He said.

And you know what my friend, if you feel like you have wasted something, if you feel like you are just a leftover food, if you feel like just a second hand. Be encouraged that with God, nothing is ever wasted. He will never waste that experience that you had, He will never waste a hurt you got, He will never waste the dream that He gave you. Well in fact, He will ask the disciples to gather it for you so that nothing will be wasted. God will gather all those wasted years, experiences, hurts and feelings and restore them back to you in a thousand folds. He will turn them around for your own good. He will make you stronger, wiser and better. Be encouraged my friend that God always makes beautiful things out of the dark.

Storms in Life

Coming from a very tropical country in South East Asia (Philippines), I am already used to having storms and typhoons. We are so used to these kinds of calamities that every after storm, we enjoy it because there is peace after that typhoon. Filipinos are so resilient to these kind of situation that we somewhat enjoy these kind of calamity. And just this year, I transferred here at Tennessee and there are also a lot of tornado watches. And while watching the news, some of them are as large as 100 kilometers wide with winds blowing approximately more than 120 kph, it can knock down trees, poles, remove roofs and making a disaster. But do you know that right in the center of those storms and tornadoes there is peace? In the eye of a storm, there is peace. The winds, the rain, and there can be damage all around you. Same with our lives, there may be difficulty, there may be a storm with your finances, storm with your family, storm with your health, storm with your job. But you can be at peace if you keep right in the center of that storm in your life. You can find rest in the center. Just like a real storm, we cannot control when and where it will occur, but we can always ask God to take us to the center or eye of the storm so we could endure it and have peace in the middle of it.

Maybe you are just like me, facing a major challenge in life, you have been constantly battling that storm, you are so worried in life on how to overcome that situation, maybe you are trying to get back to that person who did you wrong, or maybe you just want to get out of that uncontrollable situation. Just ask God to take you to the center of the storm. I encourage you my friend to ask Him. Trust Him. Even with the storms of life surrounding you, you will be safe and find peace as you rest in the eye of the storm with God.