Busy Busy Busy

It's difficult to fit everything in my day, with school alone I have enough work, but with sports, music, life group, youth group, it's nearly impossible to get to bed before midnight. I've realized that I leave quiet times out of my life with my busy schedule. I put my grades before spending time with God when it should be the other way around. God should come first always. It's hard. Especially when we know that school is the most important thing in our life at this moment, but it's not. Yes, school plays a big role in our lives, but God has to come first. When we wake up in the morning what attitude we have sets the precursor to our day. So, naturally we want to wake up with positive thoughts, but that's kind of difficult when our alarms are beeping and the sun hasn't even come up yet. That's why when we wake up we should read our Bibles. God blesses us for putting Him first. He knows how much we have in our schedules. (After all He is all-knowing...) He loves when we put Him first, because He knows that it's difficult. But it's really something we should all strive to make a habit out of. Basically, what I'm trying to say, is that I need to get over how tired I am in the morning so I can spend time with my Lord and Savior. 


God should always come first regardless of where we are in life. Whether we're in college, high school, an adult with four kids; God comes first. It sounds easy, but it's a new level of commitment. It's when you're willing to move everything aside to spend time with God. But for that "price" you may be paying in return you grow in your relationship with Jesus, which is better than anything. 


Food for Thought:
The Bible tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33) and that we should glorify Him in all we do (1 Corinthians 10:31). When we put God first that is one way that we glorify Him. And when we spend time with God we learn how to glorify God in all we do.

Beauty from the World

Being in high school can be no easy task. Especially when balancing the work and the stress of school and many extra-curricular activities. Another thing is how easily we can buy into the lies of Satan. For girls, one major lie that we believe, is that we are not pretty enough or skinny enough or tall enough and so on. We easily let magazines depict our self-image. Without effort we to buy into the "advice" that fashion magazines give.

The truth is we can't let the world tell us how we are supposed to look or how we are supposed to dress and so on and so forth. We are all beautiful because our Creator, our Heavenly Father made us beautiful. All of the insecurities regarding self-worth should never cross our minds because we should always know that we are beautiful in God's eyes. These insecurities are from Satan, who tries his hardest to keep us from chasing after God. It is simple really. God calls us beautiful. Therefore, we should know that we are beautiful. We were created in His image. His perfect image. He who is without flaw in every aspect of Him.

The last chorus of the song "Beautiful" by Bethany Dillon is a great example of true beauty:
"You make me beautiful
You make me stand in awe
You step inside my heart, and I am amazed
I love to hear You say
Who I am is quite enough
You make me worthy of love and beautiful"
God makes us beautiful. We should desire to seek Him and His presence.

Also a line from Gungor's "Beautiful Things":
"You make beautiful things out of us"
Again God creates beauty in us, despite the fact that we are sinners. He thinks that we are beautiful and precious. But He made us that way.

Instead of pursuing the world's idea of beauty, I choose to rely on the fact that God thinks that I am beautiful. Also, instead of pleasing the world, I strive to be a Proverbs 31 woman.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs%2031&version=NIV1984