Journal Entry#2

Ok well 2nd post. I was planning on writing a post about letting go of yourself but I found it to a subject that is way too deep for me to write just a few paragraphs on, seeing as how I umm kind of write a lot:). Soooo I guess I'll tell ya'll just about what's been happening with me instead:). First of all I'm reading this really great book called "Stepping Heavenward". I would personally suggest that every girl my age...especially new Christians should read it. It's about this girl who starts out kind of wanting to be a Christian at the back of her head but not wanting to make the change partially because she's unsure of how to make this change. She has a very bad temper with her mother especially. Her mom behaves in a way that wouldn't exactly entice me towards Christianity showing foremost the sacrificial Christian life instead of the life that is filled with love and joy. She also quotes scripture constantly to her for every right and wrong that she does. It's good to quote scripture but it's words that God's brought to your heart through scripture that I believe would be the most powerful evangelistic tools for those who are not very attracted to the Christian life. This is my only problem though in the book so far. Anyways she gets herself into a bad predicament which leads her to need Christ and truly decide to change. The book is written as her diary so it just shows the day to day, sometimes month to month walk in finding Christ and the process of becoming a Christian who truly walks the walk. My mom has read it twice and has half the book highlighted and the rest underlined basically so it's interesting finding the same truths throughout the book as she has. But anyways it's helped me a lot with my walk, because I'm still sort of a new Christian in the way of actually living for Christ.

Next thing I'd like to tell ya'll about is what my pastor has just started preaching on and duuuude!!!!It's sooo awesome!!!Actually all his sermons kind of have been for me. He's really hilarious and makes so much sense even with the most complicated issues. Anyways he started a new series last week called "One Thing". It's a 4week series in which he interviews some of the more famous ppl who go to our church asking them mainly about the one thing that they cannot live without and then moving on into a regular sermon. This past week he interviewed Vernon Wells a pro-baseball star...I'm not exactly sure of what team he plays for( I don't watch much baseball haha) but it was pretty coolio even still. Vernon said though that the one thing he definitely couldn't live without though was God. And that's one sign that I guess kind of defines the Christians by name and the real guys just in case you aren't sure ya know. I mean choosing between Christ or what attracts you most in the world. I never had really thought about that surprisingly enough. I mean the one thing I couldn't live without, well since I had become a Christian. If you even have to question Christ being the answer to that question, you might need to concentrate on your walk more. It's just a good way of reminding yourself of what this life is about I guess:)

Another awesome sermon I heard this week was given by my youth pastor...who hacking rocks ok..seriously he is among the top 5-10 ppl existing on this planet to me haha. He also started a new series called "Hello Someone". He talked about his days as a lifeguard and how one time because he was distracted in his own thoughts someone almost died. People were shouting by crazy by the time he got out of his own little zone. He related us Christians as the lifeguards and the pps at the park as the non-Christians who are drowning and calling out to us for help. We gotta get our thoughts in the right place and be concentrated on having our ears open to hear their cries and to hear how God wants us to help them before we'll be able to hear them and be ready to help. Those ppl are dying...I mean they're headed to hell and they don't even know it and many times it's like we don't even care you know because we're so rapped up in what ppl think of us or what they've done to us or what we could do to make life better for ourselves. It's cruel really. And we do it all the time. So that's basically the message. And it just fired me up way more to go out there to evangelize...which I've found within these past couple of days once more to be not the easiest thing to do out there.

Every single person out there has such a complicated mind and reasons for not accepting Christ and not letting go. I knew everyone has a complicated mind but I mean seriously it's Christ why would you not accept him right away. Especially in America these days pps from birth have been brought up with a hardened heart towards anything having to do with God. I was talking to a middle-school evolutionist and dude...he brought up all these scientific "facts" and "proofs" that evolution is right. Ok well I'm not a pro and fighting against evolutionists because that's not where I've put my attention into. So how in the world was I suppost to fight these lies? Well I could spend my life working up to be a scientist who defies evolution...but then what about the Buddhists and Islamists?I mean and my passion is mainly for helping reaching the low-casts and enslaved and you know those kind of people who mainly just concentrate on surviving instead of anything spiritual. Well after I finished up my conversation with the guy feeling like I had used up all that time for nothing I talked to my mom about it all and she reminded me of one of my favorite quotes by Francis of Assisi "Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary use words". This made me feel even more stupid because the entire time I was talking to him I was just bringing up reasons of why evolution is totally flawed. But then my mom was like "Well just you being out there talking and listening to him though was ministering to him". We have the opportunity to plant seeds in these people that God can tug at all the time by just spending time listening to what they have to say and being there for them. Yeah all these pps are complicated and your not usually gonna be able to help them become a Christian right away but nothing is too complicated for God and He sees into them and knows of the simplest of actions that can change their life for Him.

Well these little messages really encouraged me tons so hopefully they've done the same for you:)!!!Thanks for reading and please share your thoughts about it:)!!!
God bless,
Licia

1st post-prayer and prejudice

Ok well I'm kinda new to this blogging thing so if I'm doing it all wrong please let me know haha! I got a blog mainly to present links that can share ways in which you can help our world today but I also think it's for sharing your thoughts on life day by day as kind of an open journal to the world, so that is how I'll present this one I guess haha:)!

"Journal Entry#1"-Well today has been a pretty great day. Most exciting news would have to be that my dear brother finally has a cell phone:D!! Most horrifying news would have to be of how this information was presented to me. My brother basically tricked me into thinking he was some creepy stalker since he had this new number. Mainly by telling me what time I woke up and little details like that.... yeahhhhh.... scary! Anyways I was pretty frustrated by this and so I decided that it was pay back time hehehe. I called up my friend and told him the story asking him to do the same thing Dan did to me to Daniel himself. He happily agreed and started this little prank… sadly ended in the police getting called and my friend almost getting arrested (we kind of got more into being stalkers than he did)...yeah never do anything like that with Daniel:/.

It's all good now though XD! TTT was awesome and I finally figured out a dance move I've been trying to learn for weeks...and the rest of the day was boring school

..Till I got onto this website and accidentally got onto this Iranian dudes blog. My first thought was woooowww awesome...I can really be a stalker now and then it was oh crap would if he's a terrorist and will trace me down and blow my face off:/. But being a very curious person and thinking that maybe I could help the FBI or something (even though his blog was open for the world to see….I’ve been cursed with quite a large imagination). I snooped around for a bit and found out by many translating tools and by many failures in understanding the jumbled English/ Arabic code (that in my mind was filled with many clues of a terrorist attack:)that he was or at least spoke in Persian. One of his posts that I translated was what looked to be some sort of poetry and the poem was, I think, about life on the sea which of course lead me to believe that instead of a terrorist he was...a pirate. His profile picture (which looked like someone on a wanted sign) in my mind, supported this. But then I found that he lived in the capital of Iran which uhh...isn't really close to any ocean....

I then decided that I should start thinking the best of this mysterious stranger and view him through God's eyes instead of my own Nancy drew superhero wanna-be eyes. I saw his posts quite differently at this point. They were mostly all about wanting to find the meaning of life and that it looked to him like there was nothing but misery to this world. He was searching for truth in this dark and mysterious world and lived in one of the hardest places to find truth… Iran. I found that he was an incredible musician by a video of him playing a reprise he made of one of the most complicated but beautiful songs I have ever heard. He was normal, no terrorism, no piracy, just a normal young adult trying to find something to live for and not having an easy time of it. I felt terrible. I live in a nation that is yes very wicked and evil and is slowly crumbling apart, but is also the most Christian Nation out there pretty much. In addition, one of the most sheltered areas of our country, which is in the safest most Christian state out there surrounded by a family and friends who are on fire for the King of love and compassion Himself. I was so ashamed of myself. Especially since I’m someone who has already found the meaning of life and truth and something to live for.

I immediately decided to start regularly praying for this dear man. At that moment something hit me, or He hit me (with clarity). Why would some random dude’s blog show up instead of the main blogspot page when I typed the site it in? Why would it happen to be a random Iranian’s page? And why would this happen to me, one of the most curious persons out there? This did not happen by random chance. I plan to in the future, possibly as a career, go to the Middle East (India most-likely) and do missions work for the girls who have been pulled into human trafficking. This being the case, the men of these areas would be my natural enemy and I had already unknowingly formed a huge prejudice against them even though they need Christ just as much as those slave girls do, whether they’re involved in the trafficking or terrorism or piracy or not. I think Father God was really wanting me to see this today to 1-open my eyes up to the prejudices I hold, 2- give me a better glimpse of how He loves and how He wants me to love, 3- to pray for this guy that He loves so much that could be going through an immense bout of difficulty possibly particularly at this very moment, and 4- so that maybe someone else will feel something through this message He’s taught me today and feel lead to pray for the people out there who they might have prejudices against. Well there it is. My first post, and quite a long one at that:/…haha:)!I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
God bless,
-Licia