Reflections on Psalm 34

Life feels as if it has been flying by for about the past week or so.God has been teaching me a lot lately, and I'm striving more and more each day to be completely satisfied in Him. He really laid Psalm 34 on my heart in a new way this week. I started thinking about all of these different parts of my future that I absolutely have no control over, and knew that I needed His guidance. His gift to me that night was Psalm 34. To give you an idea of the thoughts of the future that have been running through my head, here's a short list:
-This summer in San Antonio
-Graduating
-Friendships
-Every day decisions
-Guatemala trip
-Life after graduation- Singleness, etc.

So often I feel as if my thoughts are consumed by questions on the future. I worry so much about it to the point that it's ridiculous. Suddenly I realized that those thoughts were taking away from my present time, and that it wasn't my life to worry about anyways. My life is His, and good thing, because He has it all under control.

There's one verse in Psalm 34 that really struck me:

"The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." - Psalm 34:10

How many times have I wanted and hungered for something in my life to just happen? Like the answers to all of y questions to just appear. I hunger for the knowledge of little things, like "What will this summer bring me?" etc.

But it's not about me. "Those who seek the LORD lack no good thing." It's about seeking Him, and not for any benefit, but because He's the only way!

"The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." -Psalm 34:18

He guides, He comforts, He knows so much more than I do. This is why I cannot worry. This is why I cannot be consumed by the maybes of the future. Because my King has redeemed my life.

I have to constantly remember this as my hopes are let down. When friendships don't always meet the expectations I had for them, when certain things turn out to be not for me. I can take comfort and relief in the fact that God does have a plan that is so beyond me. It's not about me.

The Sin of Idolatry

I want to blog a little about something that really hit me at Revival. The very first night, Matt asked, "What is your hell?" He then gave examples of what many people struggle with. His first example was the single Christian girls he sees at his church that just graduate from college. The girl is thinking, "AH! I'm still single, and I'm *gasp* 22 years old." Then these girls proceed to date many guys, constantly giving their hearts away, because of their perception of hell: ending up alone.

Let me tell you, this hit me hard. That is definitely a struggle for me. I don't want to end up "alone".I want to be in love one day with a godly man. I want to have a family. I want, I want, I want, I want. Right??

While he continued to give other examples, his ultimate conclusion was that our hell should be separation from God. He went on to say that God created us with a desire to worship HIM(!!) but all too often we pin that desire on something that He created.

"...because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." -Romans 1:25

I may not see it now, but I don't want to end up like this, 5, 10, 20 years down the road. I don't want to worship God's creation, rather than God himself.

Another thing Matt said that moved me was when he was talking about his daughter. He said that he so desperately wants for his daughter to grow up and marry a godly man, not just a cool Christian guy. How true is this!! Not only for the husband I want to marry one day, but I too don't want to be just a "cool Christian girl". I want to be a godly woman, I want to reflect His light, I want His words to constantly flow off of my lips! How beautiful will it be when I finally do meet that man of God. How beautiful will it be when I know that God blessed me because I did not give in to my desires to "not be alone", and instead of having that be my hell, my hell was being separated from Him! How beautiful will it be when I can share that love for the Father wish a wonderful, godly man! How beautiful will it be when that relationship glorifies the Lord because we are completely satisfied in Him.

And how beautiful it is that God hits me with these realizations so hard that I can find joy in Him because He is my Father, because He is good... when I delight in His love because it is so much better, powerful, and stronger than anything else I can ever find. How beautiful it is that I can be satisfied in Him and never be alone with or without an earthly relationship.

Some thoughts just running through my head...

At my small group tonight that I meet with each week, I couldn't sort my thoughts. I haven't been able to sort my thoughts. I'm one of those people that wants answers to questions- clear, distinct answers. I am not getting those answers right now. For some reason tonight, after reading a portion of the sermon on the mount with our group, I felt the need to just be still. I realized that I go throughout my day as a pretty cheerful person (lately). I have been making it a point to try to encourage those around me. I have been going out of my way to meet with people and enjoy time with friends. I have been doing all of these things, and while they may be good, they are not when I haven't found the time to just be still. As I walked back to my apartment tonight, I looked up at the stars and the moon, and everything in me wanted to be somewhere else. My life is not bad at all- I am very blessed. But when I forget about being still, and meeting with Him like I do with my friends, with study groups, with text books... it dawns on me all at once that I am not investing enough of my time in Him. I go throughout my day trying to please Him, talking about Him, thinking of Him... these are all good things. But what about spending just as much time meeting with Him?

Tonight Shawn passed out a list of questions that she found online, and I think they are very important to ask:
1. Am I investing in myself?
2. Am I genuinely interested in others?
3. Am I doing what I love doing and loving what I do?
4. Am I staying in my strength zone?
5. Am I investing my time with the right people?
6. Am I taking others to a higher level? (mission)
7. Am I taking care of today?
8. Am I taking time to think?
9. Am I developing leaders?
10. Am I pleasing God?

None of these things are possible if I'm not on the same page as my awesome Father in Heaven. If I try to accomplish these things... I fail. I feel miserable. Because during the midst of me not spending as much time with Him as I should, I begin to try to do the other things without Him. I begin to live in a way that suggests I don't need Him.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:2 (the first beatitude)

So I want to seek His face. I want Him to be my fuel. If He's not, then what I am doing is all in vain.

I never really write a whole lot about this, and I'm sorry to be so transparent, but I want to begin writing things on here that could be of encouragement to you. I want to call them "devotionals", but I don't know if this post would be considered that or not. I hope that this was encouraging to you- maybe you could recognize some of the same characteristics and need for change in your life. I pray that in any way, my words will spur you to chase after our King.

The writings of a single girl: The plain, don't feel sorry for me, truth.

The past few weeks have been another one of those weeks. For me, one of those weeks is the kind where you are just longing for some real companionship. Being single, I automatically pin this on the fact that I'm without a boyfriend. I have friends here that are true treasures in my life, but sometimes it just doesn't fill that hole.

Thinking about this (as I write), I think of a good section of Blue Like Jazz that I read last year. Despite the controversy or the popularity of that book, I read something in there that brought a smile to my heart. Donald Miller was talking to his newlywed friend, when he asked him how new married life was. His friend responded with quite the surprising answer, and replied with something along these lines: "It's wonderful, but it's not complete fulfillment. I love my wife, but I will never truly know her like she desires to be known, and she will never truly know me the way I desire to be known.... The only one that can truly know us is God." I don't know about you, but that is amazing to me.

I know people in my life care about me. I can't say that I don't sometimes wonder how different life would be if I had a boyfriend, a fiancee, or a husband. I can take joy in the fact that I have my Lord and that He is always accessible for me to talk to, to pour my heart out to, to cry with, to laugh with, to love.

It is when I am in these moments of longing for a(nother) companion that I realize I need to spend more time with my Lord. It is in these times when I say "I miss him," and I realize that that him is Him, my Father in Heaven. It is times like these that draw me back to Him.

Feel what You feel, Love what You love, go where You go, that's what we want...

Okay. There is something you need to know. Something I need to know. Something we all need to know.

So, being on Revival Steering Committee and MLC, and involved in my local church.. you'd think I would be just fine and dandy with God, right? Well, I think God might just be trying to tell me something right now....

I cried tonight because I realized I was completely wrong, and that I didn't have any ounce of goodness in me. I am trying to walk alone. I am trying to deal with my family being apart, with the war that caused that... trying to deal with friendships that have gone sour, trying to deal with the sin in my life on my own, as if I had the power to fix any of it. It's as if I'm trying to hold all of this in with my hands that are made of ice, and that they're just melting now. It's like God's hands of steel are right in front of me, and I haven't done a thing about it because for some reason I have felt that the ice would never melt or break. It's as if I'm all wrong... because I am.

I haven't kept Christ as the center of my life. I have told myself that I have, and have made it all about me (my decisions, my own doings) in the process. After telling your something that is false repeatedly, you begin to believe it, and then it ends up hitting you all at once.

And then sometimes I think I'm just being an emotional girl, but this stuff matters. It matters that I haven't been taking this seriously, the fact that God controls this, not me, and it would all be fine if I just let Him.

Pray that the dry bones would have life breathed into them. And let me know if you need prayer as well. Seriously. Thanks.

My Testimony

So, I had to write my testimony for something that I am applying for... I figured it'd be a fun post!

Written Testimony-Krista Michelle


Looking back on my childhood, I remember sitting in the backseat of my parent’s car, looking out the window at everything that was passing by and wondering what it would be like if “nothing” existed. I couldn’t grasp the thought of “nothing” ever existing, and that is when I began to wonder about how everything in the world came about… Did it just appear one day? No. Well who put it here? It had to have been someone…
About 5 years later, my grandma, who was a devout Catholic, lived with my parents and me, and she slept in my room. Every night she would read her Bible and pray prayers. I became very inquisitive about this, because I knew what she was doing had some sort of purpose; she was so devout in this every day. I began to ask her many questions, but I still really didn’t understand anything about God and who He is. My perspective of God at the time was only as an imaginary friend, and I saw “only” because I had many imaginary friends (a completely different story). I used to push the chair out for Jesus at the dinner table, and I very much simply imitated my grandma- I thought that by having the necklace (the rosary) the my grandma did, that somehow I was doing something right, while still having no idea what I was running towards.
In middle school, my best friend Debbie invited me to her church, but I never accepted the offer because I was too scared that I wouldn’t be allowed to because it was in the late evening. It wasn’t until my freshman year of high school, when my friend Kristen invited me to her youth group that my life tremendously changed. I accepted, and when I arrived, I was greeted by a loud band, a bunch of people hanging out in a living room, and the youth minister, Garfield. After a warm welcome, he gladly did a back flip, and I couldn’t believe that we were actually laughing and having fun. I really had no idea what to expect. Well, after that, we had bible study, and I kept hearing about the “good news” and the “gospel”, and I just sat there pretending like I knew what everyone was referring to. I eventually learned more about it from Garfield and his wife, Stephanie, and that is when I learned about Jesus, and why I always saw him on a cross in pictures. I finally knew about His purpose, that He came to die for us, and that He loved me, and He wanted me to devote my life to Him. I finally realized that God is more than just a god that people pray to, but a God that actually loves us, by giving His Son for us, and by giving us the gift of eternal life through His Son. I finally understood that I could have a relationship with Him, and that He would change my life.
My salvation was very gradual- but altogether moving. I began to pray, and truly ask God to come into my life. My mom bought me a Bible, and I would eagerly go home to read it, to see what God was all about. I was later baptized on April 15th, 2001. That event is something I will never forget. God surrounded me, telling me that He loved me. I felt weightless, without a worry in the world. Ever since my salvation, I have had an inner joy that reaches to all the depths of my soul; this joy is indescribable. I still have daily struggles in my goal to daily serve Him, but He keeps reminding me that my satisfaction can only be found in Him.