Where's God When I'm Scared?!

I do not know if any of you have seen the Veggietales Episode with that title, but I have! It was a good episode that taught children that God was bigger than any of their fears (He is the biggest afterall) and that He will protect them from harm. This is a good reminder for adults too because even people who are older than 10 face fears and challenges in life that are too big for them to handle- but not too big for God.

Back Story

So last night I was helping out one of the camp sites at the summer camp that I am working at this summer. This particular camp site was in the middle of the woods and is designed for the participants to have a complete outdoor experience. Because they needed someone over 18 there to cover for someone else, I graciously took the job and stayed there from 9:30p.m. to 11:00p.m.

The camp fire was great and I enjoyed 2 smores during it. The participants and counsellors sang numerous camp fire songs and it was fun! At 11 I left just as it started to rain heavily. Now, I was walking alone with a very small flashlight in a pitchblack forest... Yeah, my nerves were a little on end.
So, I started to sing the musical number from that Veggie Tales Episode:
God is bigger than the boogie man
He's bigger than Godzilla or the monster's on TV
Oh God is bigger than the boogey man
And He's watching out for you and me!
However, those lyrics did not help at all! So, after a bit I started singing one of the songs I learned in Sunday School:
God is good,
God is kind,
God is loving all the time,
Loving you, loving me.

That eventually evolved into me praising God for all of His attributes and quoting from Revelation and other Scriptures. You know, it wasn't until the shift focused from God looking out for me to God alone I did not feel so afraid anymore. I just wanted to worship my Creator in all His glory and my circumstance shrank as a result. Oh yeah, and the rain started to die down too!

Lesson to be Learned

I thought, huh....Maybe that is how I move a mountain that is blocking my path. If I focus on God and not on the mountain

Why? Because the Bible already tells us we are under God's protection and that God is always with us. Therefore, I do not need to pray for those things because I already have them. So, God wants me to move on from a Veggie Tales' faith to the Written Word as my foundation faith. And the best way to do that is through reading the Word and prayer. Which is what I did last night when I combined the two. Makes me glad that my Bible reading and studying was not done in vain!

Summary

1. Because the Bible says that we already have God's protection, we do not need to pray for it because it is already ours
2. Instead of comparing the size of the problem to God, we should focus entirely on God- especially when we are afraid
3. The best way to be prepared for circumstances like mine or whatever you are going through is impportant to know the written Word of God so that when Satan, the world, or even yourself starts telling you lies you can capture the lies and defeat them with truth.

Resources

One of my favourite Christian authors is Sharon Jaynes. One of her books is Becoming a Woman Who Listens to God. I bought the book at the beginning of May. It is a good book and it really opened my eyes to how God speaks to me. However, the common method is that if a person thinks God is talking to them, besides through the Bible, it must always be interpretted through the Bible and not the other way around. Everything from my thoughts and words to what I hear coming from other people must be interpretted through the Word. Thankfully Sharon's book teaches us how to Listen and her newest book I'm Not Good Enough...And Other Lies Women Tell Themselves is also another great tool!

Man...Sharon Jayne is one of my favourite authors. God really helped her to reach women of all ages to teach people the Word of God. She really is a mother of many spiritual children in God's earth.

1. Sharon Jayne's Website
2. Sharon is also one of the three authors of Girlfriends in God, an email devotional that I get from Monday to Friday in my email!
3. Sharon Jayne's Facebook page and Fan group

Isaiah 17:10-11 and Bible in 90 Days, Day 1

So, I get Bible verses daily in my email from Zondervan. It turns out that their readers are being encouraged to read through teh Bible in 90 days. I remember CHRI did this a few years ago too and even provided the link to a forum where someone could post their findings.

So, I decided to try it this time and I started today. However, it seems the forum CHRI used is top secret because I cannot find it on their website. So, I'll type up my findings as I go along. I think it will be an interesting experience to read through the Bible in an intense way. I am also gonna continue with my other reading projects too: Isaiah, John, and Acts and Romans.

First- Isaiah 17:10-11

This Isaiah passage has nothing to do with Bible in 90 Days but thought I would share it.
10 You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines, 11 though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain.

When God talks about the people of the Northern Kingdom (N.K.) forgetting Him, He does not mean that it simply slipped their minds. It means that they have head knowledge about Him and they are refusing to acknowledge it. in the end they paid the price of it when shortly after this passage is written they get conquered by the Assyrian Empire.

This passage is so insightful because it shows what will happen to me if I ever forget my Saviour, and choose not to acknowledge my Rock. My life will simply be in vain because I would not be planting vineyards that would last or be fruitful. This just shows how important it is for me to stay connected to Jesus and to give thanks to God, my Saviour so that I will always acknowledge Him and show reverence to Him. Otherwise, my Samaria/Jerusalem/Damascus will be destroyed and my vineyard would produce nothing.

I hope I never forget God or choose not to acknowledge. He is already causing me to grow in numerous ways and I do not want to give anyone else but Him the credit. I mean without God I certainly wouldn't be here writing this blog. In fact there is a good chance I would be dead because I only came to know the Lord because I wanted to end my life. It is unfortunate but true!

Btw I have changed a lot since then. For example, during my hospital stay for suicidal attempts I was diagnosed with my nonverbal learning disability with some of the symptoms of asperger syndrome. At first I either hid it from everybody or fought it with every last breath that I had. Now, however, I am quite content with it and I know that God will use it for great things. I will also never forget my Saviour or choose not to acknowledge Him.

Shows that the Old Testament has a lot of messages and it would be a real shame if people MISSED IT because they fail to acknowledge that all of the violence occurred because it is human history, and because humanity is sinful. Sin is nothing but destructive and brings about nothing but destruction. The only thing the Old Testament does is show God's intervention and points the world towards Jesus.


Day 1: Genesis 1:1-16:16

So, I started reading this using the NASB, instead of the NIV. It was quite a different excperience. I chose this particular translation because it is much more of an accurate translation then the NIV according to one of my profs so I chose to use it. I like how the pronouns that repace the word "God" are capitalized. Makes it an easier read in that sense, and it is something the NIV forgot to include!

I also chose it because it is harder to read!!!! The NIV is way easier, not as easier as the NLT, but not as hard as this one. I find the more accurate and word-by-word translations are always the more difficult read because it is hard to put together what the phrase is actually saying. The NIV and NASB is like the difference between English and French. In French, when someon asks for a kid's age the kid will say, "J'ai sept ans." Now if the Bible was originally written in French, the NASB would translate into English as "I have seven years." What the NIV does is that it realizes that in English we do not say "I have seven years," but "I am seven years old." That's the difference between direct translation of the NASB, and the dynamic translation of the NIV.

So, yeah, it'll be tougher read but that's OK. Because I needed challenge in my Bible version and I was getting bored with the NIV. I mean I have read Genesis 1-11 over and over a lot of times and the Creation story gets boring after a while. Interesting, gives me a reason to glorify God, but boring! Sorry, Moses, but there is no two ways about. So this will definitely be an interesting read!

Verses that Stood Out
I am reading through and a few verses stood out. First, Genesis 3:15 because it is the verse that first reveals that God is great. The moment Adam and Eve sinned and like made it clear that God did not owe them or their descendants anything, He chose to send Jesus! I mean He could have let us rot and let us destroy ourselves (which is what happens when sin takes its course)

Another one I noticed was how both Eve and Sara made mistakes, and blamed someone else for it. Eve chose to eat the fruit, and blamed the serpent instead of repenting. Sara blamed Abraham for Hagar despising her and abuses her slave. Which is totally unfair because the whole Hagar/Ishmael thing was Sara's idea!!

Hagar/Ishmael just proves that one should not intervene in God's plans. Face it, intervening in God's plans just puts the promises into the wrong hands: your own!!! Yeah, I'll be careful about doing God's job for Him from now on, since it clearly doesn't do anyone any good.

Oh, and in Genesis 15 when the flaming torch moved ebtween the dead animals, I learned this year in my Old Testament courses that by doing that, God was invoking a curse upon Himself if He failed to fulfill th covenant... Talk about a God who loved us to death! Not that that part should be made fun of because it is more serious and more sacred than anything in this world, other than God.

Well, that''s it. Look forward to completing Day 2 tomorrow!