Consistent Consistency

I want to get married someday, speak Spanish, write a book, travel the world, and know God and make Him known.  These desires seem so big and far away at times.  These things are all good things, but they require smaller steps of consistency over time to accomplish them.  If I were to make more friends, study my Rosetta Stone for thirty minutes a day, write for thirty minutes to an hour a day, save a few dollars a month for traveling adventures, and study and share the Word of God over a period of time; I would most likely be a whole lot closer to accomplishing the desires of my heart.  My dreams need to become goals, and in turn my goals will become accomplishments.  The bridge between my goals and accomplishments is a consistent consistency of  little steps of action that align with the direction of my goals.

My Dreams are the roles in which I seek to become.  My dreams will not be fulfilled and handed to me on a silver platter or delivered by the postal service delivery man.  God will not just hand me a husband, or allow me to speak Spanish fluently.  I won't wake up the next day with a best-selling book on the shelves of every bookstore.  I won't be able to hop on a plane tomorrow and go overseas.  I won't be spiritually mature ever this side of heaven, I will always be growing into the disciple and missionary God wants me to be.  There will not be this magical day where all of these desires are automatically fulfilled.  Every role or aspect of my life requires work on my part.  This is where my dreams must become my goals.  If my goals are to be a wife, a fluent Spanish speaker, an author and so on.  Then I need to break down these roles into small actions that can be executed consistently over time to get me to my goals.  These steps of completed consistency are the stepping stones for my goals to become accomplishments.  Once these goals turn to accomplishments, the journey is not over.  The role of wife will bring on new dreams such as mother and the steps of consistent consistency begin again just with another goal in mind.

My dreams turn to goals when I PLAN action steps to turn them into accomplishments.  My goals become accomplishments, when I EXECUTE those action steps consistently in accordance to my goals.

Dream BIG. Turn your dreams into goals and accomplish them!  Small steps lead to great accomplishments.

Trust~Delight~Commit

"Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.  Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.  Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass."
~Psalm 37:3-5

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I am stepping out into new territory.  I have joined the Proverbs 31 Online Bible Study with over 36,000 people signed up.  Wow!  That's a lot of people!  The book focus for this study is Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst.  I am excited to see what this study will bring.

God is so good.  My favorite verse is Psalm 37:4, "Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."  Delight is described as "pleasure, joy, happiness."  When I enjoy or take pleasure in God, he will give me the desires of my heart.  To be very honest, I struggle with enjoying God.  It has not been until the past few years, that I have really put forth an effort to know my Lord.  I can tell you the more I get to know Him, the sweeter and more enjoyable He becomes.  My desires begin to shift into "How do I get to know God more?" "What does God want me to do?"

When looking at Psalm 37:4, you can't help but read the verses that sandwich it.  Verse three says to trust and do good.  The promise for doing so is food.  How cool is that?  When we trust God, we will be fed.  We won't go hungry!  So we trust, then we delight, and now we commit.  We must commit our way to the Lord.  Our way.  This requires surrender.  We must surrender our plans for God's plans.  Trust Him.  Double trust.  If God repeats something, it must be important.  Trust God, and He will bring it to pass.  He will bring His plan to pass.

This seems like a simple enough recipe for life: Trust~Delight~Commit

These three words are so rich and powerful.  They are nothing until I apply them in my life. I truly want to trust my Lord, enjoy Him, and allow Him to lead me in His plan for me.  Joining the Proverbs 31 Bible Study is one step towards that, and I commit the next few weeks to Him for the purpose of enjoying and delighting in Him.  I want to Crave God rather than food or anything else.

The Simple Days...

What happened to the simple days when you had to actually memorize your best friend's phone number and purposely call them on a phone with a cord with a 10 foot reach?  In today's tech-savvy world, major milestones in friends, or friends of friends' lives are being broadcast to 200+ of their closest friends.

Social media is so intuitive (or we freely give away our "privacy"), that the advertisers have picked up on what we want in life.  I can't tell you how many ads targeted at dating sites or engagement rings I have seen in the last week.  "So I am single, thanks for pointing out the obvious."  Just because I am single doesn't mean I am broken.  Just because I am single doesn't mean I don't have purpose.  God has given me several  harvests of kiddos to pour His love into and teach them how to read and shine the light of Jesus in their lives.  I am grateful for that responsibility.  I have a great family and church family that I can count on no matter what.

These constant reminders of what I lack in life, to be honest, are annoying.  As the glitzy ring catches my eye, my mind can wander to the future.  Then I find myself entering the land of "If Only."  "If only I had husband..."  "If only I was the best teacher... and so on.  This place becomes a very dangerous place to dwell.  As soon as I find myself headed down the path, I quickly send up a prayer and attempt to redirect my thoughts to what I have before me.

My desire to be married and have a family is not wrong, it is just so tough to be reminded by other's happiness or ads that seem to point out that unfulfilled desire in my life.  I am learning slowly that God has a purpose for this season of my life.  My aim is to become holy in body and spirit and serve God without distraction (that is proving harder than I had realized) (I Corinthians 7:34-35).  God also tells me to delight in Him, and He will give me the desires of my heart (Psalm 37:4).  God knows my heart, now I have to trust Him and wait on His timing.