Hope-Filled Christian
Hope-Filled Christian
Babies in mangers
Struggling to juggle the demands of life and academia, I've found my rhythm, and I'm ready to share the revelations uncovered along the way. Brace yourself for a heartfelt journey into the crux of education, as I peel back the layers on why love and effective leadership are not just beneficial, but essential in shaping the future of our students. From personal anecdotes about my own transition towards a master's in education leadership to the surprising solace found in writing assignments, this episode is a testament to the unexpected twists life's path can offer.
Ever considered the profound impact of those who came before us, and how their stories intertwine with our own? Take a walk with me through the genealogies and the humble beginnings of Jesus, as depicted in Luke 1, where every name tells a tale of grace and redemption. It's an invitation to introspect on the silent workings of the divine in our daily lives, often unnoticed yet immensely significant. And as we explore these narratives, we find ourselves weaving our own stories of faith and purpose amidst the tapestry of history.
Finally, let us bow our heads in a collective moment of reflection and prayer, embracing gratitude for the blessings that frame our existence and seeking the wisdom to navigate life's complexities. It's a gentle reminder of the transformative and enduring love of God, a love that anchors us through every storm. Together, let's reaffirm our commitment to not just exist but to spread compassion and understanding through every word we speak and every action we take. Join me on this soul-stirring episode, where together, we unearth the power of our shared human experience.
Hi and welcome back to HFC. I am so sorry that I've not been here for like two, three weeks now. I think Life has beenactic. I started classes and that's kind of. They've actually been becoming really good. It's just getting used to, I guess, the schedule and I was trying to figure out a better day to do things. So I'm assuming I continue to find myself a time. In most cases I'm assuming that an episode be uploaded by Thursday now instead of Wednesdays, simply for the fact that I have to have all my assignments turned in by Tuesday. And Tuesday was when I used to record. So now having to record when I might be doing some last minute editing for my assignments, so I'd rather just say that I'm going to move recording to Wednesday and have things posted by Thursday, or even just being safe and saying Friday or something. We'll look into that. But for now just realize I'm going to be trying to read, upload stuff, and that was something that honestly, I had like an epiphany, I guess. So I was trying to figure out like I'm like. I feel like I'm busy all the time. I feel like I have no days off. I feel like I'm so stressed out Not in a bad way it just means like busy.
Speaker 1:I've actually really been enjoying my classes and things have been going really well. So I mean, if you're praying for me, thank you for that. If you're not, well you know. I'm in classes now and I'm a little bit nervous. I'm normally anxious by nature and I think one of the most interesting things so far is that I don't know if I ever talked about how I got into taking these courses. I was really struggling to decide between because I knew I wanted to go for my masters. I've always been one for, like, education and I always knew I'd go for my masters at the very least. I just didn't know if I wanted to go for my masters in reading concentration or my masters in education leadership, which education leadership is what I'm currently pursuing, and the way it came about is my, essentially, my mom had a meeting with, at the same place as, someone from my past who used to be my eighth grade teacher, and so then my mom was not supposed to have gone to this meeting, but she went, and so because she went, you know, because she went, it kind of became the thing of like, well, she was covering for someone else. Because she was covering for someone else. She was there at the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1:People would call it coincidence, I call it God, and some of this sort of talking about me I guess that's what parents do they talk about their kids and apparently he remembered me and he was like, oh yeah, I remember him and, you know, have him contact me if he's really interested and we can discuss it and talk about it. And so I went through with that and one of my main concerns about going for education leadership was I had no idea what the program was like and I was really nervous about going into program because I was having struggling to get any kind of information about out of any advisor or anything like that. And so that was a definite God send, literally, and you know phrase wise. And so then, yeah, we had like the best talk ever, which I was super nervous about it, but then I like it just seemed very relaxed, very casual, and I realized you know this person's very friendly and really just has very passionate about his job, and so he helped me, give me suggestions on where to go to school and where to do, and you know how to do things and how to prepare myself for my future and it just it took a lot of the worry off and, like I said, it was a God send, because that was basically my only thing. I was going to probably be stuck deciding whether or not to do anything, had God not intervened and sent that person in that situation to that meeting of my that my mom had to happen to be covering for someone for and then, you know, offered to talk to me, to speak with me. I thought that was awesome. I thought that was weird in the first place that he remembered me because, I don't know, I don't consider myself very memorable, but yeah anyway.
Speaker 1:So that's why I got into my masters, literally all about through God, by God, with God, and so one of the things that I think right now I was so freaking out about starting my classes no-transcript, I don't know. I'm gonna say it's all God, because a lot of the assignments that I've been doing right now it's not even like I'm stressing out about writing them. It's I'm stressing out about some parts of it. It's mostly the AP and the formatting and stuff, but the actual writing isn't something that I find stressful. It's almost like my I was trying to say this to my color worker, but it's almost like my brain enjoys it. It's like I, it's like a little outlet, like I've had all this pent up thoughts and things that I've wanted to say and it's like I'm able to say them in these papers and I'm able to say them in these assignments. I've had so far no trouble getting to the max the maximum amount of pages allowed it in allowed in every assignment. And so it's been pretty wild and I mean like yesterday I wasn't even supposed to have time today, so I call that a God send again that I'm.
Speaker 1:I had like four assignments due today, yesterday, after you know working like Saturday and Sunday to finish an assignment. For some reason I got them. I felt the need to check my assignments, like submitted, and I had gotten a hundred on it. So I don't know why I checked it. Normally I wouldn't even bother. I was just like, okay, I got a hundred, don't need to worry about it. I checked it and he said that you know, oh, my professors thought they should put more references.
Speaker 1:So then on this paper I'd spent two days working on, I went back and I added references yesterday which I was already behind. So I was like in my mind I'm like I can't do this, I can do this, I can do this. I should be focusing on the other stuff that's not even done and then I can go back and do the references for this thing. You know, once I have at least something to submit for the other ones. But I was like I'm just gonna do it, I'm gonna fix it. It's already started. Might as well, do it. And I'll just push a lot of what I was planning to do today To today. So what I got done yesterday should have been I should have been working on today.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I finished that in like an hour, maybe even 30 minutes or less, I don't know. Then I stopped and I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna make it a little bit easier on myself, I'm gonna do some of the my next assignment, which was identifying like five courses that I wanted to take of the of the more modules, modules that I wanna take that were online, and I was just gonna like list them out and like kind of type out my general thoughts on why I wanna take that course. So that way it would be easier to write that paper today. And as I'm typing it out, I'm like you know what this is actually really like let me just do the AP for a minute. And then I did the AP for a minute and then I'm like you know what, let me just type out some of this stuff, I'll just stop and I'll stop here. Nope, kept going, nope, kept going and it was just like normally I feel like I get burnt out and stuff. And it was just like my brain just like kept brain in, kept thinking and I was oof. I finished that. I finished that assignment.
Speaker 1:So not only did I alter my original assignment and like rewrite that and then do the references. I did this assignment and then I included references in this assignment. I did the research of the courses I even talked about and did the rationale, using citations from the module to talk about you know why I wanna take those courses, why I consider them important. And then after that, I still had to do responses to a discussion post which also needed to cite and state you know rationale for why I was saying whatever saying. And basically, even before I did the spell check of the paper and re went over or re altered it, the paper that I had already finished.
Speaker 1:On Saturday and Sunday I did a discussion post. Then I was planning on doing another one Tuesday and just basing all my stuff up cause I wanna like overwhelm myself, and it seemed all very overwhelming. So then, after I finished the five courses thing, I was like, okay, good, I'm done, I'm gonna take a break, I'll do the rest tomorrow. But then as I'm sitting there, I'm like wait, I have a really good idea for a discussion post, like a discussion reply. So I'm like let me just type it out before you know it gets to be too much. And so then I type it out and bam, it's done way faster than I thought it would be.
Speaker 1:And then I'm like you know what? My last assignment is literally just posting a picture of a quiz that I took. I'm like I might as well do it. So I went online, had to go navigate to find the quiz, cause I was a whole ordeal, found it, submitted it, and so something that I thought was gonna take me until Tuesday, like probably last minute, I was able to finish all yesterday, essentially. I mean, I did most of the work for the big assignment, which was a two to three page paper, not too much, but it's more of right now the APA formatting. That kills me. I actually have no trouble, like I said, reading that maximum.
Speaker 1:So yesterday, to just kind of recount and summarize what I said, I not only did, I did a discussion post. I re-altered a three page paper, rewrote a lot of parts and cited new things and found new references and resources two reference. Then I did a essentially two, two and a half page paper on five courses. I wanted to take in the rationale for that. Then I did another discussion post which was about another paragraph and then I submitted the screenshot of a test that I took more of an inventory to decide, like where I was on my mastery of understanding what all the leadership standards are. And I did pretty well with that. But I just found it funny or not funny, but I feel very blessed to have completed all that stuff because it's fully expecting to be L4W.
Speaker 1:I'm fully expecting to be working on a lot of that stuff right now and I just find it insane that, like, even when I don't consider myself to be like you know I'm not like the best Christian, I have my ups and downs and even like in these moments when you know I feel like I have my ups and downs, that I still feel and see God moving in my life and I think that's just meaningful. One thing I definitely told God that I wanted to focus on this year and that's not something I've really been able to discuss is my kind of New Year's resolution was I wanted to. It wasn't control my anger, but it was more of check myself more. I really wanted to embody the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself, of swallowing my pride, of swallowing my you might, I don't know, I'm mainly just my pride of saying oh no, they can't go insult me that way. And just being loving and caring and kind and deciding to push my boundaries of what I think is comfortable as far as how much I'm willing to go in order to love on someone, to care about someone, to help someone and typically, like I'm usually drained from that from work. But I told God that's what I wanna do this year, that's what my goal is for this year. My goal is to embody that more.
Speaker 1:It's not that I think I'm incapable of being nice and caring, just either typically it's like I'm like I'm just tired, I don't wanna do it, or it's almost like I'm uncomfortable because it's weird asking people if they need help. It's weird asking people how you can help to be thoughtful. I feel like for so many years I taught myself to not be thoughtful because I'm like when I was younger, people used to think it was weird, and so now I just kind of like stop doing it and I'm thoughtful to people who know me and I'm thoughtful in like small ways where I have to like talk myself and build myself up to do it. But I just told God I'm tired of living life that way. I want to be able to be thoughtful, to be able to be caring and not worry about what other people are thinking, to love to the utmost capacity that I can and to see people as God sees them, as people who are hurting, people who are needing love, whether they're rude to me or not. And I wanna say it was a big ask and it's kind of scary, but I just, the more I spend time in working with kids in school and being a teacher, the more and more I realized that a lot of what kids need is love.
Speaker 1:A lot of what people in general need is love, to realize that there's someone there that cares about them, that loves them and that wants to see them succeed. And that's part of why I was always so kind of on the border about leaving the classroom. It's because I know that I have it in me to love on kids, to tell them that you can be something, you can do something and work with them to figure out what they need in order to succeed and to get to the dreams and the passions that they have and not everybody has that. But at the same time I've, weirdly enough, felt myself being drawn to leadership, which is typically not like me, because if you knew me in person, I'm very shy, I'm very quiet, but it's like as I've spent more time working with my students, I've learned to speak up more. I've learned to advocate more. I get less uncomfortable in situations where previously I would have been like heck. No, I'm not doing that, because I learned that you know, if I don't speak up for these kids, then nobody will.
Speaker 1:And I guess a large part of why I want to become any kind of instructional leader is because I want to see kids know that people believe in them, even the ones who literally are little butt heads and are rude and get upset. I want to find ways because a lot of these kids just don't feel like they're love, don't feel like anybody's watching out for them. I want them to know that, yeah, you have difficulties, yeah, there are issues, but if you're willing to work with me, I'm willing to work with you. That kind of thing and that's a lot of what I try to do in my classroom. That's a lot of what I try to do building relationships and creating a classroom where they feel included, being started in the sense of okay, yeah, no, no, we can have bad days and we can do this stuff, but that doesn't mean that we get to push over someone or be rude to someone else. Our problem should not begin to cause problems for other people.
Speaker 1:If there's an issue, we talk about it, we discuss it, we think of together. Okay, well, if you're not feeling this or you're not feeling that, well, what's a way that we can make it work for both of us? Because there are things we have to do, and I get that we all have lives and that we're sick and that we're there's things going on at home. How can we make this work for the both of us? And discussing that with the kids and that's a lot of what I wish I saw more of in other classrooms just being inclusive and making kids feel needed and not ostracized and not dumb and not stupid and not handicapped, because I have heard people say that and that's, like probably the thing that pushed me over into wanting to do instructional leadership, being careful and mindful about the words that we use towards these kids, letting them know that we're not upset with them.
Speaker 1:We're just not approving or accepting of the behaviors the problem behaviors, mind you that they're displaying and building in kind of incentives, not to make them reliant on them, but to build interdependence to where they can start to do these kinds of things for themselves, where they can say, oh, I finished that lesson, oh, I finished that, oh, let me take a break real quick because I've earned it. And learning to say things like that because, honestly, that's what I do, like when I'm doing these assignments. I finish part of it, I'm like, okay, what's a realistic amount? I set it for myself. I get there and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take a break so I don't burn myself out.
Speaker 1:And this is kind of interdependence that I wanna build for these kids. I wanna be able to have these kids feel supported and feel welcome, and not just welcome, but like I want them there, not like I wish you would go home or, oh my gosh, would you please shut up or please just stop talking, but welcome and feel like you know. Not only are they welcome, but they're wanted, their desire that that we want them, that I want them to be a part of this school, that I'm glad that they're here, that I'm glad they're part of this. You know, conversation, that the part of this learning, the part of this classroom, that I believe in them, that I see in them the capability and the possibility to learn and to achieve and in all of these things. And it's just weird how a lot of what I've been there is taught me that, while I don't directly don't want to be in a leader, a lot of the things I desire are part of what an instructional leader can do.
Speaker 1:And I totally got off topic, but I'm just trying to say like this whole thing has just felt very like God led and and I literally don't know how I pulled yesterday off because I finished everything I mean everything and I did not. I thought I was going to be behind but instead I was way ahead of my schedule. I have a whole day free, because I was originally planning to record this on Wednesday because I'm like, well, tuesday I'll have submitted my paper, wednesday I can record because it I mean I won't have anything to do for another six days. But yeah, so sorry. I really wanted to just update you guys and stuff going on in my life, but the verse for today is actually sorry I haven't pulled up here on my computer. The verse for today is coming from Luke and it's it's not really a verse per se, it's more of just like the conversation about what's going on, taking the verse and getting a little bit out of what it says specifically and talking about what this means, how this impacts us. So I'm looking at Luke verse.
Speaker 1:Luke, chapter 2, verses 6 to 14. Verse 6 says and so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished, that she should be delivered and she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them. In the end and there were, in the same country, shepherds abiding in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel, the Lord, came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were so afraid and the angel said unto them fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people, for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a savior which is Christ the Lord, and this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, and suddenly there was, with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, good will toward men.
Speaker 1:Oof, I have weird chills. I also feel like I'm coming down with the cold, but I just I love these verses. I love this part of the story. I also love the part I think it's Luke, chapter 1, the initial part of Luke when they're talking to about the genealogy of Jesus. And it's just so impactful because it's when you're going through the genealogy of Jesus like meaning who were the ancestors of Jesus. It's crazy when you look at all the names and you see all of these names of people who are tied to, not to weren't just like regular people, who weren't just amazing people. These were people tied to some big. What do they call that?
Speaker 1:Oof, I cannot remember the word when, like someone's caught in like some big news thing, when they're in trouble, they call it a C word. It's not a, it's not a complication, it's not a coincidence, it's not a conspiracy. Oh my gosh. I cannot think of the word C. Word for Okay, this is caught up in snare. No, I don't know C word for In the news in a bad way. Sorry, I'm just gonna be so weird, caught in a bind. No, it's not that Maybe. C word that means bad news. What is that word? Oh my gosh. C word that means controversial. Oh my gosh. Something that's controversial, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:So when you look at the genealogy of Jesus, you see that so many of the people in the genealogy of Jesus were in some very controversial situations. I remember I had listed them down and maybe we'll talk about them next week, but just reading through that there's like a lot. There's obviously Abraham. Abraham did some wild things, you know, lying. I mean he didn't sleep with Hagar because he just did it. His wife sent him to do it but still he did it. The other people, oh my gosh, the two sisters who slept with their father, that was the line of Jesus, and that one I find wild. David was the line of Jesus. Actually, david had a child with Bathsheba, not the original child that died because you know it was all done evil, but the child of David and Bathsheba was in a child of David and Bathsheba was in the line of Jesus. So to think that Jesus came from that is insane. And, like I said, we'll talk about that. Maybe I don't know about next week, but I'm going to try to figure out my schedule. I promise Maybe every week, maybe every two weeks, but I'm definitely going to start looking at how I can make my schedule work so that I'm still getting out something, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So this part of the verse is talking about Jesus in the manger, and one thing that has been on my mind and I even said it, or like our Christmas celebration at church, is this weird and sane fact that, yes, it talks about the shepherds, and they were in the same country. Shepherds are biting the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. So they had no idea and so they said hello. The angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord showed around about them and they were so afraid they had no idea what was going on. Said fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people, for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a savior which is Christ the Lord. And so, basically, this shepherds had no idea what was going on. But not only that, nobody in this town had any idea what was going on. Everybody knew, or a lot of people knew, that the Messiah would be born. And then, even then, after Jesus was literally there standing in front of them, jews still said that he wasn't the Messiah.
Speaker 1:And so I guess what I'm trying to say is I find it insane to think that people even wrote a song about it. The first line was the streets are quiet, the people didn't know that in a manger the Son of God was born. And I find it crazy to imagine that in this manger the Son of God was born, literal manifestation of God as a human being was born, and nobody knew, nothing changed. Everybody was doing everything that they had originally planned, and it's crazy to me to think that this happened and nobody knew. It's crazy to me to think that this was happening on the side and nobody knew. And I don't think, if we ever really take that into context, we ever really understand that that's what's happening that nobody knew. Like.
Speaker 1:When I was a kid, I always remember hearing born in a manger. I'm like, oh, they were stuck in a manger. But it's not. It's not you know, I'm just saying that. It's saying not only were they stuck in a manger, they were in the most like remote place. Nobody knew about it. And I'm like, wow, that must be crazy.
Speaker 1:Imagine like the Son of God being born. You had no idea that God was doing something like right there, close to you. And then I realized, like how many of us go about our lives when God is doing something right by us, right near us, and don't realize that God is doing something? I mean, how often is God doing things on the side, preparing stuff for us, and we're just going out of our lives like nothing's changed, nothing's different, right, I want, I'd like to say that I'd hope to be a shepherd where God reveals it to me and whatnot. But we're not necessarily guaranteed that there are always people who see and know about the plan of God and there's people who don't. And it all works to the glory of God that he has some people know and some people don't. But I just find it crazy to imagine that this kind of thing applies to us even now.
Speaker 1:Not necessarily that Jesus is going to be born in a manger again, but the idea that something amazing could happen and you would have no idea about it, that there is a change about to come, because that's what Jesus was. It was a change that everybody had been waiting for and nobody knew about it. Nobody had access to it. Nobody right there, right beside you, right near you, maybe in the next town, over it, could be the person or thing that it could be being birth, whether it's an idea, whether it's a product, whether it's a company, whether it's an invention, could be that's about to change your life, but we have to be prepared for it.
Speaker 1:People are always talking about you know the rapture's gonna come, and I've always been one to say what does it matter if the rapture comes? That's not the goal of you know, a Christian. Our goal is not to leave. Our goal is to speak and to love on people, and that's the reason we don't know when the rapture's gonna come. If our goal was to be to the rapture, god would have told us okay, you leave this in such a state. Make sure you're ready to go. That's what he would have told us. But our goal isn't that we should be wary. That's kind of something that's gonna happen, but that's not our goal. Jesus said that he had a good work for us and that we should, you know, be a servant unto men, that we should be loving and spreading the good news. The good news is not the rapture. The good news is that Jesus Christ has died and taken his sins upon himself so that you might live and have a new life, that you might be restored, that you might be renewed, that you might have a relationship with God and have things change and be free from the sin that once held you.
Speaker 1:I don't I honestly do not care about the rapture. I refuse to learn about stuff Like it's not important to me. Why would that be important? I could die tomorrow. What does it matter when the rapture happens? The rapture could happen right now while I'm recording this. What does it matter? That is not my purpose. God did not put me on earth to understand or to predict when the rapture is gonna happen and, honestly, sometimes all the rapture does is make me like question. You know the validity of what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 1:My sense of urgency should come from. There is somebody out there who may not have multiple days to live. There is somebody out there who may not have another day. There's somebody out there who may have years. That my sense of urgency should come to. I need to get the word out to love on those people, to care about those people, because this may be their last opportunity to receive, you know, a message about God. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with knowing about the rapture. I just choose not to, because I learned about it passively. I'm never going to actively like, try to find signs and stuff, because I'm not looking to leave. I mean I don't mean in the sense of like I'm ready to go, like I'm just ready to leave, because that's not my focus. My focus isn't that and it never should be.
Speaker 1:God did not put us on this earth so that we could leave. God put us on this earth. That's not originally our original purpose. My purpose on here is not to get myself prepared to leave. My purpose on here is to share the word of God and to lead, you know, to be shepherds amongst lambs, to share the word of God, to be part of the body of Christ that is going and reaching and touching and loving and holding and doing these things to call people to Christ. And I've told people this before. I don't ever think that my message would be to repent because the end is coming soon, because I've been led by fear and I don't want to fear the end.
Speaker 1:When the Bible says the fear of God, it does not mean terrified of God. It means terrified of. It means the fear of being without Him. And so to me that means when I'm telling someone to repent, it's repent because there is so much love here for you, there's so much caring, there's someone who loves you beyond what you could ever imagine. In this world. There are people who would judge you and ridicule you and put you down and belittle you, but he's not like that. He only sees you, know what you could be. He desires you to be your best. He desires you to love in the strongest way possible, to be, to have the most permanent peace, to be the fullness, or to come into the fullness of what you could become. And so to me, it's never been about, you know, fear and oh, repent because you're gonna go to hell. It's repent because God has love for you. Is that love as simple as you'd like to think no, it's complicated, but it's beautiful and it's meaningful and it's giving you the truth in ways that people would never give you the truth.
Speaker 1:When people lie to you and say they love you, they always have an underhand. We love you because of something. We love you because of that, but I never want it to be that I want it to be. God has a love for you, not because of any of those things. He's gonna love you regardless. He loves you even now. He cares about you. But it's because he loves you that he offers you this repentance, not as something that you can purchase, not as something that you have to earn, but as a gift freely given of his heart to you that you might experience eternal peace, that you might experience a relationship with him, that you might be able to receive this kind of love, this kind of peace, this kind of joy that is ever-present, that is eternal, that permeates to every aspect of life.
Speaker 1:And so when I talk about loving Jesus and wanting to repent, it's not repenting so that I don't go to hell. It's not repenting Like that's not my goal and that's part of what I learned in school, like I don't tell kids oh you better study so you don't fail, oh you better work. So I'm not telling them what I don't want them to happen, because that's not our goal. That's a negative, that's a consequence of what a consequence we have. It should be what are we working towards? I'm not working towards not going to hell. I'm working towards having a relationship with God, because I can easily not go to hell by just repenting and just living a very mediocre life. But that's not what we're putting here for. Instead, I can work towards a relationship with God where I push myself to reach others because I know that's what God would want me to do, or I pray, I read my Bible every day because I know that's what God would want me to do, or I spend time with him, or I learn, where I become a friend of God more than just someone who has received his gift.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I'm making sense, but that's what I see when I think of repentance. We're not repenting so that we can get out of hell. I mean that's a benefit, but the true goal is getting to know God, getting to have a relationship with someone who loves you so much more than you would everything possible, the ins and outs of who you are better than you know yourself. That's, to me, why we repent. We repent to feel clean. We repent to feel embraced.
Speaker 1:We repent to be loved, not repenting for negative things, but repenting for the beauty that is the love of Christ. We repenting for the beauty that is a relationship with God. And I'm not again, I'm not saying that there aren't other ways to go about it, but for me that's what it is. For me, that's what what, what it was for me. That's that's the true desire, because how many of us don't need to feel loved? How many of us feel lonely and hurt and broken and we don't know how to fix it? We don't know how to feel loved, we don't know how to feel needed, we don't know how to feel validated.
Speaker 1:And here God says repent, not so you don't go to hell, but so you so you could have a relationship with me. Move away from the things that are, that are not of me, that prevent him from having a relationship with you, and instead move into a relationship and move into believing and and and and speaking with him and and communicating and being a friend and and having that love and having that validation, not a validation that's, that's like sickly and needy. And the moment that they stop saying, oh you're beautiful, oh you're amazing, it disappears with the validation that God sees you and he created you and he has purpose for you and he made you in his own image and that there was a purpose and a plan for you and that he values you. He sees a value beyond just today, beyond just a year, beyond your physical parents, beyond your mental capabilities, beyond your any kind of capabilities or what you may or may not be financially capable of. And I think that's the beauty of the message, that's the good news that there is someone who loves you. And I don't mean love like the world uses love, but loves you like the Bible means love Loves you in a way that is patient, that is kind, that is eternal, that is unbreakable, unmarble, untouchable, that someone cannot take away, that someone cannot make you pay for something that is freely given and given out of love.
Speaker 1:Anyway, this message was kind of all over the place. I hope you enjoyed it. I honestly had that message on my head for a while. I love what the love part that kind of just came More so the idea that Jesus was born in the manger and nobody knew. And right now there could be something going on that is your baby in a manger, that is your change coming, but you're not aware of it. So don't lose hope. There is a baby in a manger, in this case, a possibility, something being born, an idea, a physical thing, a physical person being born or whose life is being changed, who is being saved, who is being reborn as a Christian, who is in place to do something big in your life. And you don't know, and they didn't know back then, and that's okay, but what we trust in God and when we lean on his understanding, all things are made right for those who love him.
Speaker 1:Anyway, as always, let's go ahead and end with a short prayer, because this has been a long, long message.
Speaker 1:Dear God, first off, thank you for loving us in the way that you love us, loving us in the way that no one ever could.
Speaker 1:Thank you for waking us up today and letting us hear this message.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having peace of mind, for giving us peace of mind, and thank you just for giving us another day of life to be surrounded by you and possibly others.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you for the opportunity you gave us each to come to you to repent, to not only cleanse ourselves and avoid going to hell, to have a closeness to a deity not only a deity, but the only living God, the only God who created the heavens and the earth, the very God that thousands and millions of years ago saw us and loves us and has seen everything that we will ever do, and loves us more deeply than love could ever be understood to be. Lord, I pray that you forgive us of our sins, lead us not into temptation and you just continue to help us build our relationship with you, that you continue to help us to seek you out and just help us focus on loving one another, on reaching out and touching and giving the right words and the good news and filling us with wisdom and understanding, so that we can move in the way that you desire us to move. In the name of Jesus, amen.