How To Overcome: Guarding you Heart

So, the semester is coming to an end and today is the last post that I am assigned to do. I must admit that when I learned that I had to write a blog for this class, I didn’t want to do it. I have never really been a fan of blogging. But I must say that this experience turned out so much better than I would have expected. I got excited to post each week and enjoyed writing out my thoughts and feelings for people to read. It was fun and I definitely think that I will continue posting even after this class. It might not be every friday- but I am going to try to post as often as possible.

As I reflect back on my college years, I can’t help but smile. My life has changed drastically in the past four years and I have never been happier. I have been so blessed by God.. more than I deserve. This past week we had the pastor whose church our church was birthed out of come speak to us. He is such an amazing man in the Lord and lives with so much freedom. He is so happy and understands God’s love for him in a way that I hope to someday understand. Anyways, he preached mostly about faith and hearing from God and it really ministered to me.

One thing that he said that spoke to me was when he was talking about God’s promises for us. He said that we should be just as sure that what God promises will happen than we are sure of facts that are known to be true. I had never thought of it that way. When God speaks a promise to us, we should take it as a fact. We shouldn’t go back and forth wondering if it will happen, or if He really said it.

I don’t know about you, but that is hard for me. When I read my bible and see a promise in there for God’s followers, sometimes it is difficult for me to believe. Does God really love me with an everlasting love? Does He really see me as perfect and holy? I question these types of things often. But, I’m not going to do that anymore. This week, I made a vow that I will not doubt Him. I have comitted to believing Him always, no matter how crazy the promise may seem to me. I want to grow and change and walk in God’s love more confidently, and that requires faith. Therefore, I am praying right now for more faith. I want the kind of faith that Jesus talks about in Matthew 17:20, when He says:

“if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you“

God doesn’t require perfect faith from us. He knows that we are imperfect so that would be impossible. But He does require faith. Here it is saying that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible to you. Do you know how small a mustard seed is? Very small. God knows that it is hard for us to have faith, but He makes up for our lack of it through His strength and grace. That does not mean that we are off the hook, though. We still need to do our part. We need to realize that faith is one of the most important things in our walk with Him and without it, we cannot please God. But we also need to realize that when we fall short, it’s okay! We learn from our failures and grow from them.

I am at a place where my lack of faith has been exposed to me. I have failed. It is one of the million times I will. But, I am SO thankful for this failure because it has made me see that I need to change. And with change comes freedom and maturity. I am so excited for this time of growth. I cannot wait to come out of this, more in love with God and living with more faith than before. I want to be able to believe His promises fully. I want to be able to hear that God thinks I’m holy and pure and BELIEVE IT. Who doesn’t? We all want to feel loved and desired, and all of that can be fulfilled through the Lord. We just need to have the faith to believe it.

It is sad for me to see people not really understanding this. So often we do not have the faith to believe God loves us, so we go out searching for other things to take the place of that void. From there comes ungodly relationships with the opposite sex that can really ruin us. If you are trying to find fulfillment in a relationship, know that it will NEVER work. The ONLY person that can fill this void is God.

One of the hardest thing for me to watch is girls or guys who are so hurt and feel so unloved that they run to other people to feel better. They think “if this guy will notice me, then I’ll feel better about myself” or “if this girl will love me, then I’ll feel loved”. NOT TRUE. Do you realize that God is all you need? Do you realize that if you could have the faith to believe He loves you more than life itself you wouldn’t need to search out love in other places? You wouldn’t need it. I am not saying that God will not give you the perfect man/woman in His timing, because I know He will. What I am saying is that we should all first have the faith to understand His love for us, and then go from there.

Dating is such a touchy subject for many people. Even Christians today do not understand the seriousness of it and they often give their hearts away when they really shouldn’t. The bible is clear that we must guard our hearts at all times. Christians, especially you young women, watch over your hearts. Don’t give your emotions and feelings over to just anyone. I challenge you to give this area of your life up to God. Give Him control in your love life. As weird as that may sound, I have watched numerous happy couples do this and have seen the fruit of that. They both made decisions to seek the Lord for their future husbands/wives and God blessed them because of that. Going around dating anyone and everyone can hurt you in the end. God knows what is best for us, so why wouldn’t we want to trust Him in this area also? His thoughts and ways are “higher than ours” (Isaiah 55: 9) which means that His plan for this area in our lives is better than we could ever imagine or plan ourselves. I don’t know about you, but that excites me.

I feel like this post has been a ton of rambling. I guess there’s just a lot on my heart right now and I can’t exactly formualte it. But what I want you to get out of what I’m saying is just have the faith to understand God’s love for you. Don’t go searching it out in other places. Believe He loves you and believe that is all you need. And most of all, guard your heart. This world is full of lust and sin, and Christians, we all need to be careful. Search your heart this week and ask yourself if you are doing all you can to guard it. Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

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