Journey to Jesus: Trust

I used to be a trusting person.  I believe we are all born with an inherent ability to trust others.  As babies, we are in the most vulnerable state we will probably ever allow ourselves to be in.  We are supposed to trust our parents to care for us and our family members to love us. We are to trust our friends to give us that connection that we long for.  But this world is broken, and sin is present.  We do not live in a perfect world.

 I remember a time where I did trust people.  I lived in a small, conservative town where everyone knew everyone else.  I did not have to stay away from a certain part of town.  I did not have restrictions on who I could or could not associate with.  I know there were people in my community who watched out for me, but I had an overall trusting attitude towards people, too.

Unfortunately, a couple of situations happened as a young girl that hurt me deeply.  I am a words person.  Words of affirmation is my love language, so when someone says something hurtful or hateful, it drains my love bank.  It also drains my trust bank.  These unkind words shaped my life.  I did not know it at the time, but my mindset was built around these events, and it has been difficult to trust people ever since.

Over the years, I had lots of experiences where I was hurt by various friends growing up.  I was hurt by people I was supposed to trust.  Each of these situations depleted my ability to trust others.  I became slower to make friends because I wanted to make sure that I trusted them before I allowed them in my life.

In late 2014, I heard the song, "Oceans," by Hillsong and immediately fell in love with it. I already knew that my relationship with Christ was lacking, so I started using Hillsong's lyrics and started praying:

Spirit, lead me where my trust is without boarders, Let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me. Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, And my faith will be made stronger In the presence of my Savior.

Shortly after I started praying that prayer, my Granny passed away.  Looking back now, I understand what God was doing.  He was using that circumstance to bring me back to Him.  But I was in a hole...a hole that I did not know how to get out of.  I was definitely in a situation that was deeper than I could ever get out of myself. I had to trust Him--that He would bring me out of the depths.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says,

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

I had to learn to lean on Him in the hard times.  I had to learn that my way was not better than His way.

In 2016, my word for the year was "trust." I knew that I needed to put more trust in God, my husband, and my living situation.  I knew that I needed to trust in a relationship being restored.  I needed to trust that my home is in Him.

I started praying this prayer again.  I want to live my life in a way that glorifies the Lord in every aspect.  I know He not only desires I put my trust in Him, but others as well.

 

Trust can be rebuilt. It is hard, and it takes time. But it is a beautiful thing when it happens.

 Proverbs 16:9 says,

In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.

I fully believe that this phase will be one that I am in the rest of my life.  I know that I have a long way to go with my issues, and I know that God is capable of restoring and redeeming every bad thing in my life.  This is a phase that I do not want to lose sight of.  I am sure that I will need reminded of it a million times!

I hope that you have put your trust in the Lord.  If you are struggling with this, can we connect?  I would love to be able to encourage you in your faith walk.  I would also love to be able to pray with you.  I feel that this is one of the most important things that you can learn as a follower of Christ.  It is one thing that I will keep learning.

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Journey to Jesus: Attitude

I got to thinking a little bit about this journey to Jesus that I have been on.  It is a lot like a weight loss journey.  There are going to be ups and downs along the way.  But once you commit to it, you just learn to push through on the hard days.  You learn to lean more on Christ and depend less on yourself.

When I realized that I needed to get my act together, it was not something brand new that I was learning.  I grew up in a home where Jesus was talked about regularly.  I think that it was a process that I had to go through to find my own faith.  I had to seek out what I truly believed. I could not just take my parents' faith and say that because they are Christians, I am a Christian.  It does not work that way.  I had to develop my own relationship with Christ.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 it talks about who we are in Christ:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

We are made new in Christ when we decide to give our lives to Him.  My Bible Study Fellowship notes say, "God creates within us new emotions, a new attitude of mind and new power of will--what the Bible calls 'the new self.'"  I really love that quote because when we are in communion with Christ, He changes our heart, our mind, and our attitude.

The third phase that I went into on this journey is what I call my "attitude phase."  It kind of goes hand-in-hand with the mindset phase.  Once you change your mindset and what you are focused on, it is a lot easier to change your attitude.

I knew that in my health journey, my mindset had changed from, "I need to lose weight," and "I want to be skinny," to "I need to take care of my body because that is honoring God."  With that change in mindset, my attitude shifted.  I went from feeling pure dread about working out everyday to actually wanting to work out.

This was not an overnight shift, however.  It still took time for me to figure some of this out.  A lot of the time I felt that I had the attitude of "fake it 'til you make it." But each morning, I would sit in my quiet time and pray. I would ask God to help me have an attitude of "want." I wanted to want to workout because I knew that it was another form of worship.  I asked Him to help me "want" to eat healthy. I asked Him to help me "want" HIM more. I wanted to want to make this my lifestyle, because ultimately, I knew that is the attitude HE wanted me to have.

I knew that I could no longer have an attitude of someone in the world.  I could not base this healthy lifestyle on my looks.  I needed to have an attitude adjustment.  God calls us to be good stewards.  I had always applied that term to money, as I feel that it has always been taught to me that way.  But what if we applied that term to our bodies?

Dictionary.com states that the term "steward" means to manage another's property.  As I shared previously, we were bought with a price.  So if you think about it, our bodies are not our own.  We need to "manage" our bodies well.  When I started thinking about it that way, I had a much more positive attitude towards working out and eating healthy.

Colossians 3:23 says:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men...

If you are on this journey, this make take you some time.  That is okay! Ask God to help you change your attitude.  He will honor your request and help you!

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Journey to Jesus: Mindset

As I was reading and studying God's Word on a daily basis, my heart was changing.  It was also healing.  I had joined a group called Bible Study Fellowship and we happened to be reading through and studying the book of Revelation.

I look back now and realize how God aligned that study with what I personally needed to hear in my own life.  My Granny was gone.  She was with Jesus and while that thought was comforting, it did not help with missing her on this side of eternity.  But reading and studying about Heaven did help. Why would she want to come back to us when she had tasted the goodness of Jesus and everything He has given to her and rewarded her with for being so faithful to the end?

In turn, the study helped start the healing in my life that I needed.  God was already working in my heart, and I was praying that He would move mountains in my life.  And that's exactly what happened.

Last February, I had decided it was time to get back to healthy eating and exercising. We had just moved into our new home in our new city and I knew that I wanted a fresh new start in every area of my life.  Then it was around April that I came to realize that I was still using food as a comforter.  Even though my relationship with God was better than it was, I was using food to fill a void in my life.  I was using food to fill the spot that I needed God to fill.

Now please realize that I was in the "desire phase" for about four months before I took serious action.  But I still had that longing to change until I made a move.  I would have to say that I was in the desire phase, in regards to my health, for a much shorter time.  I knew that once I took action with my relationship with Christ, that I could take action with my health as well.

Over the summer, I knew that I needed to work on filling my heart with God instead of food.  I knew that I could lose weight, because I had done it before.  But I did not want this time to just be about losing weight.  I knew that I needed to change my heart about food.  I was reading in 1 Corinthians and stumbled across these verses:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your body.  1 Corinthians 6:19-20

I had read those verses before, time and time again.  But this time it clicked with me.  I knew that the Holy Spirit was within me.  He was helping me--teaching me and convicting me.  He would help me get through this situation as well.  I knew in that moment that I needed to start treating my body more kindly.  I needed to fuel it with the right nutrients so that it could perform optimally for God's purpose.



I knew that I had been called for a bigger purpose than just surviving.  I knew that God had plans for me...I just was not sure what.  But I had a brand new mindset in my fitness journey. I knew that I had to keep that mindset fresh, because I knew there would be days that I just did not want to do anything.  I knew there would be days when it would get tough.

I was not doing this just for weight loss, but because God called me to honor Him by taking care of my body...the one place where He lives. That was my new mindset.  It was the thought that helped propel me into a different place with my fitness and nutrition.  It gave me a different purpose for getting out of bed and sweating each morning.  And it was the thing that keeps me going.

I want my life to honor Christ.  I never thought that working out could be a form of worship, but once I had that mindset, it became something greater than myself.

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Journey to Jesus: Desire

My circumstances allowed me to feel my emotions. I knew that I needed to change.  I had known it for a while, but I did nothing about it.  It was not until Granny passed away that I had a full understanding of where my life was headed.  I was tired of being a "Christian" without really acting like a Christian--and unfortunately, this is exactly why Christians get a bad reputation.  We do not truly act as a follower of Christ would act.  We simply just take the name.  And that is not how I wanted to be known!

It was in those moments of her death that I finally had desire to change.  I knew that it needed to happen, and I was going to act on those feelings.  I was desperate.  I was desperate for change.  I was desperate for Jesus.

   
I was finally feeling that desire within me.  I was ready to put my desire into action.  I was ready for something different because whatever I was doing in those moments were not helping me. It was only bringing me down.

I have to be honest, though.  My desire came in pieces.  It did not all come at once.  My desire for Jesus came first.  I knew that was the missing link in my life from the beginning.  I knew that I needed Him to be able to survive Granny’s death.  Without Him, my life is worth nothing.  Without Him, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep going.  Without Him, I had absolutely no hope at all.

So I focused on building that relationship.  But that was the only thing that I focused on.  In my grieving, I completely neglected my relationship with food.  I was not focused on what I was eating or how I was treating my body.  I was slowly gaining the weight I had lost back.  I was tired.  I was only working out sometimes.  I was not dedicated to it at all. That part would come later. I just needed to focus on rebuilding my relationship with Christ.  I needed to spend time with Him daily.  I needed to grow in my faith.  I needed to figure out who I was meant to be.

I remember sitting in my kitchen one morning, praying to God.  I was sorry that I had let our relationship sit on the back burner for so long.  I was somewhat embarrassed that I was in that position. God knew everything that had happened, yet I poured my heart out to Him.

To quote a line from my study notes from Bible Study Fellowship, "He always notices those who make the slightest moved toward Him! ...Jesus meets those who desire to know Him and makes it easy to come to Him without fear."

Jesus was quick to meet me where I was at.  He embraced me and sweetly welcomed me back where I belonged.  That desire that I had for Him was met with open arms.  That is a feeling that I cannot describe.

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Journey to Jesus

One of the most important things in my life is my relationship with Christ.  Unfortunately, it has not always been that way.  I grew up in a loving home with conversation flowing about the Lord.  I have always known Jesus.  But I have not always had a close relationship with Him.

My own fitness journey started almost four years ago, but it was not focused around Christ at all.  I had more of an attitude of: “I can do this on my own.”  Even when I did need Him, I held Him at an arm’s length, never really letting Him into my journey.  At the time, I had such a "worldly" mindset about physical appearance, never taking a Biblical approach.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago.  My husband was gone every week, traveling for work.  I was home with my dog and feeling pretty lonely.  I did not have a ton of friends, and the ones that I did have were busy with their own lives when I tried to invite them over.  I had never been so lonely in my life.  It was a very trying time for me.

I would call my mom, crying because I was so lonely. I hated my life and what it had become.  I missed my husband, who seemed to be absent, even when he was home.  I didn’t know how to live life like this.

In May 2015, I lost my Granny.  She was my last living grandparent, and I truly had no idea how my life would change after her death.  It was on the five-hour drive to my hometown to see her in the hospital that I knew I had to get my life together.  I was just barely getting my relationship with Jesus back on track.  But it was in her death that I knew I needed to get my act together. I knew I needed Him more than ever.

In those days, weeks, and months later, I had a rough time grieving the loss that she left in my life.  Living so far away, it was easy to “forget” that she was gone.  But coming home to visit family was a whole other reality.

I remember being at a women’s weekend with my mom in November 2015. I was listening to the speakers and the truth that God was pouring into my life was changing my heart.  I needed my husband.  I needed him to be home.  But that was not my reality. I knew I had to be patient.  I somehow also needed to be able to grieve for Granny.  I had no one to talk to…no one to ask how I was doing.  I was simply broken.  Honestly, I really feel that I had hit rock bottom--spiritually and emotionally.

Then in December, I heard the words that I guess I needed to hear…”We’re moving.”  I was excited about the possibilities and hopeful for the future.  My husband would no longer be traveling—he would be home with me every night!

In 2016, I made it my year to heal. I needed my heart to heal. I needed my body to heal. I had been unkind to my body, and I did not follow any sort of meal or nutrition plan as I grieved.  Unfortunately, in that time, I gained all the weight back that I had lost.  I had also been unkind to my heart, as I did not give myself grace or time to grieve in the way that I needed to.

I realized that the piece that I was missing all along was --> Jesus.

>>>hashtag duh<<<

The first step that I knew I needed to take was to make sure that I had daily time with God.  I made sure to read my Bible each day, pray, and to apply what I was learning in my life.  I was also diving into some personal development books based on different topics that I needed.

I knew that I had to start back at square one with my health.  But this time, I knew I needed to include what I had been learning.  I had to include God on this journey, because He is the reason why I was on this journey in the first place.

Over the next few days and weeks, I want to share with you how Jesus has changed my mindset and the process that I've gone through.  There are six different phases that I have been through, and I am excited to finally be sharing with you exactly how my journey to Jesus has deepened my faith!

If you enjoyed this post, please share it or leave a comment! If you're needing some encouragement on your own spiritual journey or are looking for ideas on how to begin or continue with your own Bible study, join The Core!