Mustard Seeds

I was reading about a missionary in Guatemala earlier. This missionary was telling a story about a time when they were building a church in the town they were working in. The building was set to start at nine in the morning. When the missionary arrived at 10, she asked the pastor if he was there working alone. Listen to the pastor's reply: "'Oh no,' he replied with a laugh, 'the Lord is here with me.'" How profound. How simple. How true. Thanks for reading. In God, Emily

This morning as I spent time in God's Words, God convicted my heart of my expectations that I have been holding God to. Who am I to hold God to anything? Or to expect Him to do what I want Him to do?  Anyway, as I was reading my bible and using my devotional Philippians 1:20: "According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death." According to this and what God spoke into my heart, the only thing we have the right to be expecting to be used by God to glorify His name.  We have no right to expect God to do anything for us. He has already done so much more than we ever deserved anyway. Sending His Son to die on the cross for our sins is more than we could ever deserved and yet He did it anyway. We should be grateful and thankful, not expectant for more. Just a thought. Thanks for reading....

The other day I was coming home from my dorm for the weekend. I had some bags packed, and in one of the bags was an envelope with money from a fundraiser my group had been doing.  The bag fell out of my truck.  The money fell out of the envelope. And the wind started blowing it away. I cried out "Dad!" thinking that maybe my dad would hear me and come help. In that instance, the wind stopped blowing the money around. I was quickly able to grab all of the money, some that had even blown all the way down the driveway. Even though I called out without thinking, and I meant to call to my earthly father, my heavenly Father answered my call instantly. It's not every day that God answers prayers that quickly. But I'm so thankful that He did. I am also thankful for the times that I can see Him all around, as in this case. Thank You, Lord for loving me and taking care of me. Thanks for reading. In God, Emily

Yesterday was a big day for me. I got my first gun. While it was very exciting to be part of picking it out, when I went out to shoot it when we got home, I was just a bit terrified. I realized that I have a (healthy) fear and respect of and for guns. They are not the toys that children are allowed to play with. As I was thinking about the fear and respect I have for guns, I started wondering something, Should we have an even greater fear (awe) and respect for Creator God? I know this is something that I could do so much better in, living with a greater awe of God. So I started praying that God would help me to grow my fear (awe) and respect for Him. Because it should be much greater than that of the gun. Just a thought. Thanks for reading. In God, Emily

"Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life." How simple that statement is. Yet, it is still so profound. Just take a minute to take in what this verse means. When I looked up the meaning of "life" in Strong's concordance at www.blueletterbible.org , it said that the word means "the vital spirit". This means that "whoever has the Son has [the vital spirit]; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have [the vital spirit]." The vital spirit. Take that in. Vital means "needed by your body in order to keep living" ( www.merriam-webster.com ). Think about eternal life. Vital spirit. We need life to keep living. We need Jesus to keep living. Just a thought. Thanks for reading. In God, Emily

So I know I just started this today. But I gained some other insights throughout the day. So here goes… 3. Rouge means red. So Baton Rouge means red stick. And contrary to what my friend thinks, it is                           perfectly acceptable to ask what rouge means. 4. Apparently you can't order cheese-strawberry slushes at Sonic. But really, we just wanted strawberry-PEACH slushes. So annunciation is key with those tricky, tricky speakers. I may have some more insights tomorrow. We'll see where the day takes me. I was informed by a friend today that I should have started this learning process years ago. You know, when I started college. Oh well… Haha. Thanks for reading. In God, Emily

So I had this idea after spending breakfast with three lovely ladies. I want to record the things that I have learned and am learning in college. What better place to do that than here? The things that I might post on here are probably not what you would expect someone to learn in college, but these are things that I want to be able to look back on and remember. Many of these things might be funny or sad or terrifying. But these are things that I want to share. So here goes… 1. Paddles float, shovels do not.            And here's the story there: At breakfast, my friend was telling me about a time when her friends                  took her canoeing. The canoe flipped. The catch is that these friends had lost their paddles. So they were using shovels to paddle the canoe. When the canoe flipped, the shovels sank. So, hence, the   lesson… Shovels sink, paddles float. They had to paddle back across the ...