FOMIWJ > FOMO

Posted on May 30, 2019 in Blog, Devotions |

“The Lord your God is giving you rest.” Joshua 1:13

   Summer Craze is Here! We’re free from school assignments and having to be in the same building 5 days a week! Can you taste the freedom?!

   We’ve got a bunch of youth group activities this summer too and with the amount of fun activities we could do this summer, do you also feel a sense of busyness? But we feel like we need to go do all this fun stuff, right?! Otherwise known as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). If we don’t do all the fun stuff that our friends are talking about then we’ll come back to school in the fall and have nothing to add to the conversation, right?! I used to feel that way. Sometimes I still do; a lot of my friends are traveling the world and I spend the majority of my time in Arthur. This isn’t a bad thing; I’m just tempted to feel like I’m missing out on the fun they’re having!

One of the devotions I get by email arrived today asking this question: “Rather than the fear of missing out on what everyone else is doing, what if we fear missing the presence of God in our midst? Fear missing His still small voice rather than missing out on a social engagement? What special gift from God might you miss by choosing to stay busy than rest?” Woof, that had me checking my heart!

   Joshua reminds us that God gifts us rest. A time to not be constantly worrying about what I’m wearing and doing. A time that I can choose where I will meet God today. While I don’t wish fear in us, I do pray that we don’t fear missing out on the stuff this world has to offer us. I do pray that we have a FOMIWJ (Fear Of Missing Intimacy With Jesus) this summer. Intimacy will look different for each of us. I crave intimacy with Jesus beside the water or beside one of my dog friends or when I babysit kiddos this summer.

  Where are you going to be craving intimate time with Jesus this summer? We have a bunch of opportunities with our youth group events, but maybe that’s not how you best meet God and that’s okay!

  My challenge for us is to snap a picture every time we meet God this summer, and then send it to me. At the end of the summer, I’ll put them into a collage for us to sit back and remember everywhere God showed up for us this summer.  

  Ready? Go!

 


Your Story < God's Story

Posted on Mar 23, 2018 in Blog |

    Have you guys heard of the mobile game called My Story yet? It says you can “choose your own adventure and write your life.” It gives you a series of scenarios, ridiculous and serious decisions, and lets your virtual self live out those decisions and see long-term results. Once you decide, there’s no back button to undo that decision, even if it is just a bad outfit choice! You get to pick your name, but from then on, you basically have two different choices when a decision must be made.

    In real life, when we are put in a position where we must make a choice, it can be scary, but it can also be simple. Do I choose what I want? What they want? …but us Christians have a third option. Yup, you guessed it: What Would Jesus Do? 

    See, God already has your story written out! He has already made all the hard decisions for us! How awesome is that?! He knows the best answer to any problem we may have at any point in life. Sadly, He doesn’t give us each a book entitled “Ashley’s Life Story” with all the decisions I need to make written down. (Boy, wouldn’t that be handy, though?!)  

    Anytime we must make a choice, all we gotta do is pray, “God, what should I do?”.

Now, the next part is tricky. After we ask, we must LISTEN for his answer. Sometimes, it comes right to our brains…other times, we must wait a few hours or days before we hear back. We may even be tempted to just decide on our own without his help. No matter how long it takes, we must remind each other to wait on God’s leading.

    Of course, then the most difficult part is making the right decision. Sometimes, it’s not what our friends think is the coolest or what our culture tells us to. But we have faith that God would not lead us to the wrong decision. If we find ourselves making a wrong decision, then we backtrack and find out who we listened to instead and make a mental note to turn towards God next time.

    When we think about our future, we know every decision we make effects our future and realistically, we gotta know that we won’t always make the best decision, but we can always strive to make more right decisions today than we did yesterday, and so on.

    I believe we can do it. Who’s with me?!