Still Small Voice

So, I am preparing to start a small women's Bible Study this week and I bought a new journal and I have already filled quite a few pages. Of course, there are always personal things in my journal that are for my eyes only, but there are also things that I want to share. So, today instead of writing in my journal I am writing on here as if I was just writing in my journal during my quite time. I want to be vulnerable with you guys. I hope you follow me along this journey as the Lord works through me and I hope some of my words can touch a part of your soul.

Last night, I was sitting in bed and I just started crying with an overwhelming joy of what God is doing in my life. I don't say this to brag. I say this because it has been a very long time since I have felt this freshness of the Holy Spirit working in me and through me. I shared a little bit about how I was in ministry for six years before. For the last three years, it has been a struggle for my husband and I to find a church and get involved. Which left me feeling insignificant with my calling and feeling like God wasn't using me. That is why I originally started this blog to be a ministry for women to read. Now, a year later I am starting a real Bible Study. I am going to try to summarize each week and write about it here, though.

The Bible Study is based off of the book by Priscilla Shirer called "Discerning the Voice of God"

I haven't really dug deep into the book, yet. It was recommended by a friend and I felt in my heart that it was the book I wanted to study because it felt very relevant to my life at the moment. I was thinking about an introduction for my Bible Study and I couldn't help but think about all of the times I have and have not listened to God's Still Small Voice in my life.

For example, all of the times I have to listened to His voice.

- When I had to decide where I wanted to go to college

- When I decided to go on my first mission trip

- When I reluctantly broke up with my boyfriend of four years (husband now..that's a story within itself)

- When I moved to Jacksonville and then moved back home

-When I had to decide my major

-When I decided on a wedding date

-When I decided to take my first teaching job and then leave that job that I loved to be closer to my husband's work.

I've had to make some pretty big decisions in the last five years of my life. I just think to my self, how much different would my life look like if I wouldn't have listened to God's direction in my life. I may have not married my husband, I may have not met the people I have met, and I may not be in a profession that I get the chance to touch the lives of teenagers everyday. I wouldn't be walking in my calling.

Now.. let's talk about all of the times that I haven't listened to his voice.

-When I look in the mirror and thought I wasn't good enough.

- When I let fear hold me back from my calling and what God is trying to do in my life.

-When I compare my life to others' life and think I can't measure up to their type of success.

-When I let bitterness, selfishness, and jealousy take over my thoughts and let it get in the way of loving others.

-When I didn't obey His voice telling me to start a Bible Study, start blogging, and use my social media as a platform.

-When I took two months to make a decision that I knew God was speaking to my heart.

Those are not from the Lord, and that is me choosing to listen to the enemy's voice instead of God's voice.

So what is it that holds us back from listening to God?

Fear, pride, laziness, stubbornness, procrastination, lack of trust, not knowing how to begin, being too comfortable, impatience with God's timing, feeling unworthy to be used by God, being too busy with personal ambitions, doubt, concern with hearing Him wrong, disappointment in God because of previous experiences. (I italicized the ones that I struggle with.)

Now, the big one...surrender.

"Submission centers us directly in the will of God and gives us the opportunity to experience the best we could ever imagine." (Shirer, pg. 13)

Surrendering the key that you have been holding on to flings wide the doors that God is wanting to open in your life and mine. Oh, how hard it is to give that key away into the hands of God, but it is so worth it. His plan and His ways are so much better than our own. That specific key is YOURS and it is to open a specific assignment that you are called to do. Not your neighbor, not your spouse, not your friends, not your enemies, not your parents, not your role model. YOU.

"Examine me, O Lord, and try me, test my mind, and my heart." Psalm 26:2

It make take some work on your heart and examining yourself on what you have to let go. That's okay.

My prayer for you today,

Lord, I pray that the person reading this today finds freedom in surrendering their key to You. Whatever the key may be that is holding them back from fully walking fully in their calling, that they can put it in Your hands. That whatever setbacks they have faced that they know there is victory in Your name and a love that is waiting on them with open arms when they are ready to surrender to Your goodness. I hope You will start speaking to their heart about their specific calling and assignment. I pray that they can lay down their fear of failing at Your feet and start listening to that Still Small Voice.

In your name, Amen!