New Beginning

Zephaniah 3:17
The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

After spending nearly five months in New Zealand, I can now say that I have a heart that is actively searching after God.....
and it's FAN-TAB-U-LOUS!  With the help of some amazing people from Northcity Church in Christchurch, my faith, my heart and my love for God and those around me has grown exponentially. My hope is through this blog I will be able to share what He's doing and revealing in my life to help and encourage others.

One of the major changes in my life during the last few months was that I discovered that God REALLY loves me! In fact, He delights in me, and not just sometimes!  Ephesians 1:4-6 says He chose me before the foundation of the world, that I should be holy and without blame before Him in love, because he predestined me to be adopted as his daughter by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made me accepted in the Beloved.  Then in Psalm 16:3 it says I am an excellent one from which God gets all His delight.... not just some of it, ALL of it.

Billy Humphrey's podcast "The Father Delights in You" really made this idea of being truly loved sink in all the way through the layers of my hardened heart.  If you have 42 minutes of free time sometime during the rest of your life, (sooner is better than later,) you should listen to it. Trust me; it is worth the time. ( Check it out HERE )  It has totally changed that way that I look at God, my family and myself.

As God courted me gently and tenderly through the quakes and the shakes on the Canterbury plains,  He showed me a lot of places in my life I need to work on.  While at first it seemed overwhelming as the list grew and grew, I can now look at the list (as it continues to grow) and be excited!  Often people get comfortable with their way of life. They can't see anything wrong with what they've been doing so they do the same thing over and over again.  The problem with this is if you don't change, you can't move forward.  By being aware of what I need to change, God is creating me into His masterpiece, His princess and His treasure.... and I am super pumped about it!  The more I learn about my Daddy, the more Christ-like I want to become.  I can only do this by getting rid of those things that are not of Him, these things that He has been revealing to me through His word and His followers that I need to get right in my life.  My hope is through this blog I will be able to share what He's doing and revealing in my life to help and encourage others.

So I submit my life to God and this journey.  For He tells us....

 ²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  (Matthew 11:28-30)

Lord God, I trade this yoke I've been carrying for yours, for you know the plans you have for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11) <3