Switching.

So just FYI the blog I currently keep is

www.gilliamtraditions.wordpress.com

I much prefer the setup of Wordpress to Blogger, I think it is more user friendly.
=).
Thanks for your time!

Kels

Babble

When did we become so concerned with numbers that we lost sight of people?

When did we turn from the Holy Spirit to new tactics created by our own hands?

When did we forget that Your word says faith without works is dead; show me your faith without works, and I'll show you how faith is made complete by my works!

Oh God, when did church become a competition?! Lord, tear us into a million pieces, scatter us like babble so You can build us up again!
A New Creation!

Love at First Sight

"62 Now Isaac had returned from hBeer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb. 63 And Isaac went out ito meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming. 64 And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel 65 and said to the servant, “Who is that man, walking in the field to meet us?” The servant said, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. 66 And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. 67 Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was jcomforted after his mother's kdeath."
Gen 24:62-67


I LOVE how the Bible paints this picture! It's an entire romance novel in one chapter! The way it's worded shows how faithful God is! You see, Abraham lived in the land of the Canaanites, but he did not want his son to marry a Canaanite woman, so he sent his servant to his home land to find him a wife.

Being young, and in love, I can imagine how hard it would be for Isaac to grow up around other girls, become friends with them perhaps, and know that no matter how you felt about them, you would never get to be with one of them forever. This is where God steps in though, and shows how much better his ways are than ours!
Look at the setting painted for us....


62 Now Isaac had returned from hBeer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb. 63 And Isaac went out ito meditate in the field toward evening.


Isaac had no idea how far away the servant was, or if he had even found the girl Isaac was to marry. He goes home, and decides to go for a long stroll in the fields, or maybe he packed his dinner and decided to sit and take in Gods beautiful sunset when the Bible says he " lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming."
I imagine his heart quickening as strains to see if this is the woman he will spend the rest of his life with, he stands from his pic-nic (Ok I added that part, I'm a sucker for pic-nics), and begins to walk closer hoping for a better look, and racking his brain for the right words to say.


Rebekah was a girl living with her brother and her mother, when some random stranger comes saying he wants her to leave all of that behind to move to a foreign land and marry a stranger. Even with the promise of riches, that would be a hard bargain to agree to! Her family, instead of sending her off right away, asks what she wants to do. I didn't live in the Bible times, but I'm guessing this is a courtesy that probably didn't happen frequently. Graciously she says that she will go. She has been riding a camel for who knows how long, her best friends at this point are the servants she brought from home. She spends the entire ride wondering what her new life will be like, is her husband-to-be a gentle man? Is he jealous? Is he even attractive? But the Bible says 


"64 And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel 65 and said to the servant, “Who is that man, walking in the field to meet us?”


The picture painted in this story is like love at first sight, the sun is setting, he sees her, she sees him, their hearts skip a beat. They get married, she comforts him in his time of loss.

This story says so much, but my favorite thing to take from it is how faithful God is to us when we follow His path for us! He will deliver so much more that we could have ever guessed, or wanted!

Lord, keep me faithful, please give me wisdom to understand Your words, discernment to guide me through this life, boldness to spread Your truth regardless of my comfort, and love so that it will be You who people see when I walk into a room

11-13-2011

Thank You for today, and for my amazing husband!
Please teach me patience, and not to be so sensitive about things that don't matter!
Lord, I know that you have placed a specific type of adoption on my heart, if it's Your will for us to do this, please place it on Clint's heart also. If we don't have the same heart about this it would be a mistake.
Help Clint to know what to do about a job. The time is coming very soon when we have to make an official decision, and more than anything we want to do what will bring You glory!
I want to pray for a couple of marriages that may or may not work out. Lord open their hearts to You so that they will have Your wisdom figuring out their situations!
Please be with family members, that they will come to TRULY understand what it means to love you, and to follow you whole-heartedly!
Please reveal the sin in our own lives Lord, and teach us to trust You no matter what our circumstances!
Amen
Eph 2:22
"And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit." 

Galations 2

Nov. 3, 2011
Dear Lord,
Thank You for the family I was born into, and for the family that I married into! They are all amazing!
Please teach me and Clint what it means to do every thing we do for Your glory!
I know that if we were to have a baby soon Clint would be thrilled, but we don't want to rush anything that You don't have planned. Please give us wisdom to know what to do in this situation.
Thank You for sending Clint these opportunities to be interviewed with companies he likes, please help us to know exactly what You want us to do on the job front!
Help me to know what route to take for school, and Lord pleaaaaase let it be a quick road! =) I'm tired of school, I'm tired of the jokes, and I'm tired of feeling like people don't believe that I will follow through.
Lord, above all else I pray that You will bring glory to Your name and further Your kingdom through Clint and I both apart and together!
Lord there are people that I need to pray for and You know who they are and You know what they need, Lord I pray for wisdom in each of their situations! Guide them to what You want for them, don't let Satan take things that look like good and use them for evil! You are sovereign, please help us to understand a little bit of the big picture!
Galations 2:14
"When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?"

I realize this verse is talking about Jews Vs. Gentiles, and that is not the same as believer vs. nonbelievers, but when I read this verse that is what I thought of. How is it that we live our lives to blend in with the world, yet so many times expect the world to live as Christ? Aren't we to be the examples? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."
Don't forget what Love is.
1 Cor. 13.

The Next 30 Days

For the next 30 days (well, 29 now) I will be using arise and rebel as a prayer journal.
So
Nov 2, 2011
Dear Lord,
Thank You for today, and for everything You have given me.
Please remind me to keep a positive attitude, because my attitude reflects You.
Thank You for Clint, and for providing him with the Spiritual growth that we need to not only make this marriage last, but to make us both madly in love with each other every day.
Thank You for parents that taught me how to love despite frustrations, and for siblings to practice it on =).
Lord please help Clint and I to know what doors are opened by You, more than anything we want to do Your will. Help us not to get caught up in the things of this world, but to always be concerned with the things of eternity.
Remind us both daily that people are what matter, not our jobs, or our classes, or what neighborhood we live in. People are what we need to be ultimately concerned about!
I know that You always provide a way for the things of Your will, but I ask Lord that You would help me to seek out that way and follow it for next semester. Knowing what You want me to do and doing it are very different. Help me to DO.
Gal. 1:10
"...if I were still trying to please people I would not be a servant of Christ"

Faith like a trampoline

Rob Bell wrote a book a few years ago called "Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith."
Now I have to be honest, I never made it through the entire book, it was too much for me to comprehend, it made me exhausted trying to comprehend everything that was going on in that book, but one analogy that I remember mauling over for some time was the analogy that; perhaps instead of looking at our faith as bricks, we should look at it as a trampoline.
Why?
Think about it, if your faith is made of bricks, one brick after another, and you find out, without a doubt, that one little bitty thing in what you believe is not true, your entire wall of faith comes crashing down around you.
Now maybe this one little bitty thing was an error on someone else's part; the translator's who interpreted the Bible, or maybe it's just a common misconception and we never stopped to think of it differently b/c that's just what everyone has been taught for centuries.
HOWEVER
If your faith is made like a trampoline, it is made up of springs. If you find out that one thing is wrong, you take away a spring and you're faith is still in tact. Maybe a little unsteady until you rebuild that specific spring, but it hasn't completely fallen apart.

NOTE
I am not suggesting that there is anything in the Bible that is untrue, because I don't believe that. I do believe that humans make mistakes, and that there are plenty of things that we may have been taught as kids that are not necessarily truth, like: divorce is never ok, or you should hang out with "good" people, or how we are taught from such a young age that we shouldn't be caught in a sketchy place no matter our intentions b/c of what people might think. Jesus hung out with hookers, and was seen in the homes of thieves.

This has nothing to do with what I wanted to blog about tonight.....
I'm not even sure why I thought of it, it's been a couple years since I even picked that book up.
Oh well, I guess I'll blog about the book of Matthew some other time.