Love Life Conference Day 1: Liiving Courageously and putting the puzzle together

First Night is in the books and it was a magnificent time.  

We started with worship led by Israel Houghton himself!  That was such a treat to be able to worship with the guy whose songs we sing all the time...it was amazing!  He even did a few jumping jacks onstage.  We also had the chance to worship with the legendary CEce Winans  That was a real joy in itself

Living Courageously and Doing it Afraid

Well Aunt Joyce never fails to say what needs to be said when you need her to say it.  It appears that for this conference we are going to be talking about living courageously, breaking up with fear, and doing it afraid.

Well thats an on time word wouldn't you say?  I say it is.  

I had several takeaways last night that I would like to share

Time to Go For it

Aunt Joyce taught that if God has put a dream and a vision in our hearts that it is time to go for it.  As God told Joshua, don't look to the right or the left but straight ahead with our eyes fixed on God SO THAT he can lead us to the promised land.  

It's time to Try different things

We will never know unless we get out of the bubble and try!  Aunt Joyce reminded us it is okay to make a mistake.  All we need to do is acknowledge that we missed God, tried to answer our own prayer, or messed up altogether and move forward.  It's okay to mess up.  

I needed to hear this.  Sometimes I feel that I don't want to try new things because I'm afraid of making a mistake.  A mistake will mean that I have failed and people will rejoice in my failure.  Well as Aunt Joyce taught last night people who try will get judged and criticized any way they go, but they DO things.  Critics do not DO anyting but criticize.

This next point hit home with me:  I am not going to stay safe and bored my whole life.  I'm going to go out and take risks!  Risk is my word this year and it's a good one.  I don't want a safe and boring life with no excitement or adventure.  No thanks.

Change as Seasons Change in your life

Sometimes I think I feel like I have to stay in the same groups or do the same things forever.  No thats not true.  If I learned anything in the past year it is that when you have outgrown something, it's time to take it off and put on something new.  It's okay to change as seasons change in my life and I grow.  The example I was thinking of in my own life has been where I attend worship.  I really like Shiloh Church and their emphasis on prophecy and not doing church the way it's always been done.  I feel that they are moving more into the collectivist type of movement I talked about yesterday.  In this season of my life, I feel like this is more in tune with where I am going than my old fellowship which seems stuck on overly churched and inwardly focused church culture.

Putting the Puzzle Together

Great illustration of how our dreams look.  Aunt Joyce brought out a puzzle that hadn't been assembled and dumped all the pieces out.  What a mess!   

That's really how I feel sometimes and especially in this season.  It's like the pieces are coming together but some are missing, I feel like I'm getting nowhere, it all seems like too much and it will never come together, and so forth.

Well I know for sure that some of my pieces are missing and I'm trusting God's timing for when more of the pieces start showing up and we will get somewhere!  I can already see glimpses of how the puzzle will look when it's all put together.  Right now it just looks like a big ole mess.

Oh yes and about those missing pieces?  It isn't always about me..sometimes I'm waiting because God is working on that other person that is supposed to be a piece to your puzzle.  Right?  I know.

Dreams 

Definitely a timely message.  I feel as though God keeps showing me how he's going to do things in my life but everything is all fuzzy and the pieces don't appear to fit.  I just keep saying, "I trust God"

Ecclesaiastes 5:3

For a Dream comes with much business AND painful effort, and a fool's voice with many words.  

It is going to be so worth it.  We will see His Glory if we believe

To God be the Glory