James 4:7-10, New International Version

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

Life is such a beautiful gift from God. There is so much good for us to see, but somehow our eyes are blinded to the goodness in our very own lives. We have an enemy that is sly. He is a deceiver, and that is what he does...he deceives us into seeing all the bad around us and in our own lives. Our mindset becomes negative, and pretty soon, we can't see the light at the end. Perhaps we start to question God and ourselves. "Did I really hear God say that or was that me? This isn't what I signed up for, I can't do this anymore." The truth is, you can do it! Not your way, but God's way! We have to be willing to submit ourselves completely to the Lordship of Jesus Christ! When we completely surrender to Him, everything changes!

Scripture tells us to, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (James 4:7-10, NIV)

When I read this Scripture before, it was a bit hard to swallow. I think it is because I didn't really understand what it meant or the seriousness of the scripture or the beauty in the truth of this scripture. It sounds harsh, at least to some it might. To me, it did. But then, I went through some hard times in my own life where I was forced to come to the end of myself. I had to choose to stop looking at myself and look at God. It's not easy to do this, because we can be very prideful and stubborn. After many months of struggling, I couldn't take it anymore. I knew that something needed to change, and that was me. I had already been crying out to the Lord because of my struggles, but now, I was crying out and repenting from the things that I had participated in that got me to that point. I knew that if I wanted to change, I had to be the one to change. I brought myself before the Lord in humility to repent, to purify my heart, and to renew my mind with God's word so that the truth would take over the lies I had believed for so long. In this humility, God has lifted me up!  I know that if He can do that for me, He can do that for you!

The enemy will come back and try to remove you from the will of God. He will try to remove you from that place of humility. Don't let him! Keep your eyes fixed on the author and finisher of your faith, because He is not done writing your story! There are beautiful things up ahead for you, just as I know there are beautiful things up ahead for me! Sometimes you aren't able to explain it, you just feel it or sense it. You just know that God is doing something, but you don't know what and you don't understand it. That is ok. As I have shared this scripture so many times before, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;  in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6, NIV) Trust is huge! We won't always know what to do or where we are going. Reaching a place of being content with the fact that God is leading and as long as I am following, it doesn't matter if I know all the details...yet. His perfect plan will be revealed, and it will be completed! We just have to keep our hand in His and keep trusting Him! Keep acknowledging Him!

There is so much beauty yet to unfold in your life...and in mine! I am so excited to see what the Lord does! The fact that He includes us in those plans is a blessing beyond blessing! To be able to testify of how great our God really is, is really a joy...a joy to share with you, and a joy for us to share with the world!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2, NIV)