Stretch With Me!

So, the Whole Person Scholarship interviews and tests went great this past weekend, and college weekend was AWESOME! I definitely have great peace about it! I know that God will supply all me needs, for college tuition, room and board, food, car, gas, furniture, etc.  I'm definitely standing firm in believing I will receive one of the full ride scholarships and every other scholarship I apply for. :)

As of late, I've been reading "Following God's Plan for Your Life" by Kenneth E. Hagin.  It's really good. Last night I read something that really hit home with me: "sometimes in following God's plan for your life you'll have to do some things you'd rather not do." That's so true! And it's true in the sense of not being able to do some things you'd like to do as well.

God is always testing us and opening up opportunities to test ourselves, testing our strength and faith in Him; and it's a good thing. [2 Corinthians 13:5] He wants us to stay strong and faithful. There are going to be times where He's going to ask us to do something we feel uncomfortable doing, not in a way that contradicts our faith, but rather in a way that stretches us.  It can range from Him telling you that His Will for you is to go to Uganda in the mission field to saying hi and smiling at a person in the lunch line who may be a little weird. He will totally pick out the most random, and sometimes simple, things to test you in too. Simple example: sticking to your diet (which is a hard thing to do, I know). You soooo want to eat that piece of chocolate cake, but you HAVE to stay faithful to the promise you made to yourself. I mean really, if we can't stay faithful to OURSELVES with something like that, how are we going to stay faithful to GOD's Will for our whole lives.  So, sticking to a diet can be considered a little stretch of faith if you want it to be!

The more we're tested at a certain level of faith, the easier those things are to face and conquere.  That's why He tests us only to the degree that we can handle [1 Corinthians 10:13]. It's just like stretching your legs: the more you do it, the easier it is, and then, wah-lah, you can do the splits. Haha

But seriously, God want's us to prove ourselves to Him.  He wants to know that we're at least WILLING! He wants to know that if He does need us to be the ones to go to the other end of earth for His Kingdom's Cause, we'll do it! He wants to trust us with His Will!

So, when those tests and trials come, like they did for Job [Job...the whole book], let's not play the blame game like Job and his friends did.  Instead, let's take the challenge and prove ourselves worthy of God's Will for our lives. Let's spit in satan's face by overcoming the obstacles and shouting for joy that God is with us and that we're determined to stay steadfast under His PERFECT Will!  Let's stretch more than we ever have before! I wanna be able to say that I can do the "splits" by the end of my life; in other words, I wanna be able to say I finished my race and fullfilled God's PERFECT Will for my life by the end of my race and time on this earth!

So, will you take on the challenges with me?  Will you stretch with me?