RejoiceIn2007.com

I enjoyed this song/presentation and thought you might too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwJEdo1FlMo

Lessons 32-34 have to do with trusting God to provide for you. Whether it’s knowing what to let go and let God deal with, or activating his enabling grace in your life, or allowing others to be His hands to bless you … developing faith in God is crucial not only to your happiness but also your salvation.

I would love to hear how your faith in Jesus Christ has grown over the last few months. In what ways have you been blessed? In what ways have you let go and allowed God to impact your life?

The only reason we want things or events to happen in our lives is because we want the feelings associated with them. Think about it … we want to feel love, happiness, success, harmony, security, romance, excitement, pleasure, or some other emotion. In our minds, we’ve identified objects, people, relationships or ideas with these emotions. For example, we might want to feel loved and we equate that with a romantic relationship. Or we might wish to feel important, and we equate that with nice clothes or an expensive car. We might want to feel successful and we equate that with a fine home.

It’s important to examine our desired emotions. Some emotions are more worthwhile than others. We should prayerfully identify and evaluate our root desires to determine which ones are worth pursuing and which are not. For example, is your desire for a fine home linked to a desire to feel superior to other people? Or is it because you equate a fine home with harmony? Everyone is “wired” differently. For example, I equate a nice orderly home with both financial prosperity and spiritual harmony. You may not see it that way at all.

Once you’ve identified your desired emotions and what they represent in the physical world, start opening up your mind to the possibility that you can feel those feelings without the physical counterparts. For example, it’s possible to feel loved without having a spouse. It’s possible to feel successful without living in a 4,500 square foot home. Open your heart and mind to the possibility that God could give you the desired feelings of your heart in a way you hadn’t considered.

Start seeking to feel worthwhile feelings as much as you can in your present environment – even if you can only feel them on paper or in your imagination. As you do this, you will draw the people, events and things to you that promote those feelings.

Also, remember to take action on your external environment in ways that support your desired results. There is a distinct correlation between our outside environment and our internal mind and heart. For example, once I realized that I equated an orderly home with success and spiritual harmony, I was able to bring my home into order and thus create that sensation of success and spiritual harmony internally. As I did this, I began to see a significant improvement in our finances and in how our children behaved. In essence, my home told me, “We’re prosperous. We take care of what God gives us, and we live in spiritual harmony.” It verified what I’d been telling myself internally but hadn’t quite believed until my eyes could see some “evidence.”
What is your “why”? The feelings you want to experience? How can you feel those feelings now?

In Hebrews 12:2, Christ is referred to as the “author and finisher of our faith.” When we put ourselves in His care, His goal is to “finish” - “polish or perfect” our faith. His sole objective is to increase your faith to a level that you can return home to live with Him and your Father in heaven. When we are filled with this faith, we have no room for worry.As a fiction author, I’ve gained new insight into the role of our Savior as the author and finisher of our faith. For example, a good author doesn’t give you all the facts in the first chapter. He doesn’t solve the mystery in chapter one or two. He weaves a tale, holding you in suspense, helping you learn and grow with the characters, come to love the hero or heroine, and then wows you in the end with a wonderful conclusion. He might foreshadow a bit, might give you a foretaste of how it’s all going to work out, but He won’t reveal the ending completely. That would ruin the story! You might even know how the story will most likely end (happily or the hero reaching his goal) but you don’t know HOW just yet. That’s how life is. That’s how God works.

If we could relax and get to the point where we truly enjoyed the story, resisted flipping to the end to see how it’s all going to work out, then we’d enjoy life a whole lot more. So how do you do that? How do you truly relax and live in the NOW? He’s already promised us a happy ending if we trust Him in faithfulness! How do you come to truly believe in Him for a happy ending? How do you trust that not only will all things work together for your good, but also you’re going to love where He takes you? (Romans 8:28)

I believe the answer lies in discovering the line between what we control and what God controls. Which part of the creative process is ours, and which is His? Every good author eventually addresses the following questions: Who? What? Why? When? Where? and How? In life, there are only two of these questions you can control - the What and the Why. The rest are all up to God. The sooner we release the following questions, the sooner Heavenly Father can help us fly to our full potential:

• How is it going to happen?
• When will it occur?
• Who else will be involved in making it happen?
• Where is it going to happen?

Once you release these questions to His care, you’ll trust your Heavenly Father, and He’ll trust you. You’ll have a relationship, and He’ll help you fly to your fullest potential. But as long as you struggle and fight over things you can’t control, you’ll be limited in your sphere of influence and opportunity.

Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart and ye shall find rest to your souls.” (Matthew 11:29) A “yoke” is used on animals or people to make it easier to carry a load. An ill-fitted yoke can chafe or strain the wearer. But a custom-made, well-fitted yoke can enable the wearer to carry burdens far beyond their normal capacity. In life, we are called upon to carry burdens. Some we pick up on our own - through poor choices or sin. Others are just part of life on earth. All of us carry one type of yoke or another on our backs. This yoke is what we use to deal with life’s challenges.

The yoke we bear is either one we’ve made ourselves through time and experience, or it is Christ’s perfectly fitted and perfectly balanced yoke that makes our burdens light. When Christ told us to take His yoke upon us, He did not mean for us to keep our old, unbalanced and ill-fitted yoke plus add His as well. He meant for us to lay aside our old yoke and take His new and better one upon us. This group of lessons will teach you some techniques for laying down your yoke so you have room for Christ’s.

I also highly recommend a book by Karol K. Truman entitled “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die.” I recently discovered this book and I can honestly say it’s an answer to prayer.

I’ve been studying and teaching the laws of abundant living, and how to “lay down your yoke” via teleclass and books for years now. But, still I’ve felt as if an important piece was missing. “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die” is that missing piece! If you’ve been trying to practice the law of attraction and God’s other universal laws, but something isn’t clicking for you, buy this book.

Within days of purchasing it, I was able to identify key experiences and feelings which had been blocking my path. Now I’m using “the script” included in the book to transform my negative feelings into positive ones. I’m no longer glossing those feelings over by trying to think positive or be grateful on top of them. Gratitude and positive thinking are powerful tools, but burying old unresolved negative feelings beneath them doesn’t bring complete healing. With this book, I’m systematically resolving those negative feelings and I can already tell a difference within only a week.