God Wants Me to Put HIM First!

Haggai 1:3-9 says, "Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?" Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it." This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the LORD. "You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" declares the LORD Almighty. "Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.""

Wow, what a powerful verse! God is telling us... commanding us to put Him first in our lives. When I read these verses last night, I was almost blown away. For me, I have struggled with contentment at various times of my life... you know, never being satisfied with what I have. Wanting more, wanting better. God is saying until you put me first, nothing else will be satisfying to you; nothing else will be good enough. Not your clothes, not your house, not your food, not your relationships... you will always be looking, searching for more, for better. Searching for peace, contentment, happiness.

Consider what would happen if we put God first. He would fill us up. We would not be filling our bodies with unnecessary food, filling our homes with junk hoping "it" would make us happy, we would not be looking at our relationships especially our marriages as hopeless and unsatisfying, turning our eyes to others or to other options like divorce to make us complete and at peace. God would make us complete and at peace. We need to quit trying to fix it ourselves and just look up... to Him!

What are you filling your life with in place of God? Are you happy and joyful and content with your life? If not, consider what your are filling your life with and replace "it" with God.

Throwing Away The Cheese

There are times in our lives where we need to take drastic measures, for many different reasons. Our purpose in life is to worship God and bring Him glory. If there is something in our lives that is stopping us from doing that, then we need to remove it. Our lives are so complicated and often have multi-layer problems that keep our focus off of God. I have realized in recent days, that God has not been my focus. I have many reasons/excuses why: I am tired, I am distracted, I have too many things to do, I worked late last night, the kids drove me crazy today, I haven’t felt good, did I say I am tired, I need to clean up, I have to do laundry... the list could go on and on and on. But really none of them should keep my focus from God. So what is clouding Him from me? What is in the way? It’s time to peel back the layers that is making God fuzzy and refocus!

For me, I am basically unhappy with myself. That spills over to all other areas of my life. My attitude, my relationship with Doug, my role as a mom. I have struggled with weight loss for my entire life (my first diet was at age 12 or 13). Now at the ripe old age of 31, I am still yo-yoing and cannot find permanent weight loss. I am aggravated and disgusted with myself for losing and yes regaining weight... yet again. I am unhappy with how I look, I am unhappy with my attitude, and I am unhappy with my lack of self-control. I think for me, being unhappy with myself causes all of the other “reasons” that take God out of focus.

I have a great life, a great husband and great kids, but being unhappy with myself throws all of the good out of balance. With time, it is consuming, stealing too much of my joy, too much of my peace and then Satan uses that to take my eyes away from the one who gives me everything.

So, what to do. I think most of it is a choice. I choose to have an attitude adjustment. I choose to focus on God and ask/receive the self-control that I need to take control of my eating and develop habits that will create at body that I can be happy with. I choose to look at what is getting in the way and remove it. I have a weakness for cheese. Oh how I love cheese... from my head down to my knees. I crave cheese and will just eat it. I am taking drastic measures... I am throwing away the cheese. If it isn’t there, I can’t eat it. If I throw it away that is a sign of the self-control that I am praying for. So for me,

Step #1:
Throw away the cheese
Result:
happy that I am taking measures to a happier me and a more focused relationship with My Lord.

So what is your cheese? What is stealing your joy and keeping you from being focused on the Lord. My challenge to you, identify it and then throw it away!

Christmas Is Coming!

The lights are on the tree, the garland is on the porch, the cookie jar is waiting to be filled with our favorite sweet treats, the kids are excited! Yes, Christmas is coming. I love Christmas. It is my favorite time of year! I secretly can’t wait for Christmas to come each year. When you hear people complain and dread Christmas it makes me sad. I love everything about it! I love the baking and the smells, the decorations, the music (which I always start listening to before Thanksgiving), buying gifts, wrapping and decorating packages; what’s not to love?

I want my children to have great Christmas memories and to love Christmas as much as I do, even when they are older. I hope my boys will want to decorate and bake with me when they are teenagers, even if they don’t tell their friends. I hope that all of them are as excited as I am when they have families of their own. I want to savor these days. Baking with my kids, seeing the lights twinkle in their eyes as they ask, “When will it be Christmas?”

I also love what Christmas is about; God giving! God gave us the greatest gift ever when he gave us eternal life with Him by sending His son to save us. I feel God’s love all year, I feel His presence, but there is something extra special I feel at Christmas... knowing I am celebrating Him and all that He is and all that He has given. It is kind of like a wedding which to most is very special takes a lot of work and rushing around and a lot of money to celebrate love and the couple. Christmas is so special to me that I plan and cook and decorate and give gifts just to celebrate our Lord. It is a party for Him and I am not ashamed of that. I begin looking forward to next year as soon as this one is over. I get into the spirit and I love it because I love God. We celebrate, we party, we eat, we give... because He Gave.

Merry Christmas!

Why I Love Being A Mom...

Today I took the kids to the bank, which was uneventful and then off to library for storytime. Getting out of the van, one of them cried about something, although I can’t remember who or why... I must have chosen to block it out. Leanne tried to run around the library, testing every last piece of patience that I have rather than sitting and playing with all of the toys like she normally does. Leaving the library, I tell the boys to let Leanne in the van first... I say it three times as Timothy proceeds to push past her to climb in. I grab him to pull him back out of the van where he hits his head on the van door and then starts to wail at the top of lungs. He might as well have been screaming, “Look at me, look at me, my mom just banged my head on the van door! Call DSS!” I felt completely terrible, but proceed to scold him anyways for not listening... So then we are off to Taco Bell for lunch with our friends. Leanne spills a cup full of fruit punch all over the floor during the 12:00 lunch rush, like the people at Taco Bell had time to clean up that mess (it was way too big for me and a few napkins). As I try to converse with my adult friend through constant interruptions and trips to the bathroom, Parker loudly announces (so all could hear), “I have to go poopy!” with a lot of urgency behind his voice. So off we go... when we get to the bathroom, he laughs and says “I don’t have to go poopy!” Yes, I did see some anger on that one... discipline did follow. As we leave Taco Bell, Parker manages to twist his finger on the door of the van and then fall down and scrape his hand on the concrete. At then end of my morning adventure, I think maybe I should have just stayed home... but Leanne deciding it is time to be a big girl, did not wet her pull up, used the potty at Taco Bell and pottied as soon as we got home. Thank heaven for small miracles in the daily adventures of being a mom :-) And yes, even on the crazy days, I love being a mom!

Outside Of The Box

I have been struggling with this for some time now, and being married to a Southern Baptist ordained minister makes it even more of a challenge for me. I feel like I am supposed to support everything that the Southern Baptist say... I don’t. I want to live by the Bible... the Word of God, not a list of manmade rules, that may or may not have enough scripture backup to form rules and regulations to live by. I am aggravated at the denominational doctrines as a whole. They spend too much time arguing who is right and who is wrong; they appear to often be more worried about who has the most members rather than how many people have actually changed their lives and are living differently because of the power of the Holy Spirit. This attitude is transferring to our churches. We tend to forget that the church is commanded to go out and make disciples... not go out and get another butt in the seat. Disciples live for Christ. They do whatever it takes to live for Him and to help other people live for Him.

I have been so excited to be a part of High Rock Community Church in Salisbury,NC this month. We have been doing a series called Whatever It Takes and we are stepping outside of the box to show our community how big God can be. We are doing whatever it takes to show people that God cares about them and that He often works through the people of the church. I am praying that this attitude, this mindset of getting out of our box (the church walls) continues... imagine a church that the community would miss. Imagine a church that allowed God out of the box to show the world how big He is. Let’s forget about the debatable issues of the denominations and get out of the box the church has made and be the church that God intended... a church that helps everyone, a church that goes out to the people, a church that lives together and prays together and eats together and serves together and loves together. A church that allows God to be bigger than the box.

I want to live outside of the box. I don’t want to do what everybody else is doing because it is what everyone else has done. I don’t want to try to make God fit inside of box that I can understand. He is way to big for that! I don’t want to live by the doctrines that are made by man that have little to no scriptural support. God is bigger than that too. I want to live outside of the box because God lives in me and he is bigger than the box.

I've Been Tagged!

My sister in law Michelle has tagged me.  Ok, this is much harder than I thought it would be.  I had to try multiple times before I could come up with 7 different things

• As a teenager I wanted 6 kids.  I was always envious of large families having come from a small family without any cousins.  I remember a family that used to come into the grocery story where I worked and they had 7 children.  They were always so well dressed and well behaved.  I always thought that holidays at their house must be so much fun.  Well, now I have 3 children and even on the days when I think I am going to go completely insane... I still want 3 more. 

• I hate to exercise.  I have never been athletic... I want to compete in a triathlon.  I really have no idea why other than that is something I want to do before I die... seems like a good accomplishment :-)

• Doug and I love to camp and we love to take our kids camping.  This spring we hope to take our three kids (ages 4, 4 & 2) along with their cousins (ages 14, 11, 11 & 3) camping in the mountains.  That will be the 2 of us with 7 children... maybe after this trip I will rethink the whole six kids thing, LOL!

• I am passionate about Women’s Ministry!  I think that women today are plagued with self esteem and self worth issues (myself included).  We have so much that we think we have to live up to because of the media and hollywood.  I hope to be able to impact women all over through an online bible study ministry.  I hope to write about and teach women how to know their worth and beauty through the love of Christ not through media and TV comparisons!   Check out my website www.danaduggins.com for more info.

• What is the one thing I would do if I could not fail?  I would adpot older children.  The ones that are not wanted... the ones that will never have a home or a family to love them unconditionally... the ones with so much baggage... the ones who’s hearts are damaged.  If I couldn’t fail... I would bring them to my family and love them.  I would teach them about God’s love and grace.  I would do everything I could to teach them that they are valuable and worthy and can be somebody.  Maybe someday I will have the courage...

• I am a critical care/ER nurse and I love what I do.  Since I have to work I am really glad that I like my job.  But.... if I were ever to change careers, I would study meteorology.  I love the weather and science.  I denied it for years, but I really am a nerd!  I took 5 semesters of Chemistry in college because I LIKED IT.

• I love to take baths!  They are so relaxing.  Even if for only 10 minutes... it is 10 minutes of solitude in hot, rejuvenating water.  I am a more calm person after.  The only thing better is 20 minutes with good smelling bubble bath and book :-)

I am going to tag:

Lisa because she needs to update her blog and I think she will have fun with this.

Andrea because she too needs to update her blog and I am interested.

Angie because I think she will think it is fun and the people at church will enjoy reading it.

Paula because she did not have a blog when Michelle did the tagging... so I get to tag her, LOL.

Erik & Kari because they are so much fun and I can only imagine what they will say :-)

Have fun everyone!

God Protects!

How many times have we asked God to “be with us” or have asked God for his protection?  For me, the times are too many to count and usually I go through our day with no idea what God has done for me or how He protects me.  There may even be times in your life where you have wondered if he does protect you, especially if you have had bad things happen in your life.  I have always believed that we usually have no idea how many harms we have been protected from.  Bad things happen in our lives, but how much does God protect us from?  We will probably never know...

Yesterday I took the kids to Virginia to visit my grandmother.  When we got in the van, I asked God to keep us safe and to protect us as we travel.  On the way home last night, I heard a terrible loud noise and felt a vibration.  I stopped the van on the side of the highway knowing I had a flat tire.  I got out and went to look at the tire that I thought was flat.  In the dark, it was not flat and nothing appeared to be wrong with it.  Assuming that I had just run over something, I got back into the van and drove another 20 miles at 70 mph home.  When Doug came home, he was so thankful that the kids and I were alive and safe.  When I asked why, he told me that my tire was very badly damaged and that nothing other than God’s protection had brought us home safely without the tire blowing.

I have no idea how many things God has protected me from in my life, but last night He reminded me loud and clear that He is with me and will never leave me.  I am thankful for His presence in my life and the protection that He offers me.  I know that suffering will happen in my life, but I have no idea how much suffering God has kept from my life.  I do know what He protected me from last night!

Thank you Lord for you love and your protection.  Thank you for bringing me and my children home safe last night.  Thank you for allowing me to park in a way that Doug saw the tire to get a new one today so that I would not continue driving on this tire.  Thank you for all of the things that you have ever protected me from and for all of the things that you will ever protect me from.  I love you, Lord!