How to: Delight yourself in The Lord

I wrote this a few weeks ago...

Psalm 37:4 is one of my favorite verses. It is only 16 small words but it says so much. Sunday morning the message was about why our prayers are not answered. My preacher mentioned this verse and he said we don't get our desires (or what we want) because we are not asking according to His will. I have tried a few times to study this verse out but I never searched hard enough until last night. I had my lovely Purple Bible that I normally use, and my Scofield Bible, a notebook and pen, and my IPad mini. My iPad has a strongs concordance Bible on it and I love it, I also have the dictionary on it. I got busy looking and God came and helped me :)

   

Here is what he showed me...

The bible tells us to 'delight thyself in the Lord' and 'he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.' That's pretty self explanatory but I had trouble figuring out how to delight in Him. Isaiah 58:13 tells us how.

There are a few different Hebrew words for delight but they come from the word anag (Is 58:14)which means: to be soft, or pliable, luxurious- delicate, have delight, sport self. 

   - that really didn't make sense to me but I kept on going.

***This is an If-Then statement*** therefore if one does verse13 then verse 14 will happen.

{Isaiah 58:13-14

Vs 13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath,

from doing thy pleasure on my holy day;

and call the sabbath a delight,

the holy of the Lord, honourable;

and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways,

nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:

Vs14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord;

and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth,

and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father:

for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.}

If you want to delight yourself in The Lord you need to: STOP

1. Doing- your own ways

         To get the desires of your heart you must first stop doing it your way. Many times I have that "my way or the highway" mentality. We want Gods blessings but we want it the way we think it should be. This word doing has many meanings. Here are a few: do or make. Bear, bestow, be busy. Commit, deal (with), follow, go about, govern, hinder, hold, journey, keep, sacrifice, serve, set, shew, sin, spend, surely, work, yield, use, observe. We try so hard to get our desires on our own. Yet we expect God to give us whatever we want and when he doesn't we get mad and do it in our own. When you "do" you are in control; when you stop "doing" then you allow God to "do" what he wants. 

{Proverbs 3:6

 In all thy ways acknowledge him, 

and he shall direct thy paths.}

{Isaiah 55:8-9

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways,

and my thoughts than your thoughts.}

         If you have never let go of your own dreams he wants you to. Go read my post on Plastic Pearls. His ways are soo much higher than ours. I can't comprehend what he has for me but I know it's much, much better than my way!

2. Finding- your own pleasure

         Our pleasure (or desire) should be His hand on our life! We must look to him for our desires. It's funny how what we want can change so fast. One day I'm so sure I want this or that and a week later I've already changed my mind. The truth is we don't know what we want. We constantly change but He never does. Find his will for your life, and that will will never change. Don't find your pleasure in the world. You will miss out on his blessings if you search on your own. Be careful what you seek for because what you seek you will find.  

         Your desires...do you only want it so you can please yourself?

3. Speaking- your own words

         I had a hard time with this one but I think he is saying be quiet. Stop running your mouth. Keep the sabbath. The sabbath symbolizes rest and worship. Worship him with your words and your silence. Be content with resting....or waiting. Sometimes God just wants us to stop and rest. When someone rests they are quiet and still. They are not afraid nor impatient. With my words I beg God to hurry up and give me the desire Of my heart...my Boaz. I want to meet him so bad! I want to get flowers for no reason, sweet texts in the mornings, laugh at his jokes (he better be funny!), not be single on valentines day anymore, be told 'I love you' and get a heart shaped engagement ring. I want to go wedding dress shopping. I want to have my small simple red, white, black and Tiffany blue wedding. I want to have my first kiss. I want to decorate our house for Christmas. I want to be a mom. 

{Psalms 37:7

Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him:

fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way...}

Sometimes what we want isn't necessarily bad but it's not the right time. So many times I think my life will be complete when I get my Boaz but I have to remind myself no one can complete me but Jesus. Other people down here can only complement a person. He won't give me what I want until I line up with what he wants. I must be "soft and pliable" in his hand. When He says "no" believe and know that he has a better "yes" for you down the road. He is the potter and I am just a little piece of clay. We think we can be, do, and say what we want because the world tells us we can. But get some perspective and realize you are nothing special, just a little piece of dirty clay. You will never be anything until God is your everything! Stop fighting, running and trying to do it on your own. You can't. But He can.

The last thing is to honor Him. We are not our own. We are bought with a price (a very high price). 

{1 Corinthians 6:20

For ye are bought with a price:therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.}

God made humans to use them to bring him honor and glory. Delighting in him is simply making him happy which in turn makes you happy. He really doesn't ask much of us. He wants us to read the Bible, talk to him, be faithful to church, and be a light to this dark world. Let Jesus make you happy. Stop and honor Christ. Like vs14 says He will lift you up and like ps37:4 says he'll give you the desires of your heart. Do your part,then he will do his.

"God doesn't exist for our pleasure and use. Just the opposite. We're made for God's pleasure, delight and use. He's the creator. We're the objects that were created...for his purposes."

"Dress for Jesus"- Modesty 101

"Dress for Jesus"
I recently heard a pastors wife say the quote above and i absolutely loved it!! One of my friends asked me about a month ago to teach her how to be modest. I laughed and said just look at how your mom dresses. She said she didn't want to dress like someone twice her age. So over the past few weeks I've tried my best to give her some advice. In my opinion being modest isn't easy and it takes practice. If our heart is right we will want to dress right, but still want to dress cute and our age. And there is nothing wrong with that! I am 21 and I should look like a modest 21 year old not a 31or 41 year old. I am no professional but I thought I would write about what modesty is to me. I have no idea why I haven't done this yet considering it is a big part of my life. Well here goes: )

                   

You make the decision about what you wear. I am not gonna sit here and write and say every girl and lady should only wear skirts and dresses. Thats not my business, nor is it your business (if you wear skirts everyday) to criticize those who don't. The sad thing is I have seen some ladies who are more modest in their pants than some of the things I've seen Christian ladies wear to church. Over the years clothes have gotten tighter and shorter. So many Christians make such a big deal about the outside and forget that it's the inside that matters most. I read 1 Samuel 16:7 today. Here is what it says, {But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but he Lord looketh on the heart.} which brings me to my next point...it says man looks on the outward appearance. The lost see what you wear but can not see your heart. How can people notice something's different about you if you look like the rest of the world? I have heard people say modesty is a heart issue and I believe that's true but let's not forget it is also a clothes issue.

It takes work. It takes trying new things and it takes learning. It also takes some sacrifice.
For those who attend Public school it is much harder to "dress for Jesus". I started out at a private Christian school where all the girls wore skirts. I had no problem with it. From 5th grade until graduation I went to public school and then went to a local college for 3 years. Modesty became more challenging. It is hard to stand out and be different when all you see is everyone else fitting in. Some people will think you are weird but dont give up, be patient and show them Jesus through not only what you wear but how you act. People notice. I promise you they notice. Eventually people will respect you for being modest. They won't necessarily understand but will respect your courage to be different.

Worldly guys will not give you the time of day! This bothered me in school, I told myself I was just as pretty as all the other girls but I wasn't notice and that hurt me. Looking back I understand why. Guys, especially high school boys do not care about what your face looks like but they do care about what the rest of you looks like. Reba Bowman says if you're not for sale, take the sign off. Don't cheapen yourself because you want attention. Dressing immodestly will get you attention but not the kind you really want.

Remember: The reason we wear clothes is to cover our bodies up. God isn't pleased when we wear booty shorts or bikinis. Instead of using clothes to show your body off, use your clothes to make you look like a lady.

Make your own style. Just because no one else wears it doesn't mean you can't. I have never understood that rule "no white pants after Labor Day"...if you wanna wear white, wear it.just do it modestly.

Look in the mirror! If something doesn't look right change it. Go get you a long $5 mirror from Walmart and look at what you look like before you run out the door. Ask yourself if Jesus would approve.

White 9 times out of 10 requires a slip and or tank top. This is why I rarely wear white...it is soo see-through and hard to keep clean! Which is something I very much dislike.

Just because it looks modest on the hanger doesn't mean it is modest for you. The same goes for how it looks on a friend. We all have different shapes and we are all different sizes.

Being modest sometimes means being alone. Like I wrote above... Others won't understand and they won't try to. Jesus notices and it makes him happy! Dress for Jesus and I promise you will get the right kind of attention from the right kind of guys.

Basic and random, i know...I will do a follow up post in the next few days. -stay tuned y'all 💕