Thank You!

I give God all the praise and the glory for reaching 200 readers! Thank you guys for all the support in constantly reading my blog! May God continue to use this blog as a source of encouragement to ya'll who are going through a hard time out there. You are not alone! We all go through hard times in life, and God doesn't give us anything we can't handle (1 Corinthians 10:13) So hold on to that promise, just like the promise God gave to Noah through the rainbow. May you be encouraged to know that I will be praying for each and every one of you and your growth in Christ, cuz this is a battle we are all going through together. So don't give up! Keep running the race that He has called you to!

I would love to hear from you guys and what God is doing in ya'lls lives. Feel free to e-mail me any time and I'll do my best and reply to you the next time I have free time. :)

Here's my e-mail address: mnsuazo@gmail.com

Hope to hear from you soon!

Picture by John Waltz

I Will be Still, and Know You are God

Sometime last week a friend shared a verse with me that I felt applied to what I was going through in my life right now. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, (2 Timothy 3:12). I knew this to be true, especially with what's been going on in my life lately. It's just been so hard trying to focus fully on Christ because of all the lies that are thrown at me constantly. When I started to practice the habit of denying myself daily and allow Christ to reign in my life was when the enemy came back attacking twice as hard. Over the past few days I've lost precious items in my room, MS word wasn't working on my computer so papers where hard to write, and my phone went dead. So as you can see it's just been a horrible past few days, which I'm sure many of you have experienced before. Those days where it just seems like everything is going wrong and in the midst of it you are asking God where He is, and why it doesn't seem like He cares about what's going on in our lives. At this point we have two choices to make; either we give all things to Christ and rely on the fact that He works for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28) or we can try and take things to our own hands and figure it out for ourselves. See there's one little problem with the second option, if we did happen to make that choice, how would we see what's ahead of us? Or before us? Trying to make things work in our own terms can satisfy things for a little while, but never fully. We don't know what's going to happen in the future, but God does. He promises to give us a hope and a future and never harm us.

This week Nick Vujicic came to our college to speak. His encouragement was exactly what I needed at that time. He talked about how just because it doesn't seem like there is hope doesn't mean that it's not coming. Or the fact that hope might be just around the corner, but we have to make that turn to see it. I can't imagine the kind of pain he had to go through growing up, having to face the challenges he did. Yet he spoke right before us with pure contentment and true happiness that comes from no one else but the Lord Jesus Christ. We all have a longing, we all want to be loved and be loved. But there is nothing in the world that can truly satisfy that except for Jesus! He said that he goes around the world just to see a life come to Christ, and that's his motivation to continue on living. Nick said that often times the enemy continues to attack us because he wants us to separate us from God's love. And the only thing we can do to fight back is by hanging on to every promise in God's word. We can run from Him all we want and stay in bondage for as long as we want to hang on to this world, but once you chose to turn around and face the Truth, that will set you free. Someone at our youth group spoke about something similar to that topic later that night. He said that "There is nothing good outside of God, for God is life and whoever seeks to find life outside of Christ will find death." It was hard to digest at first, but as I thought about it and living without Christ for all eternity was the ultimate death, knowing that I won't be with my Creator forever.

It was then where I realized that I no longer had to believe in the lies the enemy throws at me! I have already been given freedom! Why do I continue to live like I'm still in bondage? Why do I still think that the lies are the truth? Why do I continue to convince myself that I will only find my worth in the things of this world when I know Christ loves me for who I am just the way I am? So then I prayed. I asked Him to take the lies away, for I didn't need to listen to them. Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you. (Luke 10:19). I prayed that no matter how much the enemy attacks that I would surrender it all to Him, and that when the oceans of my life rise and the thunders roar, I will soar with Him above the storm. For He is the King over the flood, so all I have to do is be still and know that He is God. :)

After I chose to fight all the enemy's attacks through prayer and constantly focusing on God's love for me, things started getting better. I found the things I lost, I took my phone and computer to get fixed in another town. I didn't even have to pay for the repairs. See, God is good and He cares, not just cuz we see the evidence of His goodness right now, but cuz His love for us will never change and that's the ultimate promise of His goodness that we should never let go of.

He Knows My Name

What a week! So many things can change in a week! Last week I was still struggling through slowly fading out the lies that were being fed to me and moving forward to listening to God's soft quiet whisper. It was definitely a struggle at first, but by taking a step at a time God lead me down the right path once again.

It all started Saturday night when someone from church invited me to a prayer meeting. As I headed over there I felt like I was being attacked by the enemy. My head began to hurt and I was really dizzy on my way there. I still managed to make it despite the inconvenience. It was a very powerful prayer meeting just praying about many things that God is doing here in Korea. Then we sang songs called "He Knows my Name" right then and there I just felt God's love for me like never before. I began to start seeing myself the way He saw me, as His child, His Princess. When we got to the chorus I cried as I realized how He's been with me this whole time, He knew my every thought, He saw each tear that fell, and heard me when I called. I don't know why it didn't hit me before, He was leading my ways and I wasn't letting Him take control of my life. No wonder the enemy didn't want me to go; he knew my heart was going to be changed when I went.

Then on Sunday when I went to church we talked about being a "Dead-Again Christian" which I thought was a little weird at first cuz it's not common (in my mind anyways) to talk about being dead again when Jesus already died for us and rose again so that we may live. Our Pastor focused on the passage from Luke 9:23-25 "Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?" He talked about how we have an inner battle inside us that occurs daily, and we are the ones that can make that choice to either allow the Holy Spirit to fill us through the day or let the enemy control our thoughts. Each and every day is a new challenge and that although there will be sufferings now, there is a reward at the end of the war. That sermon spoke directly to my heart and broke right into me. I knew that God was calling me to greater things, but I constantly was allowing the enemy to feed me lies! No wonder I've been so depressed lately, it's cuz I didn't deny myself to give up the things I want and need in order for Christ to reign in my life. If I have realized that sooner I would have been able to save a lot of tears and pain. When I think of this a verse comes to mind, in John it talks about how in order for God to increase we must decrease. So I have to let myself go and not live for myself, instead allow Christ to dominate everything and anything I do. I had to die to myself and let Christ live in me.

Through the rest of the week God continued to reveal Himself to me in ways I didn't see before. He spoke through my Christian friends saying how much He loves me and that He wanted me to share that love with others around me, or tell me that He will provide for me no matter what the circumstance. Just affirming things like that that encouraged my walk with Him daily. It was so uplifting finally being able to think clearly through the week and not having my emotions cloud my judgment. It was great to finally see me singing from my heart again. By the end of the week at one of the Bible studies I went to, we talked about Spiritual Warfare. I knew that God was showing me what has been going on in my life for the past month. I was able to understand why I started feeling or acting the way I did. It wasn't because I was necessarily being rebellious towards God in anyway, but I wasn't surrendering my life to Him each day, so He couldn't exactly mold me to be more like Him when I wasn't surrender full control over my life to Him.

I know that each and every day will be challenging, but it is a daily battle in where we have to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Christ. He never promised it would be easy, but He promised He would always be there for us. :)

Stay in the Battle

Lately I've been thinking about what God has planned for me here in Korea. Why did He call me here? What does He want me to do? And as the days flew by I found myself a lot more discouraged just being stressed out by school and not being able to fully focus on what God wants me to do here. Yes, I know He wants me to go to college, but I knew there was something more. I continued to pray about it, but somewhere along the line the enemy was lurking by watching my every move, looking for a way to crush me. I was oblivious to what he was doing at first but then I began to see a pattern in my life. I would start my day off asking God to use me in school and give me the strength to go about my day, and I would do so well until I come home, all alone. Being alone doesn't work too well for social butterflies like myself. Through that loneliness Satan began to feed me lies about my life and how no one cares just cuz no one was around. I began to feel insecure cuz I started seeing things that seemed true...about his lies. The more I thought about it the more depressed I got; everything confused me to the point of reexamining my life to see if I was actually on the right track. I thought I was being productive by trying to "stay away" from friends that kept in touch for their own good so that they wouldn't have to worry about me. But this only brought me deeper into the cave of darkness.

Until one day I stumbled upon this article from one of Leslie Ludy's websites. She talked about how the enemy will constantly attack us and pull us away from God and he will do ANYTHING to separate us from our Creator. So she said that once we see that the enemy is attacking us and trying to do things that will keep us away from God that is when you are in the perfect position to PRAY! and pray hard! And that reminded me of a verse from 2 Corinthians 10:5 that says "We demolish arguments and very pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ." So basically I would have to literally give up each thought that wasn't pleasing to Him in order to not allow the enemy access to my thoughts so that he couldn't feed me all these lies. No wonder I was in such despair! I gave the enemy access to my thoughts! By giving God each thought that wasn't in accordance to His word I would be diminishing the enemy's opportunity to have any control over me.

Another thing that Leslie Ludy said that was so helpful in turning from my old patterns to having a closer walk with Christ is once when you see the enemy begin to attack, you should pray for the lost. Pray for the ones that need to see God for who He really is. Pray for the people who need His love. Pray for all those things, cuz when the enemy sees that his attacks only leads to prayer for more people to come to the Kingdom, he'll for sure back off.

I know it's hard and it frustrating having to literally having to pray to give up my thoughts constantly throughout my day, but honestly it's so worth it and so rewarding in the end. Don't let the enemy attack you on your daily circumstances, don't let him discourage you and give him access to your life. Don't let the simple lies be fed to you. You are a child of God! So don't stay down when you've been knocked to your feet, get back up and take the sword of truth, put on the whole armor of God. And stay in the battle. :)

For those of you who want to know more about Leslie Ludy check out her site: http://www.setapartgirl.com/

Random Act of Kindness

As I was talking to my friend/awesome mentor Jessica on our almost daily chatting time she told me about something she did for her co-worker that doesn’t seem to have any family or friends around. So being the loving person that she, Jess is decided to do something special for her co-worker on her birthday. She thought it would be nice to make her some cupcakes to let her known she was special. She got to work with the help of her little Kate they were able to make awesome cupcakes together! I’m sure we all would have wanted to visit her house that day. Later that night at work Jessica was so excited to see the look on her friend’s face when she saw what they did for her, but unfortunately that co-worker took the day off. Then suddenly when someone from work found out what they were up to he called her up and told her what was going on. She immediately drove to work to see it for herself! She was just in awe of what Jess and everyone else at work did for her, she said that it was the only cake she will have that year. She teared up and just hugged Jess thanking her for making it such a special day for her.

Then it got me thinking, what if Jess didn’t take the time off from her day to realize someone else’s need instead of her own. What if she continued to go on with her life not caring about this co-worker of hers? What would have happened? Would that woman feel the same love as she did that night when Jess and all the people in the office celebrated her birthday with her? I am reminded of what Jesus said when He asked us to love others as you love yourself. If we wanted to feel special then shouldn’t we make others feel special first? This is one way we can show God’s light in us because we’re different from the world. People around us should notice the difference if we were truly living our life for Christ. It is our life that people will see if we truly have Jesus as our number one priority in our lives. It’s like turning on the ceiling light then covering it up so that the room can be dark again, it just doesn’t work that way. Because God’s light shines even in the most darkest places, so He can reach to the lost even if they are trying to avoid Him. God wants to use us in any way we can as long as we are willing to do so. I always thought I needed to be better, smarter, and more qualified for things for me to be able to do God’s work, but as I grew up I began to realize that that’s not how God works. He will use us no matter what the circumstance as long as we let Him in because His strength can surpass our ablities and He will always give us everything we need to do what He has called us to. So do you want to see the lost get found? Do you want to see people around you be impacted because of what you did? Then take it a step at a time and just start with one random act of kindness. :)

Picture from: http://www.free-extras.com/images/colorful_cupcake-1557.htm Sorry guys this isn't the real cupcake, i just throught it would be a good picture to add to this blog post.