Life Purpose Planning

As part of my CollegePlus! studies, I am going through a little workbook called 'Life Purpose Planning'. It has been very helpful (much more so than I originally thought) The price of the book is very reasonable- $7- and I recommend it highly to any student. :) Check it out here: http://lifepurposeplanning.org/index.html

Throughout the book there are various questions to answer, which all lead up to discovering your God given life purpose. They emphasize very strongly the need for prayer and collaboration with parents/mentors throughout the process. I just finished my life purpose statement and will share it here as an example of what the book helps you to discover. They help you to personalize it so that each line, even each word, is just exactly 'you'. This is a very important project, since if you aim high, you will end high, but if you don't have any target, guess what- you probably won't hit one.

"My passion is to live a life that is inwardly and outwardly beautiful in the eyes of God and man. I want my relationship with God to be foremost in my thoughts at all times, so that I will live out a joy-filled and powerful testimony to the existence of an amazing God.

My hearts desire is to grow every day in the knowledge of and love for God. I purpose to glorify Him in every moment and circumstance of my life, communicating the truth effectively in love and with wisdom. My life purpose can be summed up in one sentence- I will spend my days pointing others to God. These others include children and teenagers. I will reach them by sharing the best biblically based resources I can find and creating others. Whatever place I am in life I will seek to bless people with an attitude of love, generosity, humility, compassion, and peace. I will seek out opportunities to share with others through writing, speaking, hospitality, and music, and to rescue those lost in the bondage of modern slavery. Whatever I do, I will do all to the glory of God, remaining ever ready to give an answer to every man who asks the reason for the hope that is in me."

I encourage you to check out the website!
God bless and have a beautiful day. :)

I loved this...
"Live every day so that when people speak evil of you no one will believe it."

Jonny Diaz 'A More Beautiful You'

This is such an important song for both guys and girls to hear.

Girls... we often feel so overwhelmed by the desire to be beautiful, that we don't realize that in God's eyes we already are! Even if you are very secure in yourself and are resting in God's love for you, this is a beautiful song. (thank you to my friend for passing it along to me!)

Guys... For the most part you can't begin to understand the struggles that girls go through... even the most self-assured, beautiful girl you know will have tons of days of looking into the mirror feeling that she doesn't measure up. Please.. tell the girls in your life that they are pretty and worth so much in God's sight. If you don't want to do this for reasons of not wanting to seem like you 'like' that girl, at the very least... don't tease her about her appearance. That can be so devastating, though she will probably never let you know.

For the girls...

Over on the Rebelution forums there has been a very hot discussion topic among the girls. In fact, it has become over 30 pages!! The subject? Quotes for girls. Now, I know... guys are just as capable of enjoying quotations as girls are. But in many ways, and for many topics, it is a 'girl thing'. So, I have started a blog just for the purpose of sharing encouraging quotes for girls. Right now I have mostly added quotes gathered from the Rebelution forum, but I have plenty more of my own to add and will soon do so. Check it out!
http://quotes4christiangirls.blogspot.com/
The title of the blog is Inspiring God's Girls, and that is exactly what I hope it will do. :-)

one of those 'God thoughts'

Have you ever had God hit you over the head with a thought? He just did that to me recently. It isn't fun, but it is quite revealing.

I was innocently reading through a really good apologetics (defense of the Christian faith) book yesterday. This particular one happened to be an analysis of the ideas and books of some of the 'New Atheists', namely, Richard Dawkins, Sam Haris, and a few others. I was in my very Christian mindset, cheering the author on for every particularly choice arrow shot through the ideas of these men. Then, without any advance warning, God grabbed my heart. (Don't you hate it when you're so right about something and suddenly He shows up??)

It wasn't audible. I've never been one of those people who hears a big voice booming out of heaven. That would be cool... but, no. Instead, it was a nagging little voice that sounded an awful lot like an annoying mosquito, buzzing merrily away just out of reach. Some people may call it a conscience, I call it God.

It said: "okay miss smarty-pants. What would you do if given the opportunity to spend a day with, say, Richard Dawkins?" Me: "well, if given enough warning, I would spend lots of time preparing all sorts of good arguments as to why he is basically an idiot. Based on the biblical understanding of course, I don't mean that in a nasty way, I'm just getting all this from Proverbs and Romans..." It said: "do you think that perhaps those men have heard enough arguments from Christians? Do you think that perhaps they would respond to truth more if they had someone show the caring side of a Christian? I said: "Go away." It said: "Not until you think this through some more."

(SIGH)So, I thought. And wondered. I wondered if Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have any Christian friends. I wondered if anyone who is a biblical Christian has taken the time to get to know them as people, or if they all avoid them as they would the Swine Flu. I wondered if any Christians took the time to pray for them to come to know God, or if they prayed for them to fall off of a cliff.

I wondered, did I ever think about them as people, or did I merely see them as wrong philosophies to be shot down?

I wondered how God saw my hypocrisy of claiming to care about people and then turning around and tearing down, in my mind, those I saw as worldly smart but not wise.

I've got a long way to go. For the record, I still believe they are wrong, and I want to learn all I can to be able to defend truth against their attacks. At the same time though, I am asking God, in the words of Brandon Heath, to give me His eyes. I want to see them as people, not just as the personification of their ideas.

Yep. God hit me with something just as hard as a two by four this time. I think that is His specialty- adjusting thinking little by little so that it turns more towards Him.