It's time for another new look! God has been speaking to my HEART about my physical heart and spiritual heart.. thus I'm all about hearts now! And girly hearts at that. God has been asking me to examine my heart's motives... ughhhh! This is not usually a fun process but tends to be painful and rather embarrassing. I've been praying about what my true passion is for serving God. The phrase "serving God" has been ringing a new tone in my mind. It's sad but true to say that I'm not sure that I fully get that. I try hard.. I give my all to various events and things.. I love to lead things and bless others... I plain and simply just LOVE being involved with everything I can get my hands on. Why?? Why??? That's the question of the day...Why?
Let's look at the most perfect example of serving God- Jesus' life. I'm not really finding that my life reflects HIM the way that He would like to be reflected. Everything Jesus did had purpose and was to please His father. He loved the Word. He spoke the Word. He lived the Word.
I've been looking up scripture recently on motive. Man and God see our actions, but God sees our HEART.. our motives. I recall times in Jesus life when He did things in secret and didn't want to be the center of attention. I say all of this to say I'm backing down from some things
in ministry.
Some of you may have heard about the "Is there Really Sex After Kids" study that Tina and I were planning to lead this summer. Recently God told me through my hubby that NO,
I was not supposed to lead a group with Tina (or a 2nd group if needed). What? NO??? I kept thinking that I must have heard John incorrectly!! He surely wasnt's meaning NO.. as in NO you can't lead a group. Then I pleaded to please, please let me just be in a group if I couldn't lead one. I loved this study last summer and knew we would greatly benefit from it again! And sure enough- the answer was still NO! Finally, God's voice broke through my determined mind-set
and I have decided to embrace the word "NO". It's hard.. much harder than I ever expected.
But the cool thing is that obedience will yield peace!!!! And OF COURSE Tina is MORE than capable of doing an amazing job leading this without me!!!! By the way.. if you are remotely interested in improving your marital intimacy life- then i URGE you.. URGE you to committ to this study!!! Contact Tina at memmer@geetel.net to sign up. It's being held at the church for 6 Wednesdays in a row beginning June 18th through July 23rd from 6-8 p.m. (i think this is the right time of day.. check with Tina!!) If you didn't already know this...Tina's HEART is for marriages: counseling, encouraging and supporting all aspects of strengthening a godly marriage! By the way.. Tina is one of my best friends and I adore her for many strengths and qualities. Marital intimacy is her fine tuned area of ministry, and she is VERY, VERY wise. I will try very hard to not be jealous of all of you who take this AMAZING study this summer :) just kidding.. I won't be jealous- I'll be ecstatic for you. See, that's just it.... I have to stop, stop focusing on whether "I" am involved with something and start praying for God's WILL and complete direction for the ministries around me!!!!!
More shocking news... :) .....I've also informed Lisa that I no longer want to be the events coordinator for our Heart 2 Heart women's ministry. Let me rephrase that.. I DO WANT to continue doing this, but I'm choosing to step aside and pray that the blessing goes to someone else. I'm still going to be on our women's ministry team, just with a different role.. more of a support role. God is gearing me up for one main passion. Do you have any idea how hard this is for me to narrow down to ONE!!! I love people.. I love socializing.. I love doing things!!! But, the one specific area of life that I personally will battle until the day I die is living a healthy lifestyle to glorify the Lord. God is stirring up an idea in me.
Please pray for GOD'S direction on this. I'm starting to get a vision for it.. but am terrifyed of
allowing "ME" to get in the way. So, I'm cautiously and carefully proceeding. I've always felt that we as Christian women need SUPPORT and PRAYER to walk out a healthy lifestyle. This isn't a one time class that you take one time and then you go on to turn back to your old ways of eating and not exercising. God wants to use whatever this ministry is supposed to look like to change our hearts, to encourage us, to give us hope, to give us strength to press on, to give us true, loving accountability. "Healthy Hearts for God" (the name I'm praying about)- is a lifetime membership kind of group- No turning back because tomorrow will never come. Obviously, I am NO medical professional and this is not meant to be a "diet program" because diets do NOT, do NOT, do NOT work!!!! What we eat and how much time we spend taking care of our bodies is all just a reflection of our heart and the heart's desires and motives and our relationship with God. I could care less if you weigh 100 lbs or 400 lbs- we start where we are cause "It is what it is" and then we join arms with loving, non-judgemental, encouraging women and share our hearts, our victories, our struggles, our goals, our "tips", our ideas, our laughter, our tears, our story. We all have a story. God keeps reminding me that this will not be a ministry for only women who want to lose weight, because it's all about the heart's motives and only God can see those. God may bring some women to this ministry who are very thin and struggle with exercising regularly to strenthen their hearts. There is no one type of woman that this ministry is for.
How often would this group meet?When? Where? all of those details.. I have NO idea. NONE!
Please pray!!! I just know 2 things for sure... #1- the above info. is to be involved and #2- Scripture, Prayer, and the salvation message will be shared at every meeting. Guests/friends are always welcome as this is not to be viewed as an exclusive group. Hopefully, many small groups will be birthed from this as we all know that people tend to open up in a smaller setting.
I'm suddenly overwhelmed with such a love for each of you who read this blog. Let me make VERY clear that I do not think that all of you should "be in this group" once it gets started. NO..No!!! This ministry will be for those that God calls to it. For some of us, our health, our weight, our body is at the forefront of our daily struggles and it's preventing us from living the full and abundant life that God has for us. Some of you have no interest in this and are more concerned with other parts of your life- I support you 100% and have 0 judgement towards you if you don't jump on board- I know you love still love me!!! The ministry that I'm desiring to see birthed is for "The Sick and the Tired." You all know that a few months ago I finally got so "sick and tired" of living an unhealthy lifestyle and God began to change my heart. This is a permenant solution to a permanent problem- seeking after God daily to give me a desire to allow this body, His temple to be all that He wants it to be.
I share all of this with you because it's my heart.. it's my passion and I'm praying that God helps fine tune it to ONLY reflect Him and NOT put me at the forefront of something for my sake, but for His. I just want to be a tool in His hands.
Love you all more than you know!
K
Life is Good because of God! Thumbs up!!!
4 comments:
Amen sister! I support you 100%. You seem to be on the right track, letting God direct your steps. Keeping your motives and heart pure, all for GOD'S GLORY!
Love Ya 2!
Yay, Kara! Isn't it funny how when we start asking God what He wants, we sometimes are really surprised. I am finding the same thing. I have to talk to you about this! :) I have had a total change of "heart", so to speak, about what God wants of me. It isn't nearly as glamorous as I thought it would be...but it is soooo exciting to me...even more so than the glamorous things I dreamed of before. Isn't that so cool?
Thanks for the plug on the summer study! I love the way you obey even when it is hard! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! Tina
This is a great post, Kara. Very open and honest. Thank you for sharing the roles from which you are stepping down. That is a really big deal! I will say that you are SO good at those roles, but I understand completely that you need to do what is best for you and what you feel God is leading you to do.
Your ministry idea sounds wonderful. This is exactly what you and so many of us need. I can definitely see myself participating and being a part of it. However, as your post so eloquently conveys, I need to make sure that I'd be doing it for the right reasons. I can relate to often doing things because so many of my friends are "doing it" (nothing bad here, like drugs, haha) and I want to be in on the fun. It's gotta be God's desire for me and not just my desire to socialize!! Love ya!
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