Challenges That Give Me Strength

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Cee Tindall
1 Timothy 1:12 ”I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work. He considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him,”

I never thot I’d teach preschool Sunday school again. Especially after over a decade of being out of the classroom. However, in the middle of a lupus flare a year ago, I knew God wanted me to teach once more. I was not sure how I was going to do it. I just knew two things for sure: (1) God had definitely “called” me (put a burning desire in my heart for these adorable preschoolers to know how much God loves them) and (2) thru Christ I could do anything (Philippians 4:13). I have prayed each and every Sunday since, for the strength and stamina to teach my class. Miraculously, every Sunday I’ve had the energy, and no pain, during Sunday school. As soon as the classroom is cleaned up, and I am on my way to my car, I feel the pain come back. But while I am giving my whole body to God in loving on, and teaching the preschoolers, I don’t hurt. This past year has been amazing, as I have been blessed week after week  with God always giving me the strength just as I needed it.

I have a new appreciation for what I call the “manna moments” God gave the Israelites in the desert thousands of years ago. He gave them just what they needed as they needed it. No more, no less. In their case it was food and water. In mine it has been, and continues to be, strength and energy with no pain, as I teach the preschoolers about God’s love for them.

A few weeks ago, my pastor gave us a tool to use in our quiet time.  He called it  the 5/5/5 Challenge.  The simple guideline was to read our Bible for 5 minutes, no more than one chapter, then journal about the one verse that  jumped out at us for 5 minutes (basically that means write that verse down in the journal), and then pray about that verse for 5 minutes (asking God for clarity or thanking Him for what it means to you).    I now understand that it doesn’t do any good to read several chapters a day in my Bible, for the sake of being able to say I read my Bible through in a year, if I just forget most of what I read.  I find that the one verse that speaks to me stays with me all day and I am gaining a deeper relationship with God than I have ever had before.

I now hand the 5/5/5 Challenge to you.  Find a notebook at the dollar store and begin reading anywhere you want in your Bible. If you’re new to reading the Bible, start in the book of John (4th book in the New Testament). If you’ve been on the Faith Walk Journey for a while, start in Ephesians.

I started in Ephesians and then decided to read through the New Testament. Write down the one verse each day that speaks the loudest to you. Then pray about that verse to God. Thank Him for what it means or ask Him to give you more understanding. Just talk with Him as if He is sitting next to you.  He is there and listening, anyway!

Feel free to let me know how you’re doing with your own 5/5/5 Challenge in the comments below.

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Living victoriously

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Cee Tindall

As a teen, I adopted the thinking that the best revenge was living victoriously. It doesn’t mean the same to me now as it did then. As a younger me, I wanted others to think I was doing good just so they’d feel bad about what ever wrong I perceived done to me (real or otherwise, after all, I was a teen).

It’s amazing how our maturity and growth will transform our thoughts. Yet as I have matured, I see that living victoriously means to live in victory, to live like I’ve already won the war… what ever war I’m fighting at the time.

I fight spiritual wars, mostly. I have had an ongoing war with depression for most of my adult life. I beat myself up about all kinds of wrongs I’ve felt I did, especially to my kids. I find myself saying to me that I should have done or said…. Or shouldn’t have done or said…. Till I’m literally in a tizzy over how terrible of a mother, friend, daughter or wife I was and am. All that does is zap my strength and steal my joy of living for today.

Right now I’m dealing with some pretty off the wall circumstances that have bounced in unexpectedly. I know I’m being tested with this whole victorious living thing I’ve felt the Lord teaching me about in the last several months.

So how do I live victoriously among chaos and pain?

I must remember who I am in Jesus. I am a daughter of the King of the universe; A precious child of God. That is the first thing I must put in my mind each morning when I wake up. I have found by manually turning my thoughts directly to God and saying to Him, “Thank you Lord for TODAY. Help me be YOUR light today, and please guide and help me through today” keeps my thoughts focused on Him first and throughout the day. Yes my emphasis is about today, because that’s where I believe I’ve gone astray in my spiritual battles. I tend to think about the future or past and forget to live for the present.

It’s taken months to train myself to think of thanking God as a first thought in the mornings. But it has truly helped me gain a heavenly perspective in all areas of my life. I can also tell you when our family had a huge bomb go off on us, instead of hiding in my spiritual hole, as I would have done in the past, or even run away from the problem, I’ve been able to continue on in victory, and help others along the way too.

There is something else that the Lord has shown me lately.  When the Israelites came into their promised land, they had to fight their enemies in order to settle there. It may have been their inheritance from the Lord, but they had to FIGHT to get it.

For modern day believers, our Promised Land is salvation in the Lord Jesus. Most of us think that being a saved believer, our lives should be wonderful. But the Lord showed me that, just like the Israelites had to fight their enemies in order to settle in their promised land, I too, must fight mine in order to settle into my salvation.

What are your enemies? You ask? Well, they are mostly self esteem issues, guilt, shame, the depression that I’ve spoken of. I must fight these ‘giants’ in order to settle into my promise of salvation from the Lord. I just haven’t conquered them completely yet. Your enemies may be different. Just as each tribe had a different area of the promised land to settle, and their enemies were different, so we with our varied personalities, have different adversaries to conquer in our spiritual lives.

As with His chosen people long ago, we must believe that God has given the victory to us and then go out and fight that battle in order to claim that victory.  I’ll be candid here. My biggest battle is self assurance in going forward with my goals in writing, my soy candle business and approaching my friends and family about Avon orders.  But I must go forward as if I’ve already won, and fight those battles in order to overcome them.

What do you deal with??

Remember, God is with you. He has given you the victory, you just need to go out and win it.

Posted in encouragement, faith, Hope, Life, Trials | Leave a comment

Pot Holes in Our Spiritual Journey

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Cee Tindall

Have you ever been riding merrily in a car and, suddenly out of nowhere, the car hits a pot hole? It shakes the car up and startles us. It’s upsetting.  We may then readjust our sitting position because it jostled us up a bit. Our attention is drawn away from what ever we were thinking or talking about. There is normally no damage to anything; it’s mostly annoying.

I’ve come to realize that at times we hit pot holes in our spiritual journey as well as in the physical world. They shake us up a bit but don’t cause any real damage. Most of the time they are just large enough to scatter our current thinking but not cause a paradigm shift.

Pot holes can be annoying. If large enough, they can mess the alignment up in the lane we are traveling in, but not take us off our journey.

What does a spiritual pot hole look like? A conflict with another believer within our church, being verbally accosted about a certain way we think, or a family member hurts our feelings. These are only a few things that shake us up and can take our attention off of the immediate road we are traveling.

Have you hit a spiritual pot hole recently? I’d like to hear about it. Comment below.

Posted in Contentment, encouragement, faith, Hope, Life | 4 Comments