Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Bible Study Week 7

 This week in Bible study we talked about spiritual gifts... There are three primary lists of spiritual gifts in the New Testament. 

1) 1st Corinthians 12:7-11; there are 9 examples in this passage. They include wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophesy, distinguishing between spirits, speaking in tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. 

2) Romans 12:6-8; there are 7 examples in this passage. They include prophesy, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading, and mercy. 

3) 1st Peter 4:10-11; there are 2 examples (more like categories) in this passage. They are speaking and serving. 

Something interesting she noted when we looked at these three passages was the fact that in reference to all three lists, within a few verses of either the beginning or end of them there is an exhortation of LOVE. Without love we will never be able to truly use our spiritual gifts for the good of the Body of Christ! 

Some notes she made about our spiritual gifts are that they are not the same as our talents, we may be talented at certain things, but those are not necessarily our spiritual gifts, you may be a wonderful singer, but that is not your gift, its your talent, which you can also use to glorify Christ. Also, your gifts will energize you, not exhaust you... even if you feel exhausted after a day of using one of your spiritual gifts you also feel energized and exhilarated. They build you up, don't tear you down! 

At the end of the lesson she presented Romans 12:6-8 to us out of The Message, and it was interesting to see how the gifts and their use was described, so I'm going to put it here. 

"let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't. If you preach, just preach God's message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if your put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face." 

-Romans 12:6-8 MSG

For those who preach or speak, it is easy sometimes to go off on your own thing and not stick to God's word. One way she said to know if you have the gift of help is if you often want to help people who often don't want help. If you learn something and cant keep it to yourself, you just want to share it, you may have the gift of teaching. Those who have the gift of encouragement need to be careful not to use that gift in such a way that it discourages people, don't use it to tell people where they have fallen short. You may have the gift of leadership if you have a tendency to take over and people are glad that you did, but people with leading gifts can lead many many people astray if they are not intimate with God.

So those are just some things to think about in terms of spiritual gifts. 

God Bless!

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Bible Study Week 6

 In the sixth week of the Beth Moore study "The Inheritance" she hit on some awesome points that I want to share here. This week she focused very much on the 'boundary lines' of our lives, since she has been talking about inheritance and where the 'boundary lines' fall for our inheritance just as the boundaries fell for the Israelite's in the promise land. She was helping us to define where the boundaries fall for our lives and here are the guides she gave us. 

1) The thing that gives our 'property' height is our Intimacy with God. Only through this can we truly inherit the Kingdom of God. If we have great Intimacy with God we will unlimited height to our property and the boundary there will be limitless! 

2)One of the most important boundaries is Our Pasts. We often don't want to claim what has happened in our pasts as ours, we would rather forget it, but by claiming it for the Glory of God we are making it our property and it falls within our boundaries. When she was talking about Pasts, she was specifically talking about the painful things and failures of our pasts. The areas of our lives we would rather not possess, but the huge point she made here is that if we don't possess those things ourselves, it leaves it open for the Enemy to take possession of those parts of our property and use them against us. God puts those difficult things in our lives so that we can use them for his Glory later. I think this was the best concept of the night, because its so true, we don't want to keep those hard things in our lives and claim them but if we don't and we don't try to use them for God's glory, the Enemy will possess it, he will stand on that property and use it against you until you decide to take possession of it and kick him off! If there is an area of your life where you feel defeated in life, the enemy is standing there on that part of your property and you need to take it back! 

3) The third boundary to our property is our Life Experiences, and this includes EVERYTHING! This is everything in everyday life that God has entrusted to you. This includes where you went to school, where you work, your family, basically anywhere that you have done life and what you have done with it is part of your property, it is part of you! This area/boundary gives us depth, this is where we get everything that is who we are and what we are. 

4) The fourth boundary line is our Spiritual Gifts... this she covers more in the following week, but the big questions she asked in reference to them this week were, Are we striving to find out what they are? and Are we living them out? God gives us spiritual gifts so that we can use him to his Glory and to bring Fame to his name!

Our pasts, our life experiences, and our spiritual gifts are all given to us by God as our property, where the boundary lines have fallen for us and we can either claim that property and use it for the greatness of God's kingdom or we can not. What we do with the things God entrusts to us here on Earth will affect what he will entrust to us in his Kingdom. Just as in the Parable of the Talents, if you are given a little and do great things with it and multiply it you will be given even more, if you are given a little and do nothing with it, you will have squandered the opportunity God gave you! Be faithful with what God gives you and claim every last inch of your property!

God Bless!

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Bible Study: Week Five

Week 5

I'm going to start with this tidbit... "Not only can God change your life, but he can change your day, and not only can he change your day, but he can change your mood." God isn't only in control of the big things, but if you not having a good day, spend a few minutes focused on God and he can turn your whole day around, and the same applies to your mood! WOW! That is inspiring! 

 

Another awesome thing that Beth Moore brought to light during tonight's study of our inheritance was that God is our inheritance, we get him, he is our portion! He is our inheritance, what if the most important thing we passed on to our families was God, not possessions but God himself. Its so amazing to me that I get God as an inheritance, I don't deserve him and his grace and mercy, and yet he gives himself to me freely! Now, the second part of this was that in several places in the Bible (Deuteronomy 32:7-9, 4:20, and Ephesians 1:18) where it states that WE are HIS inheritance! We are God's inheritance; he is our portion and we are his! If we could grasp that and know that to God we are the most precious treasure he has on this earth. He owns the whole universe and yet we are his inheritance! I am going to try to focus on that this week that I am so blessed to have God as my inheritance and yet he considers me important enough to be his most precious inheritance! 

Now to end on, I'm going to put in our memory verse and the verses that follow because it just touched me tonight. 

"Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will your Holy ones see decay. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures as your right hand." 

PSALM 16:5-11

GOD BLESS

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Bible Study (I've Missed a few weeks)

Ok, so these last few weeks I have totally spaced and been really busy and haven't been able to post about the last few weeks of Bible study. So here are a few tidbits from last few weeks. 

Week 2

Beth Moore asked the question "Do you believe that God is a GIVER or a TAKER?" And I couldn't believe what a profound question that is. Of course the Christian in us tells us that God is a giver, but her question was if we truly believe that. We are often so afraid of what God could take from us that we don't give him complete control of our lives and therefore we miss out on the wild ride of life that he could give us! God gives to us to get glory, he wants us to have everything he can give us and he wants to provide all that we need, but sometimes there are things in our lives that we don't want to give over to God because he could ask us to give it up to glorify him. But a thought  that occurred to me was that if its something God wants us to give up than it probably isn't good for us and he has something much better waiting for us. 

Week 3

In week 3 we learned that NOTHING IS LEFT TO CHANCE! Because God holds my plan in his hands, everything happens in either the outright will of God or in the permissive will of God, nothing happens just because, it all has a part in where I'm going. She also mentioned that we all have an assigned area of influence that we can do God's work in (it could be work, school, our friends...) and that we need to figure out who else is in our field and work with them to bring light to those around us! 

Week 4

There were several great points made during this week. The first was about how God wants to give us all the greatest gift, salvation, but we have to be proactive and take it! We often just want things handed to us without any work on our part, but God wants us to work for our salvation so that when we are tempted and the Devil tries to take it from us we can hold on to it. If we don't develop the muscle to hold onto our inheritance/salvation, when its tested it can easily slip through our fingers. 

The next point that has really hit me this past week is that we often have press through fear to possess our inheritance and possess the things that God has in store for us. We have to press through the fear to get where God wants to go. And if we cant press through it and feel fine going in, then we just to do it scared and eventually it will get easier! She said that fear can be the ruining of someones calling because they will not push through their fear and fulfill it. This has been a big thing for me this week as I'm trying to figure out some job options. I'm planning to be a substitute teacher, I'm almost done with the whole application process and then I will be able to start subbing. Its exciting but also really scary for me, I have no idea what I'm doing in terms of kids/teaching... I don't know if I can handle it or what it will like, but as I was thinking about it I realized that I just need to push past it and put my faith in God's ability to take care of me and to help me if I don't know what I'm doing, and that helped although I'm still terrified but I'M GOING TO DO IT SCARED! 

GOD BLESS

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Bible Study: Week One

Yesterday I began a new Bible study by Beth Moore. Its called The Inheritance. Its my first step toward becoming involved in our new church in Lemoore, and Im really excited about it. I am really  hoping it will give me the perspective I need this year to see where God wants me and what he wants me to do!

In study last night, Beth Moore made several statements that still have me thinking this morning. The first was that if I really applied what I learn from this study in the next 9 weeks, that this could be the year that changes my life. Wow, that is an interesting concept. This could be the year that I see what God's purpose in my life is, wouldnt that be amazing! Another thing she said that kind of goes with the first is that the dreams I have for myself cant even come close to the things God has prepared for me. That is an encouraging thought, since sometimes I feel that the things I dream for or want are so far out of reach for me, but yet God has bigger and better plans, and he will enable me to reach those plans! 

The last thing that she was talking about was about us being heirs to God's kingdom. This study will be teaching us what that means exactly, but she was talking about how we as women are "heiresses" and that with that, in the words of Paris Hilton no less, we are not supposed to be BORING! Yes I did say Paris Hilton, apparently Beth Moore read her book about being an heiress, and the little tidbit she took away was that Paris felt it was the worst thing to do in life to be boring. Beth Moore agrees that as heiresses of God we should not be bored or boring. We should be full of life and out for a wild ride through life with God at the wheel. I will be pondering this week and probably throughout this study if I am bored or boring and if I am what I am going to do to change that. 

So as I go through this study I plan to blog a little each week about what kind of progress its making, if I am learning new things about myself, about my amazing God, or just my life in general. I'm really excited for this journey and I cant wait to see where I am at the end! 

God Bless

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Its a new year!

Ok, so its officially 2011 and I cant believe that 2010 is actually over! Its crazy to think that at this time last year I was still living in Mississippi, didn't have a dog, or a truck, or a winged Naval Aviator husband! Wow how things have changed! In the last year so much has happened and it has been a blast and also has had its tough moments. Traver and I got a dog, who we love, a new truck, and I ran 4 races! Traver got his wings in July, we took a road trip in August, we moved to California in September, and have settled into our new town and life pretty nicely so far! 

I had a job for a while, but it didn't work out, so I'm back to being a stay at home wife, for now at least. But I have goals in that area. I'm working on getting my substitute teacher credential for the state of California, just a few steps away from getting that finished. I have decided to get my Event Management and Wedding Planner Certification. The navy will pay for me to get it, and since I really think that is what I want to do with my life I am going to take this course to help my chances at getting a job! 

Traver and I bought another new (at least to us) car a few weeks ago, after our red mustang was totaled in an accident in November. We were rear ended, lame! I always figured we would get in a car accident in Mississippi where the drivers are terrible, but somehow we survived over a year there, and within 3 months here we get rear ended! But nonetheless, we got a new 2006 mustang to replace our 2000, its beautiful and really fun to drive, I named her Stella! 

Other new things going on... I have decided to take up cake decorating and my goal is to use it as a ministry to make cakes for people who could use a pick me up! Also, my goal for January is to have every single box unpacked or put in the attic, if it doesn't have a place in the house (other than shoved in the closet) it will go to goodwill/garage sale or into the attic. I want the house 100% settled by the end of this month! Wish me luck! 

Other than that I'm just really looking forward to a new year, full of new adventures and experiences! I'm going to try to better about blogging about them as they come up! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Life Happenings: Excursions in the Kitchen

Life Happenings: Excursions in the Kitchen

So, several of my girlfriends in Lemoore and I have started a recipe swap, each Sunday one of the girls sends out a favorite recipe or something they have been hoping to try and it give us all a chance to try some new things. It rotates every week sends the recipe and its been really fun so far! So I figured I would start posting them on here when they come in. Im a little behind, so there will be three new ones this week, and from now on Ill try to post the new one each week when I get it! 

Sarah's Bacon Wrapped Chicken

Needed

3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (1'ish per person)

1 lb. precut bacon (I'm sure you could use turkey bacon, I never have)

16oz Sour Cream (you can use lite)

1 can cream of mushroom soup (you can use health choice)

1 can mushrooms (we like mushrooms so I use a bigger can)

Wrap each chicken breast in 1-2 pieces of chicken.

Combine sour cream, cream of mushroom soup and canned mushrooms

Place chicken in casserole dish and cover in sour cream mixture. Put in 350 oven for 1 hour.

Two additions to this:

1) you can use frozen chicken which I do all the time, b/c I forget to take it out of the freezer

2) you can put this in the crock pot on low for 6 hours, stir once or twice during cooking. I do it this way the most b/c it makes the chicken just fall apart!!

I serve this over rice

It's a family favorite, super easy (esp. in the crock pot) and makes GREAT left overs

Jacquee's Thai Coconut Chicken

1 Tbs vegetable oil

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts- cut into bite-size pieces

1 tsp grated lime peel (can use lime juice)

1 tsp grated ginger root (can use powder)

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 jalapeno chili, seeded and finely chopped (if you want it spicy, use the seeds.)

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

1 can (about 14oz) coconut milk (not cream of coconut)

1 tsp packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbs soy sauce

1 cup sugar snap pea pods

1/2 medium green bell pepper, cut into 1/2 in cubes

1 medium tomato, chopped

1 Tbs chopped fresh basil leaves

Hot cooked jasmine rice

In a nonstick wok or 12in nonstick skillet, heat oil over high heat.  Add chicken; cook until chicken is no longer pink in center.  Add lime, ginger, garlic, jalapeno, and cilantro.  Stir-fry for about a minute.

Pour coconut milk over chicken.  Stir in brown sugar, salt, soy sauce, pea pods, and bell pepper.  Reduce heat to medium.  Simmer uncovered for 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are crisp-tender.  Stir in tomato.

Spoon over rice and top with basil.

Kristin's Slow Cooker Pizza Casserole

1 1/2 lbs Ground Beef 

1 lb   Bulk Pork Sausage  

4 jars (14 ounces each) Pizza Sauce 

2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese 

2 cups grated parmesan cheese 

2 packages (3 oz each) sliced pepperoni 

1/2 cup finely chopped onion       (Or ultra minced to hide it from your hubby )

1/2 cup finely chopped green bell pepper 

1 clove garlic minced   (The 50 cent jars of garlic at the commissary . . .  great deal!) 

1 lb Rotini pasta, cooked and drained

1. Brown beef and sausage in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, stirring to break up meat. Drain. 

    Place meat in slow cooker. 

2. Add all remaining ingredients except pasta; stir til blended. 

3. Cover; cook on low 3 1/2 hours or high 2 hours.

4. Stir in pasta. Cover; cook 30 minutes until pasta is hot. 

Bon Appétit!