Friday Journaling Prompt...
Good morning Friday!
I hope everyone has had a great week and is ready for the weekend. We have finished school, finished Peter Pan last night and we are onto summer now!
We’re still living in the basement with no appliances except a fridge, and our furniture is tucked in every nook and cranny in this house…but we are hopeful the new wood floors will be installed and done by the end of the month. Then we are taking some time off as a family to rest, to seek the Lord’s will on some things… and to travel to ITALY!
I really can’t believe that I can even say that out loud! But, Lord willing, we may be in Italy THIS summer! This photo was taken in 2019, the last time we were in Italy. I’m so excited to share our experiences with you this summer via social media and hopefully it will help us be better prepared for our retreats this fall in Bellagio. And, it will give all of you an idea on how things look to travel to Europe now, if you’re planning to join us or go on your own European vacation in the near future!
This is more than a vacation for us though. Some of those things we are praying through are BIG… and we are hoping to spend time in Bellagio without a retreat so we can “Be still and know that He is God” there. As well as love, serve and bless the people the Lord has brought into our live there and what that looks like in the future as well.
But moving on to today’s journaling prompt…
I mentioned on Tuesday’s blog post that I wanted to continue with that same theme. If you didn’t get a chance to read that, I would really try to grab some coffee and read that in conjunction with this prompt. I shared what the Lord was putting on my heart about HIS vision for our lives and what that may look like. I shared a couple stories from a song the Lord put on my heart and a story out of Habakkuk. You can read it HERE.
I’ll try to sum up in one sentence here:
The last year+ has opened our eyes to a lot, but most importantly I think it’s showed us that we are not in control of our lives. And with that reality, it has left us with a choice. Do we continue to seek our will/plans/visions… or are we asking God what His vision is for our lives?
God’s vision for our lives can, and most likely will, look very different than ours. But in the end, if we have chosen to give our lives to Jesus Christ, and we say we want to follow Him, then don’t we want to have the same desires that He has for us? Don’t we want to be on the side of God, instead of this world? This world will fade… it’s fading faster than I even imagined in my lifetime… and we will be accountable for what we did with our lives. How did we love and point people to Jesus in this world, even though we are not of this world? How did we share truth, in love? Were we the salt and light we are called to be?
The last year+ has changed us. Let it change our hearts to surrender all of ourselves, so that, we desire to serve the Lord!
So the question for today’s Friday Journaling prompt is this:
What is one desire (or vision) that God has put on your heart, and you can confirm from His Word, that He is calling you to do?
I want to make it clear here that God will never contradict His Word. So whatever it is that you are dreaming, desiring or envisioning for your life, if it is His will, it will always line up with scripture. He is not calling you do something that is against His truths.
To take the journaling prompt a step further…
If it doesn’t contradict scripture, and through prayer, time in God’s word, seeking godly counsel and being still in His presence you still sense God is desiring you to take the next, small step… what would that be?
For example, if you feel He is calling you into ministry and that is a desire of yours but you don’t know where to begin, what is the next step of faith you might possibly take?
It could look like many different things. For example, you might:
Ask your pastor to pray for you and seek support from your church
Do research on where you feel called to move and see what that looks like
Maybe you’re at a point where it’s time to sell your house
Seek counsel from other people in ministry
Again, it is very possible that God’s vision for our lives is completely different than what we imagined. We can see many examples in the Bible of this. Paul was told to go places that turned out completely different than he imagined for sure! And just like Habakkuk, what he prayed for was not what God brought him. Sometimes the Lord uses life altering things to correct us, to change course for His purposes, or to bring His people back to their first love. Him.
A life of faith is a lifelong pursuit. It’s a journey, just like traveling to far off places. There will be road blocks, hurdles, traffic noise to distract you, long stretches of nothing and places that don’t look like what you thought they’d look like.
The life God envisions for each of us is a life of service to Him. It is ultimately to show His power and glory to this world. How that looks is totally different, beautiful and uniquely creative for you, me, and the person across the street. But in the pursuit of God’s will for our lives, we get the opportunity to come alongside each other to be the body of Christ and show the world how CREATIVE and LOVING and AWESOME is our GOD!
Seeing you create a Christ-filled home for your family, or encouraging the friend who wants to start a business that employees single moms who don’t have any help, or the neighbor who wants to make sandwiches for the homeless downtown, or the creative mom who makes and sells things so that her family can make the mortgage… it’s all a part of God’s VISION for His children! God is awesome in His ways and they are different for each one of us and at different times in our lives. We as women need to build community with each other in these ways and continue to show God’s creative spirit within us!
It’s what I hope and pray we can inspire you to at our retreats, as we gather and encourage you to draw closer to the Lord and see what He has for your life.
Now I want to add a disclaimer here that seeing God’s vision for my life has been difficult this last year. As I learn to seek God’s vision for my life, it is through hard things that I also see my need to surrender my will to the Lord. So please don’t ever think I’ve got this all figured out. I’m journaling my thoughts just like you. I’m waking up with questions and doubts and insecurities as you may be too.
But in those dark moments of crying out to God and wondering what He wants, I am reminded of His love and faithfulness that carries me every single time. I am also deeply saddened to think of those without God. I know I’ve said this before, but I can’t imagine doing this life without Jesus!! And so, that lifts me back up and restores my desire to bring the TRUTH of God’s love to as many people as I can.
There IS hope and His name is JESUS friends!
I’d like to end here with a few encouraging things that might help remind our hearts how to hear/see/do God’s vision for our lives:
Surrender our will to God’s will - this is the first step that opens the door
Seek God’s truths in His word daily - I know I say this a lot, but it’s where life truly comes alive
Obey what His Word says - this is the fruit that will come from the Holy Spirit alone
Seek Godly council - share with others what the Lord is showing you. speak it out loud and give it a name!
These are daily steps that grow our faith, and ultimately our walk with the Lord. If you’ve never committed your life to the Lord, please reach out to us. We would love to walk you through a simple prayer to ask Jesus to come into your life.
I’ll leave you with a beautiful verse that I hope you will mediate on this weekend:
“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” Zephaniah 3:17 ESV
We too can rejoice in gladness, no matter the circumstances.
We too can trust, no matter the outcome.
We too can see God in the midst of the mess, like Habakkuk did.
And we too can say, "yet I will rejoice in the Lord". (paraphrased from Hab. 3:18)
Have a great weekend everyone!
I’ll still be here for a while, so come on back and follow our journaling prompts and retreats. We’re not done with the website remodel, but I hope to get that done before we leave. We will have a fun free download section too!
We will also be sharing where we are headed in 2022 this summer, so that is EXCITING!! If you want to be on the email list that get’s the news first, you can sign up for our newsletter below, in the pink box.
And you can follow our adventures… in ITALY… Lord willing, through IG this summer, so be sure you are following us @artandfaithcreative!
Hugs to all,
Laura McCollough