Let my words be few...

When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.~Proverbs 10:19

A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding
 is even-tempered.~Proverbs 17:27

 Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words.~Ecclesiates 5:2-3

The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.~Proverbs 18:21


This is what I'm learning lately. This is what my sweet & patient God is teaching me. Lord knows I have always battled "my mouth" & been way guilty of the overuse of words! In light of these scriptures I am often reminded & my spirit quieted...I hear over & over inside "let your words be few".

When I wake up in the morning & I am tempted to allow the drama to affect my day...I quietly hear "let my words be few".

When I'm tempted to get lippy with my husband over a disagreement let me be reminded "let my words be few".

When I find myself crossing the line when discipling my sons let me be aware "let my words be few".

When I find myself caught up in a godless conversation give me the strength to step away & remember "let my words be few".

At work when I may see something I deem unfair let my prayer be "let my words be few".

You see my opinion is fleshly & often times sinful. I don't need an opinion about everything & better yet I don't need to share it with anyone who will listen. We all have an opportunity every day to release words from our mouth. To build up or tear down. To encourage or to crush. To be quite honest my words aren't necessary or useful unless they are going to be used with the right heart & in the right time seasoned with love. Truth is I grew tired of eating my words when they were negative & hurtful and desired to be apart of what God is doing! I desire to be the the woman described in 1 Peter 3:3-4 "Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God."....let this be said of us all ladies. Let His way become our way no matter the cost, no matter the situation, no matter what!


In HIM,
Katie

just one more reason to lean in to You...

Tribulation…it visits us all if we've lived any amount of time. I won't go into the details of all God has grown me through or by way of tribulation but I'll say this. I know Him, I really really know Him. His voice, His presence, His touch..Not in a I'm so wonderful & it's all rainbows and skittles kinda way. More of a I feel like I might just break, can't take much more, desperation way. The times I've had the opportunity to run from my hurts, my upsets over things I simply had no control over but instead chose to face them head on & take a seat beside Jesus. I believe most would envision walking with Jesus as perfect, always beautiful and totally the coolest thing ever or quite the contrary and say it's a complete waste of time. I would tell you that yes, it's beautiful & pretty cool and by far the best investment of my time & heart I've ever given. I mean what can you say about a God who, when I was at my lowest and my heart was a crumpled mess,He was there. He offered a hand when I couldn't pick myself up from crying.  He gave me worth & most of all purpose. To most I've had a tough go at it, a lot to cry about including watching my wonderful earthly father battle brain cancer  while having the privilege to be in the room when his spirit left his body & became a member of the great cloud of witnesses, talk about finding beauty in dying. That was by far the most beautiful act I've ever been apart of.  I've watched my mother battle illness that is obviously outside of her control, which in a way has left me parentless at times. I've been stretched further that I thought possible, stripped of me but in the process replaced with more of Him. You see in being brought to the point of desperation I found my Savior. I encountered Him in a way that I now, will live to tell anyone who will listen of His great love.

"Everything about which we are tempted to complain may be the very instrument whereby the Potter intends to shape His clay into the image of His Son~a headache, an insult, a long line at the check-out, someone's rudeness or failure to say thank you, misunderstanding, disappointment, interruption."~Elisabeth Elliott

I agree wholeheartedly with Elisabeth Elliott because I am fully aware that without all that God has brought me through lately I wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to grow in Him. To become who He designed & purposed me to be…So the tribulation comes & I've learned to "glory" in it. Because just like Paul, who pleaded with God to remove the thorn in his flesh, heard the answer "no" I understand that all this adversity & sadness has proven to me without a doubt that "God's power comes to it's full strength in weakness" In the words of Amy Carmichael "See in it a chance to die," meaning a chance to leave self behind and say YES to the will of God!

 Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.~2 Corinthians 12:7-10(The Message)

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have^[a] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³ And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; ⁴ and perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.~Romans 5:1-5(NKJV)

to whom do you belong...

There's been a shift. A change in my heart. A peace, a solitude, a feeling of being sealed by His love. I've sought after Jesus for what seems like an eternity which was actually only 3 years, to be honest. I'm not talking about the "I believe in God" kinda relationship. I'm talking about the desperation "I'm not stopping til I find You" kinda stuff. I remember searching & seeking for truth. Not just any truth but the actual TRUTH I had known was found only in God. As I sought & committed to finding Him I discovered what being known by Him truly meant. I discovered what it meant to lay down everything to gain His heart, His love, and His eyes for the lost. It began to stir me inside when I read scriptures like 1 Corinthians 8:3 "But the man who loves God is known by God" but what did that really mean? So I dug deeper only to find more scriptures that backed it up. Questions began to spring up inside, what was the proof of my love to Him?…I stumbled upon it in soon after in John 14:15 when He said "If you love me, you will obey what I command." This was getting pretty serious! I immediately realized that loving God wasn't at all what the world defined love as. His love had order & it had purpose. He lay out His love in His commands. Not to keep me bound but to protect me & give me true freedom. It was in choosing to take on what His Word(the scriptures) that I began to see strides towards a life lived for Him. It was NOT overnight, I am still in constant learning. I'm reminded that it is stagnant water that poisons  & in order for our lives to not be poisoned by the world we have to commit to becoming immersed in the Word. It was then and only then that we will began to understand the scripture about "The word being living & active…sharper than any two-edged sword(Hebrews 4:12) I'm calling for all women to join me, to find out who they are in Christ, to be ALL He destined for us to be, to find your God-given purpose. I pray that a mass of women answer the call & begin to fight for peace in their homes & for us all to realize the powerful role we have been given as women. God needs for us all to claim our femininity to nurture, to honor and to love our families. To understand that the order God created & calls us to is a beautiful thing. That it is an act of worship to respect & honor our husbands, to work as unto the Lord at our jobs and to invest in the lives of our children by living a life that exemplifies who God is so that our children know the truth too. Come join me in this journey! Let's be the spark that ignites a fire nation wide in the heart of women! #coffeeandjesus…it's not just a phrase it's what unites us as women besides, I know who you are…you're a daughter of the King…the question is, do you know that & understand the magnitude of that?!