Floundering in Grace

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We’re Getting It All Wrong

Why do we always ask about sin? Why do we always give advice about sin? Why do we constantly preach repentance? Why do we always judge based off of sin?

Yes, sin is an important thing, but I’m here to suggest… maybe it’s not what we should focus on. Its definitely not what we should lead with.

What would happen if we focused on having a beautiful, life-giving, and joyful connection with God? What if church sermons talked about ways you could dig deeper in prayer? Ways you could worship more in your life? What if the church taught more about how much Jesus loves you, and how precious you are, and what a bright, amazing future God has in store for you? What if we built up more than we tore down?

I believe it’s important to tear down sometimes. To remove the rotten boards in order to put up new, sturdy, sound boards. We have to tear down to build back up. But I feel like so much of Christianity is focused on tearing down in public, and then sending everyone on their way to hopefully find a way to build back up on their own.

I think we should leave it to God to point out problems a little more. Not neglect issues. Not look away when you see someone falling. But we need to stop looking for problems to point out and instead, look for ways to encourage and spread love and give joy and offer comfort. God is GOOD at convicting. Much better than we could ever be, though He does use us sometimes. I feel like a lot of the time, the church digs too deep looking for ways to purify us sinners, but it winds up being a tsunami of shame, self-hate, feeling judged, and feeling like you aren’t good enough. To anyone who’s already struggling, who’s broken, who’s hurting, it feels like you’re drowning. And even worse, to everyone who’s questioning God or just starting to look into Christianity, it can be a giant flashing sign to Get Out Now.

How I Hear From God

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it? —Jeremiah 17:9

I know of some people who literally hear the voice of God speaking to them. I am not one of those people. This may sound contradictory to the verse I just quoted, however, when I need guidance, I listen to my heart.

I don’t believe that how I listen to my heart is what Jeremiah 17:9 warns against. I believe there are two different ways “listening to your heart” can go:

1. Listening to your superficial emotions, your desires of the flesh, or your fears.

2. Listening to your “gut feeling” or intuition, such as comfort, peace, joy, excitement, or uneasiness, dread, etcetera.

I fully believe the “gut feeling” is God guiding me. I believe that the Holy Spirit uses my emotions to compel me to make a decision. When God is telling me, “no”, I feel I deep dread, uneasiness, and anxiety. When God is telling me, “yes”, I feel peace.

It hasn’t been easy for me most of my life to understand this way of God speaking to me. I felt like He didn’t care or He left me to deal with it on my own. It took getting in touch with God through reading my Bible in depth and some really intimate prayer to understand how He’s working in me. Now, I feel these gut feelings like reins and I know what to do. If God pulls on the reins, I know He’s telling me to change course. If I feel that joyous peace I love so much, I know whatever I’m doing is blessed.

I will note that when I feel this peace, I don’t feel much direction. It’s like God’s letting me run free in whatever situation I’m in. I’m having to get used to that, but I’m learning to trust myself more and more as time goes on. I’m learning to take initiative and check in along the way instead of being scared of starting until I know exactly what to do. I just have to check in and examine how I’m feeling about it. Do I feel good about this? Am I at peace? Does this feel like something that’s good for me? Are there any twinges of ‘don’t do this’ that I’m suppressing for any reason?

I’m also having to be careful about trying to rear and buck against His lead and say, “No, I’m going to keep going this way and see… maybe it’s the right way. If it’s not, the closer I get, the more I’ll see it’s not right.” When I want something, I’m not likely to give it up easily, but I’m learning to trust God and my gut and let go of what feels bad before it gets bad.

How do you hear from God? Do you hear His voice? Do you feel your emotions leading you? Do you have dreams? I would love to hear your responses in the comments, or anything else you have to say about this post! Have a blessed day.

Until next time,

—Katie

The Real Issue with The Halftime Show: How Christians Are Responding

Here you go, another article on the 2020 Halftime Show.

We’ve all seen the internet go to war over this show. People either love it or hate it— apart from a few people who don’t care either way and just want everyone to shut up—Christians included. I’ve seen a lot of Christians praising J-Lo and Shakira for empowering women and I’ve seen a lot of Christians showing some very ugly hatred towards Shakira and J-Lo. I’m here to say we need to quit it.

1 Corinthians 5:12 says, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?”

James 4:12 says, “There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?”

There isn’t a problem with rebuking the world, but there’s a huge difference between rebuking and spewing judgement. When we start yelling at lost people because they’re acting like lost people, we ourselves are acting like lost people. Our job, as Christians, is to show the world the love and glory of God. When the world shows a massive display of worldly behavior, I 100% believe its our job to stand up and say, “There’s a better way” and hold a big, flashing arrow towards Jesus. But that isn’t what I’ve seen from most people.

We, as God’s people, also shouldn’t be praising the Halftime Show. I’ve seen so many people call it empowering and encouraging and brushing off any criticism by saying, “You’re just jealous you can’t move like J-Lo.” Stop it! Biblically, there were a lot of things wrong with that Halftime Show. The outfits weren’t modest, some dance moves were very sexual, the show very much glorified people and not our Creator, and shaking your butt against a man’s crotch on stage in front of millions of people is not something a Christian should look at and say, “You go, girl!”, because Jesus wouldn’t say that.

There is a another option. We don’t have to condemn nor confirm what happened. Instead, I believe we should show the world that what happened on that stage is not what every little girl should look up to. There are several things that show also implied for what men should want, but I’m not going to go into that here or now, because I haven’t studied enough to do that competently.

We need to show everyone that the Halftime Show and everything else the world loves so much is not the pinnacle of success or what they should reach for. Instead, we should be showing this broken world the love, joy, righteousness, peace, and glory of God. We need to be showing everyone around us that there is something so much better right within their reach.

I think women especially have a huge role right now. The world is shouting about empowerment through sexuality and only caring about yourselves. Daughters of the King should be clothing ourselves in dignity, grace, righteousness, love, self-control, kindness, peace, selflessness, etcetera. Show women who don’t know God what a Christian woman looks like, because a lot of women don’t know.

I love 1 Peter 3:1-4. I love the way God calls us to show Him to the world through how we conduct ourselves in order to win over people who don’t believe.

“Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”
‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭3:1-4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I apply this verse in my everyday life, even though I’m a single seventeen year old girl. There are people all around me who I can hope to win over by letting them see my purity and the reverence of my life. Every Christian should be trying their best to be a man or woman of God, so that everyone around them will see the beauty of that and be drawn in.

I’m going to leave this short and sweet. I don’t want to fill this with a bunch of Bible verses or preach too much. I just want to throw my opinion out there, so that if you feel so inclined, you will study your Bible on your own about this subject and come up with some answers from God. Have a wonderful day!

Until next time,

—Katie. ❤️

How I Knew He Wasn’t the One

If your gut says, “He’s not the one,” he’s probably not the one.

Before we even started dating, I was convinced he was the man I was going to marry. He was my best friend before and everything I saw in him during our friendship said in big, flashing lights, “He’s husband material. You want to marry someone like him.” When we started dating and I saw a different side of him that made me doubt our relationship, I clung to that steadfast confidence I had at the beginning. That was how I truly felt, I told myself.

My two other downfalls were these:

I committed too much too quickly. There was no casual, getting-to-know-each-other-romantically period. We jumped straight into a serious relationship, headed towards marriage, and I immediately started acting like his wife.
I thought I had a sign from God. When I finally admitted to myself that I liked him, he was in a relationship with another girl, then he went through a tough breakup where he wanted to get back together with her. I prayed a lot. I asked God to only let me continue having feelings for him if we were meant to be and if we weren’t meant to be, I asked Him to take them away. When we started dating soon after, I took that as a sign that he was the one.

I wish I would’ve been more discerning going into it. I wish I wouldn’t have thought our relationship was a sealed deal and he was it, because thinking that way blinded me to all the very big signs that he was not it.

We started dating October 1^{st, 2018}. It didn’t take long for me to see that he was not the person I thought he was. I had thought he was very hardworking, ambitious, and accomplished at school. I also thought he was well-grounded and mature in his faith. Once I was his girlfriend, it was clear he was not. I was disappointed, because these were two out of three of the biggest things that attracted me to him, and they weren’t true.

The third thing—and the most important thing to me—that attracted me to him was how considerate, respectful, and loving he had been to his ex. I never actually saw them interact in person, because we lived two and a half hours away from each other, but he would talk about her and the time they spent together a lot to me during our friendship. He told me about the hard times she was going through and how he had been there for her, the small, romantic gifts of flowers or her favorite chocolate he had given her when they would see each other, and how hard he was working to get along with her parents who seemed to hate him for no reason. I wanted that.

But as we dated, little by little, I realized that yes, he loved me, but he wasn’t considering my feelings until he’d already hurt them and he wasn’t respectful of my needs. He made a horrible impression on my family (who are my world) and didn’t try to fix it for months, he kept talking to his ex for months into our relationship and went to the fair with her even though it really hurt me, he said mean things to me about my family, specifically about my little sister who I am very close to, and kept ‘forgetting’ it upset me after I asked him to stop over and over, and he put me into really bad situations, like trying to force me into cuddling with him in front of his parents in their house, when we both knew they weren’t going to be happy about it and I was trying so hard to make sure they liked me and approved of me.

In February of 2019, four months into dating, I was having serious doubts. I considered breaking up with him one moment and the next, I was daydreaming about mornings in our kitchen together. I was so in love with him, but I knew he wasn’t the man I needed my husband to be.

I broke up with him three times. Once in April for a week, once in August for about three weeks, and finally for good in October of 2019. In August, I knew for sure that it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to get married someday. I felt so unimportant to him. I knew he didn’t value my wants or my needs as much as he should’ve and I knew that I wouldn’t be put first as his wife if I stayed with him and we got married. But the pain I felt from missing him was almost the worst emotional pain I’ve ever felt and I still loved him, so I gave it another go. It was never the same after that breakup. What had led me to it was an awful betrayal and after he had done that to me and I had accepted that he didn’t love me like he should’ve, my trust was shattered. I wasn’t in love with him and I was too scared to be vulnerable enough to fall back into love with him, and he wasn’t trying to rebuild my trust.

I didn’t look forward to talking to him anymore after that breakup. It was emotionally draining and I was so stressed and depressed because of our relationship. I felt an obligation to be in love with him and shower him with compliments and adoration, but I couldn’t feel that way again and trying to push through that to meet all his wants and needs exhausted me. But I still loved him. And I had built a life with him at this point. His friends were my friends, I was close with his parents, I had plans for our future, and I was scared to let that all go, and I was scared to be single.

I knew I was just wasting my time and his time trying to hang onto something I didn’t actually want anymore, and that’s how I finally ended things for good in October of 2019. This time, I accepted we were done for good. We weren’t going to get back together. I was immediately relieved; I felt free; and I felt a deep peace that I hadn’t felt in months. I missed him some over the next two days, but I still felt so much peace and because of that, I felt joy. The third day was rough. I was sad, and he texted me. I caved and we talked about getting back together. I immediately felt dread and uneasy again and ended any discussion of us being together again the next day.

I’ve always believed in my gut feeling, but after that relationship, I’m never going to stop preaching the importance of listening to it. I personally believe most gut feelings are the Holy Spirit guiding you. Whether you believe that or not, please listen to that voice inside you. If you feel uneasy about something, its probably wrong. If you feel excitement and joy or peace over something, its probably right. So, if you’re asking yourself if you should stay with your boyfriend or girlfriend, listen to your gut. And to help yourself listen to your gut without your fear and your emotions getting in the way, try to take a break from your relationship. Go to a friend’s house for the weekend and have a fun sleepover or spend time with your family. Try to not talk to your boyfriend or girlfriend for a few days to get some clarity on whether or not this relationship is right for you.

Also, if you’re asking yourself if you should stay, the answer is probably no.

Until next time! Have a blessed day!

–Katie

Singing, Prayer, and Studying the Bible–How Doing Things Different Strengthened My Faith

If you’ve read my post, How I’m Getting Closer to God, you’ll know I struggled with having a relationship with God. I didn’t know the importance of praising God or detailing my prayers to Him. I thought these things were a little silly, to be honest, or at least not for me. And I didn’t get much out of reading the Bible.

Once I started doing things differently, everything changed. Let me start with prayer, because I believe that’s the most important part. Once I started doing that right, everything else followed suit.

Prayer

I used to pray very broad requests. I wanted to cover everything as efficiently as possible. I would literally say, “help everyone and everything that needs Your help” and that was basically my entire prayer. Every day. Every time I prayed. And I prayed a lot. It was a compulsion, and I believe that was because my heart and my soul were longing for more. I knew I needed to communicate better with God.

I tried here and there to slow down a little bit and be a little more descriptive with my prayers, but I still didn’t want to waste my time telling God all of my requests in detail. I just wanted Him to deal with it and let me go about my life. When I put it that way, no wonder it took so long to get close to God!

Fast forward through years of this with little change. I had been broken several times. My soul needed God. He was my last resort to try to get through some really hard times. I remember being so upset and crying, just begging God over and over to just help me. I didn’t know what He needed to do, but I needed Him to do it. This was my first step towards a real relationship with Him.

That happened a few more times for two years with a little improvement in my everyday prayers, but I still wasn’t where I wanted to be. My ex-boyfriend told me to try just having a conversation with God. Talk to Him like a friend.

This sounded so uncomfortable to me. Talk to myself. Out loud. Alone. In my room. Like a conversation.

Weeeeiiiiirrrrrd.

But I did it. And after a few minutes of awkwardness, I just sunk into it. I told God EVERYTHING I was going through. How I felt, how confused I was, how much I needed help. I spent about thirty minutes on my knees on my bed, talking to myself out loud. Since then, I’ve gotten a lot more intimate with my prayers. I talk to God like I’m telling my Father what I’m going through and what I need help with, because that’s exactly what I’m doing!

I realized that no, God doesn’t need me to detail everything for Him. He already knows. But communicating with Him brings that level of closeness, intimacy, friendship, and vulnerability that He wants from His children. And deep down, not only do we want it, we need it–desperately. Because communicating well has a big impact on you, too. Turns out, when you detail exactly what you need and what you’re struggling with to God, you feel heard and understood. You feel like since you told Him, He knows exactly what’s going on and He can handle it. Of course, He always knew, but, at least for me, it didn’t feel like that until I started telling Him more in depth.

This has helped me a lot with not worrying as much. Praying this way has allowed me to truly “put it in His hands.” A weight is lifted off my shoulders and I know that the Creator of the Universe, the King of Kings, the Lord of all, the Alpha and the Omega is taking care of it and He will make sure I’m okay.

Reading the Bible

I didn’t start studying my Bible for way too long. I just read it. And I started with Genesis every time and got to about Deuteronomy before I stopped and my Bible started collecting dust for awhile. What I knew from the rest of the Bible was from church and from stories read from the children’s storybook Bibles when I was little. And to be honest, I don’t personally believe starting with trying to read the Bible chronologically from the beginning is a good idea for beginners. Genesis is good. A little boring, but easy to understand most of the time. Exodus is less boring and still understandable, with a little more violence. Then we get to Leviticus, which is a whole lot of rules that don’t make sense to our modern minds if you don’t know the context of why these rules where put in place and why they were good ideas. To me, they seemed harsh and made me really question if God is indeed good. Leviticus is a really hard pill to swallow, if you don’t take time to understand it.

This is why I believe starting in the New Testament is a great idea. Especially Paul’s letters. Everyone is different, so do what works for you, but in my personal experience, Paul gets the message of the whole Bible across pretty well in pretty easy-to-digest ways most of the time. If you’re new to the faith, wanting to learn about the faith, or if you’re like I was and have been raised in the church but are just now trying to understand the Bible and God and Christianity for yourself, I highly suggest going to Paul’s letters and…

Study. Your. Bible. Don’t just read it. Get out a pencil and a highlighter and maybe some extra paper. Define terms, ask questions, search for answers, write down thoughts on what you’re reading, look up commentary, and look up Bible studies for what you’re reading. Do whatever you can to understand the text. You don’t have to fill your Bible up with insights the first time you go through it, but do try to take notes and learn from it. It helps, believe me. I love the YouVersion app and DesiringGod.com for Bible studies and grasping the meaning behind certain parts on the Bible. Go look them up if you don’t know them. Seriously.

Singing

Singing! Finally singing! I used to hate gospel music. Worship service was a different deal, but if a gospel song came on the radio, I hated every second of it and it actually got me really angry. It just really annoyed me. Getting closer to God, meaning the words I was singing, and finding songs that really resonated with me helped this. Acapella worship service completely cured me.

I love singing gospel now. If there’s a gospel song on the radio that I know, my mom’s minivan will be bouncing to the beat of that schnitzel more than a teenage boy listening to rap. And I will be singing over it. I wake up with songs in my heart and I sing them, sometimes I sing praise as I’m working on falling asleep, and I love singing to God while I’m doing chores or while I’m showering or sitting and waiting on something.

This is my favorite way to praise God and show Him some love. It’s also such a comfort to me and it brings me so much joy. If I’m confused and worried, I’ll sing Thy Will Be Done or Oceans. If I’m really happy, I’ll sing Good Good Father or Our God is an Awesome God. If I’m trying to cheer up or want to have a really good morning, I’ll belt out Sing and Be Happy.You can’t be mad if you’re singing that song! It’s impossible.

One extra tidbit

One other thing I’ve learned to do is just talk to God in my head or out loud, just like I’m having a conversation on the phone with God. This doesn’t feel so much like a prayer to me, more like I’m just telling Him about my life or my day. Savannah Lewie is the one who inspired me to do this. She mentions her way of doing it in her morning routine video. That’s also the video that inspired me to always sing the praise song that’s in my head. I absolutely love her videos and her faith is so inspirational. If you want to have a closer relationship with God, check her out immediately.

I hope you’ve learned something from this post that will help you get closer to God. If you have any tips you want to share on how you’ve improved your relationship with God, please leave me comment. I’d love to hear it! Have a blessed day!

Until next time,

—Katie.

How I’m Getting Closer to God

Most of my life, I thought the people in the Bible who fell on their knees shouting praises to God or poured out their hearts in prayers or found peace and comfort and joy in God were a little crazy. At the very least, I thought they were just very different than I am. Maybe back then, it was their culture to be that outspoken, that full of praise, that emotional on a whim. Maybe they also felt God in a different way than I did. I’ve met and heard about people who are like that today, but I figured they were just a different breed.

We’re much quieter in our society than what I’ve always pictured the Bible’s society being like. I don’t see much sentiment being offered to God outside of the church, and the church I spent my middle school years in was very strict, it felt like. I remember third grade being my first big year embracing Christianity. I was baptized, I tried to start a church at recess (it wasn’t successful, because, weirdly, most eight-year-olds want to play, not talk about God), I started reading my Bible regularly, I prayed A LOT out of compulsion, and I made a goal to never sin again after my eight birthday (that definitely didn’t work).

Looking back, I had a very legalistic view of my faith. Never cease praying, believe in God and never waver on that faith so I can go to Heaven, read my Bible enough, and sin as little as I can. I hated ‘big church’, or the worship service, because my preacher scared me. He would yell and most of his sermons came to “you better not do this or else you’re going to Hell!”, followed by an emotional outpour of how horrible Hell is and how horrible it would be to be separated from God. For most of my life, the only reason I wanted to go to Heaven was because I didn’t want to go to Hell. I didn’t look forward to being with God everyday and singing praises to Him, or my mansion, my robe, and my crown. It was simply the better of two options. And I honestly hated the idea of singing praises all the time.

I started to feel guilty when I sang in church. I didn’t mean the words I was singing. I didn’t actually love God. I obeyed Him, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and I was afraid of Him. Loving God didn’t make sense to me. He seemed selfish, out of touch with humans, prideful, overly strict (with ridiculous or mean rules), and most of all, He seemed so, so far away.

My final thing that I felt in church was that I had to be well-behaved. Don’t whisper unless it’s important, don’t play on Mom’s phone (unless it was a rare day when I did get to, then it felt like a prize!), listen to the sermon quietly with good posture (even though I didn’t understand it, my back hurt, I was hungry and thirsty, I was tired, and my dress itched), and draw to keep myself entertained until the service was over. Basically, I felt like I had to try my best to just not be a distraction from God to everyone in church. And that feeling is still engrained in me today. I don’t put my hands up when I sing, even though I sometimes feel like it, I make sure to take communion as quickly as possible, so I’m not holding anything up, and sometimes I catch myself singing too loudly or ‘weirdly’ and I stop myself.

By the time I was twelve or thirteen, I wanted to learn more about God and why He does what He does and why Christians do what they do and why I should love God. At fourteen, I had learned some more about God on my own and I was starting to get a new grasp on who He is. I was also going through some difficult stuff and I was experimenting with who I wanted to be, and I used society as my compass for that, not God. By fifteen, I knew I needed to change. I learned things little by little, but I was having a very hard time getting close to God and having a personal relationship with Him. I wasn’t even sure what that looked like.

I asked people, I read a lot of articles, I looked in the Bible, and I watched YouTube videos by Christians trying to find the secret to having a relationship with God. The answer was always: read your Bible and pray. I’d been doing that my whole life! Sure, there’s been a little improvement, but I felt so stuck then. I knew there was something else I needed to do to get to the level of the Paul, Solomon, Mary, and the disciples.

I had never read a whole book of anything in the Bible past Deuteronomy, so what I did know from the rest of the entire Bible were verses quoted in church (most of which I forgot) and the basic idea of a few stories from children’s storybook Bibles when I was younger. I knew Creation, Abraham, Exodus, animal sacrifice, lots and lots of rules, and the harsh punishments for breaking those laws. I finally decided to give myself a break and I read Paul’s letters. I saw God in a very different light and I started to understand Him and know His character and His love.

It was still difficult for me to understand the Bible, so I started reading devotionals on the YouVersion Bible app and it really helped me understand the context and meaning behind certain verses or books. There were also devotionals that were talking about getting close to God. I started taking notes and once I was comfortable with studying God through devotionals, I started studying the Bible by myself, taking notes, looking up commentary, and really digging in.

By the way, my favorite devotional was Live By the Spirit by John Piper. It pushed me to get intimate with God and I finally decided to try praying in a different way. I detailed my requests and I told God my feelings and what my struggles are. I talked to Him like a friend, for the first time ever. I felt stupid at first, because 1) I was talking out loud to myself on my knees on my bed and 2) God already knew everything in my heart, so why would I need to tell Him? Before that night, I had been very generalized and broad with my requests and my thanksgiving. The way I spoke to God reminds me of some married couples’ shorthand of grunts, so this new way of praying was uncomfortable at first, but after a few minutes, it was just flowing out of me and I didn’t want to stop.

I felt peace and I felt a weight being taken off my shoulders. I knew God already understood my struggles, my wants, and my needs no matter how I prayed, but something about communicating myself well made me feel like He understood. Because I knew He understood, I knew He could take care of everything and I truly felt like I had put everything in His hands, and I knew I no longer had to worry about it. And though God doesn’t need you to talk to Him, He craves that attention from His children. Praying like that is what has made the biggest change in how close I am to God.

I found Savannah Lewie on YouTube this past year and I was absolutely blown away by her faith and her joy in God. In one of her videos (I think her Morning Routine video), she mentioned how she talks to God while she’s walking her dog or driving. The way she described it didn’t sound like a typical prayer, but more like she had just picked up her phone and been like, “Hey, God, here’s what’s going on right now.” She also said in her Morning Routine video that she will sing praises whenever she feels like it. I’ve implemented both talking to God and singing to Him in my life. Its drawn me a lot closer to Him. I really like the singing and every now and then, I’ll have a worship song in my head and I’ll go on my own little worship service and its really nice. I recommend checking Savannah out, by the way, she’s amazing and very inspiring.

I decided to get baptized again at sixteen, because I felt like I didn’t know God and I didn’t know all I was committing to when I had first gotten baptized. After my baptism, my then-boyfriend’s mom said something that’s stuck with me: a relationship with God is like a marriage. And it is! It requires work, it requires openness and intimacy, it requires really trying to understand who God is and what He’s saying, and it requires your time. When you read your Bible or spend twenty minutes in prayer even when you’d rather watch tv, and you do that consistently, it really connects you to God. You also have to make Him a priority, just like you would a spouse, and once He’s a priority in your actions, He’ll become a priority in your thoughts, as in, you’ll think about Him more, which will lead to more joy.

The last two pieces of advice I want to leave you with are this:

1) Obeying God is so important. You will mess up, but if you consistently try to do the best you can, that will help your walk will God immensely. If you feel in your gut you should or shouldn’t be doing something, that’s the Holy Spirit talking. Let Him guide you. And go to Him when you need help.

2) Choosing an objective for yourself is a good way to get started in studies. I wanted to prepare myself to be a good wife, which also turned into wanting to embrace Biblical womanhood. I studied Proverbs 31, devotionals about Proverbs 31, the book of Ruth, and anything else I could find about the subject. From there, I started reading Paul’s letter to learn how to be a better Christian. I still do both of those things, but my new thing is learning the history of the Bible so I can know more cultural context and understand more of why God made some of His decisions.

I’m not as close to God as I want to be. I never will be, until I’m by His side in Heaven, but I have come so much further than I ever thought possible a year ago. I hope this article will help you grown your relationship with God.

Have a blessed day, until next time! –Katie