Let Love Sleep

Think of your favorite classic love story.

Beauty & the Beast? Where love changes the beast into a handsome prince and him & belle live happily ever after in a redecorated castle?

Pride & Prejudice? Where pride blinds Elizabeth bennett from mr. Darcy's love, but in time he sweeps her off her feet.

Cinderella? Where Cinderella is tormented by her ugly step sisters, but with the help of her fairy godmother and a few nice mice she catches the eye and heart of Prince Charming.

Princess Bride? Where Westley devotes his life to Buttercup and sacrifices everything to find her and be with her.

How many of you dreamed of a romance like one of those?
I still am. Who wouldn't want their true love to do anything (even crazy things) to show their love and protect them? But you know what I find even more beautiful than that? All these stories have two other things in common. They are each others first love. They never mention either person having past relationships. And the other thing is that neither person was looking for love when they found each other. Isn't that the most romantic thing about the stories? The princess and the prince were fully pure in their relationships. They had never loved another, let alone dated or kissed another. Isn't it interesting that neither person was looking for a relationship? They were living their own lives and trusted that the right person would come into their lives when it was the right time.
Purity has ground rules, but besides those rules, there is a lot for the individual to decide. This is my opinion on purity and these are the standards at which I hold my purity. I see purity and love as an apple. Have you ever been apple picking and you find a rich red apple without a single bruise, scratch, or marking? You protect that apple like it is a jewel. You can almost taste the over flowing flavors of the apple. As much as you want to take a big bite out of it right away, you wait til you get home. Once you get home, you wash the apple and at the right time you take a big juicy bite. It is the most delicious apple you have ever tasted, it is filled with flavor. That is just how your love and purity should be. You have the most beautiful apple, not a single bruise, scar, or plemish marking it. The apple is pure. You need to protect love because it is a jewel. Song of Songs 3:5 says, "Do not awake love until it so desires" Its not just talking about not kissing or having sex. It is talking about not falling in love until God shows you the one he has for you. When you awaken love before its time or you start to move into a relationship with someone that God does not have for you, you are not trusting God with your life and your relationships. You are taking it into your own hands. In this day and age love is taken very lightly, people fall in and out of love every other week. And they sacrifice a lot for it. They give their hearts to people, expecting them to magically heal it. And once they realize that that person can't heal their heart, they walk away and find someone knew. They always end up emotionally broken and exhausted. When you start to like a person, you are awakening love, you are no longer seeing them as a brother or sister. Timothy 5:1-2 " Treat younger men as brothers". You would never flirt with your brother! Guard your heart from falling into cheap love that you will regret. At the right time, God will show you the person he has hand picked for you. Would you rather have a 1 year warranty used car after 1 year warranty used car or wait for God to give you a custom built, one of a kind, lamborghini with a lifetime warranty? Live your life and accomplish some of the amazing things God has for you to do while you are single. Focus on him.
Read the story of Ruth, she looses her husband and is in a foreign land with her sister in law, Orpah & mother in law, Naomi. Ruth and Orpah have two choices, they could go back home and find themselves new husbands or they can stay and take care of their elderly mother in law who is also a widow. Orpah chooses to leave, but Ruth demands to stay with Naomi. Ruth learns to provide for Naomi, by going to a wealthy man's field and collecting the left over grains the harvesters leave behind. Ruth was focused and determined. The owner of the field was named Boaz. He took notice of her, he made sure that none of his servants touched her or rebuked her. He was protecting Ruth. In time, they fell in love with each other and he did everything he could to get her hand in marriage. Whats interesting is that Ruth nor Boaz were desperately looking for a relationship to jump into. They both were doing their own work and once God led them into each other's lives then they began to persue one another in God's timing. Let Love Sleep.

It is NOT about us

A while ago, I was asked to lead a small scripture verse discussion. I skipped from scripture to scripture trying to find the one that God had for me to share. Surprisingly enough, it was my mom who was the one to suggest the verse. It was perfect for what I was feeling the need to speak about. It was 1 Corinthians 10:31. Since you probably do not have a Bible in reaching distance, here is the scripture verse in the NIV.

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."--1 Cor. 10:31
In this verse Paul is talking about, even the seemingly "little" things we do, let everything honor God and bring Him glory. Every aspect of our lives should be for the glory of God. Whether it is relationships, school, responspibilities, or anything. It is not about us. It is about God.

Whom Shall I send?

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.
And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."
Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" --Isa. 6:1-7

God not only forgave Isaiah for being a man of unclean lips, but he also cleansed his lips! Isaiah knew that he was a sinful man and did not deserve or even survive standing in the presence of the pure and holy God. When you first became saved you came to the realization that you were a sinner who did not deserve to be forgiven and cleansed from your sin by God! Jesus Christ took your sin and died a sinful man even though he lived a sinless life. Even after being saved by God's grace we still at times sin! How annoyed do you get when someone does something against you, says they are sorry and then the next day does the exact same thing only to once again ask for forgiveness! At some point you don't want to forgive them anymore! I had a friend that would constantly forget that she made plans to hang out with me. We planned to have a sleep over on a friday night about 3 days in advance. When friday night came around I called and asked her what time she was going to come over. Come to find out she had forgotten our plans entirely and was already at her other friend's house for a sleep over! You're probably thinking, "she didn't want to hang out with me so she just said she forgot" but the thing was she was the one that asked me if I wanted to have the sleep over! This happened about three more consecutive times at that point I was fed up and I really did not want to forgive her anymore! That happened only a few times, can you even imagine how many times we sin against God and then ask for forgiveness?? Unlike humans, God forgives us if we wholeheartedly repent! That is the amazing thing about grace! God's grace is constantly saving you! Take a look at Isa. 6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" After we became saved we can't just sit in God's grace! We have to go and do all the things God has for us! God wants to send you and use you! Coming into God's grace is only step 1. Doing what God has called you to do is step 2. God has given each and everyone one of us a divine calling. Ask God to show you the calling he has for your life and he will. But you also have to prepare. There were two farmers that were suffering from a huge drout. The 2 farmers both believed in God and prayed that God would send rain, but only 1 of the farmers went out and prepared his fields for rain. When the rain did come which of the farmer's fields thrived? God will use you. There is no doubt about that. The question is are you willing to prepare your fields? Are you willing to shut off your bedroom door, computer, and cell phone and spend time with God, seeking God's will? Are you willing to remove temptations from your life? You may want to change the world and God may have that in store for you, but if you give into temptations you give up a little bit of your destiny. What is really important to you? It was Isaiah's choice to say "Here am I. Send me!" God has an amazing destiny lined up for you.Do whatever it takes to keep your destiny. Be the one that God sends.

Cutting the Knife

Recently, I had to seperate myself from one of my closest friends. We have known each other for forever. We used to live right next to each other and we shared our deep thoughts and secrets with each other.It was really painful for me to seperate myself but I knew that I had to let go, he was not the best friend I once knew and could trust. As I went through this time, I did a lot of thinking, writing, and reading. Multiple times I wanted to call my old friend and talk to him, but I knew I shouldn't. At moments I felt alone and it reminded me of the struggles we go through when trying to stop sinning. We know that cutting off our sin would be the best thing for us, but we allow ourselves to fall into temptation. It is a hard and long cycle of repenting and sinning that some people just give up and live in their sin. In 2 kings 17:13 the Lord warns Israel and Judah to turn from their evil ways. We are warned to run from sin, or to avoid situations that you know will tempt you to sin. Sin will cut you sooner or later. You cannot listen to people swear if you are struggling with swearing. Sometimes you have to cut off the sin that is cutting you. God doesn't command for us to turn from sin because he doesn't want us to have any fun, he knows sin will hurt you and he warns you to save you from the pain. When your mom tells you to study for school, so you can graduate on time and get into a college, she’s not trying to suck the fun out of your youth, she wants you to be successful in the future. But it is still up to you to study and work hard in order for you to be successful. You can have the fun now, but it wont be fun when you have to have summer school or stay back a year. This is how God is with sin. He wants you to be closer to him and he wants you to be happy, but if you decide to do whatever you want your sin will come in between you and God and even though its fun for the time being, it wont be fun later on. Sin is an emotion hang over. You drink way too much and then you have to deal with the hang over afterwards. But next weekend you do the same thing and when the hang over comes around you regret drinking as much as you did. Your human self wants the pleasure of sin while your spirit telling you to lean on God. Cut the knife, before it cuts you any deeper. Lean on God and ask him to help you.

Jesus is in your boat

A while ago, I had been dealing with so much more than I thought I could handle. It was so easy to just look at the mess and ask God where he was in the midst of all of the chaos. One night I began to read Mark 4 and the story of Jesus and his disciples on the boat. Verses 35-40 really stood out to me.

"That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side."
Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.
A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.
Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" Mark 4:35-40

Sometimes you will feel like God has fallen asleep on you and you are left alone in the storm, like you have to handle the situation in your own strength. But in reality Jesus was in control the entire time. God was not up in heaven saying, "Oh no! where did that storm come from? Jeez I hope my son can handle it! I didn't see that storm coming!" He knew that the storm would hit and that the men would be scared. In verse 39-40 do you see how calm Jesus is? He gets up and tells the storm to stop and then says, "Why are you so afraid?". He allowed it to happen so the men would learn to have faith and trust in him. If the boat sank Jesus would have been swimming to shore with the other men. Jesus was with them every step of the way.
Jesus is in your boat (life). Even at times it seems like you've been calling out and he’s just fallen asleep. He is still there and if you trust and cling on to him, he will rescue you. One weekend I was having trouble sleeping, I was exhausted, but my busy schedule left me no time for even a power nap. Monday came along and I had to be up at 8:30am to go to work. I could barely keep my eyes open. I got home at 11:30am and realized I had no time to sleep because I had to get ready to go to my college color and design class. I begged my mom to let me sleep in, but as usual she refused. No more than 10 minutes later, my professor calls and cancels class! I was as ecstatic as a sleep deprived girl could be. I went right back to bed and slept till I had to get ready for my other class at 3pm. I wholeheartedly believe God had my professor cancel class just for me. My professor never gave a reason for cancelling class and the weather that day was great. God was in my boat. He knew how tired I was and he cared so much about me that he actually cancelled class for me! My God is a loving God. He let me know that he wasn't asleep in my life and that he was paying attention to every pain and every happiness I faced.

The Blog

Hey. My name is Jolene and I am a normal teenager, who is striving to love God and love others. I am new to the blog world, so it will probably take me some time to get used to it. The reason I decided to create this blog, is to tell others about God's love for them. My blog will more than likely be filled with my thoughts about various subjects and things.