Be in the Know

These posts are really close together because the lessons have already happened and I'm posting retroactively. It's the present past.

So along with the storying portion of Discipling Group, there is also the discipleship essentials component.
The first two discipleship essential was learning about God the Son and God the Father. It was a lot of scripture reading on the various characteristics of Jesus and God.

What I gathered from these two lessons is that as followers of Christ, we are able to understand and trust him better, and hence follow him better, when we know his character, when we know his traits and history.  That was a hard lesson for me to learn a few years ago. I had titled my blog "Knowing God" because I had trouble trusting God. After all my years as a believer, I found gaps in my faith. I wasn't truly spending time to know God like I would a friend or lover, and so when it came time to trust God with big decisions or tough choices, I had trouble taking that step of trust and faith. But when I took that time to know God, to understand him and reflect on his character, it became so clear and easy to trust Him.

That's how it should be with the hubs. When I make an effort to learn his character, I am able to trust him better and understand why he says the weird things he says or does the things he does (or not do). I can understand where he's coming from and the thought/reason behind it. I may not agree but it definitely puts me at more ease when I understand where he's coming from. Still have a long ways to go as I don't think he even knows why he says the things he says or does the things he does. I guess boys aren't as reflective as girls...lol.  While a lot of times, I'm still hesitant to follow where the hubs lead, it's at least getting easier to reason that that's the way he thinks because of this and that, there's a reason to the madness. A mad reason but a reason at that. And this only comes from spending time learning and knowing his character, his traits, his past and present.

Given, Christ is perfect and the hubs is not. God is consistent, the hubs is not. Still...there can only be good things that come from spending time with another person and truly getting to know them deeply...what hurts them, what brings them joy, what are their hopes and desires.

Attraction

Lesson 2 of DG was on the story of John the Baptist (Matt 3:1-6, 11-17; John 1:19-34). John was one of those guys who really knew how to draw attention. People came from all over to hear him speak and be baptized by him. But it wasn't necessarily just him as a person that attracted people to him, it was also his message. People came to hear what he had to say and what he had to say pointed people to Jesus. He spoke so boldly and clearly about Christ that not only were people attracted to John, they were ultimately attracted to Jesus!

So simple lesson learned this week: How am I attracting people to Jesus. How am I attracting people to the hubs? When I talk about Jesus, do people want to know who Jesus is and want to follow him? Do I even talk about Jesus? When I talk about the hubs, do people want to know more about him and think highly of him? When you read my blog, do you think my hubs is this really amazing man who you all want to know the true identity of and follow his blog and artwork? Do I speak highly of him in public?

If I don't, I should! Go check out the hubs' website! It will blow your mind :)

It's a choice

The Discipling Group at C-stone follows the format of 24 lessons where each lesson has 2 components: a Bible story and a "discipleship essential". The Bible story is told through "storying" where each member of the group takes turn learning the story well enough to retell the story from memory without missing any important elements. This is a great tool in not only understanding the Bible better but to easily share it with someone else. We all tell stories and enjoy listening to people tell theirs so it is a very natural way to learn and communicate. The second component of each lesson are some basic essentials for all followers of Jesus to know.

As mentioned in my previous post, the main goal of joining DG is to learn to be a better follower of Christ and in turn be able to apply those lessons to following the hubs better. The first DG was just an intro where my leader showed us how storying is done through the story of Jesus' birth, or actually, it was the story of the angel visiting Mary and telling her she was with child (Luke 1:26-38).

Now I have read this passage countless times and was wondering if there was really anything new I could learn about following God and in turn, the hubs. Mary was faithful and trusted God that she was going to be with child and the child will be the Messiah. God told me to trust him and that marrying the hubs was his will for me. Ok, did that. Nothing new...

But I thought about it some more and really put myself in the sandals of Mary and came to this thought: While Mary probably didn't have a choice that God chose her to be the mother of Jesus, she did have a choice in believing God, in following through with His commands and a choice in her attitude and response. She replied “I am the Lord’s servant,”,“May your word to me be fulfilled.” and then she goes into a song of praise!

Following God is a choice and our attitude and response should be that of willingness, trust and praise. Following the hubs is also a choice and my attitude needs to be of willingness, of trust and joy for how he loves and cares for me :)

Following God and then some!

As a Christian, I follow Christ. I am his disciple and he is my Teacher. I committed my life to following God a long time ago, I told him I would follow him to the ends of the earth. So why is he placing this notion of following, on my heart? Well, it's because He knows I'm willing to follow Him but I'm not willing to follow the person He has assigned to lead me closer to Him...my husband... God was basically saying to me, you're not truly following me unless you follow your husband as well. Say what?!

Now, putting aside all discussions and debates on how wives should be submissive, I won't get into that here, I truly believe that God has placed husbands as head of the household, to lead and love their wives as Christ leads and loves the Church. There's no question about it, that is the husband's role, it's in the Bible! And yet, I just for the life of me...can't do it...at least not without screaming and kicking, dragging my feet with a pout on my face...

Before I go any further, let me state that I love my husband! He has the purest of hearts, is the most amazingly talented artist ever, extremely funny in the dorkiest sense, a total smarty-pants, so incredibly cute and the best part, knows and loves God!  But marriage is the scariest thing!! After 3 years, I'm sometimes surprised I said yes! Seriously! And now that I'm in it, it is the hardest thing! I don't doubt that God intended the hubs and I to be together.We are perfect for each other but that perfection is a work in progress. A long work in progress... God's intentions were so not what I had in mind.

Up until 5 years ago, I didn't think I would ever get married. I was happy being single. I loved my independence. The thought of having to care for, be considerate of and unconditionally love another person forever just sounded impossible to me. I'm all for caring, loving and be considerate of my friends and family but if I didn't like it and wanted to, I could just go home, I could move away, I could stop being friends with them, I could just stop. You can't stop with your spouse.

Anyways, back to the point, the difficulty with following the hubs probably has to do with how I was raised. Parents, church, school and society raised and taught me to be a leader, to take initiative. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself or else, gather people around you to do it for you.  I grew up with very few dependable male leaders that I could respect. I'm very independent and can make decisions for myself and others very easily, so why would I rely on someone to lead and and make decisions when I can do it faster and better?!

But God was saying to me, "Wow, are you humble much?There's more to being a leader than what you've learned from this world and while I've given you opportunities to lead with the skills I gave you, you need to work on your following skills! You need to know what it really means to follow me and be my disciple.

And as it happens, my church is spending this year focusing on God's great commission for us, to go and make disciples of all nations! But to make disciples, you need to know what it means to be a disciple yourself. So I signed up for a Discipling Group (DG).

So this blog is mainly going to be on the lessons I gleaned from DG on what it means to be a disciple of Christ and how I can apply those lessons to following my husband better! So keep reading...I can only imagine what God is going to do to humble me and refine me to be more like Christ.

The new blog

It's been almost 5 years since I last blogged. I really don't know what happened...I was so consistent for so long...perhaps not much to say or perhaps too much to say to write it all down.

I've thought about returning to blogging many times but never a thought on what to write. Why now? Just decided it was time. While I have many hesitations about blogging again, I realized as I read back on my old posts that blogging was when I was most reflective of God in my life. There were so many instances of the smallest events or situations in life that would draw me back to my relationship with God. Blogging helped me grow.

So for those who have never read my blog or haven't read in a while, I've given my blog a new title. I use to change it every so often based on what I thought the theme for my life was currently. When I first started blogging in my early 20s, my blog was titled "Live Out Loud". I was fresh out of university, I was excited about life, I wanted my faith to be lived out loud. Then in my mid-20s, my excitement for life went down, God was really challenging my trust in him so it became "Knowing God" because I had the hardest time trusting God and what I realized was that to trust God is to know God.

I have no idea what happened to my late 20s, no wait, I do. I started a relationship and then got married! I actually was secretly blogging during those years but don't think those posts will ever go public :P

Now entering my 30s, God has been putting on my heart to understand what it means to follow Him.

So hope you will journey with me as I learn and grow in Following God :)