Real Talk

I’ve Moved!

Time to change your bookmarks! I have moved everything over to my new Blogger account. Check it out!

treyfenwick.blogspot.com

See you there!

Going All In

‎”If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you.” - John 15:19 MSG

This is a verse that has really stood out to me lately. It truly reveals a lot about what we will go through as Christians. When we decide to go all in, and really become “sold out” for Christ, the world is not going to understand it. We are different. God says himself that we are to live “no longer on the world’s terms,” but on HIS terms. This requires us to live a life unlike anything that is sold to us in the world. Even some of the people closest to us will not be able to relate to us anymore. And as we continue to grow in Christ, this sometimes may cause separation between us and people we were once close to. Does this mean we are to cut them out completely? No. We are still to be a light to those people, and show them the love of Christ, but sometimes when people grow, they grow apart.

There will be times where we feel lonely, or isolated, or like no understands us. We feel disconnected because we don’t feel like we ever truly “fit in” with the people around us, or ever “fit in” with this world. But that is exactly what this verse is telling us, that God has called us to be different, and for a greater purpose that we can see or fathom. We are not of this world. So why would we truly expect to (or even want to) “fit in” or be like every one else? Jesus never fit in. He was the biggest misfit of them all. No one still “in the world” could understand him, and he was PERFECT! Why would we expect to be treated any differently?

But I can promise you this: the peace that comes from living in the Word, and living your relationship with Jesus Christ to the fullest transcends all understanding, and will quickly make you forget any of the hardships or “sacrifices” that come along with being Christian. There are so many times we feel like we’re not ready to go all in, or we’re not ready to make all these changes in our lives yet. We know it’s selfish, but it’s natural for us to have these thoughts. But let’s not be fence sitters anymore! God says Himself that we will spit those that are lukewarm out of His mouth! Enough with all this big talk about what we wanna do or should do, or how we wanna be all in for Christ, and wanna one day tell the world, etc. Quit talking and do it! Take the next step in your walk with God! The second you start living your life for Him and not for yourself, it changes everything. This does not mean there won’t be hard times (because wouldn’t you know it that the second you get serious in your walk with God, the devil with do anything to find that chink in the armor to knock you back down) but with God you can get through them all.

These are basically just 4AM ramblings that I hope will stand out for someone. It’s a culminations of thoughts that have been laid on my mind and heart, and new things I’m learning every day in my walk. I say all this as someone still learning these lessons everyday. My walk is by no means perfect, but I’m tried of being lukewarm. I’m ready to go all in, and I encourage you to do the same. To sum it all up: we are not of this world. We will never truly belong in this world because we were not made for here. We are called to a greater purpose, and a greater plan than we can imagine. It’s just all about making the decision to leave yourself and this world behind, and going all in for Jesus.

You will never regret it.

I’m not trying to get my way in the world’s way. I’m trying to get your way, your Word’s way. - Psalm 17:4 MSG

Seasons

So I feel like a lot of the posts I make here “piggy back” off of sermons that I hear at Sub30, but I think that’s probably because almost every sermon I hear there speaks to me. They feel like they’re tailored specifically for me by God in His perfect timing. This past Wednesday Kerri Weems spoke about seasons in your life, and how to get through them whether good or bad. From the second she said what her sermon was about I knew it was for me. I feel like I have been in a “season” since the beginning of 2011. It’s weird for me to even be writing this because I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before. Up until this year I feel like my life has always been pretty perfect. Not to sound like I have this amazing life, but I know that I have been blessed to have the most amazing family, and I have always been lucky to have a few solid friends around me. Not that these things have changed so to speak, but 2011 has definitely been different.

Right when 2011 began, I went through something tough with a friend. Shortly after that my sister got married, which is awesome but definitely an adjustment and change for our family. Then I found out my grandma, who I am extremely close to, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Tack on some college issues, and various other bad things and you’ve got yourself a season. It’s been a season of change: things changing that I’m not used to that have required major adjustments. It almost feels like I have this cloud constantly on me that’s just making me not feel “right.” I don’t really feel like myself. It’s a feeling that’s completely foreign to me which makes it even worse. It’s not in my nature to tell anyone when I’m feeling sad or insecure or anything like that, but I feel like it’s important for me to talk about it because I feel like it’s something we can all relate to. 

I keep finding myself wanting to move forward in my life so badly because I feel like I hate the place that I’m in. I just want be done with school, get a job, get married, have kids and move forward from this. These random insecurities are coming up that I’ve never had before that make me feel like I’m going crazy. I feel a little bit out of control and just generally aimless about what I am going to do with my life. But then I heard Kerri’s message. It hit me that this is just a season of my life, and one that I WILL get through. But it won’t be by anything I say or do, it will be by what God does through me and around me. When I was confiding in a friend about this, they said that you have to go through this season so that God can prepare you for the better plan that He has for you. This immediately hit me. If I don’t go through the bad seasons, how will I appreciate the good? The bad seasons will change and mold you into the man or woman that God needs you to be to prepare you for the plans He has for you that are beyond your wildest imagination.

In these seasons we have to continually give it up to God. While it is important to have friends to confide in when times are tough (and I have been extremely blessed to have some friends I can talk to, and it is important for us to be that friend for others who are struggling), no one truly understand what we’re going through like God does. He hears our every thought and knows what we’re going through. He CREATED us, so who better to go to than Him who will know exactly how we feel without us even needing to use words? We have to pray and open our Bibles. I KNOW that for me when I am staying on top of my Daily Devo’s my days are better. Even just a chapter a day can drastically change our attitude and outlook. We have to be in the Word and building our relationship with God or we will NEVER be happy. We were all created with a part of us that can only be filled by God, so if we are not living in Him, how can we ever be truly whole and happy? I think C.S. Lewis said it best:

“If I discover within myself a desire in which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

If we were not made for this world, how can we expect for any worldly thing or relationship to bring us happiness and contentment? When we try to find satisfaction and happiness in worldly things or relationships, we will never feel happy. THIS is why we must continue to strengthen our relationship with God, because it is the ONLY way that we will ever be truly whole!

I also realized that throughout the good seasons, I hadn’t been thanking God for all the ways He has blessed me. I hadn’t stopped to realize that in the midst of the bad things this year, that God is constantly blessing me. We have to remember to thank God even when times are good. We can’t just fall to our knees every time something goes wrong, we need to be on our knees thanking God for constantly blessing us even though we sin. We don’t deserve any of the blessings he gives us, yet he gives regardless because He loves us.

I know it’s late and I’m rambling but I hope this hit home for someone that might be going through a season like me, and give them hope that although things may seem tough now, we have to go through these seasons to get to the place God already has mapped for us if we are living for Him. I wanna close with a verse that we all know that was in the message at Sub30:

Ecclesiastes 3

¹ There is a time for everything, 
   and a season for every activity under the heavens:

 ² a time to be born and a time to die, 
   a time to plant and a time to uproot, 
 ³ a time to kill and a time to heal, 
   a time to tear down and a time to build, 
 ⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh, 
   a time to mourn and a time to dance, 
 ⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, 
   a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, 
 ⁶ a time to search and a time to give up, 
   a time to keep and a time to throw away, 
 ⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend, 
   a time to be silent and a time to speak, 
 ⁸ a time to love and a time to hate, 
   a time for war and a time for peace.

¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

2-20-11

So I don’t know if I have any specific thing I wanna say today, but I just wanted to post a few verses that I read last night that stuck out to me.

Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats. Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced.

James 3:16-17

This past Wednesday at Sub30, the speaker talked about how as Christians, we need to have unity with one another. Being a Christian is not about putting someone down to make yourself look better, it’s about having relationships with one another that glorify God. God wants us to have relationships with people that unite us with Him, and bring us closer to Him. At the end of the day, the fights among us mean nothing, but unity between fellow Christians will help us all grow and prosper, and instill wisdom in us.

I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.

I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
the feeling of hitting the bottom.

But there’s one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.

They’re created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!

I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He’s all I’ve got left.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
to the woman who diligently seeks.

Lamentations 3:19-25

This verse is completely unrelated to the one above, but it really stuck out to me. In my last post, I talked about some people that I know that went through the darkest of times where it seems like most people might never fully recover. But the common theme in their stories and in this verse is HOPE. Without God and without HOPE, what do we have to look to when times get hard or when we’re going through trials? If we continue to “diligently seek”after Him, we will have a hope that nothing on this earth can provide that will always get us through the hard times.