Fearful and Wonderful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhiPIFzqF7A&feature=relmfu
"I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

When I see creation, as an artist, I am jealous on a daily basis. God is SO amazing, and He only needs to breathe a word and His art comes into existence!
What He does and creates amazes me; I know there is no way anything I could ever make would ever come close to comparing to His glorious works of art.

I think about this regularly, especially when I see the colors of the sky just after the sun goes down. Yet, one thing I neglect to remember is how wonderfully made He made me. And how wonderful is that!

One thing I can't ever forget is that God created laughter. Of all things, He decided He wanted us to have a physical way to express our happiness to each other. Not only that, but He created in us so that when one person laughs, it makes others laugh too. Now lets take it a step further to say that we laugh at things that bring us joy, science has now shown that laughter produces "endorphins" in our brains, giving us more joy!
Isn't our God amazing? He created us to that when we are happy, we automatically do stuff that just makes us happier. How cool is that?! :)

You see, God loves us.
I think Christians forget that, that God loves us. He created us so that we could enjoy life, and He created us so that we would enjoy life. I mean from the very start, God wanted us to live the best life that we can live.
We just don't choose it sometimes.

God is not a lawmaker.
He doesn't lay down rules and simply sit and judge you as you line up trying to get into Heaven.
God is a father--"Abba"="Daddy".
He's a lover, with the church as His bride.
God wants to know you and wants us to know Him, intimately!

Here's where the cool part begins, especially as God's daughters:
When God created us, we were the epitome of Creation.
If you follow the path of what was Created, things just got more complex and amazing and beautiful as they were created, and the last to be formed was woman from Adam's rib.
We are God's Masterpiece.

I don't know how much you may know about art, but let me tell you about what I know about being an artist:
When I draw something good, I want to show EVERYONE.
The problem is, this world is full of people who don't always care enough for art, so if I showed everyone, they wouldn't appreciate it fully. The art isn't any less beautiful, but the people's lack of care makes the art seem less amazing. (Not to mention, it hurts to hear people casually say, "Oh, that's cool." to something you spent hours and days on.)
No, when I create my best works, I save them somewhere special, where they won't get bent or ruined accidentally. Then, I only pull it out and share it with people who show genuine appreciation for it, and in that appreciation I find my utmost joy. :)

Now replace myself with God, and replace that beautiful masterpiece with you.

God loves you. He is amazed at how beautiful you turned out, and extremely proud that He created you. He loves you.
God knows that you will be the happiest only with those who truly appreciate you and how He created you. He wants to protect you from all the "Eh, it's alright."s and the "Oh, sweet."s in life!
He wants you to hear every "Wow, that's amazing!" and "So beautiful!!" that you deserve to hear from everyone!

This is why He says to us to save ourselves for the right someone.

God's not some fun-sucker, trying to make our lives boring; He's a majestic God who wants you to have the best life you can have.

And He knows what's best for you; He's the Creator after all, isn't He?

Faded Vision

It's been a while since I've written something for here, and I think I know the problem.
I've been losing sight of Jesus.

At the end of last summer, I had fallen heads over heels for His love and for Jesus, my amazing Savior who loved me even though I was a sinner. Now, that love has faded slowly away into maybe a liking of some sort that is by no means what God wants from me...

I can see everyday how I try slightly to worship God and be good, but I've been lukewarm and I simply don't live up to his standards. I wonder if it is because I don't suffer, or because I haven't fallen into sin recently, but I know that Paul says we should never sin just to receive grace more.

I've taken a closer look at my prayer life with God, and it's not very strong, I must sadly say.
I think maybe a couple times a week, when I'm noticing the distance between me and God, I'll pray to Him before I go to sleep, and if I'm awake enough and my Bible is close at hand, I'll read a random passage, think about it for a minute, pray, then sleep.
I seriously wonder how I got this way, when I used to fall asleep with the Bible in my hands or under my head every night because I was reading and fell asleep, and when I used to read chapters and books at a time rather than verses and sections.


Today in Chapel, my wonderful friend, Kristian, spoke on God's love for us.
He spoke from the heart about how we don't consider what love God has for us often enough. How Jesus, someone God truly treasured, came down and was torn apart, beaten, spat on, nailed to a cross, and murdered, so that we, the murderers and criminals, could walk free.
How crazy is that?!
He also said that sometimes we think of God and Jesus as separate, with different loves--Jesus's seemingly more caring and compassionate--when in reality, Jesus came to show God's love for us. The love that we see Jesus give, THAT is God's love he has for us!
Kristian pointed out that all Jesus did was show people love. He showed love to people whom in our day would be the emo kids and goths... but all we did was try to kill him for it!



Then he referred to this video that the school watched back in November on God's love.
I have only gotten the chance to see this once(with bad quality--I could hardly see or hear it!), so I'm posting it here and watching it again to try to renew my faith in Christ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjSio8jur2Y

We are the ones on this train, going by, living our short lives, and most of us never even realizing what God did for us, to save us, to keep us alive.

"For God So Loved the World that He Gave His One and Only Son, that Whoever Believes in Him Shall Not Perish, but have Eternal Life."
- John 3:16 (NIV)

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