My Nine (Somewhat Secret) Dreams

Several weeks ago a friend of mine posted her ten (somewhat secret) dreams on her blog. As I read through her dreams, I became increasingly encouraged to talk to God about mine. I think we all honestly have dreams that we don't really talk about, sometimes not even to God, but we should! God loves our dreams, he loves to hear them, he loves to encourage them, he places them in our hearts and loves to see us take steps in him to grow them. I commented on my friend's post and God knew I would need a little encouraging of my own, so he used her to encourage me to post my dreams. She messaged me later and everything that she said was what I needed to hear from God. That next day I was intentional about getting alone with God and really reflecting on what is in my heart, what he has placed there, and writing those dreams down. I prayed over them and handed them over to God and then laid them down...which I should not have done! I realize that now. Yes, I got busy and school started back, but that can't be an excuse, so, here goes! Here are my nine (because two of them were really similar so I made them one), (somewhat secret) dreams that I plan to be working towards with God in 2015 and the years to come. These are close to my heart and I have kept them there for a very long time. Hopefully sharing them with you will help me get more intentional about working towards them, giving them to God and knowing that God has placed them in my heart and He will gladly help me achieve them. So here they are, my nine (somewhat secret) dreams.

1. I want my worship ministry to be used in a mighty way
     I have been leading people in worship for quite some time now and it is truly my heart. I want to share my songs and music, share my passion for praise and lead people into God's presence through worship. I want to serve God and serve people with my worship ministry.

2.  I want to be so full of the word that it gushes out over every part of my life
      Every time I think about that the best word that comes to mind is "gushes." I want God to fill me so full of his love and his word that every person around me feels him and wants to know him...I want his spirit to "gush" out all over the place and let people know there is something truly different about me and that is that I know the Son of God personally! And they can too!

3. I want to be a wife after God's own heart, to become a wife that honors God and then my husband above everything else
     I want the phrase "made in his image and likeness" to mean something deeper. I want that to mean that in every facet of my marriage and my life I am a portrait of Jesus. Since before I met my husband God has been working on me with this. I began really studying about being a woman of this nature in undergrad and it has never left my mind. I read and pray and strive to do this in my actions but I'm not always successful. I want to be a woman so full of faith that it overflows to everyone around me and it covers my husband daily. I want God's love to gush out of me and I want my husband to draw strength from that. I want to be a woman that my husband is proud to call his wife and I want to honor God with my marriage and my role as a wife.

4. I want to be a powerful, strong, "ezer" help for my husband 
     No, I didn't just misspell the word ever. Ha! Ezer is a Hebrew word that is a combination of two Hebrew words meaning "to rescue, to save" and "strength." This is the word that the bible uses in Genesis 2 to describe Eve as Adam's helper. There are a few interesting things about this word. The first is that it is only used in the Old Testament twenty one times. Two of those times refer to women, three of those times were used in a military context, and sixteen of those times the word was used in reference to God as a helper. How cool is that!? We are meant to be helpers like God! Powerful, strong helpers. I want to be this kind of helper to my husband. I want him to draw strength from me and know that I am always his help, his strong, powerful help! I want to be a valuable strength, a suitable helper, a powerful rescue for my husband.

5. I want to obtain and maintain a gentle, quiet spirit
     This one is hard for me...like really hard! Some of you may not believe this but Brent and I are both very passionate people. We get something in our heads and that is the way it is, unless God tells us otherwise we are not changing our minds. You also may not believe this but sometimes this causes problems. Along the way God is slowly breaking both of this and we have both grown tremendously, but this has caused me to be completely aware of my need for the Holy Spirit to take over my thoughts, actions, language, emotions, really every part of me. Instead of getting upset and raising my voice, I want to be a person who speaks the truth with grace and gentleness. I want to be a person whose spirit is powerful in a gentle and kind way. I want my words to affect people because of the grace and gentleness hidden down beneath them. I want to handle my interactions with everyone, especially my husband that way, with a gentle, quiet spirit. 1 Peter 3:4

6. I want my husband and I to really find our niche in ministry together and begin moving toward it.
     Obviously we are all called into ministry in some form or fashion. God has called us each of us to use our talents in some way, to glorify him and his kingdom. I want my marriage to take on a ministry of it's own. I want God to use Brent and I in some way to really impact the world around us, radically! Marriage is a huge ministry in and of itself, especially these days when marriages are attacked by the devil the way that they are. I want us to be a testament of God's grace, patience, mercy, endurance and LOVE! I want God to take us and our marriage to new heights and use us together powerfully!

7. I want God to use law school for whatever he sees fit, maybe not even at all (in terms of practicing).
     If you know me well, you have probably heard me say that I am not sure why I am in law school. Yea, I know that sounds crazy, but it is true. If I am being honest I like the law, but not enough to do it every single day. I am so frustrated with school and so tired of it that I am ways beyond done with it...and I have a year and a half to go! Apparently, every law student feels this way right about now, but it is scary. So, I want God to use it, or not use it, however he sees fit. I want to be entirely in his will with my career. Right now, everything in me wants a baby! I want to be a mom and a wife more than anything in the world, but my responsible husband says that we can't have a baby until school is over, which is really hard for me because of what I want. But, what I want and my timing is not always God's and right now I don't know what God wants for all of this. I want God to direct my career path and put me exactly where he wants me, whether that is practicing law or being a stay at home mom...wherever God puts me is where I want to be.

8. I want God to use this blog.
     That sounds so simple and it really is. Whether it be one person or 100,000 people, I want God to reach somebody through my thoughts and my heart that I pour out on this page. I want people to read this blond know that Jesus loves them and that it is okay to not be perfect because none of us are and Jesus loves imperfection. No matter what he loves us. That is what I want people to get from this blog more than anything.

9. Write a new CD's worth of songs this year
      I have been a singer/songwriter/musician for as long as I can remember. I am so thankful God gave me that gift and I have wanted to share that with the world for just as long. I've written books worth of songs and song ideas but only followed up with one of them and carried it through the full recording process. I want to write songs that serve and honor God and that serve other people in worship. God has already started placing giving me these new songs and flooding me with ideas and lyrics but I don't want them to end up like all of the other one, in a book, on a shelf, unfinished. I want this CD to be prayerful and worshipful and I want it to serve God and others in such a way that is moves people to their core and moves them directly to God.

Now that you have read my nine (somewhat secret) dreams I encourage you to get alone with God and write down yours! God will honor that and you will not be sorry that you did. :)

My prayer for today:

Jesus, help me to remember these and keep them close to my heart. Help me be patient and also intentional about working toward them. Thank you for placing them in my heart and thank you for equipping me with all I need to accomplish them. Thank you for your help and your love for me.

I love you, Lord.

Amen.

xoxo,

Em

Why I personally will not be watching Fifty Shades of Grey.

Maybe this is the lawyer in me but let me give a little disclaimer before I say all of this:

            I am not writing this to condemn anybody who genuinely sees this as just another movie and will be watching it. I am not judging anyone for going to watch it, or for reading the book, as a matter of fact, I have friends and family of my own who have read the book and plan on watching the movie. I AM NOT BEING JUDGEMENTAL! Please do not think that, however if you do think that, that will have to be alright because the Holy Spirit laid this on my heart and if I do not write it, I will regret it. If I’ve learned anything in my short twenty-three years on the Earth, it is that I cannot ignore God and what he asks of me. So, here goes nothing…

            Now, if I am being honest, I attempted to read the book when it first came out. I wanted to see what all the hype was about, but I was about fifty pages in and it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Also, again, if I am truly being honest with you, I was a little convicted by it, so I stopped reading. I will also admit that I watched Magic Mike and was convicted by that too. Now that I have been honest with you about my convictions and lapses in judgment, let me give you the reasoning behind these convictions.

Reason #1: It is pornography. PERIOD. But, it isn’t just sex, it is bondage, domination, and abuse. Yes, you can still have those things in a consensual relationship. From my understanding there are even times when Anastasia, the main female character, talks of feeling threatened. That is scary stuff!  And if I watch it, I feel like I will be supporting it. I don’t want to support that. God doesn’t want me to support that. Pornography is a big enough problem in our culture, much less the kind of pornography portrayed in this book and movie.

Reason #2: I have a serious problem with the fact that this movie is being released where teenagers will be able to go out and watch it on their date night! I know it is rated R but in my town teenagers get into rated R movies all the time.  What do you think will happen after they leave the movies? I personally feel like the movie will encourage them to attempt to experience the feelings they saw portrayed in the movie on their way home from their date, maybe even in the backseat of a car? I was a teenager once. I remember how it worked (again, I am being blatantly honest). This movie may encourage them to lose the most sacred part of themselves. The part of themselves that God has given them to carry into their marriage. A huge part of themselves, which I personally believe, the significance of which has been so lost in our culture that it has caused divorce rates to skyrocket, families to break apart and marriages to be treated like a temporary deal that means no more than a big party (the wedding), with an awesome vacation afterwards (the honeymoon). I don’t want to support that.

I have several other reasons but for sake of time and how long this blog post will be, I am only going to offer one more.

Reason #3: Christians are already viewed as hypocrites. Statistics show that one of the biggest reasons non-believers want nothing to do with the church is because of how hypocritical believers, Christ followers, or people who call themselves Christ followers are. I do not want someone who I am supposed to be leading to Christ, to view me as hypocritical because I am at church on Sunday, lifting my hands and my eyes to the Lord and singing my heart out to Him but on Saturday, with those same eyes, I am at the movies watching something that promotes everything that is the exact opposite of Christ and his love and what his model for love and sex in marriage is.

This is his model: “Wives, submit to you own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself it’s Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” The mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Ephesians 5:22-33

           

            How would I not be sending mixed messages to non-believers by supporting this? How is Ephesians 5:22-33 and Fifty Shades of Grey not contradictory to Christ’s message of love? Does Ephesians 5:22-33 sound like Christian Grey and Anastasia?

            How is it okay to judge people for what they say and wear and how they act towards the church when we as the church are going out and supporting a movie and book that are the antithesis of who Christ is? Sin is sin.

            I could go on and on for hours but I won’t. As I said earlier, this is between you and God and the bible says to “work out your own souls salvation, with fear and trembling.” Philippians 2:12 If this does not honestly convict you then that is fine. It is between you and Jesus. I am just being honest about my convictions and writing this because the Holy Spirit laid it on my heart. I would rather please the Lord and make some people upset with me than please people and hurt the Lord.

            I love all of you guys!

            xoxo,

            Em