God is good! God is faithful!

I have had a heck of a week. This morning I preached the third message in my series called “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Spiritual Growth” which is a series of five messages talking about the practical things we can do to facilitate growth and get to know God better. This morning’s message was all about worship and the fact that authentic worship is the key to getting into the presence of God.

I’ve had the outline set out for this message for months and I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I was knocked for six when the whole Mike Guglielmucci thing blew up, because I was going to use his testimony video as an example of the power of private worship. But God was gracious and He gave me plenty of time to rework what He wanted delivered this morning.

So…fast forward….I had been writing bits and pieces throughout this past week and not feeling like it was coming together at all. I knew what needed to be said, but everytime I sat down to write…it just wasn’t happening. I was getting heart palpitations and all of these random thoughts kept popping into my head that were so distracting and crippling that I just could not write.

I finally realised that the devil was having a field day with my head and rallied a bunch of people to pray for me as I finished preparing. Everytime I had a distracting thought come into my head after that…that old Amy Grant song popped into my head “Oh Lord our Lord how majestic is Your name in all the earth”, and then this morning our worship leader (Robyn) gave a meditation on the Psalm that those words come from…it was like God was reaching down and giving me a hug, and soothing my soul. God is SO COOL the way He gives us these breadcrumbs to let us know that He loves us!

I also had a great sleep last night …which NEVER happens the night before I speak. Praise the Lord for prayer warriors!

God is so gracious in trusting a flawed person like me share my heart with others. What a privilege!

Michelle

At the end of July I spoke in church about the benefits of using a journal and writing for spiritual growth, and I challenged my fellow Woden-ites to have a go at it for a month and then share about whether or not they found it beneficial, and if they plan to continue.

In time I will serialise my message and post them as part of a series so that we can refer back, but for the moment, this is a space where we can share what God has been doing in our lives.

So…Woden-ites…hit the share link below on let’s encourage one another! What have you discovered through journalling for spiritual growth?

Share!

Michelle

OK…so I’ve registered for the fun run next weekend…I can’t chicken out!

Having said that…I haven’t run on my sore leg in two weeks, so I’m not sure where that’s at…I’m going to have a go tomorrow morning and see what happens. If all else fails I’ll walk the stupid thing just to say I finished what I set out to do…albeit in twice the time I anticipated LOL.

But I’m getting ahead of myself..typical melancholy that I am. If you’re the praying type…please pray that my leg is right to go…..and that I don’t die from running 6kms LOLOLOLOLOL Joking!  Next year I hope to do the Canberra Times 10km fun run and then the year after that the City to Surf in Sydney. I WILL get fit…..if it kills me Can you tell I’m not an optomist? hehehehe

Michelle

PROGRESS stats:

Weight last week: 80.1kg
Weight this week: 79.1kg
Loss: 1kg
Left to goal: 4.1kg
Clicks: none…resting leg

Progress shot:

(forgot to take my glasses off )

Measurements:
Boobs: 101cm (-1)
Waist: 81cm (-2)
Hips: 107cm
Thigh: 64.5cm
Arm: 31cm
Well..I’m on the way down again…I only lost a kilo, which isn’t too bad since the only exercise I got this week was snowboarding. I’ve got four weeks to lose four kilos…technically do-able if I don’t fall off the wagon <<rolls eyes>>

How did you go this week? You’ve all been very quiet these past couple of weeks!

Michelle

This post is part of the Ragamuffintop Challenge over at Carlos Whittaker’s blog (fellow worship leader and all round nice guy)

…it takes more than a day or so to get over a trip to the snow! We drove up to Smiggins on Saturday and spent most of the day snowboarding (first time for all of us)…and three days later I still can’t walk upright and even the muscles in my fingers are sore!!  I will edit  up the video and post it in the next couple of days when I get a report writing project out of the way and have finalised my sermon draft for Sunday…you can see for yourselves how often I landed on my butt