Women Of Destiny

Who is God to you? What is God to you?

It amazes me how we all know the same God as different things. For instance when you ask Who is God to a group of people, they will all have different answers. Some may say He is the Saviour, He is the Lover of my soul, He is my Provider and the list goes on.

I think it is really awesome how we all see God as what we need Him to be. It is basically God coming to us and seeing what part of His character we need most and revealing that to us first. Now ofcourse we all learn more and more about God and see all the different sides of His personality and character, but how we identify God is actually what God appeared to us as.

So for instance, God is home to me, my place of safety, stability and comfort, because at one point in my life I was extremely insecure in myself, my home life, my friendships and well pretty much just a big insecure mess. Being so uncomfortable in myself, people and life in general caused me to put walls up and keep people as far away from the real me as I possibly could. But God came in as my place of safety, stability and comfort. Safety to know that I am okay and He would never let the world break me, stability in that I had security in Him and comfort because I needed a safe space to let all my walls down and comfortable enough to let out all that I hid inside.

So I refer to God as home, because just like after a long day you just can’t wait to get home and relax, I go to God and relax in Him when life is rough… So how do you see God?

It is just a demonstration of how well He knows us and how much He loves us that He becomes the very things we need to be whole. He will be your strength when you’re weak, your joy when the sadness comes looking for you and your place of safety when life’s challenges come knocking.

So literally everything you need, God provides. It’s so comforting to know that He doesn’t expect me to be whole and have everything together, instead He comes and makes you whole and helps you hold everything together.

See God’s love comes and meets you in the mess, it isn’t only reserved for the “perfect” people, because there is no such thing. We all have problems and parts that we keep hidden, but God wants to dive into that mess with you and help you out of it. He is everything you need.

“This is real love — not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins” 1 John 4:10 (NLT)

He sent His Son to come and be what we needed, someone to save us. This is the ultimate sign that God gives us what we need.

Just like that, God proves to us that He knows what we need even if we don’t know we need it.

So what words come to mind when you think of God? How do you describe God?

-Kelly Hardouin

Rom 8:39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Love is one of the foremost thoughts, feelings and needs we have. Knowing that we are loved and cherished is essential for us as Christian women to be successful and grow in God and in every sphere of life.

Love is what gives us the energy to conquer life’s challenges and put a smile on our face and a song in our heart. Nothing else can fill up our lives like knowing we are loved.

Unfortunately, we so often find that those who are meant to love us the most can cause us a lot of pain and because they are not able to love perfectly and we end up with a hole in our love tanks. We build a wall around our hearts and pretend it does not matter, but that is not true.

We block out people and find other things to fill the hole. Facebook, Instagram, loads of activities and shopping. The initial thrill gives us a lift but it never fills the hole. Church is fantastic and the worship is awesome but the rest of the week needs more to keep us full. What is the answer?

Our Father in heaven is the answer. He understands and knows us so well and is the only one who can fill that empty hole within. God not only loves us, He is love and pours His love into us through the Holy Spirit. How can we know this and feel it for sure? The testimony of His love is shown through everything He has done over the ages to bring us to the point where Jesus, who gave His life for us, wants to restore our souls and fill us with the assurance of His love for us. Everything He has done is to demonstrate His love for us. We must receive and rest in this truth. He is totally committed to us and cherishes us. He calls us the apple of His eye, His beloved, His bride. No-one is more cherished than a bride and this is how the Lord describes His love for us.

Cherish means to hold dear, treat with affection and tenderness. This is His affection for us. He is faithful and never will He love us any less or turn away from us. We can stand firmly on the truth that He loves us and is totally committed to being with us forever. He has promised never to leave nor forsake us and that is a truth we can rest in.

The Word of God tells us too that nothing will ever separate us from His love. Love is also the power that never fails and so as we allow the love of God to penetrate our hearts and souls we can rest in the security of His love and allow His love to really fill our tanks. Once love is not the things we are looking for but already have then we will be secure and ready to be confidently successful. Remember that the Lord is crazy about His children and you are definitely one of His favourites.

-Lindsey Lefebure

You are never alone.  Yeah, I have read and heard those words more times than I can count, but it isn’t always comforting when you have the feeling of complete loneliness. How can I believe that I am never alone when I feel more alone than anything else?

I’ll say it, I hate being alone. I do not like feeling alone. Now, do not get me wrong, I know that God is always with me and I believe that, but that doesn’t mean I always feel that way. I think it is kind of normal to experience these kind of feelings, its not really good, but everyone experiences it so in that sense, it is sort of normal. Sometimes we do feel the negative feelings, and I personally don’t think thats wrong. Now its not exactly a good thing, but it happens and theres nothing wrong with feeling them sometimes. It only becomes a bad thing when we start letting those feelings control us and let it consume us.

So yeah, I guess I am saying that sometimes you are going to feel alone, but you have to remember that you are in control of what you feel. They are YOUR feelings, and you will feel what ever you allow yourself to feel. I know that may be a tough thing to accept because sometimes we can’t help it, like grief because of a lost loved one. Again, it is normal to grieve, but at the end of the day, you are in control of what you allow yourself to feel. You will feel grief, thats a given, but you control whether it drags you to rock bottom, or whether you deal with it in a healthy manner and move on. See what I am saying? There’s a difference between feeling and being consumed by your feelings. You can feel, do not ever think that as a “good Christian” you are not allowed to feel sad or anything negative. Like I said its normal and humans are emotional beings, but if you constantly entertain the negative feelings then something is up. When you start to give your emotions the power to drag you down, then theres a problem.

So in that same sense, you are going to be lonely sometimes and feel alone, but you are in control of whether it drives you to depression, or brings you to the understanding that its just how you feel right now. See a lot of these kinds of feelings are just that, feelings. You choose how far you let your feelings take you. You choose whether you’re going to be broken down by situations or if you’re going to rise above them.

Now I know thats also really hard to understand because sometimes life does get extremely rough and unbearably difficult, but thats where God comes in. He is the reason life becomes bearable. He gives you the strength and peace that you need to get by. Thats why being in a relationship with God is so important. Because when you have that fellowship with someone, you know that no matter what, they will be there.

We seem to think that how we feel is the absolute truth. You feel alone, it doesn’t mean you are alone.  Yo have friends, family, and most importantly, you have God. You are not alone. You feel alone.Your feelings do not define who you are and they certainly aren’t the truth.

I can say that because I had to learn the difference between the truth and how I felt and I see it now. We don’t realise it but it’s the devil playing on our weakness.

I had to learn that just because I felt like I was worthless doesn’t mean I didn’t have worth. I had to learnt that even though I didn’t feel like life was worth living or like my life would ever make a difference, doesn’t mean I was not worth the life I had been given. I had to learn the difference between what I felt, and what was true. My feelings of worthlessness were very real, so real but I let it have power over me and consume me, BUT they were just feelings. Real feelings that were a cause of deep rooted problems, but still feelings. Feelings I didn’t try to control.

I do have worth, and I am worth every second of life and every breath of air that I have been given in this life and THAT IS THE TRUTH. I let my feelings cloud my own value. You are worth the life you have been given. Every second, every experience, every moment. You are worth it all, and you can’t let anything, including your own feelings, tell you differently.

Now, how do you find out the truth to counter your feelings? Well thats simple. What does God say about you? When you hold up the Word to how you feel, you will see the truth and you will find comfort in that knowing even though you sometimes don’t feel so great, God thinks you’re worth dying for.

See, thats also why its so important to know the what the word says and what God says, and to be in fellowship with God because, speaking from personal experience, God is the only one who can make you see and believe in your own value when you feel so low. God is honestly the only one who can show you the truth when your feelings start clouding your view, and when you know and believe what God says about you, there isn’t a feeling or person who can tell you otherwise, unless you let it.

So back to the harsh reality of the fact that you will feel lonely, and even while knowing the truth, it will drag you down if you let it. The feelings may come out of nowhere, but you have to control it. You have to say “Well, I feel extremely alone, BUT God says I am never alone, He is always with me and I have so many friends and family who love me. So actually I am not alone.” and suddenly, that empty feeling of loneliness has no power over you. The same goes for every feeling.

Now its not always easy and it is a constant battle against your own feelings, but as long as you know the truth and always remember that you are in control of your feelings, not your feelings are in control of you, you will get through.

-Kelly Hardouin

When the children of Israel reached the Promised land orders were given to send spies to search out the land of Canaan. Here it is said, God directed Moses to send them (Num_13:1, Num_13:2), but it appears by the repetition of the story afterwards (Deu_1:22) that the motion came originally from the people; they came to Moses, and said, We will send men before us; and it was the fruit of their unbelief. They would not take God’s word that it was a good land, and that he would, without fail, put them in possession of it. How absurd was it for them to send to spy out a land which God himself had spied out for them. God had already promised the land to them – PROMISED LAND!!

Why? Because their thinking about their past was dictating their belief about the future.

Their past was Egypt and bondage. Their thinking went along the lines of “Last time we entered a foreign land we ended up as slaves and I bet it won’t be any different this time!”

How often are we not the same? We have experiences from our past that we hold onto so strongly that every time we face a new opportunity the past surfaces and influences our thinking.

This happens in the positive as well as the negative.

Experience good – excitement or at least hope for the future

Negative experience – fear and apprehension for the future

Fear will cause us to find something or someone to blame so that we can have an excuse for failure or a reason not to go forward and try something new.

Words such as “It always happens like this” or “I will never be able to…”

I can guarantee that if I said God had spoken to me and each one of you were going to get a promotion when you walked into work tomorrow accompanied by a big raise we would have two camps. Those who would get immediately excited and those who would say “Yeh right!”

WHY??

You need to find out why and then set about changing it. God has a promised land that He has appointed for each one and the only person who can stop it happening is YOU!!

We must look at our past and the thinking about our future that comes out of that and let God heal and change us so that we can look at the future through His eyes and not our experiences. We can do this because we have the mind of Christ and Christ has redeemed us from everything that would keep us defeated. He has also given us everything that pertains to life and godliness so that our future would be paved with His overcoming promises, grace and blessing. Let the Holy Spirit walk you through your life experiences and begin to heal and free up your mind, emotions and choices for the future God has promised you.

-Lindsey Lefebure

One of the most difficult things to do is to love your enemies. To love someone who may have wronged you is really beyond the normal human nature. It really does take a different kind of person to choose to love on those that hate you. But Jesus did it.

Jesus is the Son of God, yes, but He came down from that and was human too. He became flesh for the simple reason to show us that we can be like Him. We all think that just because Jesus was the Son of God that we could never do what He did, but what we forget is that He actually left His divinity and walked this earth. He became one of us to show us how to live. He didn’t just come into this world with a knowledge of God and what this whole Christian thing was about. He had to learn just like us, He had to study scripture and develop a relationship with the Father, just like we do.

So when we understand that the only difference between us and Jesus when He was on this earth is that He sought God with His entire being, you will realise that we could live just as Jesus did.

Something that fascinates me is that when Jesus looked at people, He looked at them with love. No I don’t mean He just looked at them through loving eyes, they could see love on His face when He looked at them. He literally had a love look. You not only felt His love toward you, you could actually see the love He had for you on His face. Do you have a love look? Its hard enough to just love on people who hurt you, but imagine actually looking at people, even your worst enemies with love in your eyes and on your face. Do people see love on your face when you look at them?

“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.

This is real love — not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.”

1 John 4:7-11.. This scripture is probably one of my favourites. Now this is not condemnation that you don’t know God because you battle to love your enemies. Its a journey and God understands that. We seem to always think God is this big guy in the clouds looking for a reason to throw lightening bolts at us, but its not like that at all. When I read that scripture, I see it more like ‘how can we not love each other if we know God?’ When we are truly inlove with God and building a relationship with Him, everything He is and does becomes so beautiful.

Its like when you start to like someone and as you’re getting to know them more and more, you’re just captivated by their every word and action. You start to see the beauty of God in every situation and every person. Maybe it’s hard to understand, but when you start loving someone one, and pursuing a relationship with them, suddenly all that they do becomes so intriguing and everything they do becomes mesmerising.

You feel the same way about God. It’s why when we read the Word and we see God in something it excites us and we just want to know more. So when you have found perfect love, which is God, you can’t help but have an overflow of love for the world around you. Suddenly it becomes a little easier to love your enemies because you start to look at them from God’s perspective.

You love becomes like God’s love. It becomes a wild fire. Unstoppable and consuming all that it encounters. I don’t know about you, but I want to love like that.

I came across a quote a while ago, and I have no idea who said it or where it came from but it just stuck with me and I think it’s probably the coolest quote I’ve ever read.

“Love like a hurricane, not a leaky faucet.” I really love that. Love like a HURRICANE. Love in such a way that the people you encounter are never the same. Don’t just give little “drops” of love, love so hard that people’s walls come crashing down, let your love have a lasting effect.
That’s the Christ love we all experience when we are with Him. Now I know, sometimes it can be draining because you’re loving so much sometimes no one gives any love back, but that’s where God comes in. The more you are in God and God is in you, the more love will flow out of you, so the more you give love, the more room you make for God to continue filling you and causing your cup to overflow.

-Kelly Hardouin