The Majesty And Condescension Of God -Psalm 113
College Experience
Going to college with a family and job is tough. I attended a college that wasn’t a four year college, which means if you needed a four or six year degree you had to move.
I studied psychology with a minor in Crime Scene Investigation. In the 1990s’ there wasn’t the internet for online classes. So, I would have had to move to finish my schooling, which would be difficult with 2 children and two people having to work full-time jobs. And when you have children, they come before anyone else.
The Beauty In The Struggle
We have been trained to assume that if the process does not come easy, there must be something wrong wrong. From the way we use technology, to the way we make shopping decisions, and even the way we learn and work, we often assume that struggle is bad.Everything should be intuitive and simple, with clear and easy steps towards keeping our goals or receiving whatever we want.
This mindset is often applied to our belief in God, and we start to assume that if life is still hard of choosing to follow God, there must be a problem. Dress in spite of the many words of Jesus, and the apostles indicate that we will face difficulty and obstacles and living, according to the Bible.
We expect the feeling of running high we had when we first met Jesus will last forever. It’s important to realize struggles may hinder us, they do not define us. We are not defined by the sins of the past or the struggle of today, but by the vision of the future.
Many believe a believer’s life should always feel like a runners high -that the struggle toward holiness and the fight against sin will always be inspiring.
As human beings, we seek to minimize struggle whenever possible. But struggle is part of the learning process. No matter what the struggle the beauty is keeping our eyes focused on Jesus, so that we can become full united with Him, and find the energy and strength we need to get back up. 
As believers, we shouldn’t expect to feel a “runners high” all the time while we run life’s race. Because a spiritual life will often feel difficult. But we can run it with joy because the Holy Spirit is working through us, and the struggle is a sign we are in the race.
A Covenant With God
God has made covenants with several key individuals in the Bible, including Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, as well as establishing a new covenant through Jesus. These covenants are foundational to the biblical narrative and God’s relationship with humanity.
A covenant with God is a sacred agreement or promise between a person or group and God, where both parties make commitments.
God sets the terms, and in return for a person’s faith, obedience, and promises, He pledges to provide blessings, guidance, and power.
The key concepts of a covenant with God are as follows:
- A mutual agreement
It is a two way relationship for a person promises to follow God and God promises to bless them in return.
- God’s role
God initiates covenant and is always faithful to His promises, even when people are not.
- Humans role
A person demonstrates their commitment by keeping God’s promises through faith, repentance, obedience to the commandments, and other acts of righteousness.
- Divine blessings
The blessings of a covenant include receiving God‘s help, power, and guidance, as well as eternal promises like salvation and eternal life.
There are examples in scripture
- Noah: God promised never to destroy the earth with floodwaters again. God set His rainbow in the cloud, as a sign of the covenant between Him and the earth.
- Abraham: God promised him a great prosperity and a specific land.
- Moses: God established the covenant with the Israelites, promising to be their God and asking them to obey His laws.
- Jesus: A covenant is established through Jesus’s Atonement, with promises of salvation for all who have faith in Him.
We can have personal covenants with God. These are solemn commitments made by us, it often involves prayer and reflection, where we express our faith and dedication to live, according to God’s will. It is a deeper, more spiritual commitment that focuses on the reliance of God’s grace and guidance.
God promises to remain faithful to His promises in the covenant.
There are some people who speak of God breaking covenants with His people. This is not true according to the Bible.
In Ezekiel 16:59-60, God declares He will punish Israel for breaking their covenant, but will remember His everlasting covenant with Abraham promising future restoration.
In essence, God never fails in His commitments, but the nature of the covenant and its fulfillment evolve, culminate in the permanent unbreakable New Covenant in Jesus.
My Biggest Challenge In Life
I think m biggest challenge in life is feeling too much. I have an inability to connect when there is too many people are around. I get easily overwhelmed by the emotions of everyone in the room.
I feel it is my inability to regulate my emotions and feel the energy of everyone around me. This is sometimes called “emotional dysregulation” Because of my childhood environment I wasn’t able to manage my emotions to be able to learn manage them. Mostly because I was always in a fear state constantly. My life’s was based on protection not connection.
While I am learning to cope with feeling everything around me, I still struggle at times because of the fight or flight that overstimulates my nervous system.
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Celebrating Jesus at Christmas
Christmas is a celebration of salvation and Jesus’s reign and is centered on His divine kingship, which is fulfilled through His sacrifice and resurrection. It should bring hope, and peace that leads to eternal life.
The world often tries to distract us from the true meaning of Christmas by making us believe that expensive gifts are more important than Jesus. It sometimes drains our pocketbooks and leaves us feeling exhausted. This is not the true meaning of Christmas.
Jesus is the main focus of Christmas. It’s an annual holiday for believer to celebrate for the birth of Jesus Christ. It to celebration celebrate Jesus birth that brought hope, salvation, and divine love to a world through His life, death, and resurrection. It is commemorated with traditions like nativity scenes, and small gifts that are the center of His arrival in Bethlehem as “Immanuel” (God with us).
Feeling Nostalgic
I cherished the holidays with my father here. He passed away suddenly at the end of October. I feel nostalgic when I’m making the Hungarian dishes he taught me to make.
I took care of him for 10 years after he lost my mother. We grew very close during that time. Every year I would buy him Christmas gifts and would take them to him every Christmas Eve knowing if I took them earlier he would just open them. Every time it snowed we would go for rides to the mountains so he could see the trees.
Every holiday reminds me of the memories he would miss.
Political Views
My Political views are based on the Bible. I am neither a democrat or republican. I vote based on what the Bible says. Always have and always will.
The Bible is based on morals and values and is unchanging, no matter what the world wants us to believe.
Jesus’s Birth
Jesus is the center figure of Christmas, which commemorates his birth as the Son of God and promised Messiah, fulfilling prophecy through becoming human (incarnation) in Bethlehem. Believers celebrate His arrival as the beginning of salvation and God’s love for humanity. It is marked by angels, shepherds, and wise men.
The celebration, originally “Christ’s Mass,” centers on His divine birth, and offers hope and a way to eternal life through faith in Him, even as traditions evolve to include secular elements.
The Biblical Story of Jesus’s Birth
- The Promise: God promised a Messiah (Savior) from King David’s line, who would be called in Emmanuel – God with us.
- The Announcement: an angel told Mary she would conceive Jesus by the Holy Spirit, and an angel told Joseph to name him. Jesus, the Savior
- The Journey: A Roman census sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, Joseph’s ancestral town.
- The Birth: With no room in the inns, Mary gave birth to Jesus and a stable, placing Him in a manger.
- The Witnesses: angels appeared to shepherds, announcing the good news of peace and the Savior’s birth, leading them to worship Jesus. Wise Men (Magi) followed a star to find and worship the newborn King, bringing gifts.
Christmas celebrates Jesus, the Son of God, becoming human to live among us.
His birth marks the beginning of God’s plan to rescue people from sin and offer new life.
Is a celebration of God‘s immense love and a source of hope, as Jesus offers eternal life.
We could celebrate out of gratitude for this gift, remembering His purpose through worship, giving, an act of kindness
How it became “Christmas”
Christ Mass means a “Mass of Christ combining the name Christ the Messiah with “Mass,” celebrating Holy Communion.
While December 25th became the traditional date in the 4th century, Jesus’s exact birthday isn’t specified in the Bible.
Creativity
I would not say I’m creative, things just come naturally to me. I do the things I like. Writing down what I learn along this journey called life.
I also like to bake, I like putting a few ingredients together to make something delicious.
Fellowshipping With The World
“Have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather even reprieve them” -Ephesians 5:11
This means that believers should not participate in, condone, or associate with sinful, evil, or worldly activities, but instead of actively expose and oppose them through whole living and truthful speech, demonstrating the contrast between light and darkness.
It’s a call to live righteously and bring Finn to white to encourage repentance, not to remain silent or tolerant of evil.
Many churches preach tolerance, but God does not speak about tolerance in the Bible. I think it’s important to Remember that Jesus is coming back as a lion not as the lamb He came as.
Deeds of darkness are sinful, immoral, or secretive actions that do not honor God and bring no good fruit for people, like lust, deceit, drunkenness, or envy.
King David prayed in Psalm 19:14, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”
Having no fellowship means not joining in, partnering with, or being tolerant of activities of lust, deceit, or drunkenness, or envy. Avoid them completely, even by association.
Doing this can be difficult, because as humans who live in a broken world, and can be hard not to find ourselves in these situations. And it’s even harder to speak up or avoid every situation.
We are called not to only avoid them, but to actively expose or correct them, or bring them to light by living a holy life and speaking truth, even if it means confronting sin within the church or our communities.
God’s children are called “children of light” and we should live in the opposite realm of darkness, which represents sin and separation from God.
Living for God is not passive, it is an active opposition to evil through holy living and compassionate confrontation that can lead people to repentance.
Ephesians 5:1 tells us, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Imitators, we are to copy the behaviors and actions God. And godchildren, we are to imitate His character and His actions. I believe this is why Jesus came to show us the example of this. 
We are to walk in love as Jesus loved us and gave Himself up for us. As members of God’s family and now imitators of Him, we are to live a sacrificial life towards others. Welcoming strangers into our lives, and loving them sacrificially, and proclaiming the gospel to them so that they too, may know the sacrificial, welcoming love of God. Part of imitation is to love others as Jesus loved us. He loved us with sacrificial love. He gave His life for us, therefore we must give our lives for others.
Living in a way that out words and deeds are pleasing to God involves, speaking truth with love, offering encouragement, showing compassion, forgiving others, and aligning our speech with biblical teachings on kindness and obedience, reflecting God’s character in daily interactions that honor Him.
This means be mindful of your tongue, speaking to build others up, and letting our words fall from a heart focused on serving God and showing His love in action, even when it’s difficult.
