If Nobody Believed In You..

If you have never read my blog before and are just magically coming upon this post, a main theme of my blog is either a song lyric or quote that has stirred up something in my heart, and tonight is no exception. I finally got to my breaking point today of just ignoring the messiness of my room and broke down and had to have a cleaning party. By “cleaning party,” I simply mean turning my Pandora radio on full blast and dancing around my room, barely doing any cleaning whatsoever. Jump to the present, and I am sitting in the midst of a room not even close to being clean yet, but hey, whatever. Anywhoos, a song came on my phone that I have always loved by Joe Nichols called “If Nobody Believed in You.” This song never fails to me cry like a baby, but the message is so strong. By the time it reaches the final verses, I am usually already a mess, but I think the final verses are the ones that hold the heaviest feeling.

“We take His name out of the schools.
The lawyers say it breaks the rules.
Pledge of allegiance can’t be read,
An’ under God, should not be said.
I wonder how much He will take.
I just pray it’s not too late.
What if God quit tryin’,
He just turned away?
There were teardrops on his face?
Tell me, how would you feel?
You’d probably give up too,
If nobody believed in you.”

Now, I think I am lucky enough to be able to say that through my years on Earth, if I have learned anything, it is that our God is relentless and never failing, He would never give up. But, just think about it. How would you feel? As imperfect humans, we know this feeling all too well. We are all too familiar with this modern world of “haters,” people telling us our dreams are too big, even our closest friends and family can tear us down. We know this pain. But imagine if we were in God’s place. I personally believe that pain would be so much greater. You give your one and only, beloved, precious son so all these other people can be broken from their chains of sin, but you aren’t respected, honored, listened to, or acknowledged. As humans, we would give up. We would immediately be quick to say “Fine! I’m done. I quit. I tried to help you, but no. You have failed me and I am done.” Praise God we know God would never say that. He would never do that. Can you imagine if He would, if He would give up on us? Terrifying. I don’t know about you, but I’ve accepted that I need God. I would be nothing without Him. Can you imagine Him just up and walking away because of the way we treated Him? The implications of that? No more eternal life, no more forgiveness, no more being broken from the chains of sin. Everything, gone. Can I just say one more time thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord. I can be confident that God will never give up on you, on me, on anyone. He will always be there. But, that doesn’t mean that He is not hurt by us, that He doesn’t feel pain from our actions, that there aren’t teardrops on His face. That image kills me: the image of our incredible Heavenly Father with teardrops on his face because of our actions. A look of disappointment. A cry of “Oh Child, what have you done?” Yet, He still forgives us, loves us, and nurtures us through it all.

It goes so far beyond the pledge of allegiance, the example the song mentions. I’m not going to go into any particulars, but the world is full of sin that we dress up and glamorize. Think of your own examples, see what sins God is placing on your heart. Our world is so quick to take God out of the equation. We can do what we want, get what we want, be happy, and please ourselves without Him. At least, that is what the world is saying.

“Tell me how would you feel, you’d probably give up too, if nobody believed in you.”

Don’t take God out of the equation. Don’t lose faith. This world is already fighting back, trying to get us to lose our belief in God, but we are on a mission as children of God to fight this evil and to spread His message to every corner of the Earth. Keep pushing forward. God will never give up and turn away from us. Therefore, let us never give up and turn away from Him.

Jessica ❤

What Kind of Christian Am I?

Good afternoon all! I am actually writing a blog post in the middle of the day for once, what a surprise! 😛 Today’s topic actually came to me through a Catholic book that I was reading last night, but applies to Christianity in general. I felt so convicted as I was falling asleep and I knew I had to write a post about it. It may be a short post, but hopefully it ends up being a good one!

Growing up, I have always been taught to spread the Good News, shout from the mountains the glory of God and how Jesus is my savior. However, I never really knew how to do this. How do I spread this? Do I just walk up to random people and start spewing off Bible verses? How is all of this supposed to work? As I have grown, I can honestly admit that I have become pretty passionate on my beliefs and opinions, whether they are religion or not. When it come to abortion, gun rights, feminism, and so on, I have strong feelings, and when approached, would gladly have a friendly discussion about them. Even more honestly, I can say that I do a lot of tweeting and posting on social media about my opinions as well, whether I am asked for my opinion or not. I love having my voice heard, from spreading how God has blessed me to how I feel about the most recent tragedy in the news. On the other hand, it is hard not to become that person who starts shoving their beliefs down other peoples throats. It is hard for me to see or talk to someone who thinks differently than me and not start throwing Bible verses at them or trying to convince them they are wrong.

Like I said, I love having my voice heard. I love talking to people about how I became the Christian/Catholic I am today, I love sharing my new favorite song from Tenth Avenue North or this awesome article I read online, and so on. I love trying to show people my faith in these ways, especially if they are questioning their faith. Although I don’t exactly just walk up to strangers and ask them if they are interested in talking about God as I grew up believing I needed to do, I still try to spread the message as best as I can.

But, I have to ask myself, how is that working for you? How is this working for everyone who is out spreading the Gospel in whatever way they choose to do it? The answer is: it’s not. The book I am reading, “Rediscovering Catholicism,” really opened up this tough answer to me. People are tired of hearing the same messages over and over again. Yes, sharing your testimony is great, Christian books are great, all these amazing preachers and evangelists are great, but the people we want to speak to don’t want to hear these things, they want to see them. They want to see us live out Christianity, not spew it out in our words. They need the example, they need to see it for themselves. It reminds me of a church hymn sung all the time, “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” Not by our incredible testimony, not by our memorization of bible verses, but by our love, by the way we live, by the example we set.

Am I this person? Am I this example? Reading this (and the book puts it in such better words) really got me thinking. I deeply and truly want to be this Christian leading this authentic life that others can look up to. I want to respond to the cry of help these people are sending out, a cry in search of a living example, not just words being spoken. I know I need to follow this longing and make it a reality. I get so easily caught up in whether or not I know the Bible cover to cover or if I know all the greatest Christian artists or if I have seen the latest popular sermon, but do I get caught up in how I am living, the example I am setting, whether or not people see God living in me, outside of the words I speak?

“Preach the Gospel, and if necessary, use words.”

I know some people may disagree with me on this, and that is totally okay! Just my personal opinion and thoughts I wanted to share!

God Bless!

Jessica ❤