Overwhelmed and Overjoyed

God is surprising.

Things that you think He could never do, situations that you think could never work out, God somehow intercedes and makes things happen that you would never expect to.

And that's vague. But I also think that it could apply to a lot of different people because no matter who we are, Christians, non-Christians, pastors, or prostitutes, God works. God works.

I love looking back on moments that I was aware of God's presence. The first was before I even knew what it meant to be loved by God. My brother was made new in God over the summer of 2005. The Wednesday after he came back at youth group, he prayed for me. And I don't know how it's possible to feel like you have the Holy Spirit around you even before you even understood what the Holy Spirit is, but I did. That moment was one of the most joyful moments in my whole life. Not only was it the first time I heard anyone in my family pray, but it was my brother whom I love more than life, and all he did was pray and thank God for me.

That was the first time I encountered the love of Christ. And then with strong determination and a lot of confusion and how to even start on being a Christian, I finally felt like God was with me. And it was while reading a book of the Bible that I didn't quite now how to pronounce and sitting in a dark closet in an old church.

And the most recent one was over a weekend that I spent with my sorority at a campground. We had a night completely devoted to the Lord, a night where we dug into who He was and who we were as people who try our best to follow Christ, and the whole time I found that I had the same motivation and determination that I had the first moment I felt God in my life. And since that moment happened best when I was separated from the group and I was able to just concentrate on the incredible everything of God, I decided to go outside and just look up. I asked God to show up. To show me He was listening to me. To let me know that I was doing okay, that the steps I'm taking in my life are okay. That He's proud of me. And I see a cross in a clearing of some trees. And in that moment, I felt the Holy Spirit again surrounding me, completely submerged in all of who our wonderful Father is.

My favorite verse is 1 Thessalonians 5:16 and it simply says, "Be joyous always."
Why would God tell us to be joyous always? Isn't that impossible? No.
God says to seek Him, to just love him, and to love other people as best we can and through all that, through loving God as much as we're capable of loving Him, we find joy. Not happiness, not success, not perfection. Just joy. Rejoicing in God and everything He has done whether we knew of it or not.

This takes me to another point. Parents and teachers tend to say that if you try your best and work your hardest no matter what the outcome, I'm proud of you because I know you did everything you can to achieve this. I think God's like that. He is the dad of all dads and He just wants us to love Him and trust Him and serve people so that other people can see God's love in action! And if we just try with all our best and work our hardest, God's proud of us. And even if we falter and maybe not try as hard as we could and just end up being a lazy old couch potato, God still loves us. Because no matter what we do, He's our dad. And we have joy in knowing just that.