Life Follow-Up On The Hard And Fast I figured it would be a good time to give an update to follow-up on One Of The Scariest Prayers [https://www.risingabovethedarkness.com/one-of-the-scariest-prayers/] back on 7-Jul-2021. My prayer was this: > Lord, I need this to change. I don't know how else to get there. But
Life Did You Really Leave That In Your Past? Had a moment of self awareness recently. Did I really leave that toxic mindset in the past? If I did, how would I know? How would I be sure? How would I verify I had actually changed? For transparency I'll give a tiny bit of context. There was
Life Just Because You Can Stay Doesn't Mean God Wants You To This might seem like a silly topic honestly. But it was a pretty profound realization today for me. I recently renewed my lease agreement for another bunch of months. And I naturally figured (read: assumed) that I would automatically be staying that long. That the new lease terms where what
Life Are You Unintentionally Planning Your Life Away From God? How much planning are you doing for your life? And more importantly are you rigidly holding on to those plans? Lemme clarify first by saying all the standard stuff. * Planning is good * Having goals is good * Having a solid foundation is one of the keys to success * Working towards your
Life Keep Your Word, But Don't Promise! > But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation. James 5:12 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/jas.5.
Life Praying Other People's Prayers Onto Yourself? This might be a little trippy... just to warn you... Have you ever thought about what other people are praying for you? Have you ever prayed their prayers... for you yourself? Are others praying for you to quit smoking? Have you prayed their prayers on yourself, even if you don&
Life What Does Compassion Really Look Like? Let's take a trip down memory lane. Try going back into your memories. Go back to a time before you made a decision to change something. It's easy to remember the day you made the choice to change something, right? But let's take a
Life Knock, And The Way Will Be Opened > For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. -- Matthew 7:8 ESV Have you thought much on this verse before? Knock and the way will be opened. > What door is in your way that
Life When The Shrug Is Toxic Sometimes when bad things happen, people will shrug off a detail or part of the conflict. They can often be sorry for what happened but... > I didn't intend to hurt you, so I'm not upset It sounds legit right? I mean if you didn'
Life Alright Fellow Men, Let's Talk Bullets It's an old analogy: "I'd take a bullet for my wife, for my family!". The meaning being as a man, why wouldn't I step in front of my wife, my children and put myself in the line of fire to take the
Life The Frustration Of Reaping vs Sowing I'll start with a quick elaboration in case you might not be familiar with these terms from the Christian or Jewish perspective. > Sowing is the term for when we talk and share our faith with others, we share the gospel and nothing really changes for the person.
Life When Doing The Right Thing, Is The Wrong Thing What if I told you that "doing the right thing" can sometimes be destructive, damaging to relationships, and make situations worse? Would that sound confusing? I've personally spent countless hours over the last decade of my own life focusing entirely on "doing the right thing&
Life It's Not About Right And Wrong, It's Really Not As I walk through this current season of my life I am realizing more and more that right and wrong have less meaning than I had always thought and felt they do. Now don't get me wrong. Lemme clarify. * Sin is still sin * Hurting people is still vile
Life Is God Bound By Us Doing Things In The Right Order? We Christians can often get sucked into the legalism of "doing the right thing" or "doing things right" or... "doing things in the right order". Now just to calm the fervor of all the uptight legalistic Christians and the people who follow the religion
Life When Trusting God Changes Your Life So how did I get here? Well I am sure you want the short version. Over a decade ago I went through a family crisis and divorce. It was that period where I was losing everything I truly cared about, which was different than what I thought I cared about,
Life We Don't Realize The Weight You don't realize how much something weighs until you put it down. I've been carrying the responsibility for everyone, for a lifetime. Literally worrying, thinking about, staying connected to, and fighting for everyone in my social circles since before I was a teenager. I had no
Life What is Dysfunction? Raise your hand if you've had dysfunction in your life. As you can see from the image above, I am raising my hand! haha Which is where the present comes in... Currently I am on a journey to understand my own dysfunction. And today the Lord revealed one
Life When You Slide Obediently Into God's Lane For Your Life I am in a strange season of life right now. And God is making it a remarkable season! As I have quieted my life and focused on solely listening to the Lord on what to do with this and that over the last couple of months I find myself in
Life What Is The Darkness That You Speak Of? Figured I should write a post about this about now. What is the darkness that I talk about rising above? It's not the physical darkness. It's the mental, emotional, and spiritual place we all find ourselves in from season to season. Sometimes we dip our toe
Life I'd Rather Be Wrong Than Right I'd rather find out I was wrong, then never have lived and found out I was right all along. It's kinda like "it's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." I'd rather take a
Life Perfect People Are Useless To Anyone But Themselves Did I get your attention with the title? Perfect people are useless? Consider this. If you see a person walking around with a "perfect" life or they are a "perfect" person who has no problems and makes no mistakes... Who is benefiting from their "perfection&
Life Are You Ok With All Three? Yes, Wait, and No It's a great thing to see what you want and chase it! In fact it's what everyone should be doing, regardless of the season of their life. The hard part is being Ok with the waiting, or an outright no when you chase it... So I&
Life When Your Hope Is In The Lord, It Doesn't Hurt I write this as someone who struggled for a long time to even comprehend this. And now I am struggling with living this out. It's a journey to get to that place for many of us. And I am definitely one of those many. You see when you&
Life You Have To Push Forward In Life Stories of my life. Lessons of my life... To be prosperous you have to push through learning new skills, information, training. Nothing comes freely. To be prosperous you have to push through the work of learning new skills, information, training. Life lessons usually cost you something. As Dave Ramsey says
Life Two things Can Be True At The Same Time With many things in life 2 things can be true at the same time. For example: * Chocolate Milk can taste delicious to you, and give you horrible stomach problems as well. * Politicians can do good things, and also be horrors of human beings that lie, cheat, steal and murder. * God