Beyond Good Intentions.

Confession: I can't count the number of times I  have heeded dutifully to my Quiet Time, sat in
my favorite corner on my bed with my journal and
my Bible…and then spent the time I had set aside for the Lord in allowing my mind to wander, hopping from passage to passage, getting up and doing another task, checking my phone, and basically being wildly distracted. I sat down esteeming a diligent spiritual life. I even had all the right resources, but not the ability to carry it out, basically because it's one thing to intend and another to actually do.
It's all too easy to start out with good intentions only to later falter and lose the initial excitement.

Having the right tools and the right desire, does not equate to actions.
I'm embarrassed by the number of times I've said either in words or thoughts, "I will pray about that matter," and done literally nothing about it.
I want to put real actions behind my good intentions; to put works behind my faith; to turn my enthusiasm into something more than mere words.
For example, I deeply esteem the discipline of prayer, but if I don't actually pray, my esteem is worthless.

Thankfully, there is an ever-present help for this shortfall of mine: Jesus Christ can turn the wanting in my Spirit into action-pumped enthusiasm within no time.
I recognize that I'm just but flesh and beating myself up (because I can be really good at this) won't help me one bit.
The moment I just utter a sincere, "Lord, I need your help on this. I can't seem to have my mind on doing your work but my heart is genuinely firmly found. I desire to do this, please go before me and guide me," I have faith He will come through.

But again it's not enough to revere myself and go before Him to seek an extra "push" only to keep my distractors around and not set apart good time for God. Throughout my life, I have come to find that God is really faithful in playing His part hence I need to play mine to, lest I get nowhere.
I've also learnt to ignore the bait of the enemy to
make an excuse because “sin lies at the door and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it” (Gen.4:7).

This post is all in first-person narrative form and you probably feel like the "I's" should be "You's" because like me, you might probably be finding it hard to put diligent obedience in carrying out your Kingdom Assignment or Quiet Time. Or probably you begin so strongly only for the enthusiasm to fizzle out within no time. Don't give in to the struggle. The secret is not in trusting in your willpower but in the one who gives all strength, Jesus Christ.

Love love! 💕

Laura.

Karwirwa Laura #GodGurl

Hello 2016! Let's Step In With Confidence.

Helloooo! :)
Happy New Year 😀

And welcome to this place..
This beautiful warm place, where I submit my #KingdomAssignment..
Always feel free, always open your mind and your heart to hear from the King..
Feel free, come in with your shoes on.. Haha.. Put your feet up on the stool.. Sip some coffee..
Let's share..
Let's go all out..
All for the glory of God:)

➡Reminder : I put up a post every second and last Wednesday of every month! 😃

I've been pondering on what exactly to share, over the past week.. And everyday, I get a new revelation. But there's this one thing that has been ringing on my mind repeatedly, and that's a verse from Isaiah 59:19:
It says, "So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west and His glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him."
I've been meditating on this Chapter, and the 27th Psalm of David..

I know there must be a reason why God won't let me get past this Word.. And the more I have opened my heart to Him, the more He has caused me to  understand what He has for me to learn.
Throughout the past year, I recall more than many times when I allowed myself to be downtrodden because my CONFIDENCE was drained. Forget about the fact that I have struggled with self-esteem issues from time to time in the past, this is far from it. All along, I didn't really know that I had another major problem, I lacked confidence in my God.

I focused too much on what the devil was doing, or trying to do and I forgot about what God can do.
I lost friends after a sudden bloom in my life, others began to treat me rather too harshly, and I cried fowl, I tried to cling, I tried to reach out almost desperately, keeping my head away from what God was doing on the other side because really, I have gained a ton more! :) Glory to Jesus..
Quick one: When you give your life to Jesus, you declare WAR! The devil is not going to leave you at it, just like that..

Aaalll along, I kept hearing a still small voice, a weight in my heart - "Laura, I have confidence in you my princess. HAVE CONFIDENCE IN ME. I Love You. I'm your King."
(Confidence : the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.)

We need to be cognizant of the fact that the devil too has power..and when He rises like a flood, our King, our Mighty Father, raises a standard against His power. Because He is MORE powerful! Because He is STRONGER! He is UNDEFEATED!
Enough reason for me to have confidence in Him..

Beloved, Our God is a mover of mountains.. His unfailing love is enough for us. Could we work on fixing our eyes on Him alone beginning this year?
Give the enemy zero percent of your attention.
Trust in the one who will keep your foot from being caught! (Proverbs 3:26)

We can be confident in the Lord to be who He is. He can be trusted.He does not lie. He does not fail. There is no situation that our lives face that takes Him by surprise.We can build our lives upon the rock of His word and we can stand upon that rock in strength and safety regardless of the storms that come our way.

May Psalms 27 be your song today! 😃

The Lord is my light and my salvation - so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble? When evil people come to devour me, when my enemies and foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though a mighty army surrounds me,
my heart will not be afraid. Even if I am attacked, I will remain confident.
The one thing I ask of the Lord - the thing I seek most - is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s perfections and meditating in his Temple. For he will conceal me there when troubles come; he will hide me in his sanctuary. He will place me out of reach on a high rock. Then I will hold my head high above my enemies who surround me. At his sanctuary I
will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy, singing and
praising the Lord with music.
Hear me as I pray, O Lord. Be merciful and answer me! My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.” Do not turn your back on me. Do not reject your servant in anger.
You have always been my helper. Don’t leave me now; don’t abandon me, O God of my salvation! Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.
Teach me how to live, O Lord. Lead me along the right path, for my enemies are waiting for me. Do not let me fall into their hands. For they accuse me of things I've never done; with every breath they threaten me with violence. Yet I am confident I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here in the land of the living.
Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous.
Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.

Love love! 💕

#GodGurl

Karwirwa Laura #GodGurl

Quality Time: Just You and God.

Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship:)

Lone time does something to a relationship..
Something good..
And that is why for EVERY Christian, it is very VITAL to spend some quiet time with God.

One thing about this is that it's something we've got to do with diligence.. regularity..
Not when it's convenient..
Haha..
Not when you have extra time..
Not when you feel like..

SEEK God.. Pursue Him.. Go After Him..
You've got to make an effort.
He already assures us that if/when we seek Him, we shall find Him.
If time is the problem, I encourage you to give God the little you have and He will bless the rest of the time you'll have left for the day.
For God so loved that He GAVE..
Time in itself is an offering..
Sow it like a seed.

The Bible is your number one weapon.
I'm sure you've heard of a verse the goes something like, "My people perish for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6)
Let me add another.. "You are in error because you do not know the Scripture......" (Matt 22:29)
Here are some of my tips on Bible Study :
⚫Possibly download a devotional application on your phone or probably get those lovely diaries that have daily Bible verses.. Or a lectionary of any kind. It helps to have order:)
⚫Identify a good quiet place as much as possible, to keep away from distractions.
⚫Before you read the verse, pray that God may open your inner eyes to see what He has for you, your inner ears to hear what He has to say and your heart to the understanding of His word.
⚫Read the verse itself, the verses above it, and those below to understand the context.
⚫Pen down what you understand from it as God leads you. It really helps to write, for memory and record purposes. So, keep a Bible journal.
⚫Seek further understanding from commentaries on the Internet or from Books or from a spiritual leader, it does help.
⚫Pray in context to that Word, that God may help you to keep and remind you of it when you need it.
⚫Pray.
For yourself, your family... everything else..

The more you put into the Word of God, the more you get out of it.

You don't need to have the word of God in your brain, you need to have it in your heart.
So when you find yourself struggling with forgetfulness, like I do, don't beat yourself too much about it.
I've come to learn that for as long as I put that Word in me, at the opportune time when I need it, God will bring it out for me. :)
So, invest I understanding, not knowing.

PRAY.
Anytime, anywhere..
Learn to speak to God and love it!
About everything that is in your heart for we know that nothing in this world is hidden from Him.
However, don't do too much of the talking.
Listen.
He has something for you as well..

Look out for the next post, we'll be talking about Hearing From God.
I can't wait!

Love,
Laura.

The Love Chapter

Let's talk about LOVE.
LOVE God's way.. :)

"Laura, why love?"
"Because they will know we are Christians by our love."(John 13:35)
Not by works, or by majesty, but by our love..

What is love?
Who defines love?
Truth is, we all love by our own different definitions.. To one, love is giving and to another, the measure of love is in words..
But it's simple.
GOD IS LOVE.
He is the personification of love.
He defines love.

You're in for a great time as we go on with this discussion... :)

Allow me to take you to the Love Chapter, as I love to call it.. 1 Corinthians 13..
I'd encourage you to read through the whole of it but for now I will delve mainly into verses 4 to 7.
"4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[ b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
Paul writes this to a dysfunctional church at Corinth to rebuke them for abuse of gifts. And this is a chapter that is now often read at weddings and anniversaries, of which there's nothing wrong with that. However, it's very easy to superficially appreciate love and claim to practise it.. Because love is not an emotion, it's an action. 
He describes a completely selfless love in these senses:

1.Love is patient.
Love God's way does not lose it's temper easily.. It doesn't say, "I'm giving you only one more chance."
It keeps calm, with people and through difficult circumstances.
God humbles us enough with our personal shortcomings despite the many times we fail.. The least we could do is show patience to others when they fall short of our expectations.
Loving people are willing to tolerate the shortcomings of others because they know they have faults too.

2.Love is kind.
Love God's way is kind.
Not too permissive, kind..
Not to mean that everyone and anyone can and may take advantage of you, but to mean that even when your portraying some tough love, your words and actions do not fall far from the will of God.

3. Love does not envy.
A loving person is as enthusiastic about the success of others as they are about their own.. genuinely.
Being a Christian doesn't mean you can never feel jealous. And there is something we can do about it, pray.
This is the best way to cure envy. To pray for him or her demonstrates love, and love and jealousy cannot dwell on the same heart.

4. Love does not boast.
Gifts are generously given to us by God, therefore we have no reason to attribute anything to ourselves.
Pride sets in from time to time, most times unwaringly..
But I do believe that the more you fill your heart with the Love of God, the more these vices lack room.

5.Love is not arrogant.
Love respects, does not push for positions, and does not demean others.

6.Love is not rude.
There is a graciousness in love that translates to how we speak.
Jesus can help us, even in this.

7.Love is not self-seeking.
Love is not possessive, demanding, stubborn, or dominating. Love does not talk too much but listens as well. Love does not insist on its own way. It is always willing to give attention to others, and even compromise, when need be.

8.Love is not easily angered.
Agape love knows nothing about emotional outbursts and tantrums.
It is able to control irate people or a annoying situations with calmness and maturity.

9.Love keeps no record of wrongs.
This one really got to me.
I keep journals and countless times my classmates would fear to even look at what I'm writing because (as I came to discover) most journals contained lots of heavy tantrums and all manner of things that so and so did or didn't do that hurt or annoyed you. Well, it's taken to be a way of venting, but I can imagine how it is to always read what you wrote about someone when you were very annoyed at them. It brings back a lot of things..
We'll, this is just but an example, but many times, even in our hearts, we hold something against people who hurt us for very wrong and it hinders us from ever relating with them in the same way.
Love God's way forgives. It covers a multitude of sins.

10.Love always:
i)protects
Yes, she got pregnant at 18, but don't be part of the 411 team.
Love God's way does not rejoice in failure of others.
Even when others come to you with the 411, you could change the story to.. "Do you love coffee? I loooooovvveee coffee.. Want some?!"

ii) trusts
Ever met someone who, you know they've just been duped, but they are convinced," she didn't mean it."
And you're like, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE DIDN'T MEAN IT?!"
Haha..
Well..
I don't know about you..but I wannabpractise live like my Jesus did.
The Pharisees are speaking ill.. But oh well, they don't mean it!

iii) hopes
Hope and doubt are oil and water.. They don't go together.

iv) perseveres
Yes, that irritating friend.
There's a reason they came your way.

11.Love bears all things!
This is pretty much like what I said earlier.
Love doesn't nitpick, looking for faults all around and having an eye for the wrong things people do.
LOVE doesn't broadcast bad news, it goes a second mile to protect.
I came across this quote somewhere:
“There are many times in my life when I’ve been sorry I opened my mouth. But there has never been a time I’ve been sorry I kept silent.”
Stay strong.
Persevere.

12.Love believes all things.
This is where benefit of doubt comes in.
Believing the best in people.
We all work best in an atmosphere where we feel trusted and appreciated.
Create an environment for those around you to perform to their best.
Look for the best. It doesn't mean you won't see the worst. But focus on the best.


13.Love endures all things.
Love God's way does not retaliate or reject.
It doesn't say, "I'm done with you!"
"I don't want anything to do with you ever again! "

Wow..
It's been one long post, I know..
But this is the most important part that I pray you understand with as much weight as I did.
We may make efforts to work towards practising all these things but without knowing the one true personification of love Himself then it's all null:(
Jesus loves you.
Greater love had no man than this.. That He lay down His life for his friends.
1 John 4:8:
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

I pray that we may all work towards understanding in depth the true nature of God because, then and only then will we be able to solidify our understanding of love.
We don't sign in to this by focusing on love but on the personification of it.. The definition of it.
Live it out! :)

The world will take notice, and lives will be changed.

Lots of Love,
Laura.

Hidden Faults

Unknown errors..
We all have these.

I recall sharing with you about my struggle with perfectionism.You my read about that here. It has a little to do with what I'll share with you on this post.

Being Christians doesn't mean that we never wander from the will of God, we do. We sin.
On to our first reference verse for this topic:
Psalms 19:12(NIV)
"But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults."
The first thing I derive from this verse is that as human beings, there are some errors we make that we can't notice, we can't understand, we can't detect.
Why?Simply because they are unintentional.

So, there are two kinds of sin: intentional (or rather, out of human weakness) and unintentional.
As Christians, any discovery of sin should lead us to the throne of grace, to confess and seek forgiveness. There is a natural proneness to sin even in the best of men, and if we don't constantly pray against temptation, we may find ourselves falling into it. Presumptuous sins are strangely dangerous.
In this verse, David not only desired to be pardoned and cleansed from the sins he had discovered and confessed, but from those he had forgotten or overlooked.
And that's what I'd like to encourage us to start doing from today.

Just to emphasize on the importance, Hebrews 4:13 tells us, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."
He knows it all, He sees it all, So take it all to Him. He is abounding in grace.


Please pray with me:
"Oh Lord, wash away with your precious blood, even the sin my conscience has been unable to detect. Father, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable unto you. In Jesus Name. Amen"

God bless you! :)

Love,
Laura.

Guard Your Heart.

My Bible tells me to guard my heart, for its the wellspring of life..

Wellspring?
Chill out.. I'll explain.
A wellspring is a source.. Not just any source.. an original and bountiful source of something.
(this is how Google defines it, and I so love this definition!)
We view the heart as just the seat of emotions and will, but it goes without saying, that there's more to it than this verse states. Your heart is WHO YOU ARE.

At some point within this year, I was faced with many tricky situations whose way out was to "guard" my heart. I walked around daily, telling myself, "Laura, guard your heart!".. Before I picked certain phone calls, or replied to certain texts, or opened my mouth to give my view in a certain conversation.. I was just shouting at myself, " GUARD YOUR HEART! "
Yes, it's because I was afraid of bruising my heart because then I wouldn't have inner peace. And I was also afraid of making mistakes I'd made before..

We'll, the fact that I was trying to put scripture into practise, really went a long way..
But the problem come in whereby, I didn't really, fully, broadly, comprehensively understand what it meant to guard my heart.

Everything about God is just so beautiful.
Lemme share with you something in the Word that you probably didn't know.
(I didn't know until recently)
To every question in life, the Bible gives an answer.
And to the wonder of how really to guard the heart, the Bible gives us the answer in Phillipians 4:6-7..
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Paul tells us that prayer is the pathway to guarding our hearts and minds with the peace of God. Peace comes as a comfort rooted in our trust in God that comes out clearly in the process of prayer. So, guarding your heart is the result of clear communication with God about ALL you do.
And you see, the most amazing thing about all this is that once we take it to the King, then we've played our part.. The ball is now in His court..
See...
"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Sweet! :)

Guarding your heart is essential, it can break you or make you..
It can liberate you or paralyze you.

What you have within you pours out with-out you..
Who you are affects what you do...

Therefore,
Guard your heart (who you are).. For it's the wellspring of life (what you do).

Blessed?
I hope..

Love,
Laura.

On Kingdom Assignment

I didn't write this..
(Lol.. What a way to begin a post)
I came across it and I resonated perfectly well with it, hence I had to share with you.

Please read it first before I say more:

“Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men” Matthew 16:22-23, NKJV.

Peter didn’t understand at the time why Jesus had to die, but later on it made perfect sense. It was so that whoever would believe on Him would not perish, but would have everlasting life (see John 3:16).

When God has given you a kingdom assignment, there will be those who will not understand. They will try to dissuade you from doing the work God has called you to do. They will speak from their emotions instead of from the Spirit. But you can’t allow people’s fears and their feelings to become your own. You have to serve God with a made up mind as you focus on obeying His voice and His Word only. The deeper you go in Him, the harder it will be for others to understand. And while you’re sitting there trying to explain it, you’re losing time. Recognize time wasters and the distractions of the enemy. Recognize those who are trying to hinder you. Rebuke them in a spirit of humility if you must and keep on moving forward. Brave the waters, raise your sail and let God chart your course. Do what He has put in your heart to do, and you will hear your heavenly Father say, “Well done, My good and faithful servant.”

What's your Kingdom Assignment?
Have you been called to minister through song, writing, journalism, photography....?
What's holding you back?

You see, Peter held Jesus back because he did not understand.. It's like that for the most of us on a kingdom assignment. They just don't understand.. It's not always necessarily because they don't mean well.
You can't afford to be distracted.
And whatever it is you've been called to do, give your all to it.

Sending blessings your way, faithful servant!

Jesus loves you! :)

Love,
Laura.