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Friday, 27 June 2008

  • Hmmm...

    My it's been an age since I have been on! :)

    To say the least, I am not dead... yet. ;)  
    But according to Xanga, I must post a blog before my account is deleted.
    So I shall post!

    I wish I could explain what all has happened since the last time I actually posted an update with my life.
    But so much has gone on, and it has flown by in such a rush!

    So many people, when you ask them what is new, answer with "Nothing much". But when you ask me, or anyone of my family for that matter, we try to think of how to explain it. Instead we seem to just stare off into time and space as the past year reruns in our mind.

    God has taken us on a trip of a lifetime, and yet it has only been two years since we started this odd season.
    He has guided us through every single step of the way, and has promised to take care of us as we are His own children. He has followed through on His promise in ways that we could never have imagined at the time, and He is still continuing to astonish us every new day!
    At this point the future just looks even more amazing than the past has been. I truly cannot even imagine what our lives will look like in the next 2 years, as everything has changed so drastically in the last two I can only think that it shall continue to change.

    You are probably wondering "What specifically has happened, Jo?"
    I'd love to have a simple answer for that, I honestly do! But there is so much that even I cannot understand it all, and I am the one who is living this miracle!

    Basically, the Lord has asked us to be missionaries, but in a far different sense than most of us think as 'Missionaries'.

    He has asked us to follow Him, to be willing to change for Him, and to give up everything for Him so that we might do His will.
    Sounds easy? *laughs* I wish... it has been the hardest thing I could ever imagine!  But I would never trade this for anything else!
    To live in Christ's joy every day because you know that the Lord has provided everything for you, is indescribable!  It is so different from what we have been taught as a child, you see the world so differently. You see everything working for His glory, even when it's something that seems bad. Something that our minds (as humans) cannot see around the pain and agony, when really in His reality it is beautiful!!!!


    " He prays to God and finds favor with him,
           he sees God's face and shouts for joy;
           he is restored by God to his righteous state."
          ~Job 33:26


    "The LORD is my strength and my shield;
           my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
           My heart leaps for joy
           and I will give thanks to him in song.

     The LORD is the strength of his people,
           a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.

    Save your people and bless your inheritance;
           be their shepherd and carry them forever."
       ~Psalms 28:7-9

Monday, 28 January 2008

  • EW! He's my brother! (The Lies of Love part 3)

    Hello again everyone! I hope you are all well and enjoying the amazing mercy of the Lord!
    Yes, I am back for the third part, and I trust that I shall be back for much more to come. Wink

    I ended up with a lot of comments (and emails) on the last two articles, I appreciate all the comments everyone, thank you.
    I also appreciate all of the support, I have received a lot of letters, notes, and words of encouragement from several people and I just wanted to thank you guys for those, they have blessed me so much. Truly, I do not think I could go forward so wholeheartedly without them. *hugs* God bless you guys!

    Anyway before I continue I'd like to encourage you all to take a moment and pray.
    Pray that the Lord speaks to you and shows you what He wants to reveal to you at this time. Pray that He guides you in your journey through seeking the truth in relationships and love. Pray that He would give you the wisdom to know the difference between His voice and the voice of your own flesh. (ouch, that one I pray for over and over, as it is one of my downfalls.)

    Ok, now back to the actual topic.
    I have been asked "If crushes are lustful and, therefore, sin, then how do I keep from having one, as it is my natural reaction to someone I like".
    This is something to consider, if what we are used to is sin, then how do we resist that?

    Here is how I see it:
    We are called the 'Children of God', we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are a family!
    (Yes, if you are a Christian, you have more relatives that you were not aware of. Take a moment and breathe, because you don't have to worry about getting them ALL a present for Christmas, and you don't have to send out all those birthday cards. *laughs* -Just kidding)
    If we are a family, is it not a revolting thought to look at your brother or sister with a romantic eye?
    Why do we look at each other as possible girlfriends/boyfriends, instead of siblings?
    I don't want to develop a crush on my little brother, that's GROSS!!!!!
    I hope you all are as disgusted with that thought as I am... *shudders at the thought*

    Now, before you get carried away with your thoughts, I want to explain something.
    I'm NOT implying that we NEVER get married, or take a relationship to a romantic level. I, myself, am looking forward to
    having a romantic relationship with someone, someday... eventually. I would never speak against marriage, romance, or even True Love. But! What we see today, in our culture, is NOT real love, real marriage, or even real romance.
    (I'll get into all of that later on, lets go back to the topic at hand.)

    I know... you're probably thinking "Yeah, that's great and all Danica, but if you're wanting to get married, you don't want to marry your brother, so didn't you just contradict yourself?"
    No, I have not, and I'm about to explain why.

    I'm only using the family situation as an analogy, but I believe we are to consider each other as family until the time the Lord has for us to develop something deeper than just brother/sister between us.
    If we have our eyes, hearts, minds, souls and emotions looking at others with a 'brother/sister' view point, then we remove the temptation to look at them with a fogged-over-romanticized view.
    For if we ask God to change our hearts and work on our mindset, then our emotions and feelings follow.
    Does that make sense?

    I'll be honest with you. -It's not easy. Wink
    It's something we have to work on. We constantly have to bring it to God asking for Him to, yet again, help us change our hearts.
    I can assure you that if you ask Him, He will NOT refuse you. He promises to come when we invite Him in.
    Matthew 7:7-8 says;
    "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
    So if you ask Him, He will answer.

    My challenge to you this week is to spend time in your Prayer Closets, pray that the Lord will help change your mindset and your heart so that your feelings and emotions follow.
    Then make an extra effort, when you are tempted to think about a guy or girl that you 'like', to think of them as a brother/sister.

    I cannot tell you how many times I have had people 'tease me' about a lot of my guy friends. They think it's funny to play matchmaker with me and other guys I know.
    Every time they do, I try to always respond with "EW!!! He's my brother!".
    Try to respond to your own hearts that way, think of them as your brother or sister.

    Keep each other strong in this! We're all in this journey/fight together. Lets expose The Lies that our culture is teaching us about Love together, as brothers and sisters in Christ!

    *hugs* Remember, I'm on this journey with you, I'm just a follower in this too. Christ is the leader, He is calling us to make a stand for what is right, pure and just!
    Philippians 4:8 says: " Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

    Until next time, I shall be praying for you all...
    In Christ's love and my own,
    ~Danica

Tuesday, 15 January 2008

  • But it's JUST a crush! (The Lies of Love part 2)

    Hello again all my dear girls! (and hey to the guys as well...)

    Since my last post, I have had TONS of people writing/commenting to me about it. I have had tons of people ask me questions about relationships, I have had quite a few comments (both negative and positive *laughs*) on it, and I have had many discussions from women young and old, and a quite a few guys.
       I want to thank you ALL who have commented, especially the notes of encouragement they all blessed me so much!

    One thing I'd like to say before I go on with this is that in my last post many people misunderstood me and thought that I was saying that I was AGAINST love, and saying that love itself was a bad thing! Good heavens this could not be farther from the truth! I truly am great advocate of love, loving one another, and especially loving God. BUT as long as said love is revolving around God, and not ourselves.
    The title 'The Lies of Love' means the lies that the world feeds us about love, not that love itself is a lie.  :)
    Make sense?  -Wonderful! Now lets move on...

    I have been asked to do the next part on crushes specifically.
    Many questions I have had is  'Are crushes really sin?', 'If so, why?', and most importantly 'How do you back up your stance biblically?'.

    Yes, crushes really are sin. Why? Because despite what we want to think, the real heart attitude is lust. (Which IS sin.)
    I have several ways to back this one up, and I WAS going to write them all out, but a dear friend of mine wrote up a comment that basically was (almost) word for word what I was going to say!
    She said I can use her comment. Here are her comments on this;

    "When we entertain thoughts on the people we have crushes on, that is where the sin comes in. Of course when we see a guy (or even another girl) we, being human notice their "agreeable features" as one put it.  But what do we do with that? do we think about it all day, expounding on the "agreeableness" of them? Or do we merely say "He is cute", the end, and get on to more important things?
      It is not like we can just not notice if a male is good looking or not, but if we continuously think and "meditate", for lack of a better word, on his cuteness. That is where the danger and the sin comes in.
    Allow me to share a scripture that is essential to this battle for purity in the mind:
    'Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.'
    ~Philippians 4:8

    Admirable is what sticks out to me there...how often do you go around saying "wow I really admire Susan because she really knows how to pick a hot guy...she is so noble!" LOL! of course we don't. That is where we really have to watch our thought lives....that to me is the biggest battle, not dwelling on the thoughts of the handsome guy at church etc
     It is may be nice to think about, but it just leaves you thirsting for more...
    Let me share just one more scripture...

    May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
    be pleasing in your sight,
    O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
    Psalm 19:14

    That is so hard....the meditation of my heart. When thinking about "agreeable bob" we are meditating on him...I cannot say that that is pleasing in the sight of the LORD. What more should we be meditating on? there is so much more!     "

    I totally agree with her in that, and I really appreciate the letter, thank you dear! :D *hugs*

    Another dear friend of mine wrote to me about the topic of crushes, as well.
    He had some amazing thoughts on it that I wanted to share with you all.
    He wrote;
     "I can't exactly say that I'm blameless in that matter, but the fact that I'm experienced just gives my words more weight.
    There is nothing down that road that will satisfy you.
     Absolutely nothing -- you will simply wish for more and more, soon you will be doing inappropriate things with guys, and guys will treat you like objects the same way that you are treating them like objects. After that, you will become more and more immersed in that lifestyle, and any good Christian guy will look at you and run the other way, making it so you won't be able to find any good guys to get married to at all.

    You will be tangled up so badly that it will be nigh impossible to get out and then you'll realize that this didn't bring you happiness like you thought it would. You are only doing it because it makes you feel good to have guys like you and treat you differently as a result. But it's only because they like the pleasure you can potentially give them that they treat you this way, just like it gives you pleasure for them to treat you this way. It's a sinful exchange, but nobody is happy in the end, it's not worth it.

    Which is why guys need to be careful too, an extreme crush is infatuation, nothing else but that.
    Infatuation is lust.
    Lust is adultery.
    Adultery is sin.
    And sin is death.

     If you respect yourself, you will stop with this downward spiral into a terrible and sinful lifestyle. When you act inappropriately towards a guy, not only do you tempt him to sin but you also show that you haven't enough self worth to keep yourself, well, to yourself. And if you don't think that what you are doing is a sin, believe me -- and this is coming from a guy -- it is"

    Ouch... *flinches* That one is deep. But so true. Thank you for sending this to me, it really encouraged me.

    Something I always hear is "Oh, it's just a crush". That seems to excuse it all. I'm guilty of using that excuse too!  "Oh, don't worry... it's just a crush. S/he'll get over it."
    *sighs* Only if.
    It's never 'Just a crush'. There is so much more to it, and our heart attitude is at the base of it.

    This is something that I'm struggling with too, I'm not just sitting here telling you guys how to do things and thinking that I'm perfect. I'm writing this more to myself than to anyone. ;) (I'll be one of the FIRST people to admit that I have problems with this.)
    I want to encourage you all to stand together with me in this, and fight against the world's 'Lies of Love', and to fight for God's version of True Love instead.

    I will not lie to you... this is going to be hard. Changing our whole mindset on 'love' from the world's version that we have been taught and saturated with since we were little tots, to God's version of True Love, is going to be a really hard transaction.
    But I want to ask you all to pray and consider coming with me on this journey and standing back to back.  Encouraging each other, holding each other accountable, and helping each other when we are struggling in this.
    "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!"
    ~Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

    I'll be back soon with more deep thoughts on this, and my other overly-opinionated comments. *laughs*

    Before I go, I want to remind you all that I truly love you guys as brothers and sisters, and I only want to encourage you girls/guys to do the right thing for God.
    *huge hugs*
    In Christ's amazing and everlasting True Love,
    ~Danica

Saturday, 12 January 2008

  • The Lies of Love... (Part 1)

    Hello again my dear, dear girls!

    I have a very deep and intense topic to discuss with you all. God has convicted me with this over the last week and He has brought light to so much that I have recently been blind to.
    Before I jump headlong into this, I'd like to apologize ahead of time. I'm sorry if this offends you, that is the farthest thing from my intentions in this discussion. I truly am concerned for you all, and I feel like I MUST bring this to the surface, this lie has hidden itself in our culture for too long. God has laid this on my heart to speak out on it, so I will do whatever I have to do to get this said.

    I love each and every one of you so very deeply,  please keep this in mind as you read ahead. Understand that I am not sitting here pointing fingers and accusing you, for I am to blame in this as well, but I am bringing this to you all in love and concern.
    I am praying that you girls will be able to listen with open hearts and let God speak to you.
    (Please stop to pray that God will show you what He wants you to see, before you read on.)

    Now to business...
    As I said before, God has convicted me deeply with this topic. It is so much more intense than I had first thought.
    As we have grown up we have constantly been 'fed' the belief that romance, crushes, boyfriends, dating, holding hands, sex and falling in love is expected of you in your teen and young adult years. We have heard this from TV shows, Movies, Books, magazines, Music, Advertising, Friends and even some Family members. Everything we see/hear seems to be connected to sex, romance or relationships somehow.

    We are so used to it that it starts getting to us. We start having crushes on our friends. We start looking at guys in magazines and think "Ohhh, he's cute!". We walk down the street checking out guys our age (or sometimes, not even that), appraising him with our eyes. We start giggling at our guy friends when they talk to us. We watch romance movies and wish that girl getting kissed by someone was us. We start dressing in ways that would get us noticed by 'cool guys'. We read books with a hero who is seemingly 'perfect' and start day dreaming.
    We have been contaminated with the world's sin of want of romance!

    Now I know you're probably getting mad already saying "Ok Danica, what is wrong with crushes, boyfriends, dating wisely, and falling in love?"
    And my answer to you is "Because they all are lies!"
    They are distractions from the truth, they are keeping us from God's time that He has given us as Godly single young ladies.
    "How?" you ask.
    In SO many ways!!!

    #1- If we are thinking about a recent 'Crush' and our hearts and thoughts are concentrated on said cute boy, how can we be Servants of God and give Him all of us; heart, mind, and soul? God tells us to love Him with ALL of our hearts, and if we are giving our hearts away to random guys, we can't give Him all of our hearts, just pieces of it because we have given it away the rest.
     "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." ~Deuteronomy 6:5

    #2- The Bible clearly says that thinking guys are hot, or having someone 'catch your eye', or even having a crush is LUST! I know that it seems like a simple thought about a guy being hot is not the same as 'lust', but the heart motivation is the same sin, there is NO getting around it in any way.
    "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."  ~Matthew 5:28 (This says men, but it is the same way for women looking at men as well!)

    #3- Simply day dreaming about a guy you know (or even don't know) is allowing our hearts to be given before their time. It may not seem like it, we can argue against it all we want, but the truth is clear.
    "Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart," ~1st Peter 1:22

    #4- God truly does call us to set ourselves apart from 'The lies of love' (boyfriends, dating, crushes... etc.). He tells us to stay away from it in this verse;
    "So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart." ~2nd Timothy 22:2

    #5- Our hearts and feelings lie to us. God calls us to THINK and use wisdom in our relationships, instead of liking a fellow brother and letting that be 'proof' enough to claim love over him.
      "And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."  ~Philippians  1:9-11

    There are tons more references in the Bible where God is calling us to keep from the world's lies of romance, passion, and love, these are just a few.

    I'd like to hear your thoughts and ideas about this, after reading through these verses.
    Before I let you all go, I'd like to apologize from the bottom of my heart for ever encouraging you in any of these ways. (crushes, boyfriends, looking at 'hot guys', laughing over actors who 'look good', or even day dreaming over future relationships.)
     Until now, I had not realized just how serious this sin is. I am SO sorry, please forgive me, my dear friends.

    I'll come back with tons more, God has shown me SOOOO much, and is calling me to bring this out in the open, so I shall.
    For now, I shall leave you girls to think and pray about this. Please feel free to comment!
    *hugs to you all*
    With all my love,
    ~Danica

Monday, 08 October 2007

  • Stroke of Brilliance!

    I know it’s been forever since I have blogged…

    Life has been crazy busy for me, I have been all over the place. And life has just been crazy.

    But, I have been wanting to put up a blog for a while, but couldn’t think of anything to blog about.
    Tonight, I was talking with a friend (who is very crazy, by the way… and no, he doesn’t mind me saying so. -It’s a compliment to him, not an insult. ;) As well it should be, being crazy, is awesome!) and I randomly said something very odd indeed. And the next thing I know, he’s basically daring me to post it as a blog! *shakes head* :P ;)

    So… this random post is for our friend Todd (from NW).

    My random thought of the day…

    Chocolate -nearly everyone’s favorite candy- is grown on trees, like fruits. It’s very healthy… really it is!
    Flour, is a grain, and can reduce the risk of heart attacks.
    Eggs, are chocked full of Vitamin D, and that helps strengthen your bones.
    Milk, is basically liquid calcium!

    So… if all of these are good for you… does that mean that we can classify Chocolate dough nuts as healthy? :D

    Yes, you may take that to your doctor and try to stump him. (Or even try to convince your mom! ;) Who knows… maybe she’ll agree) *laughs*

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BondServantofChrist

  • Visit BondServantofChrist's Xanga Site
    • Name: Jo Bond
    • Birthday: 7/9/1930
    • Gender: Female
    • Member Since: 1/20/2006

About Me

  • I am a Christian teen-aged girl, who is fun in my own way. I love the Lord my God with all my Heart, Soul, and Mind. I'm homeschooled and I'm the oldest of 7. I'm also known as ShadowOfTheLion on Narniaweb.

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Chatboard (5)

  • moonfaerie00
    Hey! It's Lainey, just thought I'd say hi!
  • songbird02
    Hey there DJ! I miss you! ;) Anyways, just wanted to stop by. Love ya! ~Andrea
  • BondServantofChrist
    Ok guys! What shall we chat about? Anyone have an idea??? I'll be waiting for you!!!
  • BondServantofChrist
    Thanks Mandy! I just was kind of messing with what it would do though. LOL!
  • myclassproject
    Hey Danica! I have no idea. Good question! I'll see if any of my Xanga-ing friends know. 'K?