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He's a Monday Kind of God

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by Rebecca Kiser I didn’t grow up in church. I went to a Christian school through seventh grade, but the number of total Sundays my family spent in church through those years is most definitely less than the number of weekends we spent at the beach in just one summer. Honestly, I wouldn’t say that’s completely a bad thing. I think as Christians we can sometimes fall into the trap of restricting God to just a Sunday morning ordeal. We plan the day around going to church. We get up, we put on nice clothes, we yell at kids not to get messy, we grab our bibles. For an hour and a half, once a week, all is well. We meet God in a church pew and carefully flip through our Bibles so as not to damage their holiness. We put on a Sunday morning mentality and we leave the messy chaos at home. But you guys, that’s not real life. The church that I go to has a service on Monday nights for people who work on the weekends, which is why I started going on Mondays. And it’s awesome. It’s suc...
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These Days are Numbered

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by Rebecca Kiser There are seasons in life. As much as we like to act as though circumstances just flow in and out of existence without any connection to each other, every promise God has ever made us assures us that He has a plan. Sometimes these times are brilliantly good, and we want nothing more than to stay wrapped up in them forever. But sometimes they are really, really rough. Undoubtedly, we will each go through seasons of life that we’d rather bypass, times we think we might not make it through, times we don’t want to make it through. But sweetheart, God will not lead you through something unless it is absolutely necessary for His plan for you. Let me just get straight to it: Every single thing, every second of every day has a purpose in God’s plan for your life.  “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’” Jeremiah 29:11 “‘For the mountains may move and the hills di...
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Two Verses to Help You Live With Intention

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 by Rebecca Kiser The past couple of months these same two bible verses started popping up everywhere and in a hundred different contexts:  Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” Psalms 16:11, “In Your presence is fullness of joy.” The more they kept showing up, the more I struggled to understand why. Yes, they’re amazing bible verses but how do they apply to my life? It didn’t hit me until I was watching the Today show one morning (with one boxer next to me and the other on top of me, because that’s life at my house) and Kathie Lee and Hoda were talking about New Year’s resolutions.  Our New Year’s resolutions are things we believe will make us happy. They are the things we want to achieve, they are our dreams, they are our ideal lives. But God didn’t design us to chase goals and ideals to make us happy - he molded each of us around a common need ...
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Why You Should be Thankful for Weakness

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by Rebecca Kiser If your family is anything like mine, you go around the table at Thanksgiving dinner and everyone tells something they are thankful for. People express their gratitude for things like family, their job, their health, or if you’re my brother, the food. But what you’re unlikely to hear is anyone say they’re thankful for the bad times they had this year. The times they were struggling and the times they doubted they were going to make it through. The times they were weak. It’s easy for us to be thankful when things are good, when we make it to the mountain tops. But you’d be hard pressed to find someone who wants to give thanks for the valleys. While the mountain tops are beautiful times for us, they are not where we grow.  From my own experiences, I see that every time God did amazing work in my heart it was during a hard time. I tend to get a little bit cocky on the mountain tops. At first, I see God’s hand in the situation and am thankful to Him for it, b...
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I'm Bad At Prayer

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By Rebecca Kiser Me: “Hi I’m Becca and I’m bad at prayer.” Christian Support Group: “Hiiiiiiii Becca.” So, you would think having gone to Christian school for the first seven years of my education I would have a pretty good working knowledge of how to pray and be super comfortable with it. No dice. Can I get real honest with you guys for a second? I don’t like praying. It does not come naturally to me. I love to turn to my Bible when I’m struggling. I find so much comfort in the promises God has for me there, and I find strength in the testimonies of other Christians like Paul and David. I whisper, “Jesus” randomly throughout the day, and recite those foundational verses in those rough moments, so yes that’s prayer. But as far as sitting down and talking to God, telling him about my life and problems, praising him, asking for his presence in situations, I really struggle. When I pray out loud it feels like I’m talking to the air, like no one is listening. When ...
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I Will Not Be Shaken

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by Rebecca Kiser A couple of weeks ago, I heard a pastor speak a message about the wise man who built his house on the rock. Now, having grown up in church, church school, and church camp I have heard this story several times. I’ve seen Sunday school teachers use the little felt Jesus on the felt board to explain the story, and I’ve got that song memorized. It’s one of those classic Bible stories. But the problem with growing up in church is that I know stories like this one in and out, but they don’t always reach my heart. When I heard this story most recently though, I saw myself as the house. Lately I’ve felt shaken. I am consumed with panic and worry over this in-between time in my life. Now you should know I am a poster child “Type A” person. I like things to be predetermined, organized, color-coded, and predictable. When it comes to uncertainty, I’m not a fan. Right now, it seems like everything is uncertain. Most of my friends just moved off to school, things are cha...
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To Scroll or Not to Scroll?

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By Rebecca Kiser Honorable Mention: Abagail Conyers Social media is a huge part of our culture. For many of us, it’s the first thing we see in the morning and the last thing we see at night. It’s how we keep in touch with hundreds of  “friends,” share our opinions, and sometimes even receive national news. Although it’s role in our lives varies between generations, it’s safe to say most of us are more reliant on social media than we ought to be. The average adult spends around two hours a day on various social media outlets, while it’s a whopping nine hours a day for most teenagers. These statistics ignited a question for me: What happens if we take away social media? Cold turkey. Just there one day and gone the next. I figured this, like all crazy ideas, would be best executed alongside my best friend, so I enlisted Abby to join me in a 21 day social media fast. Here’s what happened: So… Why? Before we dive in, you have to understand the underlying motives that...
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