Finding the Motivation to Keep Going

This past week has been a struggle. The quiet times that used to be so intimate and highly anticipated lost their luster. I argued with God when my alarm went off in the morning. Saying things like:

I'm tired, God I just need to wait till eight.

God it’s too cold can’t we just have quiet time here?

God I just want to relax today can we take a break and just chill?

In a lot of ways I equate my quiet time to doing my duty and that has to change. By doing that I put myself in the optimal position to get burnt out and before I knew it I had no desire to do the things that used to get me out of bed excited about my day. I know what I’m called to do but somewhere along the line I lost the motivation to keep doing it. So today I decided enough was enough. I knew my lack of motivation was spiritual so I went to the father to resolve my issues. I didn’t hold back. I didn’t shy away from certain topics I just laid my life bare at his feet and I asked him to give me back my desire for him. Not a desire based out of duty or obligation. I want to desire God like the psalmist does in chapter 42. As the deer pants for the water so my soul longs for you. I want to truly enjoy God and share that enjoyment with everyone around me.

One of the biggest roadblocks that will keep motivation at bay is hiding from God. When your prayers become cryptic and guarded your heart starts to harden. Your spiritual senses aren’t as receptive as they once were and before you know it you will find yourself feeling alone and abandoned. I implore you today to follow what Luke 10:27 says:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.” HCSB

Give him EVERYTHING. Tell him how you feel about the quality of your relationship. Be honest about your frustrations to stay motivated. Love God because you want to and be honest with him when you aren’t feeling it. Talk to Him even when you don’t want to. God is our only hope; he is the only way we can stay motivated to continue living this life. Don’t hold back.

  

Have you ever struggled to find motivation? Tell me your story in the comments.

5 Ways to Reconnect with your Spouse

Being married isn’t as difficult as many people make it. However if you are not intentional in your marriage it will grow dull and slip away from you. Staying connected with your spouse helps you both to remain on mission and fulfill your purpose as a couple. So I’ve compiled five tips that have helped me and hopefully they will inspire you to keep the flame alive.

Unplug

It is so easy to stay glued to our devices and ignore our spouses. So this is first because social media can take up HOURS of your day if you let it. All those hours could be better spent spending quality time with your spouse and rediscovering who they are. People grow all the time right under your nose and if you aren’t careful you can wake up next to a stranger.

Dates

Going on dates needs to be a regular occurrence in your household, whether you have children or not. Your spouse is your first ministry and second only to God on your list of priorities. Just remember you don’t have to break the bank to have a good time! Check out one of my previous blogs if you need some inspiration.

Stay in communication throughout the day

Check in on your spouse. If you work separate jobs you might have no idea what they are facing if you don’t ask. Give them time to vent on your lunch break or even via text, but I would say to check in at least once every day.

Have sex on a regular basis

There is a reason why God pushes married couples to have sex. Other than the obvious possibility of children sex allows you to be vulnerable and loved in a way that you can’t experience with any other human being. 1 Corinthians 7:5 clearly tells us to not deprive one another and the Song of Solomon gives you tons of ideas to keep things interesting in the bedroom. God is not anti-sex. It is a gift He has given to married people to help bring offspring into the world and raise them up to be Godly leaders while doubling as a tool of unparalleled human intimacy. Enjoy it.

Spend time in worship together

Last, but most certainly not least, spending time worshiping God together on a regular basis is probably one of the best things you could do for your relationship. Even if you do all the other tips and you ignore this one you are missing out on an experience that transforms you from the inside out. As a COUPLE. Worshiping alone is one thing, and it’s amazing, but sharing that intimate worship space with your spouse will blow your mind in a myriad of ways.

How do you reconnect with your spouse? Let me know in the comments!

Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/oriannaofreverentia 

How to fall back in love with God

When we question God's character our faith that he cares about us begins to waver. We are drawn away from our first love by the things we think care about us more. The bible becomes an anthology instead of a love letter. God becomes a distant entity whose existence is questionable. Don't get me wrong, God hasn't fallen out of love with us, we are the problem. We are the ones who get bored with God. Our quiet times seem dull, worship services become routine, and our prayers begin to sound robotic. When we begin to display contempt for the things of God it shows in our relationships.  Our tempers are shorter, our patience is thin, and our hearts grow cold toward others. The good news is that in respect to our relationship with God the phrase "familiarity breeds contempt" is not absolute. In my opinion the phrase should read "familiarity CAN breed contempt". The original phrase means that the depth of your closeness with others leads to a loss of respect for them. The modified phrase gives you an option. Your closeness can lead to contempt, but it can also lead to admiration and respect. When we seek to go deeper with God and we find his actions in a new passage puzzling, we have a choice. We can close our bibles and emotionally withdraw from God or we can allow the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to the truth of the passage. 

This happened to me when I read the story of Jephthah's daughter in Judges 11. At first glance it looks like God sanctioned a human sacrifice, and that confused me because it looked like God contradicted himself. For a few days... I stopped reading my bible. I mulled over so many different questions:  

Why didn't God allow a goat to meet Jephthah?

Did Jephthah really burn his only daughter alive? 

Why didn't God stop him like he stopped Abraham? 

Did God not consider her important enough to save?

Needless to say, by the end of the week I was distraught as I went deeper into the rabbit hole. It wasn't until I talked with my husband, conducted my own research, and prayed that I understood what truly took place. Jephthah's daughter wasn't sacrificed by fire, she was dedicated to the Lord and made to serve in the temple instead of living a normal life. 

So what do we do when God doesn't make sense?

How do we fall back in love?

1. Ask Questions.

Asking God about passages that confuse you is not sinful. He wants you to talk with Him. Especially when you are confused. By going to God first He will reassure you of his unchanging character, refresh your soul, and calm your spirit. He might lead you to someone in your church who you could talk to. We learn in community.

2. Do research and discover the context.

The internet is an amazing tool for discovering answers to biblical mysteries. One of my personal favorites is gotquestions.org. There are so many commentaries and research papers available to provide context and clarity. Your local library is another great resource.

3. Keep Reading. 

Don't let one puzzling story in the bible keep you from reading the rest of it. Go back, reinforce the foundational truths, and memorize those scriptures. God will reveal the answers to your questions as you continue to seek Him. Don't run away. 

Tell me about how you fell in love with God in the comments! 

Prayer 101

This post is going to be a bit different, since prayer is a conversation; I am pushing to write this as though we are sitting down and talking together.

If I’m being perfectly honest prayer is something that I have been struggling to get a grasp on for a while. When I first got saved it was because God answered my prayer. I knew it was God because there was no other explanation for what happened. Since that time I have learned to lean more and more on talking to God as an outlet for my frustration and as a way to get to know him better. However, I have heard a lot of different teachings on prayer that I still don’t understand and I’m not even sure if they are biblical. For example in Matthew 18:18-20 Jesus is talking about binding and loosing things in heaven and on earth. When I look at the context of the passage I can presume he is talking to the disciples, which makes me question if I actually have the authority to do what the disciples did since he wasn’t talking to me but to them. Sometimes our prayers are more cultural colloquialisms than real genuine prayers. Such as speaking things into existence and commanding angels. Yes life and death is in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21) but if you are “speaking things into existence” that go against the will of God they are NOT going to happen. There also isn’t any scriptural reference for humans commanding angels, God commands angels to help us if we ask him, and we do not have any authority over angels.  So I take these truths into consideration when I pray because the way I look at it, God is the only one who can do those things. And I get so sad when I see posts on Facebook where people are binding spirits, speaking prosperity over their lives, and rebuking Satan because I’m not sure if they actually have the power to do that and are therefore wasting their time.

What I do know for a fact is that God definitely has the power to do all of these things and more and for me right now I go the route of asking him to do them. For example I am more likely to pray something like: “Lord if it be your will take this headache away and bring healing to my body” than “I bind this spirit of infirmity”. The second prayer places me as the source of my healing and that is unbiblical. So as I continue to grow in Christ and get a full understanding of what I do and don’t have the power to do, I lean on the Holy Spirit and the Bible for wisdom on how to pray appropriately. I look at the psalms and I see the way David prayed. I read about how Moses and Ezekiel conversed with God and then I go back to the outline Jesus gave for prayer. After I put all of that together I can humbly come before God and have a casual, honest conversation.

One of the biggest things I have learned about prayer this year is that sprinkling the phrase in Jesus name at the end of a rant doesn’t make the prayer genuine or increase its chances of going past the ceiling. I know this because I did this, for YEARS, and I kept wondering why God wasn’t listening to me. Once I realized that prayer is more than just me ranting and raving to God about all of my issues, I began to see changes in my heart, my perspective, and my life. I hope that through some intense study and genuine prayer of your own you will begin to see major changes in your prayer life as well.

A few weeks ago I was watching a Facebook live video by Rekesha Pittman. I have long since forgotten what the original purpose of the video was but one of her statements hit me right between the eyes. “I pray that God gives me thick skin and a soft heart.” In her video she was addressing people in leadership, however I think this concept is something that we all need to grasp if we are going to effectively reach the lost.

So for all of us who have a smaller sphere of influence; here are some reasons why you should pray for thick skin and a soft heart.

You gain a backbone.

Having thick skin will help you not to bend to the will of others based on their emotional responses to your decisions. You aim to please and audience of one and their opinions about the way you live your life don’t have any negative psychological effects on your life.

Your compassion level skyrockets.

Not only do you brush off hateful commentaries but you begin to care about the source of them and the motives of the commentator. And as you begin to discover those motives, your heart softens towards them and you develop a desperate urge to pray for them on a regular basis, because the Holy Spirit allows you to see the person behind the hate. He shows you their fears and their insecurities and because you have been held back by those demons before you begin going to war for them because God shows you their potential for greatness in His kingdom. Everyone has a part to play in the body of Christ and you don’t allow a bristly personality to keep you from helping them grow and play their part.

Your witnessing efforts are more effective.

When you truly start to accept that you only have one audience and that everyone is here for a purpose, the fear you used to have when witnessing will disappear. There are over 300 times in the bible where God tells us not to be afraid. As you develop a thicker skin the fears of what people will think of you and how they will respond to you go out the window. As you develop a softer heart you will have a desire to share the freedom that you have in Christ with everyone you know. You can’t hide in the closet anymore. God is too good and people have too much potential for you to hide the joy that God has given you.

To be honest this is not an easy prayer to pray. And the process of it getting answered is difficult. You will be praying for people who have hurt you, people who get under your skin, and your flesh will fight against you tooth and nail the entire way. But the joy contentment, confidence, and peace that come with a thick skin and a soft heart out weigh the pain of the process.

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PSA: I am working on a book and my goal is to finish it by the end of the summer. Follow me on Facebook for more details!

During the first 18 years of my life I didn’t take God seriously. I grew up in church and based on my understanding of what I was taught, I could never be good enough. This coupled with my natural inclination towards a fatalist mindset left me in many questionable circumstances for a “goody-two shoes”. My reasoning was that since I was never going to meet God standards I shouldn’t really bother. During my freshman year of college I put God on the back burner. I wanted to reinvent myself without His influence, my pastors, or my parents. But something shifted my sophomore year. My roommate started inviting me to bible study on Sunday nights. Since it was really informal and I was free to ask questions I kept going. (The fact that they fed us was a big help too.) I started falling in love with God again. I wanted to give Him every part of my life, simply because I loved Him. But I started to swing into a dangerous mindset of legality. I was trying to earn His love through works. And this left me in a worse mess than I had been before. I started to read my bible, pray, and serve out of duty instead of love. And the prison I found myself in was unbearable. I had to be perfect. There was no room for error in the mindset I had.  Thankfully with the help of some very patient mentors and hours of study on my own I don’t live in that prison anymore. So here are some truths and verses that helped me break out.

Romans 8

Although the entire book of Romans is bomb, chapter eight spoke to me during this time because I felt condemned with no way out on a regular basis. Meditating on this scripture, memorizing it, and embracing the freedom I have in Christ took some time, but I fall more in love with this passage every day, especially on my bad days.

People pleasing is for the birds

If I could shout this from every roof top in the world I would. This simple reality has saved me so much heart ache in the last few years. It took me a long time to realize that it is impossible to please everybody. Scripture says “If it be possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (Romans 12:18 NIV) Meaning there is a chance that you WON’T live at peace with everyone, and that is ok. Remember we perform for an audience of one.

Sanctification is a process and you need people to help make it happen

When it comes to living a life pleasing to God it will not happen overnight, and it definitely won’t happen when you are isolated. Having friends and family members that hold you accountable helps you stay close to God. However at the end of the day it is the Holy Spirit that changes your heart and convicts you of your sinful habits. And although it didn’t feel good at the time I am so thankful for conviction.

So if you find yourself in the prison of perfection, I encourage you to break out. The law has been fulfilled, we live under grace and there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God

My Love Story

Me and my baby brother!

I got married on this day, in Lexington, SC last year. But…

Before the flowers.

The dress.

The I do’s.

There was a lot of pain and confusion.

John and I started dating on February 20, 2014. We met at North Carolina Central University at an Impact Leadership conference. We went through the initial honeymoon phase that most couples go through, staying on the phone till 5 am on some nights. Since I didn’t have a car John took any opportunity he could to come see me. On our very first date we were literally inseparable (my love language is physical touch, don’t judge). But around August things started getting heated, and not in a fun way. I was entering my senior year in college and he had just graduated. So the amount of stress we were under in addition to the distance, started to take its toll on the relationship. We argued over simple things. It got to the point that every time we talked on the phone we were yelling at each other. This caused me to shut down emotionally and start looking for acceptance in other places. Since I couldn’t do anything right, I started spending more time intentionally hanging out with a group of friends later…and later. Just so I wouldn’t have to end my day with an argument. It got to the point that I dreaded talking to him on the phone and I’m sure he felt the same way. The mistake that both of us made during this time was continuing to “talk” to other people while we were mad at each other. This led to John getting so mad that he drove from Charleston SC to Durham, NC after he got off work one night, uninvited. The argument that happened once he got there was not pleasant. My friends were so worried that they came by and checked on me because they didn’t know if we were physically fighting or not. I don’t remember how but we managed to make but we did. The sad part came when John got in an accident on the way home that should have killed him. I was so thankful he was alive I forgot that we neglected to do something very important; we didn’t deal with the root issue of our problems and we didn’t cut off our “backup” people.

We paid for this mistake later in February 2015.

It was our one year dating anniversary and John came up to New Bern, NC to visit, through a horrific ice storm no less. Tensions were already high from the argument the night before, so by the time he got there the only people that talked to John when he came to pick me up were my parents. I was in graduate school at this point and still under and enormous amount of pressure to perform. John had a job at a mental health facility which put him in harm’s way on a daily basis. Needless to say we were both at the end of our rope with this relationship. I didn’t want to deal with the pressure anymore, and as John was helping me with some of my homework, he looked at me and closed the computer. He knew I was distracted by our issues and therefore nothing he said could help me understand my assignment. So we finally put everything out in the open. After a long conversation and a lot of prayer, we switched phones, I deleted his back up people and he deleted mine. It wasn’t easy to do but it was the turning point in our relationship. We started opening up to each other emotionally in ways that we hadn’t before. By forcing myself to be faithful emotionally he started getting under my skin in a good way. Letting him into my heart where I hid all of my darkest secrets, even when it hurt solidified our relationship. Fast forward to April 20^th 2016 and it’s the day before my wedding. Amazingly I wasn’t really nervous. After all we had been through I couldn’t wait to be Mrs. Sells, I had earned it!

So what’s the moral of this love story?

Be completely you and completely present in your relationships. Sweeping issues under the rug will cause extra tension. It is ALWAYS best to pull problems up from the root and to stay emotionally open at all times. Yes this will cause you pain at times but in the long run it is worth it. Love is always worth it!

Orianna