My mum came and visited for the long weekend - which was wonderful and very busy! She is not one to sit around and relax. She is also not a Christian - I am the only Christian in my family. This made it hard to find time to sit and read my bible. I had great intentions of reading it every day and posting here after my quiet time with God as a way of reflecting.

I still intend on doing that, I just feel a little guilty that it has fallen through so quickly. However, today is a new day, my mum lest this morning and I now have spent some time reading my bible. I think thats the thing with goals. We have these great intentions and then the first time we fail at the them we think whats the point? But they wouldnt be goals if they were so easily obtained. I want to get in a good habit but I have to be honest with myself and realise that there will be times when I fail at it. The important thing is that after failing I pick myself up and try again instead of giving up.

With that in mind I decided to look up perseverance and I stumbled upon Romans 5 which gave me alot of hope and reminded me that God loves me despite all my failings.

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, wehave peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but wealso rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

Romans 5:1-11

Already my good intentions are failing - I did manage to read the bible today but took little from it. The thing is today was a crazy day that I didnt have time to stop. Its now 9:40pm and I have only been sitting for 15 minutes (I havent even eaten dinner yet) in which I read my bible. But I had to fight myself to do it and I was to tired to really understand. Then again I am currently reading proverbs and they arent always easy to understand so it might have been that.

I started one on one bible readings yesterday with a friend, Sarah. I think its going to be really postitive. We started reading James, and then discussed it though we went far from the reading but I think it was lead by the spirit.

Tonight I think I will turn to Matthew where it says:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

~ Matthew 11:28

Last night I was part of a woman's bible study, its the first time I have ever been part of a bible study that only had girls in it but I found it great. We started working through a book "Displines of a Godly Woman" by Barbara Hughes. Check it out at Koorong here. It is an amazing book so far. The first chapter which we did together was basicly an introduction and an explination of what displine is and why it is important.

It described displine in a very different light to how I would normally see it and I think that is a good thing. When I think about displine I usually have very negative connotations to it, however Barbara describes it as a positive thing and something you do out of love for God.

The one lesson in the bible study that really stood out to me was the need to train for God. The best way to look at this is to compare to a athlete. A athlete will spend hours training in order to reach a goal - whether that be reaching the olympics, winning first place or getting a gold medal. In everyday life we do similar things, education is a form of training where the goal is a degree or a promotion, we exercise daily with the aim of becoming or staying fit or looking a particular way. No matter what your goals are, we all spend hours training ourselves to reach them.

However when it comes to the ultimate goal - eternal life with God, how much time do we spend working towards it? When you compare the time you spend working towards worldly goals with what you spend working towards being a better Christian - what comes out on top? For me I found that I really do spend to much time caught up in everyday life. I often find myself thinking - I am too tired to read my bible, or I dont have time to sit and talk to God and this is really the wrong attitude for me to have.

And so I start this blog. When the bible study finished last night and I was thinking all this through I decided that I wanted to make sure I put aside time each day not only to read the bible and talk to God but really focus on what God is trying to tell me and really learning from his word. I also realised that I wanted to reach out to others. This blog is a way for me to start that.

Last night I think we all agreed this powerful verse really summed up the message:

"Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last forever; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."
~ 1 Corinthians 9:25-27