Thrifty Thursday – Jesus Calling Style

As I was thinking about what to blog about on this Thrifty Thursday and I kept coming back to the Jesus Calling I read today for February 14.

Give yourself fully to the adventure of today. Walk boldly along the path of Life, relying on your ever-present Companion. You have every reason to be confident, because My Presence accompanies you all the days of your life – and onward into eternity. Do not give in to fear or worry, those robbers of abundant living. Trust Me enough to face problems as they come, rather than trying to anticipate them. Fix your eyes on Me, the Author and Perfecter of your faith, and many difficulties on the road ahead will vanish before you reach them. Whenever you start to feel afraid, remember that I am holding you by your right hand. Nothing can separate you from My Presence!

Many of you may be thinking that Thrifty Thursdays may be all about how we can work on our material living. The more I have thought about what to write for this day, the more I think about how it starts with us and our relationship with God. Do we really TRUST Him, to give up what we may not need? Do we really TRUST Him to provide for ALL our needs? I know I waiver in that.

With that said, some thoughts on the devotional for today.

• Do you REALLY and FULLY give yourself to the adventure of each day? Do I submit my WHOLE day to Christ? Or just parts of it? Just the parts I want to submit to Him? Do I walk boldly as if He IS my Shepherd? To think that I have every reason to be confident in my walk because the Holy Spirit dwells within me, is such a confidence booster. In learning that we will be moving to Minnesota this week, this couldn’t be more true for us – the need to walk BOLDLY, the journey God has us on. There are definitely things that we wonder and worry about. Things we think “huh, how is that going to work out?” But GOD ALREADY KNOWS!

• Worry SO robs us of abundant living. Why do we let it? Because we think our plan is better. We think that our thoughts are better than His. Abundant living is not worrying about our life – giving our whole selves to God. Trusting Him every step of the way. Don’t know about you, but I want an abundant life! Think of John 10:10b – I have come so that you may have life and have it to the full.

• Anticipating problems before them come. Can I say I can be the QUEEN of that? I think planning is a good thing – I really do. But when my planning involves taking steps before God wants me to take them and worry about things before they are even worth worrying about? C’mon Kristin. Why can we just not let go of ourselves? Yup, I know, total depravity. Everyday, more and more, I want to “lose” myself so that I can have more of HIM in my life.

Thrifty Thursdays are good for me. They help me think about the things in my “inner” life (my spiritual life) that I need to work on. Before I can work on the things in my “outside” life, I need to make sure my “inner” life is okay. It’s kind of like the whole plank in the eye issue. How can I call someone out on their own sin, when I have the same issue myself? How can you work on organizing and simplifying, if you don’t know who Christ is to you and who He wants you to be?

Thrifty Thursdays for you, may mean digging into scripture to figure out how God wants you to live a more simple and organized life. It may mean spending more time in prayer. Nothing we do should ever be outside of matching it up with the Word. We should ALWAYS go to Him. I fail to do that – even in simplifying and organizing.

Live abundantly. Ask God how you can achieve that. Seek Him in His Word. Walk boldly and in confidence that He is living in and walking alongside of you.