Branding Fruits.

a "Relationship with God." I hear that all the time...I hear it from some who mean it, some who imagine it, and from some who have never had it.

I am always in a fight with myself. "Do I have a relationship with God?" "Is my relationship with him growing at the pace it should be?" "Am I doing it right?" "Man, that kids got it going on... I should be more like him." "God, I know you are in there but its hard for me to see you or feel you right now. Does that mean you aren't there?"

I am a second guesser by nature... it has prevented me from seeing and doing many extravagant things, but in the long run, it has kept me safe from harm. I rely on myself a lot -too much. I lose, I win, and I give myself the credit for all of it. I feel like sin. I feel like "loser-pudding." I feel like everyone is advancing around me and I'm stuck playing "winner" when really I'm toppling over myself just trying to keep up. Why do I live my life this way? Its boring. Its fruitless. And its worthless.

I catch myself making my "main course" relationship with God a version of what he is teaching someone else at that time. That should not my relationship with him... it is nothing but a filtered version of someone else's relationship. Not that its wrong for me to be encouraged by what God is teaching and growing inside of another brother or sister, its just wrong to convince myself that that is all he is saying to me at the time. He loves me more than this universe he has created. So what He is speaking, just to me, is a pearl. A pearl crafted just for me to enjoy, know, understand, apply, and use as a tool to grow closer to Him. Just Him and Just Me. Together.
There are ups and downs in a growing, faith-filled, devoted life in the Father... I'm dealing with my downs at the moment. The cores of me that are earthly and not of my Creator and Love.

I want my relationship with God to be branded on me for everyone to see. I want people to identify me with a "fruits of the Spirit" branding. When I look at one of my best friends I can see every single fruit accounted for in his actions: Patience, Love, Joy, Peace, Kindness, Self-control, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness. He is branded to be a fruit-filled son of God. As for me, I can pick out at least four I know I act on from a day-to-day basis, but I want to be completely branded for my LORD! I want to be His daughter! A daughter in whom he is well pleased, a daughter he is proud to call his own... I don't want to let Him down... and I feel it is in my own strength that I should rely to do all this and the fact is... I don't have any strength. He knows and loves ONLY the REAL me- NOT the me that turns on whenever certain people are around, he doesn't know that me at all- He knows the me that is created in his image. The me he created me to be.

My friends, Brothers, Sisters. I pray, if you haven't already, that you discover the person who is JUST. PLAIN. YOU. this week. I pray you build up on that foundation and begin a new! For THAT is the child, creation, and beauty our GOD has destined you to be and has LOVED all this time.
A Warrior for the King,
Bekah