Posted by Posted in 100 Hard Things Challenge, Bible, Bible attributes, Bible characteristics, challenges, do hard things, faith, Family, Home, I was thinking..., Living for God, me, myth of adolescence, teens, teens doing big things, the rebelution, time

#10-Talked to my Dad about our family/social media balance

We got an ipad last summer mainly for Jace’s schooling. Now, we really do not have a ton of other electronics, only an ancient computer, the phones and the ipad. However, the ipad has slowly over the past months taken away from our family time. Social media can be dangerous like that. My sister and I noticed that the ipad was starting to control our evenings in some respect. We decided to talk to our dad and maybe start turning the ipad off in the evenings and using that time for something else. We talked to him and we are going to start using our evenings to have a family Bible time. Social media is something that can steal things more precious than facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. It steals your time. Time that can be spent to deepen your relationships with both people and God. People with phones need to stop using so much time looking down at their screen and look up, toward God. I think that sometimes we need to go back to the good old days where entertainment is self made and not on a screen. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that social media can be a tool. With tools like computers we can do lots of great things, it helps make writing books, staying in touch with people and communicating thoughts and ideas so much easier than handwriting long books, sending letters and telegrams that take forever to get to their destinations and getting groups of people together to hear your ideas. I believe that modern day technology is a tool, not a toy. Time can easily be lost when you are on social media. Lets not waste our time. Let us be good stewards of what God has given us.

Priscilla

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”

Posted by Posted in 100 Hard Things Challenge, backyard adventures, Bible attributes, Bible characteristics, challenges, do hard things, faith, Family, Home, I was thinking..., Living for God, me, myth of adolescence, stuff to do, teens, teens doing big things, the rebelution

#9- Weeded Garden

Ok, you may look at the list of what I have done so far and go, “Hmm, she has done an awful lot of housework.” I understand that. God has recently been teaching me to be faithful in the little things during this challenge. I’m a go getter, I have big plans and ideas and though I don’t mind doing little things, I felt like I wasn’t doing “hard enough” things. After talking to my mom, I believe the Lord was telling me that it is ok to do “small hard things” and wait for chances to do big hard things. So my hard thing (for Saturday actually) is weeding the garden. We have a pretty large garden and I have been taking care of it this year. A couple weeks back I took Drivers Ed in the mornings and was unable to weed it, so this week our bean plot was full of weeds. This Saturday, I weeded, mowed and trimmed the whole garden, in the morning, and I still had time to help with other projects. I don’t know about you but Saturday’s at the Bowers are a whole lot of work. But hard work is good for you. As my mom always says, ‘work is the best fun’. I have grown up doing household tasks, yard work and more, plus any other projects that I am doing (clubhouse, 4H projects and soon to come chicken coop and chickens!). If you want something, you work toward it. So even though weeding the garden isn’t the hardest of things to do, it speaks of hard work and doing the simple small hard things to glorify God!

Priscilla

Posted by Posted in 100 Hard Things Challenge, Bible, Bible attributes, Bible characteristics, challenges, do hard things, faith, Home, I was thinking..., Living for God, me, myth of adolescence, stuff to do, teens, teens doing big things, the rebelution, time, words

#8- Decided to stop reading the ‘Peeved section’

Our town newspaper, the Mooresville tribune is delivered to us every Friday. I don’t usually read much of it, I skim the contents, read the ‘Peeved’ section and put it down. The ‘Peeved’ section is basically where people in Mooresville can enter complaints to the newspaper and they get published. Yeah. At first it was funny to read people’s rants, then it got ridiculous and then today I read the ‘Peeved’ section for the last time. Literally. My hard thing today was a personal decision to stop reading the ‘Peeved’ section. I used to do it just for fun but reading material like that isn’t uplifting. Doesn’t it say in Phillipians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!” Or “Whatever is true and honorable, think on these things.” Is it truly honorable to be reading complaints? I can use that time to read the Bible. Which is the second part of my hard thing. When I see the newspaper sitting around and I am tempted to go read it, instead I will go get my Bible and find a good chapter to read instead. Think about what things you read, watch and listen to that is not honorable and then change.

Priscilla

Posted by Posted in 100 Hard Things Challenge, Bible attributes, Bible characteristics, challenges, do hard things, faith, Family, Home, Living for God, me, memorys, myth of adolescence, teens, teens doing big things, the rebelution, time

#7- Took Initiative in the Kitchen

So my hard thing today was to take 30 minutes of my time and take some initiative. Taking the garbage and recycling out, snapping the green beans and going to pick all the garden produce. Simple acts like this can make a big difference to some people like our parents. Ephesians 6:2 says “Honor your mother and father…” We can do this by doing little things like helping out where we can. I think about it and I go… “hmm my Mom makes me three meals a day, has home schooled me since preschool, taxis me around everywhere, loves me, supports me and teaches me to be a godly young woman. And my Dad, he goes to work to provide for my meals, our home and everything else, he leads our family, he gives me books to read and projects to do, he loves me, supports me, and teaches me how to be a godly young woman. They both embrace my crazy ideas and are dedicated to help me learn and grow. They love each other, me and my siblings. They do so much for me, why don’t I do something for them? Something as simple as kitchen chores… When you see something that needs to be done, do it, you don’t know who you will bless. 🙂

Priscilla

Posted by Posted in Bible, Bible attributes, Bible characteristics, faith, Fun Stuff, gospel and outreach, Home, I was thinking..., Living for God, me, words

Faith is…???

What is faith? Recently in school I have been doing a word study on the word. I studied the word in the book of Galatians and a Bible dictionary. Here is what I found:

(the book of Galatians)

Faith is…

-how we are justified (Gal. 2:16a,3:11)
-how we live in Christ (Gal. 2:20, 3:11)
-how we are the sons of Abraham (Gal. 3:7)
-a gift (Gal. 3:25-26)
-how we are sons of God (Gal. 3:25-26)

I want to encourage you to look up the verses too. 🙂

(the Bible dictionary)

Faith is…

-a confident will toward God
-genuine saving faith is a personal attachment to Christ
-reliance on Christ and commitment to him
-saving faith involves personally depending on the finished work of Christ
-personal commitment of one’s life to follow ghrist
-teachings of the Bible
-true faith is confidence in God or Christ, not in oneself

Let us rejoice at these great truths!

Priscilla