Accept you always stepped back and thought near all the lessons God has taught you over the last twelvemonth?

I was recently challenged to do this and I decided to accept the claiming because I think it is good to sit back and reflect on our journey with God.

Some of these lessons are new to me. Some I am learning more almost. And some I have been reminded of. (And will probably need to be reminded of again in the futurity.)

As you lot read through these lessons, I hope they will inspire y'all to come up with your own list of 12 interesting things God has taught you lot in the by year.

(And if you do come up up with a list, be sure to share in the comments below so nosotros tin learn from each other and abound!)

  1. Encouraging Lessons I've Learned from God Nearly Myself
    • Lesson #1: God will ask me to do more than I can. And so, I larn to lean on Him.
    • Lesson #2: I shouldn't care and so much most what other people think.
    • Lesson #iii: Failure is a part of success.
    • Lesson #4: Existence authentic is more important than being perfect.
  2. Encouraging Lessons I Have Learned from God About Faith
    • Lesson #5: I can actively wait on God in religion.
    • Lesson #6: Faith means living for the Holy Spirit over hustle.
    • Lesson #seven: Sometimes acting in organized religion means getting out of the manner.
    • Lesson #8: The most powerful way to help someone is to pray for them.
  3. Encouraging Lessons on What I take Learned Nearly God
    • Lesson #9: I learned that God will accept our pain and use information technology for something great.
    • Lesson #10: Our God does non divide . . . He multiplies!
    • Lesson #11: God encourages self-care.
    • Lesson #12: God wants us to think more than about eternity.

Encouraging Lessons I've Learned from God About Myself

The lessons we larn from God not just change our hearts simply can also change our lives. And while it'south not always fun to have a good look in the mirror, what we can learn from God virtually ourselves causes us to change and abound.

Lesson #1: God will ask me to practice more I can. Then, I acquire to lean on Him.

I have heard the maxim God never gives us more than we can handle. But that simply isn't true. In my life, I have plant that He often DOES give me more I can handle and so I take no choice but to lean on His strength to get through.

In fact, over this past twelvemonth God has asked me to practice some things that were really hard.

They stretched me. They pushed me out of my comfort zone. And to be honest, they completely terrified me at the time.

Only I did what God asked me to. And you lot know what?

I did non die.

In fact, I ended upwardly being grateful for the opportunities in the stop. I didn't practise it all perfectly. Only I found that God fifty-fifty used my mistakes and imperfections to bring Him celebrity.

So, is God asking you to exercise something scary?

Remember God is on your side. And He will be with you every step of the mode.

This hard thing He is asking of you will force you to rely on His strength in your weakness. And existence wrapped up in the artillery of His force is an amazing place to exist.

Sometimes you just accept to take a deep breath, say a prayer, and do it scared.

Afterward all, the simply matter worse than facing your fears is living with regret!

Applied Tip:

You tin actually trick your encephalon into doing hard things past simply counting down from five. This simple act gets you to stop thinking and get-go acting. The inaugural pushes y'all out of autopilot, turns on your prefrontal cortex, and gets your body gear up to go.

Alli Worthington shared in her book Continuing Strong that she adds Philippians 4:thirteen to this practice.

(And I may have said this to myself earlier doing a minute-long plank a few times!)

So, when you are facing something hard just declare, "I tin practice all things through Christ who gives me forcefulness. 5 . . . 4 . . . three . . . 2 . . . one . . . Go!"

And and then just do information technology!

Woman praying with bible on table and quote, "Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath, say a prayer, and do it scared.

Lesson #2: I shouldn't care and then much about what other people think.

I know. I know.

This lesson is a familiar 1. And withal it is ane I go on having to remind myself of.Over and over again.

I don't know about you just I am a chronic people-pleaser. I am an enneagram 9 which ways I only want to keep the peace and please everybody.

Merely I'm not chocolate.

And y'all're not a chocolate.

Then, the chances of us existence able to make everybody happy are pretty slim!

A better purpose for us is to live for what God thinks. After all, every bit long every bit I am trying to love Him and others, God will be pleased even if people aren't.

Just wait at Jesus.

Everything He did was out of love for His Father and for united states of america, and in the end that got Him crucified. And still, His crucifixion was also the very PROOF of His amazing honey for the states.

In this life, not everyone will like united states. Some people will even detest us. Some may fifty-fifty attack and ridicule united states of america.

But that doesn't thing.

As long as nosotros are loving God and loving people and then in God'southward eyes,we are a success.

And the more I care about what my God thinks of me, the less concerned I am with what people recall of me.

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the offset and greatest commandment. And the second is like information technology: 'Dearest your neighbor as yourself.'"

-Matthew 22:37-39 NIV

Lesson #3: Failure is a part of success.

Like I said previously I am an enneagram 9. But I too have a very stiff ane wing. This basically means if I can't do it perfectly, I am only non going to do it.

Which doesn't fair well for finding success in life.

Simply what God is pedagogy me is that He can use failure for practiced.

Think well-nigh it.

The sailors on the gunkhole were saved by Jonah's failure. Peter's failure of denying Jesus led him to become so bold in his faith that he was a huge part of the beginnings of the early church. The Samaritan adult female at the well had v failed marriages.

And God used her to preach to an entire hamlet.

God tin use our mistakes and failures to remind people that they are never too far gone for the love of Jesus. And that God can utilize anyone for the good of His Kingdom.

So now, instead of asking God to help everything I do go smoothly,I ask Him to use it all for His glory.

Because if a fault I make or a failure I experience tin can help someone else find Jesus,and so failing is totally worth it.

Lesson #4: Being authentic is more important than beingness perfect.

This is some other reason I am learning to be okay with failure. Because people don't desire to see perfect Christians. They want to see REAL Christians living REAL lives they can relate to.

In a small-scale grouping setting once, I heard an older woman share of her struggle with losing her atmosphere and getting snippy with her son.

And you know what?

I didn't look downward on her. In fact, her confession was refreshingly reassuring.

Considering there take been endless times, I have beaten myself upward for yelling at my kids. And felt overwhelmed by shame, thinking I actually should know improve by now.

Just hearing her share how she still struggles even later all these years shows me that fifty-fifty though I even so wrestle with sin there is e'er room for grace.There is always forgiveness and a chance to try once more considering of Jesus.

No i can exist perfect anyways. So, permit'southward stop striving for perfection and embrace existence authentic.

And maybe just by sharing our struggles we will in turn give someone the courage to share their own.

Encouraging Lessons I Take Learned from God About Faith

These next few encouraging lessons I am sharing are what God has been teaching me about my faith. And what it means to trust Him when life gets hard.

Lesson #5: I tin actively wait on God in faith.

I have always struggled with waiting. And I don't think I am alone in this.

Then I learned almost the Hebrew give-and-take for expect which is "qavah". Information technology tin can be translated as "waiting in hopeful apprehension".

While in our guild nosotros view waiting equally something passive like waiting in the bank check-out line, this Hebrew word for wait ways to await actively.

It is like the waiting of someone who is moving into a new dwelling house. They don't just sit around and practice cipher. They telephone call insurance companies and mortgage lenders. They pack boxes, option out paint colors, and plan how they will organize their new home.

They are actively waiting in hopeful anticipation of what is to come up.

In the aforementioned mode, we tin can actively look on God to respond our prayers.

For example, I take prayed for many years for my body to be healed of a chronic illness. But I don't have to just sit down around and expect for God to divinely heal me.

I can exist agile as I wait.

I can go to physician appointments. I can research new therapies. I tin have my meds, do, go good sleep, etc. And after I exercise what I can, I can look in hopeful anticipation of what God is going to exercise in my life.

I can have organized religion that God knows what is best for me.

Even if that ways I have to  wait until eternity for my complete healing.

"But they who await for the Lord shall renew their forcefulness; they shall mountain upwardly with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

-Isaiah 40:31 ESV

Lesson #half dozen: Faith ways living for the Holy Spirit over hustle.

If someone were to ask me, "What did you lot learn about following Jesus this twelvemonth?" I would say that following Jesus is more important than hustling because I often look to my crossed-off to-do listing showing all my accomplishments in an attempt to prove my worth.

But my true worth is institute in Jesus.

One of the things I like to joke about with my chronic disease is that I was doing and so much stuff that God had to literally force me to slow downward by allowing this illness to forbid me from overworking.

And however, I even so find myself doing also much sometimes. (You would retrieve I would have learned by now!)

Over this past year though, I am learning that what matters more than hustling is spending time in the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Because without Him, my hustle will fall brusk every time.

But with Him, I can do anything.

Yes, if we want to succeed in life we will need to hustle sometimes. Just let's make sure our priorities are in order and we are attentive to what the Holy Spirit is calling us to practise.

Practical Tip:

Practise you wonder how you can bring yourself closer to God?

Try this!

Set up a timer on your phone for 5 minutes every morning and spend this time in tranquility meditation and prayer. Slowly increase this time to 12 minutes over the class of a month.

Why 12 minutes?

Dr. Caroline Foliage, a Cognitive Neuroscientist, stated that scientists have found that 12 minutes of daily focused prayer over the form of eight weeks inverse the human brain so much that information technology could be measured on a brain scan!

Wow!

Lilies in a vase with quote, "Faith is living for the Holy Spirit over hustle."

Lesson #seven: Sometimes acting in faith ways getting out of the fashion.

I am a fixer. I dear to figure things out and come upward with solutions. But I am learning that sometimes there is really nothing you can practice.

Not anybody wants to accept our help. Non everyone is going to follow our advice. Not anybody even wants to ready their situation. So, sometimes we take to learn to walk away.

This is a lesson we can learn from Jesus because . . .Jesus didn't heal everyone.

Not anybody wanted his help. And and then, He left them alone.

We can do what we tin can. Which is love them and pray for them. But so we may just need to get out of God's way.

While having faith that God is working in ways we cannot see.

"Jesus replied, 'You do not realize what I am doing, just later yous will sympathise.'"

-John 13:vii NIV

Lesson #8: The most powerful way to assist someone is to pray for them.

Sometimes we throw our easily up and say, "I approximate all I tin do is pray." And yet, if we really terminate to think near information technology prayer is the most powerful affair we can do.

For prayer unleashes all the power of heaven.

I watched a video on social media once. I don't quite recall the championship but it was something like "What the Devil Sees When Christians Pray".

At beginning, it showed someone on their knees praying. And so it showed a whole bunch of clips from movies with men and women warriors screaming their ferocious war cries. And then attacking and defeating their enemies.

It was an awesome visual of what happens in the spiritual realm when we pray.

Nosotros may wait around us and non see anything happening. Only our prayers are doing massive impairment confronting the nighttime forces spiritually.

All of hell shudders when we begin to pray and cry out in Jesus'due south name.

"Pray continually . . . "

-one Thessalonians five:17 NIV

Encouraging Lessons on What I take Learned Well-nigh God

These last lessons are all nigh what God has been teaching me about Himself. And how much He loves us!

Lesson #ix: I learned that God will take our pain and use it for something great.

This was a hard lesson to learn. It took a lot of tears and a lot of years. Just looking back on my life I tin see how even in the hard moments there were good things from God hidden within them.

He took the painful experiences of bullying from my high schoolhouse years to abound compassion and empathy in my heart. And a love for encouraging others.

He took a heart-wrenching miscarriage to prove me His astonishing comfort in the middle of devastating loss. And to give me a heart for those who are suffering.

He has taken my life with a chronic illness and used information technology to bear witness others that at that place is always hope for the broken. That God is our strength when we are weak. And to go along our eyes focused on eternity.

God can take our hurting and turn it into something great. So, we can bloom for our Creator. No affair where He plants us.

"And we know that in all things God works for the practiced of those who dear him, who have been called according to his purpose."

-Romans viii:28 NIV

Lesson #10: Our God does not divide . . . He multiplies!

Since I struggle with doing too much, I also struggle with sitting still.

I have a actually hard time trying to focus when I read my bible and pray. My to-do list calls to me. My mind chases subsequently every sort of lark. And my eye likes to daydream.

And yet sitting all the same is exactly what will multiply my effectiveness when I do get up and go into my day.

I heard information technology described once that if God can multiply 5 loaves and two fish to feed over 5,000 people, then He can take the time we give Him in the morning time and multiply our effectiveness to brand up for it.

God promises that if we seek Him first.

Everything else will fall into place.

Our God doesn't divide, He multiplies.

Even our time.

Flowers in a field with quote, "Seek God first. And everything else will fall into place."

Lesson #11: God encourages self-care.

Jesus was God. He was the merely perfect, sinless human to e'er walk on this planet. And yet He still made time for cocky-intendance.

  • He took breaks.
  • He took naps.
  • He made time to swallow.
  • He woke up early to pray and feed His soul.

If the Creator of the universe took the fourth dimension to care for himself, why practise nosotros think we won't need to? When we care for ourselves, nosotros ensure that we accept enough to give to others effectually united states of america.

Because we tin't cascade from an empty cup!

Practical Tip!

In one case a week choose to fix all work aside and nourish your soul by jubilant the Sabbath.

Spend actress fourth dimension in God's discussion. Grab a notebook, sit exterior, and journal and pray while enjoying God'southward creation. Turn on some praise music and sing to your Rex.

Take a hot bath. Then eat some skilful food and take a nap! Play with your kids. Make love to your husband.

Express mirth until yous cry. (Or pee your pants!) Dance to your favorite song. And balance in the fact that while yous are enjoying yourself . . . Your Heavenly Father is watching over y'all and smiling!

"For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his honey, he will calm all your fears. He volition rejoice over you with joyful songs." -Zephaniah 3:17 NLT

-Zephaniah 3:17 NLT

Lesson #12: God wants usa to think more about eternity.

Every bit I get older, I find myself thinking more and more about eternity. I am realizing how much time and money I spend on this one life that is chop-chop fading away. And how lilliputian I spend on things of eternal significance.

And it bothers me.

These moments inspire me to finish worrying almost the nit-picky things that irritate me. And focus on the things that are most important.

Like spending less time cleaning the firm, and more time loving on the people living in that location.

Similar thinking carefully about the way I spend my time and money. And looking for opportunities to invest in the things that really matter. Similar loving others and telling them about Jesus.

"I used to be afraid of declining at the things that really mattered to me, but at present I'm more agape of succeeding at things that don't matter."

-Bob Goff

Aye! You did it!

You fabricated it through all twelve lessons! I hope you found some inspiration in these encouraging lessons I've learned from God. And if y'all accept a moment, delight share your thoughts in the comments below!

  • What did yous learn virtually following God from reading these lessons?
  • Were there any lessons you lot learned something new from?
  • Were there any lessons that God has been teaching y'all lately, also?

If you found this encouraging, so please share!

You may besides want to read:

  • What to Exercise When You Are Waiting on God
  • Can We Mess Things Up For God?
  • How to R.E.South.T. in God
Woman reading bible with quote, "12 Encouraging Lessons I've Learned from God."
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