Unforgiveness.

So here I am again, almost midnight (why do I ALWAYS write blogs at this time of night?) and I'm feeling very convicted. Unforgiveness is such a damaging sin. I suppose most are, but unforgiveness has the opportunity to really damage your life if you don't identify it and rid of it.

I tend to think of myself as a pretty merciful person. If someone does something wrong to me, I will analyze the situation to death and make sure i'm not just being emotional. If they do something obviously wrong, I am usually able to look at the big picture and move on and forgive and not even look back on it again when I talk to them. I try my very hardest not to keep a recod of wrongs with anyone, and for the most part, I think I do pretty well at that.

However, if it was a long process of them hurting me, or it took a lot of emotion and a lot of time to get over the hurt, the unforgiveness just harbors itself into the deepest part of my heart and only gets brought up when I hear that person's name or when I'm with them. But I try to ignore it and swollow back the pain because it's not worth it. And I convince myself I've forgiven the person and moved on, but recently this hasn't been the case.

I've been very convicted lately because I realized how bitter and hurt my heart is toward a few people. And it hurts me I am so bitter toward them. I can't pray for them the same or talk to them the same. I realize when I talk to them, I don't want to tell them about my life, and i usually only ask them about there's out of spite. It becomes a thing I have to do. I pray for them for the same reason. I really do want the best for that person, but my prayers become very dry and routine. "Bless this person. Speak to them. Show them who you are." I mean it, but my heart isn't entirely in it. I've lost the love I think Jesus desires I have.

I think most of us kind of skip over that verse saying "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." -Matthew 5:43-45.

Love them. Not only pray for them out of spite, but love them. Love them like Jesus loves them. Pray for their well-being. Pray that they would know a love Jesus like Jesus loves them. Does it say we need to reconcile with the person who hurt us? No. In Ephesians 4:32 it talks about how we need to be compassionate and forgive them because Jesus has forgiven us, but there's no promise saying "then you and the person who has hurt you shall be all good again and everything will be okay."

All he requires is 1) Love them. 2) Pray for them. 3) Forgive them. This is not a magical formula though, there is no promise anything will change. But it's what He desires from us.

I pray Jesus would give me eyes to see his sons and daughters like He does.

At the same time, I'm thankful that our God is so full of mercy and that He never keeps a record of wrongs. He's cast our sin as far as the East is from the West. How incredible.

Now I've identified it. Time to rid of it. It's made it's stay too long.

"Quotation."

I've been finding good quotes lately and wanted to put them somewhere. Here they are:

Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We woman have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man's last romance.
~ Oscar Wilde

If God gives you a watch, are you honoring Him more by asking Him what time it is or by simply consulting the watch?
~ A.W. Tozer

One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organizations do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.
~ A.W. Tozer

There's definitely more but that's all I feel like blogging for now. :)

Sleepless Sierra.

'Ello poppet(s)!

I hate those times when you lie in bed and you're really tired but can't fall asleep. Yep, that is me right now.

I hate getting caught up in pointless emotion. I've just been realizing lately how it's really not about me at all... and never has been. I'm tired of living a life so revolved around me that I can't see what God wants for me.

God's just been fixing my perspective lately to see how small I am and how huge and magnificent and Holy He is. And when that happens, all these minute problems fade. They simply just don't matter. God deserves this of me: To surrender my emotions and my time into His hands.

This kind of seems like a repeat of my January 9th entry (I think that's when it was...) But I think I'll be getting these revelations often. I think every morning we have to wake up and fix our perspective again and again upon God and not on ourselves. It's incredible how amazing I felt when I posted that one on January whatever, and God still speaks to me over and over about that. I think often we have to be told numerous times for our tiny human brains to get it. "Sierra, I am Holy. You are mine. I am jealous for your heart. Now fix your eyes on me." And sometimes we get it the first time and our world is changed, but often God will repeat it again and again. How patient God is with us...


That seems very elementary. But my heart is realizing it. It's refreshing to feel not so caught up in the world to where all I can focus on is this moment and these emotions. At the core of it all, I want to know more of God and His plans for me instead of mine. I'm tired of wanting to control it.

"Oh that we might know the Lord, let us press on to know Him!"
-Hosea 6:3.

"A spiritual kingdom lies all about us, enclosing us, embracing us, altogether within reach of our inner selves, waiting for us to recognize it. God Himself is here waiting for our response to His presence. This eternal world will come alive to us the moment we begin to reckon upon its reality." -A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God.

I've been realizing this for awhile, and now I'm just writing it down. I want to live with an eternal perspective to see what God wants. That is all.

Gooooodnight.

Toothpaste.

Did you know that if you put a toothpaste on a zit overnight you will wake up and it will be gone? Well, that works for me anyway. It's like a miracle.It's supposed to dry it up or something, which sounds really disgusting. But I don't care. If it's gone, that's all I care. I hate zits!

Anyway, I've been asking for God's heart lately for what breaks his heart and for what He loves. And He certainly has. And a lot of girl's just break my heart in my school.

One of my best friends was telling me gossip about some sophomore neither of us know. And it was about how far this girl went with a guy and how everyone just calls her "whore" and she just laughs it off and goes to the next guy. I just broke down. I felt nothing but compassion for this girl. Seriously, neither of us had ever met this girl and the only reputation she has is a whore. I've heard plenty of other gossip about other people. And so many friends I talk to are like "well, we haven't had sex. But honestly, everything before that has pretty much happened." And so many girls just voluntarily compromise themselves and it breaks my heart they're just used like that and don't even realize it.

It's becoming more and more acceptable to give yourself away. It's incredibly sad to me that girl's feel as though they have to do this in order to please the guy. Guys have stopped really trying with girl's. (And i'm talking about the average girls/guys in high school.) There's no pursuing done most of the time, and a lot of girl's just voluntarily throw themselves out to guys, just longing to be told they are beautiful and wanted. Usually, this results in broken hearts, messy emotions, and lots of trust issues later on in life. But what a girl would give for that moment of affirmation...

Everytime I think about this, my heart completely breaks. I can't help but think the potential in these girls who know nothing about the love Jesus has for them.

It is so incredibly sad that most girl's think that the love they know is the most love they could ever know. There is no knowledge of a perfect love that drives out fear. Or loves them through no matter what they do. They know love as a word that often gets thrown around, and once it's gone, it's up to another guy to fill the last void. This goes for guys too, but especially girls who don't know Jesus don't know that there is someone always pursuing, always loving them.

I came to that last realization of a friend I have who broke up with her boyfriend and now is completely heartbroken. That was the love she knew, and that love was completely perverted and now she doesn't know what love is. She has no knowledge of any other love. How sad. :(

I have a passion for women to see the love of Jesus. I'm tired of seeing ladies compromising themselves and hurting later because they don't know that they are beautiful. We are longing for someone to tell us we are beautiful and loved, and I want to share that love.