Up for renewal

Last week I received a phone call from our Pest Control company asking if I wanted to renew our contract. Jeremy had just told me a few days before that we needed them to come spray because of all the ant piles in our yard. After all the rain we got a few weeks ago, Ant piles began to pop up everywhere. The kids were getting bit every single time they went outside and all of the methods we tried to destroy them were not working.

This past Sunday I began doing a Bible Study I found online. I printed out week one and decided to go ahead and do Day 1 before going to bed. The thing I loved the most when viewing it was how it made me pull out my Bible, read verses and apply it to a current battle in my life.

Side note (Why is that so many of us Christ followers don't throw ourselves into God's Word until we are hurting or needing an answer to one of life's problems? Why don't we treat our Bibles like we do our iPhones and Blackberries? I would never leave home without my Blackberry! In fact, if I got down the road and realized I forgot it, I would go home to get it!)

The very first scripture passage it had me read was Psalm 23. I have read this Psalm countless times and always get something from it. But on this particular night, I got something brand new. I love that about God's word! You can read something that you've read a hundred times before and get something totally fresh and new. His Word is ALIVE! The study asked me to read one verse at a time, stop and then picture the scene in my mind and ask God "What do you want to show me in this verse?" Each verse showed me something current that God was doing in my life but verse 3 really stuck out. I could feel the Holy Spirit making sure I truly "got" verse 3. In the New Living Translation it said "He renews my strength." The word renew was the word that kept sticking out. I continued to think about that word and how it applied to what God was teaching me currently.

When God speaks to us, He almost always backs it up a few more times just to make sure "Okay, you got this? This is big! Look what I am showing you! Pay attention!" Well, at least that's how He speaks to me. I am hard headed and need things spoken more than a few times. Ask my husband! So Monday the Pest Control people call again and specifically use the word renew. "Hi Amanda, this is Melissa from Pest Control and wanted to see if you had a chance to speak with your husband? Would you like to renew the contract?" At that very moment I felt like this word had a lot more meaning than I had paid attention to so I decided to do a word study on renew.

Now here in America we are renewing fools! We renew Gym memberships, Health plans, Insurance policies, magazine subscriptions, cell phone plans, library cards, leases, contracts and even our wedding vows. The thing about renewing is you can't renew until something has come to an end. A contract will be made for a length of time and when it ends, you can be done or renew. Married couples renew vows to show a recommitted love for one another. Sometimes it comes after years and years of marriage struggles. As they move into a new season of their relationship, a season of healing and restoration, they choose to renew. The more and more I studied the word and what it meant, the more I could hear God speaking. The Holy Spirit revealed "This is a season of renewal for you. It's time for you to be renewed."

-To begin or take up again

-To make effective for an additional period :renew lease

-To restore or replenish a stock of goods

-To make, say or do again

-To revive, reestablish

-To recover (youth, strength)

-To restore to a former state; make new or as if new again

-To begin again, recommence

-To bring back to an original condition of freshness and vigor

So my friends, I am up for renewal! God has shown me something from every single one of these definitions. I have looked up so many verses with this word and I could spend months meditating on all of them.

My God is renewing my strength and so much more! I am excited to be revived, reestablished, replenished, restored and to come back with a freshness and a vigor!

What is God renewing in your life? Are you in a season of renewal? What in your life needs to be made new again? Please join me in this journey and share what God is doing in your life!

Let's be renewed!

Love,

Amanda