Faith and Believing

OK... so yesterday was a yucky day. I blame it mostly on lack of sleep. I am not sure what it is but when Spring transitions into Summer I have a hard time sleeping. I am up and down all night, I hear dogs howling at night, my children are restless. Usually when this type of things happen I walk around my house half asleep stumble to the bathroom shut windows where there is too much breeze and pray. I pray for my kids, I pray for my husband, I pray that the night stop being so restless and that we are all able to sleep better. The bible says, "Joy comes in the morning" and today it has. Thank the Lord. :)

I am reading a book by Beth Moore called Believing God. It is a book that talks about faith and belief as active words.

I have written before about my faith has been deepened so much after moving to Colorado. Bill and I made a conscious decision to seek out what we believed a little bit more when we moved to Colorado. We wanted to understand better the basics of what we believed in our own faith. We both agreed that Jesus died on the cross for us. We knew this to be true. But we also felt in our hearts that there was more. We wanted to know more about it. We had no idea how that simple act of making the conscious decision to seek God more would change our lives, our hearts and has propelled us into an amazing powerful journey that was not planned by us, but by God.

I have a hard time explaining it to my friends and family. My faith is NOT my religion. I think that is the hardest part for people to separate. My faith is that I continue to BELIEVE every day that God who created me did so with a plan and purpose. That he is "active" and working in my life in every moment. That with every breath I take on this earth God is with me and is guiding this life of mine. He wants it for all of us. He draws us near, but many people to not take Him up on his offer. I know I didn't for a very long time in my life.

In college my first semester, I had a roomate named Heidi. To me she was SO RELIGIOUS... she turned me off to faith and religion. She made it seem yucky and like work. She was an overachiever and overbooked, she ran around totally stressed out flipped out and busy. She seemed disconnected from the world. But every night she would sit in her bed with her book lamp on and read her Bible. She would highlight everything in her Bible and it just looked to me like her Bible was just one more thing she HAD to get done on her list of things to do that day. I couldn't pin point what bothered me about Heidi or her religion... or her faith.

But what I wanted to see in her religion was her peace and her joy and I never got to see it. It disappointed me. She never talked to me about it. She never shared with me what was so interesting about her Bible. Why she highlighted everything. Had she shared it with me... and had time for me... and told me the truth maybe my faith journey would have started earlier.

So I write today's blog to tell you this. God wants all of us to BELIEVE HIM. He wants us to believe that he is a willing loving God who is just sitting waiting to hear from us. Waiting for us to ask him to take us on a journey of a lifetime. I don't want to be like my old roomate. Where my Bible is on my to do list and I'm too busy to have a relationship. Where my prayers are mundane and boring. Where I don't tell and show you all the examples of how God has changed my life and given me greater JOY than I ever could want or need.

I want you to know that in the past four years I have been transformed by the awesome love of God. I am going to post a story soon that talks about this cool journey for me. I will list all the examples of how God... not Jen Kline... is working miracles and loving, supporting and blessing this family. I urge you if you have not done so, to pursue Him with all your heart.... and begin to write your own awesome story of how you started believing what your heart has been been telling you. That just knowing what Jesus died on the cross is not enough... but living out your faith and believing every day He is with you is the most powerful thing you could ever do and THEN my friends is when you have a life to be proud of.


Ephesians 1: 18-20

"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe."


Excerpt from the book "Believing God" by Beth Moore

"Nothing on earth compares to the strength God is wiliing to interject into lives caught in the act of believing. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul likens it to the stunning power God exerted when He raised His Son from the dead! Can you think of any need you might have that would require more strength than God exercised to raise the dead? ME either. God can raise marriages from the dead, and He can restore life and purpose to those who have given up. He can forgive and purify the vilest sinner. God's specialty is raising things to life and making impossible things possible. You don't have a need that exceeds his His power. Faith is God's favorite invitation to R.S.V.P. with proof.