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Awareness Makes us Abound Part 1
There is no way to improve any of our life skills until we are aware of the actions we are taking to create our issues. There are general reasons such as the people we keep company with, where we choose to spend our nights or our environment. This is not an exhaustive list by any means but the point is still the same. General reasons for our life not being as abundant (John 10:10) as God has told us it could be are the “apparent to all” reasons. Anyone can guess these reasons therefore you are already aware of them! If you live in a crime filled neighbourhood I can guess you will either have crimes committed against you or you are committing them. If you keep company with drug addicts I can guess you will become a drug addict too. If you are spending your nights with a man not your husband I can guess you are committing adultery. These are not the deeper truths you need to know to improve your life skills. How did you get to this place in time starting from where you are now?
These issues are the result of the deeper lies causing you to be where you are today. We have done and thought many things up until this point to lead us to where we are. It is these lies we need to become aware of. Sometimes it takes effort to become aware of the lies we believed but I think we have to take the time to discover them. If we do not we will always be in crime, always fall into addiction or adultery and always fall into sin. What is worse than that is we will never see it coming therefore never be able to avoid it. We have buried them so deep only the Holy Spirit can make us aware of our deep lies leading us into sin. The Word of God gives us the way out because it is filled with the truth that can go deep. It is the Life Skills Encyclopedia I use for every lie I found myself believing. Let us go to the Life Skills Encyclopedia for awareness of the lies and to find the escape (1 Corinthians 10:13). When we become aware of the lies we have believed and our behaviour resulting from them we will either abound in foolishness or we will abound in knowledge. The Life Skills Encyclopedia has a lot to say about both. We will only discuss a few therefore I challenge you to search for more in your private time with God.
Abound in Foolishness
If you choose to remain in your lies even after you have become aware of them the Life Skills Encyclopedia has some pretty dire advice for you. Heeding it will change your life, ignoring it will cause you great harm. Proverbs 9:13 tells us “A foolish woman is clamorous; She is simple, and knows nothing.” Foolish women make a lot of noise to draw attention to themselves because this is the only way they know how to get it. Why? They are simple and know nothing about what they need. Knowing not what we need is detrimental to our health because we grab at anything including things that will hurt and destroy us. We will abound in foolishness throughout the whole day.
We are also told that the foolish woman pulls down her own house with her hands (Proverbs 10:14). Imagine taking the time and effort to build your house (figurative) then setting to work tearing it all down with your own bare hands. Destroying everything you have worked for, knowing your actions will destroyed, is painful and causes undo heartache. We don’t wake up in the morning with the intention of destroying yet when we continue to believe lies that is exactly what we do. We believe the lie, wisdom is well beyond us, and therefore we cannot attain it. We then continue to abound in foolishness throughout the whole day.
The last point, our foolishness does not just affect us it has a ripple effect. “For the foolish woman will speak foolishness, and her heart will work iniquity: To practice ungodliness, to utter error against the Lord, to keep the hungry unsatisfied, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.” (Modifications mine, Isaiah 32:6) Our family, friends (Saved and unsaved) and co-workers are watching us act like fools even after we call ourselves “Christian”. Foolish behaviour hurts people by our words and deeds. We set out to hurt people. We are loud and obnoxious tearing down every ounce of good works we have done in the past causing the alienation of the people around us. Abounding in foolishness has made our friends and family think us a fool.
Stop the Foolishness
We need to stop the foolishness by becoming aware of our lies and come to the knowledge of God which is truth which will allow us to avoid our destruction from lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Too often today we are subjected to fools who think what they are saying is right, let us not be one. I want that we should live a life filled with abundance but if we spend every day tearing it all down abundance won’t last long. We can have abundance with little and we can have it with a lot. We can be foolish with a little and we can be foolish with a lot. If you are suffering from foolishness stop it now. We were fools before we knew God but now we know Him we need to put foolishness off. Do what you need to do to become aware of it this week (talk to a friend, journal or read the Bible to get revelation about it). Next week we will learn what it takes to abound in knowledge from the Life Skills Encyclopedia.
You can email me at kathleen@thelifeskillsstrategist.com anytime to ask a question or you can post your question in this comment section.
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Out of Real, Back to Story
Stories draw people
Jesus was the master at telling stories. He used them for the whole three years He was teaching. His stories were dynamic and filled with real life examples. For this reason when the Gospels were written they begin with a story and end with a story. God has created us to be story tellers and listeners. We are drawn by stories (true or false) because they reverberate with us. A good story will make us cry and a bad story will fill us with rage. Every story Jesus told was meant to fill us with life. I cannot tell you a story that fills you with life no matter how hard I try because I do not have that power. I can only tell you a story to point you into the direction of Jesus who is the life (John 14:6). My story will only effect those who are being drawn by the Father to the arms of Jesus (John 6:44) and once He has you He will never lose you (John 6:39).
It is for this reason I have begun telling stories and improving my writing skills for fiction. Jesus told fictional stories and true life stories to teach His truth. I have been learning to combine both fiction and truth into one under His direction to begin the writing of Crown for Life series of books. I love to write for Jesus because He has and will continue to give me wonderful ideas and interesting characters to share with you. The stories of each woman is meant to reverberate with you to encourage you just as the stories of women in the Bible are meant to draw your attention. We are the Samaritan woman, the sinful woman, the woman with the flow of blood, Deborah, Mary Magdalene, Mary sister of Lazarus, Huldah, Pricilla, and all the rest. We are women created by our God to do what He has created us to do but we are having issues getting to that point.
The Biblical Life Skills Strategist
For 12 years I have been dreaming about the day God’s words would come into fruition in my life. In those years I could not see how He could make it happen but now I can see it working out in my life. God revealed to me I would teach life skills so I created my first complete workshop called “Leading Yourself to Success” to teach women in 2005. I have created twenty different two hour sessions but not before He told me to work out my new name. The Life Skills Strategist was the name He gave me. We worked together on all of the sessions using Biblical Precepts reversing worldly complications. In this process He taught me how inherently involved His Word is in our everyday lives. He directed me to create secular sessions so I would taste how the world walks. Seeing this every day afforded me empathy for every unsaved woman as well as the saved.
Jesus taught me the difference between the saved and the unsaved, Him. Each one of us longs to live a life filled with joy but the world is getting in between us and that joy. John 10:10 contrasts the world and Jesus. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. The contrast of the Prince of the World (John 14:30) is intent on destroying our lives while Jesus has come to give us a life filled with abundance resulting in the joy we so long for. He has taught me to teach you what His abundance life means. It is a large topic and it will take the rest of my life to teach you about it. This is Kathleen V. Derbyshire’s story.
Leola’s Story
I have embroiled Leola Lurned into my blog to introduce you to the lead character of the Crown for Life Series. Her story is a mirror of mine. She is 70% me and 30% who I want to be. When you read about her you are reading about me, what I have learned and what I still have to learn will be in her character. Just as I long for someone to work with teaching life skills she has longed with one difference, she has a friend. Her name is Veronica Keene. Veronica’s character is 70% me as I was growing as a Christian and 30% my friend Jennifer Walker. She has the image of Jennifer but the character of immature Christian Kathleen. Jen sat with me for days going over the first book to make sure I was closing every gap and spelling every word correctly. I have known Jen for several years and as our relationship develops over the coming years so will Veronica and Leola’s.
For Such a time as this…
God continuously brings this verse to mind from Esther 4:14, For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” He is reminding me I am His child born at this time to serve Him by serving His women in Essex County. The prince of this world is after women (2 Timothy 3) by drawing them away from God by their many lusts for the world. These lusts are so ingrained in us we would do anything or go anywhere to satisfy the cravings. This leads to all manner of oppression for us, from addictions to human trafficking. I am going after the devil by training women to fight him with the Life Skills Encyclopedia, the Holy Bible. I will also go after the prince of this world by helping the unsaved too.
Satan’s name is Haman to me. When Haman’s plan to annihilate the Jews game into being the Jews fought back and people were drawn to God. Many people became Jews (Esther 8:17) in the land because they began to fear (be in awe of) God. In Acts every time tribulation comes upon the Saints and they endured through the power of Christ more souls are accounted to them. This is my time to help the saints endure so many more souls are saved as a result of their testimony.
Crown for Life Pursues Biblical Boundaries
It is time for me to move Leola out of real back into the pages of my stories. The Biblical Life Skills Strategist is my name in the real and hers only in the Crown for Life Stories. It is me who is born for this day to help women endure temptation by leading them through the Life Skills Encyclopedia to Jesus. When they find their way to Jesus they will find their way of escape from the prince of this world. This series of books will be a gateway to Jesus and His escape from sin, one book at a time.
The first book in the series, The White Picket Fence, available later this year, has Crown for Life owners pursuing information from the Life Skills Encyclopedia regarding personal boundaries. What are they and how does our God speak to them? You can follow along in the lives of five women who have enlisted the help of Crown for Life to pursue a solution for their particular dilemmas. There will be an instruction following this book should you too need to pursue Biblical boundaries. I am excited to go back to helping with your Biblical Life Skills rather than inventing stories. Let this new life begin and the old perish.
