lung capacity

This is how we know what love is:
Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has not pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with action and truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever out hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and recieve from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command, to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ and to love one another as he commanded us.

that's what it's all about. to step outside ourselves. to reach for something more. to live a life that's uncomfortable to what we've always known. to accept our past, where we've all come from and to believe God's got a higher calling on our lives.
there's one race, and we're all running Paul says in 1 corinthians. but only the truly disciplined have even a chance of gaining that eternal trophy. nowadays we aren't allowed to outwardly get competitive, it's too offensive. but i believe god's word was meant to push us beyond everything in this world. my friend mel has a great blog and she wrote in there that our eyes were meant to see things upside down, but we have this nerve that fixes it. God created our eyes to literally see things upsidedown. he's so funny.
girls, we have to do these things and check our hearts. i didn't check my heart today and slowly i sank into a pit of myself. i know god can use anyone he wants...but the truth is, i believe he can use me for anything....i truly believe that. god used paul for so much. paul was disciplined. you ever wonder why god uses certain people and you are like what the deal!!!!? they are probably very disciplined. our reasoning and justification in our heads make us "see" it the way we want to, but really truly, God's not an idiot...everyone has trials, everyone struggles with unbelief sometimes-but it's the training, paul says that gets us through....it's like holding your breathe...in the beginning of the summer as a kid, i never could beat my mom in the pool. i would get so mad and even try to come up without her knowing...but the thing that allowed me to have victory in that small competition, was that my lung capacity grew. God looks for people he knows will put in the time. it says it right in 1 john. i always just looked at that chapter as the love chapter, but he says it before anything, "whoever claims to live in him must walk like jesus did" obey Him and his truth.
we are sinning if we choose anything else. i sinned today. i choose to go against what God's truth says about me. if i call it a mistake i am passing responsibility on to something else. if i call it a sin, i know i must repent in my heart and ask god for forgiveness. that alone is part of my training.
thank you for always praying for me. now i see why paul asked that over and over again in his letters. God wants to do and is going to do something so amazing soon. it's coming so soon. it's basically here. thank you for always praying for me. we can count it all in joy together.