I Just Found a Church I Like, But...

...it seems as if "someone" is determined for me not to enjoy this church at all. 

By "someone", I mean the enemy.

It's taken me awhile to get to a place where I feel comfortable going to church on my own, without my husband.  He is Christian, yet jaded against churches and cynical, if you will, about how they push their own agenda rather than Christ's agenda.  He has never tried to prevent me from going to church or taking our children, so the decision to find a church was mine alone.

We are friends with a Christian couple, and so I decided to ask them if I could attend their church.  They invited me along and I found it to be a warm, inviting place.  Their worship is wonderful, and the messages are led by the Holy Spirit.  I have found great joy at this church, and wish to continue going.

However, the first Sunday going to this church, my baby daughter had a melt-down.  I don't know why, but perhaps because it was a new place with new people, but she did not like me leaving her alone in Sunday School with the rest of the toddlers.  I had to listen to the sermon in the church office with my baby on my lap, not in the sanctuary.

The second week, my daughter seemed to be happy in Sunday School, so I breathed a sigh of relief and went to enjoy the sermon.  But about 1/4 of the way through the message, she was brought back to me again.  She wasn't crying, and after a few minutes indicated she wanted to go play with her friends again.  So I took her back.  And again, she was returned!  I don't know why the staff kept coming back with her if she wasn't crying, but perhaps she mentioned she wanted to be "with Mommy", I don't know.  Because she wasn't crying, I decided to stay in the sanctuary and enjoy the rest of the sermon.

The third week, my oldest daughter wasn't feeling well at all, and I left my baby daughter home with her.  My son was off with his grandparents, enjoying a birthday sleepover at their house.  So it was just me and my two middle daughters.  (I have five kids.)  I was looking forward to a "quiet" day at church. Anyway, I send off my younger daughter to her Sunday School class and sit for the sermon with my older daughter.  She's fine all through worship, but right before the sermon, she gets an overwhelming feeling of nausea overcome her and she's terrified of throwing up in public.  She just wanted to go home.

So, I packed up my younger daughter -- without hearing the sermon -- and came home early.

UGH.  I really want to enjoy church-time.  I've finally found a church I enjoy.  My kids really enjoy it as well, but circumstances haven't made me really ENJOY it since I've started going.  I've contemplated just leaving my kids at home and going by myself, but they all really love Jesus and love going to church and making new friends.

I just haven't been able to worship God and concentrate on the message like I want to and it's quite frustrating.

They have adult meetings throughout the week that I might consider going to -- without the kids.  I want to commune more with fellow Christians and make new friends, and I'm making an effort, but for whatever reason, it seems like there's been something "against" me from the beginning of this endeavor.

But I'm not giving up!  It's got to calm down at some point, right??  What are the odds of something crazy happening EVERY Sunday?

~~Becka

Passionate About God

I am very passionate about God. I doubt even those who are close to me understand just how much I LOVE and ADORE God.  I decided to start this blog as a "diary" of sorts, to share my walk with God and help others with theirs.  I feel led to share what I learn about our Awesome God and edify other believers in the process.

First and foremost, one of my biggest "lessons" from God was to learn about His Holy Name.  God's name is Yahweh.  After buying the Restoration Study Bible which replaces "LORD" in the text with Yahweh and "GOD" in the text with Elohim, I feel as if I know Him a bit better.  It's taken me on a journey from worshipping and loving "God" to worshipping and loving YAHWEH -- bringing my relationship with Him to a new level of intimacy.

I am now on a first-name basis with my Sovereign.

God never wanted His name to be forgotten.  Over the ages, the Jews have made it blasphemy to say the Holy Name, which is why they call Him "HaShem", which literally means "The Name" in Hebrew.  The King James translators did not include the name Yahweh in their texts, apparently also keeping with the tradition that the name of YHWH was too sacred.  Instead, they substituted the capitalized LORD and GOD for Yahweh and Elohim.

As a result, the Bible loses a lot of flavor in the text when Scripture exalts God's name -- and yet doesn't mention His name anywhere.  Not only that, it loses a personal aspect of knowing God by name, rather than the cold, unreachable title of GOD.

The word "god" can also be attributed to graven images, false gods, and the like.  The way to differentiate our God from other gods is to proclaim His NAME.

Knowing God's name also helps to further understand His son Jesus (who's Hebrew name is Yeshua).  Yeshua literally means "Yahweh is Salvation".  A lot of translators spell His name as Yahshua, thus incorporating "Yah", which is the poetic, shortened version of Yahweh.

The one place in all the Bible where the King James translators "missed" taking out the name of "Yah" is in Psalms 68:4, which reads:

Sing to God, sing praises to His name;
Extol Him who rides on the clouds,
By His name YAH,
And rejoice before Him.

 I've always known God's name, however, I truly feel as if He wishes me to use His name more in prayer and to study His name more in Scripture.  This is His answer to my prayer of wanting to get even closer to Him in my life.  The first step to intimacy with the Most High is knowing His name and being comfortable calling Him Yahweh in prayer.

~~Becka

Restoration Study Bible Review

This is a video I made for the Restoration Study Bible -- a Bible sold at www.yrm.org/bible for $25 plus $5 shipping and a $1.20 Paypal fee. It restores the names "Yahweh" and "Yahshua" into the text where they belong (instead of LORD and Jesus), "Messiah" (instead of "Christ"), and "Elohim" (instead of "GOD"), and is an excellent companion Bible to one you may already own.

One thing I did not mention in the review is that the publishers put the names of the 66 books (Genesis/Romans/Revelation) on the inside of the pages, near the spine. It would have been better (in my opinion) to put the names of the books on the outside of the pages near the edges to make it easier to find the book(s) you're looking for rather than having to open the Bible all the way in order to see which book you are in.

Other than the dings this Bible gets for being "bare-bones", I will actually cherish it as an invaluable study tool for a better understanding of our Mighty God and His Holy Name.

~~Becka