One of the most important qualities I believe that there is to have as a Christian is to be able to admit when you're wrong and to be vulnerable with others about it. Because at the end of the day, we are all born into sin and we all fall short of the glory of God, every one of us! We all fall and we all mess up sometimes. So why don't we talk about it? Why do we hide our shortcomings when our flaws and our failures are one of the greatest parts of our testimonies? Is it because we're scared of what others might think or might say? Is it because we're ashamed and don't want to admit it to ourselves?

Whatever it is that keeps us from being vulnerable and honest, I can tell you right now, it's not of God. Being honest about our shortcomings is a reminder that we're all human and that we're all in this together. That we all mess up, but that it doesn't mean that we're failures and that everyone else around us is perfect. And it definitely doesn't mean that we're any less loved by God or no longer deserving of His love. Instead, it's a reminder that we are in desperate need of a Savior and that even in our weaknesses, He is strong. That living righteously is not by our own strength, but by His.

Those of you who don't know me personally, more than likely know me from my instagram account. A few years back, with doing absolutely nothing at all to deserve it, God blessed me with a platform and an opportunity with different positions, which in turn accumulated a wealth of followers and significant spotlight. From there I had a choice. I could use it to glorify myself or to glorify Jesus Christ. And knowing full-well that glorifying myself would get myself and the others around me absolutely nowhere, I chose God. The problem is that social media only displays a small portion of who someone really is. Those who know me and are close to me, they know my flaws. They know my failures and my struggles.. they know that I am the farthest thing from perfect. But those who know me from my posts and my pictures only see the God-fearing, obedient girl that I do strive to be every day, but in all reality is not the full description of the person that I am and the faith that I have.

SO, with that being said, I want to be vulnerable to you and share with you about the real me.

Many of you who follow me see me as a strong and confident woman for the Lord with an unshakable faith, and although this is true at times, what instagram and my blogs do not show you are the times that i'm weak. The times that i'm not obedient and the times that I don't glorify the Lord with what I say and do. I love Jesus with all of my heart and seek to follow and serve Him..  but even so, sometimes it's easy to get lost. Even the Lord's strongest warriors for His kingdom fall down.

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I recently had to swallow the fact that someone I love and who cares about me deeply and knows my heart for the Lord, took the time to confront me and question my intentions and my actions recently. Although it was not at all fun to hear or to recognize about myself, I had to own up to the fact that recently i've been very deceived and have not been living for the Lord the way that I encourage others too. That I was living very selfishly and not at all the way that God was calling me to. Now why am I telling you this? Well, for starters because it happens to all of us. It happens to the worst of us and it happens to the best of us. Somewhere along the lines of being absolutely on fire for God, we got distracted. We stopped looking up and keeping our minds and eyes focused on things above and instead, we looked around us. We started focusing on the world and all the things that it "supplies."

So how did this happen? Where did things change? How did we end up here?

Compromise. 

We all do it. We're on fire for the Lord, we love Him and are serving Him and others and are laying down our lives and picking up our crosses and just being absolute rockstars for the Kingdom of God!!

.. and then we compromise.

Maybe we saw the success we were having and the fruit that we continued to bare and we decided that we could do it and perform that way all on our own, that we really didn't need God's strength. Maybe the devil came tempting and instead of resisting, we gave in, and suddenly we desired something that God was telling us to stay away from. Maybe we just got caught up in what others thought about us. Maybe someone made a comment to us and suddenly the views of others became more important to us than the only one that matters, and that is God's. For some, I know even I have been there, we get caught up in the spotlight and we become more concerned with that then we do God!

Personally for me, I know that i've been struggling in the position i've been in and the things that come with being a Baylor Cheerleader. The last thing I would ever want this to come off as is a brag, because that is not at all my intentions here. But with being a Baylor Cheerleader comes a spotlight that was not there before. It brings about a lot of attention, good and bad, that is very easy to become caught up in. Well unfortunately, I did get caught up in it. Before, the only attention I was worried about was God's. I knew exactly where my strength came from and I knew exactly how flawed and broken I was. I knew that it was God that made me great, that made me beautiful, not my own self. But somewhere along the way, I compromised. I noticed the attention I was getting and I started to seek for that more than I sought to receive my adoring Savior's love and affection. Because of this, the opinions of other become ridiculously important, and I started seeking to please other people more than I sought to seek the most incredible and amazing God that has done more for me than anyone else in this world could possibly come close to doing. As I took my eyes off of Jesus and placed them instead on this spotlight that the world seemed to provide me with, I started to think very highly of myself and my accomplishments. I started thinking of them as my own and by my own strength. That I was this awesome Christian that did no wrong. If you couldn't have guessed already, this lead me to live a very selfish lifestyle, looking to satisfy my own desires rather than the Lord's. It caused me to place myself on a pedestal that I should never have placed myself on in the first place, and to act in ways that did not align to the will of God. It was clear to see, by myself and others, that I was not living for the Lord. I got lost, and I fell.

So what is my point in all of this? Why am I sharing this?

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We all fall down sometimes. 

I am not the perfect, obedient, Christian girl that my social media tends to display me as. I do not have a perfect faith, nor am I anything close to perfect.. but that's ok. And do you know why? Because our Savior is. Our Savior is strong and mighty. He is powerful and perfect in every way. He supplies hope and love to every one of His children whom He adores and cherishes and He is so merciful in all of His ways.

He loves us when we fall. He loves us when we succeed. He provides for us when we fail and He supplies us with all that we need to be great. Now am I saying that God does not bring judgement upon His children or does not discipline them? Absolutely not. Jesus Christ seeks to sharpen and refine us more and more every day. But what I am saying is that Jesus completely and overwhelming loves us, even in our flaws and that His power is made perfect in our weakness! We've all heard 2 Corinthians 12:10,

"That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong"

I'm not saying that we have any excuse to be disobedient or rely on our own strength or follow our own desires. I'm not saying that we take advantage of God's love, mercy and forgiveness and use that as an excuse to continue to sin. What I am saying by writing this is that you're not alone. That I fall just like every other follower of Christ, just like you. That in our pursuit of Christ, we're not always going to be perfect and sometimes we're going to fall down! But it's ok.. because in each of our failures there is an opportunity. It's an opportunity to repent from the way we've been living and thinking. To ask for forgiveness and to re-lay down our lives so that God can work in ours! It's an opportunity to say,

You know what, Lord, i've seriously messed up and i've strayed far from the path that you've intended for me. I have pushed you aside in order to live a selfish life and I am so sorry.. and I ask that you would forgive me. I know that following you means laying down my life each and every day so Lord, I release my life to you, Jesus. Take my life and my hopes and my desires and make them into everything that you created them to be! I am nothing without you and I can't do this without you. I need you, Jesus.

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We're nothing without Him guys. Yes we may fall. Yes we may mess up. But when that happens, what are we going to do? Are we going to continue to trust in ourselves, or are we going to trust in Him?

I don't know about you but i'm in awe of a Savior that loves and cherishes us so much, regardless of the fact that we continuously fall short of His glory.. that we serve a God that welcomes us back with open arms and wipes away our sin immediately, even after we have shoved Him aside like scum of the earth.. We were made to be so much more than the average person who lives a selfish and self-gratifying life. Our hearts were fashioned together to do so much more than just run after the things of this world. We were created to be mighty and to be GREAT. We were created to conquer, to be set apart from the rest of this world!

But you know what?

We can't do that by our own strength. We can only do that with Jesus.