Throughout the Judges we see this cycle of turning from God and coming back to God when things get tough, when they get in trouble.
Judges 6:6
“Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord.”
They were in great distress and dying and being persecuted and then they decided to cry out to God. I often see this trait in our lives, we turn our backs on God, don’t pray, don’t acknowledge Him, until we get in big trouble. It often takes us being in trouble to finally bring us back to God instead of acknowledging Him and relying on Him all the way through.
Take a couple minutes today to acknowledge God in your life and to tell Him you need Him in the good times too. Don’t wait until trouble arises to cry out to God. 

This is the perfect time of the year to reflect on what has happened and what I'm going to do to change for the better. I have made mistakes over the past year (as I'm sure most of us have) and God is amazing to shine his light in that area of my life and give me the grace to adjust.
I'm sure most of us feel the same thing sometimes (It's called a conscience) the big question is, "What will we do to change for the better?" We all need a little change sometimes, what is yours?

I think its interesting to take a moment to notice the different kinds of seasons we go through in life. What I mean is some periods of life we feel one way about something and another way about something else, and in another period we can feel totally opposite about these things. Also, some periods of life we are learning so much but at other periods of life it could seem like absolutely nothing is going on.
I have also noticed that sometimes I miss other seasons of life and wish I could be there also.
This next week I start to go back to school and begin the final stage of this season of my life, I’m excited for it to be over and move on with life but at the same time I’m excited to be there and learn more and be surrounded by the safety of friends. This summer was an awesome summer full of different kinds of learning and now I am ready to go back to school and learn some more in that aspect.
Every season we go through can teach us something and can have a huge impact on our lives, only if we pay attention and let it. What season are you going through, and what are you learning?

Jesus speaks in parables almost the whole 3 years of his ministry, even the guys who walked with him for this time and listened to everything he said had trouble understanding half of the things he said.
In Mark 2 there is this one small parable where he says, “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.”
At first glance this statement doesn’t mean anything but look a little deeper, back then they used goatskin to make a container to put their wine in. They would put grape juice into the goat skin and let it sit to ferment and as it did it would expand and stretch the goat skin. If they were to put the grape juice into a goat skin that was already used, when it would expand the goatskin would tear and everything would be ruined, wine and all.
This relates to our lives, Jesus brings a newness to our lives that if we try to contain it inside of our old selves we wont be able to contain it, but when we allow Christ to make us new creations in him and he fills us with this newness and we grow beyond what we were.
Don’t try to live the old life and the new life, everything will fall out and be ruined!