Dare to be a Daniel

17 Sept 2016

Everything around me lately has been screaming Daniel, and not only because that;s our current sermon series, but more because I am at the same stage of life as Daniel and things are beginning to change around me. I head off to university in a matter of days and it's important to remember that although I will be entering into a different culture and everywhere I look things are yelling "change", that I don't need to change who I am in order to fit in. In Daniel, when he is faced with things around him needing to be done in a certain way, he stands up for what he believes in and ultimately ends up in the best place, and when he is put in difficult situations, you know just casually being thrown into a den of hungry lions and all that, no harm comes to him. If you trust in God and allow him to use you to shape those around you, you will notice a bigger and better change in yourself than if you allow those around you to shape you.


"Dare to be a Daniel,Dare to stand alone!
Dare to have a purpose firm!
Dare to make it known."

being all there

3 Sept 2016

  September is often viewed as a time of change and transition for many people, it's the end of summer, the leaved start to change from green to brown and everyone starts back to the busyness of work and school. For me that statement has never been truer than it is at the moment.As I am starting university this year there are so many changes that are lined up ahead of me and it's a huge shift in the everyday norm that I'm used to. I had my university life all planned out, I was going to go to Queens to study Microbiology, I was going to live at home and get the bus in everyday it's only ten minutes up the road, everything will be fine...

  Everything would be fine except I really hadn't taken into account what I was faced with when I got my results a few weeks ago. I didn't meet the requirements to get into my course of choice so suddenly I found myself no longer attending university in my hometown but instead at one over an hour away by train. I'd worked out all of the logistics and had decided that I was still going to live at home and just get the train to uni everyday because it was so much cheaper than living in accommodation that I didn't like and I was 100% positive that that was what I was going to do and then I could easily move out in second year.


  This week I attended a preterm with the christian union at my new university and as I was hit with the fact that it wasn't the financial aspect of moving that was holding me back but it was the fact that I'm still absolutely terrified of everything that the future holds and I thought that staying at home would be a safer bet but having met the incredible people who I will be doing life with for the next 3-4 years I realised that living at home wasn't the safest bet anymore and that God had placed me at Coleraine for a reason and that reason wasn't just to study. I had been so sure of what I was going to do that I had completely shoved aside God's plan for my life and tried to do everything on my own terms but I finally realised that if God has placed me in Coleraine then I should be entirely at Coleraine and not half in Coleraine, half in Belfast and making compromises, This is the future that God has had planned for me my entire life so now I just have to learn to trust him and embrace everything that my new, totally out of my control future is going to hold for me.

"For I know the plans I have for you declares the LORD, plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you  hope and a future"