3 things I secretly did for pleasure that interfered with my relationship with God (+ &100 J.Crew giveaway)

1. Drink wine.

Surviving a long week of school, work and all other necessary evils, can feel like quite the accomplishment. Every single Friday. The joy of finally getting home from your last real obligation on a Friday evening is like Top 5 Best Feelings. All time.

At one point, I had a Friday night ritual. Grab a glass of wine, usually cold…usually white, relax and watch a *show. (*can also be replaced by: any other activity that does not require brain power.)

I didn't see anything wrong with drinking wine and I had lots of reasons:

1. Before I got saved, I drank much worse. - Wine is nothing compared to hard liquor, am I right? And the way I used to have it up, I know I could never get drunk off wine. Pshhhh. Can wine even get you drunk?

2. I don't drink it every day.

3. It tastes good.

4. It has no effect on me.

5. I'm 21.

6. Chill out, even Jesus drank wine.

7. Don't judge me.

But eventually I had to ask myself? (Ok. Someone had to ask me. Whatever.) What is wine really adding to your life? Could having it in your kitchen cause others to stumble? What are you really, like truly trying to get out of an "innocent" glass of wine?

My answers to these questions shocked me. Wine was only adding headaches to my life. Alcoholism is real and I have a lot of guests over that I would never want to tempt. 

And- I was getting a buzz off wine.

Sure I was allowed to drink wine, but it wasn't bringing me any closer to God. 

It was actually separating me from God because I was turning to it as a way to relieve stress, or take the edge off an exhausting week when I should have turned to Him.

It took God's love, comfort & grace to break this habit, but ultimately God used it to allow me to draw nearer to Him and looking back…that's exactly what I asked for.

2. Listen to oldies but goodies and feel good music.

You know, those old "love" songs that you couldn't forget all the words to if you had the little memory eraser thingy from Men in Black.

Or the ones that mention God or have some other positive or at least "non-negative" message. Yeah those ones.

So, I learned that when I pray scripture, my prayers are like one thousand million times more effective than when I just pray randomness. The problem I had with praying scripture was that…I didn't know enough.

I know that God, who as a man on earth named Jesus, was tempted by ALL things. Therefore, His Word must make at least some reference to all things. So that should pretty much cover all my prayer points.

I realized that I need my mind to be focused on Christ and all things pertaining to Him and what better way to do so than to only listen to music that clearly and without question, glorifies Him alone.

Not to mention, old "love" songs could take me to a weird emotional place that had more of an effect on me than I wanted to admit. I am pretty sure if I still listened to those songs today, they would negatively impact my relationship with my fiancé and would have made it more difficult for me to meet him and accept him. 

No man of God is looking for an emotionally wrecked wino.

3. Watch too many TV shows.

Scandal is not the only show planting seeds of destruction in our hearts. Scandal is just the only show that was generous enough to give us a heads up in the title. Come to think of it, thanks Scandal.

You gave discernment the day off.

For that reason, I've never watched Scandal, but I have watched some less obviously scandalous shows that lead me to some false realities. 

I started thinking it was perfectly fine to handle situations by freaking out at first, and saying whatever I wanted to say.

Similar to music, watching too many unedifying TV shows can really have an effect on the way you see things. What's on TV, especially on reality shows, is not real.

God showed me that there are actually edifying things to watch out here. Like Chase God TV aka What is Joe Doing? He is an extremely talented man of God with a serious grace to make videos for our Christian viewing pleasures.

So basically I was this confrontatonal, emotional wino.

----- END -----



I teamed up with some amazingly beautiful women of God to bring you a chance to win $100 to J.Crew. No big deal.

My honorable, awesome, stylish sister in Christ, Downtown Demure , made this whole thing possible. Her modest fashion blog has helped me tremendously in the style department.
So when you win, thank her :)


Here are the ladies and the links to their blogs.

And their respective links:

The Everyday Elegance -- Coffee with Summer -- Eyeliner & Erasers 
Downtown Demure -- Primarily Inspired -- She Lives Free

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May the odds be ever in you favor! Hehe. Happy entering people!