The Groomsman’s Journal

“He who has the bride is the Bridegroom; but the groomsman who stands by and listens to Him rejoices greatly and heartily on account of the Bridegroom’s Voice. This then is my pleasure and joy, and it is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:29-30 Amplified Bible

Week Two: The Bridegroom Speaks About Questions

The Bride asks: “Jesus, My heart is cluttered with unanswered questions. They cast a shadow of doubt, blanketing my mind with anxiety and layering my soul with fears. I wait, anticipating Your answers and when You don’t respond to me right away, my mind goes crazy with doubts. I don’t understand Your
ways. I wonder why? Why, my Lord?” What has the Bridegroom spoken to you concerning His response to your inquisitive heart? What has He said to you about the questions you have when it comes to His plans for your life season?

WEEK TWO: DAY FIVE AND SIX

My Questions

God’s reputation and faithfulness should assure my questioning soul and most of my questions are most likely going to be based on fear and doubt. An unsettled soul is going to be a soul that panics easily. I have questions because I am not letting God lead me in that wholly-holy kind of way. Doubt! I pray it does not shipwreck my God destined course in this life. Questioning God just stirs up the whirlwind in my mind and carries me off into places I am not destined to go. Questioning God shows my need for a “completely”! Lord I believe, help my unbelief. Winds of doubt, they blow all the time, my enemy’s voice stirs up the whirlwinds, yet my choice is clear, I stand in belief.

God’s Plans

• God’s plans are not changeable like ours are, we change with the cultural influence.
  
• Connected to God, we know the wisdom that we need to step out safely in His plans.
  
• Surrender is the best plan and path to followship.
  
• God wants to lead us and He will as we are called to Him first, abiding in Him.
  

“Truth In” Application To My Life

I Follow After God

God has an incredible reputation of being a faithful Way-Maker. Do I know His reputation? Does His reputation for being a wise God Who is all in with me factor into my trusting Him? My crazy world does influence my emotions, yet if I am clinging to God, putting Him first, digging my life roots deeply in His Kingdom, this world does not influence my life course. I follow after God.

I Side Step Tornados

God said that He would teach me how to side step the tornadoes that suddenly arise in my path. I know without a doubt that God will give you the wisdom of how to stand safely outside these temporary whirlwinds of your enemy until they spin out. This is a wisdom I desperately need. My mind gets filled with these tornadoes and as I chase them, the emotional devastation is great. Holy Spirit, teach me the wisdom of waiting out these mind-tornadoes my enemy spins up with “What If” circulations, tempests of doubt, fear, anxiety. Lies, doubts, fears, anxieties will eventually spin out, only truth has the power to prevail. Wait on God, and every untruth spun in your mind will unravel.

The Bridegroom’s Word, Written on your Heart

What has the Bridegroom spoken to you concerning His response to your inquisitive heart? What has He said to you about the questions you have when it comes to His plans for your life season?

Week Two: The Bridegroom Speaks About

Day Five And Six My Groomsman Journal

Matthew 8:24-27

And suddenly a violent storm arose on the sea, so that the boat was being covered by the waves; but Jesus was sleeping. And the disciples went and woke Him, saying, “Lord, save us, we are going to die!” He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was at once a great and wonderful calm a perfect peacefulness. The men wondered in amazement, saying, “What kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” Amplified Bible

“FleshOut” My Questions – My Attitudes

• Questioning God is a sure sign I don’t really know Him well enough, don’t really understand the possibility, promise and purposes of Him.
  
• Fear! Fear is truly a lack of trust and trust is not knowing God enough. If I don’t know God, how can I believe in Him, how can I believe in His faithfulness. I need to know God more.
  
• If I am questioning what God is doing in my life, this is on me not on Him. It shows how much I don’t know His heart. I need to know You more Lord God. I need to know the passion of Your heart for me and I will question You less.
  

“TruthIN” God’s Precepts

• Why are we afraid, God is with us. Why do we question Him? The winds and sea obey Him.
  
• Our awe and amazement of God should override every unanswered question.
  
• Why question Him? The ONE Who can calm stormy seas? Trust God.
  

“TruthIN” Application To My Life:

Why Do We Panic

Sometimes in the midst of really violent life storms, we of course want answers right away. Jesus is always with us, He has not left us. Why do we panic? Is it because we don’t know God well enough. Knowing Him is knowing the awe of His possibility, the amazing potential of His life.

Connect Heart To Heart

When we know God most when we are connected to Him heart to Heart and when we are wholly-holy aligned with Him, we won’t panic in the life storms. When we focus first on the storm, instead of bowing our lives before Jesus in complete trust of His ability and purposeful providence, of course panic engulfs us and panic evokes all kinds of assumptions, rationalizations, presumptions and questions spewed out of fear.

Guard Your Heart

Anything that comes out of fear will be a disrespectful, dishonoring thing. We have to guard our hearts from panic and we do that with our belief in WHO Jesus is. We need to know Him more and trust Him most. Our faith should be an active faith, stepping out in courage on the relationship we have with God, which is a sure foundation.

Assumption Is Not Reality

Our assumptions are based on fear not on truth. When we question God based on assumptions, we are not even dealing with Him on a level of truth. An assumption is not a true reality. When a storm comes up in our lives and we say: “This is going to drown me”, this is not truth, how do we know that and why do we presume negatively instead of positively connecting with our Savior, Jesus Christ? Our assumptions question God’s ability to take care of us.

Know God More

The more I know God, the more I open myself to experience the fullness of Who He is in me, the more my awe will grow of Him and the less I will question His motives. He is for me this I know and have experienced. God’s intentions towards me have always been good, creative and miraculous.

Luke 12:6-7

Here’s whose opinion you should be concerned about: the One who can take your life and then throw you into hell! He’s the only One you should fear! But don’t misunderstand: you don’t really need to be afraid of God, because God cares for every little sparrow. How much is a sparrow worth—don’t five of them sell for a few cents?7 Since you are so much more precious to God than a thousand flocks of sparrows, and since God knows you in every detail—down to the number of hairs on your head at this moment—you can be secure and unafraid of any person, and you have nothing to fear from God either. The Voice

“FleshOut” My Questions – My Attitudes

• If my questions had a basis of God truth, they may never have been spoken.
  
• Fear interrupts my trust and gives me a questioning soul.
  
• God values me and my questioning of Him, devalues Him in the eyes of the world around me.
  
• If we really grasped just how much God loves us and the extent of His care for us, we would not question His ways.
  

“TruthIN” God’s Precepts

• God’s promises are a constant reminder of His detailed care of us.
  
• I am valuable to God.
  
• There is nothing to fear, I am completely cared for by God.
  
• Our worth to God is immeasurable, just like His Infinite love is invaluable to us.
  
• God knows everything about us, to ever little detail of our lives. How can we question His love for us?
  
• God knows everything about me, even the things I don’t know about myself, the things I have blinded my eyes too.
  

“TruthIN” Application To My Life:

I Am Valued By God

God knows everything about me. There is no unanswered question in His mind about me. Every detail of my life is known by God, I have nothing to fear. When I lean into fear, it totally interrupts the flow of trust from my heart to God’s heart and gives me a questioning mind and an anxious soul. This is so totally unfair to God because He cares for me so completely, so deeply and I am so precious to Him. I am so very valued by God.

Don’t Shrink God

Our culture with its foolish ideals, shrinks God down, but that does not stop God from being huge. I need a different perspective of God, mine is too small. I need to see God through the eyes of awe. I need to develop my AWE-GOD by being in the Word of God more, learning of Who He truly is. If I do this, the questioning spirit in me will stop. I can and will know God in that special kind of way that causes deep awe, reverence, respect and hope. Yes, this is what I hope for.

Lamentations 3:17-32
My soul has been cast far away from peace; I have forgotten happiness.

So I say, “My strength has perished And so has my hope and expectation from the Lord.”

Hope of Relief in God’s Mercy Remember, O Lord, my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the gall, and bitterness. My soul continually remembers them and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, therefore I have hope. It is because of the Lord’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, because His tender compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion and my inheritance,” says my soul; “Therefore I have hope in Him and wait expectantly for Him.” The Lord is good to those who wait confidently for Him, to those who seek Him on the authority of God’s word. It is good that one waits quietly For the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke of godly discipline in his youth. Let him sit alone in hope and keep quiet, Because God has laid it on him for his benefit. Let him put his mouth in the dust in recognition of his unworthiness; There may yet be hope. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him; Let him be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever, for if He causes grief, then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness and tender mercy.

“FleshOut” My Questions – My Attitudes

• Questioning God derails my confidence.
  
• God puts up with my questioning heart because of His great mercy.
  
• No complaining, cut it out of my life, it is very disrespectful to God.
  
• I know when I question God the times I am upset, it is definitely a complaining spirit, coming out of a heart of full of doubt, it is unbelief.
  
• I do believe I am too quick to jump into discontentment that leads me to questioning God, I should be quicker to believe than I am to doubt.
  

“TruthIN” God’s Precepts

• Hope sustains us as we confidently wait on God.
  
• The Word of God points our expectations in the way of hope.
  
• God is good to us as we patiently wait on Him.
  
• Hard things eventually show the goodness of God in us.
  
• Adversity is always followed up by God’s lovingkindness, compassion and tender mercy.
  
• God is our future, we put our hope in Him and wait expectantly for Him.
  
• God, You are my portion and because of that, I can wait hopefully, expecting huge in You.
  

“TruthIN” Application To My Life:

Mouth In Dust

Mouth in dust. Done! I mean really… who am I to question Almighty God? Not to mention what He did for me, just that alone, sending His Son to die for me should be enough, a just cause for me to trust Him completely. We should not allow our mind to stir up all kinds of noise, enemy cackle as I call it, the enemies junk that he likes to deposit in our mind during hard times to bog it down with a stinking thinking. These are times purposefully determined by God and He has a good benefit in mind when He allows them to touch our lives.

Hope Sustains Us

Questioning God derails the hope that is meant to sustain us through our hard times. Hope is what helps us to endure and grow through us as we confidently wait on God. This very hope has been purchased by God, it is our inheritance, we already have a future and hope that no one and nothing can steal from us. The enemy would like to steal our hope, erode it away, as we allow the questioning of God to turn us in the direction of doubt, fear and despair which are all the devils playground.

In Due Season

Life runs its course in seasons, some are harder than others, but God does not cast us off forever in hard times. God uses our difficult life seasons to grow us in ways we would not grow up without them. Our God is a loving and compassionate God, full of tender mercy for us, this does not change in the hard times. No matter what season of life we are in God is with us and the fullness of His great mercy is for us.

Wisdom Helps Us Change

Amazing wisdom in these verses. So much, I don’t even know where to start! God, You are my portion and because of that, I can wait hopefully, expecting huge in You. I do believe I am too quick to jump into discontentment that leads me to questioning God. I want to change this, I want to be less impulsive, less reactive and more responding out of my relationship with God. I pray it would be so. Increase my faith, decrease my doubt.

The Bridegroom’s Voice is a book penned by KimberlyMac as Jesus spoke to my heart His Kingdom perspective to “flesh out” our souls and prepare us by putting His “Truth in” our spirit, truth which will help us endure this life season and bring honor to God and His Kingdom. The above is taken from The Groomsman’s Journal of KimberlyMac from The Bridegroom’s Voice week two where the Bridegroom shares with the Bride His perspective of our questions. The above journal is my response to the truth Jesus has shared with me from day five and six in our conversation on questions.

Order The Bridegroom’s Voice

***I highly suggest you purchase a copy of The Bridegroom’s Voice and start your journey with the Bridegroom, Jesus, listening to His Voice, fleshing out your soul and letting Him put His Kingdom truth in your spirit. You too can have a Groomsman’s Journal. If you are on the Journey with The Bridegroom’s Voice, please leave a comment to share with others from your Groomsman’s Journal. Thanks for being an encourager. God bless you MUCH, KimberlyMac