I am not sure how to get words onto paper. My thoughts are not comprehendible and the thought of picking one from the canvas of my heart and mind seems about as daunting as picking out the banana from a strawberry pineapple banana smoothie like the ones we had so often in Costa Rica. So as I extract random thoughts from the blender of a brain that I have, please forgive the randomness. And welcome once again to my chaotic anarchy.
Since being back in the States, I look at things differently. I look at relationships differently. I look at my money and what I spend it on differently. I look at my struggles differently. In retrospect, I don’t think any of these things are different but on the contrary…I am different. I am the thing that has changed. I came back to everything and everyone being as they were before I left. And yet here I am in many circumstances that look NOTHING like they did 6 months ago.
I am the most un-motivated person ever right now. No thanks to the holidays.
I really cant get this truth in my mind: “We are saved by grace ALONE. Through faith ALONE. And the faith to believe in that grace is given to us by God so that NOBODY has ANYTHING to boast about except for GOD. It means that salvation belongs to God and that you by your behavior cannot save yourself. You doing these things and not doing these things does not magically give you right-standing before God. If you will stand holy before God, it will require an act of God and praise His name on the cross, He did it. It is by Christ’s merit alone that we can stand holy before God. We ONLY have the blood of Christ to plead before God. This absolutely frees you up to pursue God whole heartedly.”
My actions do not display a real deep deep belief in this truth that I do not have to earn my right standing before God.
I am so accustomed to performance based faith that it is so hard for me to understand unconditional love. This gets reflected all too often in my personal life. I am trying very hard to love like Christ loves. But the prayer that God would show me how to love like He loves is a hard prayer to pray. Especially when you know first hand what it feels like to LOVE your heart out and get nothing in return. Its gut wrenching. And yet this is how God loves me. It is my PRIVELEDGE to love others the same way.
Its still baffling to me that the God of the Universe is in relentless pursuit of me regardless of my response. That frustrates me. And at the same time it brings me to my knees in absolute awe and worship of a God who possesses and gives perfect love. I cannot fathom this kind of love, especially in a world that makes love always seem so conditional.
I physically FEEL bad when I do not spend an adequate amount of time with the Lord on a daily basis. I am dry and empty and irritable and antsy. I need God all day every day and I need TIME with Him just us two. Shocking that I am just now coming to this conclusion. A tiny glimpse at the idiocy of my heart.
Seeing that the above paragraph has not been fulfilled this week, I am really pessimistic. God save me from myself.
I am blown away with thankfulness for the people that God has placed in my life. My family consists of 7 of my favorite people in the world. But we are messed up. Oh we are such a beautiful disaster, a team made up of tragically broken people. I kid you not, we are a bunch of wack jobs. We have stints with major sins running through the veins of each of us, but together we are GOOD. Brittney, Carson, my mom, and I sat on her bed last night and talked about life and God for hours last night. We came to the conclusion that life is hard and God is good. Regardless of circumstance and even when life does not make any sense. And as I sat around a dining table laughing and talking with these 7 broken people who LOVE our God I was overwhelmed with gratefulness to the God who divinely designed and placed each of us here.
On top of the magnificent seven, I have friends that love me with the love of Christ. I do not have a huge quantity of friends but my core group are QUALITY. It matters. Sarah Nash, my newfound YWAM friend from Australia encourages me like God encourages me. She LISTENS to me and asks questions. She seems very interested in everything I say, then validates my emotions, and offers her opinion, even when it differs from what I think. She PUSHES me towards the cross, and the reason I love our friendship so much is that it is a beautiful reflection of what my relationship with God looks like. Three other YWAM girls I could echo this praise. I can tear up at the mercy God has show me and lavished blessings on me through my 6 months in Denver/Panama/Costa Rica. Megan Templin is another prime example of the Lord’s love for me. Our relationship shows me that God is GOOD and that He loves me. I love God more for creating Megan and am beyond blessed that I get to call her my best friend. And of course Becca Feagin shows me that God loves me enough that He cannot leave me where I am. That I need progressive sanctification CONSTANTLY. Becca loves me HARD and loves me in a way that hurts sometimes, but ALWAYS leads me into a deeper appreciation of who God is and how merciful He is. I am seriously tearing up. I sometimes take for granted the wonderful relationships that I get to call my own.
My WICKED heart can sometimes disregard all of the blessings that I am so eternally grateful for just because one relationship is strained. My thoughts so quickly try and dwell on what is wrong, what hurts, and what isn’t easy before it wanders to what is easy. And me being analytical, I will make myself miserable trying to fix whatever problem is haunting me for the hour. I say hour because it can change within sixty minutes. I am so up and down and that makes me feel unstable. I do not like not being in control.
Anyways this is my apology to the God who loves me and sends me things and relationships to better me regardless of the occasional pain that they bring me. Taking time to sit and think of all that I am thankful for is something good I have to say for this November holiday.
I want to love God more than I do. But there are parts of my heart that I do not always want to submit to him. I want more God. I long for it.
The fact that I am not consumed with idolatry in the form of co-dependency is BIZARRE. I don’t know how to explain it. I cried MULTIPLE times throughout outreach because of my heart acknowledging its freedom from the sin that owned me for so very long.
There is no explanation of how I got to a point of freedom outside of the GRACE and MERCY of God. I didn’t know what it felt like to be free. And here I am walking in some degree of freedom. Oh our God is so good, so massively powerful, so gloriously triumphant over sin! Sin has no power over us anymore. Hallelujah.
I am tired. My last thought of the night concludes with exhaustion. Sorry for the maze through my head. Honesty though, is another thing that I have become very acquainted with lately. So honestly….Im not THAT sorry. And honestly God is the reason I can be thankful for anything. God has provided. God has given and taken away, praise be the name of the Lord. I am thankful for HIS grace, HIS mercy, HIS love. And a lot of times in my life those things have manifested in family, friendships, food, music, and sunshine. So thankful tonight.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Put Your Hope In God
It has come to my attention that I have no idea what I am doing with my life after YWAM. Scary? Exciting? EEK.
What I do know is that God has a sovereign, perfectly timed, hidden plan that is PERFECT for me! Maybe I will be a snowboard instructor at Breckinridge or Vail? I really have no idea what I even want to do, which is frustrating.
As far as the WHERE: I really LOVE Colorado. But life is about relationships--not places, and I really don't know where to put that in my head as far as how it applies to my plan (that God will likely wreck). I want to eventually be close to my family...I would prefer that THEY come to ME in the mountains. I know that there is always an opportunity to find NEW best friends but right now it just seems like everyone that I really love is in Texas.
And as far as WHAT I am supposed to do, that is a whole other story. I don't know what I want to do for the rest of my life. Here I am, 22 years old and still NO idea what I want to "be when I grow up". I know which passions God has placed in my heart, and I want to use those alongside the gifts He has blessed me with to further His Kingdom. What job title is that? No idea. So I am just praying that God makes it blatantly obvious what my next step is.
I'd love you to join me in that prayer. Today I have mixed emotions. I miss home and community and friends. I long for the holidays with my whole family at home eating mass amounts of Grandmommy's food. I want to be warm and snuggly and for it to not really be all that cold outside. I miss comfort. At the same time I take a step back and realize that I am doing EXACTLY what I want to do. I am living my dream. I moved to Denver to learn about Jesus and go overseas. I THINK I am walking in obedience to Christ and trying to make sense of this crazy thing called life. I am wildly happy. I am on a constant adventure, which is everything I want.
To conclude: I have clashing emotions. I feel so lucky, and so surrounded by community and then at the same time I feel alone and very tired. My emotions are so inconsistent. Thank God I don't have to rely on them for truth. My truth would be a big catastrophe if that was the case. Today I find myself saying Davids coined statement "Why so downcast, oh my soul!? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God!" One of those times where I just need to get on my face and ask God to rule my mind in truth. I know there is a reason why I am here. He didn't bother assigning this adventure to a light-weight. By God, I am a fighter and I refuse to wallow in pity, because I know that when I cry out to Him some ten thousand angels join me in a chorus to worship our King. So that's where I am at. Fighting my flesh with Spirit as usual. This day WILL NOT go to the enemy.
As far as the WHERE: I really LOVE Colorado. But life is about relationships--not places, and I really don't know where to put that in my head as far as how it applies to my plan (that God will likely wreck). I want to eventually be close to my family...I would prefer that THEY come to ME in the mountains. I know that there is always an opportunity to find NEW best friends but right now it just seems like everyone that I really love is in Texas.
And as far as WHAT I am supposed to do, that is a whole other story. I don't know what I want to do for the rest of my life. Here I am, 22 years old and still NO idea what I want to "be when I grow up". I know which passions God has placed in my heart, and I want to use those alongside the gifts He has blessed me with to further His Kingdom. What job title is that? No idea. So I am just praying that God makes it blatantly obvious what my next step is.
I'd love you to join me in that prayer. Today I have mixed emotions. I miss home and community and friends. I long for the holidays with my whole family at home eating mass amounts of Grandmommy's food. I want to be warm and snuggly and for it to not really be all that cold outside. I miss comfort. At the same time I take a step back and realize that I am doing EXACTLY what I want to do. I am living my dream. I moved to Denver to learn about Jesus and go overseas. I THINK I am walking in obedience to Christ and trying to make sense of this crazy thing called life. I am wildly happy. I am on a constant adventure, which is everything I want.
To conclude: I have clashing emotions. I feel so lucky, and so surrounded by community and then at the same time I feel alone and very tired. My emotions are so inconsistent. Thank God I don't have to rely on them for truth. My truth would be a big catastrophe if that was the case. Today I find myself saying Davids coined statement "Why so downcast, oh my soul!? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God!" One of those times where I just need to get on my face and ask God to rule my mind in truth. I know there is a reason why I am here. He didn't bother assigning this adventure to a light-weight. By God, I am a fighter and I refuse to wallow in pity, because I know that when I cry out to Him some ten thousand angels join me in a chorus to worship our King. So that's where I am at. Fighting my flesh with Spirit as usual. This day WILL NOT go to the enemy.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
This I Know, For The Bible Tells Me So
I am currently in what I like to call a “pity me” mode. Fiona Gifford, the one person who I would literally move anywhere in the world to be mentored by, told me that our ears need to hear our mouths speak truth and our eyes need to see it written. Seems like thanks to Fiona and the help of my closest sources of accountability that God is asking me to speak truth into myself. Especially seeing that I am presumably at a weak place. My least favorite and first step is telling God how I really feel and admitting the sin and wickedness of my own heart, acknowledging that I have again fallen short of His glory. Usually this is the time to go ahead and announce that I still have strands of idolatry in my heart that desperately need redeeming. A feat only God can accomplish.
So tonight I am admitting straight up that I am not worthy of my place in the kingdom, and only thanks to Jesus Christ can I stand blameless before the throne. I am saying out loud that there are things and people that I love more than I love the God who created me; that my rebellious heart still pleads for the things of this world to attempt to fill its void, although my rational mind knows better. Yet my heart often wins the war as I try again and again to cram relationships and everything else into the gaping hole that never loses its appetite for more, and is never satisfied.
David Marvin gave a talk one summer at Kanakuk about self examination and its painful process. Oh how I wish I could look away from the mirror that I must look in. I wish that I could go on living in sweet oblivion and pushing all my problems to the side, sweeping them under the rug. But then you have a lumpy rug and you eventually trip and fall down. So thanks to that lumpy rug reasoning, and the fact that I am ABSOLUTELY a dweller, I instead am forced to deal with my emotions at face value and here is where I get really thankful for a perfect God.
Isaiah 55:8-9 says “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts and my ways higher than your ways.”
WELL PRAISE THE LIVING GOD. The bible commands us over and over again to renew our minds. What does that even mean? Like I wish God would just zap me from the heavens and I would automatically be holy and function in a manner only worthy of Christ. Seriously, lightning bolt into my head and make me Godly. For some reason I dont think it works that way, and Fiona says that we are responsible for our own thoughts. It is our responsibility to capture sinful thoughts, rebuke lies, and replace them with what is true and of God. God never condemns but only convicts. And if our thoughts are not in sync with the thoughts of God, they are not worthwhile to dwell on. So me, being a dweller (as Brittney is so faithful to remind me), I have to choose to dwell only on things that hold absolute truth. So LETS DO THIS.
Here is what I absolutely KNOW:
I know that I have a God who loves me.
I have a belief system where I can have absolute certainty of my salvation. My sole purpose is to bring glory to the Almighty God.
I know that I have eternal security.
I know where I am going and its GOOD. The end of this story turns out very well, and for this I am thankful that the world and its depravity is the only hell that I will ever have to experience. ("He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4)
I know that there is nothing I can do to make my God love me any more or any less than He does at this moment. There is no failure or disaster than can shake his love for me.
I know that every day is a new day, and every act of repentance is a new beginning.
I know that Jesus Christ died for me, for the atonement of my sins, providing the entirety of my belief system.
I know that He rose from the dead, is seated at the right hand of God, and He is coming again. OH GLORIOUS DAY. I know that the Holy Spirit enables me to be different than I used to be. He IS renewing my mind and slowly walking me through both victories and failures, molding me.
I know that I will be different tomorrow thanks to the promised progressive sanctification of the Lord.
I know that God speaks to me through the scriptures, through music, through His still soft voice.
I know that he longs to speak to me and guide my footsteps.
I know that His words are like living water and serve as constant affirmation, the only kind that really fills me up.
I know that I have a family who loves me, adores me. A support system of seven lunatics who will stand by my side no matter what, through think and thin. Who will help keep me busy when I cant get control of my own thoughts (insanityyyy). And all who serve the same victorious God. To get specific
I know that I have a sister who is the best person in the world and who gives me the BEST advice, even if most of the time its to “chill out” and not worry so much. Brittney keeps me on my toes and loves me the way Christ calls each of us to love.
I know that I have a brother who is my hero and is setting an example with his life that I love and respect more than he will ever know. Carson is my hero.
I know that I have friends that are absolutely the icing on the cake in this life. I have accountability like none other and friends that will love me through my craziness. I have new friends and old friends and mostly small friends actually. I have some friends from kamps and some from college and some from when I was 10 years old. I have friends that push me towards the cross.
I know that I can call them when I am in a frenzy and they will speak life into me and not death.
I know that I can rely on them through all the storms of life.
I know that I am healthy and have no serious ailments.
I am blessed.
I know that God will be faithful to complete the good work he started in me. (Philippeans 1:6)
I know that God has a plan for my life to prosper me and not to harm me. (Jeremiah 29:11) I know that He is in control at all times in every situation regardless of how it looks/feels.
I know that the God of the Universe is in relentless pursuit of me regardless of me completely.
Knowing and living truth must be synonymous. Obedience is a reflection of how well we know our Creator. God can be included and reign sovereign over our rationale, reasoning, and thoughts. We, being created in the image of Him, are but an echo of the living God. So tonight, once again I am choosing joy. Here is one reason why:
Because I am sitting in the room that I share with my little brother. He has his shirt off while he is studying so he can glance at his newly developed muscles from time to time in the mirror. I giggle at him and admire him. He just told me a story for 10 minutes about how he can talk his way out of bad grades sometimes, and that’s why its okay that he didn’t start studying until AFTER we watched 3 episodes of Criminal Minds. I get to spend an entire month with this boy who I love all the way down to my toes. This boy calls me his big sister and I found him in my bed when I walked in tonight, ready to snuggle me. So tonight the truth of the matter is that I am blessed. So stinkin blessed that its too much for my little heart to take in. In this moment I know that truth from the Lord overrides any lies of insecurity that the enemy has whispered in my ear all day long.
This is the excerpt of a blog post of a girl I don’t know, but she’s spot on (Thanks MT):
“I think this is a life-long season, and having a renewed mind is a full-time job. I can't afford to be lackadaisical about it. Its amazing how the more I clear out of my head that isn't of God, the more open space He has to fill with things that are of God. And the best news is, God doesn't hold grudges. So if one day I'm really bad at renewing my mind, we're still on speaking terms the next morning, and He is just as willing, wanting, that I might have the mind of Christ.”
I LOVE THAT. I love that even when we suck BAD, we can start the next day again anew, with a loving, patient God who is not holding a grudge at our past failures. Oh if I could even fathom a love like His. The more and more I come to terms with the way that God really loves me, I look at life differently. The gospel, when understood, absolutely changes you. It rocks me to my core. Because I can find my emotional security in this God, in Christ's achievement for me, I can admit my wrongs and weaknesses without feeling deflated.
"...you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." Ephesians 4:22-24
See? Already I am out of pity me mode and into: 'OH God thank you so much' mode. Speak truth. Rebuke lies. Enjoy life people. Enjoy the ups and downs and the good times and bad. Drink it in, because we are but the morning dew, here today and gone today. So buckle up and choose joy. Not to mention, a calm sea isnt the goal in life...it's the excpetion. God makes waves. Us too.
So tonight I am admitting straight up that I am not worthy of my place in the kingdom, and only thanks to Jesus Christ can I stand blameless before the throne. I am saying out loud that there are things and people that I love more than I love the God who created me; that my rebellious heart still pleads for the things of this world to attempt to fill its void, although my rational mind knows better. Yet my heart often wins the war as I try again and again to cram relationships and everything else into the gaping hole that never loses its appetite for more, and is never satisfied.
David Marvin gave a talk one summer at Kanakuk about self examination and its painful process. Oh how I wish I could look away from the mirror that I must look in. I wish that I could go on living in sweet oblivion and pushing all my problems to the side, sweeping them under the rug. But then you have a lumpy rug and you eventually trip and fall down. So thanks to that lumpy rug reasoning, and the fact that I am ABSOLUTELY a dweller, I instead am forced to deal with my emotions at face value and here is where I get really thankful for a perfect God.
Isaiah 55:8-9 says “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts and my ways higher than your ways.”
WELL PRAISE THE LIVING GOD. The bible commands us over and over again to renew our minds. What does that even mean? Like I wish God would just zap me from the heavens and I would automatically be holy and function in a manner only worthy of Christ. Seriously, lightning bolt into my head and make me Godly. For some reason I dont think it works that way, and Fiona says that we are responsible for our own thoughts. It is our responsibility to capture sinful thoughts, rebuke lies, and replace them with what is true and of God. God never condemns but only convicts. And if our thoughts are not in sync with the thoughts of God, they are not worthwhile to dwell on. So me, being a dweller (as Brittney is so faithful to remind me), I have to choose to dwell only on things that hold absolute truth. So LETS DO THIS.
Here is what I absolutely KNOW:
I know that I have a God who loves me.
I have a belief system where I can have absolute certainty of my salvation. My sole purpose is to bring glory to the Almighty God.
I know that I have eternal security.
I know where I am going and its GOOD. The end of this story turns out very well, and for this I am thankful that the world and its depravity is the only hell that I will ever have to experience. ("He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4)
I know that there is nothing I can do to make my God love me any more or any less than He does at this moment. There is no failure or disaster than can shake his love for me.
I know that every day is a new day, and every act of repentance is a new beginning.
I know that Jesus Christ died for me, for the atonement of my sins, providing the entirety of my belief system.
I know that He rose from the dead, is seated at the right hand of God, and He is coming again. OH GLORIOUS DAY. I know that the Holy Spirit enables me to be different than I used to be. He IS renewing my mind and slowly walking me through both victories and failures, molding me.
I know that I will be different tomorrow thanks to the promised progressive sanctification of the Lord.
I know that God speaks to me through the scriptures, through music, through His still soft voice.
I know that he longs to speak to me and guide my footsteps.
I know that His words are like living water and serve as constant affirmation, the only kind that really fills me up.
I know that I have a family who loves me, adores me. A support system of seven lunatics who will stand by my side no matter what, through think and thin. Who will help keep me busy when I cant get control of my own thoughts (insanityyyy). And all who serve the same victorious God. To get specific
I know that I have a sister who is the best person in the world and who gives me the BEST advice, even if most of the time its to “chill out” and not worry so much. Brittney keeps me on my toes and loves me the way Christ calls each of us to love.
I know that I have a brother who is my hero and is setting an example with his life that I love and respect more than he will ever know. Carson is my hero.
I know that I have friends that are absolutely the icing on the cake in this life. I have accountability like none other and friends that will love me through my craziness. I have new friends and old friends and mostly small friends actually. I have some friends from kamps and some from college and some from when I was 10 years old. I have friends that push me towards the cross.
I know that I can call them when I am in a frenzy and they will speak life into me and not death.
I know that I can rely on them through all the storms of life.
I know that I am healthy and have no serious ailments.
I am blessed.
I know that God will be faithful to complete the good work he started in me. (Philippeans 1:6)
I know that God has a plan for my life to prosper me and not to harm me. (Jeremiah 29:11) I know that He is in control at all times in every situation regardless of how it looks/feels.
I know that the God of the Universe is in relentless pursuit of me regardless of me completely.
Knowing and living truth must be synonymous. Obedience is a reflection of how well we know our Creator. God can be included and reign sovereign over our rationale, reasoning, and thoughts. We, being created in the image of Him, are but an echo of the living God. So tonight, once again I am choosing joy. Here is one reason why:
Because I am sitting in the room that I share with my little brother. He has his shirt off while he is studying so he can glance at his newly developed muscles from time to time in the mirror. I giggle at him and admire him. He just told me a story for 10 minutes about how he can talk his way out of bad grades sometimes, and that’s why its okay that he didn’t start studying until AFTER we watched 3 episodes of Criminal Minds. I get to spend an entire month with this boy who I love all the way down to my toes. This boy calls me his big sister and I found him in my bed when I walked in tonight, ready to snuggle me. So tonight the truth of the matter is that I am blessed. So stinkin blessed that its too much for my little heart to take in. In this moment I know that truth from the Lord overrides any lies of insecurity that the enemy has whispered in my ear all day long.
This is the excerpt of a blog post of a girl I don’t know, but she’s spot on (Thanks MT):
“I think this is a life-long season, and having a renewed mind is a full-time job. I can't afford to be lackadaisical about it. Its amazing how the more I clear out of my head that isn't of God, the more open space He has to fill with things that are of God. And the best news is, God doesn't hold grudges. So if one day I'm really bad at renewing my mind, we're still on speaking terms the next morning, and He is just as willing, wanting, that I might have the mind of Christ.”
I LOVE THAT. I love that even when we suck BAD, we can start the next day again anew, with a loving, patient God who is not holding a grudge at our past failures. Oh if I could even fathom a love like His. The more and more I come to terms with the way that God really loves me, I look at life differently. The gospel, when understood, absolutely changes you. It rocks me to my core. Because I can find my emotional security in this God, in Christ's achievement for me, I can admit my wrongs and weaknesses without feeling deflated.
"...you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." Ephesians 4:22-24
See? Already I am out of pity me mode and into: 'OH God thank you so much' mode. Speak truth. Rebuke lies. Enjoy life people. Enjoy the ups and downs and the good times and bad. Drink it in, because we are but the morning dew, here today and gone today. So buckle up and choose joy. Not to mention, a calm sea isnt the goal in life...it's the excpetion. God makes waves. Us too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)