Details

So for the past month or so I have been feeling kind of lost and very distracted as if I’ve lost my purpose and direction, I don’t know what my future holds and I’m not sure what I want to do with my life anymore. As I tried to find the words to write tonight I decided to go back through my notebook and basically read through this past year; what I found were the words God put on my heart two and a half months ago. “Be faithful and everything you do, do it for Me” I don’t know where on my path I lost this truth but tonight I find that this is my direction and my purpose; I don’t need to know the details of what my future holds. My future is my future and God is creating a prefect plan for it and today is today and I’m not supposed to worry about tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely crazy, I know there are things in life that need to be planned, but being in relationship with God is planning those things with Him; moving when He says move, and waiting when He says wait, doing everything you do in His name with Him in mind and living each and every moment with faithfulness, in obedience to His word and resting in His grace when you fall short. Because I could plan and strive and fight for my goals and make opportunities for the future I think I want to have, but in the end “what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul…” Matthew 16: 26 All I need is to be in relationship with God, my life is His and when all my plans and efforts fall short it is His grace that lifts me up.

Beautiful Truth

 I’m not sure where to start because I don’t know what I want to talk about, in fact I don’t think I know anything anymore. Okay that’s not true, anything is the wrong word but for the last week or maybe the last month, I’m not quiet sure, I feel as though I’ve lost something, but I can’t really describe what that something is or was. So in an effort to try and figure out what this unknown something once was I’ll start with what I still seem to know. God is faithful, He knows me and plans good things for my life, what I desire most is to be in relationship with Him and that starts with faith and obedience and ends with grace, my own efforts will always fall short but if my effort is for God he will always be there ready to lift me up, and if I were to actually walk in all the truth that I just wrote on this page it would bring about peace. That helped more than I thought it would and I realized something wonderful; that even though I still feel broken and like something I once thought I had is now missing, what I lost was imperfect and that I wont need it if I stay on this path God is revealing to me and follow this beautiful truth that leads to being at peace with God. Because that’s all I really want anyway. 

The Uprising

                       

Nearly one year ago I spent a weekend at a youth retreat and found beauty in simply being, I came away from that time with a new desire to see the world and every person in it. Today I arrived home from this year’s retreat and what I walk away with is greater hunger for God and a new desire to see myself for who He has made me to be. This year God broke me. Last Wednesday night I lay in my bed seeking God with tears in my eyes, asking Him to fill me up, to give me someone who would speak into my life and show me that I’m not invisible, that I would stop being overlooked because I’m a leader and I’ve “got it all together” because lately I don’t feel like I’ve got anything together. On several occasions this weekend I completely fell apart, I’ve never been the most confident person and I’m very dependent on others around me; this year I was pushed past the barriers I had unknowingly put on my leadership role, and realized I was depending on my own abilities or other people more than on God, and I just kept breaking. But through all those breakdowns God answered my prayer and every time I broke He had someone there to speak truth into my life. So today as I try to process this experience my perspective is lovely, I grew a lot, but this work is only starting, and even though what I see around me today is completely incomplete with a mess of broken pieces I know that God is faithful, and will finish putting me back together in His perfect timing, as for now I rest in the confidence that I am loved and that being in relationship with God is worth the hunger still growing inside me.

This Whole Relationship Thing

I don’t like me very much right now. I’m selfish and insecure, I’m lazy and a regular procrastinator, I complain to frequently and can be quite mean, I am far to easily offended and walk in pride more than love, I am extremely co-dependant and care far to much about what other people are going to think of me, and when it comes right down to it, I’m human. If I tried I’m sure this list could be longer; there where already more to add in my head the moment I stopped writing, but it’s time to move on. The things on this list are what most Christians, myself included would say are what makes you human or it might be called flesh and the reason we need to be saved. And that’s all fine and dandy, the truth really, but aren’t these the things that I don’t need to walk in anymore because I’m saved? As followers of Christ we are called to be in relationship with God, and walk in love, plain and simple Jesus said it himself*. So why is it, that a girl who has grown up her whole life believing in God is just now, at the age of 22 realizing how long her list is that keeps her separated from Him? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I want to be perfect, or that God would expect anyone to be perfect in order to be in a relationship with Him. What I am saying is that today as I lay in my bed feeling insecure and lonely, asking God how it is that I’m suppose to seek Him more and find this relationship that I so desire to be a part of , that the whisper I heard was obedience. And it was then, when I started thinking about obedience that I realized what a complete human I can be sometimes and I started making that list. So what is it that I need to do with this list? I suppose the answer would be as always, give it to God, because that is obedience and surrender but I can’t do it without Him, because the crazy upside down part of this whole relationship thing is that, I can’t be obedient to Him without first knowing Him and I can’t know Him without being obedient to His word and surrendering to the relationship. But when I do surrender and lay down myself before Him, He is there ready to lift me up, and that is the really wonderful part about this whole relationship thing.

*Matthew 22: 37-40

Jesus said to him,” you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all you mind,’ “This is the great commandment. “And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Puzzle Pieces

I haven’t written anything (not even in my notebook) in a week, but it feels more like a month. I have so much to say and it feels as though I need to play catch-up with my thoughts; as though I could write for hours yet, a place to start seems hard to find. Hmm? Last week I read a book; one of those this could change your life if you let it kind of books, chances are you’ve heard of it, its called “The Shack” I found it to be strange in a wonderful kind of way, and I loved it.

I’ve been meaning to read this book for quite some time now, but honestly I am truly happy to have waited. I imagine that different people reading this story form their own view will inevitably walk away from this book with a different piece of the elaborate puzzle the writer put together; but all I could see was the piece that I held as I entered. Everything I write, anything that I say as I talk about God over the past, I don’t even know how long, always seems to come back to this same point; being in relationship with God. As I read this odd story of a man who encounters God through deeper pain than anyone should ever have to face, the words and concepts that stood out to me were of course nothing less than relationship. It’s all I want to do, it’s all I want everyone to know about and believe in, and this strange and lovely picture the writer creates through his words simply makes me want it all the more.

The reason I say I’m glad I waited is because, as I said before I already held this puzzle piece in my hands before I started the book, it simply added its own unique color to it. I’ve been talking baby steps on this path towards relationship for quite some time now and I do believe that had I not already started and had the piece in my hands I would have lost something, or rather been left with less color. So tonight as I write these words I thank God for color and the path He has me walking to be with Him, the scenery is beautiful and all I ask is to keep it coming. Thank You Father.

A Scream and A Whisper

I just want to talk, have a conversation with a friend about what’s on my heart, the trouble is I don’t have the words to describe what it is exactly that’s on my heart, and all I have in front of me is a pen and a notebook, so where do I begin? First thought that crosses my mind as I write these words is that when Michal reads that sentence she will inevitably notice that I used the word “have” three times and that, I do not in fact desire to hold ownership over a conversation, or the words that I speak or write, and that even though by all normal social standards I do in fact own this pen and this notebook, it was actually the act of writing which I was trying to describe so that cannot be owned either. Okay with that sentence all straightened out I think I can now move on.

Last week I poured my heart over these pages and decided that I am going to learn how to play the guitar, and then I picked that thought back up and held onto it for a week. This thought is one to which everything inside of me is screaming “don’t let go” and this is one thought where God is whispering “give this to Me” I know enough truth here to know if I don’t give this desire to God I will never do it on my own, so its actually an easy choice to make. But this easy choice is one that needs to be made everyday because in all honesty when are that scream and that whisper ever in agreement? Everything we do or get the opportunity to have fall into this easy choice category and need to be given to God. That is the truth I was referring to earlier and sometimes as Christians we can tune out the screaming inside of us and say “okay God this is yours” but, how often do we ignore the whisper and listen to the scream because we want it or its more convenient and wait until our own efforts have fallen apart or blown up in our faces to say okay God I’m giving this to you now so you can pick up the pieces and put the puzzle back together, and of course God is faithful so He dose just that, but how much further along could we have been if we had listened to the whisper in the first place, and how much closer would our relationship with God be if we would follow His voice instead of our own.

So tonight here’s my view. I long to be in relationship with God, the Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit, He knows what’s on my heart without any words, but listens when I talk anyway, and answers with a whisper that louder than my scream. What He asks is both the simplest thing and the hardest thing in the world to do at the same time. He says He who finds his life will lose it and he who loses His life for My sake will find it, so what is my life, just my hopes and dreams, everything I ever want to be, do or have, basically all He asks for is everything that makes me who I am, easy right? But it is, because when we lay ourselves down at His feet, He lifts us up and says walk with Me I’ll show you the way, and most likely His way will lead right back to all those hopes and dreams in an even better way that we thought possible. So tonight, my view, I think I’ll listen to the whisper.

This Word Called Faithfulness

I’ve been thinking quite frequently that I would like to learn how to play the guitar, I may never be amazing at it, in fact I might fail miserably but I do believe I would like to learn. I find so much beauty in music, if you know me, you know my heart is there; I long to find artists that are creative and different, I find joy in seeing others find joy in the music they love whether that be playing or simply consuming as I do. My love for this creative outlet lies deep within my heart and I desire to discover a new level of which I can experience this art. My heart tells me I’m an artist, my words tell me I’m a writer and my passion tells me to pursue music. My desire is to glorify God and follow the path He has for me, I don’t know where this path is leading, but the step that I’m on right now is consumed by this word called faithfulness. Today as I think about faithfulness and what that really means I believe part of that is listening to the desires God has put on my heart, it means to do every work with excellence and use the gifts and talents God has given to glorify Him, it involves living in today and not just living to get through today. So if I start by listening to my heart my steps lead me to digging deeper into music, if I follow that up by working with excellence it means I need to try more at learning more, I don’t claim to have a talent for guitar I’ve never even picked one up but I’ll never know if I don’t try, and the last step may be the hardest, the one I’ve been pursuing all year, and it tells me that I can’t keep waiting or putting things off, it tells me to be faithful is to work with the opportunities I have all around me in my current setting, I’ve already said it several times; this is not my season to escape to a new world, it’s my time to grow in the one I already reside in. And there you have it, everything I believe about faithfulness confirms my desire to learn, I guess now I should figure out how to do that.