Seven

If you have ever experienced unrequited love, then you know how much of a toll it can take on your heart. When you give everything for another person to be met with nothing in return, it's exhausting and torturous. If we are honest, we all reach a place when we would give up on that other person and try to move on with life. I have experienced this disappointment in a number of ways in my life, through those not-so-significant others, to my friends and even with members of my own family. Usually I will stick it out with family, and maybe the occasional friendship that I see worthy in loving through it, even though it is scarcely returned, if at all. That’s sort of the reason I am writing. Lately I have been thinking a lot lately about my relationship with Christ, and as I am nearing the seven year anniversary of my salvation, I am realizing how much my love for God pales in comparison to His love for me! "We love, because God first loved us" (1 John 4:19). It's the craziest thing when you realize that Jesus decided we were worth it. I still can't wrap my head around this kind of love, and I doubt that I ever will completely. During these past seven years, I have come to know how God has revealed His love to me as He is my husband and I, His bride. If I am honest I have been that girl that has tried to run away, even after 3 years of knowing God, I have struggled to trust Him, and have been more like Gomer in the book of Hosea than a pure and devoted bride. Still, He saw something in me that for whatever reason, made Him want to leave His throne in Heaven and His place as King of all the Universe and become a humble servant to show me the way back to my Father's house where He has prepared the many mansions for the day that we are finally completely united at the wedding feast! My wedding dowry was the Lamb itself, the slain Lamb at that! Talk about unrequited love! I could never return that kind of passion! So hard to really imagine the magnitude of that kind of promise that Jesus has given, for any who choose to say Yes. The craziest part of all is that even though He knows that as He pursues every single person on the face of the Earth, there will be many who will reject Him, or fail to even acknowledge His existence. Yet, He still chose to pay the cost for that chance of having a relationship with us! He certainly has won me over!

A few weeks ago, right as we were celebrating the New Year with new beginnings, new hopes.... I came across a spontaneous worship song that Steffany Frizzell Gretzinger was singing for one of the worship nights on the Bethel Tides Tour. The words hit my heart as I thought about my own experience of accepting Christ. The words resounding.... "I still remember the day that you called me; I still remember that I said yes..."

This week, as I am celebrate my seven year anniversary of saying yes to Jesus, I have been doing a lot of Psalm 51 soul-searching, a lot of reflecting and even some looking ahead with all of that. As I look back on these past seven years, the greatest thing that I have learned is that God is faithful and that He is the absolute good, even when we are among the least deserving. These years carry some of the best memories of my life, but they carry some of the most painful as well. Some of them even more painful than those that I had experienced before I knew Jesus, the difference is that now I have a Savior and a friend that sticks with me closer than a brother. He has never once left me or forsaken me, never left my side. I honestly can't wrap my head around it, but the truth is that God was with me in every moment since I was knit together in my mother's womb. But now that I have acknowledged that presence and decided to participate in my role in that relationship, even the most painful and challenging moments of my life have been by far the most beautiful. Lessons that I have walked through to refine me and shape my character, moments of deep healing and moments of more joy and freedom than I ever thought possible, have all been markers along this seven year journey. I have seen God move in miraculous ways, through physical healing, manifestations of the Holy Spirit, financial provision and even working in the heart of my hardened father. I have seen dreams come true and even greater dreams beginning to. That is exactly what makes a life with Jesus so worthwhile! He is the ultimate romancer and adventurer. Every moment of every single day is a journey, and choice to surrender and say, "I trust you, Lord." As I have experienced and grown in a number of ways along this journey, I can honestly say that it far beyond worth it!

Yesterday after church, I was hanging out with one of my friends and talking with her about using our stories to make a difference in the world by sharing the hope of Jesus with those that have been placed in our lives. She grew up in a good home, with good parents and a good family.... for the longest time she never thought she needed Jesus, and now that she is beginning to open up to Him, she was worried that her story doesn't matter. Like so many people that I know that may not have had their wild party days, or never grew up in a broken home or broken families, so many that grew up in the church... I have heard it time and time again: "I don't really have a story..." I assured my friend that her story was just as important as someone who has been through Hell and back to find Jesus. Sometimes I think that there is nothing that can reveal God's faithfulness more than the fact that these souls have been preserved for so long. The thing is everyone's story is going to be different. God designed it that way on purpose I think, because He wants a personal relationship with each of us individually. If all of our stories were the same we would be way more likely to just default and coast through life. God designed us with an insatiable need for Him and Him alone. There are things we know to be true about God, about His character and identity. We can know through biblical history and documentation that God is good, that He is faithful, that He is powerful. We know that God is our comforter and our provider; we know that God is Love. But above even the words written out to His beloved through scripture, we know because God allows us experience in which He will prove to us exactly who He is. That is what makes our stories worthwhile. It is not about what we have done or what we haven't done, it's about how God has revealed Himself throughout the course of our lives. Yes, God is faithful, for some that might look like His provision, His protection, or His ability to love us even when we are among the least deserving. For us to say that God is grace may look like Him giving us supernatural strength to deal with a highly stressful job or it may look like someone forgiving you for something that you had thought for sure was unforgivable, maybe that someone is even God Himself! I've been there... the truth is we all have, but it looks different for all of us.

"We are confident of this: He who has begun a good work in us
will be faithful to carry it through into complete,
until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6

That all being said, I suppose on the surface seven years might not be a huge deal to some people, but to me it's history of God writing my story and I know He is going to continue to. Best part of all is that there have been so many dreams and promises that God has given me along the way that I am still believing for. Things like my family's salvation and the ministry and mission field that God has called me to, of course not forgetting for a moment that the very place I am at right now in this moment is God's faithfulness, and it is a part of that calling and that mission field. It is a part of my story. I realized this past summer that the number seven is a very significant number in the Bible... seven days and the world was created, seven churches of revelation, the seven trumpets.... I could go on. As I looked up what the number seven signified, I found that it meant "perfection or completion." That alone makes me excited for what the year ahead of me with Jesus will hold. Along with that, I read an article the other day, a prophetic word over the year 2014- this year- talking about the number seven, times two, is fourteen... the article declared that this was a year of promises being fulfilled, this falling into place and being a year of completion... in double! A double portion of those promises! I am believing God for breakthrough in so many areas of my life that I have been believing and fighting for over the last seven years. Nothing is impossible for the Lord! I can't wait to see what He will do with it all! I can't wait to spend the rest of my life and eternity with Him! What a privilege!

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a promise fulfilled is a tree of life."
Proverbs 13:12

Clamor and a Whisper

So many thoughts converging into what is on my heart tonight, so many ways the Lord is speaking over and over a reoccurring theme. God seems to continuously be drawing me back to His promises and His faithfulness. Lately I have been wrestling with the promise that the Lord has called me as a voice to this generation. He has revealed to me a number of ways that I might walk in that promise, and has confirmed it numerous times as well. Even as I have taken steps toward surrender to laying down the dreams and desires for those things, Jesus continues to renew and restore hope for that calling. The biggest challenge I am facing in this is, how? In a generation where everyone appears to be competing for attention, everyone wants to be heard, I am finding it increasingly more difficult to find a place in this realm. Let's face it; the Millennials have so many musicians, bloggers, and so many different social media sites where there is no limit to the content or amount of things you can post. How am I to be a voice unto this generation, as I know with everything in me that this is who the Lord has called me to be? Don't get me wrong I love reading all the perspectives that people have to share, and have learned these past few months that we need those different perspectives and every story has its worth and needs to be told, all in due time. But honestly, often times I feel overwhelmed by it all. Don't get me wrong; obviously, I am one of many who use all of those venues to be a light and a witness. Trouble is we get so much of ourselves wrapped up in all of it that I think we forget that God is the one who should be getting full glory, just on account of who He is alone! I am finding that even within myself, I need to check my motives before I post, or speak. As 1 Corinthians 13:1 puts it: 

My heart in writing this blog is simply to share my heart and to put to words what God has been revealing it to me lately in hopes that someone reading this may be both challenged and encouraged by it. That was the whole reason I have started this blog a couple years ago to begin with. I know God has put it on my heart for a reason, and I am trusting that He will use it to change lives if I keep my focus on Him. God has a funny way of revealing who we are to us sometimes, as the people God has originally created us to be, as the people we have become in our mess of sin, and as the people He wants to mold and shape us to be, making all things new. Writing is one of the gifts that I know the Lord has given me and has used in powerful ways in my life, and this past Summer as I spent time at the Prayer Room, God told me that was one of my greatest weapons in walking out my calling. Writing is so much a part of who I am that I feel if I were to not write it would be somewhat similar to Rilke's question to the young poet he mentored in his book, Letters to a Young Poet, why write? His words truly reflect my heart. As he puts it, "Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write..." Perhaps only a poet would understand, but I digress.... 

As the New Year began, I felt called to do a Facebook/ Social media fast. I think it was a huge heart check for me more than anything! But in doing so, I have been realizing that when we quite our lives, more importantly, our souls, we can hear the voice of the almighty speaking to the core of who we are within our hearts. This is where the revelation of the true war zone I am in comes to light. The lies, doubts, fears are no longer masked by other the voices that I have tried to use as a shield around me. If I can't see or hear what is going on beneath the surface, then it must not be there right? Wrong. Painfully wrong. I am reminded of the Prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19:11-12:

"The Lord spoke saying, 'Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.' Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper...."

In this passage, it reminds me that if we never quiet ourselves to hear God, we might miss His voice. I think so often we expect to have God thundering commands at as, not realizing he speaks gently. Many of us chase after the "signs and wonders" hoping for that person or circumstances that will speak on God's behalf... or perhaps even more so, we begin to make ourselves our own gods. But note- God was not in the fire or the thunder, but in the silence. For me, I feel this is a profound aspect of the value of silence. 

As a Flyleaf fan, a total music fanatic and lyric lover, I am hit with this truth every time I hear their song, "In the Dark." It is here in the silence that I see the walls that I have built up on the monster I have made myself into that competes for a place in the world and compromises who I am for the approval of others. It's there in the quiet that I am seeing that this is where the deep inner healing from all the wounds of the past begins to unfold and God is recreating me. My day to day experiences are riddled with so much pride that if I truly saw the effects, I would be a different person, yet still I cling to it.... why? Because it is a wall I have built around my heart in defense from allowing true vulnerability to show. If I am honest, I spend much of my time trying to look good for people and wanting them to like me, to love me. Somewhere early in life I have believed the lie that I have to compete for love and that has shaped a false sense of who I am. I feel like the Lord is beginning to shake things up in me preparing to shatter those walls, and that is scary. These walls have been so much of a comfort, so familiar. I find I am asking myself which I want more, my tower that I hide myself, in way above the ones I interact with, where I hope no one will see my weaknesses, or the freedom and promises God is holding out before me, but it means stepping out, climbing down, going lower, and follow after Jesus wholeheartedly. It is scary to ask ourselves who we would be without all the facades and defense mechanisms we use to hide what is really going on in our hearts... but that is the Eden of our souls, who we were before pain marked us.  It's in the quiet stillness that I am able to close the door on the rest of the world and sneak off into that secret place and hear one voice, rising above the rest- that gentle voice, yet so like a lion, that roars majestic, strong, but oh so good! 

*   "In the Dark" lyrics from Flyleaf    *

This past semester at our annual Fall Retreat with our campus Chi Alpha community, the Lord reminded me of a dream He had given me this past summer while I was doing a Prophetic Internship at the International House of Prayer in Pasadena, California. I was deep in worship our last night at the retreat and the Lord brought this dream back into remembrance. He spoke to my heart and told me that the dreams and promises that He has given me will bear fruit as I learn to walk in humility. I am obviously still so far from that calling! But I am so grateful that Jesus has never once given up on me, and He never will! He remains faithful still! But as I look at this process the Lord has been taking me through, as He takes this distorted jar of clay and puts me on the potter's wheel and begins to make into His image once again, I am amazed at the healing God has already done and will continue to do. Jesus can truly do "more in a moment, than other lovers could in a lifetime!" (Closer lyrics, Steffany Frizzell Gretzinger). What's more, how much more will we see the hurting and broken around us if we stop trying to be the first to speak and refrain from needing to get the last word in? If we will take more time to listen, how much more will we hear God speak and have our eyes open to the greatness He has placed inside of all us, showing us who we were meant to be all along. How much more would we be able to exalt the greatness in others, how much more will we have the desire to?!

2 Corinthians 4:7