Sweetly Broken

Please remember with me those times of sweet brokeness.

You, lying at His feet.

You, whose heart ached until you thought it could ache no more.

You, weeping, screaming, yelling at the top of your lungs to Him.

In those moments (seasons), it is nothing short of miraculous that He meets us in the pain as One who has actually experienced the same. [Hebrews 4]

I fight to remember these truths - 1) God desires us to pour out our hearts before Him, no matter that He already knows. 2) He has never left or forsaken us. 3) He has always been for us. 4) He has guided us through the dark with the absolute best leadership we could possibly have. 5) He will reveal His plan and purpose in the truest, rightest time - probably when we feel least likely to hear it. 6) He will not always reveal His dealings with those close to us. 7) Sometimes He's really scary...but also patient with us...when we accuse Him of being the devil, or the worst thing that happened to us, and tell Him to go away. 8) He stays even then.

Thank you, C.S. Lewis, for the below.

"Who are you?" he said, scarcely above a whisper. "One who has waited long for you to speak," said the Thing. Its voice was not loud, but very large and deep. "Are you - are you a giant?" asked Shasta. "You might call me a giant," said the Large Voice. "But I am not like the creatures you call giants." "I can't see you at all," said Shasta, after staring very hard. Then (for an even more terrible idea had come into his head) he said, almost in a scream, "You're not - not something dead, are you? Oh please - please do go away. What harm have I ever done you? Oh, I am the unluckiest person in the whole world!" Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. "There," it said, "that is not the breath of a ghost. Tell me your sorrows." Shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by the fisherman. And then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. And he told about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis. And also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat. "I do not call you unfortunate," said the Large Voice. "Don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" said Shasta. "There was only one lion," said the Voice. "What on earth do you mean? I've just told you there were at least two the first night, and-" "There was only one: but he was swift of foot." "How do you know?" "I was the lion." And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. "I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you." "Then it was you who wounded Aravis?" "It was I" "But what for?" "Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own." "Who are you?" asked Shasta. "Myself," said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again "Myself", loud and clear and gay: and then the third time "Myself", whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it. Shasta was no longer afraid that the Voice belonged to something that would eat him, nor that it was the voice of a ghost. But a new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too.

Fascination

...a Person is so much more fascinating than a place. let us not settle for a mountain-top experience and miss out on the One who holds our hands through the mountains AND the valleys, day-by-day.

...experiences will not leave us unshaken; knowing our Maker will. unless we trust the One who is leading us, we would never dare venture out into the unknown, into the wilderness. too unsettled, too shaky, too dry...perhaps...

...yet trust implies a relationship, a knowledge intimately produced as you walk through life with Someone. how much better to be with the One we love in desolation than to be surrounded by the best this life has to offer without Him!

...like a steady undertow in my heart, these three verses have been tugging me deeper...may they do the same for you!

The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.

Draw me after You, and let us run together!

I shall run the way of Your commandments, for You will enlarge my heart.

Psalm 37:23-24, Song of Songs 1:4 , Psalm 119:32

Quick Thoughts on Failure

Failure does not define who you are. What you do when you fail, does.

At some point, you will fail everyone.

3 main responses to failure:

1. Avoiding responsibility
2. Assigning yourself to the condemnation “corner”
3. Falling on your knees in dependence on Christ

Remember 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 – “And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

You put your whole hope and trust in the Lord and not in your own obedience or strength or ability to do things “perfectly” according to X standard. These things will fail you.

Psalm 37:23-24 – “The steps of a man are established by the LORD, and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the LORD is the One who holds his hand.”

Thoughts In the Wilderness

Hello there, all the way from Baja Mexico! :)

I am surrounded by desert and mountains, and I find that the Lord will often use my surroundings to teach me about Him.

Let's dive in...

___________________________________________________________________________________________

“I have been waiting 3 years for you to go deeper with Me…”

I love how blunt the Lord is.

I sit here thinking I have it all together, that my life is “on track,” that I know what the Lord wants…and with a few simple words, He wrecks me.

Thank God. Thank GOD.

I think sometimes we fear the rebuke of the Lord because we are used to harsh reprimands from our fathers and mothers. Yet, we forget Hebrews 12 – “They [your earthly fathers] disciplined you for a short time as seemed best to them, but He [our Heavenly Father] disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness.”

Have we also forgotten this word? – “Without holiness [sanctification], no one will see God.” [Hebrews 12:14]

The punishments and rebukes of God directed toward believers is extremely interesting to me, because even in His wrath, His just anger toward our sin and rebellion, He never leaves us alone!

Consider what Moses wrote to the Israelites as he recounted their rebellious history with the Lord between their deliverance from Egypt and their conquests in the promised land:

“For the Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known your wanderings through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have not lacked a thing.” [Deuteronomy 2:7]

Lest you think the Lord felt sorry for them, consider what Moses also says:

“Now the time it took for us to come from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until the generation of the men of war perished from within the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. Moreover, the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from within the camp until they all perished.”

[Deuteronomy 2:14]

Throughout those forty years, the unrepentant died out, and the repentant/next generation lived before God, while still enduring His punishment.

Why do we assume His punishment means He is far from us, as believers? Yes, we are dealing with consequences, and for the record, sometimes they are consequences we deal with BECAUSE OF other people. But maybe He means those consequences to train us in righteousness so that we will NOT fall again, so that we will LEARN to fear Him, so that we will LISTEN and OBEY during our next test. Those that did not perish surely saw those who did – do we really think that was coincidental on the part of the Lord?

A perfectionist mindset says that all must be done perfectly or we are outcast, miserable, failures. Yes, our sin and rebellion will have consequences. But why do we run from Him when we are wrong instead of running to Him? Do we prefer to die in the wilderness, or live?

I like this line I heard once in a movie: “I’d rather be miserable with you than without you.” Haha – that sounds pleasant. But when facing the unknown, or perhaps when we see what we must now do because the Lord is disciplining us, it may seem miserable indeed. Hebrews 12 again says: “ALL discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

When we must turn and face the wilderness, let us determine we’d rather walk through it together with the Lord instead of apart from Him.

His “wilderness training” shatters our sin nature.

His grace is perfect; His training complete!

Let us follow our Shepherd, for He leads perfectly.

Amen.

pieces of my heart

If my life were a puzzle, and I a child, then perhaps my heart would be the picture.

I know the puzzle-maker; He is my Father. He alone knows the full picture; He has never shown me the box cover!

So here are some pieces of my puzzle in this ending of May and beginning of June…nothing grandiose…nothing pauperish…just my heart as I know it.

the nations – woo me; burden me.

the Word – is sooooo salty…it makes me thirst, then bids me drink.

His Spirit – is more and more dear.

His salvation – is my delight!

a bible study – deepens me.

school – though done for a season, wrestles with me.

my “job” – frustrates, delights, laughs, cries…all of these reactions are mine, on a weekly basis!

I was telling a friend that the best things about this year have been the internal workings of Christ in me.

I haven’t moved to the nations.

I have a steady job.

I go to a community college.

All is…the same? Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

Oh, but my for my HEART.

I find it growing deeper in love with Him each day!

This is the life I’ve always dreamed of...

(Somehow, I just thought it would happen due to circumstances, surroundings, peoples…but I find these things can neither separate nor push me toward the love of Christ in and of themselves.)

Just Christ.

The simple beauty of the Gospel.

hE mAdE a WaY fOr Me

He is mine and I am His.

Unmerited grace. Undeserved mercy.

That’s my King…

my Lover…

my Friend.

Tonight is the first night I can think of in many months where I walked away from watching a movie I knew I would enjoy to spend time with the One who loves me.

There is a...newness...to this season.

All my "why's" are being wrapped up in Him - He is my answer.

As my pastor said this Sunday: The question is not "Does God love me" for He has already answered that question! The question is: Do I love Him?

Who knew what joy could be found in the answering?

For I find myself in one place dancing and laughing and crying in my room with Him, in love, only to find myself in another place where my love has failed, and I am burdened by my sin. In that place, He finds me...quiets me with His love...and makes me new.

I have never met anyone like this Man. I probably never will.

He is mine and I am His.

It is enough.

for the ladies :)

Context: I wrote this for the ladies at the Honor Academy internship here in Texas (a part of the ministry I work with). They forgo dating for a year in order to pursue their relationship with Jesus and grow in their faith...might make the blog below a little more understandable. Blessings! :)

Your worth is not based on what you do.

It was never meant to be.

Your worth comes from the price of your redemption.

Think about it – who would care about diamonds if they weren’t so expensive, so rare?

The price of a gem demonstrates its worth.

Consider this - “Even while we [you] were yet sinners, Christ died for us [you].” [Romans 5:8]

Your very Creator, your Daddy, your Beloved, your King – determined that you cost everything, and He gave away everything He had and paid His life…to have you.

Do you know what He says about you, now?

“A woman who fears the Lord is worth far more than rubies.”

He considers you the reward of His suffering.

In the same way that you would wear a sparkling engagement ring on your finger with exuberant pride and joy, so too you are like a royal diadem in the hand of your God [check out Isaiah 62].

“Oh, but I don’t deserve this!” I hear you say…

Exactly.

That has always been the point!

Grace earned is not grace.

You were never meant to earn His love, for it is freely given.

Sounds backwards, doesn’t it? Welcome to the Kingdom! J

Let’s transition a bit…

Back in the day, men were expected to pay a “dowry” price for the woman their heart loved. They would give their finest animals, their best crops – they would pay anything.

Is your man willing to pay the price the Lord is asking of him?

Your heavenly Father will not allow you to be “bought” for less than you are worth.

A man unwilling to pay that price does not understand what he is looking at.

A woman who sells herself only believes the voice of the hagglers instead of the voice of her Father.

Understand this – it is not of gold or silver that I speak, but rather of Ephesians 5. Does this man love you to the measure that Jesus Christ has loved you? Has he laid his life down for you? Does he exemplify 1 Corinthians 13:4-7? Does he bear the humility of Isaiah 53?

Being human himself, he will not be the personification of these things…but is he seeking the Lord for the grace to walk in them? Is he dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit, or is he enamored by his own strength?

I promise you this, ladies. If you find a man wrapped up in Jesus Christ, and you too are wrapped up in Christ, your hearts will be guarded, and only Jesus Himself will have the authority (in both your eyes) to allow you to begin to walk a road together. If you cannot look at a man without losing your gaze on Christ, you are not yet ready. J

So, in this season of singleness, remember Matthew 6:33 & 34 – “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself…”

In this season, I challenge you to FALL IN LOVE with your Maker. Truly, there is no other love like His! Even the best man’s love [you know…the one you will marry! J] will seem like hate when you hold it up to the love your Father has for you. Don’t miss out on the most important relationship you have in all of eternity in order to find the shadow of it here on earth.

I pray these verses over you ladies, today: “Enlarge my heart, oh Lord, that I may run in the way of Your commandments! Draw me after You, and let us run together!” [ps. 119:32 & song of songs 1:4]

Trust your Beloved, and RUN after Him!

eyes to see

haunting piercing crying EYES night day dead dying EYES blue brown hazel green EYES visions blurred obscured hopeless EYES, YOUR EYES see yearn desire burn YOUR EYES search throughout the earth YOUR EYES seek for those who will go YOUR EYES haunting piercing weeping YOUR EYES see the reward of YOUR SUFFERING.

WILL HE HAVE IT?

Wake us up, Jesus! Give us eyes to see, that we may speak of You boldly among the nations!

so you want to be a martyr?

martyrdom.

oh, that revered state of laying down one's life for something greater...for Him.

imagine this, if you will.

you stand in an arena. all alone. surrounded by thousands of eyes, voices, noises, sensations [fear is prevalent].

suddenly, the ground shakes. lions and other wild beasts appear to be rising from the earth. they are the closest thing to you, now...besides your own skin.

soon, you will not be your own, but rather a part of these wild beasts, of the crowd's imagination and memory, of the dirt you once came from.

we read these stories, if we're lucky.

perhaps some of us desire to die in such a way, hoping that our deaths will bring glory to the One we love, hoping that by our death someone else's life will become focused on Him.

but now I ask you to imagine this.

you stand in the present day. in an "arena."

business arena? entertainment arena? secular arena?

you fill in the blank...

thousands of eyes are watching you, and your Enemy prowls like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

are you too willing to be martyred?

let me rephrase that.

are you too willing to be a LIVING martyr?

I believe it has before been called a "living sacrifice."

does your everyday living and breathing draw the eyes of thousands (or maybe just one) to Him?

do you live your life in such a way as to bring glory to His name?

or do you merely dream of a glorious death that will be invalidated by the way you now choose to live?

sometimes living for God is harder than dying for Him.

Paul said:

for to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

he said:

it is now no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

can you say the same?

are you [present tense] being conformed into His image?

do you consider your life worth nothing?

or do you still treasure it?

because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

don't be so foolish as to think that one day yours will be a glorious death if you have not yet learned how to live a glorious life.

it is a process.

it is painful.

it is a daily dying, a daily denying, a daily exchanging of your life for His.

do you live it?

will you live it?

consider this your challenge.

it's a crazy adventurous life we live with this One we call King. I challenge you to live it in such a way as to win.

I want to hear your story someday. on the other side.

don't quit.

don't "ring out."

and don't give in.

if you're down, get back up. you're not out. He is faithful, even when you are faithless. hold on to Him, and run.

I'll see you on the other side. ;)

Romans 12:1-2, Philippians 1:21, Galatians 2:20, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, 2 Timothy 2:11-13 Written October 8, 2009

david's wilderness [an old writing]

I was thinking about David today.

He was a shepherd for a very long time before Samuel ever anointed him king.

He was alone for years.

What did he learn that was so important? Why did God choose him instead of one of his brothers? How did he come to know God so intimately, alone, out there in the pastures with nothing but his sheep, slingshot, staff, and harp?

I wonder...

Maybe the times when we feel alone are the times when God can do His greatest work in us, because He becomes all that we have.

Maybe the times when we fight those solitary battles (the ones that nobody sees) are the times when God can teach us to fight most effectively. He is our only coach, our only audience.

Maybe the times when absolute silence/solitude surrounds us are the times when we begin to hear His whisper most intimately.

Maybe the times when our huge victories go unnoticed (David killed a few bears in his time) are the times when God can deal with our pride and ambition most ruthlessly.

Maybe those times in the "wilderness" become the best times in our lives. Our focus becomes the eternal; our purpose becomes clear.

So then, when God calls us out from the wilderness to embrace our destiny, we are not so afraid of giants anymore, nor the taunts of men. God is our captain and our victory is assured, and we will not be dissuaded.

And when the hard times come...again...we remember those times in the wilderness, and we remember that God is for us and not against us. We remember the bears and the lions. We remember his gentle corrections and strong rebukes. We remember his laughter and his voice, speaking gently to our hearts.

And our faces set like flint. And we begin to talk in another language, one that only heaven can understand, as God digs His sword even deeper into our hearts and wedges out the things that have lingered.

Our faces become set toward heaven, and we begin to live like men with eternity in their hearts.

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called...

Like David. Like Jesus.

Psalm 23; 1 Corinthians 1:26; 1 Samuel 16-1 Kings 2; Isaiah 53

raw

tonight I met a man who walked in North Korea. who sang songs about Jesus. who led his tour “guide” (read – guard) to Christ.

this was potentially the most unexpected thing to happen to me in the last, say, year and a half.

have you ever wept so hard you wanted to throw up?

welcome to my life.

how can I even express the deep things of my heart?

He is ripping all of my plans apart. Everything I thought I was “called” to, all those plans of mine, every thought, action, word, standard that I have ever planned is being held up and ripped apart.

oh so gently.

(amazing how He does that)

goer.sender.mobilizer.interceder…all words used to describe callings.
I certainly can’t pick one.

I want to be where He is.

That is the only thing I truly desire.

I don’t know where that will take me.

I really don’t care.

Just let me walk where He walks.

The nations? fine. America? fine. Intercession? fine. Singleness? fine. Marriage? fine. Life? fine. Death? fine. College? fine. No college? fine.

“I count all things as loss compared to the greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord…”

not just a crutch phrase anymore.

my life.

(not my own)

dead.
dead.
dead.

to live is Christ. to die is gain.

Fear not…He whispers…will you trust Me that just One thing is enough? Just Me? That a life spent seeking My face is not a wasted life but in fact is the only “life” there is?

Preparing For the [un]Known

I've been told it takes discipline to be a doctor. More specifically, it takes discipline to make it through medical school.

I find myself wondering lately how to balance a love of discipline with a love of spontaneity. Can I "schedule in" spontaneity? Does that count?

I love the feeling of buffer - not having every minute of every day scheduled. But if I don't make a schedule, nothing much gets done.

I guess I'm getting to a point where I have to seriously decide what my priorities will be. I know what they are currently - it's easy to see where I spend the majority of my time. But what if I want those to change? Or what if they have to?

Maybe I have 10 top priorities right now, but what if they need to be whittled down to 5?

For instance, now, in this season of my life, I can put off homework now and then, spontaneously even, in order to hang out with friends for a night, watch a movie, or scroll around facebook or the blogging world.

But what if that needs to change? Well...not the friends :)

Does this make sense?

I am only asking because of this need for

preparation.

I feel this so strongly in my spirit. I cannot stop thinking of it in regards school, work, ministry, physically...even the end times have taken on such an intensity I have never felt before.

But even as I feel this urgency, I feel like I am urgently preparing for the...unknown?

I can make guesses...but I don't fully know.

I was telling someone the other day that I have been feeling so excited lately, but for what I DON'T KNOW. Except that the Lord is doing it, so it must be fantastic!
[while remembering that even His judgments are good]

And then during prayer today, I had this thought: If we are ever to learn of Jesus as our Leader, there is no way He is going to reveal everything to us all at once, else how would we?

In this time, Psalm 23...73:25-28...37...84...these are good to me. Let me reflect on His goodness, and I will be satisfied. I will trust. I will follow.

Christians Don't Tell Lies

“Christians don’t tell lies – they just go to church and sing them.”

[[a.w. tozer]]

this has been rolling around in my hea[d]rt so much lately.

every time I worship.

every time I say “God is enough” ...“He is worth everything” ... “I will follow Him ANYWHERE!”

really?

when is enough…truly Enough?

I am not advocating perfectionism or ripping out your tongue so that you will not speak falsely.

I am advocating asking the Holy Spirit to search your heart and mind before you carelessly whisper sweet nothings to your God that mean…absolutely nothing.

If I was your girlfriend and you told me soooo many sweet things and journaled about me and even managed hang out with me for a couple hours on, say, a Sunday...but your actions never lined up with your multitudes of platitudes??? What would you EXPECT me to do?

If my actions prove the truth of my words – what is my fruit shouting about me?

!JESUS!

You are my Redeemer.

You remain Faithful when I am faithless.

YOUR words are always true.

Please.

Please let my words MEAN something.

Please make me like You.

create

dreams and visions

in the night seem far-fetched

and the day shows them for what they are.

who are you to dream?

they say.

weren’t you born…didn’t you come from…surely you would never think to…

yes.

but I say

dreams were never meant to be defined by reality, only to define it.

let me dream again!

oh Father.

give me GOOD dreams.

make me like You.

my heart overflows with water, my eyes with tears, my body with dancing.

surely my soul knows what my mind will not.

in all brooding there is joy. in mourning, hope, as I wait for the dawn
(on THAT day).

let my life be a sacrifice to Thee.

I will have none other.

in all art, in all purpose, in all writing, philosophy, thought, action, speech, DANCE, let my creativity flow toward You and through You and for You!

let Yourself be the ideal I aspire to

and make me like an arrow pointing to heaven.

let YOUR name be written on my forehead and Your law on my heart.

let me not cease meditating day and night on Your beauty.

inspire me,

create in me

a clean heart

a right spirit

a gentle obedience...

make me

like You!