He Wakes Me Up

I never seem to have anything to write about, but today the Lord showed me such a beautiful and comforting word in His love story. He showed me Psalm 3 which talks about all the enemies that are piled up against us as Christians. Verses 5 and 6 say this:

I lie down and sleep;

I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.

I will not fear the tens of thousands

drawn up against me on every side.

Wow. What a wonderful way to think about our trials and our troubling times. We can physically feel ourselves waking up everyday. We know that it is happening. God is doing that. He is waking us up and making our bodies live and move and breathe and work. That one simple fact can lead us to the conclusion that we do not have to be afraid went there is an army of tens of thousands lined up against us. Obviously, the Lord is with us because we woke up that day.

Lord, you are so good to love us enough to show us these things. How wonderful You are.

Relentlessly Pursue Me, God

Sometimes I feel like God is just laughing at me. Like I'm just sitting down here squirming and trying to figure everything out and He's up there just laughing His head off. I know its not true, but I'm just kind of tired of feeling like I can't get a straight answer. He's blessing me. He loves me. I know He does. I just want to be joyful and not have to wonder if I'm really joyful because of Jesus or because I'm finding temporary happiness in the world.

I want to be satisfied in Jesus. I want Him to be my one and only. I want Him to be the one that I need and look to and cry to. I want to run to Him, but right now I feel like I don't know where to run. I need Him close to me. I need Him to come to me. I'm trying to find Him, but I'm feeling my way around in a pitch black room. Illuminate things for me, God. Maybe things really are illuminated and I'm just closing my eyes. Either way, I need you to relentlessly pursue me. Even if I don't act like it all the time, that's what I really want.

Tuesday Night

I seem to have a tradition to write a blog about returning to school.  This year I haven't written such a blog yet, and now that I think about it, I haven't written many blogs at all this whole summer.  I think I thought about it, or sat down to start one, or opened the page to begin writing at least 10 times since my last post, but nothing ever came out.  No thoughts ever came to my head. I think that's how I run most of my life.  I just go along with things and if something comes, then it comes, and if it doesn't, then I'll move on.  Anyway, I moved into school 9 days early this year for a leadership conference for work and since I'm here so early I am in my nice, big, empty apartment all alone.  I spent the first night alone just singing in the beautiful, empty space enjoying the acoustics of the bare walls.  I spent the second night eating left-over Chinese food with the top of a pudding cup (which works curiously well) and galavanting all around town trying to find a store that was open late at night where I could find brownie mix so that my friend and I could make brownies (which, if you were wondering, turned out very well... they were cookie brownies).  We went to CVS (who did not have any), and then saw the Food Lion employee lock the doors as we were pulling up, and finally we decided to give up on the hunt and just go for Walmart... the solution to almost every problem.  We got the brownies (along with butter, 2 wooden spoons, some plastic cutlery, and dish washing detergent) and went on our way.    It was great fun, and then I had one of those dreams that I woke up in the same situation but in my dream it was terrible and so confusing, but we won't get into that.

I hope the rest of world had as fabulous of a Monday night as mine.

Does anyone else get tired of the world?

Right now I am just so sick of being stuck inside my own body.  Its terribly difficult to fight myself.

I just want things to be clear and easy.

Jump for Jesus Joy

There are too many people that walk around thinking that their faith in Jesus is just a duty or a discipline.
Now, I see nothing wrong with some discipline.  Its good to create good habits and its even better to implement some discipline into your life with Jesus.  If you don't spend time with Him simply because you just don't feel like it, then when will you ever really start spending time with Him if you don't start doing it out of discipline and obedience.  If God is telling you to go overseas and you wait until you feel like doing it, then you'll probably wait forever because you'll never learn all that He'll do that is so great if you never actually go.
At the same time, Christianity is MORE than a discipline.  It goes from discipline to joy.  The discipline gives room for Jesus to put joy into us so that we do start to feel like doing those things.  We start to love those things because of how He's blessed them.  And there is a reason that the word joy is contained in the word enjoy.  We are called to enjoy Jesus.  He wants us to love Him and enjoy His company and His relationship.

I believe that, as Christians, we should make a point to pray for the joy of our precious Lord to invade our hearts so that our faith oozes out of every word we speak and everything we do because we're always jumping for Jesus joy.

Learning is so hard and painful sometimes.

Ezekiel

This verse stuck out to me:
Therefore speak to them and tell them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When any of the Israelites set up idols in their hearts and put a wicked stumbling block before their faces and then go to a prophet, I the Lord will answer them myself in keeping with their great idolatry.  I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols.' -Ezekiel 14:4-5

These verses make up a story:  (Go and read all of Ezekiel 16 if you can)
Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, "Live!" I made you grow like a plant of the field.  You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels.  Your breasts had formed and your hair grew, yet you were bare and naked. Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body.  I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine.  -Ezekiel 16:6-8

And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign Lord. But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. -Ezekiel 16:14-15

You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians too, because you were insatiable; and even after that, you still were not satisfied.  Then you increased your promiscuity to include Babylonia, and a land of merchants, but even with this you were not satisfied. -Ezekiel 16: 28-29

Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.  -Ezekiel 16:60

Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the Sovereign Lord. -Ezekiel 16:63


I advise everyone to read Ezekiel 16.  Especially women.  It is one of the most beautiful and accurate pictures of what is really going on between us and God.
Praise the Lord.