Lately I have been deeply in thought about the fallen nature of the world. I know that is probably a Christian Cliché but it is becoming so real to me.  Seeing the brokenness is overwhelming at times.

At one time I would see addiction, sin, brokenness and bad behavior from the world as something that needed to be corrected by the sinner. I acted as though  it was within the power of humans to change themselves; somehow buying into the lie that we can evolve out of sinfulness by simply changing the behaviors that are ugly.  If I am honest, I still fall into that line of thinking more than I wish that I did.   It is so easy to think that by simply modifying one’s behavior, we could change the world’s fallen nature.

This week I have had a lot time to ponder and pray about my own heart. Much of my prayer has been focused on asking God to make my heart tender to the things that he is tender toward, to see things as He does and to show me wrong perceptions and beliefs that I still hold.  The most significant thing that I have been pondering is the unbelievable brokenness of humanity and the overwhelming love of a God who came to redeem them even though some may never turn to Him.

I know firsthand the affects of addiction and brokenness on mankind. My family has a long track record of both and I have felt many things this holiday season as I pondered the affects they have had on me and my family.  To watch as man’s attempt to feel normal drags them deeper into a pit of despair is disheartening.  Realizing my own powerlessness to fix the problem is discouraging on the one hand and eye opening on the other.  It has opened my eyes to see the beauty of what the cross means. It has revealed more of the heart of the Father for a desperate people.   It is revealing the depth of love He has for us, an adulterous people.

I am so glad that God is not like me. I would have destroyed the whole world and started again. I would have created beings like robots that would love me, do my bidding and not mess it up.   He was so much more gracious, he made a way for us, who wander away like sheep, to come back into the fold.  He loves us enough to weep with us in our own pain and woo us gently as we wander around blindly. He loves us. The God of the universe, who is perfect and gracious, loves us, who are broken and less than grace filled. Oh, the beauty of the cross! Oh, the Love of our God!  He is Grace and He is Love.

As I close out this year, I am grateful for his love and grace for me. I am humbled and in awe of his redemption of sinners. Praise Him who heals and Praise Him who saves!

Happy New year!!

Last week, while letting my dog, Lexie, out once more for the night,  I heard a bird singing loudly. It was the only sound other than the sound of the wind blowing lightly through the trees and it was disconcerting. Disconcerting not only because it was late at night, not only because it was the only bird I could hear but because it was an eerie, desperate cry of sorts. I don’t know, maybe I was just being too imaginative for my own good, but it just seemed out of place in general to hear a song bird singing in the darkness rather than the light of day. The sound and the feelings surrounding it have stuck with me in the back of my mind for the week since.

Today in my quiet time I began thinking about it again. So, like every other distracting thought that comes into my head, I jotted it down on the notebook beside me to research later. The question “why would a bird sing at night?”, was repeating in my head over and over. To me, birds are creatures of praise. That is what I think of when I hear them. They just exist and worship, that’s it. Okay, back to my thoughts… birds usually are silent at night…sleeping or whatnot. So I googled the topic and began to read these threads about it. Here are the most common streams of thought.

1. A hungry cat has recently moved into the neighborhood causing the raucous

2. There is too much light in the area

3. Too much noise during the day so they sing at night. (mating calls, communicative singing)

So, here is what I felt drop in my spirit. We as believers are quick to sing our praises during the day, when we can see the light but when the darkness comes, we are often silenced out of fear of the hungry cat (roaring lion, enemy of our souls) or we are so busy during the day that the voice of God is drowned out by the noisiness around us. I know that I tend to withdraw my praises, not intentionally, but it just seems that when life gets really hard and I feel alone, I get quiet in my worship and prayers. It just dwindles until I am left cold, empty and fearful. I want to be like that bird. I want my song to be heard by God and the enemy even in the darkest moments of my life. I want to lift my voice loudly in prayer and praise when I hear the enemy coming. Lord, give me a song in the night, a word of praise during fear. Give me ears to hear in the midst of the storms around me. Help me to stay focused on you!! You are my deliverer, my refuge and my salvation!

There is nothing inside of me that is good. Nothing. All of my best efforts come to nothing. That is where I am at this moment. Now before you think that I am all depressed and down on myself, I will tell you straight up, I am not being a victim. I am however becoming aware of my weakness. I am becoming aware that even my strengths become liabilities when they cause me to trust them instead of God.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I began to feel that familiar numbness coming back to my spiritual life. Like my spiritual senses were becoming dull. All desire for the things of God was gone. I mean I could not even pretend to want to read my bible…or spend any significant time in prayer. I did not even want to listen to worship music at all. (if you know me, that’s a big deal.) So, I added some old school R&B to my ipod and embraced my spiritual apathy, whole heartedly. Another thing you have to understand about me, I don’t do anything halfway! I am fully in or I am fully out. I had depleted all of my own natural resources. I had nothing left to give anyone.

Last night, the small group (12th grade girls) that I lead came over to the house to discuss the book we are doing. … (experiencing God). I laugh even now at the irony. I am supposed to lead these girls to experience this God, who felt so distant even to me. We had not met together during the last two weeks…(the weeks of my apathy) but were getting caught up last night.

Here is what God did. Our conversations were about recognizing when God is speaking, or doing something, how to not feel so dead spiritually and how to want God. Crazy! Here are these beautiful girls, asking me how to do the very things that I have been avoiding. God spoke through me to them, and in turn reminded me that It’s true, I can’t do anything without Him. I can’t even want Him unless He first plants that desire in me. Even when I am feeling so deadened and disconnected from Him, He is at work, wooing me. I can’t do it. Do you get that?? It’s such a foreign concept in our world, there is no formula, there is NOTHING I can DO to make me want the things of God.

To go a little deeper here, It was my fault that I became disconnected in the first place. See, I tend to get cocky when I am doing “good” spiritually. I tend to coast through life relying on my own wisdom and my own abilities. I know beyond a shadow of doubt that my Father in heaven allowed me to wander far enough away from Him that I felt my need for Him. It reminds me of a time when my own daughter was three years old. She had a problem with wandering off in the grocery store, the mall or wherever we happened to be. Well, one day my husband and I decided she needed to learn that it was not a good idea. So we were in a store and when she wandered off to look at a toy display, we hid from her view. We could see her, but she could not see us. It took a few minutes for it to dawn on her that she was alone. I could see the emotions flickering across her face. When it finally registered that she had walked too far this time,her chin began to quiver and her eyes began to tear up. We came out from our hiding places, which were within two feet from her, and she was both angry and relieved. It may sound like a horrid thing to do, but she never wandered off again after that. I believe that God does the same with me. When I venture off of the path He is on, He just stops and waits for me to realize that I am doing it alone again. He never leaves me, but He just sort of hides Himself. Well, I am obviously a much more stubborn child than my own daughter, I don’t learn so easily. I wander off to look at my own version of toys, which I will plainly call idols. I whore myself out to all sorts of other lovers, self, people pleasing, recognition, pride, television…the list is long.

The good news though, even though I had nothing to give to that small group last night, God showed up. He helped us all to see that even the fact that I was discontent with my lack of desire for God, was the hand of God moving my heart. He showed me this verse this morning:

Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord;
no deeds can compare with yours.

All the nations you have made
will come and worship before you, O Lord;
they will bring glory to your name.

For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God.

Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.

I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.

For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.

Among all the gods, there is none like you… among all the idols that I erect in my life, there is none who can compare to Him! None of my “toys” will be able to come close to filling my emptiness. I want an undivided heart, to love Him. I want all the other lovers to fade away in the presence of God Almighty.

Great is HIS LOVE TOWARD ME. not my love toward Him. Even if I were a junkie, in an alley somewhere, His love for me would be the same. It is His faithfulness that will see me through to the end. It’s His loving kindness that will woo me to Him. Thank God, it is not reliant on my desires or lack thereof!

John 1:10-16 (emphasis added mine)
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own,  and His own   did not receive Him.  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:  who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’”  And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace  For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

When you think about God, what comes to mind? Maybe you think he loves people, but he is often disappointed in you. Maybe he is like a morality cop, waiting for you to screw up. Maybe you think that God is a delusion that people created as a crutch.  For me, I  used to get this picture of an old man in white, with a long flowing beard, sitting on a huge marble throne. He was surrounded by clouds, so much so that I could never get a clear picture in my mind of His face. In this picture, I was often, bowing (cowering) at His feet in a nervous way. Oh, I was in awe of Him too, but still had this nagging suspicion that I was not in His favors. I never felt that I could measure up to the standard that I felt He had set for me. I was always “messing up”

There are many things that can shape our perspective of the Father God. Maybe we had an abusive father, maybe he worked all the time or was altogether absent. Maybe you had a great dad, but other men in your life were poor examples of what God is like.  Maybe you were in  a church that was legalistic. It took me a long time to sift and separate the many perceptions I had of God. Some were true but many were distorted.  One of the sources of my  distorted perceptions was the fact that I was raised in a very legalistic church. I came to believe that God was that policeman in the sky, watching for me to mess up so he could strike me down. Maybe not by a literal bolt of lightning, but in some sort of punishment He would surely get me back.    If I was not living up to par, then He would not bless me, he would not use me and would give me the silent treatment so to speak.

I have often struggled with the fear that I would never measure up to what  a “good Christian” should look like.  I am just too blunt,  too sad, too happy, too angry, to relaxed,   too poor, too rich, I don’t read the bible enough, I don’t understand the bible enough, I don‘t pray enough…. etc….   See I was placing all these rules and expectations on myself in order to avoid punishment from God. I was in essence trying to take the place of Jesus in my own life. I was determined (not knowingly) to be my own savior.  There is a scripture that Paul says basically, that if you are trying to earn your salvation by works, you are telling Jesus that His work is not enough.  That is so hard to swallow if you tend to be a performance based, people pleaser, like I have been. That is one of those verses that we glance over quickly moving on to something like, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” only to interpret that through the lens of earning our keep!

I have now come to believe that God does not view me through the same “glasses” that I view my self. He sees me through the blood of Jesus. The one pure spotless lamb.  vs. 16 in the NKJV says it this way:
And of HIS fullness we have all received and grace for grace.  That word fullness translates as full measure, copiousness (present in large quantity), that which has been completed. It describes a ship with full cargo and crew.  Guys, we are complete in Christ.  Not because we are good enough, (because God knew we could never be “good enough”) but because Christ took our place. He is there interceding on our behalf to God the Father.
He is our portion, our fullness and our covering. His grace is enough. Enough to cover every imperfection. All we have to do is accept it, freely. That is harder at times than working for it. Especially to prideful people such as myself. I am always fighting to remain humble, not self sufficient. He never called me to be self sufficient. He called me to be God-dependent. I am not saying that we never have to do anything…I am saying that nothing we DO can make us any better in the eyes of God.

So, don’t get wrapped up in being “Good enough” Just abide in Him. Commune with Him. You are fully loved, totally forgiven, whole and complete in Christ. You have value, HUGE value because Christ the pure spotless one, loved you enough to die a painful, shameful death so that we could be free! Free from shame, guilt and Fear! Praise God!

Have you ever had a limb fall asleep? Maybe you fell asleep lying on your arm or maybe you sat on your foot for too long. You really don’t notice it…until you try to use it. Then it can seem as if small needles are pricking you from the inside as blood rushes to bring its life back into the slumbering entity. That to me is the most painful part of this whole sleeping limb thing.

There is a part of my spirit that fell asleep long ago. I remember when it happened. I remember choosing to cut the flow of life to that part of me because it was too overwhelming at times. So I chose to pretend it did not exist. I pretended that it was no longer relevant. I chose to ignore who I was created to be!

Recently, my loving Jesus began to bring to mind this sleeping limb. He is calling me to begin using this sleeping part of me. This part that I have buried beneath layers of fear of man and the unknown for so long that it lays dormant within me. The more I try to move, the more painful it becomes as life rushes back into my soul.

This sleeping part of me is one of the spiritual gifts that He imparted to me long ago. I am so broken hearted that I hid from it for so long, but I am so grateful that He loved me enough to wait until I can handle it. I don’t want to have to tell Him one day, that I buried it, No, I want to be a good steward of what He has given me. I want to use it to His glory!

Oh, for more thoughts on stewardship go check out Tam. She just wrote something about the same topic!

I was reading a blog today over at Lorawilliam08… talking about desires and it got me thinking so I thought I would pop back here and write my thoughts!

I pray the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you oh lord. This is the desire of my heart. Our hearts are so dark most of the time. When we think our motives are pure, that is when God reveals the hidden motive lurking in that dark corner. The bible says that the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful! How true is that??

The bible talks about how it is the things we behold that form our character. Our heart is filled with the things we spend time meditating on… In the times of the old testament meditation had different connotations than today. Take Psalms 1:2 for instance. The word meditate there translates to mutter, to moan, to growl. In ancient times, when someone would meditate on God’s word, they would take part of the word, and repeat it to themselves out loud, mutter, moan…they would tear it apart in their mind, so they could fully understand the text. So that it became part of them. Now think about music. what happens when you hear a song a couple of times? You begin singing it… you begin repeating the words to your self aloud, right? Sounds a lot like meditation doesn’t it? Now, this is a new thought concept for me..I am wrestling with it even as I write because it just sounds crazy to me! But the more I think about the concept through the lens of the Bible, it totally makes sense! The bible tells us to guard our heart for it is the well spring of life. The word heart here is translated as inner man, mind, will, knowledge, thinking. Romans 12:2 says do not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. So, obviously we become like the world by filling it with the thoughts and ideals of the world, right? If we are transformed (changed) by renewing our mind (thoughts) then it goes to say that the things we meditate on affect us.

This is sort of left hanging… I want to continue chewing on it…. muttering! : )

Any thoughts?

THis is him…being him!

1. Who is your man? Jon-sensitive, hilarious, best dad in the world, amazing preacher, leader and so wise, it is sick!

2. How long have you been together? forever…ahem, what I meant to say was: married 9 1/2 years

3. How long did you date? almost 3 years including a year long engagement.

4. How old is your man? 33- I was jail bait! : )

5. Who eats more? hmmm… gonna say him…but wouldn’t know it by looking at us! : P

6. Who said I love you first? Him

7. Who is taller? He is

8. Who sings better?hahahah… me…but he can carry a tune! He is an amazing melody carrier for my family of harmonizers!

9. Who is smarter? That is a toss up… we are both very smart, just in different ways…I think our IQ’s were within points of each other…. 10. Whose temper is worse? TOTALLY mine!

11. Who does the laundry? me

12. Who takes out the trash? Jon

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? me – but only bc its the side that’s closer to the bathroom … stealing this answer from Mandy…

14. Who pays the bills? Me

15. Who is better with the computer? Me

16. Who mows the lawn? hubby

17. Who cooks dinner? definitely me.

18. Who drives when you are together? depends on how out of control I am feeling… He teases that when I am stressed, I like to take the wheel! : )

19. Who is the most stubborn? SOOO me..

20. Whose parents do you like the most? hmmm what an incriminating question…. (see how I evaded it?? lol )

21. Who kissed who first? HE did…

22. Who asked out who? I did… I was 15 he was 20.. i asked him to homecoming…

23. Who proposed? he did.

24. Who has more friends? definitely him.. He is a people person where I tend to be a hermit.

25. Who has more siblings? He does… I have a brother. Jon has a sister, a half sister and two half brothers.