Heel Clicks And Circles

Today, we had quite a JV service if I do say so myself. God started working in praise and worship and kept on until way after. I was still dancing in Wal-Mart… 

But during the end service I got this idea. In a way it relates to the circle I mentioned in my last post. The circle of God’s love and holiness. So I’m not sure what to call this thing but here it is;

The holier You are, the dirtier I am.

The dirtier I am, the deeper I recognize Your grace.

The deeper Your grace, the the greater Your love.

The greater Your love, the more I want to return it.

The more I want to return it, the purer I yearn to become.

The purer I yearn to become, the harder it is for me to accomplish.

The harder it is to accomplish, the more in need You.

The more I need You the more I spend time with You.

The more I spend time with You, the more I am satisfied, fulfilled, guided and once again, I see how holy You are.

And that, to me, is the circle of life they do not teach in science class.

The Delicate Balance

I have so many thoughts running through my head right now, I’m not sure how to start.

I’ve been thinking about having a balance of the fear of the Lord and the love of the Lord. But mostly about the fear of the Lord. It’s been on my heart  mostly during my church’s JV service. I look around during worship, as we sing a song about God’s holiness, and I have to wonder if some understand what they’re singing. Do we truly understand the words we’re lifting, or do we just pay lip service like my pastor would say? ‘Cause your worship life explodes when you gain a healthy fear of the Lord.

The fear of God baffled me for a very long time. See, when I begun my personal relationship with God, it was based on His love. His love overwhelmed me, captivated me, and completely delighted me. It was, and is, what satisfies me. The God I knew was the God of love. But I didn’t get the fear of the Lord. I couldn’t seem to grasp it.

I remember in the beginning of this year, things just kept coming up that talked about the fear of God and it challenge me to understand it. I kept praying that God would teach me about the fear of Him.

Finally one night I ended up reading Isaiah 6:1-8 for some reason. I’d read it before, and I’d always liked the scripture. Just didn’t understand it. Or at least, not as deeply as I did that night. Suddenly I got a glimpse of how holy God is, how unclean I am, and why I should fear Him. As I wrote in my journal, once you get a little look at why you should fear Him, all you want to do is worship and fear Him. And I’ll quote this straight from my journal,

“When you finally grasp the true beauty and awe of the only pure and holy One, the effect is life changing. When you truly grasp how unworthy we are, it opens doors to a deeper walk with God. It breaks and humbles you to such a desperation to get all of God you can, because without Him we are nothing.

The understanding of this also leads to a deeper feeling for the unsaved and lost. Its all a big circle.”

Another part of that circle is taking all I’d learned about God’s love, and all I knew now about fearing God, and tying them together. God is love, and God is holy. If I wasn’t amazed enough with just knowing God loved me, now I realized how dirty I was, and knew He still loved me. Then I was really amazed. As holy as He is, He still loves us. Such a beautiful circle. Love, fear. Fear, love.

I like the way the senior pastor of my church put it. He used the illustration of one of the water plane things(I don’t know what they’re really called.). I think they have pontoon things they land with? Something like that. But my Pastor explain that if the pontoons didn’t touch down at the same time- if they weren’t balanced with one another- the plane could go out of control(or something dangerous like that.). He said he viewed those two pontoons as the fear and love for God, its important we have the right balance of both.

Fear of the Lord. Love of the Lord. I wish I could pack it into a boxes and give it to people.

Lessons From the Itsy-Bitsy Spider

Earlier tonight a friend and I were sitting on my front porch, singing and playing guitar. We were practicing a little worship to do on an up coming missions trip. In the beginning we weren’t being very productive, not really sure why. Finally we got into a groove and had a sweet little jam session sittin’ there.

Then dowwwwwwwwn came the spider. He was hanging from the porch roof, dangling dangerously close. We moved out of his way and left him alone since he wasn’t trying to eat us. After awhile we realized he was building a web as we played our music. (I think we inspired him.)

My friend and I paused a moment to admire his work. He was was swinging back and forth, shooting web left and right. “What if that’s his way of worshipping God?” My friend questioned.

Well, what if? It’s hard work but if that’s all the little guy can do, all he can give, and he did it for the Lord, how beautiful is that? But that’s not completely what I’m getting at.

Fast forwarding to sometime later, once my friend had left, I was texting her. (I do admit I like texting ;) Comes in handy.) I was was saying how I felt better than when we’d first started, yet I wasn’t even sure what we accomplished. I was sure we did something, I just couldn’t see what right now.

Then I thought of the web.

Maybe our work tonight, our work in general, for the Lord whether physically, spiritually or anything, is a little like that web. Each little thing we do is weaving a thread. But its almost an invisible web, very hard to see. It takes time and hard work to make a web.

Sometimes its hard and discouraging  because we can’t see what we’re weaving. But have you ever noticed you need the right lighting to see a web? It seems the best time is sunrise. In the light of the morning sun, spider webs are so beautiful.

Its interesting, I almost wrote a blog about how God and the sun relate, I never finished it, but part of it was how the sunrise is faith, as God is faithful. He also has perfect timing. The sunrise is never late, never early, but its always faithful.

In just the right time, God is faithful to rise and shine His glorious light on our web. All the hard work we’ve done that hasn’t been seen. By us or by others. And in the morning sun it glistens and stands out. All the hard work of a spider is finally showcased in the light of the Creator.

Reminds me of  where in Matthew 6 Jesus’ teaches to give, pray, and basically do things in private and your heavenly Father will reward you. We can’t always see the thread we spin, and others don’t need to, because the God can see them. And He will cause the sun to rise on them in the right time if need be. For some things, you might have to wait for heaven, for other things, just wait for tomorrow.

Two Important Words

Many times during Jesus’ time on earth he used a certain two words. He still whispers them to us today.

Follow me.

Those two words are such a great call, such an honor.

Matthew 4:19 - "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."

What an honor to be called by Jesus, to be fishers of men. But these words were also said with great cost.

Mark 8:34 - "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Follow me. Two powerful words, really. “Leave everything and follow me,” was Christ’s basic call. The call of Christianity. To be Christ followers. Follow is a verb meaning to come after in sequence.

So you get the idea of following Christ now, right? Now this is my main thought here – If you are following Christ you don’t have to see where you’re going.

That amazed me the other day! It relieved me. I mean, think about it. Do you get it? If your following Christ, spiritually walking behind Him, that means He’s in front of you. He goes before you. You don’t have to see where your going because He’s the one in front of you, He’s forging the way.

All you and I have to do is keep Him in our line of vision. See, I also realized that when your following someone, the closer you are the better. When you leave space, things can pass in front of you. So we have to keep ourselves close.

So in the times you can’t see in front of you, remember we are followers of Christ. Concern yourself with simply staying close, and just following His lead. You don’t have to see, you have to trust.

The Vine and His Branches

I’ve been wanting to do something for the blog for awhile.  Particularly write but I’m just not doing that right now.  But still, I really wanted to do something.  So tonight I got a little inspiration to do something I haven’t in awhile- an image.  So I just threw this together real quick.  Nothing special, I just saw the colors somewhere and wanted to make something, then the verse popped in my head.  Maybe I’ll write something on it, who knows?

Anyhow, figured I’d throw it on a post, soooo… enjoy?

And just so ya know, you can click the image to view it full size.

(I might have out done myself with the green…)

Starbucks Shake-up and the Sleepers

A few weeks ago I had quiet a rude awakening at Starbucks. I could tell you the whole, dramatic story but I’m going to shorten it.

Basically, I was with a friend at Starbucks, just chillin’, when a once-in-a-lifetime, God-given, divine moment, passed by. The rude part? I didn’t even notice until afterwards. Until I was lying in bed, trying to sleep. It hit me so hard, I was up half the night praying the girls blood wouldn’t be on my hands, that God would send someone else to teach her His love. No joke. That one, single missed moment kept me up late a few nights.

The pain of seeing a moment after its passed is, in my opinion, harder than seeing the moment and not seizing it due to fear. But it was the awakening I needed. It made the message of Romans 13:11 real to me. In Romans it basically says to love, knowing that now is the time to awake out of slumber, for our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

Oh, how true.

That day was only the wake-up call for me. It shocked me into a realization that I hardly need prayer for moments to minister; I’m in bad need of prayer to have sight. To have ears. To have a sensitivity to the moments that are flying by. Since that night in Starbucks, I can name several more times I missed chances to use my voice. In fact, there were several chances that night alone.

That was the night God said “Hey, hey you…

Wake UP!”

Revelation 3:1-2 says, “I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive- but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, after that push-start, I’m dragging myself out of the bed of spiritual slumber and asking God to wipe the sleepiness from my eyes. More and more often, I’m remember to look for those moments. See, in spur-of-the-moment things, I don’t usually have or take the time to let fear set in, so if I’d just been awake at that Starbucks moment, I most likely would have said something.

My point? I did not, and do not, need more moments to minister. I need more awareness to see and seize the chances already before me. I highly doubt fear is our biggest problem. I mean really, have you looked at this generation?! We’re a bunch of loud-mouth dare-devils. Counting adrenaline, and spurred by the Holy Spirit, we’re invincible. Think before you speak, yes; but when the Holy Spirit tells you something- do it!

Again, I highly doubt fear is our biggest problem. Our slumber is. Oh, we the sleeping. We are not fully dead, but we slumber day in and day out.

Shane Claiborne said, “Jesus did not come simply to make bad people good. Jesus came to bring dead people to life.” Get this, before a person comes to Christ, they are dead. In Christ, we are given life. Jesus said they that believe will do even greater works than He. So we are called to spiritually, as well as psychically, wake the dead. Yet how can a sleeping person raise the dead?!

In the church, we have the resources to the Gift of Life. We should hardly be dead when we have so many Pastors, services, and books feeding us the Word. Yet we’re so close to slipping into death, because we’re sleeping. A sleeping body needs to wake up and eat, than exercise; exercise your faith. Breathe in God, breathe out godliness.

I honestly just encourage you to start looking for opportunities to reach out. Learn to become aware. From being a little more gracious to the waitress that brings your food, picking things up for people when they need help, to when you get the small chance just saying, '”Hey, Jesus love you.” Even tiny, tiny stuff like adding ‘God’ to ‘bless you’. (That makes it 'God bless you’, in case you didn’t know.)

I’m no expert, I still miss a lot. Right now I’m trying to train myself into the habit of saying ‘God bless you’, I’ve gotten into the lazy habit of shortening it to ‘bless you’. I guess sleeping people are lazy. But I had a earthquake moment at Starbucks that scared me out of bed and gave me fear of people not receiving Christ because of me. A stronger fear than the fear of them thinking I’m a nut.

So hopefully all that made sense, and didn’t run circles. Hopefully it meant something. I hope it gives someone the wake-up call they need without the pain of missing a chance to show God’s love.

Wake up, become aware.

(Oh, and here’s one more extra tid-bit of something I learned. You might have notice its been a long while since the last post. Problem- I was trying to hard. I was looking for something to write, a dinner to feed my readers. But only when I dropped that search, and just sought God, I found He had dinner prepared for you already. And for me. It was something He’d shown me weeks ago, and had been sitting in front of me the whole time. Just so you know, God’s a much better cook than me.)

Sunlight, Daybreak

I just found this music video through another blog and wanted to share it.  The band is called Reilly and this is their song Sunlight.  Not really sure what to say, there's just something about it that's good.  I wanted to post the lyrics but I wasn't able to find them, though I did take the time to write part of a verse that stood out to me.

"You resurrect me, You rearrange me,
You make me heart beat to another symphony
And You pursued me, like You think I’m worthy
Oh Savior, now I know that I do not deserve this."

Enjoy!

Prepare to be Kidnapped

I recently took part in a kidnapping.  But hold up and listen to the story before you start calling the police.

It was the big eighteen.  It had become common among the local group of friends to kidnap one another on the persons birthday.  Her best friend told her she was going to do something big for her this year.  Thus she prepared. Dressed, hair, makeup - they could blindfold her and carry her off any moment.  And even if she wasn’t physically ready, she had the mind-set.

But the week of her eighteenth birthday passed with great disappointment- she was never blindfolded, gagged, and tossed into the back of a car to be carried off to an unknown destination.

Fast forwarding!!!

Two weeks later, on a simple Saturday afternoon, three of her friends burst in her room, scaring her out of her shoes(well, okay, she wasn’t wearing shoes).  She was half ready, preparing to go somewhere else with the family.  But instead the three friends/kidnappers forced a black-and-white checkered blindfold over her eyes.  She was kidnapped, in that moment, never to return home.

 

Until midnight that night, but that's besides the point…

 

As I thought about this story today, I was focused on the preparation of our main character, who I’ll add happens to be one of my best friends.  The week of her birthday, or around this time, its been said she was prepared for what might come.  So as I’m thinking about this the thought hit me.  Wow, what an illustration of us as Christians waiting for Christ’s coming!

Are we all ready and made-up during the ‘birthdays’ in our lives?  The birthdays being the times of emotional revelations.  Maybe when a guest speaker comes or we go on a retreat.

Or maybe a birthday of an easy time in your life, where you’re ‘so thankful God’s got His hand in everything’.  Then hard times come and you fall back.  As you blame it on God, you stop preparing yourself everyday.   You stop with your devotions.

I think we hear so often to be prepared for the coming of Jesus.  But like the girl waiting for her kidnapping, preparing each day for the (special?) occasion.  After time passed she wasn’t constantly concerned or maybe thinking about being kidnapped, but this doesn’t mean she stopped preparing for things.

Back in the story, when we broke in and stole her away, she had been getting ready- just not for the main event.

Do we do this?  Do we prepare ourselves, but for something other then the main event, for the coming of the King of Kings?  Do we sit down and do our devotions to seek the heart of our Lord; or so we have scripture to brag about when we’re hanging with the ‘cool Christians’?  Do we do it to get convicted, clean ourselves out, and recollect a passion for Christ; or just for the nice, quiet time it gives us?

Now rein in your roving mind and dive past the surface for a moment.  You probably read all this thinking, “Rapture, rapture!”  That’s fine, nice outlook.  Now narrow your mind, look at this very moment.

I’m not asking if your ready for the rapture, I’m asking if your ready for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Are you, are we, ready for the Lord to take control at any given moment?  Can we prepare ourselves, in our bible reading, in our prayer, in our worship, to the point that we’re so sold out that if He says go, our feet move without thought.  Can we prepare ourselves now, in this moment, for what He wants to do in this very instant?

Can we constantly be prepared to have our comfort zone, our pride, our selfish will, kidnapped from us all for the sake of Jesus’ name?

He Calls Me

Busy, busy like a bee.  That’s how it is for me.

There’s a little rhyme to get you in the poem mood.  But then, I just noticed that this poem doesn’t rhyme. Ha, oh well!  I wrote this back in January.  It’s a bit of a girl’s poem but yet, its not, being that the church is the bride.  That's a beautiful thing, isn’t it?

He calls me clay,

I am always being formed.

He calls me His sheep,

I know my Shepherd’s voice.

He calls me His servant,

and I delight to please Him.

He calls me His child,

I am heir to the riches,

and blessings of my Father.

He calls me His beloved,

He loves me and I will always return the love.

He calls me His bride,

what more can I give then leave me parents,

and follow Him?

I’m a bride, awaiting the wedding day,

He will return for me.

For then I will dwell forever in His house.

All Consuming Fire

I realized the difference between being hot for God, and being completely consumed by Him.

Correct me if I’m wrong but you can feel pretty hot, maybe even feel like your on fire, by just being near a roaring fire. But that’s not as close as actually being consumed and on fire.

Do you know the difference? Okay, here’s the obvious-

It burns.

It doesn’t always feel good; it hurts to come in contact with fire.  But do you know what it burns?  Fire is a cleanser, it recognizes all the impurities.  And not only does fire shine its light on them, it burns them out.

See, some of us are good with just being kinda hot because the light of the fire shows all the surface stuff that we can just brush off.  But then people are comfortable with just that; they don’t realize you still have to get in the fire.  Or some do realize but deep down inside, they’re too scared.

They’re scared because fire does not relent. It burns out the stuff that’s buried and hidden. It burns. It will clean out every single, small impurity.

I think I’m repeating myself there, but how ‘bout this one; it will cause destruction to a life. It can cause something to become unrecognizable. Let’s face it, for a fire to consume a physical body means death.

The Bible says God is a consuming fire. So for us to be in God, and Him in us that means we’ll be burned.

But it also means we must die.

To ourselves.

So What’s Your Purpose?

I read something online not too long ago where someone straight out asked a person, “What is your true purpose?”  The reply was one of the simplest, but profound things I’ve ever heard.  He just answered, “One; worship God. Two; lead others to Him and help them grow.”

To worship God. We were created to worship God! That thrills me! It crawls under my skin, puts butterflies in my stomach, and makes me bubble with excitement. We were created with the purpose of worshiping the Creator.

This really hit me the other night again. I was sitting during a church choir practice.  They were singing I Do Worship by CeCe Winans. I started to sing and it hit me so hard I had to laugh. All I wanted say was, “I do, I do, I do.” Like the church, the bride, saying “I do” to Christ, her husband.

I do worship. Because that’s what I was made to do. Because I can. Because He is holy, worthy, and worthy to be praised. I can’t help it. Neither can you. You, whether you’re following Christ or not, are a worshiper. It’s what we do. Its inescapable. You have an idol and you worship it.

I’m not saying you play music related to your idol and then bow down to it. One of the definitions of worship is “a feeling of profound love and admiration.” I’ll admit, I’m quite inspired to worship my God when I hear music. That's fine, God created music. But He also created our love and admiration to be directed towards Him.

I don’t know about you, but I want to worship God in everything I do. I want to my whole life to be so saturated that everything I do displays love and worship for my God. That is my goal, I’m far from it, but that is my goal. We’re human, we trip and stumble, but He picks us up and points us towards our goal again.

That reminds me of something I wanted to share with you. I was reading something the other day that quoted, “You may stumble, but you will find yourself falling forward, propelled toward the God-inspired adventure He intends you to live.”  Did ya catch falling forward? I never realize that when you trip, you usually fall forward. It might slow your pace, but it also pitches you forward. Have you ever gone through something that’s really tough, but you get out and realize, “Wow, I learned a lot.” I guess that’s because even though it was a stumble,  and it was hard, it still propelled you forward along the path. But you have to pick yourself up after you trip, otherwise you don’t get that nice view of rising after a failure. So that was a little side note, back to the whole worship thing…

My bottom line is we were created with the purpose of worshiping and glorifying God. It says it in Isaiah 43:7. I’m not really sure why I wanted to share that, I guess mostly because it really excites me. I mean come on, who are we to worship Him? But even though we’re just ‘sinners saved by grace’, as some people say, you have to see how amazing it is to be created to worship Him. I thank God I was created to worship Him…

The Problem, the Solution, and the Battle Cry

This poem was a tad… convicting for me, in a way. You’ll understand as you read it but let me explain a bit.

I began writing it in a very aggravated mood. I was tired of watching ‘Christians’ act just like the world. Something had finally reached deep and hit a point of aggravation in me that I had to say something. But I decided it would be too rude to say something directly to the person. Besides, I don’t really know where they stand, only God does.

So instead I decided to write this, to get my feelings out some how. Still, my mood was not too kind to that person. As I was writing the first paragraph, God kinda tapped me and said, “Hey, they’re just deceived.” Ouch.

This caused me to change course. I was reminded of their blindness. I was reminded of God’s overwhelming love for them, and His longing for them to just come to His embrace. My heart broke for them, so I wrote the second paragraph.

Then my aggravation returned, but in a different way. In fact, it was more like a burning anger.  At the Devil. I’m quite frankly sick of him. Sick of the lies he feeds my generation, sick of the scales he blinds them with. Very, very sick of the Devil. So I just wanted to yell at him a bit, and remind him he’s got no hold. Remind him that 1 Peter 2:9 says we’re a chosen people, a holy nation, and God’s very own possession.

Now you may read it :)

 

I stand and watch in dismay,

as our whole word fades to gray.

You call yourselves Christians,

but really what’s the difference?

You’re all the same, you and they.

How can you let convictions decay?

You’re nothing different,

you’re a fake represent.

You wonder why you can’t get them saved.

Its because you don’t have what they crave.

A longing for love and more,

that’s what this generation implores.

I’m torn to shame when I look around,

my fellow peers are nothing to renown.

But I’m shred to tears

as I look, just once more.

Because even you, a fake and disgrace,

are just deceived, looking for embrace.

 

One foot in, one foot out;

you speak our language,

but still you’re in doubt.

You’re a chosen one,

that can not be undone.

His voice is calling you,

“Come, come pursue.”

Deeper, deeper, go now.

There you’ll find a vow,

that His love is real,

strong as steel.

 

Rise above this mediocrity,

run to what He’s made you to be.

Talent so raw, I can’t stand the waste.

Devil I demand, you must release your embrace.

No longer will they be blind,

to their own shallow minds.

A generation is about to rise,

without shame we’ll love all lives.

Darkness has no hold,

for you, Satan, we are too bold.

We’ll conquer your lies,

no longer can you undermine.

We’re strong in will,

and we’re sick of your rule.

You have no choice but to turn tail.

Through us, God’s kingdom will prevail.

A Prayer For More

So I wrote a non-rhyming poem.  I guess you could call it that?

This is my prayer,

That I will always be mystified by Your voice,

May it never become common.

I want to always seek Your face,

May I not be satisfied with Your hand.

I want to always stand in wonder before Your creation,

May I never overlook your greatness.

I want to constantly be broken by Your love,

May I never water it down.

I want to follow Your heart, go where You go,

May I never follow my own path.

I want to be Your witness, carrier of the Good News,

May fear never control me and boldness be my spirit.

I want to love You.

I want to follow You.

I want to be Yours.

May I never grow so familiar with You that I stop chasing.

May I always never be satisfied.

May I always go deeper.

A Place For My Scribbles

I have been pondering for a place to be home to my scribbles.  A place that would get my writings out somewhere, and maybe, just maybe, make a difference.

Then came project Learning to Embrace.  Why Learning to Embrace?  Because it seems to be quite the theme of my life at the moment.  But then, is it not the theme of everything?  We have to embrace our King. Embrace His ways; learn Jesus' character and put it into practice.  Embrace His plans; following my own is quite useless.  His plans for you and I far surpass our own.  For one thing there's Jeremiah 29:11,

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

There is also Isaiah 55:8,

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Sweet, right?  His ways are so much higher then ours, so His plans for us gotta be off the wall.  Now when I’m reading that in the Bible, I’m being all ‘holy’ so I’m thinking, “Woo!  God has got me a good plan and I’m going to follow it.”

Haha, I wish it were that easy.  But I’m flesh, and sometimes its just plain hard.  That's where the embrace comes in.  I’m always learning, and re-learning, to just embrace His plans.  To make them my own.

Following this, is learning to embrace His love.  Man o’ man.  I think I pretty much pray that I’ll never be able to embrace all His love.  It's so deep, so high, so wide.  I pray I’ll never fully embrace it because I always want to be grasping for it.  Like a little girl in a field of flowers, chasing that beautiful butterfly that's always just out of reach.  Let me put it this way, I want to always be falling into His love, never to be caught.  I'll just keep falling deeper, 'till I'm completely lost.

Basically, I’m just a girl, learning to embrace my Father, my King, and along the way, writing little bits about the journey.  So I thought I’d share the journey here, maybe it will help someone in their own adventure.