Wednesday, October 01, 2008

I understand.

It's my security. The only thing keeping me from diving into that ocean head first is my lack of security. It's so clear to me now. I've spent at least the last 6 weeks if not more trying to figure out whats kept me inside myself so long, pondering why there's such a storm in my heart over the way I perceive life. I guess it was only a matter of time. If you're truly committed to Christ, if you're truly driven to experience His love, you'll throw everything out of the way and change everything you can to make sure you experience it.

I've never been secure. All my life I've wondered who's going to take care of me. Whether or not I'll be seen or needed or cherished. To the point where my self worth was completely upside down. Such a mess. "How could I ever be worth something to anyone? If I don't make sure I'm taken care of, if I'm not capable of at least that, then I must be worthless." You can imagine what happened next, when I realized I actually couldn't. My world started falling apart and I felt like I couldn't tell anyone because there would be no one to give me an answer. No one to care enough to give me a way out. Who wants to listen to a failure? I knew at some level God would listen but I also put him on the same level as everyone else: to important to care or notice someone who was broken. He would leave me when it got to hard or when something better came along just like everyone else did. It was like I was under some kind of spell.


So I fought with God. There was a time I never thought it to be possible. His perfection kind of trumps His ability to be wrong or take blame. I always avoided allowing God to have my feelings of insecurity and frustration over our relationship because just like every other relationship I have been involved in I was afraid of rejection. It bottled up for years until finally after an overwhelmingly frustrating series of events I found myself asking God the unthinkable: Do you really love me? Or am I the only one in this relationship who actually cares?
Am I in love with someone who could never be or never was in love with me?

It honestly broke my heart into pieces. I realized at that moment how totally and completely in love with God I am, and how empty and pointless my entire life was without that love returned. If he didn't love me there wasn't any other reason to live. I know it sounds drastic, but earnestly I believe it's true. The love of God is so complete, so incredibly abundant and fulfilling that anything lacking the ability to bear the weight of it becomes completely useless to the eyes of eternity. Magnifying completely the scope of that great love.

Then I realized I fell under that weight. I was wanted. Complete and holy. Six years ago on a tiny basketball court down the street from my house I decided to embark on what I thought was the relentless pursuit of Christ. Turns out the entire time He was the one pursuing me. Through the pain and the masking, through my pathetic attempts to be adequate, to find worth on my own and be self sufficient, God brought me to the lowest place possible. It was then I knew of the great depths to which He went in order to redeem my heart. The cycle of insecurity was broken. I found myself finally whole and completely assured of Christ's love.

So began the deep six week long storm of pondering in my heart. Without anything holding me back, what am I really created to do? Now that I'm assured of the love I always questioned where do I fit into His will? The girl with quick jokes and false confidence could have never even dreamed of asking these questions in full faith of a great answer. However the girl with a renewed heart, a sound mind and a bold assurance knows there is no other way.

I dove into the ocean. I know how to swim and I don't think I'll ever have need for a shore.

The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. Jeremiah 31:3

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

When your mind's made up.

It's begun. The love I've been waiting for my whole life is before me. Like staring out over the immense and overwhelming sea. Everything is shockingly vivid. I feel like the condition of my heart is changing at a rapid pace. Daily it s stripped of anything materialistic or hindering. So rapidly in fact i'm hard pressed to remember what rest in it's most effective sense is supposed to feel like. It's almost maddening lying down to sleep at night, rolling the dice of hope in search of just 8 hours of unconscious refreshment. Even more maddening is my drive to continue. Despite all my own efforts in spoiling the acceptance of this love it continues to pierce my core and ask questions of my very existence at the most inconvienient times. Neither sleep nor work or even broken relationships keep this love from entering my core at an incalculable rate. "Hello" it says. "Do you trust me?"it presses. And yet for some reason, beyond all of my fleshly desire to settle, drive it out and search for something easier, I respond "i understand" and most commonly and what I think to be inconceivably inadaquate an answer for such a movement "yes". I feel like such a fool. What did I think this was going to be like? I'm the one that asked for this after all. It wasn't pushed upon me. I've tried to identify my unease as something like a bitterness or resentment out of being so familiar with such things but everytime I come to the point of actually applying these broken responses I relize how broken they really are. I'm actually enjoying this. At the very center of my thought I know that what i'm going through is nescessary. An absolutely nescessary chaos. Insane words like hope and faith which by all accounts are unworthy of a world like this fill my head. I'm happy to call there definitons home.


So this is love.

This radical transformation that is both breaking and saving my heart simultaniously is the reality of God in my life. In one picture I see the broken state of the world and the perfected beauty that died to save it. What's even more inconcievable? Where this image appears is not on a wall or screen. Not in a guarded museum or heavily excavated tomb. The only canvas it's fit for is the one I myself bear. The image He gave so that I may identify with His desire for my relationship and my requited love. If there is one thing I have learned about eternity thus far, it's that only can unending time will allow my small and mysteriously wanted heart the explaination for this lavish romance. What else is worthy of such a broken surrender?

Friday, June 20, 2008

A different sky.

The sun is hot and high in the sky. The clouds are nowhere to be seen. For most things there is no protection from the oppression nature has to offer. Clear and destructive the sky haunts a heart ready to be cleansed by rain that seems to be such a foreign and absurd thought.The overexposure a perfect reminder of all that needs to be washed away. How long will it last O Lord, how long will our hearts swelter before your rain is brought to quench and heal? Again are we not so different from your sky?

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Stars and Grass.

So, I looked up a quote that caught my attention earlier this week, mainly because of it's wording. Turns out it's actually a piece of writing taken out of an essay by a man named Thomas Carlyle. The essay focuses on what he calls "hero worship." The quote itself is extending the idea that for centuries man has wondered on the earth constantly looking for something to worship and look up to as a guide, even at some point looking to the stars themselves for validation. It's interesting because what he says next (being the said quote) "To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes" is beautiful though Christian eyes but absolutely tragic through his own. He fell away from his Calvinistic beliefs at a very young age due to legalism, and spent the rest of his life trying to logically explain away his faith and gift of vision for God's Holy things.

I feel as though there's an incredible weight and realization through his words about how thorough God is in His revelation to mankind. However, all Thomas ever saw was how it proved his own philosophical views about human nature, disproving as far as His mind saw, I'm sure, that there was ever a need for God in the first place. Through the eyes and light of Christ man's words are thankfully not his own, for through his own eternity is an impossibility. Very interesting.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Why should the fire die?

I've asked myself this question ever since we were listening to a song last summer in Colorado by the same title.It's been working on my head ever since then, but only now do I feel like it makes enough sense to share.

Everyone has those mountaintop experiences. However, I feel like that term slightly belittles what actually occurrs. Mountain tops are great. After a long journey pushing though the rugged terrain of everyday life and battling its ups and downs, you feel beaten and sore and tired. But once you reach that top where everything makes sense and all that hard work is in it's rightful place you gain a different perspective.

So we build a fire. Right on top of that mountain we build a fire. It burns in recognition of everything we hope to be because of what we've already been through. It symbolizes how we can work harder, and think deeper, and live better. It's almost a resentment. We're tired of living off our own strength and playing by everyone else's rules. We desire something more familiar. For a while in fact this kind of fire succeeds in what it's built for.To burn off and get rid of everything we dislike about ourselves so that something better can take the place of those unpleasant things. But where does all that fuel come from? Eventually all those resolutions and promises lose their ability to burn, and sometimes in hindsight they seem like fruitless ideas to begin with.

So what if our fire wasn't resolutions, but instead sacrifices? What if instead of building a flame out of all the things we've accumulated and worry about, and try to control, or cover up, we threw everything down as kindling, and started over. And then what if we continued to fuel it with not our own selfish ambition, pride or knowledge, but with the surpassing greatness of Christ? The power of His resurrection, knowledge that goes beyond understanding, the treasure of His inheritance? The light we cast and the heat we would radiate would do no more than glorify God: which is everything we're created to do.

That fire wouldn't die. In fact that fire has been around since the beginning of time. It's been calling us to hand over our kindling ever since we saw the first glint of life from our eyes and drew our first breath. On the mountaintop we're all reaching for lies a Cross for everyone to find.

What we feel after being spiritually renewed isn't meant to be short lived. It's meant to grow in our hearts as an ongoing flame constantly fueled by the elimination of sin fueled by the Strength and Grace of Jesus.

Indeed my friends, why should the fire die?

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

"Where O Death is your victory, Where O Death is your sting?"

Fear is a complex power. It takes people ransom with its ability to hush and disguise the enemy. It guilts the soul into denying it's salvation and rips the blessing of fellowship into unrecognizable threads. It works it's subjects into a trance of conviction. It's so obviously devious and yet it sneaks into our hearts causing symptoms like doubt and anger to arise without explanation, and at it's very worst completely steals it's victims identity. Ultimately, if given into long enough, fear is death.

However.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." Romans 8:15

The inheritance of power and love we recieve through our Holy Father grants us a new and everlasting identity. One free of all that is evil and consuming. No longer must we hide or seek shameful ways of covering that from which all suffer. For
^"10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."John 10:10 There is no death for those in Christ Jesus. Only the promise of a burning more fulfilling and passionate life of surrender and joy.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

The Divine Chase.

I want to be chased. I want to be fought for. I want to be seen for what God sees. Loved for what God made. I want to be rescued and swept. I want to be told I'm enough.

I want to discover the Lord. Travel the pathways of his heart. I want to invite risk and bask in joy through redemption. I want eternity to be a learning experience instead of an instant answer. I want to be pursued by God and return the gesture. I want every single diverse piece of my heart to reflect my savior. I want to love deeply, and strengthen those around me. I want to be a fountain of light so that the world may see Him.

"Oh empty my heart, I've got to make room for this feeling
so much bigger than me."
-Imogen Heap

Missy.
O LORD, you have searched her and you know her. You know when she sits and when she rises; you perceive her thoughts from afar. You discern her going out and her lying down; you are familiar with all her ways. Before a word is on her tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem her in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon her. Psalm 139:1-5

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