Jun 21, 2011
God…
My Father…The Lord Jesus…The Holy Spirit…
How much of my life…of your life…should be surrendered to God?
What about your whole life?
Would you think it too far- if your entire person was consumed with a passion for Jesus?
Of course not.
But why is it so often we settle for a, ‘hotter than most’, ‘more passionate than the others’,..’no-one really goes that far’…’you can stop now, you’re a good Christian’– type of attitude?
I wanna burn for YOU LORD! I want to be a ‘burning-one’.
I want to be consumed with the love of Jesus.
I want to burst with the Light of the Gospel.
I want to decrease, I want the Lord to increase.
I had a revelation recently…a shift..
I’ve been trying to gather, collect, and horde the Lord- I want MORE! Give me MORE!…
But I realized that it’s a finite mind trying to capture an eternal God…
I stopped praying, “GIVE ME MORE OF YOU!”…
and started praying, “GIVE YOU MORE OF ME!”
When I honestly considered my heart, of what I wanted…I found that while it was true that I wanted God more than I knew Him–I just wanted what God wanted…and then I realized God just wants me!
Suddenly I realize how much more sense it makes to ask that God would give me to Himself…I am only so small- and He is SO ABLE.
So I want it all…All of me given to All of Him.
*LORD JESUS, come into this Temple and turn the tables over. Every dark place, shine Your Light. Consider me a burnt offering, a drink offering – Poured out and consumed. Give You all of me Lord.*
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Jun 12, 2011
Recently I have been thinking how silly it seems that I trust the Lord with my salvation and eternal life, yet, I feel I don’t always need to trust Him or come before Him with my day-to-day life. It seems silly in light of verses from the Word like that of Colossians 3:4, “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Christ who is my LIFE…I take this to mean not just my eternal life, but also my new earthly life, purchased by His blood. I now cling to this verse. I never want to forget what my life is, or rather, who my life is. I should not live this life for myself, but rather, for the One who made it, gave it, and redeemed it in the first place.
The Lord has been stretching me so much since coming to Gospel For Asia. Every day he teaches me how to trust Him more, how to love Him more. I feel He is really working in my heart to show me the beauty of a life completely and totally abandoned of self and completely and totally surrendered to Him and His will. I am seeing more and more that Christ is enough—more than enough. Christ is my all in all, the desire of my heart, the love of my life. Because of this, my heart now breaks for those I know who are not living in the light of Christ.
Each day I am in the Gospel For Asia office, as I see the pictures and read the stories, especially those of the children in Asia, I feel more and more sorrow that they are living in the darkness of this world. So many people throughout Asia haven’t even heard the name of Christ; I still can’t really grasp this fact. However, the Lord is moving in a mighty way! Every day the workers out on the field are reaching people with the Gospel, and people are hearing the love of Christ.
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May 19, 2011
One of my favorite book series as a child was “The Boxcar Children”. For those of you who haven’t read these great books – Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny are orphans. (They have a grandfather but they don’t think he’d like them.) So they’re out on their own. One night they find a boxcar to shelter them from the rain and then they decide “Let’s live here. It’s a good place.”
I always admired Jessie and Violet. Jessie was so full of life and Violet was so sweet and positive. I wanted to be like them. I realized while reading the books again, that every other sentence Jessie says she “says laughing”. No wonder I thought she was friendly and fun. Do I have that joy? Every sentence Violet says is positive. She never complains. When Henry brings home a tablecloth that needs to be hemmed “Violet pleaded ‘Oh, may I hem the tablecloth?'” Am I there? Definitely not.
While growing up I wanted to be just like the boxcar children. They lived out in the woods, bathing in a creek, finding dishes in the dump, and solving mysteries. “So I’m pretty sure I’d still like to live in a boxcar” I thought the other day. It seems so adventerous to me. Out in the woods living simply and using what I have to survive. Then I was thinking, “Would I really want to live in a boxcar if someone let me right now?” The answer was probably not. I’d end up being pretty miserable wondering why I ever wanted to live without electricity and comfort. I’d end up complaining and be an all around unhappy person.
The boxcar children are so much fun because they have a positive attitude about everything. I realized, your boxcar is what you make it. I put that on an index card at my desk so I can remember that I can be positive or miserable anywhere in life. Maybe someday God will lead me to live in a boxcar – but I don’t think He will. Right now I’m looking at my desk as my boxcar. It’s right where I’m supposed to be so I’m trying to find ways to love it as much as I can and to look at every day as an adventure.
So… how’s your boxcar today?
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May 7, 2011
The more I’m involved in ministry and other people’s lives, the more I am desperate for time with the Lord. I was told “KISS” is an acronym used in the military: “Keep it simple, stupid.”
When I was younger, I had to live vicariously by playing “pretend” because I wasn’t old enough to do the cool stuff. But now that I’m older I’m not limited to my own backyard. This world is full of new things and the majority of it is marketed at our age group. That isn’t bad on its own, but I’ve found that if I don’t guard my time it’s wasted on something trivial, and I easily become overloaded and unable to function.
I have always been enamored with God’s simple, majestic beauty in nature. It’s one avenue for me to escape the city, pressure, and constancy of the world. I find it refreshing and freeing to re-center on God’s heart and calling on my life.
Clear your schedule. Leave your iPod and cell phone behind. Grab your Bible and a notepad, or just take a walk and talk to God. Let’s blaze a trail into the awesome depths of His love and promise for our lives.
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May 6, 2011
I’ve been learning a lot about God lately. So I’d like to share with you what that happens to be. It is still a forming thought, and emotion, and understanding of God, but that doesn’t mean I can’t share it with you all. If you’ve learned this, or have something to add as well, please comment. 🙂
I have had a lot of messed up ideas and thoughts about what love is, how it applies to me, how it should flow through me to others, and God’s unfailing, unconditional love. God has as He promised used everything for good – Romans 8:28.
There are still scars in my heart that are in the mending process. Therefore, knowing that my view of love was messed up, I decided to go through the Bible from the viewpoint of God’s love and how He expresses it, all the while praying for God’s love to fill me and overflow on others around me.
God has been so faithful! Each time I read His Word, I see time and time again, either His patience with the Israelites (who I tend to replace with myself as I tend to do a lot of the same things they do), or the way Jesus interacted with others through His time here on earth, and also through David’s love of God and vice versa in the Psalms. He’s rebuilding the passion and love and such that I’ve longed for, for Him. And through the love He’s building in me for Him, I am learning how to love others with that same love that dwells inside me. It seems so natural to do!
After I realized that, I started praying for Him to rebuild my view of what a father is like. Because I never had the correct perspective. But God is my Father, and He treats me as such. and so He’s been showing me, through His love, and through filling me with Him, and through blessing me in relating to me on my level (through nature, what I see, observe, and hear, etc.) that I now know what a Father is supposed to look like.
He’s slowly making me more childlike in faith, believing for the impossible, knowing and fully believing that He can do it all. He’s my super hero (cliche, I know, but like a child looks up to their Daddy as being able to do ANYTHING, that’s how I’m seeing God; and unlike an earthly father, God can actually do it!). It’s sooooooo simple, but I made it more complex than it needs to be!
anyway…. still a work in progress but wanted to share it with y’all. Please comment on this! I wanna see how God is working in your lives in this way as well! See what you have discovered about our Daddy, what you’ve learned of His love, and how He flows from you to others around you.
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