Withdraw and Pray

"But when even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities.  But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray."  

Luke 5:15-16

For a while I had been going and going and going in life on turbo drive.  I have been constantly thinking and working and pushing my tired body around to get the next thing done or serve this person or catch up in my own personal needs.  I would go to bed exhausted and sleep hard all night just to get up and do it again the next day.  This is my natural, my automatic mode I fall into if I am not careful.

After a while, I felt my heart struggling more.  More things irritated me, and especially during my special time of the month, I would see just the kind of person I tried not to be.  Words from friends and sermons stuck with me, but one was given by a dear friend that really solidified everything:

"Sometimes I am spiritually dehydrated and find no time to drink the living water God so freely gives.  Hydrate or die."  

Jesus would retreat to his Heavenly Father to recharge because he delighted and sought that personal time with God the Father. 

In Heaven, they were one.  Then Jesus and the Father "split" when Jesus came to earth.  He craved that unity.  He ministered to the people here as was his purpose, but his real delight was in God the Father and that one-on-one time. 

He did this to set an example for us as his followers in order to stay strong in the face of sin
and to remember the command, victory, and the course he was instructed to follow. 

The above verses in Luke remind me that it is crucial for me to find some place that I can be alone and pray...read...meditate...spend personal time with my heavenly Daddy.  

Our spirits crave this and need this.  We need the recharge, and Jesus gives us an excellent example to follow.  We need to find places away from people to recharge in Him.  Our quiet times should be uninterrupted just like if we were going on a date or out with a very close friend.  It is rude to pull out our cell phones and text while our attention should be on the person we are spending time with.  Why should this be any different with our Heavenly Father?   Turn the phone off, lock the door, do something that will keep your focus fully on your Father in Heaven.

If this is your desire, please pray with me and be prepared to fight for what you know you need to do to survive:

Dear Father, I want to crave that personal time with you.  I want to desire that unity with you.  Help me make the time to go out to a desolate place and spend sweet time with you in your Word and be hydrated in your Spirit.  Lord God it is only by your power that I can be the person I want to be, the person you call me to be.  Only by your power can I be like your Son.  Please help me Daddy.  I want to be with you. 

I love you all. 

Message in Our Marriage

As I am making the plans for our big day, I have found myself hitting several brick walls. 

When Harold and I started courting, we would go out once a week and have date nights.  Many times he would ask me "What do you want to do?" 

I couldn't give him many answers, because I didn't always know what I wanted to do.  I asked "Whatever you want to do, I'll join you." 

When planning life after college, I never really settled on what I wanted to do.  Not to brag on being selfless, but I didn't give much thought into what I wanted to do with my life.  I didn't have a Peace with anything. 

I came to a point in life where my response was "Whatever God called me to do."  I lived day to day, working where I was at, waiting for God to reveal the next area of life. 

Now that I am preparing for marriage with a wonderful, God-fearing man, I am finding this extremely difficult. 

What do I want? 

I have narrowed down a few big things already...you know...like colors, venues, location of wedding, stuff like that.  But in the details, things that don't always matter to me, I am finding it real hard to make a choice. 

Deep down, what Harold and I really want, is for the message of our marriage to be clear.  It isn't about us being served and honored in this time.  It's about how we are committing to serving God.  It's about our proclamation to everyone that our big day is God's day for us.  Our lives after the ceremony shouldn't be were we start to honor God in our marriage, but our preparation and the day itself should be a proclamation of how great our God is.  Our friendship, courting, and engagement should show it. 

That is what I really want.  I want God to be glorified.  I want the details to be given to Him and let God make our day special.  He has provided already with the abundance of support and help we both have received thus far.  In the planning, Harold and I have found many blessings.  I have no reason to complain or be upset with all that God has provided. 

Our big day is God's big day for us, and reflecting on how Harold and I have been called and drawn to each other is nothing but an act of God.  We are being joined to serve Him together.  Our day should honor that above all. 

Above what I want is what God wants.  He will reveal my heart to me in its time.  He already has, and I know He will be faithful to continue to do so.   

We Don't Deserve Him

 Ever ask the question, why me?

You find yourself in a great job, and you can many times find reasons why you belong in that job.

You see yourself in different hobbies, and you can find reasons why you are good at those hobbies.

What blows our mind is when we come across a good thing, and can't figure out why we got it.

Jesus is that good thing.

We don't deserve Jesus.

Yet Jesus died for us.

Not because of anything we've done.

But only because he loved us.

Why does he love us?

What have I done?

Nothing.

And there is nothing I will ever do to earn that love.

But guess what?  I already have it...

And so can you. 

He is so willing to give.

And you don't have to do a thing.

Blows your mind doesn't it?  It blows mine.

I offer so much of my junk before Jesus,

And he takes it willingly.

He nails it to the cross with Himself.

So I can be pure and blameless in his Father's sight.

All because he loved us.

That's it.

Feel like you can measure up?

You won't.

So save yourself the hardship.

And accept the freedom of knowing...

We don't deserve him. 

You Thrill Me, Lord

"You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done."

 Psalm 92:4 

It is easy to praise God when things are going well for you.  It is VERY easy when God answers a prayer that has been piercing and poking at your heart for years and years.  We are quick to offer praise to God in the good times...and on the other extreme, it is easy to run to God for help in the hard times.

However, we don't naturally think to praise God during those hard times.  We have a hard time finding the rich blessings in life when things aren't always going the way we would want them to.  The last thing I want to say is "You thrill me, Lord" when a parent has passed away, or when I lose my job.

Nothing that extreme even has to happen...I find it hard to say that phrase even after a long day and I am exhausted!  I forget so easily the rich blessings in my life because I will draw toward the discouragement that pulls me from the joy I could have with God.  My vision will gaze onto the waves of life rather than the one who controls the waves.

My request is this...even though my joy right now is great, I know there will be hardships.  I know my heart will not always want to say "You thrill me, Lord."  But, I know that no matter what, the Rock has not moved from my grasp.  The Author of my life has not stopped writing exciting sequences in the plot. 

I pray that the Lord thrills your souls today! 

"I Catch All Your Tears"

"You keep track of all my sorrows.  You have collected all my tears in your bottle.  You have recorded each one in your book."  

~Psalm 56:8~

Our God is gentle and compassionate to us as His children.  Can you imagine the Creator of the universe, who watches everyone and everything at the SAME time catching YOUR tears when you cry them?  Even Him being aware of our sorrows blows my mind.  He is not just aware of them, but He cares enough to catch each one and save them.  He knows why we cry, and He holds us through all our sorrows. 

He knows it is tough, whatever you are going through:

Whether it be a loss, a growing pain, a hard lesson learned, a broken spirit...whatever the source of your hurt...you can trust that God is there through it all with you, paying close attention to every detail of your life. 

What a God we serve...Thank God for not just being present in the hard times, but being right there with you with His full attention on you. 

How Bad Do You Want It?

Almost a whole month without blogging...

When I realized this I was disappointed.  There is so much I would have wanted to say!  So much I wanted to share with you all, and in a month's time I can't even begin to share the lessons God reveals to me.

This blog is a public journal to me.  I want to share with you all how my God has led me through my days to find a deeper love and understanding of Him.

Colossians 1:10 says
"...so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God..."

My God is so good, and I have seen so many good fruits produced...so many humbling instances...so many moments of discipline to create in me a pure heart.  My God is so good in the bad times, and GREAT in the good!  

So, instead of trying to wrap up my whole month's lessons in one, I want to challenge you all...which is what I will challenge myself as well:  

What will you give up to have Jesus?  

Hebrews 12: 1 says 
"However, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares..."  

Throw off everything...not just sin...throw off your friendship, your relationships, your marriage, your children, your parents, your job, your finances, your blessings!  EVERYTHING that can keep us from running toward the founder and perfecter of our faith!  

Now...as drastic as that sounds....I am not saying to put yourself on an island alone and worship God alone.  What I am saying is if we are truly willing to call everything around us rubbish in comparison to Christ....I know I don't always...but I desire to.  I desire the desire to.  

How important is it for me to have my quiet time, and what good things are keeping me from doing so?  What is keeping me from sharing my experiences with Christ?  What is keeping me from even thinking about Christ in all I do?  
  
How bad do we want it?   Do I count everything loss?  Not nearly...

So I am challenged.  I want to grow deeper in the knowledge of God.  In order for me to do this, I must count everything as a loss, cutting loose every weight and sin that would slow me down.  

Join me friends.  And as always...I love you all. 

Perfect Gifts from Above

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights with whom ther is no variation or shadow due to change." 

James 1:17

What an awesome image that we have from our Father in Heaven!  Your Abba Father waits to give you good and perfect gifts directly from Him!  How precious and personal is our God to us!

Sadly, I am guilty of taking these gifts and forgetting their value.  I take advantage of the years of music that has been engraved on my heart.  I take advantage of the friendships around me and forget their worth to me.  I even take certain gifts and expect God to make more out of them than what they really were intended to be.  It's like God giving me a pocket knife and I try to cut down a tree with it.  I expect the gift to do more than it was intended to.

How many times do we do this?  Say my passion for music...God gave me songs to sing, but I expected my songs to reach the world far and wide and become famous!  Maybe the purpose of his songs through me was to reach one person on Bash on the Farm.  That was it...what if?

What if your desire to minister to lost souls gave you a passion to spread overseas....but God kept you in your community and church?  Does this make the gift any less perfect?  Of course not!  God administers each gift to us perfectly.  We don't have to tweek any design.  It was perfect already. 

I don't always believe this in my heart.   I am very quick to want more than what God gives me.  But I ask myself...what kind of daughter comes to her father and says "Dad, your gift isn't doing what I want it to do.  I don't like this." 

What kind of daughter would that make me?  Especially to my Heavenly Father!  If His gifts are perfect, and I'm not happy with them... the problem isn't Him...it's me. 

"For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor.  No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless." 

Psalm 84:11

My prayer Lord, Abba Father, is that you would open the eyes of my heart to see your design for the gifts you have given me.  I pray that my heart would be changed to find contentment in the life that you have given me.  I pray that I would cast aside all worldy desires and find the treasures in heaven to be more desireable and filling to my soul.  I ask, God, that you would grant me a joy in what I have and only what you have. 

"Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways." 

Psalm 119:37

May this be your prayer too.  I love you all.