Journaling

Musings: January

Christian lifestyle, prayer, Worship

At the end of last year, I was struggling a lot. I feared the path in which I was on would no longer be sustainable. The way I was living was not one that seemed connected to this abundant source of life God claimed to be.

I needed something new. And I needed it soon. For all that I knew was running dry and falling short of being enough. The perspective I had was losing root. I become unbearably drained.

As the weeks went on, the war in my mind between what struggle was worth my efforts got more intense. Living life with God is hard. But so is existing without Him.

So I decided to beg.

Slightly embarrassed, I made the decision that the 8 hour car ride alone to this conference I had to go to would be dedicated to pressing God for a word. Not a specific answer to all my problems. Not a vision. Not a miracle. Just a word. One that would help me understand why the Holy Spirit continued to fight my spirit of doubt in my heart.

After 8 long hours, I felt nothing. I had no revelation. And in all honesty, I was disappointed. If that extensive dedication was not enough, what would ever be?

The first night of that conference ended and I went to bed with little hope for the coming day.

I fought worship the next day to be honest. In a room full of 55,000 young people passionately praising God, you would think I was insane to not feel the heat. Yet, I didn’t.

But for some reason, I was compelled to force my body to physically do what my heart refused. I lifted my hands with palms down in surrender and then palms up for reception. This was hard. But then I heard it…

From death to life.

That was it. No further explanation. (Perhaps I should’ve asked God for at least a full sentence). But nonetheless, I knew it was not from me, because simply “life” was the last thing I would’ve told myself was enough to satisfy my desire for a new thing.

It was as if the speakers heard that same phrase, because nearly every message after that had a point or two about that perspective.

From death to life, I repeated.

So short, yet so profound. I spent months trying to figure out what I was feeling and I dodged all descriptions that sounded too far from the bounds of God’s grace. Because, though I struggle to understand His uniquely intentional love for us, I knew if I admitted I felt unredeemable, what then would have the power to pull me back into this “hope” we are called to live in?

Then someone read 1 Corinthians 5: 17-21 to me.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

There is a LOT we could pull from this, but track with me for just a moment.

Sin is in fact what God cannot be in the presence of. For it is all He goes against and the opposite of who He is. The price for it is death. Death is the absence of life. As God is life, that means for one to be dead, they are not connected with God. (Speaking in a spiritual sense here).

This, my friend, is why I fought so hard to identify with anything but dead. For it is the place outside His presence.

I was living with a perspective slowly withering away from God’s truth and instead, making root in the enemy’s territory. I believed the true severity of sin, so I caved when I heard the lies that God would not reach as far as I felt.

But praise God for His written Word.

What we see here in 1 Corinthians, is the beauty of His boundless love. A love so passionate that the grave was not too scary to face nor too powerful to keep Him chained.

Jesus endured death to life, testifying no other force could overcome and no place was too far, even that which was supposed to remain apart from Him.

He did it for me and He did it for you.

My dear friend, there is no place more distant than death, and even still, God extends His hand. He meets us where we are. And He calls us to respond through living. To give up all the life-stripping habits we know and to take on what He offers as we are covered in the grace of Jesus’ sacrifice.

From death to life.

This world is hard to endure, but when it seems as though “life” has run its worth, we have only just discovered the true meaning and value behind that four letter word.

Heavenly Father, teach our weary souls to take on the new, true, perspective of life as we let go of everything else that goes against. Let all we are and do become whole-hearted worship for You, oh Lord.

Living From the Vine

Christian lifestyle

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” – John 15:1-9

As this year comes to a close, I feel as though many of us can agree that it FLEW by. Honestly, when I began reflecting on what I had hoped to accomplish over the last 12 months versus what I actually managed to get done, I grew more disappointed in myself and less hopeful about the year to come.

Perhaps, I thought, I could see the bright side of the unexpected doors I had to walk through, but even that seems impossible. Now more than ever, I feel lost and as though my discernment may be far less trustworthy as I thought.

Though last week, as I was told of this passage above, I realized how much of a blessing the unexpected could be.

When Jesus came to this world, died, and resurrected, He provided a path to salvation, indeed. But He also forged a way for the presence of the Holy Spirit to be available to us on this crazy journey called life. Salvation was not the end, but just the start of the beautiful connection God intended us to have with Him since the dawn of creation.

When we surrender to Jesus as our Savior from sin, we join a family that has a new name and purpose. No longer are we labeled by the shame of our shortcomings, and no longer must we live to redeem ourselves. For by the blood of Christ, we are chosen, beloved, and given a sense of true, unshakeable belonging.

We, as believers, now stand with the Father who is for us, Jesus who was with us, and the Holy Spirit who is in us. The desire for a genuine relationship could not be more evident through God’s love. He longs for a connection that is rooted deep within our hearts. Scripture says that as we abide in Him, He too will abide in us.

What is beautiful about this passage is that the only requirement for His presence is our availability and commitment. He does not claim we must reach a specific educational benchmark, memorize a certain percentage of the Bible, nor make it across a “successful” point in our lives. No. My dear friend, all He asks for is you.

As we reset our focus, priorities, desires, and perspective, Jesus claims that He will be more than enough as our new source.

From death to life, we can be renewed and given a purpose that is not affected in the slightest by our circumstances. For whether we are failing or excelling in the eyes of the world, our calling will remain the same.

This year may have gone by exactly how you had hoped or the exact opposite of what you envisioned. Either way, as we make our home in the heart of God and open ourselves up to let Him do the same in us, in every scenario, we are simply responsible to point all we do and all we are, back to Him. As a cup overflows, we ought to make ourselves available to all He is for the sake of pouring the same into others. For above all else, we must love the Lord and His people.

When you recognize your purpose, value, and place in this world has already been established by our loving God, it does not matter if your plans went south. More than you seek to be successful, you must seek to be obedient.

I struggle still to understand the way the ending will be beautiful in my life. But this sense of pride, thinking we deserve to know it all, is exactly what will keep us in the pit of despair and disappointment.

So perhaps as this year comes to an end and a new one begins, we can establish “new year perspectives” rather than just resolutions. Maybe, as we root ourselves in Christ and allow Him to take root in us, what blocks our vision from His glory will be pruned and removed. Then, we can begin flourishing from a source that will never waiver.

My dear friend, we were not meant to write our own story nor establish our own steps. Outside the presence and involvement of God is the absence of all good, love, hope, and peace. Let your heart rest and a new bud rise as we take on this new year living from the everlasting Vine.

Safety In His Shadow

bible, Christian lifestyle, prayer, Worship

“Every child of God looks towards the inner sanctuary and mercy-seat, yet all do not dwell in the most holy place; they run to it at times, and enjoy occasional approaches, but they do not habitually reside in the mysterious presence.” – Spurgeon

I recently heard someone describe the transformation in their life after going from the mentality of “knowing of God” to “knowing God”. The pivot point from one lifestyle to the other was the decision to abide.

As I heard their story and did some further research on the practice of abiding, I realized how difficult that actually is. To choose Jesus as our savior from the bondage of sin is one thing, but to choose, consistently, God as our refuge is all the more challenging.

There is the tendency to let feelings dictate quite a lot in our lives. It determines our decisions, the way we treat others, how much time we give to God, and most of all, what is considered our “safe place”. The intensity of our commitment to God rises and falls by what, deep down, we truly place our trust in.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
 I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.’”

Psalm 91:1-2

[ Now please understand that I too come from a place desperately trying to learn how to still abide. My heart longs for you to join this journey, not to feel shame if the place that you are at is not where you had hoped. ]

I would like for you to take another moment and re-read that verse above, giving yourself a few seconds after each line.

Consider the way the verse is worded. It’s primary focus is to highlight the reliant heart on God. On who and how He is.

If I am being honest, for the past few weeks, I found myself praying with my hope set on the goodness of God’s plans, the promise of His purpose for me, and the so called “calling” He instilled in me. Then it hit me…

I pray this was more obvious to you than it was to me; but perhaps our focus should be more on trusting God Himself and His committed presence with us before trying to persuade ourselves of His good plans for us.

“You will not fear the terror of the night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
    nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.”

Psalm 91:5-6

The Lord’s plans surely are good and beautiful. But I think in the attempt to override our anxious thoughts and control-hungry minds, we feed those desires and priorities with the assurance of God’s perfect and unlimited capabilities rather than restructuring our hearts to long for what it ought to…and honestly, what it was made for…a deep, authentic, relationship with God as our Lord. And perhaps then, as we live intentionally intimate with God, pursuing Him over His ability to satisfy our control issues, the rest will come with peace. Peace that remains in the “terror of the night”, amidst “the arrow that flies by day”, against “the pestilence that stalks in darkness”, and during the “destruction that wastes at noonday.”

As we strive to abide in God first, learning His character and investing in the type of relationship He desires and encourages throughout Scripture, then we too, like the one I described in the beginning, can be transformed from knowing of God to truly knowing Him. For He does not just do good, true, and beautiful things…my dear friend, that is who He is. And as you draw near to Him, choosing to let your heart dwell in His presence, all that He is will be what we trust, as we learn to peacefully rest under His shadow.

We must not feed into the belief that God’s power alone can persuade our trust in Him. For if our hearts are rooted in this conditional perspective, the moment we cannot understand His “big plan” or see the goodness in our circumstance, then our vision of a future, purpose, and refuge are put in great danger of crumbling. As much as we want to force our trust in God during desperate times, unless a sheep truly knows it’s Shepherd’s voice, it cannot confidently follow when the path becomes foggy.

Simply Yours, Oh Lord

Christian lifestyle, encouragement, prayer

“My hard heart breaks to confess, that even while you hold me as I cry on the floor, I still don’t know how to be yours…” – Chris Renzema

At one point in my stumble towards Christ, I came to a place where I could not bear to pray. The thought of God not only listening, but deeply caring about my life seemed too good to be true after how bad my doubts began to get. So, I ignored Him.

More than I wanted to be healed, I was afraid of being disappointed. The fear of reality being true to what my worrisome mindset envisioned, made me turn anywhere besides the direction of the One who had a justified reason to give up on me.

The other day I had to honor of attending a concert by Chris Renzema. I heard the song quoted above a million times before. Many times, these words actually filled the silence in my prayers when I could not bring myself to say what I wanted.

Or perhaps that was what I wanted to say all along.

About a year and a half ago, I came across the definition of lamenting. A practice done by many in Old Testament times. As someone who thought God would be upset the more I let myself sit in my feelings, this was transformative to hear.

Lamenting, in the words of Bethany H. Hoang and Kristen Deede Johnson, is prayer “that honors the honesty of pain and anger while also honoring the truth that God is the one who reigns and whose hesed love never fails.”

“Come As You Are” – For the Non & Life-Long Believers
“Come As You Are” goes deeper into the practice of lamenting and touches on Psalm 88.

It wasn’t until I was standing in that massive room with hundreds of people singing the words quoted by Chris Renzema that it hit me…

So many people don’t know how to accept the love God so freely offers. They, or we, don’t know how to be His.

It broke my heart to think about the pain behind each person’s voice singing those lyrics, but then Chris Renzema did something I failed to do every time I heard this song before.

He honored the truth of God and His unconditional love. With songs of praise, words of truth, and the turning of his feelings towards God, I found the missing piece. The flaw in my sulking. The crack in the grip depression held over me…

Addison Bevere once said, “Merely running in the opposite direction of a lie does not necessary lead us to the Father’s house of Truth.”

When we feel the weight of an anxious mind telling us lies about God, we ought not run from feelings as a whole. For we will only ever become a numb being. No, we must instead run, stumble, crawl, whatever it takes, towards God. By the blood of Christ, our identity, purpose, and freedom overcame death and all the lies that once lead you to be nothing more than a dead man walking.

My dear friend, you may not know how to be His. Even I still struggle as I retreat to the heart-style of an orphan. But at some point, we must recognize the life of a child of God calls for the renewing of our mind, body, and soul.

How much longer must we allow our hopelessness to be louder than our God? Our insecurity greater than the blood Jesus spilled? Or our fear stronger than the One who left the empty grave and broken chains?

Prayer, when you feel like a disappointment, is hard. Reading the Bible when you feel unworthy is gut-wrenching. And walking in faith when you have twice as much doubt is dreadful. But all of these turn our feelings, that were designed by God, towards Him so that they may honor Him and He may work His goodness through them.

For when we don’t know how to be…He who is, is faithful indeed.

Daily Death For Eternal Life

bible, Christian lifestyle, encouragement

“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.” – C. S. Lewis

I think the mind can often draw us towards two extreme ways of thinking. Either we fall into a place where we see ourselves as god, or we see the things, people, and opinions around us as god. Both, despite sounding like polar opposites, are ultimately places of pride.

Whether we feel inferior or superior in the world we live in, we are constantly being pulled away from the one place we belong, and in turn, tempted to rely on anything BUT God.

I think what makes the idea of living in humble confidence under God so difficult to wrap our minds around completely is because we are called to be surrendered, and in result, raised up and set apart.

When I stumbled across this quote by C.S Lewis, I was honestly not sure how to approach it.

Not having the original context, I struggled to understand if it we ought to take this as a freedom call, from the shame and bondage of sin from our past that we are attacked by, or perhaps, it is meant to be a daily call of repentance from the pride we are tempted to lean into as we long for ultimate control of our lives.

Though I feel both could be broken down, I am going to run with the latter interpretation.

I have heard the saying “rejoice, mercies are new every morning!” as Lamentations 3:22-23 suggest. But lately I have been wondering why we ought to rest in that so much.

Honestly, I have come to notice that I am quite the cautious believer. I don’t take pride in the lack of child-like faith I have, but it is the way my mind works. So, I rather challenge the lies in my head and be sure of truth than try to manipulate myself when I know my brain requires a little more time to catch up to my heart.

So as this verse had been running through my head over the last few weeks, I realized it wasn’t because I felt inspired in my faith by it…no, unfortunately, I actually felt aggravated.

Mercy from God? Okay, I saw that displayed on the cross. Understandable. But NEW mercies. Every. Single. Day? Trying to believe that stirred nothing but guilt. I began feeling the weight of inadequacy, and because of that, a lack of faith that the verse actually included me among those who God desired to forgive.

But then I saw this quote from C.S Lewis that rocked everything.

“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.”

God provides new mercies every morning because He knew we would need it.

Track with me here…

Our heart longs for what only God provides. But because of our sin-nature of pride and hunger for immediate satisfaction, we sacrifice God’s plans for our own. We may not notice at first, but that decision means that we sacrifice life for death.

Death is existence apart from God. In a just court, we would be ruled guilty of rejecting Him and in turn, rightfully condemned.

Oh but what a loving God we serve…

Paving a way to be free from the ruling of death, by the sacrifice of Jesus, God revealed His grace on the cross.

But He knew that wouldn’t mean perfection for our future, nor did He expect it to on this side of Heaven.

He knew, that because of our brokenness, there would be times where we would still choose ourselves over Him.

He knew, that even though we love Him, we would cave under the temptation to reject Him.

And He knew, that no matter how hard we tried, we would never be strong enough to live the life He called us to alone.

So God gives new mercies…every single morning. Why? Because He knew we would experience new temptations…every single morning.

When C.S Lewis calls us to rely on Jesus as if nothing had yet been done, I realize it is a call to open our eyes to the reality of the war going on every single day.

Every day we are given the choice of life or death. Truth or lies. Forgiveness or bitterness. Love or shame. Trust or control.

Spiritual warfare is not just in big trials. It is unfortunately the ground our hearts reside in until we see Heaven.

My dear friend, you have your choice in battle. You have a loving God who wants to protect, nourish, and redeem you in this war, for He has already claimed victory.

But the choice is yours. Every. Single. Day.

May we never get complacent in our relationship with Jesus. May we strive, for nothing else, but to be closer to Him day by day. And with all my heart, I pray that we may rejoice in His mercies being new every morning…for if He held back for even just one day, we would never see the glory of true life.

So, will you make relying on God a daily act of surrender?