John the Baptist, Messenger of Grace

Tonight, John 1:6 jumped out at me.  “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.”  I’ve always overlooked that verse, thinking it simply transitioned the story and introduced a new character.  However, the more I though about it, the more depth I found in that simple verse.

Gary Wiens, from Kansas City, was speaking here this weekend.  He taught on God’s commitment to manifest His name on the earth through humans.  I loved an illustration that he used.  He said that for hundreds of years before time, the Father was gazing at one aspect of Jesus’ nature.  He was going, “Oh how I love this about My Son!  It is perfect!”  Then He took that one little facet of Jesus, and He created a human life around it.  He created me!  Each person was created to manifest a different facet of God’s character.  That is why He places so much value on each human life, it is precious to Him.

Some random thoughts for you

Summer does interesting things to my mind.  There are thousands of things scattering around in circles in my mind, here are a few:

• Why do I write?  When I write on paper it just collects in notebooks, the notebooks collect on book shelves.  When I write on computer, it just collects in the archives.  Either way, my thoughts seem to get lost, and there’s never enough time to read old writings.  The answer: I know God wants to use my writing, so I write for practice.  Besides that, there is no other way my brain can sort things out!
• Life is short.  Time goes really fast.  This past year has speed by.  I can hardly believe it’s gone already, and yet I never imagined one year could change me so much.  I seem to say that every year.  I can not dream where I will be in a year.  But I imagine I will be right here, sorting through the past year and preparing to move from Tennessee.  But who am I to guess?  There’s no telling what God might change in the next 365 days.  But life goes fast, and eternity is quickly approaching.

Father’s Day

This morning our pastor preached a wonderful message on Father God.  He showed God’s heart that pursues each human heart.  When we see that God pursues us even in our sin, we can be confident and secure in that love.  He pointed out the importance of a Father’s loving influence.  Human Fathers mirror God’s loving acceptance, and it’s important for Fathers to be the ones teaching God’s love to their children by example.

I have had a hard year with my dad.  A lot of pressure is on our relationship as I am changing and growing up.  His plans for my life and my plans have collided this year as we come closer to my graduation.  Through in a lot of extra pressure in each of our personal lives this year, and it has not been the best for our relationship.  But as I listened to our preacher close up the sermon with a prayer for us to know the Father’s love, I could not help crying and thinking about my dad.

Healing Dreams

I am fascinated by dreams.  I love it when God speaks through them!  Earlier in the week, I had two dreams in one night.  I hardly remember the first one, but I know that I was laughing hysterically and completely full of joy.  The second one was about a very serious issue happening with one of my family’s close friends.  I was crying and felt the deepest grief over this issue.  It was grief like I’ve rarely experienced.  My dad came over and held me, and I felt completely comforted.  When I woke up, the emotions were completely gone.

I wonder if the Lord uses the hours we sleep to heal us inside.  It was like He was healing me in the second dream.  I completely mourned, and then I was comforted.  There are issues deep in my heart that I’m not aware of, and I have been praying that He will uncover them and heal me where I’m wounded.  I love it when He uses my sleep to do that!

“I Care”

The Lord is so faithful just when I need Him!  Earlier today, I felt really rejected by both of my parents, like they didn’t care about me.  I went outside like I always do when I’m upset.  But instead of crying or getting angry or upset, I began to sing to Jesus.  I came in my bedroom and selected Julie Meyer’s cd that I haven’t heard in awhile.  There was a small hope inside that the music would minister to me, because I was still crushed.  I had forgotten how the cd starts, but immediately I heard her singing, “God, I hear You say to me… Come and sit with Me awhile, come and sit with Me.  Just to be with Me awhile, come and sit and be, and be with Me.”  I could feel Jesus saying, “You may feel like no one cares about you, but I want to be with you, I want to spend time with You.  I’m interested in what you’re interested in.  Will you just be with Me?”

An argument followed a little later with my parents, but I could still feel Jesus love comforting me.  That argument would usually ruin my day and possibly my week.  Instead here I am, moments later, happy and rejoicing in God’s faithfulness.  Once again He is faithful to be there right when I need Him most.  Oh, how I love Him!

Silence

I enjoy listening to silence, or rater, I do it a lot.  Something about silence is intriguing to me, and I often sit for ten to twenty minutes just listening some nights when my parents are asleep.  It’s not that I love silence, just I get stuck in it and don’t move until I hear something above the buzz of silence (because quite is not quite in America) or until I can no longer keep my eyes open.  I usually feel a little sad in the silence, but with no reason at all.  Tonight as I was listening, I remembered briefly a blog I read where the writer was talking about a book on solitude.  I didn’t remember much, even where I read it, but that she talked about silence before God, without music.  So I grabbed a journal and flipped it open.  This is what came out. 

Staying Awake…

My thoughts tonight are about how we should live in this time in history.  I just read that Dave Sliker is writing his second book, so I finally opened up his first book and it really made me think.  Somehow, I had forgotten one of the things most ingrained in me.  Unlike most people, I have been taught from my earliest memories that I will most likely see the return of Jesus in my lifetime.  I had read revelation twice before my 12th birthday.  Over the past two years, I have rearranged my priorities in a way to consider the soon return of Jesus and eternity.  But as I read End-Times Simplified, I realized how far I have gotten from this reality.  I used to pray with tears so often for Jesus to return to earth and establish justice.  But I can’t even remember the last time my heart has been moved like that.

Busyness

It’s so easy to lose sight of who I am before God.  I have been very busy the past few days and unable to spend focused time with Jesus.  I always wrestle through this.  The way my schedule is set up, I have several days of free time then several days with no extra time at all.  My heart is so weak that during the busy times I get distracted and forget about God.  I revert back to the patterns I used to follow before I fell in love with Jesus.  Then I have spare time, but my heart is burdened with the things of the world and I have so much trouble turning my attention to heaven.  I know I should, but my desire is gone.

How do I forget so easily that my life has a purpose?  My actions are not meaningless, it all counts towards loving God in a deeper way.  God, give me grace to remember Your love even when I’m busy and to not be caught up in the spirit of this world.  Keep my eyes focused on You, Jesus.