The Name

Blessed are You, Lord of Eternity!  God of Mercy and Unknowable Love!  You have reached down and chosen me out of humanity.  Thank You!  I can never thank You enough for Your mercy!  I am unworthy, but You are worthy for me to give my life to forever!  There is no one like You, so I give my all to You.  I am unworthy.  But You, Great God, Omnipotent Trinity, You counted me worthy of Your very life.  Oh!  Such depths of love that I have never known!  If You count me worthy of being purchased into this love, at the cost of Your blood, then let me know who You are.

Love, Truth, Wisdom, I want to know You.  Holy, cleanse my heart and all my ways, set me apart, pure unto You.  Love, let me see through Your eyes and be moved with Your heart to act as You act.  Truth, teach me to love You above all else, above offence, above comfort, above men’s opinions; teach me Your ways that I may walk as You walk.  Wisdom, be my closest friend, advise me in all my ways, and make my heart attentive to Your voice.

Justice, Humility, Power, Righteous, Grace, Mercy, Peace.  Because of the delightful fragrance of Your name, the virgins love You.  Your name is poured forth like a fragrant oil spilling from a bottle.  Nothing hinders the manifestation of who You are.  It is a sweet, intoxicating fragrance.  The pure in heart love You because of Your name.  They see who You are and praise You with uprightness of heart.  Oh how I love Your name!  Blessed is the Lord, God of heaven and earth!  He reveals His heart, and it is good!  He will never change, in Love He comes to the humble!  Holy, holy, holy is He!  There is truly none like Him!  Who can search out all His ways to make them known?  Yet all that He does is good and done in love.  The way He sees me, His faithfulness in times passed, His purpose for my future, all His ways are too great for me to know!  So I love You, it is right to do so.

Ecclesiastes pt. 1- Eternity

God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11).  With strife and anxiety, we try to reckon that place in us with temporal activities.  Eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent (John 17:3).  The ability and desire is set in our hearts to know this Being who is first introduced as Creator and this Man who is the very essence of love.  Rightly may we call Him simply Love.

What does this One create?  All we see, that we know for sure.  But what things that we cannot see?  For a Creator is always at the work of creating.  Always something new, He creates.  His creations are never copies of old things.  To create, He pulls from the bottomless pool of who He is.  He never lacks resources of ideas, therefore creating will never end.  Creation mirrors its Maker, therefore, to know His work is to know Him.  Yet “no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end…  I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever.  Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it.  God does it, that men should fear before Him” (Ecc. 3:11, 14).

Should we tremble, knowing not what He’s about?  Should we bow down in reverence and tremble before Him lest we stir up His anger with our lack of respect?  Should we serve Him with fear and follow His commands lest He should come and destroy us?  Yes!  And our hearts should tremble even more!  Should we come into His presence boldly?  Should we dare to come before Him after stumbling as a child and coming up with our hands muddy with sin?  Yes!  And come with great confidence!  For the eternity in our hearts is not just to know the awesome, unknowable Creator.  We are also made to search for and know Love.  He is One and the Same as our Maker, before whom we tremble.  We can fear before Him, for perfect Love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).

Father, I approach Your throne.  I see Your glorious splendor, the fierceness of lightening and terrifying sounds coming from Your Being.  You are veiled from me by light and color.  I dare to approach You, the Unknowable One, because You have revealed Yourself in the Man Jesus, the Man Love.  You said that You will not remember anger forever.  There will be a day when You forget Your wrath (Psalm 103:9).  But Your mercy endures forever (Psalm 136).  I dare to approach Your fierce glory, because I know behind the veil, Your heart is soft towards me.  So I come before You boldly and confidently gaze upon You with the eyes of my heart.  I stand here weak and having sinned.  We both know I’m weak in my commitment; remember, I’m a work in progress, being conformed into Your faithfulness.  So for now, hold me in Your faithfulness.  Hold me tomorrow and give me grace to do better.  I know tomorrow my heart will be even more moved to devotion towards You, for Your mercy is new every morning.  I love You, Daddy!  I lean into Your love, placing full trust in You.

Pray without ceasing

1 Thessalonians 5:17 gives a command that seems impossible and has troubled many people.  How do we pray without ceasing when many things require our attention through the day?  And how do we pray while we sleep?  This command seems impossible.  This has always troubled me.  The more I tasted the sweetness of God’s presence in worship, the more I hated to go back to life as usual.  I wrote last year about that struggle.  I guess this has been a journey over several years and God was marking me then with the desire to be with Him at all times.  This summer just added one clue as to how that verse is lived out practically.

“The most holy and necessary practice in our spiritual life is the presence of God.  That means finding constant pleasure in His divine company, seeking Him humbly and lovingly with Him in all seasons, at every moment, without limiting the conversation in any way.”

More dreams…

I love dreams, and this is a season that God is giving me lots of them!  They come and go, but for now it’s “come.”  A few weeks ago, I spent a few nights at our family’s cabin.  I dreamed that a group of “water people” came out of the lake and invaded our cabin.  They took me by force into their water kingdom.  I was amazed that I could breath water, and wondered how there was a whole world down there I had never known.  We came to a road lined with villagers.  I gathered from scattered conversations that the King was coming past.  As he approached I, along with the others, was scared of the King.  I was afraid he would notice me and find fault with me.  But when he passed, I followed until the crowd was far behind.  He walked into an arcade, his arcade, and absently wandered from one game to the next.  I realized the King was lonely.  All of his subjects were afraid of him.  Although I had come as a captive into his kingdom, I began to talk to him.  Time moved quickly and we became friends fast.  He desired to be with me. Then my mom came.  She came to bring me back to the world above water, to my family, friends, and the whole life I had left behind.  Instinctively, I followed her.  When I looked back, I saw the King, my friend.  He was alone and sad once again.  I hesitated, not sure who to follow.  With all my heart I wanted to stay with the King, but I was afraid.  Afraid that he would leave me and find a better friend.  Afraid that he would get tired of being with me.

“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.

Quiet Friendship

Today has been the most wonderful start to this fast.  My whole schedule was cleared, there was absolutely nothing I had to do!  It was a rare occasion, so I seized the opportunity to spend the day in my bedroom, armed with Bible, journal, Pursuit of the Holy, the Rewards of Fasting, and Mick Bickle’s teaching on the Song of Solomon.  It’s been wonderful.

Need for Love

So, this is the first time I’ve blogged, so it’s kinda new! Basically I had this dream where I felt like God was telling me to start sharing things about my walk with Him that I would normally keep to myself. I believe that God speaks through dreams just like He did in the Bible. I have this happen some, and when I had this dream, I knew I needed to act on it. The dream was so real that the next morning I thought I had actually had the conversation with my friend, Leah. In my dream, Leah and I were standing on a porch that was right next to a huge beautiful lake. Leah was in tears begging me and crying like it was so very important. She was saying that there needs to be a person who will write down the real life things that God is teaching them. Not just little Bible lessons, but practical things about God and following Him. I usually keep those things to myself, but I think God is wanting me to start sharing these things with you guys. I knew in the dream that I was supposed to write letters to specific people, but probably share it with others also (Little disclaimer before I get started: I don’t claim to know everything and in a year I might look back at things I’ve written and see that I was completely wrong!).

In many ways, I’ve kept parts of my walk with God all to myself. The things I cherish most I have kept hidden away with just me and Him, but I know He wants me to let you all in on my daily, weekly, and monthly life with God. I am so imperfect and always messing up. It seems like every few days I’m asking God all over again “what is my purpose?”, “do You really love me?” So I guess that’s sort of what this letter is about. I’m pulling it straight out of my journal, so it’s my heart revealed as I was crying.

I am desperate to be loved. At times I want to shout at the top of my lungs and beg for someone to love me. I’m looking for love in all the wrong places, and it somehow defeats the purpose if I have to beg. But I think maybe that’s what I’m supposed to be learning. Jesus doesn’t want to beg for my love either. He is just as desperate and starved for love as I am. Sometimes I desperately wish someone would need me, like really need me. I think that is a longing that every human has, the need to be needed.

But you see, I am needed. There is One that I cannot see. One I hardly know. And He needs me more than words can express. He is desperately craving my love. We were made for each other in a way so deep that nothing else can satisfy us. Without Jesus, my life is nothing and I am worthless. What good is a good report card and some fun memories? There has to be more to life! I am constantly looking for more! That “more” can only be satisfied in one Person.

At the same time, only I can satisfy Him. Oh, it sounds like heresy that the God of the universe NEEDS me. But deep inside I have to believe it’s true. I say this with tears. I have to believe that my little life has bigger meaning than what is visible. I have to believe that He created me uniquely in a way that would satisfy Him and bring pleasure to His heart. I know it must be true. It is true between a man and woman. Since marriage is a picture of our relationship with God, it must be true there also. I have to believe it’s so. Somehow I know that the pain I feel now has a purpose. Somehow Jesus will turn it around, and on one glorious Day, this time will be made my joy. Sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes with the morning! Oh Jesus, let it be so. I need Your comfort and Your love to be my strength.

Back to my questions before. My purpose is to love the Lord with all my heart and life. Why did God make that the first commandment? I think it’s because that’s what He wants more than anything! What better purpose than to give God exactly what He wants! Second, how can I even begin to question Jesus love when He gave everything for me? He died because intense love drove Him to the cross. Even more, He continually lavishes His love on me. I am loved by my Creator!