The end of this year long commitment to write daily has come. 1 year of writing, give or take about 15 days that got lost along the way. Tomorrow will mark 18 years of this Christian life, Holy Spirit-dwelling in me, saved, redeemed me. In another 5 days we also celebrate 2000-ish years of the resurrected Christ, who came and gave all He had just to win a relationship with us, to redeem us to Him. He loves us. There is no loving us more or less in any given circumstance-- just pure, satiated love.
Why do we grasp onto anything? 18 years ago, I was holding on to my life that I knew and honestly loved. I loved my party life, but not more than my desire to be fully loved. I was desperate to be loved, I'm pretty sure we all feel desperate for genuine love. When I was on the cusp of 17 years old I doubted anyone's love for me, I have most of my life.
God makes amazing promises in the Bible concerning His great love for us, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. I couldn't resist Him.
18 years later I find myself grasping onto my life again. I love certain structures of how I spend my time, but I'm realizing that I don't love those things more than I desire to give myself to Him fully, to Love Him in return. Peaceful living is a relationship with God.
Luke 17: 33 "Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it."
As this marks the end, I'm going to be shutting down for about 6-ish weeks (but may check in here and there). I plan on coming back to share this journey with you daily, please stay-tuned. ;) and thank you so much for walking along this past year with me. <3
Warning: This might be a touchy subject for you & it may not be something you fully understand. Please keep an open mind. I watched this video a few weeks ago and felt like it made so many valid points. I had no clue when I got saved that modesty was important, but immediately started covering more of my body than I had before. That's not to say I was completely modest, but it was a far cry from how I dressed and why I dressed before the Holy Spirit moved into my heart. I'll say more about that later.
A few days ago, Ann Voskamp posted thoughts on the trial which convicted two high school guys of rape in Steubenville, Ohio which rolled into a touching letter to her almost 18 year old son on her blog. It's a call to treat women as God sees women, as Christ treated women. Here is a link to this post. She says, "That Christ never beat down a woman with harsh words or lusting eyes or sneering innuendos, but He stepped in and stopped a broken woman from the abuse of angry men. Christ came to the defense of a hurting woman and the Son of Man stood between her ache and her attackers and He lifted the weight of shame from her and cupped her heart with hope and wrote a new future into the dust and dirt of everything and he saved. her. life. That’s how God loves His daughters with His defense." Check out everything she had to say, it is beautifully written.
Going back to the video. In a letter a pastor is reading, a guy says about a woman dressed provocatively "I wonder if she realizes 101 guys are going to devour her with their minds today, I wonder if she even cares." I'd say that being devoured is exactly what she wants. I've been that girl. That girl believes the lie society tells her that what a man wants more than anything is a woman's body and her response is to show it, because maybe just maybe some guy will want her for keeps. I had a lot of girl-friends in high school who bought into the same thing. Some gave away their virginity as soon as they had the opportunity. Some found ways to show off, like fishing, they'd catch some guy's attention. Most would dress in a way to purposefully attract masculine attention. All of us were starved for masculine attention/ affection. None of us would've ever said that we believed this was all we were worth, but the fact is our actions showed we believed it with every fiber of our being. We believed that the most value we'd ever have was to be desired by a man-- any man, and as many of them as possible.
Christian women. Most godly women will feel a sense of modesty by conviction from the Spirit alone. She may never ever realize the impact immodesty has on men, which is why a lot of Christian women still think along the lines of dressing to look sexy (even if she is technically covering the "important" places).
Jesus warns men:
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28-- NIV).
And I have to ask, who are we as women to purposely or even thoughtlessly cause someone to sin? Don't we have responsibility in this to think about what we're wearing? I'm obviously not saying we should be covered head to toe, one look at my FB page would tell you that. What I am saying is that we should first ask God how we should change, ask our husbands or fathers if we're dressing too revealing, and we should have a general rule that our clothes should not be too low cut, too short, or too tight-- but not be the one to determine what "too" is. I am as guilty as anyone on this, but who are we to continue. No we are not fully responsible for where any man looks & lusts, Jesus made him responsible for that!!! Men alone are responsible for their hearts & actions. Nonetheless, we can and should do our part, what would it say if we continued to make someone else sin. Let's stop being thoughtless about what we wear or how we behave. Jesus gave us far greater worth than that of being devoured in another person's thoughts. Again, I love Ann Voskamp's wording on this-- I posted the link to her blog near the beginning of this post.
Everyone is self-seeking. We want our own way. We want our own comfort, security, power, control, wealth, prosperity, prestige... and we want one or more of these things more for ourselves than for anyone else.
When the Spirit of the Living God comes to live in our hearts we change and we are new. The old person with in us is still fighting to be self-seeking, but the new person only desires to seek God.
God-seeking has to do with spending time in prayer and Bible study, but there is much more to it. God- seeking is possible only once we've realized & accepted that He has given everything to seek us & redeem us. God-seeking is thanking Him for everything, which is in essence opening everything as a gift that He has given us regardless of the pain or pleasure it brings (everything has eternal purpose). God-seeking has to do with being obedient which rolls into spending quality time with Him as He is with us and working through us "in the moment" that become moments that never stop. Living "in the moment" every moment with God is in essence praying without ceasing (1 Thes 5:17). Psalm 16:8 “ I keep my eyes always on the Lord, with Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken". God-seeking is giving to Him: tithing to your church & ministries, giving time in obedience, and giving resources to the needy (Matt 26:34). God-seeking is welcoming Him to touch our lives, welcoming Him to change us for the better, welcoming Him to work through us as He wills. God-seeking rather than self-seeking will revolutionize & completely redeem our lives.
Procrastination is good medicine. What a lie.
Procrastination is the shovel that digs my pit, straight to the grave.
And my desire for perfection turns said shovel into a mighty drill that digs down deep.
Creating a pit that only God can get me out of... again.
Luke 6:46 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. 48They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”
The truth is we all tend to dig pits for ourselves.
When we follow God's will for us each moment we lay another brick of foundation, filling in the pit-- recognizing each thing that got us into that pit to begin with and giving them to Him in exchange for a foundation brick. When we're disobedient, not only do we dig our pit of despair deeper, but we build next to the pit instead of in it, because we don't want God to have our self prescribed shovel or drill or the intricacies of why we're in that pit-- we want to keep our pit "just in case". And so we build beside our beloved pit and when that 'torrent' hits our house it'll all collapse into the pit-- total destruction.
"Digging down deep" so deep that the why's of living in a pit come forth to give over to the Lord is the first step to living a strong life "in Christ". As we learn to Love and trust Him the foundation is laid and we cannot go back to pit dwelling, but we continue on with Him. When we love and trust Him, we'll naturally obey Him and more foundation is laid and we finally have a solid foundation on which to build a life "in Christ". Walking in Him and with Him, is everything-- it is the whole purpose of our lives, but we can't do that living in our pits.
I'm not nearly as deep or as stuck as I once was, because I've been laying foundation. There is more to give Him, things that I didn't expect, things that I know my personal life will be better without, yet I cling to them because they've been what I cling to my entire life. God seeks to be the only One we cling to and life is best when He is our One and Only. It's easy to be afraid of filling in our pits because we want that back up in place, but life will be best when it's all filled in and given over to our Creator who knows what we were created to be. He knows that some things keep us from some of His specific blessing and we can trust Him to guide us.
Sensing it approaching was never possible and it's starting to change. Blinded to the path in front of me I'm terrified by flashes of light, like they're lions pouncing out to devour me. I hide in my particular hiding place, because the flash of light that shone on the bend in the road further challenged my blind faith walk. Walking and taking the next step in obedience is most often terrifying and utterly challenging. It challenges us to the very core, because God wants us to completely depend on Him which means that the deeper we get the less likely we'd ever accomplish that next task on our path alone.
The more we rely on Him the less those flashes of light or bends in the road throw us off. The more we rely on Him, the more HE becomes our hiding place, rather than any given comfort. The more we rely on Him the future that we're blind to doesn't seem so terrifying, because we've learned to trust His steady pace, His steady hand. The more we rely on God the more we'll wonder why was I so afraid?
Isaiah 41:10
"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand" (ESV).
In all seriousness, how much of life do you take seriously?
It seems as if I've taken the "just laugh at yourself" mindset a little too far. Do most of us have a running list of how we need to stop being so hard on ourselves? I for one believe we do, it's something my husband tells me to do all the time. Then there's an opposite list of time sensitive living that must be attended to and taken seriously. I'm not talking about the dishes piling up, or the laundry taking over, or the trash over flowing, though they do need to get done everyday in our house. I'm talking about our children aging before our very eyes and passing them off when they ask to put together a puzzle or play a game together. I'm talking about rounding a decade or three in marriage and still showing up to put in time to grow, not simply maintain, a friendship. I'm talking about growing stone cold to the Spirit of God and suddenly realizing it, because it happened without realizing it at all. I'm talking about obedience to God only being given half heartedly, because we're too lazy or scared to put in whole self. If any of these things were a career... I would've fired me a long time ago.
I'm way overdue to take my life much more seriously. Are you?
God is always helping us to grow up in Him, but more often than not we fail to recognize His hand in our lives. He is doing big things in you & wants to do important things through you. Let's let Him?
Unfortunately, we often mistake what's important. Doing His will is important, because there is important purpose to every single detail of every single act. Let's treat it as such?
Too often time alone with God is the last thing that gets done in a day, if at all. All too often makeup application takes longer than prayer time. He longs to be with us. Let's know Him?
I read this poem by A.A. Milne to my children today... kinda makes you think.
The Old Sailor by A.A. Milne
There was once an old sailor my grandfather knew Who had so many things which he wanted to do That, whenever he thought it was time to begin, He couldn't because of the state he was in.
He was shipwrecked, and lived on a island for weeks, And he wanted a hat, and he wanted some breeks; And he wanted some nets, or a line and some hooks For the turtles and things which you read of in books.
And, thinking of this, he remembered a thing Which he wanted (for water) and that was a spring; And he thought that to talk to he'd look for, and keep (If he found it) a goat, or some chickens and sheep.
Then, because of the weather, he wanted a hut With a door (to come in by) which opened and shut (With a jerk, which was useful if snakes were about), And a very strong lock to keep savages out.
He began on the fish-hooks, and when he'd begun He decided he couldn't because of the sun. So he knew what he ought to begin with, and that Was to find, or to make, a large sun-stopping hat.
He was making the hat with some leaves from a tree, When he thought, "I'm as hot as a body can be, And I've nothing to take for my terrible thirst; So I'll look for a spring, and I'll look for it first." Then he thought as he started, "Oh, dear and oh, dear! I'll be lonely tomorrow with nobody here!" So he made in his note-book a couple of notes: "I must first find some chickens" and "No, I mean goats."
He had just seen a goat (which he knew by the shape) When he thought, "But I must have boat for escape. But a boat means a sail, which means needles and thread; So I'd better sit down and make needles instead."
He began on a needle, but thought as he worked, That, if this was an island where savages lurked, Sitting safe in his hut he'd have nothing to fear, Whereas now they might suddenly breathe in his ear!
So he thought of his hut ... and he thought of his boat, And his hat and his breeks, and his chickens and goat, And the hooks (for his food) and the spring (for his thirst) ... But he never could think which he ought to do first.
And so in the end he did nothing at all, But basked on the shingle wrapped up in a shawl. And I think it was dreadful the way he behaved - He did nothing but basking until he was saved!
This morning a song came on the radio... something about thinking back over a full life, wishing he could change so many things. He would've changed that he hung up on his mom instead of saying goodbye on the day she died, spent more time with his kids because one died in war... yes it was one of those songs. and I cried. Today was like this steady stream of this theme. An old friend of mine is in the hospital with this rare disease that took her ability to walk; all she wants to do is go home to be with her baby and toddler. There were all kinds of things I came across today that made me want to take a look at my presence as if it were past. Looking at now in hindsight. It seems that a lot about my schedule would change, but there is still some seeking God on the matter to do so as not to allow fear to creep back in.
What would you change if now was in hindsight?
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you (ESV).
Joy comes because of peace, but is not peace itself. Peace is the opposite of conflict. To make peace with God is to agree with Him, with His perfect will. I can agree with Him when I trust Him & when I'm thinking of Him.
"whose mind is stayed on You"-- when you're in love with someone you think about them constantly. There are so many things I'm in love with, if that is the case. Moving God to the top of that list is necessary, I want to Love Him most. When I love Him most, I'll also trust in Him, and when the two collide I enter perfect peace.
I very often feel like I'm broken, like success is some far away thing and sabotage is so readily available that I crave it. I crave it like popcorn in a movie theatre, the smell is alluring, beckoning, but it is gross especially at our theatre. Movie theatre popcorn is so similar to self-sabotage in that neither are as enjoyable as the allure promises. I'm so distractable and there's just not enough adderal in the world.
I'm working on some things that I'm responsible for and right here in the moment I recognize the choice to persevere and not to go do something else fun... and so I'm stopping to share. Recognizing the urge to "buy the popcorn" even when I know it's not any good is the first step. Maybe I won't stay broken after all.
I am so thankful for God's faithfulness to us whether we "buy the popcorn" or resist the urge to act on a whim.
Hebrews 12:11, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it" (NIV).
Being disciplined out of this high level of distraction combined with desire is seriously unpleasant. There are things I would really like to spend my time on, but don't have the time to devote, but they constantly call to me and I cave... again.
There is a level of patience that I have recently recognized. It has to do with forbearance (which is to have restraint from something I want to do) and perseverance (to continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty or with little or no prospect of success). Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, which God seeks to grow in us and my stubbornness is slowing the process a great deal! There are lots of things I want to do that just don't fit and doing them is keeping me from persevering in what I'm responsible to. All of these want to's are like a disgusting, sticky fly trap and I'm the fly-- completely stuck and fighting to break free, until I'm distracted again by it's sweet smell. Life is about so much more than some of the silliness we waste our time on, not that there's no room for silly... but for some of us silly is consuming our lives and God seeks to lead us away from it, to free us from all these things slithering in to consume our lives.
Have you ever struggled to give up something that God was asking for? As a young Christian there were a few things in my life that were obvious sin that I gave to God then in failure do it again, I'd go back and forth until it was completely pruned. As a more mature believer & woman I struggle to give things that aren't obvious sin to Him at all, it's down-right rebellion. And I start to understand why those living in excess have an easier time going through the eye of a needle than entering heaven-- because it's just that difficult to give up something, anything. (If you're an American, you live in excess! Ask any child sponsored by compassion or world vision). And as Im holding tight and tighter to the temporal things of this life I can feel the temporal start to swallow me whole into it's black abyss of nothingness. And isn't that exactly what our enemy seeks to make us-- nothing? I can hear the call of Christ, the One who can pull me back out & rescue me. Why does this abyss feel so cozy? He's calling us all to shift our focus from the temporal to the eternal, it's in that place where He works miracles in us and though us. So let us run to the One who rescues us from nothingness and gives us a life of pure purpose in Him! The abyss is not cozy for long.
