Alive

Worshiping the Savior tonight at the end of a full day of running around visiting friends and family.  We have a family wedding happening tomorrow. Getting with my Savior, to worship Him and talk with Him is wonderful. Here is a song a friend of mine posted on her fb wall tonight and I listened to it with fresh ears and ... well just fell in Love with Him even more in worshiping these truths. I just love Him. ... Just a year ago I sat in a coffee shop with the same friend who posted this song and told her point blank that I didn't even remotely love Him.   I Love Him today and am growing in that everyday. I feel more free than I have since I got saved 17 years ago.  He is my everything. 

I'm sure you could also listen to this song on youtube.  It's Natalie Grant singing her song "Alive".

Who but You
Could breathe and leave a trail of galaxies
And dream of me?

What kind of love
Is writing my story till the end
With Mercy's Pen?
Only You.

What kind of King
Would choose to wear a crown
that bleeds and scars
To win my heart.

What kind of Love
Tells me I'm the reson He can't stay
Inside the grave

You.
Is it You?
Standing here before my eyes
Every part of my heart cries.

Alive, Alive
Look what Mercy's overcome
Death has lost and Love has won!

Alive, Alive
Halleujah, Risen Lord
the only one i fall before

I am His
because He is
Alive.

Who could speak 
and send the demons back from where they came
with just one name?

what other heart
would let itself be broken every time
until he healed mine?

you. only you
could turn my darkness into dawn
running right into your arms

alive, alive
Look what Mercy's overcome
Death has lost and Love has won!

alive, alive!
Halleujah, Risen Lord
the only one i fall before

i am His
because He is

emmanuel, the promised king
the baby who made angels sing
son of man who walked with us
healing, breathing in our dust

the author of all history
the answer to all mysteries
the lamb of God who rolled away
the stone in front of every grave.


alive, alive
lLook what Mercy's overcome
Death has lost and Love has won!

Halleujah

i am His
because He is
alive

alive

growing mode

Spiritual growth is a tricky thing and I'm thankful that God will grow us big when we come back to Him after a period of running from Him.  We rediscover the truth in the return; banishing the lie that made us run and spring up like a bamboo shoot does after years of seemingly nothing.  

The best spiritual growth happens when we are in growing mode, when we are right there with Him, trusting Him.  Growing happens when I'm with Him always and He can point something out and I can immediately give it to Him and it doesn't take 10 years to give that thing to Him.  It took 10 seconds!  More of that same thing could emerge out of me later like scarves from a magician's sleeves... I already gave the first scarf to God and here is another... it's just more of the same thing.  I don't have the same impatience I had before, but as it arrises I have more impatience buried that the Lord willingly weeds out and I willingly give it.  More insecurity, more 'trusting more in others than in Him', more 'relying on my own strength than I do in His'... there is plenty shooting out like weeds and as it does I pray for sight and a willing heart to give it all to Him.  As the weeds are pulled His garden can grow in my heart.  His garden is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control; which are the fruits of the Spirit.  These things replace the weeds & who wouldn't want more of this stuff?    As the uncomfortable things spring up out of our souls and into our daily living we have a choice: cling to God or don't.  

Joshua 24:15
"But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.... But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

picture came from here

grow

Spiritual growth is a tricky thing.  It's not at all what I thought and of course I was very immature for a long time. Knowledgeable in part and immature.  A part of my knowledge of scripture had never been applied which produces no change; but as it is applied it produces a harvest.

Check out the last part of the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8; "Still other seed fell on good soil.  It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown."  100 times!!  Application is the key... make it your's.

Like I was saying, spiritual growth is a tricky thing.  It's a lot of work and much of the time it's different than you might expect.  I didn't realize that while I was running from the Lord, He was also working in me.  He let me get totally miserable because that's what life is apart from Him. Miserable.  He allowed me to get to the point that when I questioned everything I took the leap to pray that He would take me back to the joy of His salvation. I couldn't get there on my own & He delivered.

I've done a lot of running in the last 10 years, and during it all God was allowing it in order to take me to a place where I understood how He Loves me.  All of us.  As I grew up, I developed this understanding of sorts that I wasn't worth loving.  We all have childhood junk and so many of us are from broken homes and it jades us.  I thought that people would love me less if they found out I wasn't what they wanted me to be. It has taken almost 10 years of marriage for me to finally get that my husband loves me... period.  And 17 years for me to really register that God loves me. There is no question. There is no circumstance that He would stop.  There's nothing I can do to get God to love me more or love me less.  His Love is perfect and pure.  13 years ago, I started running because I thought for sure He had to hate me because of my screw up and 10 years later He brought me back and showed me ..."Carrie, I Love you!"  Then when a precious baby left this life & his mother's arms, my heart was ripped out with her's and I decided that God just had to hate us all. I was miserable and I ran from Him. After a little more than 2 years, I went to Him... He reminded me that death was not part of His original and perfect plan. Death entered this world when Adam & Eve sinned.  One of the gospels records Jesus crying over a woman losing her son... not to mention that Jesus came to conquer death, hell, & the grave.  All because He passionately loves us.  When we are devastated, He is too.

During these times where my faith wavered, He stood firm.  When I came back to Him, He purged out the lie that I clung to that He wouldn't love me for me and that He doesn't love me if things don't go my way. The hang ups I've had with love are being purged out as they concern God.

Life is messy. No matter what you believe, life is messy.  Jesus Christ never cost me a thing. Life was messy before He saved my soul and it's messy now. Life is life... it is hard, dirty, long, painful; it contains sadness, grief, joy, & death; there are personal victories whether He is in it or not... but I'll tell you my life is better with Him, He gives His peace that passes understanding.  He has given me so much I would've never had apart from Him including a healthier perspective on love, not to mention the promise of eternal life in heaven with Him.  Spiritual growth is not personal growth... personal growth is the counterfeit.  Only God can grow us spiritually; self grows us personally. Never in a million years would I have been able to wiggle my way out of my "love issues" on my own.  God did that as only He could.

And I love Him more today than ever and I know He loves me. He is with me and so everyday I make the choice to be with Him, because life apart from Him is miserable and life with Him is wholly, holy peace.

read part 2 by clicking here or just scroll up to the next day, "growing mode" <3

hydrate

Anyone have some encouragement to offer? I need some.

Christ is the ultimate encouragement.  I am His treasure & He is mine. I can rest in that fact.  I can therefore rest in His promises, both of which have been given through scripture to each of us and those given personally to me (you may have your own from Him).

As today was one of those days where a little encouragement would go a long way, I found it in Him. In prayer.  He is like a vat of fresh water when I'm deathly dehydrated.  Sometimes it doesn't take much to make me go from well hydrated to parched, but He fills and restores. He gives daily.  Carried.

Radically Saved

When I was born again, I did a lot of faith based growing all up front.. right out of the gate! It was amazing!  I was able to forgive. Truly forgive for the first time ever! I earned patience as the Lord answered my prayers to find it. He set me up to rid me of impatience so that patience would build.  Not that I'm perfectly patient, but you should've seen me before, I was completely intolerant! Something happened along the way... I think maybe the task He set forth for me and the education thereof became far more important than Him and faith based growth was replaced by education, and education by pure complacence.

What is THAT anyway?  Purely sifted by the enemy, bit by bit.  And?  And bit by bit the Lord has strengthened and rebuilt. I ended up staying a baby Christian for a long time. Mediocre in the Word (at best), and weak in faith. I'm pretty sure that almost every prayer I've ever prayed up to the last 6 months, other than that for salvation, has been shrouded in doubt.  How is it a person can trust God for the eternal salvation her soul and have doubt in every other area?  I'm realizing how blinded I have been.

Salvation is far and above more than anyone can imagine. It is more than securing eternity in heaven!!! MORE!!! God is God, He didn't do all He did to save us from hell alone, He did it also to save us to Him, so that we could grow in Him... to have freedom from sin and therefore a freedom to choose sin or His ultimate peace without sin. FREEDOMMMM!  Not only are the shackles to hell released, but so are the shackles to all that binds us on this earth... that binds us from even the ability to choose Him.  Without that first choice to ask for forgiveness of my sins & Love Him back there is no choice. That is the first choice!!! After that is made we have a choice to be free and stay free from sin, etc... it's a choice. Before Jesus... there is no choice. We can't help but sin.   Not that I don't sin now.  I do, everyday. It's human, but I have The Savior who has mercy on me a sinner now saved by grace. I did nothing to earn Him, He just Loves me.  All.  With Him I am being renewed daily; renewed to Him.  Radically saved!! There is nothing weak or mediocre about the Saving Power of God!! He seeks to change us from the inside out, helping us to become who He created us to be... which is Me-completed by Him and not dirtied up by sin & alone.

I've lived a pretty moral life for a while now.  I haven't always, Christ saved me from immorality and has healed my heart is ways I never thought possible!! Really! Radically saved.  For a while now I've lived moral, but for a while I still did not choose Him.  The thought makes me so sad. Not choosing Him, and choosing all kinds of other things to turn to instead of Him is sin.  Is shopping in and of itself sin? No. But shopping to fill a need that only God can fill? Yes and Yes again! I need Him to fill me!! and so is anything else I fill myself with that is not Him!! I need Him to be my everything!! We were created this way; to need Him!!

I'm reading through this Bible Study that I did 4 years ago. It was during a time that The Lord was clarifying His calling on my life yet I was still a very immature Christian and did not realize I was shackled to the pride of my insecurity which was keeping me from surrendering to Him... which in itself makes Him my everything. Surrender.  I read these words written by Beth Moore, 4 years ago, and did not recognize what she meant, "...Im not describing what my future would have been apart from salvation.  I'm describing what my future would have been without the rip-roaring radical deliverance of Jesus Christ and His complete overthrow of every false Christ in my life."  And I totally get it now. At least I think I do... I'm positive I have so much more to learn!!  It is Christ who causes me to recognize the things I need to release and obtain; and it is through my surrender to Him that I even have the sight to recognize it.

I love Him more today than I ever have. Radical Salvation. Radical Redemption. Saving Faith, not just for eternity but for every single day.  He saves me from my daily sin, my daily junk making it all wash out like that wellspring I was telling you about a couple days ago! So that I then have the ability to Love Him more tomorrow and to be even more surrendered because areas I wasn't surrendered before were brought to my attention. He is my everything. Surrendered and in Love with my Savior.

Weighted walls

Today as I had plenty of road trip time to study the Bible I'm realizing how blind I've been to so many things. Pride has been eating me alive. In the way of being asked point blank a personal question that would implicate imperfection (even through private Bible studay) & suddenly not being able to come up with anything I struggle with. Giving myself the notion that I'm doing great when on the side lines I can easily slip and find myself focusing on all my imperfections! Depression ensuing-- all this because of insecurity! I know I have got to tear down this wall of pride built by insecurity, it is keeping me from seeing myself for who i am! I realized the wall & started demo today! I'm so thankful for a Savior who will point out the work that needs to be done & simply asks for me to hand it over. Brick by brick it is a lot of work, but it is work that's possible by the hand of God! How else would a person tear down pride? I'm thankful for a Savior who loves us beyond our wildest imaginations & seeks to deliver us from all this extra junk weighing us down!

Travel

Traveling 15 hrs in one day sounds crazy; we're going to do it 2 days in a row! The children travel well, but we don't travel light with a family of six and it's chaotic with multiple overnight stops. We do love traveling!
The Lord is so amazing that as we travel through this life He seeks to lighten the weight of what we carry so much that He carries it all even nailing our sin to the cross!! We don't have to carry regret, grief, anger, or anything else! We have a God who desires to carry it all for us!! So why not trust the creator with His creation? Giving my junk to Him, laying it down daily... Living in greater and greater peace!