Brokenness

So I am a mess tonight. And I'm going to write about it. I have got to get back to this both for myself and others.

For me, there is nothing as relieving or as productive as getting all this stuff out of my head and onto paper (cyber paper in most cases). When I write, I process, and as I write and process, things begin to make sense and become clearer. I get encouraged and inspired to deal with things or just hang in there and keep going. It's just a good process for me.

For others, (apparently), my honestly is encouraging. Apparently God speaks through that. I think when we hear honestly from others we are reminded that we are not alone and we are not the only ones dealing with a certain thing, and again, that encourages and inspires us to hang in there and keep going.

So we all have those seasons that are extra hard. We all have those nights where we lay awake. We all cry. We all have doubts. We all hurt. We all feel lost sometimes. That's me tonight. I've been up for about two hours just being a mess emotionally. There's no one thing wrong either. God's just dealing with me a lot. He is dealing with me so much. I'm not committing any huge sins in my life currently, I love Him as much as I have ever loved Him. But He is working on me in a very real, heavy and painful way. It's not fun, I'll be honest. But tonight I'm reminded of the beauty of His grace.

He has been showing me the ridiculousness of my sinful heart. Just how broken I really am. How broken and messed up and sinful. It's disgusting. We're all broken. We're all disgustingly sinful, and in all honesty, completely okay with wallowing in our sin and brokenness. If His Spirit didn't push us to move out of this junk that we live in, we would live in it forever and be okay with it.

He still loves me. He's not walking away from me. He will love me passionately for forever. Through all of my junk. Through all of my issues and all the things I have to deal with and get worked out. He is not giving up on me. He is not giving up on you. Such a beautiful thing.

Tonight I found myself at his throne, pouring my heart out in a way I haven't done in so long. Don't get me wrong, I've been praying regularly and actively seeking after him, I haven't been distant from Him. But there is such a difference. We can seek Him, and seek to know Him, and we can be content with where we are. But His constant desire is to bring us closer. And until we are desperate for Him, that doesn't happen.

I''m not ending this happily, with a nice little conclusion and sense of closure. I don't have that right now. The truth is that hard things are hard. Painful things hurt. And brokenness is a very real state that we can't pull ourselves out of easily. But I think it's important to say that. I think there's something freeing in saying "I am not okay, I am broken, I am having a hard time." People need to hear that. But at the same time I want to add "He isn't done with me, and He isn't done with you."

So maybe you are like me tonight, or right now, whenever you read this. I want to say to you that it's not abnormal to hurt and to be confused. It's not abnormal to feel messed up, to feel like there is something wrong with you, to feel broken. You are broken. We all are. You are normal. And He loves you. Hard things come, pain can be overwhelming, but He will never leave you. So cling to Him. Take the hurt, take the pain, take the confusion, take the frustration...take it all to the only place that will accept it- His feet, His throne, His open ears, His open arms. No matter how hard it is, He will not give up on you, He will walk with you hand in hand, He will get down on His hands and knees and crawl with you inch by inch if need be.

You are not alone.

Looking Back

I just wanted to share this journal entry with you guys. This is from December 12, 2006. If you know my story, I decided over Christmas break in 2006 to take 30 days and search out the bible, journal and research, etc and find out what I really believed. At the end of the 30 days, if I wasnt convinced, hadnt found answers, I was determined to be done with God for good.

This story isnt really about me though. I wanted to share this because I wanted to say praise God. For his transforming love, for the fact that he never leaves us where we are but pursues us until we overcome by his love and grace. Praise God that our stories don't stop with journal entries like this one, but are being lived out day by day as we are transformed into the image of Christ. Praise God for his grace. Let's never think that we are too (Fill in the blank) for our lives to count. We are never too far from God that we cant go back. We are never too hurt to be healed. We are never too broken that he cant put us back together and use us to reflect his glory. I want my life to reflect his glory. So in sharing this, I hope you look past my story, but that through my story you are humbled and brought to a place of thanks and praise to a God that transforms.

December 12, 2006
"So this is day one. And just to be honest I feel really stupid right now. There is so much drama and really stupid stuff that has happened the last couple days, it makes me sad. Sometimes people are just so hard to understand, it makes me want to give up on relationships of any kind. It seems just when I get to the point of really trusting people, they always let me down, and it hurts more and more every time. 

I have like a hundred thoughts going through my mind right now. It's insane. I want to write a book- hence the journal. There are so many things that I want to tell people, but sometimes I think that they will never understand. But, even more than wanting to write a book, I want to figure out why I'm here, what my goal for this life is. This last year I've been living life without a purpose- with no plan and no meaning. And it's been one of the most crazy, confusing years of my life.

I think my main problem is that I have gotten away from God. Not just gotten away, but I've been running away. And every time God tries to say something, every time he tries to find me again, I start running all over. My relationship with God today is completely screwed up. It's like a friendship that has gone bad, but not just any friendship- THE friendship. The one thing that gives my life meaning and purpose. I blame God for so many things and sometimes when all I want is some reassurance that I'm not alone, those are the times that he's completely silent. 

For the past year I've been full of resentment and anger and blame. I thought that by ignoring God I could just get over it and be happy and forget about him, but I cant. I've never been more miserable in all my life, then in the last 8 months that I've tried to figure life out all on my own. I've tried everything that I know to do, and my life is still empty, still completely and totally pointless. So, this is my last-ditch effort. I guess it's some kind of a 30-day journey. Hopefully in the end I will have regained my friendship with God and I will have a whole new outlook on life. If not, well honestly I don't know where to go after that.

Im tired of looking at my friends and family, at pastors and teachers...taking what they say and trying to apply it to my life and being left confused and frustrated when it doesnt make sense. I'm going to the source of truth. I'm going to the Creator of truth. If He cant help me come up with answers then who can? I'm going to come out of this whole thing much stronger, with some much clearer answers.

There are just so many things going on right now, and I just feel overwhelmed. I feel unqualified to live life at the moment, like I can only 'fake' it for so much longer, and pretty soon its just all going to collapse. People are going to see who I really am, and right now that person is really unhappy, really hurt, really confused and ready to give up.

I'm not saying I run around acting fake all the time. Quite to the contrary. I'm just tired of acting like I've got it all together, like life is making sense to me and I know where I'm going cause I don't. I'm tired of the pressure, I'm tired of not being able to say 'i dont understand' 'i dont know' 'i dont believe'.

I talked to God today for the first time in 8 months. It wasnt a happy conversation, but it was a conversation. I guess that's a good thing? I told Him I was angry. I told Him I didnt understand why he would throw me into the circumstances he did. I told Him that a lot has happened to me that wasnt fair and I didnt know why he would just stand by and let it happen. I told him that I wanted to believe that he loved me, that he was there, that he was listening, but I couldn't, because it hurt. Because the God that I used to love and trust with everything I had- that God let me down. I said that I was hurting, and if he really cared he would do something about it. I said that I wanted things to be different, I wanted to be close to him again but things were so messed up now, I didn't know if it was possible.

I feel a lot happier already, even though I havent gotten any answers and I havent figured out anything. Just realizing that I dont have to understand everything, that it's okay to be confused, that it's okay to doubt God, and it's okay to wonder about life, and its okay to wonder if I have a purpose...it relieves so much pressure.

I dont know what's going to happen. I don't know if I will ever really trust in the God that I used to, the way I used to. I don't know if I will ever find a real purpose and meaning and direction for my life. I don't know. But I do know that the next 30 days are going to be spent giving it all that I have- all that I have left. Something has to change, I'm heading down a path and in a direction that I don't want to go. Time will tell."

Praise God :)

Refocusing

Mrs. Shelia Buff, 55 next week, lives in a decent sized little trailer down a long dusty road in Cochran, Ga. With the most cheerful, good ole’ southern accent you could think of, we were greeted with hugs and ’I’m soooo happy you guys are here! I can’t believe it!!’

When you walk into ‘Mrs Buffy’s" house you feel right at home, like you’ve gone to visit your own grandmother. Everything was extremely comfy/cozy, the kitchen was decorated in apple-themed things with a small table in the middle. Made from scratch chocolate-chip cookies were waiting for us. We sat down and ate and talked while she walked around mixing up what she was cooking for dinner. She began asking about all the different babies and staff members at Sonrise. She began to share “I didn’t know why God was leading me to come and work at a baby home, I could never have children, every time I just see a baby I start crying, but I knew the very minute that i heard the church was taking a trip that I was supposed to go.” 

She continued, “I was all excited about it till I got on that plane in ATL, then it all hit me, ‘Was it really God or did I just make this up?’ ‘Why a baby home? I can’t handle babies.’ ‘What have I gotten myself into. Oh well, only 9 days and then I never have to do this again.’” She said she continued to deal with all these different thoughts and feelings until they landed in Uganda and they got out of the plane. There is a very, very distinct smell in Uganda that can only be described as ‘Uganda’. I don’t know how to explain it, but when you step off that plane 1,000 things hit you at once. Mrs. Buffy described it as being able to ‘feel the country breathe’. At that time she said ‘Okay God, let’s do this.’

Sonrise has several college-aged Ugandans that volunteer full-time serving the baby home, helping with shopping, driving, cleaning, accounting, emailing, whatever needs to be done. These kids are truly remarkable, they work for free and they all have hearts of gold. They love these 37 children as if they were there own. Mrs Buffy said as soon as she was greeted by some of these volunteers, Aisha, Joseph, Jonathan and Ivan, God spoke to her heart and told her ‘They are why you’re here.’ For the next 7 days she loved on these volunteers, orphans themselves, pouring into them, encouraging them, listening to their stories and sharing her own. She cared for the caretakers. 

This is a great story, heartwarming in itself, but what I found more challenging was the life of Mrs. Buffy now. it has been 3 months since her team came back but Uganda is still very present on her mind and her heart. As she walked us to our bedroom where we would sleep that night, we passed a hallway covered in framed pictures of her time in Uganda.

Jonathan is one of the volunteers at Sonrise. An orphan himself, he grew up in Northern Uganda where the rebel army has been reaking havoc for the last 15-20 years. He saw several of his family members murdered in front of him, his own mother tried to kill him because she didnt want the rebels to capture him. He has since been trying to care for his remaining family, cousins, siblings, etc, and in his ‘extra’ time, volunteering at Sonrise. Mrs Buffy shared that she felt led to pay for Jonathan to go to university, about $3000 a year. Damali was ecstatic. "He works so hard and is such a good guy, no one ever thinks about helping him, I can’t believe it, he will be so happy!’

She told us she was going to be moving soon. Damali asked her why and she explained “Well, I’m selling my trailer and moving into a smaller apartment closer to town. I can save on rent, on gas, etc so I will be able to send more money over there and hopefully come back next year too. When I came back I realized that I could downsize a lot and come up with more money to give.”

I’m sure there is a lot more to Mrs Buffy’s story, but I hope from this brief portion you are as encouraged as I was.This week has been very long and tiring. We spoke 8 times in 8 days and travelled 1550 miles by car. I have taken a huge pay cut because of all the traveling. The stress and pressure of trying to make ends meet is weighing on me. The not getting to see my church family and losing touch with friends is discouraging to me. But I was quickly reminded why we do what we do, why every ounce of energy poured into this ministry at Sonrise is worth it. The gospel is being spread. The good news that Jesus came and we are set free to live a life of meaning and purpose and passion. God is changing lives. And not just lives in Uganda but lives here, in the local church. People are being inspired and encouraged and moved to action. We are on a mission field right here on the home front, with a very important mission.

So please, continue to join in on this mission through prayers and encouragement. God is doing big things through all of our combined efforts and through your prayers and support you guys are just as much a part of it as we are out on the road, up on the stage, or in the middle of the village. 

I Am Tired of Learning

I don't generally post things to get a response, or to get a ton of comments. I generally write about what I'm going through and what I'm learning, and it never fails that one person or a few people read it and are encouraged because they too are human and deal with these things. So here you go:

I am absolutely tired of learning.

I want to grow closer to God and I want to be more Christlike. I pray for these things all the time. But I am tired. There is always a lesson being learned, always a challenge in front of me, always something that forces me to be stretched. And that's great. But I'm tired. Maybe it's because when I learn something I actually want to apply it. To actually LEARN it and not just UNDERSTAND the concept. That seems like something no one gets these days.

I don't say this in a frustrated tone, or in a complaining tone. I am very thankful for the things He has allowed me to endure and get through, and for the wisdom I have gained along the way. I'm just tired.

I feel like the flesh has been ripped off from my chest and He is poking and prodding at the very deepest most sensitive places inside of me. I am learning that every time things are so hard that I don't want to keep going, I have to give it to Him. Every time I start worrying about finances, I have to give it to Him. Every time I feel angry because everyone else has money to buy new clothes and be social on the weekends, I have to give that to Him. Every time my pride starts to swell up and I feel angry because other people get recognition for very little things while I am investing all I have behind the scenes, I have to stop and give that to Him. Every time I am absolutely exhausted and cannot push myself anymore, I give that to Him. Every time my emotions and feelings are trying to take over, I have to give it to Him. Every time I have to let go of something very close to me or someone very special to me just because He says so, I give that pain and confusion to Him. Every time someone does something that hurts me and gets to walk away from it, I have to stop and give it over to Him. To be used by Him, for His purpose, and His glory.

He is doing some major work in my life, shaping, molding, teaching, changing. Incredible amounts of growth and progress. But it hurts. It's hard. It's not fun.

So maybe you feel one or two or many of those things. I don't have an answer for you. I can't tell you how to make it better. I can tell you to hang on. Because of all the things that I don't know and can't tell you, I do know and can tell you that He is faithful. In the good, in the bad, He is faithful, He is able, He is sovereign.

No matter what He asks, we can always hold to the fact that He is worth it.

Pursuing

**I actually wrote this a year and a half ago, but it is perfectly appropriate to repost. Hope you enjoy and possibly gain something from what He's been reminding me.**


So there is this situation that I have been praying about over the last few months. And I will spare you all the details because they really don’t matter, I just wanted to share the principle with you. It’s been a tough decision; I’ve really been torn about what God would have me do. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my future and where I’m being led and how God has been preparing me and working in my life over the last couple years. 

It’s almost funny in a way now to look back because as I’ve been praying about this one situation over the last several months, I never really felt led to a yes or a no answer about any of it. But as I’ve been praying about it the last several months this idea of ‘pursue Christ with all you have’ has started to really stick out to me. I would pray and be sharing all these things with God, questions and thoughts and just all this stuff, trying to figure out the best way to handle the situation, and its like God was saying ‘Rebecca, stop. Do I have your heart? Fully and completely? Are you following after me with all you have?’ And my response was ‘yeah God, pursue Christ-like-ness with all I have, got it. But could you just answer this dilemma over here first. It’ll only take a second. Then I can get right back to that pursuing Christ stuff.’

We focus so much on these ‘little’ decisions. We run around like crazy trying to handle 100 different situations thinking that if we can just get things settled and handled then we will finally have time to devote to God. We will finally have time to sit down and pray like we should. We will finally have time to study the Word and answer the questions we have about theology. We will finally have time to find a ministry that we can get involved in. We will finally have time to get lunch with that person God has laid on our hearts. We will finally have time and attention and strength to pursue a relationship with Christ like we know we need to.

It doesn’t work that way.

We can’t ‘handle’ all this other stuff and reach a point where everything is quiet, peaceful and under control so we can then focus on Christ. Who do we think we are? That’s the whole purpose of the cross-we can’t handle life on our own. We can in no way handle all these things that need handling. Never. Not going to happen. We won’t get there. In contrast, Jesus says ‘take up your cross and follow me.’ He gives lots of other commandments as well, but if you think about it, they all fall under ‘take up your cross and follow me.’ If we are seeking to follow him, to be transformed into His likeness (from the inside out, not the outside in) and if that is our focus- our whole focus, our total focus, our passionate focus….everything else will come together.

I think a lot of times God doesn’t care which decision we make as far as the little details of life. I don’t think the issue is ‘can I do this?’ ‘is this okay God?’. The issue is ‘are you pursuing Christ?’- a life spent following after Him and being conformed into His image? The question isn’t ‘God I want to glorify you, what should I do with my life?’ The question is- Does He have your heart? Your whole heart? Is He your most prized treasure? Are you complete in Him? Is His grace really sufficient for you? And is your life showing it? Are you living it?

If the answer to these is yes, then no matter what decisions you make concerning the little things, you will be glorifying Him and thereby fulfilling your purpose and His plan for your life. 

For me the answer has been a total and complete YES…in principle. But principle isn’t enough. We can say we love God, we can truly love God. We can be passionate about our relationship with Christ and yet we can find our selves still not living it out and putting it into practice. For me, in this instance, God wasn’t just asking if He had my whole heart, He knew He did, He was asking me to prove it. “Are you really satisfied completely and totally in Christ? Then set this aside.” Tough? Yes. But the joy and peace that comes in being able to say ‘ok, lets do this’ and then doing it, and then finding that you are in fact completely and totally satisfied in Christ…no words can take on that description.

The cool thing I’m learning is that when you are totally consumed with seeking Christ’s glory, when that is your focus, you will find this unexplainable joy. And peace. Peace so deep and so strong and so eternal. And these decisions, these situations, they all pale in comparison to the glory of Christ. The fact that my simple, futile, messed up life can be used to point people towards the glory of the Savior of the world and encourage others to do the same…blows my mind. I don’t get it. There is no part of me that is good, no part of me worthy or capable of being used for this task. But when I am offered up for His purpose, to be used for His glory, He does just that. Incredible. Not saying decisions wont be tough, not saying we wont have to do things that make us hurt. We do. We will hurt. It will be hard. But the beauty of it is that we are still happy. Although it hurts and its hard, we are more happy enduring that process then if we were to never go through it. We are more happy setting our wants aside when God asks us to, then if we continue pursuing them. It’s not the fake happy that we put on so often, it’s not the fleeting happiness that comes and goes with different earthly pleasures, it’s a happiness that doesn’t come from this world, because its not based on something from this world, and because of that nothing in this world can take it from us.

Whatever you’re struggling to get a handle on, whatever situation you’re struggling to overcome and deal with, whatever decisions you’re struggling to make…Stop. Ask yourself ‘Is my heart His?’ ‘Am I pursuing Christ with everything I have?’ ‘Am I satisfied in Him?’

And if the answer is no, don’t freak out and start a list of things you have to get to working on. No. Just ask Him to make it so. Tell Him you don’t know how to give Him your heart fully but you want to. You don’t know what exactly is standing in the way of pursuing Him with all you have but you want Him to remove it. You aren’t completely satisfied in Him but you want to be. He is faithful, friends, He is so faithful.

Is your whole heart His? 

In Other Words...He Knows What He's Doing

“Acceptance of discipleship is the utter abandonment of the disciple, the surrender of all rights, to the Master. This abandonment, in all cases, will mean pain. Christ listed some of the troubles His followers could expect, so that they would not be taken by surprise. He did not offer immunity. He asked for trust.” ~Elisabeth Elliot

Discipleship is trusting yourself to the one you are following. Saying 'I realize you are the expert in this field and I trust that you know more than I do about what it takes to be who I want to be. I trust that whatever you ask me to do, whatever situation you put me in, whatever you say to me, and whatever tests you see fit to require me to pass, you have my best in mind, you are helping me become who I want to be.'

We forget this so much.

As Christians we may even start the day with prayer time, surrendering our day to His will, asking for Him to be glorified through that day, asking Him to mold us and shape us, etc, etc.

But then every time a little bump comes up in our day, we freak out. How could this happen? Why do I have to put up with this? I’ve got better things to do, I don’t have time to deal with this right now...Anything and everything that changes OUR plans or gets in the way of OUR schedule and the way WE think things need to go for the day is seen as unnecessary. All of a sudden we forget about our wise mentor, the one we are following after, the one we have asked to make us who we really want to be. All of a sudden we have become the experts.

We judge a day based on what has happened according to OUR plan and we never stop to ask if maybe it could have been going according to HIS plan all along. Surely His plan looks like ours right? It just makes logical sense. If it doesn't make sense to us, then it can't be necessary. If the day has not gone according to our plan, we count the day as bad. We start to play the victim even. We are trying hard to make the day ‘good’, to not be stressed, but it’s really not our fault....this happened, and that happened, and he said this and she did that, and everything just isn’t fair, and we’ve just been so busy and blah…blah….blah.

Have we given our lives to Him?

Have we surrendered to following Him?

Then we need to daily (and I’ll admit sometimes its more like hourly or even minutely) remind ourselves that we trust Him.

Do we trust Him?

I have to stop and ask myself, and sometimes it takes a few minutes for me to say 'Yes, yes I do.' And sometimes I realize that I don’t, but I want to, and saying ‘Yes, I trust You’ about ten times really helps it to sink in.

Surrendering isn't a one time deal. It's a daily deal. An hourly deal. A minute-by-minute deal. Cross carrying isn't a one time deal. You pick up that cross and you carry it, step by step by step by step.

Sometimes I have to stop and ask myself, am I really surrendered to following Him right now? And a lot of times I will realize that I’m not. From there I have to ask myself why not, what is it that I am trying to hang on to, what is that I'm afraid to face? He helps you pinpoint those things when you ask, by the way.

It’s OKAY to be honest with Him. It’s okay to say ‘I don’t want to let go of this, I don’t understand this, this wasn’t how I planned my day, or my week, or my life! BUT, I want to trust You, I know You are for me, I know You are keeping my steps.’

It’s OKAY to struggle, it means you're growing. But the struggles should lead us to a deeper commitment to Him, to a re-commitment to following Him. And if we take advantage of the struggles and unplanned bumps that come up as opportunities to re-commit, to deeper-commit, then these things that seem to be slowing us down in our journey actually become things that help push us down the path at a little faster pace then we would have gone otherwise.

In other words, He knows what He's doing.

One Day

Things are going to be better.

No matter how hard it gets, don't stop.

Sometimes I Freak Out

A lot actually.

Then I take a deep breath and remind myself it's all in His hands.

It still hurts, it's still hard, it still takes effort.

But there's peace in the middle of it all.

Do you have peace in the middle of whatever you're going through right now?

Sometimes It Hurts; It's Supposed To

I don't want to be a Christian right now. I don't want to continue investing into people.

People are selfish, apathetic, hurtful.

I care a lot and I don't know why.

I tell myself I'm going to stop. I'm going to 'toughen up and not worry about what the people around me do with their lives.'

I don't want to care, I want to live my own life.

I want to walk away from it all, throw my hands up and say ' You know what God, no one else is trying even half as much, I quit.'

I want the Christian life to not involve community because community is messy. It requires relationships with humans and humans are complicated. It would be so much easier if I could just hang out with God from time to time and do my thing.

"So just stop. Stop caring. Do what makes you happy."

Cause that's in the Bible right.

Oh, and that's what Jesus did. He did what made Him happy and didn't care about the people in His life, especially the ones that were hard to love.

Oh wait a minute. That's me.

I'm hard to love.

I'm selfish.

He cares more than I will ever know, and so many times I just spit in His face by ignoring Him.

But He loves me anyway.

He is always there waiting.

No only waiting, but pursuing.

Not just pursuing, but passionately chasing me down. Just to say He cares.

That's true friendship.

Looking out for my best even when I don't want Him to.

Loving me even when I tell Him I don't want anything to do with Him.

That's what the world needs more of.

In a world of selfish, broken people, that's what will stick out.

That's something not of this world, something that forces people to look to Him.

That's the standard I will keep in sight until the day I finally get there.

When did reflecting Christ become something that is supposed to be easy?

When did cross-bearing become a simple thing?

When did laying down our lives, dying to ourselves...when did this become something that is possible without pain?

Before The Throne

Sometimes I think we forget what we claim to believe.

"Before the throne of God above

I have a strong, a perfect plea:
A great High Priest, whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on his hands,
My name is written on his heart;
I know that while in heaven he stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/s/shane_and_shane/before_the_throne_of_god_above.html ]
Because a sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise the One,
Risen Son of God!

Behold him there, the risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I am,
The King of glory and of grace!

One in himself, I cannot die
My soul is purchased by his blood
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God
With Christ, my Savior and my God"

"When I Am Afraid, I Will Put My Trust In You." Psalm 56:3

The last week and a half have been among the longest. I have had some big decisions to make and I have been really torn in making them. Everything was so nicely packaged and planned out, it felt real nice, real manageable. I have had some uncomfortable, seemingly unnecessary circumstances thrown my way and it has really thrown me off. Little sleep, lots of tears, lots of prayers, lots of thinking. Several things that I have put my trust in have been slowly taken away. Several people that I tend to rely on when things get crazy have been unavailable for various reasons. It's scary when things are going on that are out of your control. You quickly realize how small you are and how large the world really is. You quickly realize how weak you are and how desperately you need God to be strong on your behalf.

I love this quote:

"Before He furnishes the abundant supply, we must first be made conscious of our emptiness. Before he gives strength, we must be made to feel our weakness. Slow, painfully slow, are we to learn this lesson; and slower still to own our nothingness and take the place of helplessness before the Mighty One." ~Arthur W. Pink

What a concept. There is such beauty in the picture of this incredibly powerful, sovereign God breaking me into 1,000 pieces. Beautiful because it is being done out of love. Love for me. This God that should break me into 1,000 pieces and leave me there because of my sin, instead breaks me out of love and for my good, because Christ took that judgemental breaking for me on the cross. God knows that there is one thing that will satisfy my wandering heart, that is Him, His presence, His peace. And because of His overwhelming love, He will stop at nothing to keep me focused on Him. He will take away anything and anyone that stands in between me and Him. And as much as it hurts me, He knows it is the only thing that will make me happy. The crazy thing is that I hurt right now because I am loved.

I am loved. So much so that He wont leave me like I am. He won't stop until I'm conformed to the most beautiful image one can find. Conformed to the image of His son. Focused on and delighting in Him and Him only.

Christlikeness. It's painful.

"You will not stroll into Christlikeness with your hands in your pockets, shoving the door open with a careless shoulder. This is no hobby for one's leisure moments, taken up at intervals when we have nothing much to do, and put down and forgotten when our life grows full and interesting... It takes all one's strength, and all one's heart, and all one's mind, and all one's soul, given freely and recklessly and without restraint." ~Arthur John Gossip

It's easy to pour all one's heart and strength into something when it is fun and exciting. It's really hard to give freely and recklessly when you have nothing left. It's really hard to pour all your heart into something when your heart hurts.

"Take up your cross daily and follow me."

Cross-bearing is not supposed to be easy.

Yet, we are called to pursue His steps freely and recklessly and without restraint. We are called to pour our heart, soul, mind and strength into cross-bearing...into dying...into becoming Christ-like.

"Learn to trust His heart when you cannot trace His hand. He has your best in mind and regardless of how you may feel now, at the end of the day Christ-likeness is what you really want."

I trust His heart more than my heart, more than my feelings, more than my circumstances.

Psalm 56:3-4 "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid."

I Want To Know God.

"Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."
(1 Peter 1:8-9 ESV)

So I've been reading this book by this really smart man named J. I. Packer. This is something I came upon:

"How many of us would say that in the light of the knowledge of God which we have come to enjoy, past disappointments and present heartbreaks, as the world counts heartbreaks, don't matter. For the plain fact is that to most of us they do matter. We live with them as our "cross" (or so we call them). Constantly we find ourselves slipping into bitterness and apathy and gloom as we reflect on them, which we frequently do. The attitude we show to the world is a sort of dried-up stoicism, miles removed from the 'joy unspeakable and full of glory'. 'Poor souls,' our friends say of us, 'how they've suffered.' And that is just what we feel about ourselves!" ~J.I. Packer

I want to know God in this manner, in this way. In a way that is so real, so close, so deep, that it changes EVERYTHING. I know God, don't get me wrong. But I want to know him like this. In a way that produces continual 'joy unspeakable'. I think a lot of us accept the truth of the gospel and maybe we even study a little bit and develop a pretty good foundation of God and who we are in Christ. But we stop there for some reason. And although it seems like we know all this stuff, we've barely scratched the surface of KNOWING our God. We know a lot about Him, but how deeply do we KNOW HIM?

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish..." Phillipians 3:7-8

"When Paul says he counts the things he lost rubbish, or dung, he means not merely that he does not think of them as having any value, but also that he does not live with them constantly in his mind: what normal person spends his time nostalgically dreaming of manure? Yet this, in effect, is what many of us do. It shows how little we have in the way of true knowledge of God."

I want to KNOW Him in such a way that all these pointless things fade away. These things- the ones that hurt so much, that are so tiring, that are so hard to understand....they are rubbish, they mean nothing in comparison to KNOWING Him.

I want that. I want it not just in a theological, philosophical, abstract sort of way. I want it in the everyday, in a practical, hands on, lived out sort of way.

Determined.

Today

Today I feel like I'm failing at everything. Today my heart hurts a lot. Today I feel like I'm 6 inches away from letting everyone down. That scares me a lot. That's a lie I refuse to give into.

I believe it's part of the process of our sanctification to daily, hourly, (sometimes even minute-ly) reject that which is false and cling to that which is true. There is this tension inside the mind of every believer that we constantly have to stay on top of or else we'll lose our footing.

I am a very strong individual. My mind is so strong, 90% of the time I don't struggle to cling to the truth and I don't struggle to reject what's false. But when I do, it's rough, it's real, it's hard, it's draining. Today is one of those days.

Days like today I wish God would take human form once again and just sit down and have coffee with me for a few minutes. I wish I could audibly hear some verbal affirmation. I wish I could have a physical pat on the back. I wish I could just talk and know that I'm being heard. I wish I could look into His eyes as He speaks and be given full confidence that I am not crazy. I am hearing what I'm hearing. This is real.

Faith is not easy. Neither is trusting. Both are part of the battle.

We're in a battle. Daily. It's not meant to be easy.

I'm encouraged by the fact that even on days where there is so much struggle, I am still not alone. I'm encouraged that even when I am so tired, I have a continual source of unwavering strength to tap into. I'm encouraged that my ability to not fail was never in my hands to begin with.

Bad days happen. Struggle happens. Real life, real hurt, happens.

We can't give up. We can't slow down. And we can't give in to the lies that get thrown at us.

Cling to truth. Unchanging truth. Keep fighting.

Is Your Whole Heart His?

So there is this situation that I have been praying about over the last few months. And I will spare you all the details because they really don’t matter, I just wanted to share the principle with you. It’s been a tough decision; I’ve really been torn about what God would have me do. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my future and where I’m being led and how God has been preparing me and working in my life over the last couple years.

It’s almost funny in a way now to look back because as I’ve been praying about this one situation over the last several months, I never really felt led to a yes or a no answer about any of it. But as I’ve been praying about it the last several months this idea of ‘pursue Christ with all you have’ has started to really stick out to me. I would pray and be sharing all these things with God, questions and thoughts and just all this stuff, trying to figure out the best way to handle the situation, and its like God was saying ‘Rebecca, stop. Do I have your heart? Fully and completely? Are you following after me with all you have?’ And my response was ‘yeah God, pursue Christ-like-ness with all I have, got it. But could you just answer this dilemma over here first. It’ll only take a second. Then I can get right back to that pursuing Christ stuff.’

We focus so much on these ‘little’ decisions. We run around like crazy trying to handle 100 different situations thinking that if we can just get things settled and handled then we will finally have time to devote to God. We will finally have time to sit down and pray like we should. We will finally have time to study the Word and answer the questions we have about theology. We will finally have time to find a ministry that we can get involved in. We will finally have time to get lunch with that person God has laid on our hearts. We will finally have time and attention and strength to pursue a relationship with Christ like we know we need to.

It doesn’t work that way.

We can’t ‘handle’ all this other stuff and reach a point where everything is quiet, peaceful and under control so we can then focus on Christ. Who do we think we are? That’s the whole purpose of the cross-we can’t handle life on our own. We can in no way handle all these things that need handling. Never. Not going to happen. We won’t get there. In contrast, Jesus says ‘take up your cross and follow me.’ He gives lots of other commandments as well, but if you think about it, they all fall under ‘take up your cross and follow me.’ If we are seeking to follow him, to be transformed into His likeness (from the inside out, not the outside in) and if that is our focus- our whole focus, our total focus, our passionate focus….everything else will come together.

I think a lot of times God doesn’t care which decision we make as far as the little details of life. I don’t think the issue is ‘can I do this?’ ‘is this okay God?’. The issue is ‘are you pursuing Christ?’- a life spent following after Him and being conformed into His image? The question isn’t ‘God I want to glorify you, what should I do with my life?’ The question is- Does He have your heart? Your whole heart? Is He your most prized treasure? Are you complete in Him? Is His grace really sufficient for you? And is your life showing it? Are you living it?

If the answer to these is yes, then no matter what decisions you make concerning the little things, you will be glorifying Him and thereby fulfilling your purpose and His plan for your life.

For me the answer has been a total and complete YES…in principle. But principle isn’t enough. We can say we love God, we can truly love God. We can be passionate about our relationship with Christ and yet we can find our selves still not living it out and putting it into practice. For me, in this instance, God wasn’t just asking if He had my whole heart, He knew He did, He was asking me to prove it. “Are you really satisfied completely and totally in Christ? Then set this aside.” Tough? Yes. But the joy and peace that comes in being able to say ‘ok, lets do this’ and then doing it, and then finding that you are in fact completely and totally satisfied in Christ…no words can take on that description.

The cool thing I’m learning is that when you are totally consumed with seeking Christ’s glory, when that is your focus, you will find this unexplainable joy. And peace. Peace so deep and so strong and so eternal. And these decisions, these situations, they all pale in comparison to the glory of Christ. The fact that my simple, futile, messed up life can be used to point people towards the glory of the Savior of the world and encourage others to do the same…blows my mind. I don’t get it. There is no part of me that is good, no part of me worthy or capable of being used for this task. But when I am offered up for His purpose, to be used for His glory, He does just that. Incredible. Not saying decisions wont be tough, not saying we wont have to do things that make us hurt. We do. We will hurt. It will be hard. But the beauty of it is that we are still happy. Although it hurts and its hard, we are more happy enduring that process then if we were to never go through it. We are more happy setting our wants aside when God asks us to, then if we continue pursuing them. It’s not the fake happy that we put on so often, it’s not the fleeting happiness that comes and goes with different earthly pleasures, it’s a happiness that doesn’t come from this world, because its not based on something from this world, and because of that nothing in this world can take it from us.

Whatever you’re struggling to get a handle on, whatever situation you’re struggling to overcome and deal with, whatever decisions you’re struggling to make…Stop. Ask yourself ‘Is my heart His?’ ‘Am I pursuing Christ with everything I have?’ ‘Am I satisfied in Him?’

And if the answer is no, don’t freak out and start a list of things you have to get to working on. No. Just ask Him to make it so. Tell Him you don’t know how to give Him your heart fully but you want to. You don’t know what exactly is standing in the way of pursuing Him with all you have but you want Him to remove it. You aren’t completely satisfied in Him but you want to be. He is faithful, friends, He is so faithful.

Is your whole heart His?

Dear Heart of Mine

Dear heart of mine, why do you run
From the God who loves you, who sent His Son
Cold, relentless, apathy,
Sin so tasty, that leads astray.
These worthless things that we pursue,
That leave us broken, hurt and bruised
‘The heart is deceitfully wicked’, Yes,
We think we’re “ok”; “We’re doing our best.”

Purge us Spirit, Make us whole
Cleanse us from these sins we know
All too well, for His name’s sake
Push us Lord, until we break
Sanctify us more and more
Shake us up, down to the core
Help us stir these stubborn hearts
Else our affections again depart
Jesus! Savior! Lord and King!
“Lead us to the cross,” we sing
On Sunday as we pay our dues,
But do we really have a clue?
Do we really care to try?
Pick up our cross, lay down our lives?
Do we really understand,
The mindset of the Son of Man?

Take our lives and kill our flesh,
Strip us till there’s nothing left,
But Christ, Oh, Christ! and Christ alone,
May this cold heart be like His own.

Ignite us with Your eternal flame,
A burning passion for Your name,
In all the earth, We must push on
For every nation, tribe and tongue!