I am here

The past couple weeks have been hard.
My heart has felt bombarded by sadness, loneliness, and desperation.
My times with Jesus have been hard to come by, in the midst of midterms and life.

Last week as I was singing in choir, the Lord spoke to me.
Out of seemingly nowhere.  But maybe if I had been listening better before that I might have heard Him.
But this day, God was graciously louder in my life.
It had been a long week, my joy was being sucked away from every direction.  I felt like I was failing and falling and not sure anymore.

And it was in that moment, as I was singing... that His voice came and said "I am here.  I am present in this room.  I am here with you.  I am honored by your heart and love for me."
That was it.  Those words.  Exactly.
I am not making it up.  I couldn't come up with those words in that time.  No way.  Only God could.
That was one of the biggest encouragements.
Maybe you doubt that was really God.
But when you hear His voice, its like... WOW.  On your knees in awe and worship.  In that moment I would have been on my knees in a second if I could have... the presence of God was so strong.  I am still overwhelmed and grateful.
So trust me.  It was Him.  I am grateful for Him speaking loudly, graciously, and so lovingly into my heart that was struggling between the world trying to drown out His voice and a desire to live intimately with Him.

Those precious moments of His voice, speak volumes to me of His faithfulness.

Psalm 36:5

"Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the clouds."

Faithfulness in the midst of doubt

God's faithfulness is something so big, so perfect, so contrary to this world, and so beautiful that often I am blown away by it.  Humbled by it.  Encouraged by it. 

I am ashamed at how often I doubt, only to be undeservingly swept away with countless reminders that God is indeed there and is still radically working despite my sin and skewed motives.  Sometimes I get so frustrated at my lack of trust.  Somehow I think I need to do something about my situation, and so I go about frantically trying to "make things right", or at least attempting to make things right.  Ah!  Why can't I just strive to live my life for Jesus and do things to please Him all while simply trusting.  Easier said than done isn't it!

God's faithfulness....
Webster's defines faithful as "steadfast in affection or allegiance".  It is pretty amazing that even though we constantly sin and make poor choices God remains the same in His love, forgivness, strength, and peace.  Unconditionally loving, protecting, forgiving, chastising.  Its beautiful.

My worry about finances, relationships, school, and life is unbelief and a lack of trust.  I am so thankful though that God is constantly reminding me that He is always faithful.


"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (Matthew 6:30-33 ESV)

What if?

Each week we pass our time doing countless activities with people all around us.  We spend time on the computer and watch TV.  We hang out with friends, make meals, go to school, clean our houses, and the list goes on.

Lately, I have started to wonder about all that "time" that we have and how we use it.
 
How much time am I spending with Jesus?

This is a question I have been asking myself a lot. 
 
When I go out with a friend for coffee, I spend at least two hours with them. 
I check Facebook and my email every day, if not multiple times a day. 
I spend time making meals.  I do laundry, clean my house, drive... you get my point. 
There are a lot of things that seem to take up my time.  So much so, that at times, I run out of time to spend with Jesus. 
Yet... He created me, died for me, saved me, loves me, and wants to spend time with me. Wow!  Jesus is just waiting for me to open up His Word or to stop for a few moments and think on Him and pray.  He is the ONLY one who will never leave me, never fail me, always love me, always forgive me, always pick me up, always give me joy.  The more I learn of His greatness, love, grace, wrath, and mercy... the more I want to know about Him.  But I have to put time into it. 
Real time.  Devoted time.  Authentic time.  More time. 
What if?  What if I did spend more time?  What would my life be like?

Ponderings

"So I will go wherever He is calling me
I lose my life to find my life in Him
I give my all to gain the hope that never dies
I bow my heart, take up my cross and follow Him"

("What Grace is Mine" - Getty)

Musings of a child of God

Friends... I must write this out. God has been working in my heart and opening up my eyes to certain issues lately, and for that I am truly grateful. It has been painful, wonderful, and stretching. Sometimes I can't think anymore because my mind hurts. And so, in a feeble attempt to organize my thoughts, I thought I would write it all for you all to see. Think what you will, pray hard, and consider.

Through our own personal walks with Jesus we each grow and learn more about our Saviour. We are refined, and taught, and encouraged. But we are always learning.

Things change through life as we discover more about God's grace and love and also about how we need to let those qualities live through us and affect our relationships with others.

Just because we made mistakes in the past doesn't mean that we were horrible and awful and that that previous life should be forgotten. I think God created us to learn from the past and even amongst all the bad, there are still positive kernels in there. We just have to look. And sometimes hard.

Grace is not an excuse for sin, nor is it an excuse to act the way we want no matter what. Grace is a marvelous and undeserved gift from God that we are to use for His glory and His glory alone. When I think about the fact that God loves me unconditionally and no matter what I do, I am still His child, my brain starts spinning. But that amazing gift we have does not mean we live our way. Oh how it should motivate, inspire and will us to live for Jesus... to live only for His great name!

Does this all make sense? Am I rambling? Probably, but thats ok.
My last point... God is great, we are not, His plans are perfect, and ours are messed up. So how can we view our spiritual growth of the past as negative when it is all God's doing?? We don't live in a perfect world, hence we aren't perfect... our churches aren't perfect, and what we do isn't perfect. But we should strive to live for Jesus... for He is perfection.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I believe it is wrong to see our past as negative and bad and full of error. Truthfully it is full of errors that we made: the sin we committed... but what happens in our lives occurs through God's will and we must learn and grow from it but at the same time thank Him for His love.
I love my Savior and am so grateful for the undeserved grace He bestowed on little wretched me and I pray that my life will be one that shines brightly for Him.