Drawn Again...

The past week of my life hasn't been the best ever, for a few reasons.

Most of you probably know about my grandfather passing away on Saturday.  I guess there's no need to explain why that has been difficult.

Then, on a much less severe note, I've been preparing for finals for the past three days, and have eight more days of intense studying ahead of me before Christmas break.

There are probably a couple other factors that have made this week difficult, but those alone are really enough to explain the funk I've been in.

Anyway, it all got to me tonight I guess, and I had just about run out of gas, when I decided to play worship music on Pandora until my spirits lifted.  Well, it took about ten or fifteen songs, but finally I could feel God speaking to my heart, lifting the darkness from me, restoring my joy.

I then opened the Word and read Psalms 9:9-10, which says:

The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.

Tonight, I am thankful that the Lord inclines His ear to my weak prayer for renewed hope.  I'm thankful that my Savior draws me to His voice again and again.  I'm thankful that when I feel utterly worn down, He can build me up once more.

O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear...
(Psalm 10:17)

I'm thankful that He strengthens my feeble heart when I'm afflicted.  I'm thankful that, truly, all I need is Him.  Even when my world falls apart, I can endure it if my stronghold is the Lord.

My holy Father loves me, and I'm thankful.



**I'm sorry if this post seems less than eloquent.  I have been studying and writing papers pretty much nonstop for three days.  I'm pretty mentally exhausted.**

Face Like a Flint

One thing I've observed: God calls me things I'm not.

An example: This past year at the Honor Academy, my core (small group) name was Undivided.  It referred to having an undivided heart before the Lord, solely focused on Him, etc.  Let's be serious, though; undivided is the last word that describes the state of my heart.  It's almost laughable.

But God calls me these things, I believe, because He is speaking them over me; He's calling me into the person He says I am.

This year, He calls me a warrior.  See, I am "adopted" into my dear friend Kara's core from the HA, and that's her core name.

This year, I am not a warrior.
I give up, compromise standards, and turn away.
I sin like nobody's business.
I barely fight at all.
I'm discouraged, defeated, and lonely.
I skip quiet times more often than not.
I barely remember the taste of that sweet passion for Jesus.
Yet, this year, God calls me a warrior.

So tonight I was praying, and a phrase from a Bible verse came to my mind.  I prayed it, but all I could remember were the words "face set like flint." But thank the Lord for Google; I was soon thumbing through the pages of my Bible till I reached Isaiah 50, and read:

"4 The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught,
that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.
Morning by morning he awakens;
he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
5 The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious;
I turned not backward.
6 I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
7 But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who is my adversary?
Let him come near to me.
9 Behold, the Lord God helps me;
who will declare me guilty?
Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment;
the moth will eat them up."
--Isaiah 50: 4-9

I don't feel like these verses describe me at all, and I usually don't act like they do either.  But if God tells me that I am a warrior, then I'm gonna claim it.  I'm going to be who He calls me to be, by His grace.

The Lord helps me...therefore I have set my face like a flint.



PS: If you Google "flint," you'll learn that it's some pretty awesome stuff.

"Let the Weak Say..."

Let me just tell you.

God is faithful.

In case you didn't know, I have my nose pierced. (Cool blog topic, huh?)  Yep, got it pierced when I was seventeen, I guess about two years ago now.

I took it out tonight.  Permanently.

I was standing in my room getting ready for bed, and it hit me.  The nose ring thing isn't me anymore.

See, when I got my nose pierced, I was experiencing the most difficult, earth-shattering time of my life.  Some of you know that.  Others may not.  Well, if I were to be honest, I'd have to say that getting that piercing had a whole lot to do with what I was going through at the time.  It was a symbol of my pain, in a way.  Sure, I thought it was cute, and I still do.  (My face looks kinda bare to me without it.)  But the fact remains that the piercing was more than just a fashion statement; it was a sign of my brokenness.

Today, I don't bear that brokenness any longer, thank the Lord.  About a year ago, during the first two or three months of my year at the Honor Academy, God set me free from so many chains that had bound me for what had seemed like an eternity.  I took hold of that precious freedom, and I proclaimed victory over my life.  Sure, I was weak, but with God I was strong.  I didn't have to sit back and let the Enemy beat me down over and over and over, relentlessly.  I could resist, and he would have to flee.

So I realized tonight how my nose ring symbolized those chains now long gone.  And like I said, I took it out.  I then began journaling my thoughts, and toward the end of my writing, I penned, "...God has healed me. I am risen. I'm undivided. I'm undaunted, and I'm a warrior."

After writing a couple more sentences, I took out my Bible and flipped it open to a random page, expecting to read an equally random passage.  But I tell ya, God is faithful. As my eyes focused on the paper, I read a single phrase:

"Let the weak say, 'I am a warrior.'" {Joel 3:10b}

Amen.

I am a warrior.

Note to Self

Let's talk about sin.

No, this post actually probably won't make you feel awful about yourself. :)  Maybe I should say "repentance" instead of "sin." That's closer to where I'm going with this.

I figure almost everyone who reads my blog is also Facebook friends with me.  And if you are, then you probably notice that a lot of my status updates are lyrics, quotes, and thoughts like,

"Some people worry about others becoming 'too devoted' to Christ. But I know how unfaithful I am. I know that no matter how devoted I become, it will NEVER be more than Christ deserves." 

"Long to look on the face of the One that I love; long to stay in Your presence, it's where I belong." 

"I don't wanna be just dry bones."

Don't those make me sound like such a great Christian? Haha.

Well, I'm not.  (And those of you who know me pretty well already know that, unfortunately.)  When I post things like that, it's usually after I do something stupid and realize how stupid it was.  It's usually me repenting.

If y'all are like me, then you usually wait a while to repent after you've screwed up.  If you're like me, then after you sin a little bit, you say, "Oh, what's the point? I've already failed.  I might as well just keep living like this for a while."  And you wait until you're completely disgusted with yourself, till you've sunken so low that you crawl back to God and lament, 

"I just can't do this anymore. Please, will you take me back?"

Now, here's the thing.  We could never live lives of holiness on our own.  I know I can't.  ANY good deed, good thought, good intention that comes out of me is from God.  We know this to be true.

So the thing to do is to REPENT IMMEDIATELY.  Yeah, I think that deserves Caps Lock.  As soon as we begin to feel ourselves compromising -- in any way -- we need to turn back to God right then.

No more feelings of failure driving us further from our King.

We need to accept His free gift of grace and move forward into holiness.

I think the following passage fits perfectly with my point.  It brings some conviction, but it also brings grace and hope.  The entire passage is absolutely key, but the parts I made bold are my focus right now:

⁴You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? ⁶But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

--James 4:4-10, ESV

I think that says it all.

Musing

The thing

about going to new places 

and meeting new people 

is that 

you always leave them. 

And when you leave, 

you don't get to take your entire heart with you.  

Traveling is always heartbreaking, 

if you do it right.

Everything Autumn

I can't quite put my finger on it.

Maybe it's the way the sunlight hits the earth, or the way the air just feels different somehow.  Maybe it's just me thinking back to all the fond memories from years past, or unpacking sweaters and boots and hanging them in my closet again.  I'm not sure what it is, but something about fall just makes me absolutely ecstatic.  I try to read for class, and I have to read the same paragraph four times before I comprehend it, all because of my wandering mind.

I can't seem to stop thinking about everything that I love about it.  In fact, I can't really think of anything that I don't love about fall.

I'm just gonna list a few of my absolute favorite things about this spectacular season; maybe then I'll be able to focus on the whole studying thing.

1. The weather.  It takes a while for the really good fall weather to come here in AL, but when it does come, it's the best weather all year.  Chilly breezes mingling with the still-warm sunshine.  It's the perfect time to wear...
2. The clothes.  Boots, sweaters, leggings, scarves.  Ahh.  I just love them all.
3. The fun.  Pumpkin patches, corn mazes, Halloween (call me pagan; I like it), playing in leaves...
4. Oh yeah, leaves! I lovelovelove the woods in the fall.  Red, yellow, orange, green, brown; gorgeous.
5. Warm drinks.  Fancy coffee, hot chocolate, apple cider.  Mmmm.

Okay, I'm just going to stop.  I could go on for a really long time about friends and music and campfires and so much more, but it's 10:27 PM, and I need to do my math homework.

I hope you share my excitement for this season. :) 

(I don't understand how you could not.)

How Far?

Consecrated.  

That's the word that seems to be at the front of my mind since I graduated from the Honor Academy almost a month ago.  That's the word that I want to describe me.

During the last month or two at the HA, we had to decide what our personal standards for our lives would be upon our graduation -- and with good reason.  For an entire year, we were given rules like no dating, no R-rated movies, no secular music, no drinking, no smoking, no immodest clothing, etc. We didn't have to decide a whole lot as far as our limits went; we just had to have integrity and follow the rules that were already set in place for us.

A lot of the rules were standards that I already lived by, so I didn't really need to think about those.  But for some, like listening to secular music, I only had vague ideas of my standards.  "I will listen to some secular music if I want to, but I won't listen to anything with lyrics that compromise my heart or mind," I decided.  So I tried going with that idea. 

But then I remembered a phrase spoken by a leader at the HA, something along the lines of, "How far, God, will you let me go? How abandoned will you let me be?" Those words were spoken during a sermon that was essentially about total consecration.  It goes along with 1 Corinthians 10:23, which says:

“'All things are lawful,' but not all things are helpful. 'All things are lawful,' but not all things build up."

So, sure.  Maybe listening to a few harmless, clean secular songs every now and then wouldn't hurt me.  It might not draw me further from the Lord.  But would it help me?  Would it draw me closer to the Lord? Probably not.

I don't want to just avoid the "big" sins.  I want to hate every little sin that I ever commit.  Every impatient sigh, every cutting remark, every carelessly casual sin. 

Leviticus 20:7 says, "Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God."

I want total intimacy with God, no matter the cost.  

I want to go through His refining fire.

I want to be consecrated.