Sunday, April 28, 2013

No Pitying Necessary

I thought that waiting was the hardest thing to do...now I've found something harder: giving up hope.

This week I will be celebrating my 22nd birthday. It also marks the day two years ago that Matt and I went on our first of many walks. Even though I know it's not going to happen, I still want to cling to the hope that Matt will show up on my doorstep and ask me to go on another walk. It's super hard to accept that it's never going to happen. In fact, it makes waiting not seem so bad at all. I would wait years if it meant that I could still have my hope. But those of you who know me well would know that I tend to be a very hopeful person...overly-confident & optimistic...idealistic I suppose. And right now, I need to accept that clinging to that unreal hope is just that: idealistic and not accepting reality.

So...the cry of my heart is for God to help me give up this hope. Even though He led me to Romans 4:18-25 the day after Matt broke things off. Even though I have absolutely no understanding of why He would do this. Even though I have no closure. I have no choice but to give up this hope. I don't write this for you to pity me, but in hopes of encouraging you when your own trials come. There may be times when you have your own hope that it seems God takes away from you for no reason. There may be times when you have no understanding why He is turning your world upside down...

But in the midst of all this, I am SO grateful for the one hope I have that I never ever have to give up. I think you know what I'm talking about: Jesus is coming back for us! This brokenness is not forever. He's coming back to make all things new! 1 Cor. 15, specifically vs 19 says: And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are to be pitied more than anyone in the world." How true is that, huh??
THANK THE LORD  that He has given us the confidence to know that we don't have to be pitied. We have hope that God is so faithful and never backs out on His promises. We have hope that He is eternally committed to us and is so looking forward to the day when He finally gets to join with His Bride for all eternity! I can't begin to imagine the pain it would feel to give up that hope, and I'm oh so thankful that I won't ever have to! Instead I join in all the more with the Spirit and the Bride saying, "Come!" (Rev. 22:17)

In one of my conversations earlier this week, someone mentioned that all of these hardships in life certainly make our eternal home all the more appealing. I couldn't agree more! And I'm so thankful to be gaining the perspective of Paul a little more each day: "To live is Christ & to die is gain."

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Straight Paths??

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."

Countless times have I recited that verse. Countless times have I told the Lord how much I trust Him and that I will try not to lean on my own understanding of things. Countless times have I acknowledged Him in all my ways. And countless times I thanked Him for fulfilling His promise of making my path straight.

For the past two years, I felt so confident that the Lord was making my path straight in my relationship with Matt. I have pages and pages of journals/prayers to God begging Him to show me His will for our relationship. Begging Him to be at the center. Telling Him that I will give up absolutely everything--including that relationship--to only follow Him, if that's what He wanted.

The Lord knew that I loved Him with my whole being and would do anything out of my devotion for Him. And yet, He kept on opening doors in this relationship. If this really wasn't what He wanted, then why did He give me so much peace? Why did He make timing work out so well? Why did He bring two people together that compliment each other's weaknesses really well? Why did He bring two people together that both had a desire to minister to others through hospitality, service, and generosity? The path seemed SO straight. Even in the midst of challenges of figuring out how to be teammates, of dealing with family differences, of figuring out how to communicate, the path still seemed SO straight. I had so much peace...

Even more, I told so many people about the way that God orchestrated our relationship. I loved the testimony that it was! So I'm not the only one that is totally confused by the ending of this relationship. They all know that I trusted in the Lord with all my heart in this. They, too, think it seems like God backed out on His promise. You trust Him = He makes your paths straight. If God let me go down the wrong path for 2 years, then who's to say He won't do it again? I want to trust Him so badly. If I can't trust Him, I really have no hope. If I have no hope, there's literally no purpose for my life.

If I had just jumped into this relationship without a care for what God thought about it, I could understand why this ended. If I never acknowledged Him in my ways, I could accept that this wasn't God's will. But the only reason I was in this relationship was because I believed it was God's will. There's absolutely no way I would have moved forward if I didn't feel God's peace about it.

So now what? I wish I knew...
I'm graduating from college in two weeks and have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with my life...not to mention the next week.
I know that God has everything under control. I know that He has good plans for me. I know that He loves me and wants to protect me. And I want to trust Him that He'll show me where He wants me to live, where He wants me to apply for jobs, etc. But right now, I am really struggling with doubts that I ever even knew what God's voice sounded like in the first place. Here I thought I knew what God's peace was for these past two years, and I was completely wrong. So how am I supposed to know what He's telling me to do for a job or where to live? I guess I could just randomly choose something, but I'm not used to doing anything without a feeling of His approval. So I continue to wait.

Like I said, I have doubts of what God's voice is right now. But what I think I have been feeling is that I need to take it one day at a time. Instead of asking God what He wants to do with my future, I just ask Him to show me what He wants me to do TODAY and today alone. The Israelites had to get manna every single day. It didn't carry over to tomorrow. And so it goes with me--each day I can only ask God for what to do that day, and He faithfully gives me enough strength to get through that one day. That's all I need.  The Planner in me doesn't like it very much, but it's true. His grace is sufficient.

Anyway...I realize that this post wasn't exactly encouraging. But I think it's important for people to know that even people who appear strong in their faith have times of uncertainty and doubt. I wrote this blog post because I still think that it "imparts grace." I hope that it shows you that throughout your entire spiritual journey, you will have questions & struggles (probably much worse than mine) but to "take heart!" for Jesus has OVERCOME this world and His grace is so sufficient.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Do We Live in Narnia?

I've been reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe with the 5th graders I'm student-teaching, and we're doing a Lit Circle. For those of you who don't know what a Lit Circle is: it's basically a more structured way to discuss a book by assigning each student a different role such as "Vocabulary Detective" "Discussion Leader" or "Story Sketcher". For the "Creative Connector" role, the student's task is to come up with connections between what they are reading in the story and in their own lives. Almost every chapter, a student will bring up how they understand how it feels to live in Narnia because "It's always winter and never Christmas" there and it feels like it's always winter here, too. This got me thinking beyond Narnia and crazy Iowa weather, and I've decided to share my thoughts. :)

If I told you that I seriously believed that spring was never going to come this year, you would think I'm crazy, yes? You would most likely remind me that in the past 21 years of my life, spring has always come, so why would this year be any different? You might remind me that God is in control of the seasons, and He knows what He's doing. Maybe you'd tell me to look on the bright side of things and be thankful for the moisture that this snow is providing for our future crops. Perhaps you'd say that even though spring isn't coming when I would prefer it to, I just can't lose hope that it will come.

So my question is: Why is it so easy to trust God to bring physical spring in the midst of a lingering winter and yet so terribly hard to trust God that He will bring us a spiritual spring when all we can see is the cold, harsh times? I have a few ideas...

#1- We know that we have absolutely no control over the weather. We know that we can't cause it to be warmer or for the rain to fall or for the sun to shine brighter. It is super easy for us to recognize our inadequacy in this area. Spiritually, I don't think it's the same case. It's a little more difficult for us to recognize that we don't have any control over our spiritual winters either. We like to think we're in control and it's SUPER hard to swallow our pride and accept that sometimes.

#2- Every single other person in the world will partner alongside us and give us the confidence to believe that spring will come. They have all been there before in the exact same situation, so even if we had never seen springtime before, it would be easy for us to believe them. Spiritually, we may have people tell us about their own winter into spring transitions. How they didn't think they would ever get through it and they did. Or how we need to just trust in God, etc. But spiritually, no two cases are exactly alike. Sure, it might have worked out for them, but how can we be sure it will be for us?

#3- We can easily recall past springtimes and we have records through pictures, conversations, or calendars that prove to us that spring always comes after winter--sooner or later. Unfortunately, for many of us spiritually, we don't have as great of a memory. And when our memory fails us, we don't have any kind of record to remind us of past spiritual springtimes. We might try to remind ourselves of a time when everything was going well and we felt like we were growing like crazy in our walk with the Lord, but before we know it, our thoughts get jumbled and we forget what really happened. Eventually, we find ourselves doubting if we've ever really had a springtime before or if it was all a lie. The devil can do some nasty tricks with our mind....
[And this is the part where I have to put in my endorsement for the spiritual discipline of journaling! ;) Check out this other blog I wrote to see how I feel about this matter HERE.]

But back to what I said at the beginning about you most likely claiming me crazy if I told you I don't think spring will ever actually come this year. Well, then, why is it okay for me to believe that spiritually? Why do I credit the Lord to be faithful when it comes to physical seasons, but doubt His faithfulness when it comes to spiritual ones? The Lord never changes. Why does my trust in Him change??

This also makes me think of a verse in the beautifully symbolic book, Song of Songs. Check it out HERE.
Winds that come from the north are cold & harsh. They're not so enjoyable.
Winds that come from the south are warm & refreshing. They're delightful.
Notice, though, that the Bride calls for both winds to come and blow over the garden of her heart and spread the fragrance of her love all around for her Beloved to enjoy & delight in. She knows that both the winds of refreshing springtime AND the winds of testing winter truly show her devoted love for her Bridegroom.
Here's a great song to sum up those thoughts, too. Fling Wide by Misty Edwards Check it out! :)

May we all be able to say, "Thankyou, Jesus, for giving us both winter & springtime--times of testing & times of refreshing (no matter how long they may last). Come south AND north winds... Have your way..."


Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Perfect Pursuer

Jesus is so good at pursuing you. Have you ever thought of that before?? He knows you perfectly so He knows right when to tell you something important and right when to hold back a little and let you work through something. He knows all five love languages and does each one perfectly just for you!

  • He loves to spoil you with the perfect gift for you like a gorgeous sunrise or the beautiful singing of birds or a great big smile from a little nephew just to let you know that He thinks you're really special.
  • He knows the words of affirmation that you need to hear. He loves to encourage you and let you know how much He adores your heart. Sometimes He gives them through reading His Word, sometimes through the words of others, and sometimes He just puts them on your heart.
  • He is the perfect example of acts of service. He knows just who to bring into your life to serve you at the perfect time. He's so kind!
  • As for physical touch, have you ever gotten those goosebumps when singing a really, really good song or when a Truth just overwhelms you? What's the best hug that you can remember from someone? That's Jesus hugging you through His people. :)
  • Last but not least, He LOVES quality time with you. He loves sitting and talking with you. He loves to gaze at you and He loves to have you gaze back at Him. He already knows you inside and out, but He loves it when you share more of your heart with Him. And He loves sharing His heart  back with you! Jesus is a big fan of vulnerability :) 
Jesus enjoys loving and pursuing you so, so much. He delights in making you feel special and drawing you nearer to Him every day. Are you missing it?? Ask Him to help you notice the small things He does every day to show you how special you are to Him. I'm sure He'd love to show you! 

Monday, April 15, 2013

Notice: You are noticed!

Another thing that Jesus has shown me about His heart for His Beloved:
[Check out previous blog posts to see what else the Lord is giving me deeper understanding of in this situation.]

Jesus notices every single little thing that you do out of your love and commitment to Him. He doesn't need big fancy stuff all the time. Sure, He'd appreciate that, but He never misses the smaller, everyday stuff that you do either. He notices everything! He sees it and appreciates it and is so delighted in you for it! He knows that loving Him is just as important during the mundane everyday life, as it is during the big high's and low's of life. He notices what we do out of our commitment to loving Him every single day. 

You, my friend, are noticed BIG TIME! :) Believe it!! God sees you specifically & individually. You are the apple of His eye. He loves to look at you and see you gazing back at Him. Take confidence that your efforts are totally noticed and will be rewarded in due time! :)


Thursday, April 11, 2013

Grudge-Free Mercy!

Jesus is giving me a deeper understanding of mercy. Has anyone ever told you the difference between mercy & grace? Mercy is holding back from someone what they deserve. Grace is giving someone what they don't deserve.

As for grace, I love giving gifts--especially when it was the perfect thing AND bonus points if it was given on a day other than Christmas or birthday. :) So I feel like I have a decent grasp on grace, not only understanding how crazy-much grace Jesus has given me, but I also love giving grace to others through gifts and other acts of service!

Now, mercy is another story... I think this one is a little harder to grasp for me. This one means that even though someone deserves for me to be angry at them until they give a really good apology, I forgive them before they even say sorry. This means that even though they deserve a righteous punishment for what they put me through, I don't even consider punishing them. Uh...

And really, I haven't had to practice extending mercy all that much. I've never had too much trouble in my relationships. I can think of a few high school instances where people hurt me, but I think I more just forgot about it rather than forgave...So I don't have a whole lot of understanding of mercy. But Jesus is using my "situation" to show me more about this too! And lucky you, I'm passing it on again ;)

Jesus is so merciful! :) He doesn't hold it against us when we choose something other than Him. Sure, His heart is hurt that we didn't choose Him, but the second that we come back, He doesn't need a 3 page apology in order for Him to take us back. He doesn't know what it means to hold grudges. He is just so delighted to have His Beloved back! 

Are you catching on yet to how much Jesus enjoys you? :) I hope so, because it is absolutely true! He adores your heart & devotion to Him! Better believe it!

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Love is Patient; Jesus is Patient!

Continuing my little "series" on what Jesus has shown me about His heart for His Beloved (aka-you!) during this "situation" in my life.

Jesus is so, so patient. He will wait & wait & wait & wait...Time is not an issue for Him--He lives above time! So even though you may feel like it's been way too long since you've come to Him, He doesn't notice that at all. He is so very understanding of your situation. He knows how hard this relationship with Him can be. He knows better than we do that we are fighting a battle for this! He just loves to be the one place where you can come to find Someone who completely  understands and just longs to offer you mercy

Are you having a hard time believing this Truth? Talk to Jesus about it. Tell Him it's hard for you to believe that He really is so patient & understanding. I'm sure Jesus would love to prove it to you. ;)

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

EVERY Situation

I have a piece of paper in my Bible with a quote from Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest. Ever heard of that devotional? Highly recommended :)
This quote is super challenging and I have yet to do it completely--but I'm also certainly not a saint yet either! But I'm slowly figuring out how to see EVERY situation in the way that Chambers describes...

"A saint sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him." 

Some of you may know about the situation I'm in right now. Some of you may not have a clue...But basically all you need to know is that I've really set my heart to see this situation as a way to know and understand Jesus more. A lot of these things I'm seeing are things that I've known and understood pretty well beforehand, but now I've really felt in my own heart on a whole deeper level. I know these are what Jesus is like, but I also feel it for myself. What a wonderful combination!

So anyway, here's one of the things that Jesus has shown me about His heart for His Beloved (aka-His Church--both corporately & individually!)

He LOVES it when you talk to Him about anything. He wants so badly just to hear your voice. It truly delights His heart when you talk to Him. It doesn't even really matter all that much what you talk to Him about, He just so enjoys having a conversation with you. He missed you! 

What a great Truth, huh? Like I said earlier, some of you may understand better than others how Jesus has given me a deeper understanding of this, but regardless, I hope you believe this Truth of how Jesus feels about YOU personally! AND I hope you stick around for more, because there's a lot more wonderful Truths where that came from that I'd love to share! :)

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Dear Future Self,

Dear Future Self,
      So you're feeling anxious again, huh? Hasn't God proven to you enough times by now how completely trustworthy He is? He never changes and He's always faithful so you can STILL surrender to Him and lay everything at His feet just like you've done in the past. 
      But don't come back and pick it up again either--leave it there! Now take a deep breath and just rest. Tell yourself over and over again that God has everything under control until your heart really believes it.
      Oh, and another thing--please stop trying to DO stuff. Waiting is NOT laziness--it's actually one of the hardest things to do! Don't you trust God's timing? Don't you think He would reveal His plans to you if He wanted to?
      Don't let Satan try to convince you that you can't hear God's voice--you're His sheep, aren't you? And Jesus promised that His sheep know His voice! Hold on to that promise. God WILL let you in on His plans in due time. Until then, just enjoy this time of rest.
      Enjoy His peace and enjoy learning new things about Him! Most of all--seek His kingdom first! God's always been faithful; He will be again.
                           Much Love,
                     Danae of Spring 2013

Lesson still being learned...

So I'm back to this blog again. Miss me? ha ;)
Anyway, I just found the following in my drafts folder. I don't know when it was written, sometime last summer I presume. Interesting how I'm still trying to learn the same lesson. BUT I can also notice a difference! God is ever so slowly, graciously, and patiently working on my heart. This waiting thing is REALLY hard to learn for me. The Lord is such a good teacher. :)
So here's what I wrote this past summer...

I don't enjoy being patient. I mean, I can be--but it's not very easy for me. I wouldn't call myself a controlling person, but I like to know what's going on. I like to be able to plan ahead so that I can help to avoid any possible issues or obstacles. Patience is ESPECIALLY hard when I don't understand what I'm waiting for. How am I supposed to plan then? It puts me out of my element--not so comfortable.

Maybe you can't relate to me so much in that first paragraph, but possibly in this: I think God can be the hardest Person to wait for. It's not very often that I know what I'm waiting for when it comes to Him. He might give me a glimpse or small nugget of an idea, but that's about it. Throughout the last couple years especially, I've realized that God has always pulled through for me. And yep, you guessed it--always in ways beyond what I could have imagined. It's just all about trust.
Trusting God that HE knows perfectly what's going on.
Trusting Him that there's a reason that I don't know.
Trusting Him that waiting on Him is a way for me to learn trust even MORE.
Trusting Him that His plan is perfect in all this.

This is like my Summer of 2012 self inspiring my Spring of 2013 self.
Three cheers for technology that saves writings forever in cyberspace!! :)

How Did Isaac Feel??

I don’t know if you’ve noticed before that Abraham gets a whole lot of credit for his faith throughout the Bible. And rightfully so—don’t get me wrong! But have you ever thought about how Isaac felt in all of this? He wasn’t just another animal that Abraham was told to sacrifice—he was a human being! With thoughts and feelings—something I’ve been wondering lately is just what were those thoughts?

These are just my own ideas formed from my personal thoughts along with my conversations with others in the past few days. This is what I’ve got so far…

The story is from Genesis 22…
“Then one day, God tested Abraham…” nothing about Isaac here, but I don’t think that means he wasn’t going to be tested anyway.

God tells Abraham to “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and offer him as a burnt offering…” Notice that God doesn’t say “Take your son and offer him as a burnt offering…” No, those extra words in there about Isaac being Abraham’s only son whom he loves [dearly] are definitely there for a reason. It’s like God is telling Abraham that He knows how much Abraham loves his son, Isaac; He knows that this is a really big deal and a really big thing to ask of Abraham.

Regardless of how tough this is on Abraham, Isaac is still asked to be sacrificed. It doesn’t matter if he feels like the most loved son in the world or totally rejected by his father—he’s still being sacrificed!

Anyway, Abraham admiringly obeys God’s command and the very next morning he heads out with his servants and his son, Isaac. I don’t think Isaac knew about the command yet because when it’s just Abraham and Isaac headed up the mountain, Isaac finally asks his dad where the sheep is that they’re going to sacrifice.

Abraham tells Isaac what he truly believes: that God will provide a sheep. Of course, Isaac had no reason not to believe his dad at that time. But what about when Abraham started tying his son up? What about when he had him lay down on the altar? What about when Abraham raised the knife above his head? What were Isaac’s thoughts then? I have a guess:

I trusted you, Dad, why are you doing this? I thought you loved me dearly!
God, why would you tell my dad to do something like this? Do you really want this for me? I thought you had better plans for me than this. 


I don’t mean to make any assumptions about Isaac here, but I guess those are just my guesses about what he must have been thinking while he laid on the altar waiting to be sacrificed.

We know God’s will for Abraham and what He told him to do. What did God tell Isaac in response to his questions? Again, I don’t know for sure, but I have a guess that it was something like:

“Be still and know that I am God.” 

I think that Isaac heard those words because that is exactly what he did. He could have refused when his dad started tying him up. There’s no physical way that Abraham could have kept Isaac there—after all, Abraham was over 100 years old at this point! Isaac could have rolled off the altar at any time. But he didn’t. He was still. He let his dad sacrifice him. He quietly laid there while his dad, who loved him dearly, raised the knife above his head. Wow.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

Trials that I go through in life sorta pale in comparison to nearly being sacrificed by your own father, huh? If Isaac can be still and know that God is in control, then surely I can, too.

I’ve often prayed for faith like Abraham, but I’ve started to pray for the grace to be still like Isaac now, too! Join me & start praying now so that you're equipped when your trials come! :)