Isaiah & Advent

Even though there are hundreds--probably thousands--of devotionals out there for this advent season, this year I've decided to simply read through the book of Isaiah. I think this book talks about Jesus coming more than any other--and not just His first one. From what I remember of reading through Isaiah before, there are a lot of prophecies made by Isaiah that have yet to be fulfilled.

So during this advent season, I'll be going through a few chapters a day and taking note of both the promises that have been fulfilled and the ones that are yet to come. But I won't stop there with just taking note of them. I'll go one step further and pray those promises right back to God.
Now why would I do something like that? I'm glad you asked! :)

You see, God wants His children to partner with Him in asking Him to bring forth His promises. Yes, they will happen without our asking on the one fact that God promised them, but should that stop us from interceding? We have an important and honorable role in stepping in and asking God to bring them forth.

This is where I think God's omnipotence can be given too much credit. Now hear me out: Yes, He is able to do all things. No, He doesn't need our help or intercession at all. But He sure does want it, and I think it saddens Him when His children think they don't need to ask for anything because it's all going to happen the way that He wants anyway. I really, truly believe that's not how it works. He moves according to our asking.

AND because He's such a very kind and helpful God, He's already told us what to pray for. Beyond that, I think God does it that way because He uses the "foolish things of the world to shame the wise." We aren't asking God for anything He hasn't already told us to ask for. We're not coming up with these fancy requests on our own. I mean, it is pretty foolish from a worldly point of view to sit there with our eyes closed, talking to "Someone," asking Him to bring forth promises that He wrote in a book thousands of years ago. But by doing it this way, it keeps us humble and all the glory goes to God! Goodness, what a wise God we serve, too! :)

Stay tuned for promises--fulfilled & yet to come--and prayers to pray with me to go along with them! :)

Nationals & Heaven

I have team devotions this coming week with the volleyball team. As you'll be able to tell from this, Dordt's team made it to Nationals! This blog is my way to organize my thoughts of what I wanna say. Thanks for being my guinea pigs! ;)

All this Nationals stuff made me think of probably the most common verse in the Bible. John 3:16...and I hope you're curious why because I want to dig into it more with you all.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

For much of my life, I could have inserted "but go to heaven someday" in for "have eternal life" in that verse.
Which, if you think about it, that sounds about as ridiculous as saying that we play volleyball so that we can go to Nationals someday. Sure, Nationals is our hopeful last destination, but it's not our purpose in playing the entire season, right?? And I think it's the same that even though heaven is our hopeful last destination, it shouldn't be our purpose in why we believe in Him either. I think that means there's a lot more to what "shall not perish, but have eternal life" really means.

Jesus says in John 17:3 "Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ."
So instead of inserting "go to heaven someday" we should read John 3:16 as, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that they may know Him." 

But what does know really mean?
Well, have you ever had a time when someone asks if you know so-and-so and you reply with "Well, I know of them; I know they do this or whatever, but I don't really know them personally."?
For much of my life, that was the case with me and Jesus. I knew of Him and what He did for me on the cross, but I didn't really know a thing about Him personally. I didn't know His character or personality. I didn't really know what He was passionate about or what kind of desires He had. I didn't even really understand what He loves or hates all that much.
I only knew of Him.
In other words, you could say that I really wasn't experiencing the eternal life that John 3:16 talks about at all. And according to that verse, the opposite of eternal life is perishing. Which again, I always thought of "shall not perish" as "shall not go to hell." But I've discovered that perishing can happen in this life, too. If we don't know Jesus, then in a lot of ways, we are perishing right now. It has nothing to do with when eternity starts. If we don't know Jesus, we are missing out on the life that Jesus offers. He tells us that He came that we may have life and life in ABUNDANCE. If we're not experiencing that abundant life through knowing Jesus, we are perishing. I didn't really recognize it at the time, but because of the way I understood John 3:16, I was perishing.

But between my junior & senior year of high school, I read a book called Irresistible Revolution in preparation for a serve trip to Mexico. In that book, Shane Claiborne quotes some guy that asks "If there were no heaven and no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow Him for the joy, life, and fulfillment He offers right now?" This really challenged me because it made realize that I didn't have much genuine joy or fulfillment in following Jesus. I tried to follow the Bible because I knew it was the right thing and I wanted to please God. And don't get me wrong, those are important reasons to follow Jesus. But I was missing out because I wasn't experiencing the abundant joy-filled life that I could be from following Jesus!

If someone asked you if you would still play volleyball if there were no Nationals, I'm pretty sure everyone would say yes. But can we honestly all say the same about following Jesus? What kind of "eternal life" are we believing in Jesus for? Heaven or knowing God?

As you think about that, I want to give you a fair warning: if you're really serious about wanting the eternal life that starts now and continues into heaven--the knowing Jesus kind, then that means you're giving Holy Spirit permission to work things in your life that might not seem all that good or comfortable at first. It's called a refiner's fire. Holy Spirit needs to burn away all the impurities in our hearts & lives in order for us to come out as gold. We can't fully know Jesus if we're full of stuff that's not of Him ya know?

Take my engagement being broken off for example. It was the most painful thing that I've been through thus far in life, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but it was also probably one of the best things that could have happened to me because of what it did to my heart and how it gave me an even deeper knowledge of Jesus.
I know now more than ever that Jesus really, really wants to come back and marry His Bride, the Church. He's been waiting for over 2000 years! I understand now how incredibly patient and unconditionally faithful He is. I am in awe at His willingness to wait and wait and wait until His Bride is fully prepared for Him to come back.

I just think that that's some of the best things to not just know of but to really know & understand about Jesus. I probably never would have gotten that deep of an understanding if it wasn't for what I went through in my engagement getting broken off. And I know my heart is better able to know Jesus because of the impurities that were removed through that refining time.

My hope for you girls in this week at Nationals, if that you take some time to consider the similarities to our lives. I hope you come to realize that we don't believe so that we can escape perishing in hell and go to heaven instead just like we don't play volleyball just so we can make it to Nationals. We play for the love of the game, and I hope that we all come to believe in Jesus for the love of knowing Him intimately. And that you each experience the abundant, joy-filled life that Jesus offers those that follow Him.

I hope, too, that if you're ever asked the two questions "What if there were no Nationals, would you still play volleyball? and "What if there were no heaven and no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow Him for the joy, life, and fulfillment He brings you right now?" We'd all be able to answer both the same way-- "Absolutely!" :)

Thankful for Pruning

I was encouraged by these notes from Mike Bickle on John 15--particularly the part about pruning. You can see all the notes here.

• Pruning: A gardener cuts branches off the vine so it will be more flush with life. Each year after the harvest, in early spring, the vine dresser prunes (cuts away) over 80% of the vine from the previous year’s growth. If it is not cut off, the vine will grow as a wild vine without producing many grapes. The pruned branches are those resulting from the good life in the vine.
  
• Practically, the pruned branches speak of removing some of the increased activities, demands, responsibilities, and expectations that came with increased fruitfulness in the previous season. It may result in a decrease of money, ministry, influence, popularity, position, or power, etc.
  
•  In our circumstances, pruning sometime looks like a decrease of God’s blessing in our lives; thus some totally misinterpret it and feel discouraged, instead of thanking God and trusting His leadership, knowing that they will be more fruitful in love. Too much activity diminishes our life of abiding in Christ. Blessing in one season can create added distraction in the next season.
  
•  Pruning results in us possessing more love, humility, and purity in our life and imparting it in our ministry. He cuts off the branches that cause the life-flow in us to be distracted or diminished.
  
•  Every branch: The Father wants every fruit-bearing believer to bear more fruit. His commitment to prune us is a glorious promise, not a dreadful warning. He intervenes to bring forth more love, and purity in our life and ministry. The Lord is more committed to our greatness in His grace than we are (Mt. 5:19).
  
• The Father needs to prune us because we do not have the resolve or wisdom to cut off the familiar and seemingly good activities in our lives that result from seasons of fruitfulness. 

A Great Honor

"No one has ever seen God but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us." (1 John 4:12) 
Do you get that?? We COMPLETE the picture of God's love to others. 
Are you showing an accurate picture of God to others? 

The ONLY way you can is through love. 
Not anything else--
not speaking in tongues, not prophecy, 
not wisdom, not knowledge, 
not faith, not giving, or even enduring persecution--
those all do nothing compared to love. They don't show others who God is.
(1 Cor 13:1-3) 

Love is what shows others who God is. LOVE is what shows others who God is!!

What an honor & privilege that God has given us, His children--His family, this task of showing others who He is!!
What are you doing with this privilege?

Answering with Questions

I was journaling this morning and it ended up basically being a dialogue between God and me. It's not that I actually heard Him ask me these questions, but I felt like Holy Spirit put them on my mind. And if you read the gospels, Jesus is famous for answering His disciples with another question. So here's my imagined dialogue between God and me that I think could apply to a lot of situations. You can probably put your own situation into it.

If only I could... If only they would... If only You would...

What are you really asking?

...for life to be easier.

So if only life were easier, then what?

Then I wouldn't fail so much.

Fail...fail by whose standards?

Mine I guess...I just feel like I'm letting You down.

Why would you feel that?

Because I can't seem to [fill in the blank] get the desire for an earthly husband to go away! I feel like I'm doing a bad job of waiting on You. I'm getting more and more impatient.

So if I made life easier for you, then what do you think would happen?

Well, I guess I'm hoping that it would be easier for me to wait.

Okay. Well, can you describe this "easier" life for me?

[Fill in the blank] I wouldn't be surrounded with people asking me if I'm married or telling me they know some guys to set me up with. I wouldn't have a bunch of guy friends that make it hard for me to just...wonder. I wouldn't be living in a town where it's super uncommon to have single twenty-somethings. Or maybe I would just not have a desire to get married at all and be content being single the rest of my life!

Do you know what you're really asking?

I guess I'm asking for You to make it easier for me to rely on my own strength to wait. 

Exactly. Truth is, I don't have you leaving the place/situation you're in any time real soon. Could you ask for something else?

I could ask for more strength and empowerment from You to wait on You. Maybe I should even be asking for my life to be harder so that I have to rely on You all the more. 

That's more like it. No one who hopes in Me will ever be put to shame or disappointed.

But I have been disappointed...

No one who hopes in ME will ever be put to shame or disappointed.

That must mean that my hope wasn't in You. My hope was in someone or something else. Show me how to hope in You. Will You help me?

Isn't My Word full of that promise? Come to Me. My yoke is easy & my burden is light.

I do come to You, Jesus. I don't want an easier life. I don't want it to be easier for me to wait on my own strength. I want You to be my strength. Your burden is light. Even if life was easier for me, my burden would still find a way to be heavy. It's only light when I come to You. I want whatever it takes for me to only, wholly rely on You. You promise time and again to help me. I believe that You will. You promise that IF I hope in You, I will not be put to shame or disappointed. I believe that, too. Keep me from putting my hope anywhere else. Keep me from looking anywhere else but You. 

Running in Circles

This song is really speaking to me right now. Just thought I'd pass it on :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtIiUg4B7VM

I'm so forgetful, but you always remind me:
You're the only one who brings me peace;
You're the only one who brings me peace.

So I come, Lord, I come
I come, Lord, I come
to tell You I love You
to tell You I need You
to tell You there's no better place for me than in Your arms
to tell You I'm sorry for running in circles
for placing my focus on the waves and not Your face
You're the only one who brings me peace
You're the only one who brings me peace

Hmm just some thoughts...

Your perspective is the only one I can do anymore.
           Every other one has come up short.
Yours is the only one with hope.
Yours is the only one with meaning.
Yours is the only one that's selfless.
     And I know this life is not about me. I gave it up a while ago now.
It's all about You, all for You, all from You, all through You.
It's just You. For me to live is You.
That's a promise--that's my vow.
What I really want is to see everything like You do.
         Not just events or circumstances.
People, too.        I want to see them like You see them.
         What do You see anyway??
Eyes are fixed. Staying there for all eternity.
You're coming back soon & I'll be looking for You.
                                                          Because my eyes will be fixed.
That's a promise--that's my vow.
My eyes are set on seeing like You do.
More than that, my eyes are set on the     greatest      thing that's ever happened to me.
It's true, ya know. There's not a better thing. You're the absolute best.
Hands down. It's settled. Nothing. You are the best. 
Seriously, thanks for wrecking my life so it could be lived for You instead.
This is the only life I ever wanted anyway.
                                                  I just didn't know it quite yet.
Now I do and I'm sticking with You forever.
That's a promise--that's my vow.
You got me.
Forever.

Diligently consider this...

You most likely already know that I'm a big advocate for journaling. Not only does it keep our thoughts focused and help us process, but journals are SO good to read over on a regular basis. They are PROOF that our Abba Father is hearing and answering prayers, that Jesus is teaching you how to follow Him better, and that Holy Spirit is indeed transforming your life. I think that the neglect to read back over your journals or even just taking time to really reflect on what the Lord's been doing makes it so much harder to grow in your faith. It's a spiritual discipline that is an encouragement to us that God really does notice us. It's what we needs to persevere. :)

Another thing that journaling does is it teaches us to truly follow God's will for us in 1 Thes. 5:16-18.
Rejoice always. Pray continually. Be thankful in all circumstances. 
Everyone knows what holiday is next month. It's a great reason to re-focus your life on thankfulness in ALL circumstances. The Lord has been showing me lately how that is so totally connected to Paul's words in Phil. 4:11--"I have learned to be content whatever the circumstance." We cannot be content without being thankful. The two go hand-in-hand.

Even though it's not November, I wanted to start recording my thankfulness early! Why not, right?? Plus I want to encourage anyone reading this to do the same! For extra motivation, check out Psalm 107. The verses in the photograph are from the very beginning and end of Psalm 107. Check out all the verses in between. They are specific reasons for the Israelites to be thankful for the Lord's constant goodness, His mercy, and His loving-kindness.

So not only does recording reasons to be thankful make us more thankful, it also teaches us to be content in every situation, AND like the verse says, it's what anyone who is wise does. Whoever is wise diligently considers what the Lord has done.
The Dictionary definition of diligent is Marked by persevering, painstaking effort. How diligent are you in considering what the Lord is doing in your life? Make November the month that you re-commit to that and you'll automatically reap a life of thankfulness & contentment! :)

Lessons from the Prairie...Part 2

This is another flower in the prairie. They're not near in abundance as the Maximillian sunflowers, and I don't remember their name, but they smell good. Like, really, really good.

In fact, I tried to pick one so I could have my apartment smelling all nice & fragrant, but there were a ridiculous amount of bees, wasps, and other insects all over it. Soooo obviously I didn't take it. But this clearly shows how good smelling these flowers are!

Editors note: You might notice in the picture that there aren't any bugs, but this was a week or two after and they no longer had a fragrance. Just sayin'...

Anyway, you may be aware that Iowa is quite breezy. And I'm sure that those of us who are aware have mixed feelings about that fact. BUT if it wasn't for the wind, I'd never be able to smell the wonderful fragrance of these flowers. I'm definitely not going to stick my nose by one that's covered in bees! So the winds do a splendid job of blowing the fragrance for me to enjoy. I suppose if these flowers had any mind of their own, they would prefer for the winds blowing on them to be nice and gentle and warm and refreshing all the time. But as for me--the one walking through the prairie--I'm okay with the big gushes of wind that blow the plant halfway over and are maybe even a bit cold. Whatever it takes for the full effect of the fragrance to reach my nostrils for me to enjoy!

And now cue in the actual "lesson from the prairie" If you've read some my previous posts, you'll recall that I've talked about us being each individual gardens for our Beloved to walk in and enjoy just like He did in the Garden of Eden. The bride in Song of Songs 4 says to her Bridegroom:

Awake, north wind,

    and come, south wind!
Blow on my garden,
    that its fragrance may spread everywhere.
Let my beloved come into his garden
and taste its choice fruits.

How much enjoyment is Jesus getting from your garden? That's what tasting choice fruits means. Have you ever realized that YOU are His inheritance? How much of His inheritance--your heart--is He receiving from you? Don't just scan over these sentences. Really think about it & ask Holy Spirit to reveal how much. How much do you want Him to have? Tell Him that, too. He knows already, but it's good to communicate.:)

I was reading a book today that just so happened to talk about Song of Songs 4, and I loved the way that the author put it:

    When we can ask for both winds--His dealings and His blessings--we are saying to Jesus, "If You love me so much, I know it's safe to be Yours. I deeply trust You. I'm not afraid of difficult circumstances. You do not give anything that takes away real life. You have guarded my every step." 
    We can trust our Beloved absolutely. Therefore, we are not afraid to pray this prayer: "I love You, Jesus. I want all my immaturity to be gone. I want my heart to be yoked with Your heart. Your inheritance in me is the most important thing in my life. Therefore, awake, O north wind!" 
    The bride says, "Make my garden breathe out fragrance...May my beloved come into His garden and eat its choice fruits." She wants her beloved to get His full inheritance from her life. 

I couldn't say it better myself, so I'll leave it with that. :) From this day on, I hope that every time you smell something that's so pleasing to you--whether it's flowers, a bonfire, vanilla lotion, or pork chops--that your thoughts become a prayer for Jesus to send north & south winds that blow the pleasing fragrance of your heart for Him to enjoy & receive His full inheritance in you.

Lessons from the Prairie...Part 1

This is Dordt's Prairie. I spend a great amount of my free time walking through here. I mean, how could I not?? Just look at it! I think it's quite possibly my favorite place in Sioux Center. Plus, I know that all these flowers and the nice warm weather will not last much longer, so I'm trying to take advantage of it as much as possible while I can.

While going on these many walks, I've thought of few analogies... If you've read other posts of mine, you'd know that I've been mentioning the garden-heart analogy quite a bit. :)

When I walk through the prairie and look around, the one word that comes to mind is JOY. Everywhere I look, there's bright yellow flowers. They're nothing fancy or spectacular individually, but when they're all combined together, they're so beautiful to me. And I think that yellow is the perfect color choice for them. They just wouldn't be the same if there were a bunch of pink, blue, white, or purple flowers. Yellow is perfect. (But I could be biased because it's my favorite color.)

So one of my prayers while I'm looking around, taking it all in, is that when God walks through the garden of my heart, that He finds great joy in what He sees. I want Him to come into His garden, look around everywhere, and be so full of delight. I ask Him to do whatever He needs to my heart in order for it to be the most enjoyable for Him.

Does anyone have a guess what Dordt does to sections of their prairie each year in order to encourage the "natural" cycle? They burn it. I'm not going go get into all the science behind it, but I do know that if they didn't burn it, the prairie would not look like it does right now. It needs to be burned in order to be more beautiful.

And isn't that so true of our hearts, too? God burns our hearts with His fire! If He didn't, our hearts wouldn't be as beautiful. So the question is--What do we want more--a beautiful heart or a more comfortable life without any painful burning? We all know what we're supposed to say, but what really is your deepest desire?

You can start by telling Jesus that you want your deepest desire to be for Him to delight in your heart. You can tell Him that you want to be willing to let Him do whatever it takes to make your heart the most beautiful for Him. You can ask Him to burn up everything in your heart that is not pleasing to Him--no matter how painful it is to you or how much it costs you. You can tell Him that you want to better recognize how extremely worth it He is!

I can tell you that He will be so delighted in your willing heart of submission and will gladly step in to work on your garden more! :)