Galatians 2:20

I have been learning so much lately. I feel like Jesus is giving me a crash course in like 50 different subjects.

A beautiful sister and I were talking a couple days ago and she shared this picture with me that absolutely blew me away. I have never thought of it like this before. It’s actually a concept that I have struggled to understand up to this point.

When I was in India, the Pastors I had the great privilege of working with amazed me. These men lived dead. When they surrendered their lives to Jesus they died. They no longer focus on their desires. Their only desire is to see Jesus’ will be done. They are such an incredible example of what it means to live a crucified life. I can’t really even begin to express how amazing these men and their wives are. It’s overwhelming to even think about it.

The picture that my sister shared with me was this:

You are drowning in an ocean. You are thrashing around, choking on the water as you try to call for help. You are quickly losing all hope of being saved when you see a Man walk by.

With one last breath you call out for help.

The Man sees you drowning.

He exclaims, “Oh no, you are drowning!! Let me come drown with you!”

He runs out to where you are and begins to drown right next to you.

You both die.

You are dead.

The Man is dead.

Drowned in the ocean.

But.

In three days, the Man comes back to life!

This crazy Man who decided to drown with you rather than save you comes back from the dead.

You are still dead.

You drowned.

The Man is alive.

The Man is living.

You are not.

You drowned.

And with you drowned your sin.

Your failures.

Your mistakes.

You.

All of you.

Drowned.

You did not come back to life.

Jesus did.

He is the one who now lives.

He is the one who is living in your place.

You don’t live.

Those things that drowned with you…

They don’t have any hold on you.

They are gone.

In the sea of forgetfulness.

Drowned.

I know that sometimes I get so caught up in trying to put to death my sinful nature and work my way out of sin.

That’s not how it works.

If not sinning is my goal; sin will be inevitable.

If loving Jesus is my goal; sin will have no hold on me.

When your focus is Jesus, you don’t desire anything but Jesus.

When your focus is on not sinning, you don’t desire anything but sin.

Stop beating yourself up.

Just fall in love with Jesus.

He knows the Stars...

There is so much going on that I don't even know where to start. I don't know how to even begin to explain what is going on in my heart in this season. I started reading this fantastic book. It's called You're Already Amazing by Holley Gerth. It is wrecking me. It talks about how we don't have to do more or be more to be good enough for God. We are enough. As women I think that sometimes we feel like we have to be perfect and do everything right and if we don't then God doesn't love us. We constantly compare ourselves to others and berate ourselves when we feel like we don’t measure up. I know that I have even felt like God is comparing me to other people. God is up in heaven and leans over to Jesus and says something like “Joy sure doesn’t love me as much as her friend does.” Or “Joy is not using her gifts as good as that one is.” But the Truth is that God fully delights in me. He doesn’t compare us to each other. So why should we compare ourselves to anyone else? He says we are enough.

I am learning what it means to be enough.

Recently I decided that I was going to just step out of every thing that I have be working in. I decided that I needed a break. I had been neglecting my relationship with the Lord and was tired. I wanted to just have a season of REST. I have been so busy doing that I had began to burn out... bad. 

What I have learned about rest is that it's not about not doing anything and sleeping all day. That's not the kind of rest that my heart longs for. (However, I do love sleep!) The kind of rest that I have been needing can be explained in this little acronym... (and yes, I came up with this one by myself!)

Relationship- stop striving, realize that He's got it under control. I don't have to DO anything for him to love me. Things will not spiral out of control if I take a minute to relax and respond to His love for me.

Enjoy- life with Jesus is fun, not burdensome. Pursue things that make my heart happy.

Surrender- I don't have to bear His burden.

Trust- He has never failed me. I can trust that he has it. Rest isn't scary. 

I am learning what it means to rest

God is an emotional God. He is not some emotionless being that looks at us and is numb to our emotions. He isn't afraid of our strong emotions. I am deeply emotional. He is deeply emotional. We read throughout the Bible that God has strong emotions. He is a God who laughs. But he is also a God who weeps. He gets angry. But he restores with his compassionate love. He is not turned away by our emotions. He wants us to feel. If He didn't want us to have emotions or if her expected us to hide them all the time he wouldn't have given them to us! It is okay to not be okay sometimes. 

I am so guilty of being "good" all the time. In the book that I talked about earlier there is an entire chapter on emotions. It has completely turned my view on emotions upside down. 

I am learning that emotions are good

Relationship with God isn't about what we can do. How many chapters we read in our Bible or how many girls we bring to a youth service. That's religion. Relationship is about quality, not quantity. Honestly I have spent more time with God in the 3 minutes of, "Crap God, I don't know what to do right now. I am so overwhelmed!" than I have in hours of searching the Bible for a fix-all scripture. God just wants us. He wants our hearts. 

I am learning what it means to be intimate with the Lord

An 11 mile journey took the Israelites 40 years. The majority of that time was spent waiting. In my life right now, I find myself being told to wait. I hate being told to wait. I have learned that just because God is telling me to wait it doesn't mean that He is punishing me. Waiting isn't a punishment. When I wait I have the chance to rest. When I wait, I have the chance to HEAL. Healing is something that I am experiencing a lot of right now. Healing isn't always enjoyable. Think back to a time when you were a child and you fell in the gravel and skinned your knee. You mom, being the loving mother that she is, scooped you up and sat you on the counter. She may have even kissed it to make it better. But her healing touch didn't stop there. She grabbed a bottle of peroxide and a towel, maybe some warm soapy water and she began to clean out the dirt and bits of rock. I don't know about anyone else, but when that was happening to me I was sure my mom was trying to kill me! In my mind there was NO WAY that she was making anything better! What I didn't know at the time (and refused to believe it when my mom told me) was that without that pain, healing wouldn't occur. Holley wrote this in her book and it left me in a heap of tears and snot on the floor in my room- "If I wash your feet, will I not wash your wounds?" Jesus wants to reach in and wipe out all the dirt and rocks. Jesus want to take his loving hands and wash our wounds. He is gentle with it. But we have to choose to drop our guard, remove the bandaid we have placed over the infection and let Him clean them out. We have to choose to drop our guard and let him heal, or continue to guard our hurts and allow the infection to settle in deeper. It's scary. I still flinch when I see the bottle of peroxide... but I know it's for my own good.

I am learning that waiting is not a punishment. 

I am learning that Jesus WANTS to heal my brokenness.

He is a good God. He is a real God. He knows the stars. I had a collision with God the other day during worship. I was very overwhelmed. I had a rough week. There was a lot going on. But I connected with the Lord for the first time in a while. Really connected with Him. As I stood there weeping, I heard the Lord say "I know the stars." Now that's the last thing you want to hear when you are wondering if God even cares about what is going on in your life. But in that moment the thing I didn't want to hear was the thing that I needed to hear. Those few words remind me how real He is. How good He is. God knows the stars. Trillions and trillions and trillions... He knows which ones are about to go out. He knows which ones are about to be born. He knows the names, the sizes and the locations of all of the stars. If He knows all of that... the glitter of the Universe... then wouldn't he also know the ones who he created for fellowship with Him?! He knows me. Fully. 

I am learning that He knows the stars. 

Only the Beginning

The broken glass glistens as the light touches the pile of glass on the floor. What once was a beautiful thing is now a pile of jagged pieces of glass, neatly swept together, a little hill of glass. 

I don’t know how long the pile of glass has been there, but I know that there are pieces of glass missing. There have been many failed attempts at putting the glass back together. Many pieces are lost. There are many pieces that don’t belong. There is dirt from sweeping the pile together so as to not lose any more pieces. There is blood from trying to hold on too tightly and from trying to put it back together. 

Glass, dirt, and blood.

I hear a voice say,

 “Give the pile of glass to me, I can fix it.” 

I quickly jump in front of the glass pile and begin to reason with the voice. 

“No, I can fix it myself. 

It’s not a big deal. 

It’s just a dumb pile of glass. 

Broken, beyond repair.” 

Once again, the voice gently says, 

“I love your brokenness. 

Give the broken glass to me, let me make it new.” 

I whimper,  “No. I don’t want you to have it. 

I don’t want you to see it. 

I don’t know what you will find. 

I know all too well what you will find. 

No.

I have failed so bad. 

No. 

It’s not good enough for you. 

No. 

It’s too bad, too ugly. 

There are things missing. 

There are things that shouldn’t be there. 

No.” 

The voice gently replies, 

“Give it to me, I want to see it. Let me have it.”

“No.”

“Jesus, I want to be free. 

I am tired of being in this place. 

I am sick of this area of sin in my life. 

Jesus, Forgive me. 

Set me free.”

Jesus replies, “You do not get to pick your sin. 

You cannot choose what I set you free from. 

It is all or nothing.”

“But Jesus, I am so desperate for freedom in this ONE little area!”

“I don’t work that way. 

I want it all. 

Let me have the broken glass. 

I want to see and touch every piece of brokenness. 

I want you to show me it all.”

“Jesus, that terrifies me. 

It is not pretty.”

“...........”

“Jesus…  

I will show you it all if you help me.

I know what is in that brokenness… 

I know that I cannot do this without your help. 

I am so desperate for freedom though. 

I will do whatever it takes.”

His hand picks up a shard of glass… 

“Jesus, I am so sorry for that one, I know that it is something you gave me that had great value. 

Look what I did to it! 

It’s broken. 

I am so sorry.”

The hand grips the shard of glass and drags it across the other hand, 

“My blood is enough for this.”

I grimace as Jesus looks down and picks up another shameful, jagged piece of glass. 

He slides the sharp edge along the palm of his hand and says, 

“My blood is enough for this.”

I begin to weep as he continues to do this with each piece of glass that represents things in my life.

“My blood is enough for this.”

“My blood is enough for this.”

“My blood is enough for this.”

I can’t believe what I am hearing.

He continues,

“My blood is enough for this.”

Blood drips from his hands. 

His blood covers the glass where my blood once was. All the years of clinging to the glass, of not wanting to let anyone see the mess, where I was wounded from holding on so tightly… 

His blood ran down.

“My blood is enough for this.”

“Daughter, don’t you see, my blood is enough for your brokenness. 

My blood is enough for your sin. 

My blood is enough for you.”

This is only the beginning. I don’t know where he is taking me. But I know this, His blood is enough for me. I will gladly follow him on this adventure.

Totally surrendered.

There is more to all this, but this is all that I will write for now. Jesus showed me what he did with the dirt and the pieces that didn't belong there as well. It was all equally powerful. I wept through all three visions. I cry every time I think about them. I am excited for what is to come. 

Jesus, help me to trust you more. Give me grace to love you rightly Lord.