Morning Reflection

As I write this, it's about 9:00 in the morning, and my 8am class got out early, so I'm taking a few minutes to just sit and rest with the Lord for a bit. Nearby the table I'm sitting at is a sorority bakesale.

A few seconds ago, a woman walked by with what looked to be her daughter, probably around 4 years old or so. When she walked past, she teasingly said to the girls at the bakesale "Y'all are evil!" then turned to her daughter and instructed her to say the same thing. The little girl, imitating her mother, looked at the girls and said "You're evil!"

Now, the "You're evil" comments may have been 'innocent' banter, or some inside joke that I don't get. But I'm positive this little girl had no clue what the joke could've been about. She may not even know what 'evil' means.

One thing is certain though--this morning, the little girl learned to turn to strangers and speak bitterness and malice to them. I wonder--what will her social interactions look like when she's 16? 22? 80?

This observation makes me reflect on my own social interactions. Do I manipulate through harsh words or a cold demeanor? Do I "make a point" by reflecting bitterness towards someone?

And am I teaching those following me to do the same?

At the heart of these questions is this--am I a river of righteousness, a beacon of light, a reflection of the life-giving nature of Christ? Or do I, through my own bitterness, spread mean-ness to those around me?

"...set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity." 1 Tim 4:12

What kind of an example are you setting to those around you?

Untitled, because I'm lost for words...

Tonight I'm faced with the familiarity of God's voice calling out to me, asking me to give Him everything.

He asks me, and He has every right to. In surrender to Him, I gave up my life. I died. And when I died, He gave me real life.

In a country all about rights and freedom, I guess "surrender" and "giving up" are hard things to grasp. Even for the saved. I know it's hard for myself to grasp at times. Alot of times, actually.

But then I think about all that Jesus did for me. He gave up His rights when He left His throne, and He left it to come dwell with sinners like us. He left it to dwell with me. And then He died. When Someone's given everything for me, purchased me, how can I think I belong to myself? How can I think that I get to decide how I will spend my time, where my money will go, and who I will talk to?

I find that the more I'm immersed in this college atmosphere, the more I'm preached at about the need to fulfill my own wants and needs, to strive for what's "best" for me. And the more and more God asks me to give up everything, to give up myself, the harder and harder it is to be surrounded by the self-focused messages surrounding me. Because I've noticed something that happens when I start to believe these messages--it's like I'm being lulled to sleep, like a fog rests before the path I'm on. But not a severely blinding fog, and not an entirely uncomfortable sleep. The fog is just enough to make me think I'm okay without really listening to God's voice, and the sleep tunes my senses away from even really hearing Him speak. It's subtle, but it's a very dangerous place to be.

He's teaching me that He's given me life, and it's meant to be lived. Not slept through.
He's teaching me that He's given me sight, and its purpose is to open my eyes to the brokenness around me, and the sin in my own life.

So once again I plead for His mercy, and when He takes me back, I start to wonder why He ever would. "Love," is His usual one-word reply.

So trusting in His love, I bring Him my brokenness, and my failures, and hold out to Him the mess I've made, asking Him to turn it into something beautiful. And He is. He's slowly chipping away myself and giving Himself instead.

And He is Beautiful.

Never Once Have I Ever Walked Alone

God never ceases to amaze me with the intricate details of His presence around me. I can't tell you how many times I meet other Christians--true lovers and followers of Jesus--in the most unexpected places at the most unexpected times. It would also be an impossible task for me to recount to you how often I ask God a question and seconds later a "gut feeling" prompts me to pick up a certain book or open my past journals and on the pages are the very answers to the questions I have. Or, on those pages or in Scripture He brings to my mind, are the refining rebukes I've needed, and I am reminded that in His presence joy is found, no matter how painful or uncomfortable the rebuke may be. 

I find that in these ways, among others, God is always challenging my words, always testing what I am teaching to others. Today, He has revealed to me my complaints (those of the whiney-nature), and the natural tendency inside me to not trust Him. I teach that to trust Him is to believe Him, yet my own heart can be so reluctant to trust His will and believe His promises.

When confronted with these shortcomings, His unfailing presence takes me by the hand and leads my steps back to Him. And it's in those moments that He captures my heart again like He's done so many times before. This Heavenly Romance means that I don't walk alone. Despite the filth inside me, I don't walk alone. His love and relentlessness for my heart to be undivided towards Him just amazes me at times. 

And it brings me to my knees in adoration of this holy God that would stoop to my stumbling side and carry me. 

Handicapped Bird

Yesterday evening I was stopped at an intersection while I waited for the light to change. I looked over to my left, and there was this little bird hopping around on the median. As it was pecking at the pavement, it seemed like a pretty ordinary bird. Nothing unusual or strange. In fact, if I hadn't looked closer, I would have missed an important detail about this bird. I leaned closer to my window to see if my eyes were just deceiving me, but sure enough, the bird only had one leg! 

I sat there, just marveling at this little bird. It only stayed for a few more seconds after I realized its handicap, before bending that solitary leg and flying away, off to its next destination. 

Maybe I'm weird that I notice things like that, but I was so intrigued by this little bird with only one leg. After it flew off, I wondered how it could have lost its other leg. Fell out of a tree, maybe? Victim to a predator higher in the food chain? Hit by a car, recovered miraculously and only suffered the loss of a leg? One can only guess.

And then I thought about something else. However this bird lost its leg, it still adapted. Not just adapted, it flew, doing just what a bird was made to do. Maybe few of us have ever lost a body part, but many of us have lost money, jobs, grades, loved ones, friends, relationships, status, popularity, etc. If we have a deep love for our Savior, then somehow, those things do not destroy us. We cry out to God, time goes by, and we find that we have adapted. Somehow, the brokenness did not bring defeat.

My friends, like the bird that lost something it likely considered so important before, we must not despair when life does not go as we want it to. Especially when God chooses a situation for us that He chose for no one else, no matter how bleak. His will above all else, your purpose remains.

Whatever your pain, whatever your sorrow, however exhausted you are from things never going "right", WAIT upon the Lord. And may you look back years down the road and find that all along, He was with you. May you find that your situation did not keep you grounded, but like the handicapped bird, you soared high above it. Oh, He may not take away your situation, like He did not grow for the bird a new leg. But the bird still soared. It was not destroyed.

"Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

This one's for the girls

This might take a while to read, but it's definitely worth your time. I'm posting it for every girl that has ever walked down the hall at school, thinking about how badly she wishes she had a guy by her side. For every girl that has planned out the details of her wedding day and gone so far as to dream up the perfect husband. For every girl that fears there is no guy that could ever or will ever love her. For those girls--Jesus longs to take you by the hand and walk faithfully by your side; He is whispering sweet words from Heaven that He is your Husband; and there is no guy in existence that will ever love you like He loves you. Leave the world behind you, fall into His loving arms, and see that in Him is all you will ever need.

MY SOUL’S HUSBAND

By Annie Wesche, SetApartGirl magazine Sept/Oct 2011

About a year ago, I was out on a walk through a neighborhood filled with families and couples with either their children or dogs in tow. I walked past and waved with a smile upon my face, but deep down a pang of longing and ache was increasing with each step. The waiting season for my future husband seemed like it was reaching an unbearable length and I silently cried out, “Lord, I would give anything to have a strong, tender, manly hand cradling mine on this walk. Where is he, Lord?

From the time I was a little girl old enough to esteem the wonder and beauty of a fairy-tale romance I have waited in anticipation for my own unfolding love story, my day to walk down the aisle, and the pursuit of the greatest marriage of all time. Throughout the intense years of growing up and having every hope of such a pure, beautiful story threatened, I have held unwaveringly in faith that God could and would script such a legendary romance. Yet with the passing of years, it began to dawn on me that marriage wasn’t just a natural even that occurred conveniently after graduation or even in my early twenties. There was life to be lived right here and now, either spent pining and waiting for a husband or living a fulfilled life with my Savior each day.

However small a thing it may seem to be, my Beloved Jesus’ response to me on that walk was matchless. It was an unexpected reply, but more real to me than the couples I had walked passed. “Hold mine,” He whispered. “It’s here and always has been, waiting to be the strength, care, love, and presence that comforts you, upholds you, rejoices in you, and guides you. Reach out and you’ll see that I am more real than you have ever known.”

At this crossroad, I was either going to keep sighing and sitting in hopes that my prince would soon come along, or live out what the Lord was showing me increasingly in His Word. He said He was a very real presence. With Him was fullness of joy? There was safety under His own wings of protection? Being with Him is a fountain of Life? Everything I needed for life and Godliness was found in Him? His Love better than life itself?

A smile still comes to my face when I think about how I responded. My eyes closed as tears began to fill them up and a smile that reached clear to my soul graced my once downcast expression. He was there to be all that His Word promised.

My companion, my protector, my comfort, my joy inexpressible, and the strong Bridegroom I had so longed to have at my side. At His heroic invitation to walk with Him hand-in-hand, I gently squeezed my hand closed around His, gripping by faith the nearness of my Groom. It was then that a wonderful and altogether lovely joy filled up my heart as the walk with this very real Prince extended through the sunset.

That day took me deeper into experiencing Christ as my First Love. It was the smallest gesture of my grand King, but it might as well have been a walk through palace gardens. Every day since then, God gives me the same invitation to meet Him in reality as I go throughout each day – to rise with Him, start the day with Him, follow His lead with each friendship in my life, share with Him every thought, hear His words of guidance, love, and wisdom, pour out my heart in prayer, lean upon His power to live as He calls me to, and lay down upon my pillow with His strong, protective presence right here with me.

I had spent hours envisioning the life I would have serving alongside an earthly husband. We would be rescuing dying bodies and souls, taking loads of orphans into our family, and while He preached the Gospel I would be praying fervently for the Holy Spirit to move upon lost hearts. And while those dreams still exist, they have taken a new place in my heart. Rather than taking up each moment with waiting, they lie tucked away, joyfully and sacredly kept for the proper time; and when an earthly man is given, every single one of those dreams will be possible with our Lord.

What now takes center stage is the fact that my soul’s Husband is the very One who has healing for those dying bodies and hope for each perishing soul; He is the Father to every fatherless child, and the Gospel itself living and active! At His bidding and enablement each day I can be His hands and feet. He’s already given me grand adventures following Him to the orphans in Haiti, standing before officials in communist China, and seeing through His eyes a crippled leprous woman. And He has won my heart with His never failing presence, matchless love, and fulfillment of every promise I have believed Him for!

Dare I say it, I am now so completely captivated by the love of this Heavenly Man, that I want no earthly man until it will only serve to bring my First Love greater glory on this earth! And I know now that my heavenly love story with Jesus Christ will be the greatest gift I can one day give my future husband, as we will both continue living fully for our King…together.

Hold on, girls. In His arms is fullness of joy. I, too, ask God on occasion when my time will come. And each time, He reminds me that "my time" is His time. And there are no better hands in which to trust "my time" than His.

This Jesus

"...I will turn their mourning into joy; 

I will comfort them, 

and give them gladness for sorrow." 

- Jeremiah 31:13 -

As I meditate on this verse, there is one thing that I am reminded of. To think that He subjected Himself to the deepest of sorrows, the darkest of mourning, that we may know joy and comfort and gladness. It seems that for true worship to spur forth from our lips, our hearts must understand that this "free gift" was not free for everyone. Someone paid a price, and that price was death. The cost of our gift--God Himself abiding with us--was death. Either we would pay or He would. Do we realize what it is that He's done for us? What great love this must be to pay a price such as this for a people that would not love Him back. 

This Jesus lived on earth as a servant, taking the lowliest of positions in washing his followers' and friends' feet caked in dust.

This Jesus, Himself fully God, Creator of earth, of oceans and mountains, sunsets and starry nights, also took such intricate manners to form you and me. He knows the number of hairs on our heads and every though of our hearts.

This Jesus, that knows us so intimately left His kingly throne with its power and majesty, and came to earth in the form of an infant. A baby that cries and poops and burps and is completely dependent on his caregiver.

He grew to adulthood and raised men from the dead, gave sight to the blind, and healed the lame. He lived a perfect, innocent life, only to be betrayed by a friend. A friend who accepted money to lead this Jesus to His very death. The unthinkable is in Jesus' ability to simply speak a single word and stop the madness, yet He spoke not a word.

He was beaten unrecognizable, mocked and spit on, and drug up a hill to have nails driven through his hands and feet and hung on a cross between criminals. There, he died. But, oh, it was not in vain. He was buried in a borrowed tomb, and walked out of it alive three days later.

Rising from the grave, He defeated death, the same death that gave us life. It was the only way we could ever love Him. Our very Father in heaven, sending this Jesus, paid our price that we may see Him someday. He died to save us from Hell, and the burden of sin. He set us free, and we are free indeed!! Called the bride of Christ, in a marriage covenant.

And one day, He's coming back in the clouds to take His bride with Him. What a glorious day when we can see Him face to face--gaze into His eyes, fall at His feet, and weep for joy. When we can finally praise Him unreserved and unrestrained.

We will come running past the gates of Heaven and into God's open arms, and on that glorious day, He will say, "Welcome Home, my child, welcome Home."

 May we remember His amazing love, and decide that we will love Him back.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us

At our last open gym, I witnessed a short, seemingly insignificant interaction between a daughter and her father. In the moments I watched what was happening, God was speaking sweet words about His grace into my own heart. I immediately grabbed my iPod and took some notes on what I'd just seen. I'll simply copy what I wrote here for you to read:

Skipping along, excited to play, her chips suddenly fell from her hand and scattered to a mess all over the floor. Out came that bottom lip and a cry was about to burst from inside her. "DADDY!!" she screamed, and immediately turned to her father sitting nearby, panicked at the size of the mess she'd made. When she caught his attention, she pointed to the chips strewn all over the floor.

With gentle grace in his voice, he looked her in her eyes--those big, glistening blue eyes--and said, "It's okay, baby, just pick it up."

At the sound of her father's gentle words, it's as though she was instantly comforted, and the cry was snatched from erupting through her lips. She knelt down to her knees, and began scooping up the mess. Once she'd gathered all the chips up in her hands, she walked closer to her father and asked him pleadingly, "Where's the trash can?"

Her father held out his hands and said to her, "Here, give it to me. I'll throw it away for you."

The worry faded from her face as she handed him her mess, and as he took it from her, she grinned, hugged him, and that innocent, dimple-cheeked smile returned to her face. As her father walked to the trash can to throw away the chips that had made such a mess, she skipped away, hair bouncing on her shoulders, as she hummed a sweet tune.

As I sat back, soaking in the situation that played out before me, I couldn't help but notice the comparison to our own Father's gentle grace.

I think about how many times I've come running to God, crying about the latest mess I've made. But in His loving grace, he simply looks me back into my eyes and says, "It's okay, my daughter, just give the mess to me, and I'll clean it up for you." He reminds me of the price already paid, the death that took my sin and disposed of it on the cross, then left it in the grave. He doesn't scold me or shame me, just takes me by the hand and helps me back to my feet to start walking again.

What love and grace He has lavished on us! We had no right to be called children of God Most High, yet He chose to love us, to save us, to make us His. And when we fail or stumble, He casts no condemnation, for it's Christ's blood that has made us innocent, not our own absence of failure.

Oh, gracious God, how can we ever repay you? 

That's just it. We cannot repay him. We need not repay him. The work was finished on the cross, because it's the only payment that could ever satisfy. When we begin to grasp this incredible truth, how can we not offer Him anything but everything we've got?

We don't have much, but may we give what do we have--all of ourselves--to Him, in response to such great love that He has lavished on us.

May you walk in God's grace, clinging to the ways He has loved you.
May you curl up in His lap, and find that He casts no condemnation for your mistakes.
May this grace lead us to repentance, that we may walk deeper into wonderful fellowship with our Father.

"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!..." 1 John 3:1

"The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him" Daniel 9:9