Today is the first day in a while that I woke up in my own bed in my own room. I went on vacation with ML to the mountains this week. I'll post about that later....with pictures :-)
Today, I don't have too much to offer. I do have a few thoughts about love though. Love is such a profound concept. It sometimes feels like there aren't enough words to talk about it because it can be so many different things to different people. I often think of love as sacrifice. For me, love is an action and to requires something from you. Its not comfortable necessarily. It necessitates that you move beyond your own desires and consider someone else above you. Love, for me, isn't selfish. It endeavors at all times to offer the best to someone else.
I also think love requires learning. You can't move beyond yourself if you never get to know the other person. Listening is essential to learning. Honestly, listening and consent are required. One of the ways I've struggled personally is with both listening and consent. Someone has to agree to let you love them. They have to let you in. They have to let you care for them, shelter them, protect them, provide for them, support them, and in more intimate spaces make love to them. Its hard for me because I have an avalanche of love to give but that doesn't mean that that person is interested in that. They may just want a snow cone lol.
Also, I don't always listen well. Sometimes my mentor works with me on that. She requires that I tell her back what she's said to make sure I've got my instructions together. She says I'm really good at hearing from above but sometimes I'm not so good at hearing in the natural. She's a funny one! Thankfully, she loves that about me :-) What I love about God though is that He doesn't struggle with the issues I have. He's only coming in as strongly as you let Him. And I love that I can love Him as fiercely and tenaciously as I want. There's no amount of love that He will say is too much. In fact, I can't love Him enough. I hope to be able to at some points in the future be transparent enough with my wife to simply be a glass window through which God's love shines on her. I want to be in a place where the intensity of what I feel is ok.'
Isaiah 63:5
And I looked, but there was no one to help; I was amazed and appalled that there was no one to uphold [truth and right]. So My own arm brought Me victory, and My wrath upheld Me.
I don't ever want God to look down and not see in me someone trying to uphold truth. I don't ever want to be so far from purpose, and I don't mean purpose in the sense of job but life, that I'm unrecognizable to Him as a helper. Purpose is such a tricky idea though. My purpose in life is to touch as many people as possible with the Love of Jesus but its hard to remember that when you've got to split cells, attend this meeting, prepare a talk, write a protocol, and somehow find time to relax or think an independent thought. One of the things my mentor taught me early was that my mere presence brings Jesus in the room if I belong to Him and let Him use me. I don't necessarily have to do anything extra. I've found that to be true often. People feel prompted to tell me things about their lives that our actual relationships wouldn't dictate they share when I'm confocalling with them or helping them with their experiment. I remember having a whole conversation about loss and death with a Russian grad student whose Dad had died. I didn't know that girl for real but I was open to having that conversation and the darkness of confocal made her feel like it was okay to shed a tear or two. (Russians are stoic people in my experience) That wasn't anything but God because I 1. had something to share because I'd just done that loss of parents with my mentor that previous year and 2. that girl had no reason to be talking to the first year grad student she'd just met about this but she saw something in me that made her feel like she could. That wasn't me she saw :-)
Isaiah 63:7
I will recount the loving-kindnesses of the Lord and the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has bestowed on us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel, which He has granted them according to His mercy and according to the multitude of His loving-kindnesses.
When I think about God's loving kindness I often think of the things I asked for that He gave me. But I'd like to offer here are all things He didn't give me as loving kindness. When I didn't know better how to pray or what to pray, He knew better. He knew that despite my desire to go to UNC, I didn't need to be there. He knew that despite my desire to go to med school, I needed to go to grad school first. He knew that despite my prayers for marriage and about boys, that I didn't even know myself well enough to recognize that these prayers wouldn't bring me what I wanted. <---That's mercy. He showed me great compassion when He could have allowed something that would have both harmed me and any other person involved. There are so many times that something could have been detrimental to my spirit and He made sure that it didn't destroy me. His goodness is pervasive and far reaching in my life. Perspective is essential when observing God's movement in my life. In the midst of situations, mountains, and storms, I'm usually unable to see what He's doing or how its His best for me but when its over....oh but when its over I see just how blessed I really am.
Isaiah 63:9
In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the [a]Angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
I think its easy to forget that the things that afflict us as humans are things that Jesus Himself suffered through as well. Jesus has a first hand account for God about the difficulties of a spirit being housed in human flesh. He was both fully human and is fully God. When I think about the things that were and are hard about being a human, it sometimes brings me comfort to know that Jesus knows intimately what I'm going through. Nothing brings about great compassion like having been in the same situation as another person. Jesus has been limited by the flesh. Even though He walked perfectly on Earth, He had an intimate view of what being clothed in humanity does to a person's mind and spirit. I'm comforted by the fact that He really knows.
Isaiah 63:14
Like the cattle that go down into the valley [to find better pasturage, refuge, and rest], the Spirit of the Lord caused them to rest. So did You lead Your people [Lord] to make for Yourself a beautiful and glorious name [to prepare the way for the acknowledgment of Your name by all nations].
Rest. The Spirit of the Lord brings rest. Sometimes this rest feel like a nap and sometimes it feel like a hug. I've found that resting in Him is often preceded by struggle. I've struggled so mightily before I left Him give me rest. I rarely seek Him immediately. I'm often searching every which where for information or a how to for my situation when God really just waiting on me to trust Him. I've wasted so much time doing that. I've also found that the better I know Him the faster I go to Him BUT the more I know Him, the harder the things I've had to wrestle are. When I was in baby relationship, I had baby issues. Now that I'm no longer in baby relationship, the things I'm wrestling, the prayers I feel driven to pray, the promises I have from Him, the actions and behaviors He wants from me, they're all much bigger. Can I offer that my God is still bigger? Cause He is and He's faithful.
Isaiah 63:17
O Lord, why have You made us [able] to err from Your ways and hardened our hearts to [reverential] fear of You? Return [to bless us] for Your servants’ sake, the tribes of Your heritage.
Oh free will. Free will is sometimes the literal bane of my existence. When I want to do right, I'm often so very very wrong. But this goes back to consent. God isn't going to bum rush anyone. He's got a tidal wave of love, favor, grace, mercy, kindness, patience, and strength to give you but if you don't want it you don't have to accept it. One of the things I've had to learn is that I'm worthy. I'm worthy of this not because of who I am but because of who He is. And the other thing I've had to learn is to accept such from other people He's placed in my life. People who want to offer me love and acceptance and kindness. I love the people He's given me because they reflect Him in so many different ways. When I think about certain ones I think about the sacrifices they've had to make so I could succeed and how they can now be who and how and what they want. I think about the ones that make space and time for me. I think about the ones that pray for me. I think about all the ways people who don't have to love me choose to. I'm so humbled by that reality. But coming back around to what
I started writing in the beginning, free will often takes me away from Him. I try and always include "If it be thy will" in my prayers. Its a level of surrender but its also a way of getting me out of the way. I know He can do anything and everything without any help from me. I also pray that my human frailty and fragility not hinder what He wants to do and can I offer that sometimes He moves me in ways that are clearly beyond me? He does. Its amazing and its humbling. I know I'm not a big enough person for some of the benevolence and loving kindness I've demonstrated so I know its Him. Even in my wrong, He can use me. Even when I'm absolutely not interested, He can use me. But what I want, what I'm pushing for is to be used because I want to be....because I've offered myself. Lord increase in me that the me in me decrease. Take your servant's mouth and speak with it, my eyes and see, my ears and hear, my heart and love. Oh Great Jehovah, you're so worthy and I'm so incredibly grateful to even be aware of that fact.
Isaiah 64:4
For from of old no one has heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who works and shows Himself active on behalf of him who [earnestly] waits for Him.
He's moving y'all. He's moving and blessing and providing in ways we could never imagine. Can I offer that because we can't imagine that we often don't perceive Him appropriately? This is true for me. This thoughts are so far above mine that I often ask where are you? What I love about the indwelling of the Spirit though is that He's constantly moving me so I'm aware of Him in the minutia even if I'm not able to see Him all the time moving mountains in my life. Somedays, all He has for me is wake up, devotional, watch TV, read, eat, read the Bible, and pray. That's enough. Everyday doesn't have to be huge for me but that doesn't mean He isn't doing huge things on my behalf.
I love that this verse ends with him who WAITS for Him. Oh waiting. This is where perspective comes in so vividly. I've got the wait to see. I can't see in the middle of it but I can look back and see "That was God. That was provision. That was favor." Waiting is a radical concept. In a society so driven by everything being constantly available, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob seems to be quite sluggish. He isn't like google. You can't just hit up God and He'll give you want you want. That's not how it works and thankfully it never will be (I've prayed some insane prayers that He graciously said no to because they weren't what I wanted for real and I didn't even realize that fact at the time! Chile, He's a keeper!) For me, there a demonstration of faith in the waiting that God is always seeking from me. He's constantly asking me do I trust Him? I think that's because I have deep and pervasive trust issues and issues with feeling secure. God challenges me in that with waiting but He's always faithful. His faithfulness challenges the lies I tell myself about how no one comes through and no one will be there for me in the ways I've been there for them. Other people's faithfulness has also challenged those lies repeatedly. I love that about God. Not only will be prove something a lie coming from His own ability but He also does so using the people around you that know Him. He's so good to me for no reason other than who He is and I love who He is.
Isaiah 64:8
Yet, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our Potter, and we all are the work of Your hand.
Help me remain pliable God. <---that's a real prayer. Humanity can make us skeptical and cynical and rigid but God wants from me the ability to be molded. He's pushing me, stretching me, challenging me in different areas to do better, to be better, and to be more like Him. All these situations He's put me in have had the ability to push me towards Him if I chose that. I didn't always choose Him but He' chooses me every time. He's constantly demonstrating His feelings towards me. I'm His beloved and even when He's letting me be stretched and tried by fire, its all love. I remember that on the good days. God bless the good days and have abundant grace for the bad ones.
He will. He always does.
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