War and Peace

Phil. 4:6-7: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Peace.
Rest.
Stillness.
What a seemingly elusive concept amidst the ongoing treadmill of events and circumstances in daily life. And perhaps even more elusive is peace of mind and soul, effecting every aspect of our outlook, our perceptions, our reactions...the depths of our very being.
These 2 oft-quoted, oft-preached, but perhaps little-practiced verses contain the key to the prison of a tortured heart.
The God of peace fought for peace; it is part of His very character and nature. As such, He is the only source, the Ultimate source, of peace. He is the Giver of Peace. And that peace, attained by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, is a powerful warrior.
Philippians tells us that it guards the heart. The heart is kept with all diligence under the protectice covering of the guardian Peace. The emotions and dreams are guarded by peace. And not only the heart, but the mind is also kept carefully by Peace. The thoughts and turmoils of the mind are thwarted by the warrior of Peace. It zealously and jealously protects against unworthy thoughts of God that cause worry or doubt. It dispels fear and disarms struggle and frustration.
Anxious, worried, fretting, about no thing. Praying, Supplicating, Giving Thanks in every thing. Full confidence in the All-Sufficiency and Sovereignty of God. No matter the pain, no matter the struggle, no matter the hurt. And God's peace, which surpasses human understanding in its depth and entirety, will be a warrior to guard and protect and shield.
Peace.
Rest.

Stillness.

Is. 30:15: "In returning and rest shall ye be saved;

in quietness and confidence shall be your strength."

Ps. 46:10: "Be still and know that I am God."

Walking in Truth

"Thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness." Ps. 18:28
"...When I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me."
Micah 7:8
There are many passages of Scripture that speak of the contrasts of Light and Darkness; we often associate the analogy with those who are saved and those who are lost. But as I have been thinking and praying, my thoughts have gone a slightly different direction.
If you were to enter a dark room, you would find your perception of your location and your surroundings rather skewed. You might wander around, feeling your way for the familiar, guessing at the location of objects, but incredibly uncertain and unsure. Even a small beam of light would help you grasp your bearings slightly better, but when the flood of an overhead light comes on, there is no more uncertainty--only fact. Everything is clear, the location of things is clear...perception is no longer skewed.
The same is true of the our spiritual walk. Unless our minds are renewed with the Truth of God's Word, flooded by His Light, we walk in darkness. The thoughts, desires, and feelings of our deceitful hearts twist and contort Reality, leading us further into blindness. Our perceptions of God and of ourselves become horrifically skewed, wreaking havoc not only in our spiritual lives, but leaving great consequences on those we come in contact with. The frightening truth is, our sin has devastating effects on those around us.
It is possible for a follower of Christ to live and walk in darkness. The darkness of lies we believe about ourselves and about our God. Lies that perhaps lurk in the subconcious and would never dare to voice themselves. Lies such as, "If God were Truly good, then ____." Or, "If God really loved me, than ______ wouldn't be happening." "God can't be in control." "His Word can't truly mean what it says when it tells me to trust Him in everything. Look at my circumstances!" "His way can't possibly be best." "He can't possibly be doing what's good for me."
Or perhaps something such as "God isn't worthy of my time." "God isn't the One True God. I choose instead to worship myself." These are lies that cause darkness, confusion, and a completely wrong view of Christ. They cause a life of delusion and misconceptions. Like someone groping in darkness, a feeling of confidence may come in the direction they're heading and the choices they're making--until the light reveals they were hopelessly wrong.
But praise our God, there is hope! In these lies Christ shines the Light of His Truth, that we might walk in it.
We no longer walk in darkness as enemies of God; let us now walk confidently in the Light of Truth and flee from the blindness of our old man.

Of Orange Juice and Pulp

I would like to state that the term "orange juice" carries with it the connotation of juice from an orange--yea, even a good dictionary definition would convey this information. And, I would further like to mention, that it does not imply the actual drinking of an orange and all its contents. It is with this in mind that I feel the urge to express an extreme dislike--shall we say, distaste?--when I calmly pour a glass of orange juice, only to drink it and choke on enough pulp to fill 3 very obese oranges. When a sieve is needed to separate the actual juice from the other remnants of oranges...this is when I cry in outrage! (After, of course, I pick all the pulpy sinews from between my teeth.) I drink orange juice because I would like to have the liquid of an orange, not eat half the orange on the way down in the process. What is America coming to?! Where are those who will boldly take a stand and demand the purification of orange juice and preserve the right of eating whole oranges if desired?!
Guess I should just buy the pulp-free kind. :)

Home...away from Home

"There's no place like home, Auntie Em....there's no place like home!!"
K, well, I don't have the ruby red slippers to click and I have no dog named Toto, but...I am so thoroughly blessed and grateful to be back home again.
There's just something about home. Back to the quietness of the country, to long walks in my meadow, talks with my parents, the solitude and quiet of my room, and most of all, time spent at the feet of Christ.
This semester has been a long one and, in some ways, a hard one. But the Lord lovingly, gently, reminded me that in my weakness, He carries me; in my frailty He gives me breath and strength; in the night He is my Song; in the darkness He Alone is my Light; in my nothingness He is my All.
Christianity cannot be reduced to a God we view with reference to how He makes us--allows us--to feel. It cannot, should not, must not. Nor can it be reduced to a God we view in reference to what He can or has or will do for us. True, God meets our every need. True, He gives peace that passes understanding. But if this is how we view Him...in reference to our own, self-centered experiences, we have a shamedly small, unworthy view of Him. God is far, far greater than the ways in which we (often selfishly) experience Him. May He open the eyes of our understanding that we may see even a small portion of His greatness--and worship Him as He Alone demands and deserves.
To be home is wonderful...but how much greater to be Home in the presence of an Eternal, Immortal, Invisible King Who called us to be His heirs.

The Trustworthiness of God

Isaiah 50:10-- "Who among you fears the Lord, and obeys the voice of His servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God."
The past few weeks have been hectic, stressful, exhausting--but overflowing with the presence of an ever faithful God Who continues to be my exceeding joy...my song in the night. :) This verse captures much of my feeling: walking in darkness with no light, learning to trust in the name of the Lord and rely on my God.
The play came and went...the Lord Alone carried us. Missions Conference came and went...the Lord gave strength and grace. Room situations came and stayed, drawing us closer to each other and to Christ, showing us our insufficiency, our pride, and the greatness of a God Who controls everything. The last days of class have come and gone, multiple papers have been written, several hundred pages read, and once again, the Lord Alone was my sufficiency.
And through it all, I have been brought back to trusting in the name of the Lord. My Good Shepherd Who always leads me beside still waters and restores my soul. My Deliverer Who lifted me out of the miry clay, put my feet on a rock, and established my going. My Abba Father Who tells me to cast all my cares on Him and find Him to be my All in All. My Faithful Intercessor Who made it possible for me to come humbly but boldly before His throne of grace. My Completer, my Creator, my Life, my All.
This is the God I serve. And despite the circumstances of the jungle which is this life, despite my failings and frustrations and disappointments and contorting emotions, He never changes.

I can rely on my God because He is God.
Because He is a trustworthy God.

Time to Seek the Lord

I desperately needed Spring Break.
I hadn't realized how far I had drifted in my walk with the Lord--how shallow and disgustingly hard my heart had become, even in the midst of fighting to stay focused and struggling to respond correctly to circumstances and understand what it is God is trying to teach me. None of those things are bad things, but as with anything that usurps the place of Almighty God, they became bad things when I let them take priority.
I was reading this morning in Hosea 10, meditating on part of verse 12: "Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord." This whole semester Christ has been bringing me back to this one, most important thing in all of life. Seeking His face continually...His presence. When He is my passionate focus, my All in all, the pre-eminent One, the things of life that vie for my attention--the thoughts of my heart, my relationships, my own desires and expectations--fall into correct place beneath Him. They stand with greater clarity in the Light of His glory...not necessarily easier to handle, but with a peace that comes with the mind of Christ.
"Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord."
May you Seek and find Him as you search with all your heart...and may you worship Him passionately each day in spirit and in truth.

Lord, I Give Up

All the circumstances of the past few years have pointed me again and again to "looking only unto Jesus." Every relationshp issue, every trial, everyday life, has brought me again and again to my knees...and has lifted my gaze from my feelings and my emotions and turned them to Himself as my Only Source of satisfaction. I wait Only on Him--from God Alone is my deliverance, my hope, my joy. It all comes down to the essence of surrender, yieldedness, brokenness. May this poem be a blessing to you as it has to me.

Lord, I give up

all my own purposes and plans,

all my own desires and hopes and ambitions,

and accept Thy will for my life.

I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee,

to be Thine forever.

I hand over to Thy keeping all my friendships;

all the people whom I love

are to take a second place in my heart.

Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit.

Work out Thy whole will in my life,

at any cost, now and forever.

~Betty Stam

A Puritan Prayer

"Unmask me to sin's deformity,

that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it...

Let me never forget that the heinousness of sin

lies not so much in the nature of the sin committed,

as in the greatness of the Person sinned against. "

Steadfast Love

Have you ever wondered why people are so nice to you? Or why they are so kind, so considerate, so faithful? I have certainly on occasion marveled at that...but it pales in comparison to the love and faithfulness of my King. He is an amazing, almighty Father; He is worthy of all my passionate praise and love and devotion.
Hannah Whitall Smith once wrote, "Put together all the tenderest love you know of, the deepest you have ever felt, and the strongest that has ever been poured out upon you and heap upon it all the love of all the loving human hearts in the world, and then mulitply it by infinity, and you will begin, perhaps, to have some faint glimpse of what the love of God is."
"For Your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in Your faithfulness." Ps. 26:3 (ESV)

I Corinthians 13

Happy Valentine's Day. :)
The past few days have been full of thoughts and emotions and lessons; but particularly, it seems as though the Lord has been reminding me of Love--His and mine. And how very different the two are. Several messages in these few days have targeted the issue of my heart, and I've been realizing more and more how incredibly deficient, shallow, and trivial my love for Christ has become. Somewhere, at some point, I ceased doing things because of my passion for Him and started the "habit of holiness", if you will. Spirituality became the norm, and my love waned as I continued on in my own strength. The love of Christ wasn't compelling me.
It scares me that my sin is so deceitful, and how quickly I am hardened by it. Since today was Valentine's Day (and I am blessedly single) :) I was thinking about the love of my God and how infinitely great it is. I Corinthians 13 is an amazing passage; not only does it describe what our love for others and for God should be, but it pictures a small window into His love for us.
May we delight in the love of God...rooted and grounded, that we might know with all the saints what is the length and depth and breadth and heighth of His love that surpasses our knowledge. And may we walk worthy, compelled by an ever-increasing love for Christ.

Fighting to Rest

He who hath led will lead
All through the wilderness
He who hath fed will surely feed...
He who hath heard thy cry
Will never close His ear,
He who hath marked thy faintest sigh
Will not forget thy tear.
He loveth always, faileth never,
So rest on Him today--Forever.
~Mrs. Carmichael

"May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His dear son." Col. 1:11-14 (ESV)

The Peaceful Asylum

These are my roomates...together we make up the red-head, the brunette, the blonde, and the raven haired. :)
We call our room the Peaceful Asylum--very much its double meaning. Our room is beyond hilariously insane sometimes. But at the end of a long day, it truly is a peaceful asylum to find refuge in during the midst of the jungle of this life.
I love my roomates. I'm so humbled that the Lord put us in the same room. I'm very much looking forward to what He will teach us all this semester.
I know whatever He has planned according the counsel of His perfect will
will be good and right and best...and always done to make us more like Christ.

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him and I am helped:
therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise Him."
Ps. 28:7

Strong in Faith

I have come to the conclusion that wireless is one of the greatest blessings of this Century. Lounging in a large plush chair drinking orange and cream soda in a coffee shop with music playing in the background and my Bible at my side is wonderful...added to that my laptop connected on-line, it's stupendous.
I arrived safely back to school (home away from home) several days ago, and have since dived headlong into college life. My parents gave me the Bible on CD for Christmas, so I listened to Romans and part of I Corinthians on the way up...it was glorious. It's truly amazing how different it is to Listen to God's Word as opposed to reading it--especially the entirety of a book in one sitting.
Right around Romans 4 a very familiar verse jumped out at me and I was lost in thought for the rest of the chapter. The Bible says that Abraham was "strong in faith, giving glory to God." Because faith has been the theme of what Christ has been teaching me again and again in the past several years, it automatically jumped out at me. Abraham gave glory to God by being strong in faith. His trust in God was implicit, therefore glorifying God in His rightful position as Sovereign, All-Wise, Loving, Holy God.
The reverse of that is true as well, however, which I thought on quite a bit. When I don't have faith in my God, I rob Him of the glory due His majestic name. I say, perhaps even subconciously, "I don't feel like You know what is Best, I will not trust Your Wisdom or Your Sovereignty, and I certainly don't think You're doing what is very Loving." I become a mini-god on the throne of my own little world, my faith becomes horrifically mis-placed, and I rob God of His glory.
Faith really is a phenomenal concept. The more I learn and the more the Lord leads me and guides me and teaches me in the way of faith, the more I see the vastness of how much I have to learn...and the greater the temptation to be discouraged at my lack of faith, in the very face of the greatness (and faithfulness) of my God. But this itself is a lack of faith, and faith brings hope and joy and consolation in the plan and purpose of God.
As the Lord allows, I'm sure there will be other blogs on faith. It is the central part of my life now--the facet of my being. But until then, may you be strong in faith, giving glory to God.

Missions

"Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation." (Mark 16:15, ESV.)
"...God has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow...and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." (Phil. 1:9-11, ESV.)
My parents and I were praying tonight and as we prayed for missions and missionaries, praying the Lord of the Harvest to send forth more laborers, I again felt an increasing burden for the thousands of people groups who have never heard the name of Christ. One day every tribe, every nation, every people group will kneel before the King of kings---and how many of them will have never heard of Jesus Christ?
Go to the cities, they say. Send missionaries to the cities, where more people are. By all means, yes--go to the cities if the Lord leads you there. But what about the people in the mountains of Uzbekistan? What about the tribes who live in the middle of nowhere, content with their cultural tradition and heritage? What about them? Who will take the Gospel there, where there is danger and suffering and pain and disease?
In some ways I wish I lived in the era of Amy Carmichael and Mary Slessor, who just went! They were women of God whose passion for Him led them to leave their homes and suffer any cost. That's the kind of vision, the kind of passion, the kind of desire that we need to have as 21st century disciple-makers. They went, they lived with their people, they died with their people.
I am both zealous and idealistic, which is a somewhat dangerous combination. Missions today is not what it was even 50 years ago. But above all else, may we risk all, give all, offer all, that we might gain all. We need people to stay here, yes. But if you can go, by all means Go. Go--and don't waste your life. Every knee Will bow. Every tongue Will confess.
"I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying "my counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish my purpose...I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it." Is. 46:9b-11.

Much to Learn

I have so, so much to learn. It seems so increasingly true that the more you learn, the more you see how much you have to learn. This evening I was looking at my journal from last year and marveling at how much the Lord was teaching me and molding me...but I feel as though I know so little of my God and that my spiritual walk has yet to reach the "walk" part! God's majestic, infinite character dwarfs my tiny, finite mind. An eternity of lifetimes could never exhaust the bottomless well of the person and works of God. He is so great--and we are so, so small!
It makes me wonder it amazement (and frustration) how and why I could ever have a lack of faith in His purpose and plan for me. He Whose steadfast love is better than life...He Who purchased me at His own incredible cost...He Who is my Maker...and yet I doubt? And yet I fear? And yet I worry and agonize and cling to self-sufficiency? How arrogant and self-righteous I am. But still He chastens, still He loves, still He is faithful. He is such a wonderful Father. There is no god like Him. "For He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things." (Ps. 107:9.) May you find your satisfaction in Him Alone today.

Romans 8:28

"Every good poised to bless us, and every evil arrayed against us, will in the end help us boast only in the Cross, magnify Christ, and glorify our Creator." ~Piper

Back Again

Having returned to the "Lower 47", as my brother calls it, I now attempt to re-join the blogging world, having left behind my old Xanga account and moved on to better things.
I wasn't sure if I was going to keep blogging; college definitely hampers it. Which brings up the question, Why blog in the first place? Blogs that are glorified journals, including foods inbibed during the space of a day or repetitive sequences of daily events seem very pointless, not to mention monotonous.
The Lord has brought me back again and again to the poignant realization that He, our Maker, created us Solely for His glory. Every thing we do, including eating and drinking, is to magnify Him above all else. He is our Treasure, our Delight--His love is truly "better than life" as David says in Psalm 63. Why blog? Because I believe that in doing so, He can be exalted and lifted up and believers can be edified and encouraged. I am no theologian. I am not wise--nor would I classify myself even as "smart." Any and every thing in my life is a gift from a loving and gracious Heavenly Father, to which I can hold no claim or possession or right. I'm glad for the verse in Corinthians that tells us He has chosen to use the weak and beggarly elements. We have His Treasure in vessels of clay so that in all things, He might have the pre-eminence...that God might be all in all.
There is no God like Him. In Psalm 43:4 David begs for God's light and His truth, after which he proclaims: "Then will I go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise You with the lyre, O God, my God."
God My Exceeding Joy. May you find His precious face to be your Exceeding Joy this day.