To be Known by God

Every moment we make a choice. We make a choice to either hide or to allow ourselves to be known.

It's scary to let God know us. It’s terrifying to invite Him to examine our hearts.

Of course He already knows every single thing about us but its so different to confess it ourselves. To confess, “This is who I am Lord, every part. Will you still have me?” 

And to hear Him say, “I know who you are. I know everything about you and I will never ever stop loving you.”

Such grace.

Being known by God develops intimacy with God. He knows how I’m feeling, me coming to Him with how I’m feeling is what matters.

Coming to Him and laying out every part of who you are, brings you to a deeper appreciation of the fact that He loves every part of who you are. When we don’t come to God with the hard things, its as if we are pretending those things don’t exist. We pretend that God only see’s the qualities in us that we would like Him to see.

When we bare our hearts before Him we come away assured that we are still unconditionally loved and accepted.

It’s beautiful to think, ‘Jesus knows the ugliness in my heart today and He loves me anyway. Jesus knows my bitterness today and loves me anyway. Jesus knows my selfishness today and loves me anyway.'

 

Think about it for a moment. God doesn't love you because He is obligated to. God loves you for who you are as a person. He loves you for everything that makes you, you. 

We do ourselves a great disservice when we hide from God. When we try to earn His approval by presenting Him with what we think He wants to see. More than anything? He just wants your, real, honest heart. He is the one who will accept and understand you in a way that no one else on this planet is able to.

Fear, insecurity, and shame are things that teach us to hide from God. Allowing your whole self to be known by God brings freedom, security, and joy in who God has made you to be. 

Knowing things about God and being known by God are two completely different things. One is simply head knowledge and one gives life. Its one thing to believe that God already knows you completely, its another thing to open up your heart, lay it all out there, and say, "Here I am God."

The other day I said, “Lord I trust you.” And I heard, “Yes, but are you daily entrusting yourself to me?”

So I realized I must now choose to entrust to God the knowledge of who I am, every single part of me, every single day, every single moment. 

Be brave enough to let him know you. Trust Him with who you are, who you aren’t, and who you hope to be.

Can we really be known by others until we have allowed ourselves to be fully known by God? Can we even know ourselves until we have allowed ourselves to be known by God?

It is a choice that we must make everyday. To not try to put on a show for God but to finally take off the mask and let Him see us. He is waiting to comfort us, waiting to heal us, if only we would turn to Him and be real. If only we would let ourselves be known.

Every moment we make a choice. We make a choice to either hide or to allow ourselves to be known. Today I choose to be known.

How sweet it is to Trust in Jesus

His faithfulness never fails to astound me. His goodness makes me want to throw my head back and laugh in happiness.

May these hallelujahs be multiplied

A year and a half ago God told me that I would go to Cairn University and become a counselor. I was hopeful, but doubts were creeping up in my mind.

Sophomore year of college I sat in my car crying because my GPA just missed the requirements to be an education major. I thought I wanted to be a teacher and suddenly that door had closed I felt like all my dreams were crushed. I didn’t understand what God was doing, I didn’t understand why He wasn’t giving me clear direction. All of my friends were confident about where their lives were going and I felt stuck and directionless.

I didn’t understand what God was doing, but He knew what He was doing. He had a beautiful plan for me.

I am so incredibly grateful that God didn't let me become an education major. I'm so glad that He didn't let me have my own way. Instead, because He is a good father, He lovingly steered me in the right direction. 

Looking back I see that God clearly spent a year developing my trust in Him. He only ever allowed me to see two steps ahead of me, while I’m the kind of person who likes to look a mile ahead. When family asked what my next steps and goals for the future were it panicked me a bit to have to say, “I’m not sure. God hasn’t showed me that far yet.”

He gave me tiny bits at a time.

I want you to help hurting people

A month later

 I want you to be a counselor

A month later

I want you to go to grad school

A month later

I want you to go to Cairn University

And I spent the whole year saying, “But God what about this? What about that?” I felt frustrated because I couldn't see where I was going. But He knew.

It seemed like an impossible situation. There were so many things I was unsure of, so many reasons to worry.

I had no choice but to trust. And as I began to trust I began to feel safe. For the first time, He was in the drivers seat and I wasn’t needlessly calling out directions from the backseat.

The Lord is so wise. He knew that the way to build my trust was carefully and slowly over that one year.  

I began to experience great joy as I let Him carry the weight while I simply rested in His will.

And now I see that He has led me exactly where He promised He would.

I know that I have read His promises over and over and I have heard His promises over and over.

But the other day these realizations hit me fresh and brand new all over again and left me crying like it was the very first time I had ever heard them.

He is good to me.

He loves me.

He is taking care of me.

He’s not going to leave me or abandon me

He has good plans for my life

Oh that I would always remember these sweet words.

I’m praying that Jesus would give me a heart that is always full to the brim with His truths. He knows that even though I know these truths, I constantly need them reinforced. And He promises that He will always be reminding me.

I’m so in awe of His faithfulness. So in awe of His trustworthiness. Every time I think I couldn’t possibly love Him anymore than I already do, He gives me one thousand more reasons to fall even more in love with Him. I’m content to spend the rest of my life falling more in love with Him.

I know that in the future doubts will try to wiggle their way back into my brain. So I am putting down a memorial stone right now. The next time I am tempted to despair I will look back and remember the Lord’s faithfulness to me, and how He kept His promise to me.

Numbers 23:19 God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

To give your life away

When God shows up, things happen, when God meets you, things change.

I used to dream in shades of self-protection. I used to dream of a white picket fence and a safe little home and community.

I used to dream of making MY life the very best it could be. All of my concerns were about MY safety, MY comfort, MY desires. In a lot of ways this is how we as Americans are taught to live, with a self-focus.

It isn’t wrong to want those things; it only becomes a problem when you refuse to accept from God anything other than those things. To make demands of God and get grumpy when He fails to deliver in the way that you think He should. I still have those dreams but now I’m making room for some new ones too. I’m becoming okay with my plan not happening the way I want it to.

Its not that I won't still have a family and a house in suburbia. Maybe I will, but for the first time I'm okay with not having that.

I'm unclenching my fists.

 Now I am okay if God has a different plan for me. This wasn't an easy thing to come to; I wrestled with God until I couldn't wrestle anymore. I know that whatever His plan is, it is SO much better than anything I can think up.

I no longer have a death grip on my dreams; the only thing I want to have a death grip on is Jesus.

Before, I only determined to keep myself happy and desensitized to pain but now I long to dive into the wreckage with others and bring them the hope that is Jesus. Whether that be in Cambodia or in a counseling office in the United States, there is pain and need and wreckage everywhere. I'm waiting to hear where He wants to send me or keep me. 

Its not that I won't come back, I just want to go. For a week, a month, a year, whatever He wants.

For the longest time I was too afraid to go anywhere outside of my safe little bubble. What a sad life that is.

Now I dream of Haitian slums, Belizean safe houses, and Cambodian orphanages.

Now I dream of giving my life away.

And that’s all God. Because on my own I am so far from wanting any of those things.

When God shows up and meets you, things change, you change. He met me and I know I will never ever be the same.

I am so thankful, so thankful that He loves me the way I am but won't leave me there.

I have to trust that God will be with me wherever I go and that HE IS ENOUGH. Just Him is enough. He invites me to let His words have the final say. He invites me to a new way of loving that I had never known before. A love that is brave and that when met with opposition loves back even harder and more persistently. The same way that He loves me.

Unclench your fists; He has such beautiful things to drop in your hands.

Matthew 13:44

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field

Feeling World Weary

The other night I was feeling tired. Not tired physically, I was feeling world weary. 

You know, those days when all that you see around you in the world is loss and brokenness and sin and your heart has just been weighed down too far. The kind of day that makes you ask, "God, where are you? Don't you care? Don't you see?" 

The days when you can't remember how to not take all the hurt of the world into yourself. Days when you hear stories of slavery and exploitation and abuse in faraway countries and your stomach drops and you grasp for some finite way to help and come up empty. When you long to reach out and embrace and comfort and speak words of truth, but your arms can't reach that far. 

Driving home a couple of nights ago I heard these words on the radio and they said everything I was feeling. This time your heart has had enough, sick and tired of everything that's so messed up.

Do you ever just get so tired of living in this world that has fallen so far? I recently heard the story of a little girl in Latin America who was abused. And I wish more than anything that I could tell her face to face of the infinite value and worth she has as God's precious daughter. I wish I could tell her that God made her for so much more than to be used to satisfy someone's selfish desires. 

God is so good to me. He is the ultimate comforter, my ultimate comforter. In moments like this He draws Himself closer so that we can grieve together in agreement. I so love that God never rushes me through sorrow or demands my joy. He gave me almost two days to feel sad before He greeted me with words of comfort and truth. 

A lot of times when we're sad we don't want people to try to comfort us or give us nice answers. We just want someone to be sad with us, and thats what God did for me. 

He most often ministers to me through music. Today He met me in a quiet place with a song whose words speak to my soul and reach my heart. 

I asked, "God where are you?" And He answered,
I am the Lord your God, I go before you now. 
I stand beside you, I'm all around you.
Though you feel I'm far away, I'm closer than your breath.
I am with you, more than you know

God asked me why I feel the need to carry the weight of the world when it is He who is my peace.

I am the Lord your peace, no evil will conquer you.
 Steady now your heart and mind, come into My rest. 
Oh, let your faith arise, lift up your weary head. 
I am with you wherever you go
. Don't look to the right or to the left but keep your eyes on Me. 
You will not be shaken, you will not be moved. I am the hand to hold

One  thing that spoke to me the most was the line, "Come into my rest." 

Don't we rush around trying to be everything, do everything, fix everything? We feel like we need all the answers. But God gently invites us to come away with Him to a quiet place. To come into His rest and experience His peace. 

Resting in His peace I feel like I can keep on loving in this crazy, messed up world. That I can start looking for the good in bad situations. That in depravity, I can look for reasons to be thankful. 

That doesn't mean my heart no longer feels the hurts of our world. It means that I can take all of that hurt to my heavenly Father whose arms DO reach far enough to wrap around the whole world. My God's arms wrap around the orphan and the widow, the hopeless and helpless, the broken, the lost, and afraid. I can take all of the hurt to my God who is in the process of redeeming everything. 

What is there in your life that is pulling you down? What is God asking you to bring to Him? 

Finding Joy

This week God has flooded me with joy and now I am joyful, very abundantly joyful.

I am joyful because I have finally got into both my head AND my heart what God was trying to tell me about embracing the sad parts of life. I’ve finally realized that sometimes you’re going to hear something sad or see something sad or think about something sad and that it’s okay to take time to be sad about it.

Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean that God flips a switch and all you are is happy and will never experience sadness again.  In fact, as Christians, knowing the heart that God has for the world, and seeing the state that our world is in, we SHOULD be feeling sad.

BUT in the midst of our sadness, we feel HOPEFUL. Hopeful because Jesus has overcome. But I think that a very necessary part of showing the world around us the heart that their heavenly father has for them, includes showing them how he feels about their suffering.

Romans 12:15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.

But I was afraid to be sad. A big part of the battle was over control. I told myself, ‘You can be sad about these couple of things and that’s it. Or you can only be this sad for this long.’ I wanted to protect my tender heart.

I thought that if I started to be sad that I would never be able to stop. After all,

Human trafficking generates 9.5 billion yearly in the U.S, half of the world lives on less than 2.50 a day, and in the U.S domestic violence occurs every nine seconds.

And how does one ever stop being sad about those kinds of things?

But Jesus wept. 

John 11:33

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

Imagine being Mary or Martha watching Jesus weep. Imagine how much love they must have felt for their savior, seeing how much He cares for them. That the God of the universe would shed his tears for us.

My God is a God who feels deeply. Every day we are being made more and more like our savior. And our God is a God who weeps over tragedy and poverty and homelessness and abuse. And so we must be those kinds of people too. People who have the same heart towards others that God has. God weeps with me when I am hurting and I should weep with others that are hurting.

Once I finally completely embraced the sadness, the oddest thing happened. I was filled with joy. Instead of being overwhelmed with sadness like I feared I would be, I was so incredibly comforted by God.

He whispers to me, “Yes I understand. That is how I feel about this too.”

I feel so much closer to God, finally grasping a bit of how much He cares. I am filled now with so much joy and hope. Now I call it, “hopeful crying.”  

Embracing sorrow, finding joy. Doesn’t seem like it should work that way. But that’s my God. He doesn’t operate the way the world does. Us with our bumper sticker sayings such as, ‘don’t think about bad things that happen, just focus on the positive.’

God works in ways that seem backward to us.

Ways like,

The first shall be last and the last shall be first

You must lose your life to find it

A man cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless he is born again

From an increase in allowing myself to be sad at sad things, the amount of hope I had increased as well. The more acknowledgement of truth, the more hope that God gives.

An increase in allowing myself to feel honest and deep emotions, the closer I felt God’s presence, and the more hope and joy that flooded my life. I realized that by refusing to acknowledge sorrow, I was also depriving myself of finding hope and joy in the midst of sorrow.

I want to practice ‘hopeful sadness,’ which is to greive over sorrow and injustice and then hand that greif over to God and allow him to hand back hope. 

"Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free." 

Jesus is Freedom!!!!

I have this song in my car I listen to and whenever the singer says, "Jesus is freedom," all this joy bubbles up inside of me. It really does. That phrase didn't used to mean anything to me, especially when I was in high school. The kids from the christian group would always be talking about Jesus and freedom. 

And I always thought, 'freedom?' I'm not in jail or anything, I'm free.'

 I've come to realize more and more that before we finally understand things, we are totally blind. I understand things now that before, it was like a blindfold was over my eyes. Now, the thought of Jesus as freedom makes perfect sense to me. Not only does it make perfect sense, it makes me so incredibly happy. The thing about bondage is, most times when we're held, we have no idea we're in prison. Before I was a christian I thought that I was supposed to be living free and doing whatever I wanted, and that was fine, but it wasn't. 

A lot of people think that christians are so restricted because of all of their rules. They think we must be boring and judgmental and oppressed. But they are dead wrong. I understand that kind of thinking because I once thought that too. I once felt sorry for the christians I knew.

 I thought, 'how sad it is for them to have such a boring life. While I'm having fun and can do whatever I want, they are stuck with tons of rules.' 

But I didn't realize that the life I was living was actually the one in trouble. Despite all their rules and supposed boring lives, I couldn't understand why christians were always so joyful. If they had it so bad why were they so happy and me, living life the way I wanted, so unhappy? I didn't realize that I was in bondage, I was a slave. Satan, the father of lies, had me believing that God didn't care about me, and that everything I was looking for, everything that could make me happy, would be found in the world. 

Looking back I am sad that I was in bondage for so long when I know that God desired so strongly to break every chain. I was in no way free, I was so tied up that I didn't even notice anymore. 

But now, now I am truly FREE. I don't live the same life I lived before, I don't do the same things, go to the same places, say the same things, think the same things. Some people might call my life constricted, but I have honestly never felt more completely free in my entire life. Over the years God has been slowly stripping me of all my bondage and I have watched in disbelief and joy as the chains fall off one by one. 

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

Thinking back on high school me I really wish that I could have known what real freedom feels like. 

This is freedom. Freedom is knowing that you have a father in heaven who knows you completely and loves you completely and knowing that that love is never going to end. Freedom is knowing that your value is not based on a single thing except for the fact that you are God's beloved child. Freedom is not having to ever be afraid, because you have complete assurance that God is taking care of you and has good plans for your life. Freedom means no guilt or self condemnation, only grace. 

I wish everyone knew this freedom, I don't know how I ever lived without it. 

Song Recommendation:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppgde6wVwAM