"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" - Ezekiel 36:26
"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" - Ephesians 3:17-19
I feel like God has really been speaking to my heart about the brokenness of the world, but the hope and healing He offers. I have so many stories, memories and words He's spoken to my heart about this and it would take too many words to explain it all. I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but God kept telling me to wait, He had more to show me.
Simply, I'm a completely broken person. I've made some choices that led me down a path far from God. For a while I was doing things that basically nullified what Jesus did on the cross for me, saying that I could take care of myself and everything and I didn't need Him.
The thing is, He was furiously, relentlessly pursuing me. He let me step over boundaries and test the limits, but He knew how much I could take and He wouldn't let me step over that line, praise God! Almost 3 years ago, the Holy Spirit really did a work in my heart and I started taking steps in the right direction. I've been a christian since I was about 6 years old, but it was never my own faith; it was what I was taught. The past 3 years has been God guiding my heart more and more towards Himself and showing me how much He loves me, how much He gave for me. He healed the hurting parts of my heart bit by bit as I gave them up to Him. Even when I would take things back from Him, He kept asking to carry them, to take my burden on His shoulders.
That's what it is to give your life to Christ; to see your broken state and know that in your humanity you can't save yourself, you're lost. Christ took your burden, your sin, your brokenness, your fallen nature, He took it on His shoulders and died with it. Then the power of God raised Him from the dead so that He could raise us up too! When we come to Jesus, we die and are given a new spirit. We are a new person!
God created us to worship Him. Part of that is recognizing what Christ did for us and the power there is in His death and resurrection. Recognizing that the Father loves so unconditionally that He had to have a way to destroy the disconnect sin created, and so He sent His Son to take all that on Him and create a way back to the Father. How crazy is that?? He wants us to live our lives in worship, in His presence, in a way where we are in constant communion with Him. That's what He created us for. This constant communion means no hurt, no pain, no suffering. I don't mean that life will be easy and carefree, but that we can cast our hurts, pains and suffering on Him and in His presence and love find peace and joy to walk in. He is so faithful, He will never fail to invade our lives with peace and joy. Too often we look to the world to take our pain away and that will never work, ever. But with God, He promises to never leave us.
I definitely don't have all this down pat. Some days go by and at the end I realize I've barely talked to God all day while other days it's constant communion with God. But no matter how much I stray away or mess up, God is always there waiting for me. He initiates, He comes to us. He will never fail us. It's getting easier and easier to just find myself in His presence all the time and it's such a joy to recognize that and see His hand in my everyday life! It's crazy.
So this is ending up long. There's this sweet song I heard a while ago and heard it again tonight and it's sooo good! Speaks to my heart, I pray it speaks to yours too. Be blessed!
God is soo good. Another sweet as song came to mind and I have to post that too. The bridge speaks so strongly to my heart every single time. God is SO good!
'I may be weak, but Your Spirit's strong in me. My flesh may fail, my God You never will.'
The past week has just been a whirlwind. The past couple days seem like a couple weeks. Yesterday alone seemed like it was a couple days long. I feel like I’ve been on a faith journey with God the past few days. I mean, all of life is based on faith, but the past couple days has just been like ‘ok God, I know how You’ve shown up before so I know I can trust You, but I just have no idea what this is going to look like’. There are still so many things up in the air, but my God is so faithful and glorious in all He does.
I need a job. I was perfect for the new Panera opening up in Wethersfield, so I applied and everything, played phone tag with a woman to set up an interview, and had an interview wednesday. They said they would call me thursday to set up a second interview, but they didn’t call. Friday morning I got a call from a different woman, well we played phone tag back and forth a couple times again and when I finally got a hold of her, they offered me the job but I couldn’t come to a mandatory training session saturday because of a visit to UNH. They pretty much said, well that’s it, we can’t take you then. As soon as I hung up I asked God, ‘Is this something I’m supposed to fight for? Am I supposed to be pursuing this strongly?’ I didn’t get a voice from Heaven or anything but I had this strange reassurance and peace and thoughts that I’d ignored earlier in the week came back and I knew it was ok. I was supposed to be a UNH saturday. There were so many other things that worked out in a way only God can orchestrate and I can’t even explain them all. This is so beyond basic, there is so much more. But anyways, I had this overwhelming sense of this is what is supposed to happen that I even had a hard time being upset about not getting the job, and I need a job.
So we went to UNH yesterday, and it was the College of Health and Human Services accepted students day, which I went to last year by myself and attended the Outdoor Education info group. This year I decided to go to the Social Work info group because I’m switching majors, and my parents came. On the drive up I was just pleading with God that the day would be worth it, that there would be purpose and I specifically asked for renewal, new joy, new life. Funny thing is, God kept pointing out the new buds and leaves on the trees and speaking to my heart about how there will be renewal and new life. He’s so good with encouragement! Needless to say, meeting with the head of the social work department was so great. I got to talk to her personally about some things I did overseas and explain a bit of my heart behind going into social work and then she had me share with the whole group. What the heck God! haha! So now I actually know about the social work program I’m going into and again feel so much peace about the campus.
I made plans to meet with one of the girls I’ll be rooming with next year and her mom at a sweet pizza place in Portsmouth and I was so nervous. I had no idea what she was like, I just knew that God had clearly orchestrated our rooming situation and again I was just trusting Him. I had no idea what He had in store for me. They came and whatever expectations I had were tossed out the window and to sum it up, I feel like I’ve know Mallory for years. Besides the fact that she has a heart for the world, especially Africa and a huge as heart for God, her parents are missionaries with Campus Crusade for Christ. The whole story behind her family and when I’ve met the before and all the ridiculous connections there are is just so big, it’s too much to write out. God loves to do things like this and then just laugh when we start to make a couple connections. He seriously has a crazy sense of humor!! I’m so blessed to have Mallory as a roommate, and to pretty much have a second family and home up in New Hampshire. (Of course, I haven’t even met my other roommate yet, Gwen, but she’s a sister in Christ as well and I know that she’s going to be a huge blessing as well!)
This does no justice to the past couple days. None. I can’t even put into words how good God is. I was asking God to just show His glory this weekend and He couldn’t have revealed more. You might remind me that I didn’t get the job, but the peace God’s given me about that is even more glorious than the joy of making money.
Today was just, such a sabbath. A day to just revel in God and who He is. Wind was fantastic and the message was so good, something God speaks so much to my heart about. Testifying to who He is and what He does, being a witness and that’s our job, to speak out and declare what God has done and is doing; the Holy Spirit changes people. So good. Merge tonight was incredible. Worship was 2 songs, and it took up 45 minutes. It was just pressing in and pressing in and blessing God and pressing in even more. His presence was so tangible in the room, it was intense. What a blessing it is to have the privilege of becoming sons and daughters of the most high God and getting to worship Him! What a blessing it is to get to know Him more and see more of His glory revealed! What a blessing it is to fall more in love with my Savior and my God who created me and has rich as plans for me!! I really can’t think of anything better than to live a life of praise, a life that just shows the glory of our God. What greater privilege is there than to be able to testify to who God is and what He’s done in your life? He is so good!
I feel like a big part of our job as the body of Christ is to testify, to witness to what He's doing and what He's done. I guess that's why I'm still writing on this blog, and while I'll keep writing. It keeps me accountable to sharing how He's moving in my life, what He's teaching me and revealing to me. He could be doing sweet as stuff and I could be like, 'cool God!' but when I share it, I get to share about the goodness of my God but hopefully you are also encouraged to look at your life and recognize the good things He does for you! Even if you can't see anything good in the physical, just think: He is always with you. Even if He didn't do one more good thing in your life, if He stopped blessing you, He would still be worthy of more than a lifetime full of praise. That's how good He is! I don't know, it just makes me want to praise Him with my life and bring glory to His name, and that means testifying to what He does for me and in me. Plus, when you remember what you know He's done for you, it's so easy to remember His goodness and just praise Him and follow Him!
I’ve found that God often highlights lines from songs that really speak to what He’s doing in my heart and in my life, and the lyrics at the top really just speak sooo much. This week has just been joy unspeakable, full of God’s glory. I just am constantly refilled with His joy and His glory is all over how He’s been moving things in my life and working things out. Amazing, absolutely amazing. The other lyrics are one of the songs we sang tonight, probably for about a half hour, just pressing in. I’ll post the song below. It’s so powerful, let it move you. Let the Spirit speak to your heart about knowing God! You never know Him completely, He is always revealing more of Himself, and He is always worthy of praise and worship. There is no greater joy than to worship Him! Seriously, just press in, His presence is such a good place to be, and an even better place to stay. God is good!
I do know God has something for me in terms of working, I'm just not sure what it is, but I would definitely appreciate prayer to find where He has for me to be! Still pressing in, listening and searching for a job!
I’m still learning what it’s like to be burning for my Savior all the time. Everyone has those crazy church service or summer church camp or winter youth retreat moments where it’s like WHOA, God is real! And those moments feel great, but I want that desire, that burn, that feeling in my tummy that my God is real all the time. I think it’s possible. Being in constant communion with Papa, always recognizing His presence, always giving Him glory and praise and worship, always thanking and asking and blessing and pleading and praising and coming before Him, never being satisfied with how much I have but also being so grateful for how much of Him I have. One of my YWAM speakers said something along the lines of we have all of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit doesn’t have all of us. I want desperately for the Holy Spirit to have all of me. I want to always be in communion with Him.
I realized AGAIN today how much my Papa blesses me, gives me more than I could ask for, gives me better than I could ask for. I’ve been realizing the past couple days that I did make a promise to my parents that I would go to university. This is really hard for me to go along with because I’ve been changed by what I’ve been shown; a way of walking with Jesus in another place, another nation with other people. I know my call to make disciples, I know my call to go to the nations, I know my call because it’s everyone’s call. I don’t think anyone is called to just one thing, just one assignment, just one project. I don’t think anyone is called to just America, or just another country. I don’t want to go off on this tangent, but if other people aren’t going then there’s no point in me staying here when I could be out going! But I did make a promise. I have heard Papa say to let go and to stop trying to control my future and control my plans because He has rich as plans for me, and those are His words!
So I’ve been, daily, telling God that I’ll go to university and I won’t be all down and out about it. He can’t use me as well, He can’t work in me, He can’t move through me as well if I’m all down and out. New Hampshire is another mission field! There are people there whose hearts are being prepared, whose hearts are being softened, whose paths are being directed for a divine encounter with their heavenly Father and I want to be a part of that, I am privileged to be a part of that. So other than actually sending in my deposit, this is me laying me down and allowing Papa to bring me to university next year.
I did give Him a bit of an ultimatum, which in my typical human mind, kind of wasn’t sure if He’d come through on. I told God that I would go with a glad heart but that He needed to give me community. Not just a group like Campus Crusade, but a room mate. I asked Him to give me a christian room mate if He really wanted me to be at UNH. So after messaging back and forth with a couple girls, one who is looking for more people to smoke weed with and another who thought we could be potential roomies because we have similar secular music taste, I was asking Papa if I would be rooming with someone who would push me, who I would have to be an example to, who I would have to love when I really didn’t want to. I messaged a friend at UNH on the off chance he might know an incoming freshman christian girl.... and a couple days later he gave me a name. Cool! But then there’s asking her and praying that her faith is deep and that she won’t judge me. We’re going off of my facebook profile, where pictures of my shaved head are abundant. I told God, whatever, I’m messaging her and asking You to come through on this whether I end up rooming with her or someone else, I’m asking You to come through. Needless to say He did. She already had a christian roomie, but they’re willing to triple! Sweet as!
The funny thing is, I don’t realize God’s sense of humor until a couple days later. First I realized that I was hoping/praying for a roomie from either NH or CT so we could do things outside of school, whether it’s at her place in NH, or we’d both live in CT and could even travel back and forth together or something. Mallory lives about 30 minutes from UNH campus in NH and Gwen lives in Sherman, CT. I get both NH and CT!! Praise God! The best thing is, I didn’t even realize this until I was emailing a dear friend tonight and told him that God didn’t provide just one room mate, but He gave me two! My Father continues to blow my mind and just make me laugh at how much I see as just life happening and don’t even see His hand in it. He is in everything!!
I want to be heavenly-minded. I want to be seeing these things happen in my life and immediately see Papa’s hand and give Him praise and thanks. I want to be in constant communion, that every action will be with Him in mind and therefore have eternal value. He spoke something to my heart while I was in Laos, that anything done without His Love is absolutely meaningless. If you do something without the love of the Father, you may as well have not done it. If you feed the poor but don’t do it with Papa’s heart, don’t bother feeding them. If you care for children and adopt orphans from other countries but don’t do it with Papa’s heart, don’t bother because it means nothing, it does no good. Nothing in life has any meaning or point or value unless it is done with an eternal mindset, with Papa’s heart. If you have Papa’s heart, you can simply sit and be with people and that in itself will blossom and bear fruit because you allowed the Spirit to use you and move through you. Jesus tells His disciples in John 6 not to work for bread that spoils, but bread that will last for eternity. Your works mean absolutely nothing, but if you are working with the love of your Savior, it can move mountains and part oceans. It can heal the sick, make the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear. It can raise the dead. It can save a man whose life will be lost to an eternal hell and give Him hope in this world for the world to come. Jesus is the only thing worth living for. He is the only thing worth dying for and once you’ve allowed your old self to die, He will give you new life and ask you to follow Him and you will never be the same.
My Savior never fails to blow my mind and break my heart. I can only keep asking for Him to keep my heart and continue to show me more of His.
I have no words to describe the privilege of being a daughter of the King. My Father never ceases to show up, to amaze me, to be my peace.
Visiting Per in Texas hasn’t been easy. America in general hasn’t been easy. In the 2-ish hour drive from Houston to College Station, I had this anger and frustration that I couldn’t shake on how people here have so much; so much land, so many cars/trucks, such big houses, so many animals. The churches are massive as and look brand new, high tech with their new signs out front. All the girls wear their make up and have their hair done. It’s similar at home, just not as big and grand. Here it’s like Texas is all there is that matters, it’s a country within itself. Needless to say, I had a hard time at first. Living cheap and in standards that would not pass in America, it’s hard to come here and not have a troubled heart. I didn’t want to be angry, but I just hate seeing the way America glamorizes selfishness.
I couldn’t focus enough to read my bible, I would talk to God for about 2 minutes before getting distracted and I walked right back into self reliance. Everything was all about my brother and it’s not that I wanted it to be about me, I just felt so out of place. I don’t know any of the A&M traditions, I don’t know the cheers and songs for midnight yell, I don’t understand how people’s lives can revolve so much around a university (don’t think you’ve seen dedication to a university until you’ve been to the Aggie Mom’s Boutique.). We went to the K-1 banquet and ball Saturday night and again, I just didn’t fit in at all. I was the awkward 5th wheel in our group, I hate the club-ish dance music they were playing, I don’t know country dancing and when I did dance with Per’s buddy Andrew, I found out that I won him a bet by dancing with him and then watched several people pretty much make fun of him for his love of country/swing dancing. The whole weekend was sort of like culture shock, and I wasn’t even looking to my Father for help with it other than a quick ‘God this sucksss whyyy.’
We came thursday night, and finally sunday afternoon was gently reminded who I am, or more like Whose I am. A friend gave me the link for Katie Davis’s blog (www.kissesfromkatie.blogger.com) and the world was taken out from under my feet. God gently showed me how He cares for His children, how He has plans for my life, how I can find my peace and rest in Him even if the world around me is going crazy. I remembered that I can always come to Him, 24/7, 365 days a year. I remembered how I want and love to be in constant communication with Him, blessing people, praying for people, giving up the parts of me that are still a part of this world so my Papa can come fill those spaces.
I remembered what’s happened in the past 2 weeks, glimpses of what could have been but how my Father has beautifully orchestrated my life and my family’s lives. One friend from my hometown in Santa Barbara was shipped out to Afghanistan as a part of the marines. We saw pictures of his family, especially his mother saying goodbye. I could feel the pain of seeing a childhood friend leaving for the military. Another friend, a twin, from Santa Barbara committed suicide. The pain of remembering birthday parties, play dates, and the girls I got the chicken pox from and knowing that one of them couldn’t take it and one of them is now here, the only one of a set of twins, makes my heart ache. Seeing things like this happen in the lives of childhood friends and thinking, this could be my brother or that could be me makes me that much more in awe of God and the plans He has and the way He changes lives and saves and has just covered my life in grace.
I have been blessed with the best brother there ever was, and to top it off, he’s my twin. He won multiple awards this weekend and all his upperclassmen told our family he is exceptional. He is being unbelievably blessed by my Father with amazing opportunities, intelligence and knowledge in getting a 4.0 gpa, a body that can endure just about anything and get him 3rd place in the Rudders Rangers Challenge (should have gotten 1st, the ruck march was too long!), the skills and qualities that are going to make him an amazing leader, and the stipend he receives as well as having a free ride to university. I could go on. Papa has put a covering of favor on him, I can tell. At first I struggled with it, like why does he get just about anything he wants when I am getting nothing I want? Then I realized he’s being built up for something bigger than himself and this is how God is going about doing that. I’m getting built up for something bigger than myself and this is how God is building me up. You can’t compare us because we’re doing such different things, but at the same time, we’re doing such similar things. We’re going places and living for things, Someone, who is bigger than this world, bigger than ourselves. Papa has big things for this kid, and I couldn’t be prouder.
I’m sitting in yet another international airport and my heart aches to go to another country and just serve. I have a promise to my parents to fulfill though, a promise to go to university this year. So that’s what I’m doing and I’m not all upset or disappointed about it. Everyone everywhere needs to know the love of the Father right? I’m not losing my edge either, I’m not backing down from what I know Papa’s called me to. He knows my heart and I know that. I'm not backing down from what Jesus calls every one of His disciples to either. I keep on getting hit in the face (this is really the only way I can describe it...) with the importance of having an attitude of martyrdom when it comes to following Christ. Paul said 'to live is Christ and to die is gain' and I'm finding more and more that that is the only way I really desire to live, in complete abandonment to my Savior. It doesn't mean that I want to go to the first place that will get me killed for bearing the image of Christ. It means that while I'm here on earth, while I'm living, I bear His image and that is a privilege and an honor and that is what I live for. However I die, whether it's natural or if I am killed for the gospel in some way, it's gain because I'll have lived knowing that I followed Christ as my rabbi and lived in a way that He would say, 'well done, my child' and that now I have an eternity to spend praising and worshipping my King. Dying to yourself to gain new life in Christ.
My name is 'Favor Grace' and I am loved by my Creator. There is nothing better.
