dictionary termed fear: emotion stimulated through threat, extreme discomfort, unsafe feelings.
biblical termed fear: an unworthiness, knowledge of the holy, an extreme adoration, instant humility, awe inspired static.
an awe inspired static.
this term, i guess, created by me is something I never stopped to think about until I entered my house alone tonight.
I sit on couch with laptop in hand full of anxious thoughts and fleshly fears as I sit in this wooden floor cottage.
I am so full of my flesh that it wounds my soul. When I am alone, my flesh presses hard and Satan comes to attack even harder. I can feel it even before I enter a place alone, I can feel the overwhelming force of temptation push against me before I seclude myself into an empty yet surrounded and filled house. I have not done anything to be ashamed of tonight, not even spoken a word against someone in my mind. But I fear myself in my aloneness. Little I thought of the power inside that God has given to me.
My fleshly temptations are endless and powerful against me. But oh it is good to know that he is better, stronger, and so powerful that the fear that stimulates through emotion can quickly be eased when we lift our hands in submission and adoration at this life we are living. Tonight, I had to lift my hands in a literal sense and speak his power. Over me and over the space surrounding me. Not only did I feel it, but an immediate peace came over me.
Genesis 3:10 "I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked,so i hid"
is a perfect example of our flesh being exposed and our natural tendencies during those patterns. We not only run to hide in our sin, but we run because we are afraid and do not know where to turn. How beautiful if we step out of our tendency, stand before God and thank him that in our weakness, he is stronger.
under constant mercy in him.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
undeserving
I only really blog when I feel I have a lot to say...
As of right now I do.
And I feel I will go crazy if I don't choose to say the millions of thoughts running through my mind right now.
The last time I talked about this, was way dramatic and almost out of line. Now I am writing it not only hoping that God will speak to others and use me, but also that he will speak to me through my own submission in coming before him, even if it is public- in one way or another.
"false belief: if all of my desires are fulfilled, I will be happy. This is not true. In fact it is these very desires and attachments that make me tense, frustrated, nervous, insecure, and fearful... Deep down in my heart, I know that that even after I get those desires, I will not get happiness."
This, is something i want engraved into my mind so deeply, that I don't doubt it with one step of my journey for the rest of my days. In my mindI believe that if my family is healed, I will be happy. This however is not the case. Nothing apart from God is good. There is no good apart from YOU GOD. ah, true peace lies in that. True peace lies in letting go of the unknown and the pain and the destruction and the constant eating away, and the constant beating of my flesh fighting the spirit.
insert from my journal: Who is good? NO, not one. Who is there to cast a stone? No, not even one. God the righteous, his son, came to die a sinners death so that he might redeem us of our sins, so that he WOULD redeem us. So that he could live through us."
Why would he choose any of us? ANY. HE MADE HIM WHO KNEW NO SIN TO BE SIN SO THAT WE MIGHT BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 2COR5:21 we should be realizing that THIS is the only blessing we could ever need. We have life, and then he gives us the option to have it abundantly. The option, he doesn't force it, but oh he smiles when we accept it. accept and believe the words he speaks.
and my little peafart brain thinksI deserve anything, but to proclaim the goodness and the glory of this father who didn't even have to create me. AH I AM SO undeserving.
Life is of no more than this: that i might have this treasure in a jar of clay(being myself) myself is of no worth, but this treasure that God has given to all who love him and choose to follow( HIS SPIRIT) his beautiful spirit, inside of me. I AM OF NO VALUE OTHER THAN THIS SPIRIT IN ME.
He makes beauty rise from the ashes, and when you are weak, HE is strong.
go under his mercy.
As of right now I do.
And I feel I will go crazy if I don't choose to say the millions of thoughts running through my mind right now.
The last time I talked about this, was way dramatic and almost out of line. Now I am writing it not only hoping that God will speak to others and use me, but also that he will speak to me through my own submission in coming before him, even if it is public- in one way or another.
"false belief: if all of my desires are fulfilled, I will be happy. This is not true. In fact it is these very desires and attachments that make me tense, frustrated, nervous, insecure, and fearful... Deep down in my heart, I know that that even after I get those desires, I will not get happiness."
This, is something i want engraved into my mind so deeply, that I don't doubt it with one step of my journey for the rest of my days. In my mind
insert from my journal: Who is good? NO, not one. Who is there to cast a stone? No, not even one. God the righteous, his son, came to die a sinners death so that he might redeem us of our sins, so that he WOULD redeem us. So that he could live through us."
Why would he choose any of us? ANY. HE MADE HIM WHO KNEW NO SIN TO BE SIN SO THAT WE MIGHT BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 2COR5:21 we should be realizing that THIS is the only blessing we could ever need. We have life, and then he gives us the option to have it abundantly. The option, he doesn't force it, but oh he smiles when we accept it. accept and believe the words he speaks.
and my little peafart brain thinks
Life is of no more than this: that i might have this treasure in a jar of clay(being myself) myself is of no worth, but this treasure that God has given to all who love him and choose to follow( HIS SPIRIT) his beautiful spirit, inside of me. I AM OF NO VALUE OTHER THAN THIS SPIRIT IN ME.
He makes beauty rise from the ashes, and when you are weak, HE is strong.
go under his mercy.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
brokenness..
a long time ago, when i was a little girl. there was song my mom would play, OVER and OVER again.to bunny trail for a second I can't believe the peace I have while writing, I can't believe the peace I've had for the past 24 hours, I am so thankful for the voice of the Lord speaking to me, grabbing me with all of his might, with all of his power. I can't believe that he would take the time to just even want me back. But he did.
my heart is pounding out of my chest right now in love for him. It's like butterflies but ten times more powerful, like a beating that rushes into my head and brain, an unexplainable peace in the midst of this storm. AH freaking Jeremiah 31:13-14, i just trust HIM to walk me through this. I just trust him to be the power that I can't be, and it's so overwhelming,
and it's so indescribable how I don't just feel him but know he is there fighting for me and for all the others in this pit, even my father. pulling me into his arms to protect me, and not only protect me but love on me and hold me closely to his heart, oh how i want other girls stuck in the same pit to just let go, and hear him and give into his gravitational pull.
by no means can any human say anything to get you out, BUT the beauty of God is that he works through to us in mysterious ways. If he uses a human to speak to us, it is certainly a beautiful thing...
How I can't thank him for just getting my attention. I can breath, anywhere that I am. He is giving me a breath, he is taking away the toxic air and healing me of my disease.
and I digress.... the song was called take my life. I've been thinking these past 24 hours about what I want this life to look like. A few times thought of the handsome man God will probably give me, selfish thoughts, things that are fleeting and of a broken spirit.. But CLEARLY I heard this as i was driving back from class. "Laura, accept singleness and cling to me. Cling to the power of me working through you and you giving your life away. Open your hands and you will see the power of my love grasping you and holding you in unimaginable ways. I am no man, and I am no human. I am GOD. "
the song goes like so:
take my heart, and mold it.
take my mind, transform it,
take my will, conform it. to yours, to yours OH LORD.
TO HIS WILL, HIS WILL BE DONE. I have been so foolish and selfish and blind to him grasping with reaching stretching arms. Why do we find it so necessary to ignore him in the midst of so much pain? HE iS SO BEAUTIFUL MY HEART IS BURSTING OUT OF MY CHEST. all of these pains and heartaches are nothing compared to the treasure of knowing him and learning of his love. I want everyone to know this love deeply and in a real way. I pray God you never let me forget, I pray for all the spirits in this world who cannot hear you and don't believe you are there. That they would have the blind ripped from their eyes and they would know your voice clearly as the sun. Touch them, give them a heart of flesh father.
Keep my eyes on you and my desires as yours.
my life is in your hands, surrendered to your will father.
surrendered to your love
I delight myself in the richest of fair,
trading all that i have, for all that is better
a garment of praise for my heaviness,
you are the greatest taste
and the richest of fair.
psalm 63.
my heart is pounding out of my chest right now in love for him. It's like butterflies but ten times more powerful, like a beating that rushes into my head and brain, an unexplainable peace in the midst of this storm. AH freaking Jeremiah 31:13-14, i just trust HIM to walk me through this. I just trust him to be the power that I can't be, and it's so overwhelming,
and it's so indescribable how I don't just feel him but know he is there fighting for me and for all the others in this pit, even my father. pulling me into his arms to protect me, and not only protect me but love on me and hold me closely to his heart, oh how i want other girls stuck in the same pit to just let go, and hear him and give into his gravitational pull.
by no means can any human say anything to get you out, BUT the beauty of God is that he works through to us in mysterious ways. If he uses a human to speak to us, it is certainly a beautiful thing...
How I can't thank him for just getting my attention. I can breath, anywhere that I am. He is giving me a breath, he is taking away the toxic air and healing me of my disease.
and I digress.... the song was called take my life. I've been thinking these past 24 hours about what I want this life to look like. A few times thought of the handsome man God will probably give me, selfish thoughts, things that are fleeting and of a broken spirit.. But CLEARLY I heard this as i was driving back from class. "Laura, accept singleness and cling to me. Cling to the power of me working through you and you giving your life away. Open your hands and you will see the power of my love grasping you and holding you in unimaginable ways. I am no man, and I am no human. I am GOD. "
the song goes like so:
take my heart, and mold it.
take my mind, transform it,
take my will, conform it. to yours, to yours OH LORD.
TO HIS WILL, HIS WILL BE DONE. I have been so foolish and selfish and blind to him grasping with reaching stretching arms. Why do we find it so necessary to ignore him in the midst of so much pain? HE iS SO BEAUTIFUL MY HEART IS BURSTING OUT OF MY CHEST. all of these pains and heartaches are nothing compared to the treasure of knowing him and learning of his love. I want everyone to know this love deeply and in a real way. I pray God you never let me forget, I pray for all the spirits in this world who cannot hear you and don't believe you are there. That they would have the blind ripped from their eyes and they would know your voice clearly as the sun. Touch them, give them a heart of flesh father.
Keep my eyes on you and my desires as yours.
my life is in your hands, surrendered to your will father.
surrendered to your love
I delight myself in the richest of fair,
trading all that i have, for all that is better
a garment of praise for my heaviness,
you are the greatest taste
and the richest of fair.
psalm 63.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
i don't know how...
i never thought something that could hurt so bad,
could make me feel so at peace.
i never thought that something I didn't want at all,
could create a lightness in my soul.
i hear you, i hear you.
i feel you, i want you.
it's good to know you're real.
it's good to know you love.
you love,
and you are teaching me.
what it means to be free.
could make me feel so at peace.
i never thought that something I didn't want at all,
could create a lightness in my soul.
i hear you, i hear you.
i feel you, i want you.
it's good to know you're real.
it's good to know you love.
you love,
and you are teaching me.
what it means to be free.
Monday, June 27, 2011
home...
i search for escape, for any moment of joy.
one day, i will wake up, and i will be home.
home, completely foreign concept to me now. how many others feel as though, no matter how hard they look there is no home, no place where there is complete abandon of walls and surrounding toxic air?
I can't seem to breathe anywhere.
Garden state says it best:
You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know.
Maybe that's all family really is.
A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.
one day, i will wake up, and i will be home.
home, completely foreign concept to me now. how many others feel as though, no matter how hard they look there is no home, no place where there is complete abandon of walls and surrounding toxic air?
I can't seem to breathe anywhere.
Garden state says it best:
You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know.
Maybe that's all family really is.
A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
a change of heart
Do not let your adorning be external,
but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart
with a gentle and quiet spirit.
Which, in God's sight is precious.
1 Peter 3:3
God, grace me with the ability to make it through the day with your joy. The peace from you, and power from you to obey you and love you with all that I am. You are the reason that I have made it through a single day, and that I will make it through a single day. You are not done with me, and you will not abandon me. Use me.
For me to live is CHRIST, to die is gain.
but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart
with a gentle and quiet spirit.
Which, in God's sight is precious.
1 Peter 3:3
God, grace me with the ability to make it through the day with your joy. The peace from you, and power from you to obey you and love you with all that I am. You are the reason that I have made it through a single day, and that I will make it through a single day. You are not done with me, and you will not abandon me. Use me.
For me to live is CHRIST, to die is gain.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
How long, oh Lord?
Fulfillment: to bring an end, to complete, to satisfy.
What every human desires, and what every human rarely finds.
Help me God,my heart is in anguish within me,
help me Oh God to find fulfillment in your plan for my life.
Pick me up off the ground and nudge me forward to look into your eyes with complete contentedness and satisfaction at the sight of your glory and wonder.
I don't want to be in this pit any longer, and I long to be used for you.
You desire for my focus to be narrow and straight centered on the treasures that only you can give.
I am selfish and don't desire you and my flesh loathes you,
(Romans 7 says that a mind set on the flesh is hostile against you)
but you desire for me to be a vessel of glory and not of wrath.
Your spirit is powerful, HOW MUCH MORE POWERFUL THAN I?
Death did not conquer you, neither can this darkness beat your spirit within me.
You are stronger.
If you are for me, who can be against me.
What every human desires, and what every human rarely finds.
Help me God,my heart is in anguish within me,
help me Oh God to find fulfillment in your plan for my life.
Pick me up off the ground and nudge me forward to look into your eyes with complete contentedness and satisfaction at the sight of your glory and wonder.
I don't want to be in this pit any longer, and I long to be used for you.
You desire for my focus to be narrow and straight centered on the treasures that only you can give.
I am selfish and don't desire you and my flesh loathes you,
(Romans 7 says that a mind set on the flesh is hostile against you)
but you desire for me to be a vessel of glory and not of wrath.
Your spirit is powerful, HOW MUCH MORE POWERFUL THAN I?
Death did not conquer you, neither can this darkness beat your spirit within me.
You are stronger.
If you are for me, who can be against me.
Friday, June 10, 2011
turmoil.
A couple years ago, everything I’ve experienced in the past five to six weeks, really the past 3 months would have been and still would be the most detrimental experience of my life. If there is one thing I am sure of, it’s how passionate I am about Jesus Christ and his love and grace over the world and everything in it. Yet for some reason I do not desire to spend time with the father, I do not desire to know Jesus deeper, and I do not desire to be used by the holy spirit right now.
The place I’m at is at a loss for words.
How and why am I here in this dark place? I don’t want to struggle so hard that I’m unsure whether my faith is real. I keep reading David’s psalms about feeling like he is a in a deep dark pit and he cries out to God because God is faithful to answer our cries- no matter if he does answer and save according to his timing. It’s disgusting the way that I’m talking to God and how numb I am to the sin in my life the past few weeks. For me to share my journal is straight up my heart, I don’t play fake with God and I don’t think he would want me to. My journal from yesterday reads verbatim:
June 9
If I’m not seeking you, then I won’t be satisfied, at all. I’m not even satisfied now. Anywhere. I am not seeking you, and I don’t want to find you even if I could. Wherever you are, right in front of me, far from me. I don’t want to find you. I don’t want know you and I don’t understand why. I feel so apathetic just in my whole life. I know you are real, and I know that you can satisfy, and I ask with so little faith when I do ask you to satisfy me and bring me from this pit. I do want to know you and be solely dependent on you, but then I don’t want you at all. I have so little faith when I ask you to help me. Little desire for you to use yourself and to give me a desire. I have, no desire. I am apathetic and going absolutely no where without you.
June 10
I give up. If you are going to save me and pull me from the place that I am in, you’ll do it. I’m not trying anymore. I want to give up on you so bad right now. I need your help.
I don’t even know the root of my struggle and I’m hardly sure that, if someone put it in plain picture in front of my face for me to see exactly why I’m struggling and feeling so numb, would I recognize the problem? I feel like a veil has been brought over my eyes and some kind of rock placed around my heart. I’ve told my boyfriend and my friend Hope this, an analogy of how I feel like I’ve gotten here:
I’m standing on a high edge of a cliff next to my savior, so in love and so entwined into the depth of his mercy, grace, love, compassion, fierce jealousy for me and I am captivated just dying for more of him to know him to share him to be a part of him in this world, and then I have my adventurous side who always has to be curious. I look over the edge even though my sweet Lord tells me never to look from his face. Satan gets a second to make the edge look magnificent and for anything apart from God to look appealing. While he has me looking over the edge and away from my saving father, he ties one string to my finger. Not enough for me to realize this. Slowly, one-by-one, finger by finger he gets my whole hand tied, his scheme worked. He yanks and pulls me over the edge. I cry out to God to help me but I’m not even looking at him, I’m still looking down at the end of the edge. God hears my cry but I still am not looking to him and not trusting him to save me. And so I’m floating, in limbo, in the air however you want to call the in between, however you want to call the unknown and the push and pull between the desire and the hatred of both God on high and Satan on the prowl.
I keep reading and re-reading David’s cry for deliverance. 2 Samuel 22. The whole thing, over and over. It speaks volumes for God’s passion for us. He comes down on a black cloud, smoke coming from his nostrils because he is hot with anger that ANYONE would mess with his children.
Dude doesn't mess around and I'm sure that no one else would with him coming down like so: "smoke went up from his nostrils, and a devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him. He bowed the heavens and came down, thick darkness was under his feet."
and he cares for Me. He cares that I’m here and the last thing he wants is for me to sit in this muck just because I have no faith for him to save me. I have to let go and let him come to my rescue, if I am rejecting him. What good will that do, he will come down like the bomb and I'll deny and reject him. Goodness I'm so much like Peter before he had the holy spirit. It's insane. At least there is hope for me to grow to be like Peter in Acts...
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
My shield and the horn of my salvation,
My stronghold and my refuge,
My savior, you save me from violence.
I call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised,
And I am saved from my enemies. 2 Samuel 22: 2-4
I pray Deuteronomy 4:29-39 over EVERYONES life who is struggling in the same way that I am.
“and there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there, you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all you heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you I the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the LORD your God is a merciful God, he will not leave you or destroy you.” v. 29-31
I know that there is hope and that God is not going to give up on me. For him to not come to my rescue is for him to be a liar because he promised that he is faithful. He PROMISED that he will deliver me out from this pit and I have faith in him and hope that I will see him clearly again. I have faith that I will be so close to my daddy again and be held in him again. I have faith that this isn’t the end of my picture or tiny story that this is only part of the story and that it is only a season. “A time to laugh, and a time to cry, a time to dance and a time to be still,” “let us have gladness for as many days as you have afflicted us.”
“ Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love that I may be glad all of my days.” Psalm 90
“For I will remove your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36
“The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be silent.”
Exodus 14:14
The place I’m at is at a loss for words.
How and why am I here in this dark place? I don’t want to struggle so hard that I’m unsure whether my faith is real. I keep reading David’s psalms about feeling like he is a in a deep dark pit and he cries out to God because God is faithful to answer our cries- no matter if he does answer and save according to his timing. It’s disgusting the way that I’m talking to God and how numb I am to the sin in my life the past few weeks. For me to share my journal is straight up my heart, I don’t play fake with God and I don’t think he would want me to. My journal from yesterday reads verbatim:
June 9
If I’m not seeking you, then I won’t be satisfied, at all. I’m not even satisfied now. Anywhere. I am not seeking you, and I don’t want to find you even if I could. Wherever you are, right in front of me, far from me. I don’t want to find you. I don’t want know you and I don’t understand why. I feel so apathetic just in my whole life. I know you are real, and I know that you can satisfy, and I ask with so little faith when I do ask you to satisfy me and bring me from this pit. I do want to know you and be solely dependent on you, but then I don’t want you at all. I have so little faith when I ask you to help me. Little desire for you to use yourself and to give me a desire. I have, no desire. I am apathetic and going absolutely no where without you.
June 10
I give up. If you are going to save me and pull me from the place that I am in, you’ll do it. I’m not trying anymore. I want to give up on you so bad right now. I need your help.
I don’t even know the root of my struggle and I’m hardly sure that, if someone put it in plain picture in front of my face for me to see exactly why I’m struggling and feeling so numb, would I recognize the problem? I feel like a veil has been brought over my eyes and some kind of rock placed around my heart. I’ve told my boyfriend and my friend Hope this, an analogy of how I feel like I’ve gotten here:
I’m standing on a high edge of a cliff next to my savior, so in love and so entwined into the depth of his mercy, grace, love, compassion, fierce jealousy for me and I am captivated just dying for more of him to know him to share him to be a part of him in this world, and then I have my adventurous side who always has to be curious. I look over the edge even though my sweet Lord tells me never to look from his face. Satan gets a second to make the edge look magnificent and for anything apart from God to look appealing. While he has me looking over the edge and away from my saving father, he ties one string to my finger. Not enough for me to realize this. Slowly, one-by-one, finger by finger he gets my whole hand tied, his scheme worked. He yanks and pulls me over the edge. I cry out to God to help me but I’m not even looking at him, I’m still looking down at the end of the edge. God hears my cry but I still am not looking to him and not trusting him to save me. And so I’m floating, in limbo, in the air however you want to call the in between, however you want to call the unknown and the push and pull between the desire and the hatred of both God on high and Satan on the prowl.
I keep reading and re-reading David’s cry for deliverance. 2 Samuel 22. The whole thing, over and over. It speaks volumes for God’s passion for us. He comes down on a black cloud, smoke coming from his nostrils because he is hot with anger that ANYONE would mess with his children.
Dude doesn't mess around and I'm sure that no one else would with him coming down like so: "smoke went up from his nostrils, and a devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him. He bowed the heavens and came down, thick darkness was under his feet."
and he cares for Me. He cares that I’m here and the last thing he wants is for me to sit in this muck just because I have no faith for him to save me. I have to let go and let him come to my rescue, if I am rejecting him. What good will that do, he will come down like the bomb and I'll deny and reject him. Goodness I'm so much like Peter before he had the holy spirit. It's insane. At least there is hope for me to grow to be like Peter in Acts...
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
My shield and the horn of my salvation,
My stronghold and my refuge,
My savior, you save me from violence.
I call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised,
And I am saved from my enemies. 2 Samuel 22: 2-4
I pray Deuteronomy 4:29-39 over EVERYONES life who is struggling in the same way that I am.
“and there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there, you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all you heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you I the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the LORD your God is a merciful God, he will not leave you or destroy you.” v. 29-31
I know that there is hope and that God is not going to give up on me. For him to not come to my rescue is for him to be a liar because he promised that he is faithful. He PROMISED that he will deliver me out from this pit and I have faith in him and hope that I will see him clearly again. I have faith that I will be so close to my daddy again and be held in him again. I have faith that this isn’t the end of my picture or tiny story that this is only part of the story and that it is only a season. “A time to laugh, and a time to cry, a time to dance and a time to be still,” “let us have gladness for as many days as you have afflicted us.”
“ Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love that I may be glad all of my days.” Psalm 90
“For I will remove your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36
“The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be silent.”
Exodus 14:14
Thursday, April 7, 2011
A rough week
"for the wrath of GOD is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them." Romans 1:18
if this makes you question, confused or a little tense....please read this post.
This past Friday I was with a close friend of mine after work. We laid strung across a bed, sipping a margarita listening to quiet music off of her i-phone. She had recently had an extremely close friend of hers commit suicide. She dragged through stories, choked through memories, sat in silence for long periods of time. I watched her heart literally ache and beat out of herself. It was getting really late at this point, and her eyes were glossy.
This is where my questioning began....
I've been in a whirl of anger, depression, sadness, and hate at God.
Sounds scary when I actually type it out.
Since my boyfriend left for China it's been a pretty bumpy ride. Not necessarily because he has been gone, just because I've been thinking a lot more about faith and the point of being a believer and sharing what I believe-
Is it something that I would DIE to share with other people in the world?Do I believe that the people who don't know will go to hell? What does this say about God? Does this make God bad?
As I fell asleep, I argued with God-
"I don't want to believe in you if you would send someone who my friend loves so much to hell. You cannot be good if you would do this."
I heard him, "Laura, listen to me. I..." I would cut him off,
"No, I don't want to hear what you have to say, I want nothing to do with you.You are evil."
HOW SELFISH AM I? To try to wrap my brain around something that God never intended for us to understand. I re-read the way I spoke to God. I am so selfish, so unworthy to even think for a moment I ever deserved to be able to come to him in this tone, in this attitude without being struck down and abandoned.
He has answered this question with few things. First of all, how many times did God answer a question in the old testament with,
"I AM THAT I AM."
"Who are you oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump, one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory." Romans 9:20-23
He is God and I try to make his love something human, or his plan understandable to me.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways declares the Lord. For as high as the heavens are than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Is. 55:8-9
I could try to explain, I could try to understand but I am human, flesh, mortal, unholy.
The spirit in me is holy but there are things that God never intended for us to know, he wanted to remain a mystery.
I was thinking last night as I was falling asleep- the words we use for God, are human made, flesh full.
God is God and that is all that we can say; he is omnipresent, holy, healer, deliverer, redeemer, good, worthy of praise, to be glorified.
all those words are something man created, something that is a try at explaining who God is. He is beyond this- we make so little of his name and of his plan that we in our human minds think we have the ability to question it without God coming back with laughter.
I feel like I can hear him just chuckling at how hard I'm trying to make so little of him by trying to squish the infinite power of him into my finite brain...
This is only part of what I struggled with this week, and part of what I learned. But it is a lot. Enough to say this..
GOD IS...
if this makes you question, confused or a little tense....please read this post.
This past Friday I was with a close friend of mine after work. We laid strung across a bed, sipping a margarita listening to quiet music off of her i-phone. She had recently had an extremely close friend of hers commit suicide. She dragged through stories, choked through memories, sat in silence for long periods of time. I watched her heart literally ache and beat out of herself. It was getting really late at this point, and her eyes were glossy.
This is where my questioning began....
I've been in a whirl of anger, depression, sadness, and hate at God.
Sounds scary when I actually type it out.
Since my boyfriend left for China it's been a pretty bumpy ride. Not necessarily because he has been gone, just because I've been thinking a lot more about faith and the point of being a believer and sharing what I believe-
Is it something that I would DIE to share with other people in the world?Do I believe that the people who don't know will go to hell? What does this say about God? Does this make God bad?
As I fell asleep, I argued with God-
"I don't want to believe in you if you would send someone who my friend loves so much to hell. You cannot be good if you would do this."
I heard him, "Laura, listen to me. I..." I would cut him off,
"No, I don't want to hear what you have to say, I want nothing to do with you.You are evil."
HOW SELFISH AM I? To try to wrap my brain around something that God never intended for us to understand. I re-read the way I spoke to God. I am so selfish, so unworthy to even think for a moment I ever deserved to be able to come to him in this tone, in this attitude without being struck down and abandoned.
He has answered this question with few things. First of all, how many times did God answer a question in the old testament with,
"I AM THAT I AM."
"Who are you oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump, one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory." Romans 9:20-23
He is God and I try to make his love something human, or his plan understandable to me.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways declares the Lord. For as high as the heavens are than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Is. 55:8-9
I could try to explain, I could try to understand but I am human, flesh, mortal, unholy.
The spirit in me is holy but there are things that God never intended for us to know, he wanted to remain a mystery.
I was thinking last night as I was falling asleep- the words we use for God, are human made, flesh full.
God is God and that is all that we can say; he is omnipresent, holy, healer, deliverer, redeemer, good, worthy of praise, to be glorified.
all those words are something man created, something that is a try at explaining who God is. He is beyond this- we make so little of his name and of his plan that we in our human minds think we have the ability to question it without God coming back with laughter.
I feel like I can hear him just chuckling at how hard I'm trying to make so little of him by trying to squish the infinite power of him into my finite brain...
This is only part of what I struggled with this week, and part of what I learned. But it is a lot. Enough to say this..
GOD IS...
Monday, March 21, 2011
fields
Last night my dream started with me with my friend Hannah, we were going to a movie with two other girls who I have no clue who they are. We were passing by all these play places before the theater and it was really colorful and dark at the same time. When we got to the entrance of the theater there were about 10 African american girls who said we had to give blood and take a drug before we went in to watch our movie, so we all did it and it was really scary because the needles were extra long. When we walked in the doors it was Hannah's house, which is exactly where Hannah didn't want to be because she was really upset with her dad for some reason. We went up to her room and there were pictures of her dad all over the floor, each of them her dad had on this green hoodie- she told me that whenever he wears the hoodie he thinks that he is Barney, and she hates it. Then we went into her sisters room but we couldn't be caught in her sisters room because she was supposedly extremely protective of her room- there was a verse in the dream that really encouraged me up on this artwork- Hebrews 4:15 (I know exactly what God was trying to speak to me by putting that verse in my dream) anyway we had to go because I had a date with Jacob(my boyfriend) and supposedly our date was just in a field, it was a good dream since he is gone in china, and it really helped with the pain i feel when i wake up and i miss him. But we hung out in a field and just talked to each other laughed and played together, football, baseball, wrestling. It was so fun then we went to eat with my family and my dad was interrogating him and it was really embarrassing, and I woke up while my dad was interrogating him.
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