Waiting on Him

Why do I let the sock tub pile up and put the laundry on hold and ignore the chaos around me and let my kids run on auto pilot to sit on my back porch for hours reading and praying and pondering deeply all things Jesus Christ?  

Because I am desperate.  

I am not good at this wife...mom...missionary...mentor...discipleship thing that Jesus has called me to.  I have anxiety over kids that break down over missed-matched socks.  I have guilt over people God has called me to that slip thru the cracks.  I have frustration over soccer clothes that need to be washed weekly. I have fear over getting on a plane to Africa and leaving my household to be managed without me for 2 weeks.  I carry other people's burdens with me in my thoughts all the way to bed.  I am faced with my selfishness and covet comfort far too much.   I have sinful habits that won't be broken easily and strongholds I can't seem to tear down on my own.  I snap at my next-to-perfect (seriously) husband and see my precious child-blessings as a nuisance at times.  So, I put everything else that seems important aside and choose to seek the Thing that is truly most important daily...weekly...yearly...so I can become like the One that I seek.  I trust all the other things into the hands of the One who holds my heart and waits patiently for me to learn to wait on Him.  

What really matters in this life?  If not Jesus Christ crucified and risen then let's eat, drink and be merry for death is the end.  But what IF He really IS what matters?  What if my attitude and the way I treat people and how I love them because I am conscious of God is the heart of this life inside the gospel.  Then I better spend time with the only One who has the power to change, reshape and mold my heart that is oh-so-deceitful and wants its own way.  The socks, the laundry, the chaos, the kids, the mission work, the endless sea of people to pour into can wait while I wait on the only One who can give me any real power to make an eternal difference in and thru all of those things.  

This morning I once again made a choice.  To lay aside work that needed to be done...so the real  work of sanctification could take place in my heart as I made myself available to Him.  I am watching and waiting at His doorpost knowing that He is coming again soon.  I am so thankful for this life inside of His Son.  All the big tasks and little tasks have eternity in them when I am not living on yesterday's manna.  Daily I will come to Him open-handed waiting hopefully and expectantly for Him to fill me with new hope and strength and mercy for the new day He has set before me!  

Praying for passion with you all to join me in this!

It Is Not a Waste to Follow After You!

This blog was inspired by a line in a worship song that my friend Cristy Cash wrote...

It is not a waste to follow after You my Lord...

My baby is sitting next to me.  The one who has been grafted into my family the way I have been grafted into His.  Her beautiful almond shaped eyes bring me so much joy when I look into them...because I see Him.  She is one of 7 living daily in my home who look to me to be a mommy.  God brings so many others thru my front door and into my heart.  I am not enough.  Never enough.  He keeps me way out in the deep.  I am one person.  One very weak person.  But He lives.  

My life is spent on loving Him because I believe that it is not a waste to follow after my Lord.  I believe He lives thru me...and I see Him living thru so many others.  If His Word is true then my life is found in losing it.  Money and fame and man's approval can not be what my strength is spent on...it must be spent on loving Him.  So in the really hard moments when I see clearly that my strength is feeble and I have failed for the ten thousandth time....I remind myself that He lives. I remind myself that this all matters to Him. He really does consider my service to the least of these as service to Him.  It is precious to Jesus when I hold a child's hand in Africa or put a bandaid on their wound.  He really does care when I stand over the sock tub and make a choice to thank Him for all the big and little feet that are represented.  He cares when I take the time to laugh and play in the water with my 2 year old.  He sees when I excitedly enter into a lengthy bug-conversation with my 4 year old.  He takes delight when I open my home to one-more-child because they do not belong in a shelter but instead a family. When I write an impossible prayer request in my journal for someone I barely know He is moved by my faith and I can be certain He knows that person intimately.  When I fall to my knees on my closet floor desperately asking for help He bends low to listen.  When I weep over the way my sin and selfishness have affected others He weeps with me.  When I memorize His word and meditate on it convinced that this is the way to true freedom He rejoices. When I choose sacrifice over comfort and obedience over self-indulgence and humility over pride I know the Cross and it's power are real.  When I open up my home for people to worship Him and not for my own popularity I have confidence that He also is invited in.  

My life is going fast.  I walk thru my house and think years back.  The rooms have been filled up a million times with so many people that my memory can not contain them all.  But He knows them.  Each and every one.  He has given me honor by allowing me to welcome Him in as I have welcomed each person in. 

Everything is different yet the same.  The same God is moving in the same way as I see He has done for thousands of years in the Scriptures. Yet He is causing me to be different, more like Him. The same mirror over the the same vanity is revealing a reflection with a face that is a little more aged, with a little different glow of His glory.  My house has the same structure yet the rooms are now decorated differently as others have offered me new beauty and inspiration and added space for the ministry He is growing right under my roof.  

I don't have to leave my house to find Him.  He is here.  Always here.  Always with me.  If I want to live for the sake of the gospel...and I do...He meets me here and fills my desires with Himself. 

When I am tempted to believe the lie that peace and quiet are found in my circumstances He shouts out to me in the chaos to still my soul and look for Him.  He is here.  He is real.  I matter to Him.  All the people that come into my home.  They all matter.  Each one is an opportunity for me to serve Him and love Him.  

In three weeks I will get on a plane and fly to a little country in Africa filled with many people I love who look very different from me.  Yet we were all created in the image of the same God. Each time my heart aches to leave all these precious ones right here in my own town nestled comfortably in my own nation many who come right under my own roof so Christ can love them thru me.  Though God has called me to travel to a land very far away 12 other times the sacrifice is always a choice and a struggle.  All the really BIG decisions and the really little decisions (which are really BIG decisions) matter.  Every time I say yes to His will and choose His ways I lose my life to find His and I always realize in those moments that He really is worth it!  So I will not look for my life in a relationship or a circumstance or security.  Life will not be found any of those places because it is only truly found in Him.  

His Mercy Fully Revealed!

I have been awake since 5. I have had sleepless nights and distress.  Oh I am so happy for this! I am thankful that everything is not always perfect and that I stray and focus on non-eternal things and worship at alters that I shouldn't because it is in this that I see His mercy.  Mercy over my sin.  Mercy over the sin of others.  

I have had blue-letter bible pulled up...obsessively searched the scriptures and wanted to know every single meaning of every single word in a verse I came across and scribbled in my journal a few days ago. I have prayed and wrestled thru line after line.  Listened to worship lyrics that talk about His greatness and mercy as I struggled with my feelings and fears and insecurities not lining up with what His Word says.  I have preached to myself as I have seen the places my feet have chose to walk that are not on the path He has laid before me.  I have cried as I realized that His mercy and goodness were there for me before I ever took a step away from Him.  He had a rescue plan already in place way back at the beginning of time before I was even created....knowing I would wander away in 10,000 ways.  He knows the way I take.  He alone knows it.  His mercy is never exhausted because He loves me.  Enough to die for me.  Enough to leave heaven and rescue me.  Enough to pursue me all the days of my life.  All of my days.  His goodness and mercy are here with me now...leading me all the way to an eternal life of unbroken fellowship with Him.  His mercy is everywhere I look.  His Word made available for me at anytime.  My husband, children, friends.  ALL HIS MERCY! His mercy is stopping plans that lead me away from Him.  His mercy is keeping me up late and waking me up early so that my heart and mind will be saturated with His Truth.  His mercy is leading me to pour out my thoughts of Him in pages of pages of journals and unending status updates and blogs written for years.  All a record of His faithfulness towards me.  And I am just one life.  One life.  He does this for the countless others.  His love for them is not diminished in the least by His great love for me.  

Last night I knelt on the floor with my best friend and the baby in her womb and prayed prayers of faith for strongholds to be broken in our lives.  Today He woke me up at 5...showed me that not only is this possible but it is His greatest desire towards us.  He passionately pursues my heart.  He is fierce in His jealousy towards me.  He never lets me go no matter how far my thoughts and feelings carry me.  He never fails me or forsakes me no matter how many alters I worship at that are not the ONE TRUE alter.  He chases me down with His goodness and mercy time after time after time.  It feels so awkward to write this.  It seems in some way as if it is heresy and it seems as if it means I am forsaking the holiness of Christ or cheapening His grace. NO!  It is making me see His holiness and grace more!  Something I do not deserve and will never fully comprehend this side of eternity because of its vastness.  I want to hold out this Love and Mercy to so many in my life...but how can I effectively do this unless I understand it more for myself.  I desperately want to understand the gospel in its fulness for me, trusting that I can then with great passion share it with others.  

I want so much to be like Jesus.  Conformed to His image.  Everything of ME eradicated in the power of His Presence and washed clean by his Word.  He held out Life to the world.  But more precious, He held out Life to me.  To me.  I was powerless.  I was destined to follow my own way.  And IN HIS MERCY He rescued me.  Even now.  Today...He is rescuing me thru the Cross. I am still powerless.  I can not obey or love of worship Him on my own.  Not a single good thing in me apart from Him.  Nothing.  This may sound offensive to some but for me it is the road to freedom and enlarges my heart even more to His great mercy.  If I cried every day from now until I went to be with Him the emotional pain would be worth it and not even remembered once I finally saw Him face to face.  

Life is not about feelings, single moments or the circumstance we are currently faced with.  Life is about God.  Jesus Christ exalted and written down for us to read and drink in.  Life is about us knowing Him, being like Him.  Thanking Him for every single thing that sifts thru His fingers into our lives.  ALL OF IT.  The things that make us so happy our hearts might burst...the things that make us so sad we think we might cry forever.  He is better!  He redeems it all.  He works it all for the good of those who love Him.  THIS IS MERCY!  Life is about a bunch of moments strung together by His grace.  The really painful ones and the really happy ones.  Life is about seeking, and waiting and TRUSTING.  No matter what we FEEL.  Life is about knowing that our destiny is in His hands and our way is being made straight...always being made straight as we keep our eyes fixed on His.  Life is about knowing His ways are good and His commands are for our joy.  Life is about knowing we are dust and He is a holy God and that He loved this dust enough to create a life out of it and breathe breath in us so we could worship Him and know His love in an intimate way.  He created us to know Him and love Him and worship Him for all eternity because in His lovingkindness He knew this joy would be greater than all the pain.  He loved us enough to create us.

I am so thankful for all the moments strung together by His grace, His Word that washes me clean, His Name that is a Strong Tower and His Love that is leading me thru the dark hours, the wilderness, the dry seasons, the confusion, the pain and the sin to a place of everlasting JOY.  Joy that will never ever end as I one day know Him fully even as I am fully known.  May my life be spent on the seeking and may I thank Him for every last breath that He gives until that day finally comes and I see His mercy fully revealed!