trust

Seems as though trust is coming up for me a lot lately… here’s something from my daily devotional…

“The most persistent choice you face is whether to trust Me or to worry. You will never run out of things to worry about, but you can choose to trust Me no matter what.”

peace, for the moment

I’ve been clutching so tightly to this false sense of security. Trying to hold my family together, on the outside at least. And I’m exhausted. I finally broke down and told God that I couldn’t do it anymore, that He needed to take over (I know, I know). And He so gently whispered that things are going to be OK, even though I can’t see it now. Just trust Him, He’s big enough and strong enough to take it. He let me know that it was never my job to try and hold things together, it’s His. Peace, for the moment. I’ll take it.

New Year, new me?

Well, it’s now just past that most wonderful time of the year, and these are the days where we must come to terms with the after-effects of all the eggnog, fudge, and cookies. I for one haven’t stepped on my scale since early December, cause I really just don’t want to know. As I started a new job right before Christmas, my regular schedule has gotten a bit off, and I find I’m having a hard time getting things back on track. It would be so much easier to simply have someone telling me what I can and cannot eat, dragging me off to the gym, laying down the rules for getting back into shape. As I contemplated that, and the fact that my jeans are fitting a tad tighter now then they had been, say, in October, it came to me that I like my walk with Christ the same way.

When someone is telling me exactly what to do (you know, a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and then a sensible dinner), I can see where I’m following the program, where I’ve drifted off the path, and it’s easy to get ‘right’ again. If only it were like that with God! I’m constantly trying to force Him into a checklist, enabling me to tick off each item on my path to spiritual fulfillment. Read my Bible, check. Prayed, check. Had holy, pious thoughts, check. I don’t know about you, but I find comfort in the list.

But God doesn’t want to be on my list. He wants me to know Him, to love Him, to have an honest, give and take relationship with Him. He doesn’t want me to follow some six-step plan of do’s and don’ts in order to find peace and security. Because that sort of peace is no peace at all, just a hollow shell of what life with Him could be. And honestly, that’s the kind of life it feels like I’m living.

It’s scary to admit that. I really want to appear to have things all together, but that’s just not happening. This journey is long, and the path isn’t always easy to follow. Right now there is so much going on with my son, things I feel I have no control over. And I want someone to come alongside me, someone who can tell me what I need to do to make sense of all that’s happening, and how it all fits in to God’s plan for us. On those really bad days, when I feel my faith is at it’s weakest, I need Him to hold me till the storm passes.

I was thinking and journaling on this last night, and was sinking into such negative thoughts on how there seems to be no hope in this situation. Then I heard His gentle whisper. I heard Him calling me to trust Him, and know that He is in control. Our lives are in His hands, and I need to learn (again!) to give my fears and anxieties over to Him. Only He is big enough to take all the uncertainties of this life and give my heart peace and rest.

1 Peter 5:7~ “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for You.”

When

When all my spinning plates come crashing down

When all my hollow pleasantries are stilled

When all my worldly idols have lost their luster

When all my dreams are smoldering ashes

When the day comes where there is nothing left but You

Let my anguished, empty soul know You alone

Your path

I see Your path

rising heavenward,

solid stones awaiting my feet.

It pulses with truth and strength

and I know if I just step out in faith,

You will sustain me

and I will not fall.

broken cisterns

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Jeremiah 2:13

So this verse from Jeremiah keeps coming back to me, just sitting at the edge of  my consciousness, waving every so often to catch my attention. I’ve looked it up in the Geneva Study Bible, and found that it’s “Signifying that when men forsake God’s word, which is the fountain of life, they reject God himself, and so fall to their own inventions, and vain confidence, and procure to themselves destruction.”

How is this applying to me? I haven’t turned away from God, have I?

Well, like a ‘dog returning to its vomit’, I find myself clinging to destructive ideas and behaviors rather than clinging to my Rock. When I allow myself to wallow in self-pity, or to clutch to the darkness within me, I’m being disobedient to Him and what He’s called me to be. So in this way, I am forsaking God’s word, and choosing to believe what my wayward emotions whisper to me, rather than trusting in Him and His truth. Those patterns that I return to are my broken cisterns… they won’t hold the living water that is being poured into me. And all that water is being wasted when I allow it to flow through the broken parts. It’s not what God desires for me, to be forever empty of His life. He wants to heal me, to seal up the cracks so I can live.

It’s time to start living as that new creation He’s calling me to be.

and yet…

Keep working on me Lord…

I continually sell my soul for things of infinitely less worth than You, AND YET I am redeemed.

I continue to test the boundaries of Your grace, AND YET I am forgiven.

The ugliest thoughts possible fill my mind and my heart, AND YET I am precious in Your sight.

My tattered self is too ashamed to go before You, AND YET I have access to the throne of God, right now.

I can only see my filth, AND YET I am clean.

I continually make my bed in my old prison cell, AND YET I am free.

I cover my ears to block out the sound, AND YET I am rejoiced over.

I think noone else can understand the pit of despair, AND YET I am cried with.

I have nothing of any value to give, AND YET I am chosen.

I submerge myself in self-deprication, AND YET I am pursued.

I will always disappoint, AND YET I am loved.

 

~Let Your truth set me free Lord.

black

I stand in awe of You, but I loathe myself, Your creation. I’m weak and ever sinful. This blackness inside swallows me so often, and I let it. I need You to rescue me, as I am woefully inadequate to the task. There are days I strain towards You, reaching, and then seem to sink farther down into myself. I need Your mighty hand to rescue me Lord, both my heart and my mind. I call out to You but my voice is strangled by the darkness within me.

who am i

Who am I, really?  This is a VERY incomplete list, a definite work in progress.

Here’s what God says:

I am a child of God

I am redeemed

I am forgiven

I am precious in His sight

I am able to come before the throne of God, right now

I am clean

I am free

I am rejoiced over and cried with

I am understood

I am loved

I am chosen

I am a part of the body of Christ

I am never alone

I am His creation

I am my Beloved’s and His desire is for me

I am rescued

I am unashamed

I am heard by God

I am here for a purpose

I am known

I am found

I am carried close to God’s heart

I am comforted

I am set apart

I am accepted by God

I am pursued

 

Lord, help me to remember these truths…

Keep my eyes on You

Keep my eyes on You Lord,

on our future yet to come.

Let other thoughts and cares flow away

beneath my feet.

Keep my eyes on You Jesus,

looking only towards Your hands of love,

guiding me, working in me, working on me.

The troubles that threaten,

they grasp my heels, pulling me down.

But keep my eyes on You Father,

till all else dies away,

for my hope is found only in You.