Posted on by Daisy Joan

Bound on a Train for Glory

I found myself weeping before the Lord this morning as I passionately renounced my most beloved and oldest demon friends for the thousandth time, and then longingly looked back at them heartbroken as the walked away at God’s command.

I cried out, “God, I don’t know why I’m doing that!  I hate them!  I don’t want them!  And a part of me loves them and wants them back already! Help me, God!!! Help me!”

“Worship me,” he whispered. I felt the soft touch of his gentle calloused hand gathering up the tears on my cheeks.

A touch from the Master had already begun to sand away another rough spot on my broken heart. His calloused hand.  A perfectly divine, resurrected body with a calloused hand and a rough, scratchy cheek and coarse dark hair.  

He smelled like sunshine and cedar.

I wept.  Jesus wept.  We wept together for the death of Lazarus in my own heart.  

“Lift your head, weary sinner,” He whispered.

Worship me.

I tell Google to play Lift Your Head Weary Sinner and I worship.  I weep and worship and weep and sing at the top of my lungs. Let the chains fall!  Let the chains fall! My repentance becomes worship.  I worship.

Worship me.

Daddy’s personal playlist for me kicked into full gear.  There is an Anchor played next. 

I kept my head lifted up and I fixed my eyes on the Lord’s gaze.  I’d renounced and confessed and repented.  I’d worshiped. Our eyes stayed locked.  He sees and he loves.  He sees me.  And he loves me.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 
You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
6 
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.
Psalm 139:1-6 ESV

I felt so much relief. The Lord and I were locked in unity.  I allowed Him to keep my gaze, despite my fear and my torment, and He saw me. He saw all of me. 

He has always seen everything in me, every darkness, every fear, and He loves me. 

All those long lost beloved friends of perdition who whisper on the winds of my memories, with their shame and death and suffering, all just disappear into the glorious light. I know my gaze will wander. And I know His gaze wont falter even when mine does.

I don’t have to always understand.  I doubt.  I fear.  I worry.  I am human.  I was born on a train bound for death.  And Jesus loves me.  He offers Himself up to me so we can be one.

And I am reminded again that we are One. Oh, the audacity to consider my fears more terrible than God’s power! His light washes away everything that isn’t light.  

In Him there is no darkness.

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5 ESV

I will worship Him.  

I choose to be blinded by His love for me, bound on a train for Glory instead of death, no matter what familiar demons I hear screaming out the window.

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Posted on by Daisy Joan

On Being Quiet

24 “Teach me, and I will be silent;

    make me understand how I have gone astray.

25 How forceful are upright words!

    But what does reproof from you reprove?

26 Do you think that you can reprove words,

    when the speech of a despairing man is wind?

Job 6:24-26

I think sometimes it’s really easy to believe I’ve got something important to say just because the Lord has spoken to me. I even heard a friend say the other day that if God speaks to you you must speak it out. I don’t think that’s accurate, though.

I’ve been in a season of “speaking up” and I think that it’s very important to do so when the Lord asks you too, but being quiet is also sometimes necessary. Being quiet means you can listen. Being quiet means you can trust God for the right opportunity. Being quiet means learning to be humble.

Being quiet is a faith building exercise in discipline.

Quiet is hard for me.  I’m an extravert.  I’m gregarious, bombastic even.  I’m enthusiastic about everything and I’ve always got an opinion.  Always.  So learning how to be quiet has been a new skill for me, but a necessary one.

Choosing to be quiet still communicates something.  Being quiet means I have nothing to prove.  I have nothing to defend, and I have no need to be heard by anyone.  It means that when I do choose to speak, I have something to say.

When it comes to speaking up, the Lord has been teaching me how to be more confident in my value to His Kingdom.  I don’t need other people to validate me or even agree with my perspective.  I don’t need to convince anyone of anything.  I can speak or be silent as the Lord leads, and not by my own assumptions.

Where my voice has “gone astray” in the past is when I’ve felt insecure.  When I’ve been afraid that no one cared about what I had to say, I felt the need to prove myself to them.  I felt the need to show them that I had important things to say, things that others needed to hear.

I don’t feel that way so much anymore.  

At the beginning of my journey toward choosing to be silent I would often pray that God would have someone else say what my heart ached to say.  I would ask God to empower someone else to speak up since I felt like no one would want to hear from me, or take what I had to say seriously. So sad and hard, but also humbling.

I learned that God’s words will not be silenced.  Often the ideas that the Lord had planted in my own heart did in fact come to life from someone else’s boldness to speak, but being silent in those days hurt me deeply.  It reinforced my own false narrative that even God wanted someone else to say what He had given to me.  

I’ve since realized that I put those restrictions on myself needlessly, but God was faithful to me anyway.  Silence wasn’t always necessary, but I hadn’t yet learned that what I had to say had value.  

We are all so varied and unique.  Each one of us has our own way of speaking, our own way of articulating our thoughts.  And when the Lord gives me something to say, then I must assume that the Lord wants me to say them.  He gives words to me to speak or write because He wants them to be “Daisy flavored.”

I was once a woman of despair.  I felt like no one wanted to hear my heart.  I even felt like God wanted me to be quiet.  But I was wrong.  God is good, and He is more than willing to meet us where we are, even when we are wrong, or maybe especially when we are wrong.  By doing so, He can lovingly guide and direct us to what is right.

As the scripture above says, in silence He can teach me where I have gone astray.  Only then will I know how to hear what He has to say, and obediently speak it out.  To speak boldly without discernment offers nothing.

Now I can confidently be still and quiet, but I can also, just as boldly, declare what the Lord has called me to speak.  Both have value.  I’ve been learning that being quiet often amplifies my words when I do choose to speak. 

Consider taking more moments of silence in your life.  Then sit back and see what God does. 

Posted on by Daisy Joan

Be Still

But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.
Psalms 1:2

I’ve had a season of introspection.  I think a lot of us have.  Isolation in uncertain times does that to a person, I guess.  My thoughts have kept me from some things and for a time I beat myself up over it, but as I talked to others and listened to their struggles I discovered that I wasn’t alone in that either.  

Being alone isn’t as lonely as it seems, I suppose.

I could have gotten lost in my work.  I could have buried myself in a never ending pile of distractifying, unfulfilling, money making.  But I didn’t.  And I kind of hated myself for it.  Being unproductive with no excuse is definitely guilt inducing.

I could have drowned my fear and anxiety in the solace of sweets and baking and endless bottomless glasses of wine.  Let’s be honest, I did that a little bit, and then I felt a guilty about that, too.

I could have plugged my ears and stomped my feet and sang songs really, really loud until everything went back to normal.  Yes, I did that, too, and felt the sorrow of denial in the days that followed.

I started thinking about all the things I had been doing to try and be normal, to try and carry on, to try and adapt and take advantage of my time in lock down.  None of it mattered.  Like the false bravado of a little yapping dog, it had no real power to protect me, or soothe me, or heal me.  

Even the things I thought I could do for God seemed to fall short in my mind.  I wasn’t writing.  I wasn’t reading the Bible enough.  I judged my prayers as selfish and unsatisfying.  I beat myself up for not helping other people better navigate this crazy pandemic.

But I just couldn’t muster up enough of anything to do much.  I just sat there.  In the stillness.  In the nothing.  I didn’t want the fear, the shame, or the guilt.  I didn’t want to be busy.  I just wanted it all to be over! 

I don’t like pandemics, and injustice, and death, and unemployment.  I don’t like any of it. It’s not the Kingdom of God and I want the Kingdom of God more than I want anything, and all I can manage to do is say, “I can’t do anything about this, God!”

But there is value in the stillness.  God is unveiling it bit by bit.  “Be still and know that I am God.”  The treasure comes in surrender.

Beautiful, honest, end of myself surrender.

My meditations have become Jesus focused.  I started reciting Psalm 23 in my head over and over again every night when I went to sleep.  It’s led to better sleep.  It’s led to deeper trust.  Each time I recite it, I pray the words to the Lord.  I meditate on the truth of his love and steadfastness.  

I’m memorizing more scripture.  I just want it all in my head.  I want to breathe it in and live by it.  I know the Word.  I’ve been studying the Bible for years.  But I want more than that.  In my surrender I want to revel in the knowledge that Jesus is my everything.  

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14

The Word made flesh became the flesh made words, and in those words I have begun to meditate day and night.  

I need my Jesus and I found Him palpably again in the flesh of His Word.  I’m losing my desire to judge my inaction or the inaction or injustice of others.  I just soak Him up in myself.  I let Him be enough.  I let Him be everything.  His Glory, His Fullness, His Might is coming alive in me in a deepness I have yet to fully know.  

It’s hard to believe that such scary times could bring such a deep closeness with the Lord, especially since I honestly kept thinking about how miserably ineffective I had been in regard to my Christian walk.  I was so caught up in judging my inaction and insecurity, and judging my sporadic moments of faith and action as not near enough to prove my love to my Savior.  And yet His answer all along has been, “Be still and know that I am God.”

I’m working on memorizing Psalm 46 right now.  I’d gotten the first part down a couple years ago and then gave up because, well, memorizing is hard.  I’m back at it now, though, with renewed trust that the meditations of my heart are now drawing me closer and closer to the Lord of Hosts.  He truly is my fortress and my strength.  I don’t need to do anything else.

10 “Be still, and know that I am God.
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth!”
11 The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Psalm 46:10-11

Posted on by Daisy Joan

Be Perfect

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48

That’s a lot of pressure!  Be perfect, Jesus? Or, uh, how about try to be perfect?  Trying is good, right?

I admit it. That verse has always confounded me.  I was taught as a child to be my own worst critic.  I was taught to seek nothing less than perfection. So, you better believe, I know full well just how imperfect I really am.  

I am not perfect. And neither are you.

So, does that mean we’re hosed?  Have we caught Jesus suggesting we do something that is impossible? 

For nothing will be impossible with God. Luke 1:37

There you have it, folks.  Nothing will be impossible for God.  God can do anything he wants. God gets to be perfect.  

Do you remember us talking about this the other day?  No? We did. When we talked about sharing God’s glory, we talked about the living God within us.  Remember? That’s the reason we can share His Glory. And guess what, there’s other stuff of His we get to share!

14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons[f] of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Romans 8:14-17

Being perfect plays right into the truth of who we are.  We are no longer slaves to sin, but sons of the Living God, with the Spirit of God living within us.  Yes, even us girls are still sons. (Just like men get to be brides of Christ.)

We are made to be perfect.  Yes. Perfect.

There are some caveats to that perfection, though.  It seems that suffering plays a vital role in that. Paul said, “provided we suffer.”  So, God’s a sadist? Certainly not! But, boy oh boy, when we suffer for the Lord we sure do learn a lot about Him! Just like He showed us He knew a lot about us by submitting to death–even death on a cross!

This world is broken, we’re going to suffer.  But God made a way for that. God made suffering a vital part of our journey.  Not because He’s a sadist, but because God makes all things new. God brings encouragement from the worst of situations.  God takes death and restores it to life. 

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:1-11

I know that was a mouthful of scripture.  Maybe even a mouthful you just skimmed over because you already know what it says.  Or maybe you just got intimidated. If so, go back and read it. I’ll wait.  

Now that that’s done, let’s continue.  We need to act like Christ. When we act like Christ we are doing something very, very special.  We are walking in unity with him and with everyone else who is doing the same. When we walk in Christ, submitting to Him, listening to Him, and being in Him, we are…wait for it…

Being perfect.

I’ll let that sink in a minute.

It doesn’t matter what you think, or what you feel. You feel inadequate? You are! You feel weak? You are! You don’t know the answers? You don’t have to.

Because Jesus. Jesus is doing all the work.  He’s bringing death to life. And He’s doing it in you.

Jesus meme

You heard me.  Jesus. Only Jesus.  All Jesus all the time.  When you’re in Him, you are perfect.  When you’re not, you’re not. So, go be perfect, my loves! Go be perfect!

Here’s a link to a sermon I preached on this subject shortly after I wrote this blog.  Enjoy.

 

Posted on by Daisy Joan

Teach Me, Oh Lord

Do you ever feel like God is trying to tell you something and you think you’re hearing Him only to discover that He’s still talking and you don’t get it?  I realized last night that I wrote two consecutive blog posts about basically the same thing. Using a lot of the same verses, I wrote about the joy that comes after the suffering.  Even the titles were similar.

I didn’t notice until last night.

I wasn’t listening as clearly as I thought.  Don’t get me wrong, I want to listen and I was listening.  I desperately want to hear God’s voice. How am I supposed to function properly without the Lord’s direction and guidance along the way?  

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105

Without the light, how am I supposed to see?  Without God’s voice to guide me, how can I get anywhere?  

I’m missing something and it’s something important.  Unfortunately this isn’t one of those blog posts that’s full of great information or insight.  Instead it’s a blind girl trying to find hope and direction from a voice I don’t fully hear sometimes.

It’s like talking on the phone with someone when you don’t have a good signal.  You hear a part of every other word and you might grab the jist of it, but never the whole thing.

A week and a half ago, after the main part of church was over, a guy I never met before came over to me and wanted to pray for me.  I said ok and he began to pray and suddenly started prophesying. There’s a lot to it that I won’t go into, but I went home and wrote it all down.  I wanted to remember it. I wanted to hear God’s voice in it.

Then, last Sunday I went to a church I love dearly but don’t get to regularly attend because of ministry obligations.  My teenage daughter went with me and after the service she asked a lady (a friend of mine) to come and pray for me.

Guess what happened?  She began to pray and then started prophesying almost everything that the Lord had given me the previous week from someone else at a different church service with a different congregation. 

You think God was trying to tell me something?  It’s like these two people had read my deepest thoughts, and were speaking into them in ways only the Lord could do.  There was so much love. No judgement. No condemnation. Just love.

Then there’s this whole business of the two blogs in a row talking about the same thing.  Same verses, same message, same feelings. I feel pretty dense right now. But you know what?  I’m not going to beat myself up over it. That’s not the point.  

God never uses shame to get His point across.  He’s a good father. He’s so patient. His love is so fierce and true and righteous.  My God is not a God of shame. So, I’m not going to even say I need to listen better. I’m not going to say I suck at hearing God’s voice.  Nope. I’m not going to roll that way.

Instead, I’m going to listen.  

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Psalm 32:8

He’s teaching me tenderly so that I may learn and then teach others.  There’s something in that I don’t want to miss. In fact, I refuse to miss it.  I will accept a little bit of gentle correction, a bit of embarrassment, and receive the truth. I’m going to admit I’m not hearing it all and ask for more wisdom, more humility, and more correction.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
James 1:5-6

Lord, I want to hear Your voice.  I want to trust all that You have given me and nothing else.  Sift through the static for me, God, so I can hear only You. There’s something you want me to learn.  There’s always something. And I don’t want to miss any of it. Teach me. Correct me. Discipline me.

12 Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O Lord,
    and whom you teach out of your law,
13 to give him rest from days of trouble,
    until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14 For the Lord will not forsake his people;
    he will not abandon his heritage;
15 for justice will return to the righteous,
    and all the upright in heart will follow it.
Psalms 94:12-15

Jesus has become my righteousness.  He has made me whole and pure in the eyes of God, my Father.  I want to be taught. I want to learn. I want to overflow with the wisdom and knowledge the Lord asks me to steward, whether the knowledge is for me alone or for me to share.  I want what He wants. His way is right. My way is broken.

16 Who rises up for me against the wicked?
    Who stands up for me against evildoers?
17 If the Lord had not been my help,
    my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.
18 When I thought, “My foot slips,”
    your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
19When the cares of my heart are many,
    your consolations cheer my soul.
Psalm 94:16-19

Only in God is there victory.  Only in God is there rescue. Only in God is there deliverance.  Only in God. Only in God. Only in God. 

Let me be in unity with You, Lord, as the Father and Son are in unity.  Let us all be in unity with You, Jesus.

Precious Lord Jesus, You say it all.  I believe You. I trust You. I want what You want and to be in You as You are in the Father.  And I know that even this is the longing of Your Spirit within me. The Spirit that cries, “Abba, Father!” I’m crying out to You, Lord.  I’m crying out to You alone.

Jesus prayed,  20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
John 17:20-26

 

Posted on by Daisy Joan

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

13 For You formed my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Marvelous are Your works,
and I know this very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You
when I was made in secret,
when I was woven together
in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all my days were written in Your book
and ordained for me
before one of them came to be.
Psalms 139:13-16

I think sometimes I look at myself, remembering the verses above, and marvel at what God did fifty years ago when He knit me together in my mother’s womb, and then forget to recognize that God isn’t finished with me yet.  The God of all creation made me. He designed every part of me and wrote out my days in advance.  

He has a perfect plan for me, even knowing that I would be torn from that path a million times by a world ruled by sin and death.  He accounted for every fall and scrape, every mishap, every rebellion. He accounted for it all. And He has a plan for it!

I’ve lost my way a million times.  The ordained path of my destiny has been obstructed by my ego, my selfish desires, the cruel actions of others, or other circumstances outside of my control.  The list could go on forever. Some of it was my fault. Some of it wasn’t. All of it took me off of God’s perfect path for me.  But none of it robbed me of God’s perfect plan to handle every free will challenge I faced.

19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
    the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
    and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[b]
    his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”
Lamentations 3:19-24

Because of God’s great love and mercy, I have been continually led back to the path of God’s ordaining for my life. I’ve stumbled around in the dark like a drunk woman: unsteady, uneasy, and uncertain, and His perfect plans have remained in effect. His perfect plan brings me back into the light of His path.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2     He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.[a]
3     He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness[b]
    for his name’s sake.
Psalms 23:1-3

Life is one trial after another.  It’s pain and sorrow, joy and laughter.  It’s accidents and mistakes amidst victories and honor.  It’s hard. It’s painful. It’s one day at a time, one moment at a time, learning and learning and occasionally maybe teaching a thing or two.  It’s gaining confidence and losing it again. 

God knew that’s how it would be for us, once we stopped trusting Him way back in the Garden.  And even still He loved us, and He had a plan for us, a plan to give us the power to choose to make our way back to Him.  We were never going to find Him on our own. Not once the world had us. But God had a plan for that. He had a plan for me.  His name is Jesus.

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
John 3:16-17

So, while I’m walking through this world I’m in.  While I’m falling down and crying my eyes out, or singing His praises at the top of my lungs, He is with me.  He’s leading and guiding and teaching. Each adversity is a chance to trust Him more. Each trial is a lesson in humility, endurance, and strength.

There’s a great song from the 70’s that goes like this:

“The road is long
With many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where
Who knows where
But I’m strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” 

And I like to think that song is about Jesus and us. Jesus looks and sees our burdens and he says to the world, “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother (sister).”

I will let Him carry me.  And I will work hard to obey His voice, and follow the path He has ordained for me.  As I go I will be transformed. I will learn to hear Him and discern His path for me.  I will present each and every moment of my whole being to Him as an act of worship and be transformed.

 I appeal to you therefore, brothers,[a] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.[b] 2 Do not be conformed to this world,[c] but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. [d]
Romans 12:1-2

Song lyrcs from He Aint Heavy, He’s my Brother by Bob Russell and Bobby Scott 1969

 

Posted on by Daisy Joan

Because I Said So

My husband and I are raising our second teenager.  She’s seventeen, brilliant, funny, stubborn, and loves Jesus.  I lose my patience with her more often than I’d like, but I try hard to set good boundaries, give her opportunities to accept consequences, and also encourage her to try hard things.  But sometimes, because I really am sounding more and more like my mother, she will ask why she can’t do something and my answer is the dreaded, “because I said so.” It’s the bane of teenagers everywhere.

And I’m guilty.

How many times has Jesus patiently, lovingly, simply responded to me with those very words?  And how many times have those words been exactly what needed? When I say to my child, “because I said so” it’s usually because I don’t have a good reason, or I don’t want to explain all the details.  I just want my daughter to accept that I know best.

But I don’t know best. 

Only God knows truly what is best.  Only God can say, “because I said so,” and mean it with full love and honesty.  He knows what’s best for me. I just don’t always want to hear it. I want what I want.  I hear what I want to hear. I do what I think is best in my own eyes. And somewhere along the way, I’m no different than the people in Judges who, over time, began to do what seemed right in their own eyes.

“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Judges 17:6

And sadly, that’s not the only time the Bible says something like that. I’ve read it so many times and thought to myself, “those silly people. Why don’t they listen to God? Why are they so dense and so selfish?”  And then I do what is right in my own eyes and never even consult God, let alone ask for His opinion.

Even though I’ve been chosen by God, and been sealed with His Spirit, I rationalize with human longings that should be giving to God.

Do I hear God? Yes, of course.  Plenty of times I hear the voice of God in my heart.  I hear His pleasure or His sorrow. I hear His hopes and plans for me.  And still I can get so conveniently deaf to Him when I want to.

I’m so thankful that God is patient.  I’m so thankful that God bears with me.

“For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” Hebrews 12:6

Hear me, though, when I say this: God loves to explain things to us!  He loves to tell us why. The problem is always with us. We don’t want to listen.  We don’t want to ask. We don’t want to obey. And so, because He says He loves us, and He says He disciplines us out of that love, He lovingly follows through with His promises.  And, though we may not believe it, it is for our good.

I wish my daughter would accept my “because I said so”.  But mostly, I just want to learn to accept God’s words. If He wants to tell me, “because I said so,” I want to listen.  I want to receive it. I want to trust God and I want to trust His Word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.John 1:1-5

Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?