waiting for a wedding

"Come, let us return to the LORD. 

He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us;

he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.

After two days he will revive us; 

on the third day he will restore us, 

that we may live in his presence.

Let us acknowledge the LORD; 

let us press on to acknowledge him. 

As surely as the sun rises, 

he will appear; 

he will come to us..."  

Hosea 6:1 - 3

May the Lord tear us to pieces in His own way. May we learn to lie down so that He might walk in us. May we trust Him enough with our wounds to allow Him to heal them. 

May He burn you with His breath as you read these words. May He come and call you to a life that is nothing of you and everything of Him. 

May we press on to serve Him, to proclaim His name to the ends of the earth. For we know that "as surely as the sun rises", our Lord is coming for us. He has not forgotten His Bride, and He eagerly awaits the time when He can take her away.

I am waiting for a wedding. My bride-price is paid, and so I wait (though, not idly) for my Husband to redeem me.

He will revive me, He will restore me, and I will live in His presence forever. 

Amen to that.

awakening me

...you are nothing, and God is everything; and for our nothing, God sacrificed everything, so that we may have everything."

- an excerpt from "I Would Die For You", B.J. Higgins.

There is so much more in this world than me. 

   
There is so much outside of me.

There is love and pain and death and darkness and life and joy.

There is hope and freedom and despair and captivity.

There is poverty and injustice.

There is shame and power.

But sometimes I fall into a haze of me.

God is everything. I am nothing. 

"...one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."

- Ephesians 4:6 

There is nothing outside of God. He sees all. There is nothing beyond His sight, for darkness is as light to Him. But sometimes all I seem to see nothing but myself. I only look two feet in front of me. I am blessed in so many countless ways. So why do I cry out to God to fix the comparatively minute discomforts that I feel burdened with?

"What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

- Romans 7:24

And so I ask. Who am I? 

"Who am I that the Lord of all the earth,
Would care to know my name, would care to feel my hurt?"

"Who Am I", Casting Crowns

 

 And, "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"

- Psalm 8:4

back to your first love

"You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love."

- Revelation 2:3

 

This verse petrifies me. 

It is not enough to simply be a Christian, do all the Christian things, to look like the ultimate holyman. It is not enough for God. He did not hire us for our services, we're not contracted to persevere through hard times to make Him look good. We are children. We are the Bride of the most famous Name in all the universe. We are chosen, we have been hand-picked out, set aside. We are called to love the Lord. First and foremost. More than anything else, this is what we were created for. Although we may be called to do other things in response to our love, we must never forget the root of our very existance.

"Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

- Deuteronomy 6:5

We are called to be faithful to Him, to love Him more than life itself, to set nothing above Him in our hearts and minds. 

I've realized that for me deeds is almost a cop-out for love. I love to serve the Lord - it's easy in comparison, it's practical and usually involves travel or the people I love. But finding true love and reverence and worship for Him is hard. I have to search deep within myself, I have to shift the planes of my heart, drag my gaze to the One whom I cannot see. It never used to be this much of a struggle. Loving the Lord was once like breathing - I couldn't even help it. Deeds and service was the more challenging part. But now I have "forsaken [my] first love." I have even fashioned other gods, bowed down to them. 

For my Abba and Saviour, I have offered my most of my mind and body, a portion of my time, a great deal of my money, and a chunk of the control, I've sacrificed all my plans and my future, and more than half of my dreams. I have opened my life to Him. I am faithful and devoted, I am "sold-out to Christ", I am "willing and able", I am passionate.
But this is not enough.
He wants my love. More than anything else. I hear Him say, "How much do you love me? Do you love me with all of your heart?" Have I given Him the throne in my heart? Or is it up for grabs? Or maybe I have given it to someone else (whom, in fact, "politely decline"s)? 

My God says, "Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." - Exodus 34:14

He will not share His fame - or my heart - with anyone else.

thailand thailand thailand

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!""

- Isaiah 6:8

I see such darkness over Thailand, I see Satan's grip on the Thai people manifested in so many ways. I know that me, one 19-year-old girl who can't speak Thai, who isn't very bold and is only there for short bursts at a time, can't really do a whole lot about the situation. But I have such a strong sense that God wants to move there, that He wants to move mountains in that place and all He wants is a few mustard seeds of faith. 

So I am going.

"Here am I, send me!" 

I know I have no skills, Lord, and I am far from a mighty Gospel warrior, but I am for you and your Kingdom, so send me. 

Lemme tell you what God has done in me.

I have been pining for Thailand. My body and soul yearns for that land. When I was there last year, it was new and different, but to be honest I didn't feel much about it. But now, merely a picture, a word spoken in Thai, even a distant memory of the smell, taste, touch of Thailand brings forth bubbles of love within. How can you love a people, a place you hardly know?! But that is what God has done in me. 

Praise Him. He moves in mysterious ways. And now, now, I am ready for my awakening...

onions and mud

I am an onion.

 An onion with three layers.

At my inner most core lies my true, God-crafted self. Here, I am pure and perfect. Here I am a reflection of the Shekinah glory of Yahweh. Here I am "fearfully and wonderfully made... I know that full well."

My second layer is that which the world has laid on me, a by-product of the Fall. It is mud and slime. It is most effective at masking that which lies beneath - truth and beauty. This layer does not reflect. No, instead it sucks all colour and light into itself and gives nothing back. It is dirty, but is essentially un-real. It was added after my creation, thrown on hastily by my Enemy barely a minute into my life, and so, I am easily convinced it is who I am, because I have never seen anything beneath it.

The last layer is one I am most ashamed to speak about, I guess 'cos it's all my doing. This is the mask I pull over the top to hide my muddy ugliness. This is the image of what I think I should be. It's "pretty" and quirky and loud and easy to get along with. It's what I feel the world will accept, it's what I think the church will accept, sometimes it's even what I think my Christ will accept (though, of course, He sees deeper). It is entirely "appropriate" and unoffensive and mildly spiced to look authentic. But this mask is heavy and incredibly hard to hold up. When it slips, it's terrifying.

There are new people God has placed in my life who sometimes make me forget to hold up the mask. They seem to see me with the eyes of God. 

I am blessed and humbled.

I am sickened. 

I am ashamed.

I am petrified of being found out.

I know I cannot hide from God, but I always assumed I could hide from the world. I know I am a child of God. Not only has He adopted me into His family, but I was created by Him. His very hands crafted not only my physical body, but also my "inner most being", and then He breathed His pueuma into me and gave me life. The Lord himself said it is "very good".

 So why do I feel like who I truly am might not be that great?

I know that the infamous layernumbertwo is now void and invisible, thanks to my Saving Grace. I have been freed of it's yoke. I have been washed clean, so there is no point living like I'm dirty. There is no stain on me now - there is nothing really there to hide.

 So why do I feel like who I truly am might not be that great? 

I'm really asking. I truly don't know. This not a rhetorical question. Someone give me an answer, please!

 

solitude with the Creator

The other day I asked God if He was frowning upon me and He said, "No, my heart is aching for you." I think sometimes I forget the most basic things about God; above all else, and beyond all restraint and logic, He is loving and good. He can't even help it. It's who He is. He loves, and He is good. His love has been troubling me for months. WHY does He love me? God, why do you love me? 

Because I do.

 And that's about the gist of it. He loves us cos He does. Not cos we are or aren't something. Not because we serve Him. Not because we praise Him. Nothing we do or don't do, nothing we think or don't think, no matter how we feel about Him, no matter what we do with our lives, no matter if we tell a million people about Him or if we tell none, no matter if we're Buddhist or Satanic, Jewish or Christian, no matter if we're from the slums of India or the royal line of David, no matter if we are disobedient unto death, or follow His every command and calling, He LOVES us. And for us to think otherwise is to think God can be unloving.