As I was spending some time with Jesus in worship today and reflecting on just how much happened in 2013, I realized a reoccurring theme in the insanity of this year:
No matter how positive I was that I was supposed to do something, God had a different plan. And no matter how many times I thought I knew better than Him, God knew best. And every time He would rip away my plans, He would ask me: "daughter, will you trust me?" And with every painful cry of "Yes, Daddy." I whispered, I fell in love with Him deeper.
My plans went ALL over the place, but God continued to know better and redirect me again and again...
Indiana, Auburn, School, Oklahoma, Toledo, South Africa, Marriage, Rehab, Uganda...
Those are just a fewwwwww of the major things that I did or did not have planned, that God turned around BIG TIME.
Don't get me wrong, every single time my plan got ripped away, I freaked out. I questioned God, I got angry, I stomped my feet, I cried, I didn't understand... But I still held onto Him tighter than anything else through it all, and He always proved Himself to be faithful. His plan truly was WAY better than mine every time.
Because HIS plan looks like a journey to HIS heart.
Whereas the plans we make for ourselves tend to look more like the quickest possible route to our destination.
HE IS the destination. But He also is the journey.
We complicate it by building our own plans and expecting them to come through and play out like we want.
But life doesn't work that way. And God surely doesn't work that way.
I'm not saying this next year to make your resolution to have no plans... But rather than stomping our feet and screaming at God when our plans don't come through, rejoice in the fact that God is redirecting us back to HIS plan.
One of the biggest comforts of my soul is knowing that NOTHING is useless when Jesus is involved. No matter how far away you think you are from God's plan, if you just seek Him, you're already walking in it.
And how silly of us to think that somehow we can mess up God's plan. Like the Creator of everything GOOD will somehow not be able to knit together beauty out of our mess? HA, yeah right. He promises us in Romans 8:28 that He's beyond capable.
I fell more in love with Jesus than I knew was possible this year.
I cried more tears than I thought I ever would.
I felt pain deeper than I knew a heart could feel.
I experienced grace more than I ever thought I could.
I learned more about God and life and myself and others than I ever expected.
I found joy that I didn't know could exist.
I found life that I didn't think was possible to live.
A song I wrote in the middle of a tear-filled night with Jesus and my guitar around 1am says these words:
"I'm at my strongest when I'm at my weakest.
You draw the closest when my pain cuts the deepest.
I'll rejoice in suffering if it makes me more like Jesus."
So I'm starting this year with the knowledge that the only concrete assurance I have about tomorrow is that God will be right there loving me again and again until the sun sets and the stars come out.
What will happen? Who will I meet? Where will I go?
I have absolutely no idea :)
And I'm totally okay with that for the first time in my life.
Because God proved to me time and time again over these last 365 days that He knows what He's doing. And I just have to walk with Him and keep chasing Him for the next 365 days.
So bring on the adventures, trials, challenges, steps of faith, and fears to face... because they will all bring me closer to Jesus.
Praying for whoever is reading these words to find HIM in this new year... To fall in love with the author of time and creator of good. Love and blessings to ya'll!
-Han
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Discovering Hidden Treasure
My birthday will be here in a few days and I cannot believe all that has happened this year.
The amazing, the terrible, the heartache, the adventures, the lessons learned, the fears faced, the people met, but most importantly: how much I've grown.
If I had to pinpoint one of the most important lessons God has stamped into my heart, it would be this:
When you actually are IN LOVE with Jesus, every single thing is different than when you love the idea of Him.
You cannot just occasionally love Him. Either you're in love, or you just love the idea of Him.
I realize this concept may be disagreeable to some, or it may be a concept those of us who have grown up in church hear and immediately think, "I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW".
But the bitter and dangerous curse of religiosity is much more common than we give it credit for. And the intention of letting Jesus fill our constant appetite does not count as allowing Him to do so.
The answer for just living as Jesus calls us to?
Being in love with Him.
If it isn't God's H E A R T that you're after, you'll end up burnt out, you'll end up bitter, you'll end up angry with God for not somehow giving you "what you deserve" for working for Him, you'll end up caught up in a tangled web of sin, you'll end up defeated, you'll end up turned off from the entire idea of God in general.
I believe this is one of the greatest dangers of the Church. Because so many people think dedicating their time to a ministry, or avoiding/fighting against "big sins", or reading their Bible everyday, or having their life together-ish, or hanging out with other people from church, or reading a lot of Jesus-centered books, or knowing all the right things to say and even THINK, qualifies as loving Jesus.
When in reality, these are results... not the way we make ourselves love Him.
But this is far from what God intended... because it's still shallow. It requires no digging.... Sure it requires effort and time, but what else? You can cover a million acres of land with seeds... you could endlessly dump them onto the dirt for miles and miles and miles, but if you never go beyond the surface, if you don't go deeper... every single seed is useless. Absolutely no growth or fruit will be produced. You can fill your life with stuff and ministry and words all you want. You can fight for fruit and good and even the things God is passionate for... But creating lasting, rich, real fruit is impossible without planting the seed FIRST.
How terrifying to think you could be this person your entire life, and once you die, God says: But I never knew you.
I cannot stress enough how much this used to be me. But I also cannot stress enough that once I fell in love with Jesus, everything changed.
I now see no time spent with Him as a chore, no act of service for Him as a waste, and no sacrifice too great in exchange for Himself. Because there is nothing better. There is no one more worthy. There is no love sweeter. There is no power stronger.
I think in terms of our earthly relationships. When you LOVE someone from the center of who you are, you want to be like them, you want to be WITH them, you want to honor them, you want to serve them, you want to do everything you can to make sure they know they're adored by you. Not because that's your "duty", but because it's your natural response to the love and relationship you have with them.
You would do whatever it takes to feel that love deeper, to make that love stronger, to see their heart clearer, and to know them more intimately. We were designed this way on purpose. Not just for each other, but for the One whose image we were created in.
All Jesus wants is for us to chase Him back. Because I promise He's already chasing YOU.
Basically, He doesn't want us to chase fruit... His stuff. He wants us to chase HIM. That will look different for everyone because God knows that we all feel love differently and uniquely.
The more of His love and His heart that I experience, the more natural becomes my desire to worship. Worship can be expressed in tons of different ways because it's our love BACK to Him. Just like He shows His love uniquely to each of us, we show ours back uniquely to Him.
In my joy and laughter, I want to worship.
In my pain and sorrow, I want to worship.
Sometimes I sing and spend time with nothing more than my guitar and a candle.
Sometimes I run so hard throughout the woods with tears streaming down my face because I just know He knows what He's doing even though I don't.
Sometimes I laugh out loud with joy as I reflect on how beautiful He is.
Sometimes I belt out Kim Walker while I'm driving.
Sometimes I sob my eyes out on my bed and just ask Him to hold me.
Sometimes I am driven to love humanity and buy a stranger flowers and tell them they're loved.
But always, I am called to worship.
And I've truly found that the more deeper in love with Him I fall, the more that everything that happens-- awesome or terrible-- the more all my heart craves is time with Him and His presence.
Just like the first person we want to celebrate joyful news with or to hold us when we're broken is the person we love most, Jesus wants to be that for you.
And He's better. Infinitely and unexplainably better. Because He doesn't push away, let down, or disappoint.
He blows away, He lifts up, and He exceeds our expectations.
This is because He didn't just LOVE us FIRST, He invented it. He encompasses all that it is.
So I challenge you:
Find His heart.
And you'll never want to stop knowing more.
The amazing, the terrible, the heartache, the adventures, the lessons learned, the fears faced, the people met, but most importantly: how much I've grown.
If I had to pinpoint one of the most important lessons God has stamped into my heart, it would be this:
When you actually are IN LOVE with Jesus, every single thing is different than when you love the idea of Him.
You cannot just occasionally love Him. Either you're in love, or you just love the idea of Him.
I realize this concept may be disagreeable to some, or it may be a concept those of us who have grown up in church hear and immediately think, "I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW".
But the bitter and dangerous curse of religiosity is much more common than we give it credit for. And the intention of letting Jesus fill our constant appetite does not count as allowing Him to do so.
The answer for just living as Jesus calls us to?
Being in love with Him.
If it isn't God's H E A R T that you're after, you'll end up burnt out, you'll end up bitter, you'll end up angry with God for not somehow giving you "what you deserve" for working for Him, you'll end up caught up in a tangled web of sin, you'll end up defeated, you'll end up turned off from the entire idea of God in general.
I believe this is one of the greatest dangers of the Church. Because so many people think dedicating their time to a ministry, or avoiding/fighting against "big sins", or reading their Bible everyday, or having their life together-ish, or hanging out with other people from church, or reading a lot of Jesus-centered books, or knowing all the right things to say and even THINK, qualifies as loving Jesus.
When in reality, these are results... not the way we make ourselves love Him.
But this is far from what God intended... because it's still shallow. It requires no digging.... Sure it requires effort and time, but what else? You can cover a million acres of land with seeds... you could endlessly dump them onto the dirt for miles and miles and miles, but if you never go beyond the surface, if you don't go deeper... every single seed is useless. Absolutely no growth or fruit will be produced. You can fill your life with stuff and ministry and words all you want. You can fight for fruit and good and even the things God is passionate for... But creating lasting, rich, real fruit is impossible without planting the seed FIRST.
How terrifying to think you could be this person your entire life, and once you die, God says: But I never knew you.
I cannot stress enough how much this used to be me. But I also cannot stress enough that once I fell in love with Jesus, everything changed.
I now see no time spent with Him as a chore, no act of service for Him as a waste, and no sacrifice too great in exchange for Himself. Because there is nothing better. There is no one more worthy. There is no love sweeter. There is no power stronger.
I think in terms of our earthly relationships. When you LOVE someone from the center of who you are, you want to be like them, you want to be WITH them, you want to honor them, you want to serve them, you want to do everything you can to make sure they know they're adored by you. Not because that's your "duty", but because it's your natural response to the love and relationship you have with them.
You would do whatever it takes to feel that love deeper, to make that love stronger, to see their heart clearer, and to know them more intimately. We were designed this way on purpose. Not just for each other, but for the One whose image we were created in.
All Jesus wants is for us to chase Him back. Because I promise He's already chasing YOU.
Basically, He doesn't want us to chase fruit... His stuff. He wants us to chase HIM. That will look different for everyone because God knows that we all feel love differently and uniquely.
The more of His love and His heart that I experience, the more natural becomes my desire to worship. Worship can be expressed in tons of different ways because it's our love BACK to Him. Just like He shows His love uniquely to each of us, we show ours back uniquely to Him.
In my joy and laughter, I want to worship.
In my pain and sorrow, I want to worship.
Sometimes I sing and spend time with nothing more than my guitar and a candle.
Sometimes I run so hard throughout the woods with tears streaming down my face because I just know He knows what He's doing even though I don't.
Sometimes I laugh out loud with joy as I reflect on how beautiful He is.
Sometimes I belt out Kim Walker while I'm driving.
Sometimes I sob my eyes out on my bed and just ask Him to hold me.
Sometimes I am driven to love humanity and buy a stranger flowers and tell them they're loved.
But always, I am called to worship.
And I've truly found that the more deeper in love with Him I fall, the more that everything that happens-- awesome or terrible-- the more all my heart craves is time with Him and His presence.
Just like the first person we want to celebrate joyful news with or to hold us when we're broken is the person we love most, Jesus wants to be that for you.
And He's better. Infinitely and unexplainably better. Because He doesn't push away, let down, or disappoint.
He blows away, He lifts up, and He exceeds our expectations.
This is because He didn't just LOVE us FIRST, He invented it. He encompasses all that it is.
So I challenge you:
Find His heart.
And you'll never want to stop knowing more.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
F for Effort
Ya know those habits, relationships, addictions, or thought patterns you just can't seem to ever get rid of?
The ones that just when you think they're gone for good, try to creep their way back in?
They feel good. They feel right. But they are so dangerously deadly.
Sometimes they are so obviously wrong, toxic, foolish and terrible for us, but we hopelessly feel trapped by them anyway. Either way, call it what you will, justify it how you will, or ignore it if you want, but these things are Satan's greatest victories over us. If he can get you to justify or accept these things/actions/relationships, he can keep your focus off of Jesus just enough to keep you trapped in sin and far from God's presence.
Whether it's pornography or a toxic relationship or an unhealthy obsession with anything other than Jesus:
ALL of us have them. And whatever habit, thing, or person you can't get out of your head right now... That's IT.
For those that are living in congruence with the world and it's standards, they can make themselves nice and cozy in these prison cells... because what reason would they have for forfeiting their feelings and pleasure for God's will?
But for those of us who have tasted even the tiniest bit of God's goodness, we KNOW the tension that exists with these issues. We want them GONE for good because we know it's what is best, but our flesh wants them to stay because it feels like what is best in the moment.
Our nature inclines us to think that perhaps we know better than God, perhaps our feelings hold purpose beyond the truth, or perhaps it's hopeless to try because "it" or "he" or "she" will just come back anyway.
In these last couple days I've been fighting this battle with my own prison cells... literally fighting with God. I've come to Him desperate, I've come to Him angry, I've come to Him asking WHY? Why won't He just take it away, why can't I be strong enough to conquer this for good, why does it always come back?
Because, honestly, it seems like the harder I try, the deeper I fall.
I was driving around in my car during one of these arguments with God pretty pissed off about these prison cells that have held me captive for years. "God, I'm trying SO HARD. I'm giving this everything I've got. WHY is it still there? Don't you want freedom for me?"
Then I heard his still and bold whisper...
"YOU can never try hard enough. Only I can do this in you. Just seek me."
No matter how many times I hear this, learn this, or am told this, I seem to always forget it.
God so patiently redirects me time and time again back to Himself and His presence. The answer is never found in my fight against my sin, but in my determined and immovable dedication to seeking HIM.
Stop trying harder, and start seeking deeper.
Freedom from those prison cells is found in HIM, healing from your past is found in HIM, wholeness from your broken choices is found in HIM, fulfillment in your emptiness is found in HIM.
Victory is found in HIM.
The more time we spend in His presence and seek Him out, the more His presence will carry us through the rest of our days... the more we will FEEL Him in our moments of weakness. The more we will sense His spirit next to us in our everyday breathing and living and doing.
Seek Him FIRST, and strength will follow.
Rather than being strong first, hoping His presence and freedom will follow.
The more you seek Him, the more you'll feel Him.
It's a simple concept that requires great discipline. We get it backwards just about every time. But everyday I pray this to Him again:
"Jesus, today I will stop seeking answers, and I will seek YOU instead."
The ones that just when you think they're gone for good, try to creep their way back in?
They feel good. They feel right. But they are so dangerously deadly.
Sometimes they are so obviously wrong, toxic, foolish and terrible for us, but we hopelessly feel trapped by them anyway. Either way, call it what you will, justify it how you will, or ignore it if you want, but these things are Satan's greatest victories over us. If he can get you to justify or accept these things/actions/relationships, he can keep your focus off of Jesus just enough to keep you trapped in sin and far from God's presence.
Whether it's pornography or a toxic relationship or an unhealthy obsession with anything other than Jesus:
ALL of us have them. And whatever habit, thing, or person you can't get out of your head right now... That's IT.
For those that are living in congruence with the world and it's standards, they can make themselves nice and cozy in these prison cells... because what reason would they have for forfeiting their feelings and pleasure for God's will?
But for those of us who have tasted even the tiniest bit of God's goodness, we KNOW the tension that exists with these issues. We want them GONE for good because we know it's what is best, but our flesh wants them to stay because it feels like what is best in the moment.
Our nature inclines us to think that perhaps we know better than God, perhaps our feelings hold purpose beyond the truth, or perhaps it's hopeless to try because "it" or "he" or "she" will just come back anyway.
In these last couple days I've been fighting this battle with my own prison cells... literally fighting with God. I've come to Him desperate, I've come to Him angry, I've come to Him asking WHY? Why won't He just take it away, why can't I be strong enough to conquer this for good, why does it always come back?
Because, honestly, it seems like the harder I try, the deeper I fall.
I was driving around in my car during one of these arguments with God pretty pissed off about these prison cells that have held me captive for years. "God, I'm trying SO HARD. I'm giving this everything I've got. WHY is it still there? Don't you want freedom for me?"
Then I heard his still and bold whisper...
"YOU can never try hard enough. Only I can do this in you. Just seek me."
No matter how many times I hear this, learn this, or am told this, I seem to always forget it.
God so patiently redirects me time and time again back to Himself and His presence. The answer is never found in my fight against my sin, but in my determined and immovable dedication to seeking HIM.
Stop trying harder, and start seeking deeper.
Freedom from those prison cells is found in HIM, healing from your past is found in HIM, wholeness from your broken choices is found in HIM, fulfillment in your emptiness is found in HIM.
Victory is found in HIM.
The more time we spend in His presence and seek Him out, the more His presence will carry us through the rest of our days... the more we will FEEL Him in our moments of weakness. The more we will sense His spirit next to us in our everyday breathing and living and doing.
Seek Him FIRST, and strength will follow.
Rather than being strong first, hoping His presence and freedom will follow.
The more you seek Him, the more you'll feel Him.
It's a simple concept that requires great discipline. We get it backwards just about every time. But everyday I pray this to Him again:
"Jesus, today I will stop seeking answers, and I will seek YOU instead."
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