Quatsi

I have been listing to “Dirt” by the Collection a whole lot lately.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_JZUyY-rrs)

I am just reminded of the beauty of God’s love for us. We are dirt and yet so precious. My friend Toni reminded me that we are all so unique and have something so important to bring to the world. That thought makes me desire to live that out in my life and share it with other’s. Sometimes I get so caught up in my own world and woes that I forget what God is doing. I only see the dirt and not the beautiful things He springs out of it. Spring is here, and I am starting to see the beautiful blossoms on the trees and the flowers popping up from the ground. These things are springing from the dirt just like God is doing beautiful things in me and the people around me from the dirt.

I feel the last few years of my life has been dirt, but God is so wonderful and full of love. God is building a forest in my life right now of beautiful things. He is creating trees that will allow birds to come and rest in my branches. I guess, I am just super overwhelmed that God would continue the good work He started in me…but that is God. He is the creator of beauty. He has the most integrity and faithfulness ever.

Check out Act 9. I mean, He takes us at our ugliest and is like "man yeah I want to use that you". I want God. I will not stop until I am in His arms (literally). I am not sure how to fully process His goodness to me right now. And that is what the next season of my life is supposed to look like. God showering me with goodness and me learning to let Him. To let Him use me even though I came from dirt. To give me good things and remind me that He is love. How is it that I am so terrified???

My job now is to learn how to except God’s love and grow in integrity, humility, and die to self every day so that He can take over. I love my job!

I am giving over fear and failure to God. I am pretty sure this next step in my journey with God is about to get crazy…I can’t wait to be washed over and bulldozed!

81 vs. 45

It’s a horrible thing how much time I waste in the could be future than being in the definite present. I do not know what tomorrow will hold. God is holding that. He has everything worked out. All I know is today. And today I have dear friends who don’t know God. Why am I not pouring into them and showing them God’s goodness with every second I can? I want something more. I want…I want. But what about what I HAVE? I want to lay down my wants to God and pick up my haves and go with it. I feel very much like Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit. He keeps regretting the fact that he said he would go on the adventure, but still he finds himself over and over pulled into his adventure. I want to live like that. Going forward more and more with small pockets of being overwhelmed by what I want as opposed to being overwhelmed with what I want with pockets of going forward. I know I cannot actually stop having wants, but I want to dive into what I have with all my heart, soul, and mind. I have been promised the second that I am living in the moment, not the next second, minute, hour, day, year, etc. Will I be found faithful and content with each second?!

Right now it is 81 degrees in Nashville. It is 45 degrees in Lynchburg. Oh the testing of contentment, ha!

And then you see lightning and hear thunder and you are soooo happy to be exactly where you are!!!!

To Pluto’s Moon to Text Back Tempos

God is like the ocean because:

I am desperately in love with God and His beauty. He makes no sense and in that He makes all the sense in the world. How can He be such a calm ocean and yet so powerful and full of the craziest creations?! I just went on a short tour with some of the dearest friends I have ever had in which we drove a lot, packed/unpacked even more, and slept a little. I thought two things that would come from this trip: 1) I thought it was going to be really uncomfortable to be on tour when I am not actually a part of the band and 2) I thought I was going to be super drained throughout the trip and feel super frazzled by the end. Turns out that people were super encouraging and brought a lot of joy to me by how they responded when they found out I was just a friend chillin out on tour even though I cannot play anything. Also turns out that I was brought so much joy, peace, and rest this trip. It is amazing…well God is amazing. I love life. I love the people in it that I get to share it with. I am not going to lie. It really really really sucks to come home from such an amazing time. I loved being constantly with people I love, meeting new people, seeing new places, and being able to pray with my friends whenever something came up that needed prayer. I love that lifestyle. I have always wanted to travel around being a part of the music scene and just living life in a crazy way…I always thought it was something I could never experience because I cannot sing or play an instrument. It is really awesome to have friends take extra work and effort to fit me in their car so I could come enjoy the journey. I wish I could do that all the time, but I will certainly take the adventure when I can. It’s hard to come back and return to the normal when you live life with schemes and adventures. I have had to fight back sadness today, but God reminded me that every day is His. Whether I am driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway yelling out the window at some beautiful icicles or I am sitting in a gray cubicle getting yelled at by students. He is a God of enormous beauty that demands my joy and contentment no matter what!!!

I have been reading The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. And today while I was romping around in the some mud on my lunch break I was reading about repentance from a wandering heart…ironically right after reading Proverbs 4:23 about guarding your heart. Man, our God is so good…sometimes when I feel I am about to break and I have nothing I am reminded that I have repentance. I can cry out to my Father who gives a crap about what I care about. He cares when I am hurting and cares when my world feels like it is crashing. My friends care about that too, but one thing God can do that my friends cannot do is forgive me for my discontentment. God can give me freedom from my pain by forgiving me for Him not being enough to me. God has been teaching me a lot how to walk with Him. Just me and Him walking along…when I am a small child grasping for things that I want that I cannot have my friends can comfort me when I don’t get them, but God can literally take me by the hand and walk me ahead. Keep me going. God loves so big, and in His discipline we find His love so big.

Want to build and live in a Yurt with me?!?!

Playing God is scary. I don’t want the responsibility. I want to be forgiven for every trying to be Him. Forgive me. I am just trying to live life. It is so hard.

Wasted: Double Kill

I love how God makes so much sense. Remain in God and He will remain in you. You can do nothing with God.

I love God’s commandment to love others and in keeping His commands we are living fully and full of joy.

I love that I am ready for God to come and walk with me. Just Him and me. Not leaving behind the body of Christ or others, but God has been trying to steal me away for a while now. I have never realized how much He has been patiently waiting (and tugging at me constantly) to take a walk just me.

I thought I had thrown away a really important list the other day, and in my panic I realized that as long as I walk with God and stay close to Him my list is not lost. And really it may be that my list needs to lay waste for God’s list to really start its work. My job is to remain in God and follow Him. He is going to take me on the most beautiful journey. It will be super hard at times I know, but it will be the most wonderful!

Lesson learned this week: When God gives you a big heart for people do not just sit in that. If you sit in it you will hurt, but if you take that heart for people back to God He will do amazing things. Prayer is essential.

There have been some pretty major burdens on my heart for friends and for decisions. My heart has been fit to break and every time I feel like I am going to completely collapse I find myself being reminded to take it to God. Just do it! Just walk right up to the throne of God and humble start going through your backpack full of crap and hand it to God. I mean seriously! (I am preaching to myself by the way…self-motivation holler) God didn’t give me this backpack full of crap to just carry around and destroy me, but He gave it to me so that I can learn to let Him love me and carry me. God’s yoke is easy…man never seemed as clear as it does right now. I feel like I am holding onto the dearest of stuffed animals. You know when you have that one (or four if you were me) stuffed animal or blanket or what not that was your comfort, your friend, your special place when you were a kid? It’s like having to hand it to over to someone to fix it when it’s ripped or broken or needs to be cleaned. It is a horrible feeling, but if you continue to hold on it will never get fixed. I am learning to hand the most precious things in my life over to Him…to heal, to clean, to purify, to make legit, etc. It’s painful man, but the people and things I love the most are much safer in God’s hands than in mine.

It is a good week…and this weekend is absolutely looked forward to. What fun things will God do? Can’t wait to find out!!!!

Top Rope

God is so many things. He works in so many ways. I am in awe of who He is. I do not understand how in so much love He can humble me to my knees.

I have been doing a lot of rock climbing lately. I have counted now 19 blisters. I have thought it was just rock climbing I have been up to, but I think I learned today that I have been doing a lot of life climbing too.

My heart hurts. It may have blisters forming. But like the blisters on my hands when they heal they will make my hands stronger. Sometimes I think that our hearts get blisters too so that they can be stronger too.

I have been top rope climbing with God the last few weeks…heck, my whole life. I just realized today that I have been living the last few weeks in shame and defeat. I feel I have slipped from my solid foothold. My hands grew tired and my legs gave out. In my fall, I have listened to Satan telling me that I have fallen straight back to where I was a few months and years ago. Today though, God reminded me that He is belaying me. When you have a good belay partner like God even when, and there will be a when, you fall you find yourself securely held exactly where you are. Like the greatest safety net, God’s belaying will not let you fall to where you once were. All you have to do is shake your arms out, chalk up, and you find yourself climbing right where you left off when you fell. And if your arms, hands, heart, mind, legs, etc. are too tired to jump right back onto the wall of life climbing, the thing is God is never going to drop you or grow tired of holding you. You can take a break…stop your mind from spinning, listen to God, get Satan out of your head, get suited up in the armour of God, etc. My friend has been trying to teach me how to be able to shake my arms off to keep them from locking up from getting too pumped while climbing. He wants me to learn to rest so I can keep going. Funny how God is working in the same way.

I am planning on taking a few days to “shake it out”. God is not afraid of my need to rest. He has been prepared for it from day one with me. He is so strong and can hold me for a very long time…like forever! We do not live under the condemnation of Satan but the freedom of Christ. Romans 8!!!

Sometimes I am always moved to tears how much God loves me. He is so desperate for me to see me as He sees me. So I am trying to put on some God eyes glasses and tell Satan to shut the….up! Every time I climb a little bit higher I cannot go back…I cannot fall down with God holding me. God is trying to get me to see this…because when I figure it out I will be so back on that wall to keep climbing. The longer I listen to Satan telling me that I am no better or more healed then I was a few months ago then I will just sit defeated. God will hold me while I sit, but He wants abundant life for me. He wants me to keep climbing.

Man though, this route I am climbing right now is so hard. It’s tricky, it’s tiresome, it’s painful, but…God’s got this. I just got to trust Him and keep climbing!

Just a normal Thursday evening for me: sitting at work, listening to Damien Jurado, and blogging.

And that makes me think: when you climb a lot sometimes you get tired and just over wiped. You literally need a day or two to just rest and let your blisters heal. And man, I have been on the go doing some crazy things and scheming up a storm the last few months. I am tired…I need to hang.

And I need a new job where people don’t tell me I am confusing, deceptive, bad at customer service, and a not a Christian…this might help as well.

!!!!SHAKIN’ IT OUT WITH GOD!!!!

Wrecked.

God just destroyed me with His love and nearness. It says in the Word that God is near to the brokenhearted. I have been brought to my knees in praise by some words a brother-in-Christ just shared with me that God wanted him to give me! It had to do with Isaiah 62:1-5...it is overwhelming to be loved by God and to be His bride. To know that He rejoices in me. Because He rejoices in me I want so badly to not be full of pride. I do not want to ever think I have reached the pinnacle. I desperately want to display Christ and let Him shine through me in every second and in every way. I must cling to Him. Oh, man! This journey through the desert with Jesus just turned into a dance party in the rain with Him. LOVE IT!

Pray for me, challenge me, and rejoice in the Lord with me!!!