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God is GOOD.

Do you understand what that means? Do I understand what that means? That in every circumstance, in every situation, He is working for our best?

When I first heard the words "day of prayer" strung together, I felt really excited and really apprehensive all at the same time.

One on hand, I was thinking: A day? A *whole* day? For praying? This is going to be interesting...

But at the same time, I was thinking: A whole day? A whole day when I can just sit in His presence and open up my ears and listen to His heartbeat and just. be.? Sounds awesome!

And those three simple words were what I was left with at the end of such a day.

They hold so much.

I am a chronic worrier. If there's nothing else I'm doing, you can bet that I am worrying about something or the other.

I am also an organizational freak when it comes to things that I can control in my life... aaaannnd even what I can't control.

And as I went throughout this day, going through times of prayer alone, or with my class, or other groups, this one statement kept on coming back and back and back.

Because as much as I don't want to admit it... I don't trust God.

I don't trust Him to be good.

I don't trust Him to give me a full, fulfilling life, with a career that will daily inspire and challenge me, with a husband who understands my quirks and is a man of God {I mean, what if... oh, goodness no!...He doesn't have a husband up His sleeve for me...? aaaaaccckk!}.

And those fears seem so silly, but lived out in every day life, they're so hard to give over to Him, trusting that He is good.

It took me a long time to realize that He was good in my past. In fact, my past was the best plan for my life, although at the time I had no clue what He was up to.

And after today I'm starting to realize that He is always going to be good, and that I need not be afraid of giving my all to Him with fears of a dry career, boring husband (or, gasp! a nun's habit...).

He is good, and He created this small frail heart of mine with its many quirks and many dreams. He knows my way, all I have to do is give it over to Him.

The thing is, these realizations come, but it's what I do with them day after day after today that really will make a difference in how I live.

How would it change the way that you live, if you lived with the realization that He is GOOD?

Loving

Weekends are my downfall.

All my weekly habits go down the drain when it comes to days when sleeping in and watching movies seem to consume my time.

And with that goes my devotions. It's something I struggle with so hard, because even throughout my week, my longing to be in His presence alone and to hear His heart beat, to pour out my frustrations and listen for His voice, to read His word and to work through things in my heart, should be intense.

It shouldn't take a habit to bring me before Him in a quiet space where there is no one else.

Although we chat throughout the day, I should long to come alone and just be before Him. And this habit helps form my day so that I am come before His presence.

But am I at the place where, when I am before Him, I am not constantly checking my watch to see how much time is left before class starts?  Am I at the place where I can sit and be in His presence and enjoy the feeling of closeness instead of dreading it's passing? Am I at the place where I voraciously consume His Word and that it is sweet to my taste? Am I at the place where throughout the day, my ear is open to what He might say in a situation?

No.

Nowhere close. And here's another thing that I struggle with... how much is this about me putting guidelines on myself versus stepping out of the way and letting Him go at my heart with a jackhammer, breaking through the stone encasing and causing my heart to be soft towards Him?

Because it's all about the heart. And I know that my heart is soft to the extent that I know that He longs for me to come into His presence and I enjoy the times we have together and throughout the day, things will trigger conversations or spats between us.

But abiding? Constantly surrendering? Letting myself be consumed by this All Consuming Fire? Panting for Him with all that I am?

As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before Him? (Psalm 42:1-2)

It's so easy to get discouraged.

Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put  my hope in God! I will praise Him again -- my Saviour and my God! (Psalm 42:5)

But at the same time as I doubt that I will ever move along, He tells me that I'm still a work in progress. That He's got a master plan and it's not shown to me because right now because I would tremble at all that He has planned for me.

And you know what? I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He *is* able to keep that which I've committed, unto Him until that day.

I'm still a work in progress, we all are. But He comes and overwhelms my heart with this constant, unfailing, never wavering, passionate love for someone so weak, sinful, doubting and disillusioned as I am.

But each day the LORD pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life. (Psalm 42:8)

And I can't get over Him.

Broken

After this morning, I find myself wondering… what does it mean to be broken?

Broken as I was, and broken as He was.

Broken as a state of humanity, broken as way to save the nations.

It’s so easy for me to think that I’m not broken. My background, which I’m so thankful for, doesn't lead me immediately to my knees in thankfulness of the grace that He extends.

There are no “big” sins in my past, and yet, in His sight, “all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God,” and “no one is righteous – not even one… all have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 3:10,12,23)

And I find it hard to think of myself as full of sin, but as I approach the communion table, we’re reminded to come as totally unworthy.

Do I truly understand what that means? Do I understand what my brokenness looks like? My brokenness that caused the grace of God to reach down to those very people who embodied the sin that He abhors.

I once heard this saying:“The only thing that you contribute to your salvation is your sin." And it takes me aback because it's true and at first, I don't want to acknowledge it.

So often, I think that I've been doing pretty good in life. That I don’t need help, that I've got things under control, but as Romans 14:23 says, if we’re not doing something by faith, then we’re sinning.

No matter what we do, whether good or bad, if not done in an attitude of “I’m incapable… only You can do this through me”, is sin. It is sin to not realize that everything that I have is by the grace of God.

The very fact that I woke up this morning, that I’m breathing, that I possess fingers that allow me to type, that I can come into His presence… they’re all by His grace.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory… When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:1-2, 6-8)

In order to bring us to this place of peace with Him through faith, He was broken.

Do I understand that brokenness?

The pain that He went through in order to reconcile humanity to Himself, the brokenness for which He thanked the Father for during the Last Supper?

The shredded back, the thorny crown, the nail-pierced hands…

Do I understand all that it took?

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4)

I fear I take His sacrifice too flippantly, coming before His presence as if I have always belonged there, when 

in truth, I am that little bug that He allowed to come in only by His grace.

Do I understand what brokenness in thankfulness looks like? To be so overwhelmed by gratitude that I come, knowing that I am fully unworthy to be before His throne and yet because of His Son’s brokenness, I am called the daughter of a King…

I don't think that I can ever fully understand.... until one day.

{to give credit where it's due, most of these thoughts came from our Chapel speaker this morning, with just a little twist of mine thrown in... :) }

Majestic

I wanted to write this up a few days ago, but never got around to it, so here goes..

As we've been going through the different attributes of God in Theology class, there was one day when one attribute struck me in particular... majesty.

In this world of ours, given much less to court ceremonies or gilded banners of kings and queens, the sense of what the word "majesty" means is easily lost.

We read through Ezekiel 1 in class:

Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire,^[f] and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.

This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

And we talked about how Ezekiel, when he saw the glory of God, couldn't even express what he saw because it was so glorious and beyond comprehension, he could only say that things "looked" like such and such. 

Listening to music later on to start off my devos, I picked this song, because it epitomizes the transcendency (far-ness) and the imminency (close-ness).

And I wrote:

Just as C was teaching today, I fear that too often I lose sight of Your majesty. Just as Matt Redman's song says: "You are higher than we ever could imagine, and closer than our eyes could ever see..." You're both transcendent and imminent, and I fear that I too often sway to the side of too chummy. Yes, you are close and near, but You are worthy of awe and reverence. You know how I have struggled over this quandry, but I guess that if I could figure You out, You wouldn't be God, would you?

And it's that very quandry that I've written about here before, I'm sure, because the contrast between Father and Creator and yet the fact that they are the very same God blows my mind.

I'm just thankful that I've been invited to be the daughter of a King.

Challenging

Read (if okay with calling down embarrassment upon oneself, read out loud, {don't look around to see who's there... you just did, didn't you?} with dramatic intensity, as if the person you're speaking to [and... you might only want to do this if you're a girl... sorry, guys...] is acting rakishly {*sigh* look it up if you have to} and irresponsibly, and yet you want to pound truth into their heads and hope that someday they understand what you're trying to say):

A Woman’s Question
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing

Ever made by the hand above –                                       

A woman’s heart, and a woman’s life

And a woman’s wonderful love?

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing

As a child might ask for a toy –

Demanding what others have died to win,

With the reckless dash of a boy?

You have written my lesson of duty out,

Man-like you have questioned me;

Now stand at the bar of my woman’s soul

Until I shall question thee.

                                                                        

You require your mutton shall always be hot,

Your socks and shirts shall be whole;

I require your heart to be true as God’s stars,

And pure as heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef;

I require a far better thing.

A seamstress you’re wanting for stockings and shirts;

I look for a man and a king –

A king for a beautiful realm called home,

And a man that the Maker, God,

Shall look upon as he did the first,

And say, “It is very good.”

I am fair and young, but the rose will fade

From my soft, young cheek one day;

Will you love then, mid the falling leaves,

As you did mid the bloom of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and deep

I may launch my all on its tide?

A loving woman finds heaven or hell

On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things grand and true,

All things a man should be;

If you give all this, I would stake my life

To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot do this – a laundress and cook

You can hire with little to pay;

But a woman’s heart and a woman’s life

Are not to be won this way.

If you read the poem they way you were commanded, I hope you understood the conviction that something like this stirs in me. When I first read this poem, it deeply appealed to my sense of nobility and grandeur. I’m one of those girls who dreams of my own Mr. Darcy and who thinks a perfect day is a day spent wrapped in a blanket with a hot drink nearby while reading a book, or watching something like Anne of Green Gables or Jane Austen movies. I’m a romantic at heart, and I love the thought of being wooed.

And yet, there is so much I look for in a man, and as our teacher pointed out after I recited this poem yesterday in class, I can’t require it. Not many men will measure up to that standard, but there will be some with that depth of character.

But as I started my devotions yesterday, He really hit me with the lopsidedness of what I had been thinking. I am earnestly searching for this kind of man, and yet what kind of woman am I?

And I wrote in my journal:

Am I that same kind of woman as the man that I assume to look for? A woman who is full of grace and wisdom, who trusts in her Father to provide, who is chock-full of character? As much as I look for a man of integrity, compassion, honesty, depth of character and focus on You, I should doubly strive to be that woman that is fit for that man.

Those thoughts led me to immediately think of a certain psalm that I think we all know (hint: think Mother’s day literature) describing “the perfect woman.” And as I read through it, the list of characteristics grew. Virtuous, capable, trustworthy, enriching to her husband, business savvy, hardworking, compassionate, well prepared, resourceful, respected, strong, dignified, wise, kind, soul-beautiful, and most of all, possessing a fear of the Lord.

And you know what? That kind of woman described there is *just* the kind of woman that this kind of man would be interested in. But at the same time as I feel that this list in insurmountable, He shows me the ways that He’s been working on me and reminds me of the fact that He’s not done yet.

After reading that, though, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was that it was all about the heart. And that’s one of the biggest things that I’ve been learning here at Millar – that actions mean nothing if your heart is not in the right place. EVERYTHING starts with the heart. If my heart is not in the right place, if my motives are skewed, and if my mind is centered on anything except giving glory to Him, then I’m going about life all wrong.

So, the most important attribute above? Fearing the Lord. It’s the beginning of knowledge (as Proverbs 1:7 states) and it’s when I’m focused on Him that my life begins to show these characteristics. And I cannot do it on my own. But coming before Him, opening up my life, and letting Him chisel away, although it hurts, only helps in the end.

Someday, I hope that I find that man that I am looking for, and I hope that I am just the woman that he’s been looking for.

Until then, I’ll work on my heart.