Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Brokenness

I have experienced pain… not just physical on a small scale, but emotional. Pain reminds me that I am human- that I have emotions in abundance- that life is real. Whether caused by self or by someone else- pain can be humbling.
I find myself walking through the stings of a painful heart and I am reminded of my brokenness.
To feel broken
It is hard to explain but it is exactly where God want us to be just prior to His wings of salvation engulfing you.
How sweet the sound of brokenness is to Him
I was reading in John 12 about the seed…vs24 “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, then it produces many seeds.”
To break off layers of pride, selfishness, & self-trust is how spiritual power grows. When a seed is planted & begins to cultivate within the soil, it begins to open and shed its outer layers for the inside to begin to root & blossom into what it is designed to be.
The same is true for us.
“The flesh must be broken so the Spirit of God in you can surface. Your old patterns of thinking and acting have to be broken so that the real power can emerge. The term broken heart does not mean sadness. It means a soul whose self-life has been exposed and its held broken by the Spirit’s power.”
This is an ongoing process.
 As I am learning this over again, I am reminded that “true brokenness is losing all faith in your own abilities, abandoning dependence on human resources, and disavowing all outward pretensions of righteousness to cling to the Spirit of God as if to a lifeline.”

God loves a broken & contrite heart- because He can work with it.
My reading then takes me to Jeremiah 4:3… “break up your unplowed ground.”
Ouch!
As I read it, I knew things were about to hurt. Fighting with God about allowing Him to break up my unplowed ground was not a fight I was willing to win. I knew I had to break, or spend each day with a tormented heart, which was way worse!
So I yielded.
Then as He began to plow, He reminded me of Matthew 13:3-9… “Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. He scattered some across the field- some landed on the footpath & the birds came to eat them; others fell on shallow soil with underlying rock & spouted quickly but did not have deep roots; some fell among the thorns which chocked them out; but others fell on fertile soil where they produced a crop that was 30, 60, & 100 times as much as had been planted.”
He was reminding me where He wanted me to be & what He had for me. I had to allow Him to plow the soil of my heart & life- so He could give me 100 times more than I could imagine.
“A seed is just a seed & will remain nothing but a seed until it is placed in the proper environment.”
There was no more rationalizing my actions or thoughts; no more managing or manipulating or forcing things into the mold of my expectations. I could not fight it anymore. I relinquished to He who knows me better than I know myself- my Creator, my Abba.  

I will continue to walk through my pain & emotions- with a broken heart & head held high, eyes fixed on Jesus, so that He may create in me a clean heart- a heart fertile enough to produce a harvest for my King.




Oh that He loves me enough to spend so much time & never giving up on me. Thank You Lord.

Monday, November 9, 2015

Disappointment

After going through my life changing event- I found that there are times where life is just happening. I am in the mundane of another day- feeling nothing or feeling too much.
I have found myself with many questions for God. Ones I had never asked before or thought would ever come up.
Why did you allow things to happen this way?
Why didn’t you intervene? Why didn’t you change one small thing that would send things in a different direction?
Why?
God asked me to just say what I felt- “I can handle what you want to say.”
So I said it… I am disappointed that You didn’t do something.
I said it.
I don’t feel any better. I actually feel worse.
I am disappointed in God.
The silence hit
My mind was frozen only for a moment, then I heard Him say, “my love is not forced.”

Tears start streaming down my face.
How do I overcome this God? How do I stop living with the hurt of disappointment?
I have been disappointed so many times in my life by people who love me, how do I continue to walk in life trying to love people as You ask me to do?
How did Jesus do this? He was betrayed by those closest to Him. His own family laughed at Him. Those who claimed to love Him threw him to the wolves. How did He do this?

I verbalized that men were disappointing. I verbalized that I would rather be alone, unmarried, without children of my own the rest of my life than live a life with a disappointing man.

I heard the song Heroes by Amanda Cook- “teach my feet to dance on disappointment.”
It has stuck with me for weeks.

How God? How do I get out of the rut of disappointment?  How do I dance on disappointment?

He has started reminding me of my imperfections and how He makes me perfect. He reminded me what He did do during my life changing event. He reminded me that there are good godly men in the world by giving my visions of my brother and his family, a few of his friends, and a few around me.
How quickly I have forgotten.

Yes- life has not gone the way I would liked it to, but within me & around me- it has become so much of what He originally designed. My daily communion with Him- my relationship that never ceases is what the goal of life really is.
Isn’t that why He created us in the first place? He wanted a creature made in His image that would choose to daily walk with Him & talk to Him & love Him freely.
I must choose to continue to do that even when people choose to hurt me, disappoint me, or even love me. That must never change.
Really and truly He has not disappointment me- my disappointment comes from my wants/picture not being met & a man choosing to change his path in life without me. And that… I have to accept & move on.
In this morning’s quiet time, I read the words to a hymn written by Reginald Heber in 1826…

Holy Holy Holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee. Holy Holy Holy, merciful and mighty! God in three Persons blessed Trinity! Holy Holy Holy! All saints adore Thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea; Cherubim & Seraphin falling down before Thee, who was, and is, and evermore shall be. Holy Holy Holy! Though the darkness hid Thee, though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see; only thou art holy; there is none beside Thee, perfect in power, in love and purity. Holy Holy Holy! Lord God Almighty! All thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth and sky and sea; Holy Holy Holy; merciful and mighty! God in three Persons blessed Trinity!

“Herber learned that God is not like men; He does not fail. We see everything through the lens of our own experiences, and it’s difficult not to let our sight be marred and limited by our own impurity and sin. To understand God as He is, perfect in power, love and purity, will change how we see our world- disappointments, plans, and joys.”