Well, here I am. I have been a little crazy lately and
forgot about the blog. Maybe sometimes the journey gets a little bit busy that I
forget to document it, which is fine except when life gets busy with all the
works of what the Lord has and one forgets about faith. Faith is, after all,
the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. This may
or may not be a little lesson the Lord has been teaching me=) Aahummm…(clears throat dramatically)
Ryan and I have been in an extremely fun(I say fun in really
wanting to use a different word but for the sake of offending less will say fun
with a hint of sarcasm)season. The Lord has been stripping us of ourselves. It
seems as if He is continually doing this in our lives. You’d think we’d be
butt bum naked by now with all this stripping of ourselves but no the Lord
keeps pull pull pulling at the crud we’ve gotten hidden in our hearts. It sucks,
it really does, but it is so good and (might I add) necessary. Of recently in one instance of when I was
praying/whining to the Lord about all
these ‘needs’ that we have that we hadn’t received an answer to yet, the Lord
gently but sternly reminded me that I don’t ‘need’ anything but Him. What?!?!
But what about the dog food, Lord, or the water bill or my integrity or or or ?!?!
And again I hear, “All you need is me.” WOW, what a bold and confounding
thought. I could easily spout this for years but I have never had to have faith
in Him for myself in this way. All we really really really need is Jesus, our
King, Savior and Lord over all. I mean If God is the one who made us, isn’t He
capable of sustaining our bodies AND our lives. In case you are wondering, YES,
YES HE IS! Amen to that!
In Another such instance in this season I was again praying/whining
to God but this time it was more of a ‘Why don’t you love me God? Why are you taking
all this stuff from me? Aren’t you hearing what’s going on?’ type prayer. I
mean, I was really feeling sorry for myself and making myself some sort of
a martyr. But then I again heard the
Savior gently say to me, “I don’t need or want any of this stuff that I have
taken from you or holding back on giving. I want your heart.” The Lord wasn’t
taking this stuff or putting us in this place because He wanted us to not have
it or wanted us to be broken, He just wants our hearts. HE loves us and desires
us to desire Him above all riches or wealth or fame. He was literally stripping
us of things that we had placed before Him, whether they be works, stuff or
even just pride. It is so easy to make ourselves little secret idols in our
lives. Our hearts can be so deceived by this age that we can sometimes not even
know they are there. That is what the Lord was/is doing to us. He is teaching
us to have total dependence on Him which brings independence in Him. We should
as believers desire this! I’m not gonna lie, it sucks like no other a lot of
the time but it is good, so good. See the
Lord knew my heart, He knew because He is God that I could say I had faith but I
didn’t believe it in my heart. (man looks on the outward appearance but the
Lord looks on the heart of man)I was walking in the works and claiming my faith
but really in my heart I was faking it. I was relying on my own goodness and
faith in money or things and not Him. He didn’t put us in this season to punish
us; He put us in this season because HE loves us and desires all our hearts not
just part or most of them but ALL of them.
I feel like I am a broken record sometimes but maybe it just takes lots
of repeating with me. Lol
Wondering if you have any areas where it is easy to have
faith without works or works without faith but not both. James will tell you
that it doesn’t work like that. May we all be stripping for Jesus! (Metaphorically
not literally=)
