waiting

Waiting before the Lord could be the most painful yet glorious thing He asks us to do...

Especially in a world that taught us to be impatient...

When waiting means keeping silent when everything within you wants to speak...or containing passion deep within for a later time...God's time...because He is not inactive.

When He asks us to wait, it is because He is doing something in the unseen world. And like His Word says in Isaiah 40:31, "But those who wait for the Lord, who expect, look for, and hope in Him, shall change and renew their strength and power"...waiting upon Him will grow our strength...re-energize us, as we press on, all while He is orchestrating something great!

Somehow, God keeps bringing it back around to this...Habakkuk 2:3, "For the vision is yet for an appointed time and it hastens to the end fulfillment; it will not deceive or disappoint. Though it tarry, wait earnestly for it, because it will surely come; it will not be behindhand on its appointed day."

Enough said.

Finally, James 5:7, "So be patient as you wait...see how the farmer waits expectantly for the precious harvest from the land. See how he keeps up his patient vigil over it until it receives the early and late rains"...a farmer waits expecting fruition, not knowing when it will come exactly, but still expecting...and knowing that fruition is hinged solely on the Lord's grace to bring rains and grow the crop...again, when that rain comes is unknown...and at the end of the day, it all depends upon God...the farmer acts, in both faith and expectancy, being obedient in what has been entrusted to him, but the harvest is God's..."so be patient" (v8)...

And expect rains of grace in the waiting...

it is not for me to decide

“It is not for you to decide what happens here.” These were words spoken by an Iraqi citizen in the film Green Zone.

Do “we” America have the right to decide what happens?

How deeply this penetrated my heart, because like in this movie, as America I am not sure it is our job or our “right” to decide how to direct people’s lives…and so it is in my relationships…their choices, their decisions, their salvation…it is not for me to decide for them, as much as I want to, especially where sin is involved…

Why do I often feel the need to tell or say anything at all…maybe it is just simply “being” the work God has sent me to do…

In John 6:29 Jesus says, “This is the work, service, that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent, that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger.”

Love, grace, mercy…

Even as much as it pains my heart and grieves my spirit, it is still not for me to decide. That decision is up to and by the Lord…and Him alone.

And in this place of waiting, I have learned to restfully wait before Him…experiencing more of His grace through not being able to “decide” for them…I see Jesus’ grace , mercy, patience extended to me…I recognize the way those around me resonated His heart rather than judge and decide for me when my spirit was not ready.

So in the waiting, I have been able to freely let others “be,” and in doing so, being overwhelmed by yet more abundant grace in my life…because eventually, in God’s time, I too made the decision for myself, because it was for me to decide…and so I will pray for my friends, those that I care so deeply for it hurts, that they too would decide.

In Berlin, everything is keep an open mind…and so I must keep an open mind about how God’s Spirit works…wants to work, probably creatively…maybe it is in speaking truth, maybe it is in extending grace, maybe it is interceding silently…

God knows what He is doing.

flowers

Recognizing and receiving Your love each day is both a challenge and a joy...a challenge in that I must realize that You care enough about even the smallest details of my life and that in Your love, You love to surprise me in those details...the joy comes then, when I not only recognize how You surprise me in Your love but then receiving it and simply resting in that gift.

Now here is the "flowers" part...flowers are often given as a symbol of love, and often they are a surprise...my brother in law and nephew randomly purchase flowers for "mommy" because they want her to know how much they love her...and she never knows when those flower moments will come.

Ironically You are revealing Your gift of love to me through flowers...whether they are tangible or simply as a symbol of how much You love to surprise me...

And You keep scattering flowers in my path...

And though I am not a "flowers"-type girl, You still know how to surprise me, love me, care for me through them...and the more I receive them, the more they keep coming...

I want to see those flowers each day, smell them, enjoy them, rest in them because they are a gift of Your love...

So twice this week You have sent me flowers from my nephew..."From the lips of children and infants You have ordained praise and strength" (Psalm 8:2)...and from the mouth and heart of my precious nephew I was surprised and loved...

On Sunday, Ambie, I invite Jesus in my heart...

Then Tuesday, I gonna be a big brother!

What incredible flowers of Your love Father...

no conditions

A friend and I were conversing last night, and what continued to be the forefront of our conversation was God's love...how very real and deep it is, yet how difficult it is to grasp, particularly as a human being with a finite mind, yet a being created to not just know but experience...

What we see, are surrounded with daily is "love" according to the world...love that too often requires proving and earning and striving to attain...and with that, there is the fear that it will slip away...so we don't "risk" to know that love because it feels safer...and maybe it is...

Yet God's love is not like human love...it is without condition and whole. Why it is so hard for us to not only believe, but to receive His love for our self...to know and live as His beloved?

Because His love has no conditions, I can rest completely and freely in His approval of me...and this also means I must love myself...in my flesh, this is no easy task...yet I must continually allow myself to receive more and more of His love...He longs for me to...

And when I do, this Love miraculously touches those around me as well...

And what it all comes down to is this...God's heart longs to impart His love...

Tell them for Me that I love them...with all of My heart.

more

Words can never suffice to acclaim You...no amount of my human knowledge can "acclaim" Who You are, how much you find joy in me, passionately love and care about me...i.e. my human approval and applaud and shouts of praise and enthusiasm do not come close to the glory I long to give You...to the glory You are...and to "acclaim" Your love to those around me...oh how my simple words, my spirit "groaning" within me that longs to know Your love more, to communicate it authentically and passionately to those in my life...my spirit literally groans because Your love consumes me...

Your love in me has allowed me to communicate, with full hope and belief, that You passionately love them...without hesitation...even as Your Spirit within me sees people, it is through eyes of compassion and longing...

What is this Love that I behold? I laugh to think of the transformation You have done in my life...Love transforms...by definition, "transformation" means change in form, appearance, nature, character...a miraculous change...

Father just words, I have so few...yet a painful sense of urgency for more of You to overflow...deeper into my own life and out of it...

so high

I love the words to this song...and I think they completely capture my heart right now, as best as I can explain it...

These are just words,
and are not enough to contain You
Jesus just words,
and can never suffice to acclaim You

Father just words, and I have so few
I run out too fast, to speak them to You
Father just words, and I have so few
I run out to fast, to speak them to You

You are indescribable, You are beyond expression
And I run out of words for You, I cant think that high
So hear my spirit groan in me
A painful sense of urgency
To tell You that You are to me, so high

You are so high...

verse 19

I am hitting Ephesians 3:19 back up again...not just because there is so much there but I see it differently...much like my life now...

May you experience the love of Christ, although, it is so great you will never fully understand it. It transcends all knowledge...which is why I cannot find the words...how can sitting in the Presence of Holiness manage words? Grasping the depth of God's love for me is so freeing it is consuming...Then your lives will be filled with all that God is...what a paradox this is...when I experience, truly KNOW by speechless experience, God's love which is "so great I can never fully understand because it transcends my knowledge" then my life is filled with all that He is...

This is only a true miracle in my heart...

Only when it transcends my words and thoughts and all of who I am and was and what I thought I knew, only then is my life filled with all of Who God really is...

The experience of knowing I am already fully loved has radically impacted my life...and my heart wants all to deeply know the same...because at the end of the verse...May you have the richest measure of the Divine Presence and become a body filled and flooded with God Himself...

I am...I am flooded...abounding and overwhelmed and overcome and overflowing with this love and "grace full" that I struggle to capture in my human frailty and contain what I feel...how do I let it abound from my heart and to those around me? How can I contain myself when I have truly had the "richest measure of the Divine Presence" of the living God?

Everything in me has changed...

mystery

Everything is different now. I do not know how to explain it with words, but I have experienced God's Presence, love and grace in a way that changes everything...yet this truly is the mystery of the Gospel that Paul talks about.

What can you say when the heaviness of His Presence is over you? When I sit in grace, not knowing what to feel or even what my heart feels, how can I put words to something that is a mystery? And the weightiness of God...I know His love has overwhelmed me when I am speechless....what can I possibly say to the One who calls me Beloved? There are no words...my heart is overcome with awe, reverence and worship...words cannot do justice so I will not attempt. I am okay just being...

My raw emotion of the past few days...no wonder I experience heavy emotion without understanding...how can I possibly understand a Love that is a mystery, life-transforming, abounding?

What is even more mysterious is that it took encountering Christ's love within the lives of those in prison to free me...what is that but grace?

To know deeply and authentically that I am loved, in a way that words cannot describe...everything else just falls away...circumstances do not determine my day, grace does...Christ's love is unconditional, agape, unchanging...it transforms everything about my life...

Ephesians 3:17-19 reads differently for me now...it profoundly is me...

¹⁷May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love,

¹⁸That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God's devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it];

¹⁹[That you may really come] to know [practically through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!

I am God's Beloved and that is all that matters...I know this now...a love so powerful and such a mystery that the only way to know its definition is to experience...and I have...and I want more...

without words

I wish I could paint a picture of the past 2 days of my life...but I don't know how. What I can say is that I witnessed a profound moving of God's Spirit among women who are locked behind prison walls and may never dwell in society again because of crime they committed as their "old self." 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if any person is in Christ she is a new creation; the old moral and spiritual condition has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!"

I have never been more of a witness to this profound truth until now.

Lives changed by the transforming power of Jesus...radiant, beautiful faces of freedom and joy, worshiping and experiencing Him unlike anything I have ever seen, transfixed with gratitude and deep love.

Since leaving the prison and experiencing God's sweet and radical presence this weekend, I have struggled to put words to what my heart feels. Yet it feels because I sit here weeping and I don't even know why...

How can I possibly experience Christ's freedom through lives locked up, tangibly imprisoned yet intangibly free? How can I swallow being ministered to by one that will never see anything besides their tiny cell until death? How can I receive His grace through a life who not only took another, but may never receive that grace from this world? Yet, it is a life that has been made completely new by the grace of Jesus.

Contrary to the world, this is true freedom...and God's grace makes no sense...but I feel it heavy upon me...

This quote was shared with me recently: Settle myself in solitude and I will come upon You (Jesus) in myself. I have not felt God's Spirit so heavy upon me in a long time...experiencing His love and grace and how weighty He really is...I am just sitting in it because I cannot find the words...

Henry Nouwen said, "It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds and passions deeply than understand them, better to let them enter into your silence than to talk about them." Because there, in my deepest place of feeling and living, where you meet and speak to me, only there in my heart can you whisper...still tears...still feeling...still covering me with more grace...

And you take me to prison to experience that...through the lives of dozens of women in white, whom I had never met, yet ministered to my heart deeply and in a profound way that I still cannot explain, maybe never will...but they encouraged me, reminded me of Who and Who's I am, simply by being the radiance of Christ. And for the first time in a long time I am not only confident in the gifts and abilities He has given me and uniquely created me to possess, but I walk confidently as His beloved daughter.

And this is what I do know.

waterfall

I love waterfalls...their beauty and power and the ways God speaks to me through them, including now, when strangely in this very moment of life, there are no mountains and no waterfalls remotely close.

What must it be like, to be so utterly abandoned to the euphoria of giving myself, as in a waterfall, that I am alive with joy? To simply cast myself down from the heights would be to abandon myself to joy indescribable. Like a waterfall, the lower the water falls the lighter it seems to grow, as if that "weighty" burden just diminishes in the act of selfless giving and self-abandonment.

Self-giving is its life, and not because it was created to do so, but because it draws life from giving of itself. Falling, taking that what appears to be a leap of faith, is the movement natural to it. It does not hesitate to go; it only experiences glory and joy unspeakable. It has one desire: to go down and down and down and give itself with no reserve...freely.

And thus, the rocks and "scary" objects below become harmless, as they always have been but did not appear so. What is more, they add to the joy and glory of its movement.

I long to freely pour my life out like a waterfall...in selfless abandonment because nothing else matters but Christ.