I am not proud of my past. I generally do not talk about it and so much of it seems to be a blur to me. Certain words or conversations will trigger a memory of some forgotten moment in time. I re-live that memory and then quickly file it away neatly into the recesses of my mind, but then there are moments when I intentionally pull those dusty boxes off of their shelves and remember that who I was does not define who I am today. It merely reflects the beauty of how much my savior loves me that he would pull me back out of the darkness.
In the midst of tragedies I see His light shine. See him drawing my friends, my family in the same way that he drew me. Calling them in their sadness to the hope that is so much larger than we could ever imagine.
Saturday 27 April 2013
Friday 19 April 2013
never fails
Sometimes I need God to smack me in the face. To drop me on the floor when vanity mingles with pride and insecurity. To remind me that I am an imperfect human navigating through a broken world with a perfect God to guide me.
I get caught up in myself, but I was given a heart to touch the broken. I want to change the world, but I hide in a corner of fear. But then God whispers to my heart and reminds me of my place.
He reminds me that the girl who is difficult to love needs it all the more. He shows me that the boy I do not understand is worthy of my patience because I was unworthy of love, but He loved me, and though I stray He is patient with me always.
Father, I ask that you lead me. Take my heart fully and make it wholly new, wholly yours. Align me with your testimonies.Give me life in your ways alone, Lord and let me see this broken world through your eyes. Let me love as you love. Keep me from the temptations of pride and remind me that the only good within me comes from you. Only you, Father. Without you I am a wreck. Thank you for your grace, and for saving this broken life.
I get caught up in myself, but I was given a heart to touch the broken. I want to change the world, but I hide in a corner of fear. But then God whispers to my heart and reminds me of my place.
He reminds me that the girl who is difficult to love needs it all the more. He shows me that the boy I do not understand is worthy of my patience because I was unworthy of love, but He loved me, and though I stray He is patient with me always.
Father, I ask that you lead me. Take my heart fully and make it wholly new, wholly yours. Align me with your testimonies.Give me life in your ways alone, Lord and let me see this broken world through your eyes. Let me love as you love. Keep me from the temptations of pride and remind me that the only good within me comes from you. Only you, Father. Without you I am a wreck. Thank you for your grace, and for saving this broken life.
Tuesday 2 April 2013
Choosing Doubt
I do not think I shall ever truly grasp the weight of the sacrifice that Christ made for me. We, as Christians, get so caught up in the legalistic aspects of our faith that we often become self-righteous rather than embracing true humility in Christ. It saddens me to watch as so many who claim Christ as their truth stumble before one simple question, "Why?" We do not dig deeper into our faith. We accept it because we are told to do so and when asked to delve deeper our response is often, "Well, because..." or we point blindly into the Bible with no real answer in mind because we haven't truly studied it.
Now don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with trusting God's word as absolute truth and knowing that it can answer the questions that people throw at you, but when I think about the other things in my life that I believe and defend my answer is much more concrete. I have a natural curiosity about a plethora of things. Sitting on the beach I want to know more about the ocean. Staring at the sky I want to know more about the universe. When I read a good book I want to know more about the background story. I may not be an authority on all things (I can barely touch the surface on most actually), but I have this inherent desire to learn. To know more about this beautiful world that God has given me. And I know I am not alone in this.
So when it comes to the Bible why are we so often content with saying, "This is truth and that is the end." Rather than doing research. Do we fear that if we look too closely our truth will crumble? Do we feel as though these truths are so beyond us that we might as well stop asking? What a small box we place God into when we think He does not want us to know Him and stop trying. Our relationship with God should be paramount. It should be treated as the greatest relationship of our lives. The one that truly rubs off on us, shaping the way that we see the world the way. The way that we speak, that we walk, that we treat those around us. (In the same way that after being friends with someone for ages you realize that you have picked up a lot of his or her personality quirks and have made them a part of who you are.) Close proximity with another creates this desire within each of us to know and to be known. Is that any different with our God? He wants to know us. Wants us to bring everything to His feet, but He also wants to be known. He wants us to yearn for Him as He yearns for us.
When I began truly seeking God I found myself in awe of how big he was. I thought I knew. I could give you the typical Sunday School answers, but God is bigger than that. I think we do Him and ourselves an injustice when we do not seek to know more, to have an answer for our faith (which we are called to have in 1 Peter 3:15). I think we as American Christians--myself the biggest fool--fall subject to our own intellect. We place God into a box. We do not seek to know and so we never learn, but God has given us this insatiable curiousity for him and for this world that he has created. We must step out of this flimsy box we have created into the great realm of infinite knowledge that God has given us.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 7, "For everyone who asks recieves, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." What an amazing promise! Paul writes in his letter to the church in Phillipi that we need to, "work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling". The pursuit of knowledge is a terrifyingly beautiful thing because the more you learn the more you know and that is often scary, but how wonderful to know the one who created it all?
Last year I read The Life of Pi by Yann Martel and one of my favorite quotes from the book says,
"To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."
How often do we choose doubt rather than truth?
How often do we allow our lives to be run by our own selfish desires finding them to fall short?
How much greater would it be if we sought to know--with everything we have--the one who gave us the ability to know?
This morning I re-visited a message by Ravi Zacharias. It is an excellent start to asking some of the bigger questions of faith. I hope it encourages you as it did the same for me. Challenging me to look deeper into myself for the answer to the hope that lives within me
Now don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with trusting God's word as absolute truth and knowing that it can answer the questions that people throw at you, but when I think about the other things in my life that I believe and defend my answer is much more concrete. I have a natural curiosity about a plethora of things. Sitting on the beach I want to know more about the ocean. Staring at the sky I want to know more about the universe. When I read a good book I want to know more about the background story. I may not be an authority on all things (I can barely touch the surface on most actually), but I have this inherent desire to learn. To know more about this beautiful world that God has given me. And I know I am not alone in this.
So when it comes to the Bible why are we so often content with saying, "This is truth and that is the end." Rather than doing research. Do we fear that if we look too closely our truth will crumble? Do we feel as though these truths are so beyond us that we might as well stop asking? What a small box we place God into when we think He does not want us to know Him and stop trying. Our relationship with God should be paramount. It should be treated as the greatest relationship of our lives. The one that truly rubs off on us, shaping the way that we see the world the way. The way that we speak, that we walk, that we treat those around us. (In the same way that after being friends with someone for ages you realize that you have picked up a lot of his or her personality quirks and have made them a part of who you are.) Close proximity with another creates this desire within each of us to know and to be known. Is that any different with our God? He wants to know us. Wants us to bring everything to His feet, but He also wants to be known. He wants us to yearn for Him as He yearns for us.
When I began truly seeking God I found myself in awe of how big he was. I thought I knew. I could give you the typical Sunday School answers, but God is bigger than that. I think we do Him and ourselves an injustice when we do not seek to know more, to have an answer for our faith (which we are called to have in 1 Peter 3:15). I think we as American Christians--myself the biggest fool--fall subject to our own intellect. We place God into a box. We do not seek to know and so we never learn, but God has given us this insatiable curiousity for him and for this world that he has created. We must step out of this flimsy box we have created into the great realm of infinite knowledge that God has given us.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 7, "For everyone who asks recieves, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." What an amazing promise! Paul writes in his letter to the church in Phillipi that we need to, "work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling". The pursuit of knowledge is a terrifyingly beautiful thing because the more you learn the more you know and that is often scary, but how wonderful to know the one who created it all?
Last year I read The Life of Pi by Yann Martel and one of my favorite quotes from the book says,
"To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."
How often do we choose doubt rather than truth?
How often do we allow our lives to be run by our own selfish desires finding them to fall short?
How much greater would it be if we sought to know--with everything we have--the one who gave us the ability to know?
This morning I re-visited a message by Ravi Zacharias. It is an excellent start to asking some of the bigger questions of faith. I hope it encourages you as it did the same for me. Challenging me to look deeper into myself for the answer to the hope that lives within me
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