Beliefs, Expectations, Questions, & Truth

Just the other day I was talking with a friend and a subject came up which I think is not uncommon among a lot of people avoiding God these days.

I asked this friend a couple of honest hard questions and one of their responses was that when they were leading a "Christian life" before, this person constantly felt like they were trying to live up to everyone's expectations and in doing so, they were always faking it.  I thought about this.  I know that it is not uncommon for people to feel pressure from their families to live or be a certain way.  Often this feeling of having to "measure up" can seep into all our relationships and the enemy can even twist it so that we feel like God has this long, endless list of expectations that we have to fulfill to gain His approval and love.  This is such a LIE!! He just loves us because that is who He is.  He created us to love and be loved without conditions, expectations, or demands.  He is Love itself and so I am constantly challenged in my own life to love just for the sake of loving.  I hope my life is a song of loving others for the sake of Love. That by me loving others without bias or restraint, others might encounter Love Himself and enter into a relationship with Love, Jesus Christ!

Another thing that this friend said, which I have heard from many others before, is that they are not sure that there is just one way to Heaven, or God.  As I was meditating on this afterwards, I asked myself "Why do I believe that there IS only one way?" I think that as Christians, it is really important that we are not afraid to ask ourselves this question (and others) and genuinely search out the truth to each one.

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect... 1 Peter 3:15

     God wants us to be wise, and prepared to give an answer for our faith and the hope we have in Christ.  God never wanted us to be robots.  That is why when He created us He gave us free will, so that when we choose to love Him, it is real, genuine, and not because we have to, but out of the passionate response at experiencing His amazing love for us.  Then, after we have that first encounter with His love, He wants us to continue to seek Him out on our own, read His word while asking Him what He wants to tell us through it, and bring the questions we have to Him without hesitation or fear.  Just as a small child goes to their parents when they see something new for the first time asking "What's that?" or the relentless "why?" at so many of the things this child observes in the world around them.  I don't think God ever wanted us to just swallow everything that is preached to us, taught, or told as "second-hand revelation".
    There is nothing wrong with listening to the teaching of godly, spirit-filled men and women of God; pastors, prophets, teachers, evangelists, apostles.  But in order for God's word to take root in our heart's and bear fruit, we must search out the word for ourselves, read the truth for ourselves, personally invite the Holy Spirit into our lives, and ask Him to reveal the deeper truths hidden in His Word.  No human being is perfect so even godly leaders sometimes (if not most of the time) preach or teach with a little bit of their own thoughts or ideas mixed in and part of being good "students" or disciples of Jesus, is be asking God personally "What are you specifically speaking to me through this message?" We need to be discerning and prepared to ask the Holy Spirit what is from Him, and what is carnal.
   An old saying I heard many years ago was "Chew the meat, spit out the bones."  I applied this to various churches I was a part of over the years, or visited.  Because the church (or body of Christ) is made up of humans, it is not perfect.  We are in the process of being refined and perfected into the fullness of His image, but we have not yet arrived.  While there might be one or two things I occasionally hear a pastor say that I don't totally agree with, or might be slightly off base, or even theologically correct but spoken from the wrong heart motive... there is still plenty of truth that I can receive and choose to apply to my life.  Metaphorically speaking, if we were to avoid every piece of meat for fear of the bones, we would starve ourselves!  So many people are hurt by one church, or even just one or two people in one church, and from that one bad experience, they forever banish themselves from having anything to do with all the churches and in doing so, they cut themselves off from the entire body of Christ, starving themselves of fellowship and life!!

Here is the great thing about God.  He does not want one of us to live in ignorance, just faking it to fit in, but not really knowing in the depths of our hearts what we really believe.  He doesn't want us just going through the motions or trying to fit into some particular mould that the world has put out for us.

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13

It is a comfort to me to know that when I choose to truly seek after God with all of my heart, I will find Him.

I did a little study on this verse and here is what I found:  "You will seek" in the Hebrew the root word is baqash which means to search out (by any method, specifically in worship or prayer); by implication, to strive after. "Me and find" comes from the root word matsa' which means to come forth to, i.e. appear or exist, to attain, find or aquire; to occur, meet or be present.  "Me when you search" comes from the root word darash which means to tread or frequent; usually to follow (for pursuit or search); by by implication, to seek or ask; specifically to worship. "for Me with all your heart" comes from lebab meaning the heart (as the most interior organ).

I picture searching for God as going on a treasure hunt.  He has already mapped out hints and dropped clues all over the place for us to follow.  Just as a miner who pans for gold does not simply walk to any river, dip his pan in, and lift it out having it filled with gold and nothing else... we have to go to the right river, and dig deep, sifting through the silt, rocks, sand, and dirt, to find the treasure God has hidden for us there.  To be consistent in our pursuit of Him, frequenting our times of hearing and listening to His voice, of asking Him what is on His heart, of studying His character by the stories of our faithful God recorded for thousands of years along with current testimonies that are happening every day all around the world.

For missionary kids and pastor's kids, it is easy to ride on the faith of their parents, learn how to behave, learn what is expected of them and how if they act a certain way they will be accepted and approved of. As I encouraged this friend, I would encourage anyone the same way; find out what you believe for yourself.  Search out the truth with persistence and vigour.  Don't dismiss the faith of your parents for the sake of being independent or doing your own thing. On the same note, don't accept it if the motive is to be loved and approved of by them, but not because you really believe in the depths of your heart. God only wants a real, genuine, love-relationship with us, and when we fake it we certainly don't make it.  The only one's we are deceiving is others and ourselves.  God is never fooled.  If we can't be real with God, then we certainly can't be real with ourselves or others.

So I will return to that initial question I asked myself "Why do I believe that there IS only one way?" Although I have not yet studied other religions in plunging depths and great detail, I have done some reading and research over the years.  Because I know others who have very different beliefs, I wanted to better understand what they were into, how they thought and lived.  There is one huge difference between true Christianity, and all other "ways".  Jesus took the punishment that we deserved and instead offers grace and salvation through nothing more than faith.  All other religions or "ways" teach that in order to find your way to heaven, you must perform and achieve this salvation through works and good deeds.  You must meet certain expectations and follow a certain set of rules.  All of these expectations must be met and carried out through sheer will power.  Yikes! God gave us the 10 commandments simply to show us that we can't keep them.  That our will power is not enough. That we are inherently sinful (before we accept Christ), and that we need the Holy Spirit living inside of us to help us do what we could not do on our own.  It is such a radical grace!  Of course these commandments were also for our own good, as we know that by dishonouring our parents, or lying, or stealing... the consequences we bring on ourselves are not good.  God, in His mercy, wants to spare us the pain of bad decisions, so He tells us, just don't do it! Just like a parent who loves their child will not sit back and watch as their child goes to the stove and touches a hot burner.  The parent will stop the child and tell them that it is dangerous and not to touch it.  Not to prevent the child from having fun, but to spare them the pain of being burned.  The one true God is the only one who is three beings in one, and therefore operates as "family" and also wants all His disciples to act, live, and love as family.  Not as an institution, or a club, or a hierarchy.  God is the only one who sent His son to die for us and be our Advocate and Defender in the face of the enemy, or the accuser.  He actually took all of our sin and in return gave us mercy, grace, the righteousness of Jesus He bestowed on us.  So when He looks at us He doesn't see all of our past mistakes.  He sees us through the blood of His son and because of that, we are able to be in relationship with a holy God.  No other religion is so personal, so intimate, so face-to-face... no other religion's god has offered him/herself for the people who are supposed to follow him/her.  The one true God doesn't just offer personal relationship, but He invites us into an entirely different way of living.  A Kingdom Culture way of living that is contrary to everything about our worldly culture.  It is so refreshing actually.  The more I learn about it, the more I want to apply it to my everyday life.  I have so far to go, but I am determined to get there.  

Aside from all that, perhaps the most important answer is Jesus' words Himself, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

I might continue this train of thought in another blog... but going to say goodnight for now.

Vulnerability, Transparency, and a Love that Risks

Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.

Join me on a journey of vulnerability, honesty, and learning to love and be loved in the kind of way that risks everything, but also offers the possibility of gaining so much more and living a life richer than before we jumped off into the deep end.  The shallow end of love might be safe, but it is also boring! I even wonder if real love has a shallow end.  Maybe, but I don't want to stay there.

I've sort of reworded the "tense" of the quote below which I heard from Brene Brown in her talk on "The Power of Vulnerability" found here on youtube: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

We only get connection with authenticity.  We must be willing to let go of who we think we should be in order to be who we really are. We must fully embrace vulnerability.  We need to believe that what makes us vulnerable makes us beautiful.  We must be willing to say "I love you" first.  We must be willing to do things with no guarantees.  We must be willing to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. (scary, I know)

Recently I had to be vulnerable with trusted friends about my weaknesses that I have not fully grown into strengths yet.  Areas of growth that I wish were already healed but I know deep down God still needs to remould and shape into His image.  I also had to admit to a mistake/hasty decision I made out of orphan/independent thinking.  I realized that it is a lot easier to be vulnerable about things you have totally healed from and are now in the past than it is to be vulnerable about the things you currently struggle with.  I mean it's not that hard to tell someone about a past struggle when you are telling it from the victorious standpoint and have come through it.  A lot of us seem to have this silly idea that whole, happy, successful people just "arrived" there overnight and just because we didn't know them personally before-hand, in the midst of and through the process, we assume there was no process.  So when we are in the midst of process ourselves, we feel guilty or embarrassed for not having it altogether all the time.  In reality, none of us have it all together all the time.  I recognize that for me, struggles are a direct result and in immediate connection to lies that have been assailing me from all directions that most of the time I seem to fight off, but at times they get in through chinks in my armour and find a way to get to my heart and emotions.  I know better than anyone what the chinks in my armour are.  It is when I avoid or do not make time for intimacy with my Father.  It is my life's greatest irony that the one thing I want most I run from the hardest sometimes.  Intimacy. Raw honesty.  Vulnerability.  Even though I know from past experience that my life is richest when I embrace these things, I still forget sometimes and I go through the motions while my spirit gets dull and my heart lonelier by the day.  I know it isn't healthy, and I know I am not being myself when I allow this to happen.  

This is actually how the only "relationship" I have ever been in ended.  I stopped being myself.  I was most myself when it was long distance and that distance provided a sense of safety which made it easier to bear my heart.  It was also easier to be real from a distance because I had not risked very much yet so there was less to lose and less chance of being hurt.  I hadn't yet moved across the country for love.  I was just getting to know someone and letting them get to know me, and it was safe.  Neither of us had had to altar our lives too much yet so it was easy to just be ourselves when we were still both so comfortable in familiarity.  Then I moved to Ontario and everything changed.  I unwittingly lied to myself and others saying that I was good at adapting quickly (which is true in some ways), but the way I came across made it seem like I was not struggling and that I didn't need anyone to help me adjust.  I would just figure it out on my own and adapt over time in my own independent way.  Not healthy and not true!!  I slowly let fear and shame turn me into someone I wasn't.  Fear of being vulnerable and getting hurt.  Fear of loss.  Fear of loving and not being loved in return.  Shame from letting some physical boundaries down that I knew were not honouring God or even each other.  While I kept my purity and have still never kissed a man, I still let things happen that were led by hormones and a desire to be close to someone, rather than being led by the Holy Spirit.  I never in a million years thought this could happen to me.  Many of my friends had fallen in this area, but not me; I would be the exception; the example.  Of course in thinking that I was immune to physical, hormonal temptation, I fell and was quickly humbled.  I believe that this is what ultimately made it even harder for us to connect spiritually, emotionally, or conversationally.  Shame.  It is was what ultimately drove us apart and by the time we made the mutual decision to break up, shame and fear were so strongly operating in us that it was easier to run than to be vulnerable or talk things through and risk further hurt or misunderstanding.  Shame. That sneaky thing.  I was desperate for accountability with spiritual mothers and fathers, with some close heart-friends... but I had just moved to a brand new province where I had none of those people yet.  It's not an excuse, just reality.  (The enemy always waits for an opportune time to strike.  The devil is smart, sneaky.  He knows when he won't be able to pull one over on us, and he knows when we are at our weakest.)  The only person I had was the person I was wanting to know, but also wanting to hide my true self from.  Double standard, I know.  I wanted him to know me for who I really was, but I wanted him to dig and search me out.  I wasn't willing to step out there too many times because I felt like that would make it hard for him to pursue.  I wanted to be perfect but by striving to be so, I wonder if I became someone he couldn't relate to, stopped being authentic, and stopped being the true woman God made me to be.  As a result, I felt like I was slowly dying inside and I felt trapped.  The longer I was in this "relationship" in person, the more I feared that if I was my full self, I would be more than he could handle. So I held back.  I tried to be more quiet and un-opinionated.  I tried not to let my emotions out, or at least not in front of him.  Most of the time that I wanted to talk about something on my heart, or admit to one of my weaknesses so that he knew I was struggling in that area, I kept my mouth firmly shut.  If I knew he was struggling in an area, I purposely didn't excel in that area, because I didn't want to be ahead of him and in some twisted way I even thought that by pulling back in my relationship with God, he would feel more able to lead in the whole God area.  I also just got lazy in that regard because I didn't have any accountability or support system and it was easy to slip when I was the most isolated I had ever been in my entire life.  

Let me give you some free advice.  If you have just moved somewhere and you don't have a single "in person" heart-friend, no spiritual mothers or fathers, and no support system established... DO NOT enter into a courting or dating relationship until those things are established.  Other than the fact that you should be two whole people coming together to create an even bigger whole, you don't want to be dependent on someone for things you need to be getting in non-romantic friendships or with family.  I needed emotional connection.  If I had immediately found a couple girlfriends or "moms" to get that with, I would not have felt so emotionally bankrupt in my "romantic" relationship.  I needed to talk things through verbally since I process things by talking them through or writing about them, but it really helps if I have a friend listening and helping me through the processing when I need second opinions or they just have some helpful insight or feedback. If I had found this in the beginning, I would not have been wanting it so much from him, even though with patience, it might have come over time.  Touch, I needed touch.  They say every human being needs 15 meaningful touches every day.  Do we all get that.  Most of us, probably not.  At least since I have been single most of my life, and my family has been so spread out and especially my sisters have been so far from me, I know I have not gotten even a fraction of the physical affection I know I needed over the years.  But at least back in BC, I had my mom and some close girlfriends I could get hugs from, snuggle with, and give and receive non-sexual, healthy physical affection from.  If I had waited to find that with a few girlfriends here, I would not have caved so easily to seeking that from the man I was in relationship with.  Seriously, this is so key to keeping healthy boundaries.  If physical touch is one of your biggest love languages (and like me, you may not even realize it until you are in your first relationship), then you need to make sure you get sufficient healthy affection from family and friends so that you don't let your guard down when you are with the person who gives you insane butterflies just from touching your shoulder.  And finally, if you stop seeking Jesus to meet all those needs, you are in big trouble.  And I mean, bigger trouble than just seeing your relationship with your significant other end.  You are forsaking your first Love and breaking His heart, there-in putting a growing distance between you and Him because of the shame of not seeking His face, which only serves to essentially stop/stagnate you in your spiritual growth and walk with Christ, which only adds to your growing "secret" unhappiness, which will definitely seep into and affect all your relationships, especially the one you are trying to hold on to in all the wrong ways!! 

If you put shame in a petri dish it needs 3 things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgement. If you put the same amount of shame in a petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive. Two most powerful words when we're in struggle "me too". If we're going to find our way back to each other, vulnerability is going to be that path. -Brené Brown

So I am on a journey to finding my way back to where I was before I had my first relationship.  I trusted God whole-heartedly and began the relationship by trusting with no reserves, no regrets, no fears, and absolute un-flinching hope.  If finding my way back to a healthy and happy heart means trusting Him and trusting others, risks included, that is what I must do.  Sometimes I have days or even weeks where I feel that level of trust is back. But it is not a constant companion again, not yet anyways.  Every time I think I have reached a new level of trust in Him, He tests me with some sort of trial or attack, and the reality of where my heart is really at is revealed.  It hurts sometimes to see the naked truth of my own unfaithfulness and my wavering trust.  I say that I trust Him no matter what my circumstances are.  But how often do I make a hasty decision based out of fear at a difficult circumstance that suddenly side-slams me?? Well, let's just say I can think of several specific examples in the past 2 months.  Did I learn from them. Sure. I definitely never want to make the same mistake twice.  That is just stupidity, because I know the end result won't be any better than last time. Could they have been avoided if I had taken the time to slow down, quiet my heart & mind, and let my spirit connect with my Father, asking Him what to do before acting?  Yes, most definitely.  I want to only live out of His daily, living word to me.  Am I there yet? No.  Do I wish I was. So much.  Bright side... people can actually relate to me when I admit my imperfections. Our imperfections actually bring us together because as we all begin sharing our struggles and weaknesses, we realize that others have gone through the same things and can understand us, and we are not alone.  It is actually the most wonderful feeling when we realize we are not alone anymore.  The other bright side is that in my weaknesses, His strength is made manifest.  His grace gets to swoop in and blow me away because I know I don't deserve it, but that is just what grace is.  Undeserved favour and forgiveness.  Second, third, twentieth chances.  I mean I don't rejoice in my weakness, but I know that it is an opportunity for God to grow me, stretch me, and show others that while I might seem to have it all together a lot of the time (I'm really good at giving that impression), I too am human and sometimes just need a shoulder to cry on.  Sometimes I just want to be held by someone and cry out all of the fears, insecurities, unfulfilled hopes or dreams, until all that is left is a comfortable emptiness that God can fill with love, security, renewed hope, and just being able to rest in the fact that I know He is good all the time, and that is all that matters.  

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.  Romans 5:3-4

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out all fear, because fear involves torment.  But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.  We love Him because He first loved us." 1 John 4:18-19

There have been times when I really have loved fearlessly and with abandon.  That was before I had ever experienced a broken heart, but still, I remember what it felt like to just love with no expectations and only hope, joy, and excitement.  It was the best.  I realize that love has not been perfected in me, because I do still feel fear sometimes.  Fear to love again, to trust again, to show my imperfections and still be accepted for me.  I crave transparency but I am also terrified of it, and the process of getting there.  But I have also come to another conclusion that usurps all of the above.  If fear involves torment, it is actually better to feel the fear and take the risk of giving everything and having your heart crushed... than to hold back and be tormented with loneliness, isolation, and the pain of letting no one really know who you are, and there-fore never being loved for who you really are.  Now that would be torment.  Fear torments you with the possibility of rejection, disappointment, misunderstandings, failure...yatta yatta yatta.  Yet being vulnerable and loving anyways opens the door for deep understanding, acceptance, love, success, hopes realized, and dreams come true.  I say all of this but I am nowhere near there.  I am on my way and fully believing God will heal every unhealed area, and lead me, one day at a time, into a deeper love and trust in Him first, then in others.  I have realized that if I cannot allow myself to trust God, and let Him see my heart for all that I really am, there is no way I will be able to let others in and trust another human being.  If I do not first start every day by trusting the most good, holy, just, loving, trustworthy, compassionate, joyful Father-God who is also Love itself, there is no way I will ever truly be able to trust human beings (including myself) who are so fickle, imperfect, changing, different and who will for sure at some point let us down.  But then what would love be if there was no risk of loss?  Love hopes all things, love believes all things, love bears all things...  am I willing to bear with someone else's weaknesses, even if they directly affect or hurt me?  Love endures all things, love is long-suffering, love never seeks it's own gain.  Love never fails.  

Love is often measured by the level of pain you experience when a person fails you in some way.
When you say,"I will never let anyone hurt me like that again" you have just exiled yourself to the Antarctica; the cold hearted land of loneliness and isolation! - Kris Vallotton

I have decided that I will make a daily conscious decision to kick fear in the butt and only make decisions out of love instead.  One simple truth I have learned over and over in life is this: Decisions made out of love reap good fruit and joy; decisions made out of fear reap bad fruit and disappointment/shame. 

Finally, after meditating on all these things, I always come back to Jesus.  I think of how He was God and already knew that so many of the ones He loved unconditionally would reject, betray, torture, scourge, and ultimately crucify Him.  He loved us SO much that He died the most humiliating, painful death, even though He knew that so many of us would turn our backs on this mind-blowing amazing love.  He loved me with abandonment, totally recklessly getting nailed to the cross, and all the while knowing that I would never be able to love Him back in the way He loves me.  His love for me is perfect.  My love is imperfect.  So why do I hold back from Him sometimes?? It is totally illogical.  It is because the memory of pain (in general) is not totally erased from my heart. I am sure that, like me, just about everyone's parents were not able to love them perfectly.  They are human.  All of our friends have let us down in some way at some point.  I have to be so careful not to let my experience and understanding of earthly love skew my image of God and His perfect love.  We all view God through our life experiences and if there are any painful things we have gone through that we have not allowed Him to heal, then we will view God through foggy glasses.  We can actually forget that His love is bigger than our pain, our problems, our weaknesses, our fears.  His love can conquer ALL those things and even more than we realize needs to be conquered.  Wow, praise His holy, awesome, perfect name!
He is so merciful!!
___________

Tag thoughts:

Pain is not bad.  It just means that we need to let God work on an area our hearts. It means we need healing, and the good news is that our God is a God who heals. Completely! He is pretty good at it too; just look at all the walking miracles of people who have come through the most horrific things and not only lived to tell the tale, but have amazing victorious testimonies as a result.

Just today I read an article that interviewed Jason Valloton, Kris Valloton's son, after his book was published talking about how he handled his wife having an affair and leaving him.  He offers a great response to this question: What advice would you offer to help others who experienced an affair or other hardships?

I would say there are some really great verses in the Bible that say, “God gives you beauty for ashes” and “He makes all things new” and He’ll change your path and your future into something that’s beautiful. Learn how to not let your emotions be your guide. Your emotions are really important tools in your life. They let you know what you need but they don’t necessarily tell you how to get there nor are they always the right motivation. So, being in pain, your pain says something right away. Pain says: “Do something, do anything to get out of this right now,” which, oftentimes leads us to medicate, whether that’s pornography or a rebound. We all hear about the rebound, which is pain. Pain is saying, “Go find somebody else, go do something to not feel this way”. But really, the best thing to do is to be okay feeling that way and to let God work through it with you. - Jason Valloton

Hope

And now, Lord, what do I wait for and expect? My hope and expectation are in You.
Psalm 39: 7


I think it was around the beginning of November that God started speaking to me about hope and renewing my hope in Him.  Then, last Sunday my pastor preached on hope!  Something he said that really spoke to me and encouraged me is this:  Hope is not wishful thinking!  Wishful thinking lacks certainty.  Biblical hope is full of certainty because it is a hope in someone, not something. 


It's not that I lost hope in Him.  I just realized that there was a part of me that didn't fully believe He can do the impossible.  My Father has been reminding me that He is God and He can do anything.  Things that seem impossible with my natural eyes are possible for Him.  So I have been taking any hope that in the past I mistakenly placed in circumstances and I am placing it all in Him.  He is my hope of glory.  He is my eternal hope.  No one whose hope is in God will ever be put to shame.  I am learning to believe in my heart (not just my head) all over again that God has the very best in store for me, His daughter.  I am a princess in His kingdom and if my Father the King wants to keep me hidden in the castle a while longer, I need to trust His judgement and foresight.  He has been reiterating something he has spoken to me time and time again... "Emma, just be mine.  I want you all to myself right now.  Will you be only mine?"  


For You, oh Lord, are my hope, my trust, oh LORD, from my youth.  Psalm 71:5


For as long as I can remember, yes even as a child, I knew that God had good plans for me.  Better ones than even I could dream of.  I had not yet read Jeremiah 29:11 but you can bet when I first did, my hope in the Lord was only strengthened and this verse gave me strength to hold on through the darker seasons and more painful years.  The thing that God has been saying to me repeatedly is found in the next verse after; Jeremiah 29:12 "Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart."  


My heart has never felt so hungry for Him.  He promises that if I seek Him with my whole heart I will find Him.  He promises to listen to me.  He also invites me to listen to Him.  Sometimes He just wants me to rest in His arms and we don't need to say any words but the deepest things are exchanged in this wordless rest.  His arms are strong.  They make me strong.  My strength is in Him.  My identity is in Him.  He is enough. 


The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.  Psalm 34:18


I can't say that my spirit was crushed.  But a dream I allowed myself to dream was crushed.  Perhaps the dream was premature because I now know that I wasn't supposed to be in a relationship yet.  The timing was premature.  God wasn't ready to share me yet, but I thought I was ready to share myself.  


Last night at intercession I had a huge breakthrough.  It had been a very long time since I had felt His presence totally engulfing and surrounding me.  During worship I was able to enter in to His throne room and fully focus on His face.  I felt His tangible presence engulfing me, His arms wrapping around me... and as I was singing to Him "I love, I love, I love Your presence" ... I heard Him singing it back to me!  I just started weeping.  My Father was singing over me that He loves my presence too.  He loves my company.  He misses me when I'm not with Him.  He longs to be with me more than I long to be with Him.  I was so overwhelmed and grateful and happy (and those words sound so dull, they only begin to describe what I was feeling) to be in His presence ... I was crying tears of relief and joy!  It just blows me away that He feels even more strongly that way about me than I do about Him!  And then He sings to me ... "If you want it (my presence) come and get it for crying out loud!  The love that I have given to you was never a doubt."  ... I had not felt His love so strong in a really long time.  I didn't want the song to end and I didn't want to stop worshipping because the throne room was so peaceful and my mind felt so clear and my spirit felt so free.  


While I was in the throne room He gave me further revelation to something He spoke to me about on Monday.  Monday I heard Him say that He has given us a universal key to freedom.  That universal key is Jesus.  This universal key can unlock every door, every shackle/handcuff, every restraint... it can unlock every hidden thing in our hearts that we don't even know about yet.  


Then Wed night while engulfed in His presence I heard Him say that this Universal Key also fits the lock on the door into the throne room and the throne room is where we find total and complete freedom in it's entirety!  I was so relieved because I realized that while I never wanted to leave His presence now that I had found it again, He was reassuring me that I can return any time.  I just need to focus on Jesus, remember that all of my confessed sins are forgiven, so I can boldly enter the throne room with a clear conscience and a white robe.  Everything is under the blood and when I enter into the throne room through Jesus, all my Father sees is His pure and spotless bride.  His innocent little girl.  The joy was SO incredible when this revelation hit me afresh!  


This next bit is a portion of scripture from Isaiah 43 that God gave to me and I found comfort in when I first moved here last Feb.  I still find comfort in it.  


1 But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you.3 For I am the Lord your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place.4 Since you were precious in My sight, You have been honored, And I have loved you; Therefore I will give men for you, And people for your life.5 Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, And gather you from the west;


Or in the Message version the first few verses are really encouraging:


Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you. I've called your name. You're mine.When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end. Because I am God, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior. I paid a huge price for you.


But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. - Romans 8:25


That is the second part of what God has been speaking to me about.  Hope + Patience.  They go hand in hand.  Maybe I've been patient for a while, but I am in need of more patience and endurance.  Because so much of my life has been in "fast forward" mode, what may seem like short periods of time to others often feel like much longer to me, because God often does a lot of things in me and around me in a short period of time.  I guess He is asking me to slow down and just be His for however long that is.  I will always be His.. but I mean before He shares me with a husband.  I don't ever want to run ahead of Him or even think ahead of Him again.  I have never been more determined to learn this new level of patience and I know that the more time I spend hanging out with my Father, the faster the time will pass because time will matter less and less to me when my eyes are fixed on His. 


The Lord is my portion or share, says my living being (my inner self); therefore will I hope in Him and wait expectantly for Him.
Lamentations 3: 24


But I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more. Psalm 71: 14