It's hard to say you satisfy me, Lord, when I'm constantly and consistently looking for affirmation and approval elsewhere. I find that friendship, the deepest and truest (the most holy), can even divide my heart from Yours. I long for You to fill my soul with longing for Your person, with a heart that seeks Your face.
I feel like such a hypocrite at times. I say I want You and then quickly run after others. I fit You neatly into the first and last five minutes of every day and then wonder why I feel so tired. Wonder why my grace has worn thin. Why my love is empty.
'Is it because it is not Thou I see,
But only my poor, blotted fancy of Thee?
Oh! Never till Thyself reveal Thy face,
Shall I be flooded with life's vital grace,
Oh make my mirror-heart Thy shining-place,
And then my soul, awaking with the morn,
Shall be a waking joy, eternally new-born.'
-MacDonald (Diary of an Old Soul, 7 October)
Seek Your face
for the pure in heart
shall see You.
Your face, O Lord,
I will seek.
For that which I seek, I shall most surely find.
Do you ever listen to music which utterly, yet quietly breaks your heart for home, in its final and most true sense? A song in which there is a mute longing for a beauty that will be dawning (and yet has also already set)....it's breathtaking.
'I wish I was a poet
Could write in fine hand
Would write my love a letter
One she'd long understand
I'd send it by the water
Were the islands overflow
And I'd think of pretty Saro wherever I go.'
-Sam Amidon, Saro
Somehow being (semi)coherent on paper helps. even if I still feel like a tragedy at times, I know, in that indefinable and indefinite way, that He loves me. And that even though giving up on myself is a frequent and almost daily affair, He has not. I can still be filled with quiet assurance even when I feel but a shadow of myself that His patience and grace are overwhelmingly everlasting.
'Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, whcih transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is notble, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.' (Philippeans 4:4-8)
'Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and early loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.' (Colossians 3:12-17)
'The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.' (2 Thess. 5:24)
When I least expect, when I least deserve, when I least feel....
....Your freedom has overtaken my soul.
I thank You, Jesus, for the expanse of the cross. For the unending life that it promises. Not only that, but the truth of freedom that it brings and the way of hope it gives. For forgiveness. For You are the way, the truth, and the life.
'He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restrictions, to the comfort of your table laden with choice food.' (Job 36:16).
With all the sermons and words that have been flying about, perhaps the child-like faith of one who has been reminded of her Father's heart might finally be restored.
'Don't live in fear of your mistakes. Trust Me.'
I realise that I do this constantly. Waking up in the morning, still with those mistakes I made yesterday clinging to my skin like dirty clothes that should have been taken off the night before. I insist on keeping them by me, like a duty I must pay in order to come inside. When will I ever realise that it isn't the duty He wants....but for some inexpressible reason He wants ME.
It's like He's waiting there, next to an alter. Waiting for me to come and lay down these inexpresible and perhaps insignificant burdens, sins, and shames down at His feet. He helps me to lift them up onto the alter, quietly, and then lights a torch. He hands it to me and I light the fire. As we watch it burn He places His arm about me....I don't even know what the burden was (bitterness and unforgiveness maybe?) but I feel as if this is part of the relearning of what it is to be a daughter: giving it over to Him instead of attempting to figure it out, repair it, or hide it. His faithfulness and tenderness are everlastingly strong.
'When I said, 'my foot is slipping',
Your love, O Lord, supported me.
When anxiety was great within me,
Your consolation brough joy to my soul.'
(Psalm 94:18-9).
As George Macdonald says in his fairy-tale Phantases, 'past tears are present strength' and future joy. 'Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.' (George Macdonald, Phantases). Our lives are full of beauty and tragedy, of joy and sorrow. And if He is our Deepest Truth, then it most certainly will be the Deepest of all Joys.
'Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade - kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.' (1 Peter 1: 3-9).
'Every tragedy of higher order, constructed in Christian times, will correspond more or less to the grand drama of the Bible; wherein the first act opens with a brilliant sunset vision of Paradise, in which childish sense and need are served with all the profusion of the indulgent nurse. But the glory fades off into grey and black, and night settles down upon the heart which, rightly uncontent with the childish, and not having yet learned the childlike, seeks knowledge and manhood as a thing denied by the Maker, and yet to be gained by the creature; so sets forth alone to climb the heavens, and instead of climbing, falls into the abyss. Then follows the long dismal night of feverish efforts and delirious visions, or, it may be, helpless despair; till at length a deeper stratum of the soul is heaved to the surface; and amid the first dawn of morning, the youth says within him, "I have sinned against my Maker-I will arise and go to my Father." More or less, I say, will Christian tragedy correspond to this-a fall and a rising again; not a rising only, but a victory; not a victory merely, but a triumph.' (George Macdonald, 'The Broken Swords').
'Hope is not in what I know. It's not in me, it's in You....I find peace when I'm confused, I find hope when I'm let down. Not in me, it's in You.' (Switchfoot, You).
After almost a whole year....my issues remain. My hurts and pains are still here. My sorrows and cares are stubbornly holding their ground.
But the grace. Oh the grace has returned. I have let it in once more. For so long I've been killing hope, not watering it with the Eternal Love which wants to overflow into my heart. But Love is seeping through the grounds of my heart once more, and the Living Hope is beginning to grow again. Fed on so little for so long, it doesn't need much to sustain it; yearning and longing after more and more, though, it is calling me out again to live in grace. Yet this calling out requires something I have not practiced for an age (like trying to play the piano again after not touching the ivory keys for years)....trust.
Jesus, you have led me to rest. Glimpsing, ever more unfolding, who You are. Your beauty, my Lord, overwhelms my soul. Your wholeness of love is far, far too big for me. I am surrounded by Your wealth of grace and a certainty of Your many promises. I am resting in the joy of what You are. Finding out the greatness of Your loving heart. Beholding Your changeless love which satisfies my heart in its deepest places. Enfolding me in Your peace.
You love me when I feel fat, when I feel like a rubbish daughter, when I feel like a bitter friend, when I feel like a worthless girl, and when I feel like a failure of a Christian. This love. It's too beautiful. It's too great. There's too much hope, too much promise. It don't deserve it, and yet You've given it to me.
My precious, beautiful Jesus. My Lord. My King. My Friend. My Brother....I love you. Words fail me when I see this tender, gentle love and those kindly eyes. Those hands that carved wood and now reach out to me if I would but put down this pen. Rest. Mmmm. Rest. Something I have not allowed myself to know in a long, long time. A forbidden blessing I have wrongfully and sinfully avoided and excluded. A rest that satifies me and securely fixes me within Your love.
The joy of Your face is before me and the peace of Your hands have touched me.
A hope has been renewed.
Jesus I am resting, resting
In the Joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.
Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee,
And Thy beauty fills my soul,
For by Thy transforming power
Thou hast made me whole.
Chorus:
Jesus, I am resting, resting
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.
O how great Thy loving kindness.
Vaster, broader than the sea!
O how marvellous Thy goodness,
Lavished all on me!
Yes, I rest in Thee, Beloved,
Know Thy certainty of promise,
And have made it mine.
Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus,
I behold Thee as Thou art,
And Thy love, so pure, so changeless,
Satisfies my heart;
Satisfies its deepest longings,
Meets supplies its every need,
Compasseth me round with blessings;
Thine is love indeed!
Ever lift Thy face upon me,
As I work and wait for Thee;
Resting 'neath Thy smile, Lord Jesus,
Earth's dark shadows flee.
Brightness of my Father's glory,
Sunshine of my Father's face,
Keep me ever trusting, resting;
Fill me with Thy grace.
Is the pain we go through only so that we can handle more and more pain throughout our life (like how vaccines work)? Or are they so that one day the Hope will be even more glorious??
And I treat my relationship with You as if it's based on emotional manipulation. I constantly tread upon the egg shells of the cross....but not the real cross, it's the cross of my own making. Surely, I reason, I must remember this. Must constantly repent. 'We need to stop visiting our tombs and talking to our dead old men' (The Supernatural Ways of Royalty).
I have forgotten the grace. Willfully and by mistake. I have worried and feared....not placing my faith or trust in Hm and what He's done. Who IS He? What HAS He done? Is it because I keep forgetting this or because I've never really known? I feel like I'm going slightly insane....
I am tired. Tired of trying to make myself hear You. Trying to encourage myself in You. Can You come and speak to me? Encourage me again? This emotional rollercoaster. Spiritual schizophrenia....one day hearing You, the next day not, then hearing you for two and then not for five. Back and forth, no steadiness. No consistency. I've forgotten what a mountain looks like. All I seem to remember is this valley.
I am feeling slightly detached from LIFE...you know? Slightly detached from Him. and I'm tired of TRYING to BE something. This indistinct feeling that somehow the ME that I am is inadequate, not enough, when I am in a relationship with Him. I desperately want this to be a RELATIONSHIP and not a duty. But it can so easily slip into a duty.
When did You stop being enough?
When did I stop looking at You face and only looked at Your hands? Have I ever REALLY seen You for who You are, and not simply for what You've done?
As I looked down at that cup of blood, that cup of love, and the immensity of it nearly drowned me.
She whom I set free, is free indeed.
Really? Have I been simply unthankful or living in a prison of my own construction?
And when I least expect it He comes and says, 'After all this pain, and sorrow, and lies, and despair....are you brave enough to believe that the dawn is coming?' It's like we walking around the palace, creeping about like we are the servants when He's made us His children. Yes, we should know that we were paupers once, but we are called to walk about the palace now as legitimate children and heirs. We are trying to serve Him, the King, when He wants us to sit at His table. He's dressed us up in royal robes and changed who we are in His kingdom. Why do we insist on doing the mopping, as if to repay Him - somehow - (we feel the need to) for this grace? We get dirty doing 'His work' and He washes us every time.
'What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, she is no different from a slave, although she owns the whole estate. She is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by her Father. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might recieve the full rights of daughters. Because you are daughters, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out 'Abba, Father'. So you are no longer a slave, but a daughter, and since you are a daughter, God has made you also an heir.' (Galatians 4:17).
'Reviewing the sinfulness of our past in order to become humble is perversion. It actually creates shame; and shame is a poor counterfeit of humility....in reality it is much more humbling to live in the liberty of unearned forgiveness.'
'Repentence was needed....true repentence is to change the way you think....my shame was over my humanity, and my discouragement was over who I wasn't (not a secret or unrighteous habit).'
'We no longer live in the bondages of our past - performance and c omparison,....but we know our worht in simply loving Him'
(The Supernatural Ways of Royalty)
Today is the first day in a long time...a very long time, that I feel excited and passionate about being a Christian. About living this life again. This week has been one of those foundation shifting weeks where the perceptions of everything change. I feel a level of peace....and joy (is that what this feels like?) in Him...in You, that I haven't for an age. And then the change came and I didn't even realise.
'Have heart my dear
we're bound to be afraid
even if it's just for a few days
making up for all this mess
Light up, light up,
as if you have a choice,
even if you cannot hear my voice,
I'll be right beside you dear.'
(Snow Patrol, Run)
http://www.thelongbrake.com/blog/2008/11/04/what-if-you-truly-loved-your-neighbor-as-yourself/
Hope has been renewed.
Life has been given.
Joy is recieved.
Out of despair, there is hope.
When life is shallow. When joy is worn thin.
YOU.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
(Ephesians 1)
O, to see You as You are
To glimpse the wonders yet unseen
Assist my sight, unveil my eyes
To see You
Lord, to know You as You are
To even dare to speak or stand
Though marked beloved, to fall as dead
When I see You
And through grace untold, to see You
With this heart unveiled, to know You
Lord, in Your pure light
How great the glory of Your name
How small the voice I humbly bring
Yet with my all I raise a song
When I see You
It is the song of love's pure light
The grace reflected in these eyes
The overflow of those who know
They have seen You
We are disgraced, but You graced us
With the warmth of Your forgiveness
Now You lead us ever closer
To the pure light of Your holiness
And I'll sing of the wonders of Your grace
Sing of the wonders of Your grace
Sing of the wonders of Your grace, O Lord
And I'll tell of the glory of Your name
Tell of the glory of Your name
Tell of the glory of Your name, O Lord
(Pure Light, Matt Redman)
'all that's in my head is in your hands.'
Jesus.
All else falls away, it really does. When I see You. Sometimes I doubt if I've ever really and truly seen You, though. I say that You are the desire of my heart. I say You are. But are You? I know about You, Jesus. But do I know You? Jesus, I forget. I forget so very quickly. I speak in pride. And then weep in brokenness. Yet You see me - for all that I am - and still You persist.
Yet I can hear You telling me that it's time to stop living in the slums of my heart. For some reason You want me full. Full of You, Jesus. I am ready, oh my heart is ready for a relationship with You.
In this pain, You have birthed wind.
And that wind has swept through the depths of me.
....all I can do is worship You and open wide my arms.
