Today I woke up stressed. So, when I got out of class at lunch time, I took my Bible to Moe's and got a burrito. Because that's what I wanted to do. :)
I read Psalm 71, which truly encouraged me. Also, Psalm 105: 4 was a blessing.
"Look to the LORD and His strength. Seek His face always."
In the book I'm reading, the Will of God as a Way of Life, he speaks of the children of Israel and their search for freedom. They thought that being released from captivity would grant them freedom. But, Sittser writes, "There, in the desert, they found negative freedom--freedom from oppression. They were free to live on their own. But they had not yet discovered positive freedom--the freedom of living for God.
In the stresses of daily life that I'm currently facing (which is why my you may have seen in my last post that I'm having a bit of emotion and thought traffic), I constantly look to freedom from what I am doing. When the test is over, when the paper is written, when the event is taken care of, then I'll be free.
This is why today, Christ helped me remember that there is freedom in the living for Christ while I am in the living of my day.
Where I am and what I am doing and thinking and feeling now is important. Jesus, help me never to think that this moment isn't good enough.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Thirsty.
I have come to a few realizations.
It feels no use to cry alone. Others may disagree. I make no apologies. Crying alone gets me nowhere. Thankfully, there is always Jesus.
Beauty makes you thirsty. When you have it, you want more. When you don't, you long for it. Right now, I have so much. Yet, I long for more. Like the places in me that don't feel its quenching are searching to be soaked in it. I want to be uniformly soaked in the Graces and Beauty of Christ.
True romance doesn't fade. It soaks in. That is what I am going to believe for my life.
We often think that we aren't supposed to feel. That we are supposed to always be able to explain why we feel the way we do and then we should promptly figure out how not to feel that way.
Please stop letting yourself feel this way.
Just feel.
Then figure it out later.
It feels no use to cry alone. Others may disagree. I make no apologies. Crying alone gets me nowhere. Thankfully, there is always Jesus.
Beauty makes you thirsty. When you have it, you want more. When you don't, you long for it. Right now, I have so much. Yet, I long for more. Like the places in me that don't feel its quenching are searching to be soaked in it. I want to be uniformly soaked in the Graces and Beauty of Christ.
True romance doesn't fade. It soaks in. That is what I am going to believe for my life.
We often think that we aren't supposed to feel. That we are supposed to always be able to explain why we feel the way we do and then we should promptly figure out how not to feel that way.
Please stop letting yourself feel this way.
Just feel.
Then figure it out later.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The Same Wind with Different Purposes
As I am reminded of social injustice and my responsibility to make an impact for Christ in the world, I am overwhelmed. I am aware of the common question of, what can one person do? I am aware of the common answer, only so much as one person is called to do.
That does not always comfort my tender heart that wants to save the world.
I have to bring the logic of Christ into this struggle. While my heart wants to save the whole world, I have to remember that Christ's heart already did. As long as I tune in to the guiding of His Spirit, I will make the specific impact that my heart was created to make.
Sitting in the park, contemplating this struggle to tend to the hurts of this world I was drawn to look at the movement of the wind.
I'm always touched by the wind. God truly uses it to reveal the mysteries of His Spirit. In the past, He has shown me that the wind moves the fragile, light leaves. It reminds me of the surrender of the leaves to the movement of the wind in the same way I surrender to the movement of the Spirit. If I were a strong, immovable tree trunk how would I be moved and transformed? I will instead remain a fragile, gentle leaf.
Today in the park it was not the leaves that I noticed. It was the grass.
As the gentle rustle of the wind moved the grass I was struck that each blade did not move in the same direction. I never noticed before that the movement of each blade is determined by the way it was created, thin, thick, tall, short. They move differently.
They are all moved by the same wind. But the wind moves them to certain places.
We are all moved by the same Spirit. But the Spirit moves us to different purposes.
The Holy Spirit urges my brother and sister and it urges me. One to Africa, one to adopt a child, and me to apply myself to student leadership. My purpose will flow and change, and sometimes it will be the same as the blade of grass next to me. Other times, the same wind will move me in a new direction. I will remain light and moveable. We will respect the movement of the wind in each of our lives.
That does not always comfort my tender heart that wants to save the world.
I have to bring the logic of Christ into this struggle. While my heart wants to save the whole world, I have to remember that Christ's heart already did. As long as I tune in to the guiding of His Spirit, I will make the specific impact that my heart was created to make.
Sitting in the park, contemplating this struggle to tend to the hurts of this world I was drawn to look at the movement of the wind.
I'm always touched by the wind. God truly uses it to reveal the mysteries of His Spirit. In the past, He has shown me that the wind moves the fragile, light leaves. It reminds me of the surrender of the leaves to the movement of the wind in the same way I surrender to the movement of the Spirit. If I were a strong, immovable tree trunk how would I be moved and transformed? I will instead remain a fragile, gentle leaf.
Today in the park it was not the leaves that I noticed. It was the grass.
As the gentle rustle of the wind moved the grass I was struck that each blade did not move in the same direction. I never noticed before that the movement of each blade is determined by the way it was created, thin, thick, tall, short. They move differently.
They are all moved by the same wind. But the wind moves them to certain places.
We are all moved by the same Spirit. But the Spirit moves us to different purposes.
The Holy Spirit urges my brother and sister and it urges me. One to Africa, one to adopt a child, and me to apply myself to student leadership. My purpose will flow and change, and sometimes it will be the same as the blade of grass next to me. Other times, the same wind will move me in a new direction. I will remain light and moveable. We will respect the movement of the wind in each of our lives.
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