Father, father, father

Father, father, father,

Three times I called for You.

Did You hear me?

Three times I reached out to find You, 

Did You see me?

I thought "You heard me",

You saw the tears roll down my face.

Father, Your voice is like thunder and Your presence like rain.  

You circle me like a tornado and bring me to the eye, 

You hold me like an infant and sing a sweetly handsome lullaby.  You breathe with me, feel with me, and eventually calm me down.  

Your perfect love clears the fear away.  Just like the earth's day after it rains. 

Father, father, father.

I still have much more to say.

I have more questions and comments to make.  I have suggestions and some complaints, if I may.  

Yet,now I'm tired in Your hands where I lay.  Softly stilled and feeling okay.  

So I'll talk later and rest for now,

But Father, dear Father, father

By my side always stay.  

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. 

-Hebrews 4:16

Jmegrey

The Holy

What if today turned out to be epic to you?  Something crazy good happens. 

What could that be?  I doubt many would have the first thing come to mind be "God."  Instead we probably think "I'll find a $100 on the ground!" Or "I'll find the love of my life at a random coffee shop!" Or "I'll be asked, no begged, to work at my dream job!" "My school debt will be cancelled!"  "(Insert sports team name here) will win!" 

Meeting with God is as regular as putting clothes on.  It's uneventful and hardly something worth noting.  The only time, if ever, we get excited about meeting with God is at a praise night or Christian conference, but certainly not in our other, outside of the Christian bubble lives.  God is where we know we He is, at church, in song, at a prayer meeting or while reading the bible, and if we're honest most of the time even those things are absolutely Capitol Boring.

When did God become boring?  The moment we lost sight of what the Holy part of Holy Spirit means. 

In the Old Testament we have an entire book about offerings that must be made for holiness.  Holy clothes, holy days, holy people, holy places, and holy ways.  

Many of us might wonder why there is a book so boring as Leviticus or numbers or Deuteronomy in the bible.  Cuz it seems to be all about stuff that no longer is relevant for Christians today.  SEEMS.  Because we each have our idea what we need or need not know.  Genealogies, skip.  Battles that happened 2000 years ago, pass.  Hymns, poems, and songs about harps and lyres, boring.  Ancient descriptions about a temple, no thanks.  

We think we know how to handle our lives, our actions, and even think we know what we want.  And then when something bad happens we want to blame someone or something.  When the pain gets too intense we, by God's grace, suddenly get a glimpse of how actually weak and dim witted we are when we don't listen to God.  God steps in with pain to often help us see the error of our minds and make us not want to continue in that way.  This is an ongoing process until we reach perfection when nothing can hurt us because we surrender fully to God's command.  We are being made into a people that will enter His Kingdom, heaven being a place filled with people who desire to have God as their King.  

So before I go into a seemingly irrelevant and boring passage from the Old Testament I want to bring to light what I just said.  We don't know what's good for us, and by a gift from God we have the Bible, the entire bible to teach us what is. 

"Then Moses presented Aaron and his sons and washed them with water. He put the tunic on Aaron, wrapped the sash around him, clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod on him. He put the woven band of the ephod around him and fastened it to him. Then he put the breastpiece on him and placed the Urim and Thummim into the breastpiece. He also put the turban on his head and placed the gold medallion, the holy diadem, on the front of the turban, as the Lord had commanded Moses. Then Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the tabernacle and everything in it to consecrate them.

So Aaron and his sons did everything the Lord had commanded through Moses. (Leviticus 8:6-10, 36 HCSB)

"By innumerable distinctions God taught Israel the difference between holy and unholy. There were holy days, holy vessels, holy garments. There were washings, sacrifices, offerings of many kinds. 

By these means Israel learned that God is holy. 

It was this that He was teaching them. 

Not the holiness of things or places, but the holiness of Jehovah was the lesson they must learn."

-Tozer

How important was this lesson?  This directive regarding holiness.  Important enough to repeat the same words over and over again in the Old Testament section about what priests have to do every time a sacrifice is made.  You'll find the same exact paragraphs even repeated from chapter to chapter.  It's crazy!  Why would God give us a bible so repetitive and far removed from our culture and society that we live in today?  We don't have priests or farm animals to kill or wear turbans.  Some people do, but certainly not everyone.  Is the bible meant to have some parts for some people while the rest of us Americans just stick to the New Testament?  Clearly we all know the answer to that is no, but practically most of us can attest to not ever really considering the way in which we aw to live with the fire of the Old Testament in our hearts. 

God started where Israel could learn.  When he brought them out of slavery, when he brings us out of slavery, it's not so we will be out of slavery and hallelujah that's it.  That's just one very very small and almost insignificant part of it, just like when you get married it's not about you no longer being single.  That is one awesome aspect of marriage, to no longer be single or alone, but it is nothing compared to the better part of being in an intimate relationship with someone, being loved and in love.  Sharing life with someone, because we all know that when something is funny it's so much more enjoyable to be laughing about it with someone over than by yourself.   Likewise, God was offering them the gift of intimacy with Him.  He wanted to teach Israel that being set free from bondage by the Egyptians was just the beginning of the far surpassing joy of knowing what freedom in a friendship with God was like.  God started with His presence in a cloud and a pillar of fire that guided them.  Then He dwelt in a temple that He instructed them to build. After that He had them offer sacrifices, observe certain days, have certain feasts, and wear certain things because He was slowly teaching them what holiness meant.  To set apart some days, set apart the temple as a place of sacred worship, set apart certain unblemished animals as the only ones to be offered, and set apart certain people as priests--this was all to teach them about Himself, our Holy God so set apart and special and perfect among all other things.  Because to know how Holy God is is to know how awesome it is that such a God loves and desires us!  An understanding of God as holy is to see something about ourselves more clearly as well.  You and I are loved by God, the perfect and most beautiful Holy God, our value and worth is tied to this.  

There's a reason why people want money, comfort, beauty and to be adored by others.  We all seek our value to be validated by the idols in our hearts.  If you're pretty you're more valued.  If you're rich or have a stable job you're more valued.  If you're influential or known by a lot of people (friends on FB or Instagram, Twitter, snap chat) you're more valued.  Maybe for some it's your ability to stay quiet and never found at fault that makes you more valued.  If any of your value is found outside an intimate love relationship with God-- it is a lie.  It's like dating someone who you thought loved you only to find out that that person is actually a blown up plastic doll slowly deflating into nothing.  Just like in the movie "Lars and the real girl."  The character Lars walks around with an inflatable girlfriend he bought off of the Internet and continues dating a balloon because inside there is something in him that is so afraid of a real relationship, of truly experiencing love.  But we all need love, because God made us to be in love with Him, He is Love itself, and even Lars knew this but because fear and other lies clouded his ability to get real live he settled for a plastic doll.  The only problem is plastic dolls will never reach the need for love deep within our hearts.  We all desperately hold on to lies while inside we are rotting away.  

We delude ourselves into thinking "I need to be in a relationship, I need to look good, I need to have money, I need to do this, get that, go there, be this, have that, twist it, bop it, pull it, push it...."  Whatever it takes to either numb or make myself feel like I'm meeting the need for love and value deep within myself.  

This is crazy.  We are doing this everyday, walking down this destructive path until we see the holiness of God.  What is it about God's holiness that changes us?  

In Old Testament when the priests were commanded by God to separate and cleanse and purify things before offering them to God, the people practiced these rituals and habits because in doing so God was helping them see the vast differences of common compared to holy, inferior to superior, normal versus divine, good versus epic, time versus eternity, light and dark, clean and unclean.  

All were practices in and of themselves merely teaching them about how vastly different God is compared to everything else.  That was the purpose.  That is the purpose of our lives on earth, to desire the highest love life with God.  

But we have grown confused and unable to see the differences.  We live a double life instead.  One as sacred and the other as secular rather than one holy life.  We think prayer and going to church is one thing while eating, dancing, playing with our friends at school or work is another thing.  We tend to keep God in a box or maybe in our closet, so we can conveniently reach out for Him when we have a need to, but also can keep Him quiet when we just want to do what we want without His glaring bible commanding eyes on us.  

The problem here is that we think God only loves good people.  So in order to stay on God's good side we go to him when we are prepared to look humble or sorry or hard working or happy.  But when crap hits the fan or our lustful passions and selfish desires for value come raging out we try and close our eyes and run away from the presence of God.  We are ashamed and we don't want to expose how guilty we feel, so we just shut Him out of our minds.  Out of sight, out of mind.

No holy and perfect love life here.  We would rather not look at God in the face during our "other-worldly" moments.  Only during our Christian moments.  And that's how we live double lives. 

Even now as I write this I am confronted by my own double life.  How I turn my gaze toward God when I need to feel loved and forgiven rather than because He Himself is beautiful to gaze upon over anything else.  We don't look to God to be saved, we look to Him because we are saved and we know His love, we drink from His love deeply, and we are enamored by His love even in eating, napping, driving and meeting others.  It's THAT VASTLY different and set apart.  

God is teaching us this very truth about Himself just as He did for the Israelites when he brought them out of slavery.  Out of fear and into love.

He sent His son to remove our sins so that guilt and shame become beautiful doors that we walk through freely to meet with God.  What appears is not what is.  We are no longer slaves to sin, even though we still sin and we experience difficulty in the renewing of our minds by the Holy Spirit, all this is to bring us closer to Love Himself.  Our sins are what remind us that He loved us so much to die for us, our gazing at Him is something we find we start naturally doing because He is beautiful to look at, and our hearts desiring and walking in obedience to His commands is the by product of having fallen more and more deeply in love.  Suddenly we find ourselves in a place where nothing separates us from the love of God.  No trial, since trials are what strengthen the very faith that enable us to experience communion with God, no reward since all things begin to dim when we see the vast value and holiness of knowing God intimately.  Nothing but God remains beautiful in our hearts, minds and eyes.  

That is what is happening to you right now.  To me.  To all those who belong to our most Holy God.

The reason we pray and set aside days for church and fellowship with people and times to read the Word of God is not because those are holy things that make us holy.  They are to teach and remind us who the Holy God is, these commands fix our gaze on the holiness of God.  And the more we fix our eyes on Him, falling asleep, sinning, and forgetting at times along the way, the more we practice the more natural it will become.  To form a habit of looking at God is to form the habit of intentionally seeking Him, which is to offer our whole life for the gain of entering a love relationship with the greatest love of all.  

To worship the Holy God in spirit (the part of us that is within) and in truth (honesty), offering what we have as small and weak as that may be.  

Look at Jesus.  Look at Him!  Don't take your eyes off of Him even when you sin.  But look at Him.  Even when you take a nap or go for a swim, look at Him.  Even when you are in pain, feeling hurt by the words of a friend, look at Him!  Even when your mind runs wild with bodily cravings for money, sexual pleasure, addictions, fame, recognition, comfort or anything else, quickly look at Him!  Keep looking at Him.  When we see Him as He is, we see ourselves as we are, loved and most valuable.  Our idols will begin to lose their shimmery glow, because it was only by our worship of them that they had any power in the first place.  We give them power and the ability to shine when we keep staring at them, but when our eyes look at Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, we see how holy and vastly set apart His beauty truly is.

  "Let us believe that God is in all our simple deeds and learn to find Him there." - Tozer

So holy is He that we want Him. 

We must see how beautiful He is if we are to stop worshipping the lesser beautiful objects in our hearts.   Look at Him intently.  May the Holy Spirit lead your clouded hearts to make every effort to turn your gaze to Him more and more as the artificial lights from the idols die down and you begin to be awed by the clarity of His beauty, the One who loves you. 

Jmegrey

God's presence in our reality

Grasping eternity as evidence that we know and believe in God to be real.

"The soul has eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear." -Tozer

Relationship and intimacy with God produces a feeling of His presence in your life.  Just like if my mom comes to my room and strokes my hair and tells me how much she loves me and how proud she is of the hurdles she's seen me go through with courage, in that moment with her talking to me I am no more or less legally her daughter.  The difference between that moment and the minutes before she entered my room to talk to me is that I feel her love for me.  I am filled with the feeling of love and value that she gives me, and this affirms me that I'm so loved.  Her words and time with me confront my fears and insecurities, sweeping them away with her presence.  Her presence in my presence is what makes the feeling real. Otherwise I am legally her daughter by knowledge without feeling, and there is a lack of intimacy because people can only be as intimate and close with others as they bring their presence and feelings to life.  Presence without meaning is presence without feelings.  If you don't feel loved by your parents then their love has little meaning aside from an assumption that they have to love you because they're your parents.  Which of course is as real as saying Obama is your friend.  But without feeling it, it's not an experiential reality!  So how do we feel the meaning of the presence of others and God?  

By experiencing their real presence!  

Presence is one thing, meaning is another.  How do we approach one another (and consequently God) as a meaningful presence?  In other words, how do we become close and genuinely attuned to one another with a real actual feeling of love?  

This is going to shock many, but the answer is we do this by being ourselves with one another.  That's a scary thought, I know it is for me, because I'm self-critical, self-absorbed, and self-reliant so the thought of being myself with another person is social suicide.  How could anyone accept someone like me?  But that's just the self talking again, because when we come humbly to one another as we are, broken, insecure, and needy for love and affirmation, we come ...as we are!  And that is the only way our presence and the presence of whoever we approach, be it another human being or God Himself, will have actual meaning.  Are there risks of rejection and pain in the process of this experiential practice?  Heck yea!  However when talking about humans and God the risk of being rejected is only present in the former, for if we are drawn to God it is only because He first loved us, so that the system of walking in obedience to God's command for us to love one another must be as connected to our loving God as light is to its speed.  There is nothing known to man that moves faster than the speed of light. Likewise there is nothing known to man more evident that He loves God than the way in which He loves others.  We recognize light as light because of the speed of its particles, and we recognize love for God by our love for one another.  

So all this is right and biblical, to love one another as Christ loves us, because that is how we know that Christ loves us!  How can we love others as Christ loves us if we don't first know how much He loves us?  Only then can we have a standard of which we walk in love for one another.  But this is beyond love as defined by His sacrifice and service to us, this is about our relationship with God.  The experience we have of being loved by God for our true selves, the forgiven and redeemed selves, the more we will be naturally able to love others likewise.  If we have a bunch of concepts and ideas of what being loved by God is like based on the bible or books we read, without any actual experience of being loved for who we are, what does that do?  It gives us much knowledge of presence but little meaning of presence.  I can know my parents love me, but there is a difference between knowing they love me because they say it or do something to show it, but if I don't genuinely feel loved by them then I don't have a personal experience of my self being approached in all my senses to that infused felt meaning of the word.  I have to feel it myself for myself to experience it!  Feelings are the sacred language of the soul because no one can tell you that your feelings are what they are.  You are the only one who has direct access to feeling your feelings! 

So as we become open and honest about our feelings, since they are our personal true selves coming out, then we can genuinely see each other for who we all really are.  Some may be found greedier than others, some more vain, some more seemingly rude, some more pretentious, but we don't reveal our feelings in order to hurt others.  We reveal our feelings to be honest with one another as our goal is to know one another intimately and truthfully.  Accepting one another, forgiving one another, and learning to trust one another as we become less and less deluded by our false ideal of our self--who we want others to perceive us as, apart from who we really are (or how we really feel) because we think that is the only way we will be loved and valued. 

While sins secretly embed themselves in us we may hauntingly justify this unwanted thing by busying ourselves with "good deeds" or spiritual disciplines that run a course completely unconnected to the heart.  We say "I love you brother, I love you sister" and turn around and inwardly judge or criticize them for their behavior. 

Our sins are not something we do, they are something we are.  Having people know us helps us better see ourselves and the blind spots that are making us stumble.  To be known, felt and heard is crucial for another to be able to assess and help us as God's vessel, because God uses the church to communicate with His children.

"To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them.  The more we are honest with our feelings, thoughts, opinions, and questions, the more we avail ourselves to be examined by the body of Christ for wisdom and biblical corrections for our character."

-Tozer  

I was speechless and quiet; I kept silent, 

even from speaking good, 

and my pain intensified. 

My heart grew hot within me; as I mused, 

a fire burned. I spoke with my tongue: 

“ Lord, reveal to me the end of my life 

and the number of my days. 

Let me know how short-lived I am."

(Psalms 39:2-4 HCSB)

David wrote this psalm and at first I never understood what it meant, it was so vague and I kind of just related to bits and pieces ambiguously.  However, reading this again, I find that perhaps there was a time when David, too, was in so much of his own thoughts and his self was so isolated and kept unexposed that when all he had was God to cry out to it felt painful because life seemed so vaporous and unmeaningful, cruel.  God sovereignly isolated him to bring out these emotions in him.  David said he was speechless and silent and it intensified his pain!  He found out that keeping silent was not that great after all, and this was by God's grace that he came to understand this.  We are not called by God to be perfect, because that WOULD most likely mean we would keep silent and relate to people as little as possible thinking that no harm done is better than harm done.  But David teaches us that the harm done to our self is worse!  We see and experience God as cruel, we make nothing of His power and His sovereignty, as we try and minimize our show of wrongdoing.  Many of us do this because we simply think it's the right thing to DO, regardless of the condition our hearts end up in.  God is about the heart, not what we do!  Because where your heart is there your treasure will be also (Luke 12:34).  

Does your heart treasure God?  

Does your heart treasure the people in your church?  

What does your heart treasure?  

If you don't know, being honest about your feelings will help others be able to help you more to see where your blind spots are.  A wise man learns bed those that correct him, but a mocker hates it and wants to avoid it at all costs so he'll more likely not be open and honest for fear of being wrong! 

(Proverbs 9:8)

"Don't rebuke a mocker, or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you."

God is a reality. 

Love be is a reality. 

Otherwise it's all a phony fake play of things where we approach one another as someone we are not.  We don't share our feelings or thoughts that are most real to us concerning the other, and instead we keep our judgments to ourselves based on our lofty assumptions rather than speaking and seeking the light of truth.  For example, when I get asked on dates I can never bring myself to say that I simply am not interested because the thought of hurting the other person's feelings makes me uncomfortable.  Now the truth is sometimes that I'm simply not interested, but the truth hurts, and so I may drag things on for a while or simply run away or ignore the guy because at least that way I never had to actually say what I thought would hurt him.  I just don't want to be the bearer of bad news. The truth is ugly and hurtful, and yet I know it's more about protecting myself because on the flip side I would prefer guys to be honest with me if they were not interested rather than playing fake and leading me on or making me question myself as if I did something wrong and letting my assumptions torment me.  Of course this honesty is hurtful especially if it means rejection, but wounds that come from an honest heart are sweeter than kisses from an enemy (Proverbs 27:6). 

This is the very courage we need to learn to walk in for our sake because being honest with others, especially when it means that we might be seen in an unwanted light, or risk awkwardness, this is where we trust in God's Word about the truth being better than a lie, about light being greater than darkness. 

This means we see the other as deserving of our honesty, we see the other as honorable.  In other words, we believe that Christ is in the body of believers, that we all together make up His presence.  

Naturally we speak honestly to those that we love most because we want the best for them even when we understand that there is a risk of losing something if we do, and usually there is.  But God desires for us to walk in truth with each other because the opposite of that is walking in distances and fakeness from one another harboring judgments in our hearts which we ironically find more acceptable than outwardly saying something honest because it might hurt them or ourselves.  Is not the heart what God sees, though?  So it matters more to God what's in our hearts over what we do, because what we do is naturally messing up.  That's why God gave us the command to forgive one another as He forgave us (the parable of the servant who was given the all clear for his gigantic debt to the king, and later beat up another guy who owed him far less than what he had owed the king!  That guy was then called upon and thrown out for such an evil act of unthankfulness.  When we don't forgive someone it's an affront to God because it means we aren't thankful for the fact that He forgave us for a much greater offense we did to Him).  But we are allowed to mess up with one another, because we have the powerful card of forgiveness when we do!  Every believer who believes he or she is forgiven gets this freedom card of being able to then forgive others.  God didn't say to always look nice and clean on the outside while the inside is ugly.  That's a Pharisee!  Real love from a pure heart is one that walks in an experiential practice of love and forgiveness with others, and that in turn draws us into the experience of the meaning and feelings we get from the presence of God as He says "I love you, you are my delight, and my child--heir to all that I have in My kingdom."

Heaven becomes a reality.  Eternity becomes something actualized throughout this process.

When we see eternity with our eyes hear God's voice with our ears, we are becoming more like Him. 

Tozer prays:

"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, 

and it has both satisfied me 

and made me thirsty for more. 

I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. 

O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; 

I long to be filled with longing; 

I thirst to be made more thirsty still. 

Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, 

that so I may know Thee indeed. 

Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." 

Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee 

up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. 

O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold on eternal things. 

Open my eyes that I may see; 

give me acute spiritual perception; 

enable me to taste Thee and know that Thou art good. 

Make heaven more real to me than any earthly thing has ever been. 

Amen."

Sometimes other people pray the words that I myself cannot begin to form, and I thank God that I am not alone for this very reason, to see God more clearly through the eyes that surpass my own two. 

Jmegrey

God's Control over me

Who is God?

Sometimes I become so aware that the God I serve is lost in my mental drawers like a messy garage.  I walk into the house, the garage door closes behind me, and I'm certain the stuff in there will still be there but I'd rather not rummage through it right now.  In the same way God is somewhere in a drawer in my head, and there are so many things going on in there that I would rather walk away from the mess, shut that mental door, and place my attention on the matters right in front of me.  Matters like feelings, present situations, future concerns, money, health, and all of those selfish ambitions that easily occupy the forefront of my mind--without God.  

The problem with doing, thinking or feeling anything without God with me is that they become worthless.  My feelings become worthless without God.  My health becomes worthless without God.  My present situations become worthless without God.  Everything becomes meaningless, hence worthless, without God.  

So how come I shut Him out when He is the life and light in each of the things that make me essentially my best self?  My only self, really.  Everything else is a delusion since I can perceive myself to be something apart from Him, but in absolute truth there is nothing apart from Him (John 15:5) 

I guess that's something I keep struggling with.  Why God?  Why do I keep shutting You out when You make everything good?  Everything with You has light and life.  You liven my feelings, bring meaning to my past, present and future circumstances, You direct my steps, You supply life to my health, You feed me and provide all my needs, and yet I find myself closing the door of my attention on You.  

Perhaps a part of it has to do with shame, as in I don't want God to see the actual crap I'm dealing with, despite the fact that He already sees it.  He's not behind a closed door in the absolute sense, He's only behind a closed door in the realm of my attention.  It's like kids who get scared and close their eyes, because closing your eyes means you won't see what's there.  But of course just closing your eyes does nothing to remove oneself from where they are or what is there.  God is there, but I mentally become afraid, ashamed, angry, and downright resistant to opening my spiritual eyes to His presence in the midst of my everything.  

So a part of it is shame, but another part is skepticism.  I just don't see how things will go the way they should go if God gets full control.  Not because I don't trust God, but because I don't trust myself!  I'm sure God would do His God-thing and all would be perfect, but if I'm added to the mixture I'll for sure botch it up.  I hate the thought of free will.  It's so scary, because I have known myself to screw up way too many times to think I can even cooperate with God.  All will be going well, and then He will ask me to do something and I'll mess things up.  I always mess up, fail, and quit.  That's what I know about myself.  So when it comes to bringing my crap to God, the thought of cooperating with Him is terrifying and hopeless.  

Learning about God's Sovereignty was one of the most startling and awesome doctrines I had ever grasped at.  To read something like Psalms 139:

"Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up; 

You understand my thoughts from far away. 

You observe my travels and my rest; 

You are aware of all my ways. 

Before a word is on my tongue, 

You know all about it, Lord. 

You have encircled me; 

You have placed Your hand on me.

...even there Your hand will lead me; 

Your right hand will hold on to me.

Your eyes saw me when I was formless; 

all my days were written in Your book 

and planned before a single one of them began."

-Psalms 139:1-5, 10, 16

That washed over me like a glorious waterfall because it meant that He was really in control.  It meant I was really not in control and that I really had no say in what I did or how I would cooperate with Him.  It meant that I couldn't screw up, fail or even quit because I wouldn't be involved at all!  Haha I mean, to me that was awesome news.  I want nothing to do with this process, I just want God to hold me.  That's it.  I don't want to try this or sacrifice something or even be called to obey Him on my part.  All I want is to be still and know that He is God.  

Be still.  I wonder if I can even do that, probably not, so perhaps I just want to look at Him.  Is that still being still?  I just want what I do to have no consequences, and for God to take care of me despite what I do.  I want Him to have His way with me, so that every decision, movement, action, thought and feeling are under His Sovereignty.  I want to be with Him who controls everything.  I want Him to rule and to reign.  

"The Lord, the God of Hosts — 

He touches the earth; it melts, 

and all who dwell in it mourn; 

all of it rises like the Nile 

and subsides like the Nile of Egypt. 

He builds His upper chambers in the heavens and lays the foundation of His vault on the earth. He summons the waters of the sea 

and pours them out on the face of the earth. Yahweh is His name."

-Amos 9:5-6

I want to be with Him, holding His hand, while He does His thing. 

"Your presumptuous heart has deceived you, 

you who live in clefts of the rock 

in your home on the heights, 

who say to yourself, 

“Who can bring me down to the ground? ” Though you seem to soar like an eagle 

and make your nest among the stars, 

even from there I will bring you down. 

This is the Lord’s declaration." 

-Obadiah 1:3-4 

I don't want to be apart from Him and His control.  I want for what He says to resonate with me.  I don't want to think that I have anything to do with my place, I don't want to care about my place, I just want to keep holding His hand and relying on His ways and His doing things His way without me even getting involved.  I want it all to just happen while I'm with Him, not apart from Him. 

My prayer is to hold His hand because God's Sovereignty saves me everyday. 

Jmegrey 

Feel the realness of eternity

Eternity of love and joy and the present pleasures of right now.

The choices seem obvious, of course I would rather have an eternity of joy than a few years of it, especially if the latter meant an eternity of hell later, but do I really believe that?  

The present stings.  It's a timer waiting to finish and each day that passes by, each year that I accumulate, every wrinkle, every joint pain, and all the ways in which I become aware that I'm getting older mean I'm running out of time.  It also means I'm almost at the close of my life, and like all good scrap books I want to be able to look back and smile because this was my life.  

But today I've got eternity stamped on my eyeballs, as Jonathan Edwards once wrote.  Thinking about eternity always reorients my thoughts, flips them upside down like a layered cake on the floor mushed to a blob.  What the hell am I doing?  What the hell is going on? Why do I keep saying what the hell?  Because everything changes when eternity comes into focus.  

We talk about how hard it is to surrender everything to God, but no one ever says how hard it is to stop self gratifying ourselves and accept that God loves us.  We want to say that it's just difficult to sacrifice and count the cost to follow Jesus, but really what we are saying is that we don't trust Jesus, we don't even know Jesus, and we are skeptical that He even exists. But we don't say that, we prefer saying what makes us sound much more humble or vulnerable.  Sure, as baby Christians that's likely where it all starts, but as you mature in your faith it shouldn't keep coming back to that.  Eventually you realize that the real reason for why it's so hard is because you just love your sexual pleasure, fame, acknowledgment, beauty, and instant gratifications more than you love God.  Even though we know God died for us, and that He loves us so faithfully, the more we keep saying or thinking that we are trying to love Him back or that we are giving up something for God sounds like bull crap.  He died for you?  So what does that mean?  He died for you.  For you.  It was something He did for you, so what was in it for us?  Salvation.  Everyone who then believes in Jesus is saved, because that's what was in it for us.  So where do we start coming off with the idea that we are doing something for Him? 

It's a sick delusion, and everyone attempting to give something back to God is decaying from it.  We don't give anything back to God, we enter into intimacy with Him.  That's it. 

Once that's fixed in our hearts, and it may take years to accept it, we can expose the real issue. The real issue then becomes, what about my life and the circumstance of it?  Why aren't I happy? Why don't I feel great?  Why does my wife or husband have to be like that.  Why are my kids like that?  Why am I still single? Why do I feel ugly? Why am I not successful? Why this, why that, why all this crap in my life? And we point our crooked fingers at God in the secret depths of our hearts, disguising it as "I'm sacrificing this for God" or "I'm doing this for God." So, as C.S. Lewis put it, we inwardly put God in the dock. 

What the hell is up with that? It's sick, and it's a delusion.  We don't believe in God and then never struggle.  In fact we don't believe in God and then have things go our way in this life at all.  I don't know why I sound so angry, probably because I have a bad case of this disease myself and it's so stinking rotten.  It leaves me discontent with God, with myself, and with life.  I can't have God and my life the way I think it should go.  I can have God and bank all my life on the hope of eternity with Him as I suffer and see things happen so out of my control with only a prayer in my heart that God would somehow take care of me as I am tossed and smashed by things that do that to me in my head, or I can remain holding on to life's pleasures like a steady sailing ship with cheap lip service that I believe in God.  

Here's what I'm not saying: I'm not saying that we shouldn't live our lives to the best of our ability with what we have been given, and to always seek out to learn from our past mistakes as we strive at it.  That's all common sense, and anyone who claims that that's what I'm saying just wants to validate their lip service to God. 

What I'm saying is that when we have eternity in our hearts, it means eternity with God.  It means after all this and that has run its course, we have what we want at the end!  We have eternity with God!  So what about now?  What about all these desires and needs and feelings that cause us to be either happy or scared?  These, my friends, are precious taps by the Holy Spirit.  Every feeling matters when it comes to what's really going on in our hearts.  Do not ignore the feelings, because they need to be touched and felt by you otherwise they will callous over your heart like a fibrous layer, desensitizing the place where we experience God's love most.  I may be wrong, but it just makes sense to me that feeling my pain and disappointment are signals that the Spirit sends me when He is letting me know about an area in my heart that is resisting God.  It's about getting very very specific as to what exactly I am resisting.  At this stage in my life, I need to be emotionally open to God about every feeling, because that's what relationship is about.  It's about communicating what's really in our hearts and then being communicated back to regarding that feeling with other feelings.  When I tell a friend how bad my day went and they communicate back to me with a matching feeling, that's good!  We all know it feels good to be understood, and we all know how bad it feels to be talked at instead of to.  God wants to talk to me, and at this time I'm just learning how to do that.  

So He's been spiraling the conversation towards eternity.  Each feeling I've had and dealt with with Him has lead me more and more to this specific place: eternity. 

I started out feeling numb and unheard.  And He spoke to me in that and understood me by validating those feelings in me.  I wasn't wrong for feeling numb, because I was feeling numb!  You can t go wrong with feelings, that's the crazy things about it.  All your feelings are your feelings.  Haha.  Meaning they are literally what you are feeling, and you know it because you feel it.  Haha.  God validates every one of my feelings.  If I'm feeling alone He validates it, when I feel scared or angry He validates it, and when I feel hopeless He validates it.  It is in this validation that intimacy comes about.  When God validates a feeling of mine He uses gentle wisdom and understanding as the means.  I feel sad then He says "yea!  I know!  And you are sad because..."  And this is where trust, love, truth and grace take place.   I trust that God understand me, I experience love because He understands me, and I become open to the truth because I know it's out of love, and finally I recognize the grace He gives me for every change that takes place without me having done anything but receive.  

Where am I going with this?  Well I guess I am saying that feelings have lead me to see eternity. Not just good feelings or holy feelings, but all my feelings.  In fact the worse my feelings were the more I met with God.  To be honest in my heart was to see how resistant I was to eternity.  When we think about eternity it must be beautiful for us to desire it, otherwise it's just some meaningless word that we throw around.  Ugh. 

But God cares about how you feel, like when Jesus went to go see Lazarus, even though He already knew He was going to raise him from the dead he saw Mary crying and He wept too because she was weeping.  She felt sad, and God cares about validating how we feel even if our feelings are wrong about the situation.  It's how we feel, and it's how we relate to God.  Without feeling it's not a relationship.  

Eternity must feel real and true and awesome.  

How does eternity feel to you?  Do you feel curious? Do you feel uncomfortable? Do you feel nothing at all?  However you feel about eternity will be a good indicator how you actually feel about God.  So bring that, whatever it is, and let the relationship begin right where you are.  You can't feel differently until you feel what's first there and work through it.  Or maybe you should just ignore all your feelings and just do a bunch of stuff that you think God wants you to do, and that will be good and common grace will help you do a lot with that, but it is not a relationship with God.  God cares about you.  Not about what you do.  I guarantee that once you get intimate with God the doing part will be so much more meaningful.  

But to each his own.  I can't tell anyone to do anything, I can only point to God and how He changed my heart.  I'm just a beggar telling every other beggar where to find food.  We get and we get and we get. We never give God anything that wasn't already His. Haha.  We get love.  But if you don't feel it how will you know it's real love?  

Right?  Knowledge of love is one thing, but even knowledge of it has its limits.  Nothing feels as powerful as when another person makes you feel genuinely loved versus a quick text from a distant friend saying "love ya!" That's not love, but love is when someone meets you in your pain, holds you, and takes care of your needs.  Your actual needs, not some vague need.  What you really need.  Validation.  Safety.  Understanding.  Touch.  Warmth.  Blessings.  All of those deep needs. 

God wants to give that to you.  Will you be open to His presence to give you all of your most sacred needs?  All you need is to open your heart and come as you are.   It's harder for us to accept that God loves us, we would rather work for it, earn it, and beat ourselves up for when we don't do it well.  That's what everyone prefers to do.  Can you just accept that God loves you as you are?  That who you are is who He wants to give love to.  

That's it.  That's the gospel.  That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, Christ loved us while we were still sinners.  We sin and He loves us.  Sin is taken care of.  It's not about sin, it's about accepting His love.  It's about eternity with Him and His love.  An eternity of that very same love from where we started to where we end at our last dying breath on earth.  

From now on it will be the Holy Spirit changing what's in your heart, He does it, not us.  Sometimes we just need to sit back and let Him search our hearts.  We need to feel our pain, feel our sorrow, and all the while He will be the one feeling with us.  We become weak, but He becomes strong as we see how much we really rely on Him to bring us our every need: Him. 

Feeling the realness of eternity.

Jmegrey

The To-Do List

I thought I would have kids by now.  

Standing in the clubhouse at the village town I live in now with my parents, I see young women with their 5 year old boys on bicycles and helmets riding by, and I look at the mom's faces to see how much older they are compared to me.  The younger they are the more biting the sting of my situation becomes.  

I thought I'd be a mother by now.  I'm 28 years old, I don't have a job, I go to grad school at seminary, and I live with my parents for obvious reasons pertaining to the no job part.  The thing about this is that I am in school, and my goal for being in seminary is an inward healing that I so very much need.  My past has been a whirlwind of trying this and doing that and so many incomplete things.  Here I am now, and as steady and strangely normal as this feels, it feels right.  I get impatient, for sure, and I start to think I'm way behind and that I should get a job or date and get married, and all these other filler events that people do, but what are we all doing?  Why are we working and marrying and having kids?  

I know for me that it's a box I can check off more than anything else.  To bring value to myself.  However, I'm not getting anywhere with all these checks in my list of to-do items in life.  Once they're checked they become trash.  College.  Traveling.  Jobs.  Dating.  Beauty.  What then?  Why are all these good things not as good as they appeared to be when the box was unchecked?  

This is where I stopped checking boxes.  

Obviously my life list of things to do never got shorter, if anything they kept getting longer, but I had to stop.  When did I stop?  I stopped when I realized I didn't want to live like this anymore.  I had a job at a medical office for 2 years, then I felt the recoil in me as I longed for life to be better than that.  I moved to Nashville, got a couple of nanny and server jobs that kept the bills paid, but that too went flat.  My gifts were nowhere to be found in those jobs, but the experience they both gave me were memorable.  The community I made there was refreshing, and I have a few heart embedded friends from there to this day.  Not to mention a couple of memorable bachelors that I dated there. Haha.  Really only 2 though.  Great guys.  So then I made my way to Cambodia.  Another guy.  But also a time to be in an atmosphere of worship and study of God's Word.  It fueled my appetite for the Word and I left early from the missions program because it got too hard for me physically.  Cambodia is hot, dusty, lots of bugs, and very poor.  I met some really awesome people while I was there, but it just so happened that I had to leave because I just didn't want to stay any longer.  I was beginning to get sick more often and the weather and work was getting to me.  I felt guilty and ashamed for quitting the program, but I also felt God's grace in such a potent way because of it.  The guy I had initially met there just turned out to be wrong for me, but the whole situation worked out really well, and I saw God's faithfulness to me as His beloved daughter in the midst of it all.  I came back home in this weird place of vulnerability and raw questioning.  

I had stopped chasing my dreams since I quit my medical assistant job, right before moving to Nashville, although perhaps I had stopped long before then, too.  I was in a stagnant place for a very long time.  I don't even really know how long I had been numb, maybe since my last year as an undergrad up until Nashville?  What is that, 2009-2012?  Geez.  4 years man.  Four years, the freaking span of high school all over again.  That's what it was.  4 years of the most emotionally stunted time of my life, where nothing had much feeling and I was running my life into the ground.  I was dying, and moving to Nashville was what revived my heart in some way.  The change of scenery, friends, work, and city all helped me think more clearly, get out of the routine I felt trapped by.  Although I was still in a lot of unaware pain, numb in such deep places in my heart, I experienced more of life because of the people I met there.  

People.  I never knew, in such an explicit way, how important people are.  They're amazing and beautiful and profoundly efficacious to experiencing happiness.  So where was I? Ah yes, now I'm back home, with my parents, and although my environment and city, friends and a lot of my routines are back the outcome is completely different.  So different I'm almost tempted to say it's not the same at all, but the truth is, I am struggling to be back where I was with this new heart of mine.  I'm back, as if I am going through the same obstacle course again, and all the memories of how I failed and got hurt feel scary and threatening, but they are just that, threats.  So why am I here today, back here where I was during those 4 years of despair?  I ask God now, why am I here now?  Why haven't I checked off more boxes?  Why am I living with my parents?  Jobless.  The only answer I seem to get is that I am right where I'm supposed to be and what God is doing in my heart is much more everlasting than what a million checked boxes would be.  But still.  I'm cynical about God's work and much more eager to get to the unchecked boxes because a part of me just wants to redeem those 4 lost years.  Another part of me just wants to be like everyone else who's got a lot of checked boxes, regardless of the way and shape their heart might be in.  

To me the list of things to get done and accomplish feel more important, but yet...the really hilarious thing is that I am inadequate for the list.  I could start attempting it, but I know by sheer man power and ability that I wouldn't be able to get the list done the way I would want to get it done: marry a hot successful man, have 5 beautiful healthy kids, look hot, be healthy, write and publish books, and other seemingly productive things that are more vague than explicit (because that's how fantasy thinking is) but I'm also painfully aware that a lot of that I don't have much control over.  So, at best, I'd probably get the list done in a half-assed kind of way, and I don't like that thought either.  So I literally have no choice but to stop, thank God, because that's probably the only way God would get me to stop, fail-proof because He loves me too much to let me even have a chance at continuing after the empty boxes.  

I didn't know it back then, and I'm only starting to see it now, but at a much deeper level of truth I just wanted to be genuinely loved, cared for and valued as a person, as me...whoever me was.   Me, as I was just never made the cut, and so the checked boxes were almost like me becoming the me that would be loved, cared for and valued.  Those boxes meant everything to me.  Failing to mark them was so hard to handle because it felt like I was failing at being lovable, cared for, and valuable.  I had these high standards for my life, and they were so high that I couldn't even give myself a decent chance at attaining them, they were sky high!  For gods to accomplish, really.  And I was no goddess at the time, not until God came and lived through me.  I became more of my identity in Christ, but that didn't mean my list was now ready for me to take on.  It meant God's list was taking over.  

So I entered seminary with a heart like a bud, having emerged from the seed and soil of deadness, I feel like I've been given this opportunity to go deep within my heart with God and be about that.  Be about my heart rather than about the list.  Still, the old list hasn't gone away, it's like a sneeze on the verge of happening.  It tickles your face and clogs up your nose and you just want to let it out, get it done with, and when you don't your head feels irritated and incomplete.  That stupid sneeze won't come out and it's not like it will do anything significant for you if it does except for feel relieving.  Your eyes water and it doesn't come, and you just get annoyed at yourself because there's not much you can do to help it happen.  The old list is like that.  Except maybe not.  Maybe the old list has actual significant and detrimental consequences if it doesn't get done, such as having a job!  True.  So what am I supposed to make of this situation of not only wanting to get the list done, not having control of how to get the list done, but also feeling like the list shouldn't get done in a way where just getting it done would mean it was done?  

Answer:  Be right where I am.  I am getting the new list done but I'm getting it done in a way where I have no control over when each box will get checked.  The only indicator I have for the list getting done in such a way is my heart.  

I'm more raw and real than I was during my 4 years in the wilderness.  It's one thing to wander aimlessly without hope and with very little idea as to what is going on, to now be walking in an unfamiliar environment as an ambassador of love.  There have always been people around me, but before I couldn't see them and they really didn't matter to me.  Now I see them like lost bodies in an ocean.  I'm lost too, but I've got this boat thing, and I'm pulling people in, because I was once in the same sea as a lost body just waiting for something to happen, someone to save me.  I'm back from being rescued, and it's different this time.  I'm at the same vast sea of lost people, but I've got a boat and every time I pull someone in the boat gets bigger.  I have no idea where this boat is taking me, but I'm just pulling people in because they look lost.  I'm not exactly not lost, cuz I'm still at sea, and there's no real shore in sight, but I've got a boat now.  My heart has something different this time and God is using me as a vessel to lift others up in love.  I have nothing to offer but love, and that was actually never on the old list.  Haha.  Ironically.  

Loving others genuinely was never on my list, but when I say that the list is getting done I mean that I'm doing something else and the list is changing with what I'm doing. So I question myself and God so much when I notice this.  How come the list is different and how do I feel about that?  Sometimes I feel awesome and I'm enamored by how beautiful Jesus's plans are, especially when I see the faces of people light up, but other times I feel like something is wrong with me and the list needs to stay the way it always was because there's no shore in sight and this boat can only hold so many people before it gets crowded.  I have my doubts and my criticisms for what God is doing or for what I'm doing, really.  I start to think I'm behind and maybe I am, maybe I should be this or that by now, or more proactive or whatever other vague checkbox, but I'm not.  This is where I am.  When the list changes I change with it, and that's scary.  I never loved people like this when I was getting the boxes checked, in fact when I had more I loved less.  Maybe God has me here because if I wasn't here I wouldn't be willing to do what He said I should be doing, the greatest achievement in life is loving others. 

"Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

- 1 Corinthians 13:13 

Jmegrey.

I still hope that 2 years from now I'll have more checked boxes to say "oh, but see in the end God gave me what I wanted so boo yah!" But I get the sense that 2 years from now a more grown me will just have more people in my life that I genuinely love.  And no one loves as well as those who have nothing BUT love to offer.  I pray that God has me here for such a purpose, if not I'm pretty lame, really.  But if so, then no list of a million checked boxes will be able to outshine the rising star in me.   

But You are

I'm not patient. 

But You are.

I'm not still.

But You are.

I'm not proactive.

But You are.

I'm not strong.

But You are.

I'm not put together.

But You are. 

I'm not the best 

But You are.

I'm not able.

But You are.

I'm not enduring.

But You are.

I'm not in control.

But You are.

I'm not perfect.

But You are.

I'm not free.

But You are.

I'm not always well.

But You are.

I'm not courageous.

But You are.

I'm not sure.

But You are.

I'm not whole.

But You are.

I'm not where I want to be.

But You are. 

Abba Father I want to be where You are.  Be where I am because I'm here.  

I said, “You are gods; 

you are all sons of the Most High. However, 

you will die like men 

and fall like any other ruler.” 

(Psalms 82:6-7 HCSB)

Sometimes it's learning to die like mere immortal men but live like gods that becomes tricky.  We are gods in decaying bodies, but God will raise us up.  I need to fix my eyes on Him.  His promises.  Otherwise I see too much immortality.  I need to see what I know is true: that God loves me and that He is with me all the time, especially in times when my imminent death feels threatening.  Death starts to threaten me by taking away my value, stripping me of worth, and yelling at me to hurry and do something to avoid the sting.  But there is no more sting of death.  I am in Christ.  I can rest.  So here I am, and I present myself to God.  Just as I am.  The only thing I am certain of about myself is the above.  I want to be more certain about the truth about God.   That's my prayer. 

Jmegrey 

Grace and trial

Today I feel like I have nothing together.

I just want to stay in one place by myself and breathe.

I don't want to meet anyone, write anything (even though I'm writing this), or even do something I normally enjoy doing like taking a walk or ...even read...although I'll probably read soon.  I can't pray, I can't talk, I can't read the bible, and I don't want to do any of that.

I'm not trying to get happy or make myself feel better... Although in some sense I am, but I want to be myself. Just like this.  Unmoving.  Without a care.  Except I have a million cares flying around my head like an annoying cloud of gnats. 

So what is it, what is it that You are doing now Lord? 

I pray for wisdom to understand my situation and wisdom to discern the way my heart feels, wisdom to draw from what my head knows, and self control from what my sinful nature desires all the time. 

What is it?  Please.  Just tell me what to do, but don't tell me to do nothing.  Although the nothing is all I can do. 

A grace and a trial in one.

Jmegrey. 

How to hear the Holy Spirit

Remember then how far you have fallen; 

repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you 

and remove your lampstand from its place — unless you repent.

---We never stop needing to repent. 

Because we never stop needing help.

We never become self-reliant from God to habituate us toward Him and His will.  

But how will we know how to rely on God if we do not experience what reliance looks like?  

We have one another to practice and to habituate our hearts on what it means to be reliant on another. 

Unless we first experience a heart of reliance on others in the Body of Christ, needing help, then how will we know what reliance on God actually is?  It will remain a concept, and be just as good as whatever we want it to be according to our fancy.  Reliance on another is an experience that teaches us the reality of the concept, it confronts our ideas about it because it is the actual experience of it!  This is why Jesus taught us to love one another, and to be united.  The more we experience our lives with one another the more we avail ourselves to the experience and truth of what it means to rely on God.  We must become precious to one another.---

“Anyone who has an ear 

should listen to what the Spirit says 

to the churches. 

I will give the victor 

the right to eat from the tree of life, 

which is in God’s paradise.

---Listen to the Spirit's words given for the churches.  Given to your church.  What is the Spirit saying to the church you attend?  Let Him speak truth into the areas of lies, exposing them more specifically, and leading back to life.  Every church needs to be listening so long as you have ears.----

Don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer. Look, the Devil is about to throw some 

of you into prison to test you, 

and you will have affliction for 10 days. 

Be faithful until death, 

and I will give you the crown of life. 

---we are about to suffer, and some are already suffering.  We suffer in whatever we find is hard for us to live with.  That could be mental strains, physical pains, relational chasms, or boredom.  Suffering is anything that we find difficult, by definition.  There is no right or wrong suffering, there is just suffering, a feeling that comes with a situation.  But suffering is also the only way to practice faithfulness to God.  Suffering proves the genuineness of our faith, much like how loving others confronts our genuine reliance on God, our faith is only as good as our suffering.  That's why James exclaimed that we should consider it our joy to suffer in Christ, because it gives our faith a chance to prove itself and confront us with the truth so that we can grow.  I suffer and I also fear suffering, but what if we began to welcome suffering?  What would that look like?  No one needs to search for suffering, you will soon find that it is something of a gift by God given to everyone but not received by everyone when it happens.  So it's a matter of our view of suffering, our view of difficulty, to understand what it means to be in pain and in joy at the same time...a very curious state of understanding.  I often think in very black and white terms, so this concept is difficult for me to practice, but when I feel the fear of suffering (in forms of my doubting, worrying or anxiety) I have stop and ask the Holy Spirit to remind me what exactly I am trying to resist.  

Am I resisting suffering, which is the gift? 

Or am I resisting the sin? 

In other words, which is more difficult for me to resist?  Usually I find that it feels like the sin is more difficult to resist, but in reality it is the suffering of resisting the sin that is the real problem.

So then the two go hand in hand, meaning that I must be at the same time suffering and seeing my sin together.  The sin is the carriage that carries the gift, but it is not the gift itself to be received.  So that all my sins will be devastating for me to approach, but I must approach them in order to retrieve the gift of suffering that comes from God in the form of resisting the sin so that in every situation I have both what the devil brings and what God brings before me.  

It is this very distinction that means either life or death for us.  We are practicing our ability to walk in fire and water at the same time.  Being both dead and alive.  Suffering and joyful.  Light and dark.  Sinner and saved.  Happy and sad.  Foolish and wise.  Immature and mature. Continually searching while at the same time finding.  Weak and strong at the same time.  The way that Christ was both man and God, we too have the Holy Spirit of God in us while remaining our individual human selves.  Having both God and our humanness in us, the former acting only in contingency on the latter...not apart from one another.  But together. ---

“Anyone who has an ear 

should listen 

to what the Spirit says 

to the churches. 

The victor will never be harmed 

by the second death."

---the first death being our earthly death, literally the first time we die.  Haha.  The second death is the one that means going to hell forever, which is the culmination of absolute death.  The victor, the winner, the one who defeats death : Jesus, will never be harmed by hell.  So Jesus is our only hope of being a victor.  We have to look to Jesus to carry us, include us, choose us, bless us and affirm us as His fellow brothers and sisters.  We do never look to our ability to be a victor.  Only Jesus, our brother, is proof that we are family.  Relationship with Him is our only hope.  And this, too, is a truth that we need to practice with one another, to be confronted by what we believe it means to be a brother, to be family.  We have each other to practice this truth with, and the more we practice with each other the more we will be able to know what it is to be in His family.  A sinner brought into the family of God.  We show what we believe God shows us by being that to others.  And when that other, the sinner (like us) does his or her sinful things to us, we get the opportunity and practice to experience how it is for God to receive us in love when we receive their sinner-ness in love.---

"I will kill her children with the plague, 

Then all the churches will know 

that I am the One 

who examines minds and hearts, 

and I will give to each of you 

according to your works."

---lets realize the "THEN..." And take the killing part as a very helpful reminder and warning of what is to come: God's judgment.  It is always this judgment that matters when we consider our actions.  God's judgment is not our judgment of what we think or say is God's judgment.  It is only God's.  So we know only by relationship with Him, and we know relationship with Him by our relationship with one another.  Simple as that.  We are most confronted by what it looks like to have God and sinner meet, when we interact with one another.  Our being like Christ is not just for the sake of being like Christ!  The purpose is so that we will actually know Him in doing so.  You get to know what mercy feels like when you feel the mercy someone gives you!  You get to know what forgiveness looks like when someone forgives you!  You get to know what love looks like when someone loves you!  We must practice our lives of knowing God with one another, lest we fall into the lie that God's judgment is whatever we want it to be.---

"I will also give him the morning star.

Anyone who has an ear 

should listen 

to what the Spirit says 

to the churches."

-Revelation 2:5, 7, 10-11, 23, 28-29 

---listen.  Listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.  To you.  To your church.

The morning star:

So we have the prophetic word 

strongly confirmed. 

You will do well to pay attention to it, 

as to a lamp shining in a dismal place, 

until the day dawns 

and the morning star rises in your hearts. 

-2 Peter 1:19

A lamp.  

A dismal place.

We see the lamp in a dismal place because it's so different from where it stands.  A light in darkness, but this is what we pay attention to.  Both light and dark, joy and suffering, sin and redemption, resistance and surrender...both are together.  Pay attention to it, and God says we will do well.  

The morning star is mysteriously good.  It rises in our hearts, a star rises in our hearts.  Glorious.  I don't know what it will be like for a morning star to rise in my heart, but I know that what God says will happen...will happen for sure.  A morning star will rise in our hearts because He will give it to us.  It's quite unfathomable, but I want that star, and I have a very good feeling that when it rises in my heart I will know when it happens.  

Until then, we pay attention....what have your thoughts been about?  That is where your attention is.  

Tune your attention to the Holy Spirit 

even if just to pray "hello, Holy Spirit, You're here.  Hello."  Everyday.  Until you are attuned to Him, ready to listen with your ears to what the Spirit says."

Jmegrey

How I love

If anyone says, “I love God,” 

yet hates his brother, 

he is a liar. 

For the person

who does not 

love his brother 

he has seen 

cannot love the God 

he has not seen. 

-1 John 4:20

How do we see God?  Do you hear God?  Do you feel His love for you? Do you see Him working in your life?

Sigh. 

I am a mess.  Completely just a mess.  

Partly because of my temperament, I'm emotionally unstable, I'm deferential with people, and I'm always searching for love/validation/joy in the wrong places.  I'm so bad at this, because I'm so scared of being wrong and feeling the threats of that.  Messing up threatens so much!  It does!  People say you can mess up, and I even tell my high school students that they can and will and must be free to mess up, but I confess that I was wrong to be so insensitive about it.  I was wrong to say the words without considering my own attitude about messing up.  I don't mean slipping here or there and looking like a fool, although that could be the case for you, but messing up for me is botching up something that provides an important thing to my life: Love. 

When I mess up it is closely tied to my access to love.  

So then messing up is not just "oops, my bad, sorry," but it's a deep cut at the confidence I feel in being lovable.  Who loves someone that hurts them or wrecks their life?  Merit.  Love is earned.  You earn love by being good and not messing up.  That's how I've experienced it.  First with my parents as they did their best to raise and rear me by teaching me good from bad, then with friends who held grudges when I messed up with them or vice versa, and even with myself. If I accomplished something I got to feel good, but if I screwed up on a project or quit something I let myself feel like a failure.

It's no wonder then that when I said that I loved God I was a liar.  How could I love God when I let everyone and myself never love me by always filtering my feelings with good for good and bad for bad.  Merit.  I let love in based on merit, and so love NEVER got in.  Because love is not based on merit.  I might've called it love because I didn't know any better, but that's not love it's more like a dealing.  I do this good and I let the good feelings in, I do something bad and I let the bad feelings in.  Aside from the fact that I probably also had a delusion about what was actually "good" and "bad," I was not dabbling in matters of love.  I was more about fear.  Fear of the bad and desire for the good because of the fear.  Love as "feeling good" was great, but "feeling bad" was always worse, and I know this because eventually I sort of went about madly just trying to "do good" not really for the good itself but in order to ward off the bad.  It was never a good for the good in itself, but it was a desire to do good in order to make up for a bad or to erase the bad I knew was always down there.  The bad thoughts.  The bad judgments.  The bad feelings.  They were there and I ran away from them by chasing the good.  Always running, hiding, and trying to get love....out of fear. 

Lately I've found that I'm zeroing in on something less ambiguous, less maddening.  I don't have much, but what I do have is the fact that I'm emotionally unstable.  Haha.  It's true.  I feel like that's all I have at times, that and maybe a pretty good understanding of SOME theological doctrines like penal substitution, predestination, and sanctification....but really I don't.  I mean I know, but I don't know in that way that I'm confident to be able to write a paper on it without stressing out.  I know being emotionally unstable is not seen a positive thing. But it's what I have that I'm most sure about.  I know it and I see it active in my life.

Sigh.  But God has been using that in me and it's been bringing me true joys, real love, and an overwhelming sense of assurance that I'm His very unique and darling daughter.  He has been using my crazy emotional instability to tell me He loves me.  So even though it's not always fun to cry at the slightest tug in my heart at the sight of something good or bad, and it's especially a faucet when I get real honest with God about my life and situations, it's also been the most beautiful part about who I am and how God uses me.  I've learned a lot about love this past year because of my surrender of it to God's purposes.  I used to hate feeling things.  I would numb myself in order to not feel anything, I would keep to myself about what was hurting or bothering me.  I just didn't want my feelings to get in the way, because deep down I felt the rumbling of their unstable craziness.  I was afraid to feel. 

But fear....fear is such a coercive enemy.  Fear is a feeling too!  Fear kept me from the freedom to feel and to be loved in all of who I was made to be.  I came to the point where I confronted God and said that if He was truly good and powerful then I could lift the latch off my emotions and let them run wild and He'd be able to handle it.  I told God that He had better be ready for what I was going to open up, namely my emotional instability.  I did this, no, I still do this because I believe that God can handle it.  And I needed Him to show me He would handle it otherwise it was something that blocked me from truly trusting Him.  I didn't want feel everything because I was scared.  Fear kept me bottled up, suppressing what was really there...I was there, and by not letting out all my emotions I was only who I was without them.  In other words, I was not me completely and truly.  But God kept saying He wanted and wants all of me, especially those things that I am afraid will be the death of me.

Man.  Let me say, that for the first 6 months I sobbed uncontrollably almost 3 times a day.  In the car on my way to school, at school in the prayer chapel, and then the most at night in my bed.  I cried so much I got dehydrated, my eyes would be sore and swollen, but God was with me / is with me still in every cry.  I never knew I was THAT sensitive.  Then my fear of people became more specific and apparent.  The smallest jab at my worth or beauty or ability would hurt so badly.  I let it hurt because I let myself feel without defenses.  I never realized I was THAT sensitive to people!  This was a rough stage...I felt like everyone was against me as I walked through a land mine of hurtful jokes, neglected words, and unreturned text message sentiments.  Haha.  Of course I wouldn't cry in front of them (although sometimes I wouldn't be able to wait) I would quickly find a place in secret and it would me and God at a cry fest.  I cried so much.  I was seeing myself more clearly and God was there...always handling it.  I think I even got mad at Him a couple of times, not because He wasn't handling my emotional craziness but because I was getting sick and tired of all the crying.  I wasn't dying from it, in fact they felt pretty awesome, but having sore puffy eyes makes it hard to wear make up let alone show up to public places like class.  I would get mad but then I'd even cry from that because God would just love me....that's how He handled it.  I couldn't even be mad for long! Haha 

Then came the more recent discovery.  I still cry a lot, because I'm more me than I was before in being emotionally unstable.  However, now I understand the looks on people's faces more when they are hurting, the look that burns in my own eyes when I tell God about the things in my life that hurt me.  I hear people more clearly and I even sometimes connect with their spirits as if I'm embracing that deep part of their heart that just wants to be loved, not dealt with, but just loved just as they are.  I start loving them.  

I mean, I don't know.  Love is so sacred that it feels too cheap to say it so quickly...but it's definitely something.  When I'm with people it's like my emotional instability is the vessel God uses to not only fill me with His love but to give it to others.  How could I not when I have known so well the hurt that I've looked at in myself with uncontrollable sobbing?  Hurting people are my people.  

It makes sense that if I say I love God, really love God then it means I have known what it is to feel loved by Him.   Since I could not have first loved unless God first loved me.  Loved in an unmerited way.  Love in my hurt, anger, bitterness, disappointment and sadness.  When I let the wild animal out, the super emotional Jamie....which I thought for sure no one would love, God did.  God continues to love me, and the way in which He uses me in one of my most terrifying weaknesses has changed the way I love others.  

If anyone says, “I love God,” 

yet hates his brother, he is a liar. 

For the person who does not love 

his brother he has seen 

cannot love the God he has not seen.

-1 John 4:20 

I'm not saying that everyone is emotionally unstable, hahaha!  I sure hope not, at least!  That would be too crazy haha.  But I'm saying that we each have our fears that are signs of what we are holding back from God.  And although it may not be that you are emotionally unstable it will probably mean a lot of tears for whatever it is you find is actually embraced by God.  The very thing in you that you fear is most unlovable about you, that...that's probably what God will use to love you most personally.  And I hope you surrender that to Him, because God's love is a mighty rushing wind sweeping your hair back, a snowflake flurry, a world wonder bigger than all wonders, a ravishingly passionate swell of being swept up in rapturous affection, and everything that makes it all worth whatever pain comes your way.  

Jmegrey

I need Real Love

Okay, deep breath, Holy Spirit, what are my real needs today? 

I need to be reminded: 

"Therefore I will always remind you about these things, even though you know them and are established in the truth you have. I consider it right, as long as I am in this bodily tent, to wake you up with a reminder,"

(2 Peter 1:12-13 HCSB)

I need to to know my advocate for when I sin is Jesus, I need to know that my sins committed along the way are taken care of:

"My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father — Jesus Christ the Righteous One."

- 1 John 2:1-4

I need to know Jesus again and again because it feels unbelievable that I should not feel guilty when I sin! Feels that's way, but by faith is not unbelievable.  The less guilty I feel the more loved I feel: so awesome. 

"I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven because of Jesus’ name. "(1 John 2:12 HCSB)

I need to know that what appears to be is not what will always be, because honestly I appear to be so weak and helpless and small and insignificant and poor and weird and awkward, and older: haha BUT we will be like Him one day: perfect.

"Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is."

 (1 John 3:2 HCSB)

I need to know that if I ever want to see God I can find Him in other believers, talking to them, being honest with them, breaking down my defenses before them, having a close relationship with them....is all the same as having a close relationship with God:

"No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected in us. This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit."

 (1 John 4:12-13 HCSB)

Again, I need to be reminded that ABOVE ALL above faith, above prayer, above reading the Word, above doing good things, above serving others, above using my gifts for God's glory, ABOVE ALL: I need to remember to maintain an INTENSE LOVE for my brothers and sisters.  I need to always keep that in mind.  Above all, love for each other is the most important.  Above all.  I need to remember that when priorities shift ....I need that simple command at the head of everything: to maintain an intense love (INTENSE LOVE, which I don't even know what that looks like but all I know is that it's not a small love or a convenient love or a comfortable love...it is intense ...passionate, crazy, consuming, big love for my brothers and sisters.) for him and her.  It's true that I'm bad at it, but it is the one thing I should be most concerned about since it is ABOVE ALL:

"Now the end of all things is near; therefore, be serious and disciplined for prayer. Above all, maintain an intense love for each other, since love covers a multitude of sins."

-1 Peter 4:7-8 

And again...love for each other in that INTENSE DEGREE is what I need in order to know that I am going God's way.  I am God's child because of the evidence in that my love for others becomes more and more intense:

"This is how God’s children — and the Devil’s children — are made evident. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother."

(1 John 3:10 HCSB)

It's love.

At the start of the day,

Throughout the day, and

At the end of the day....

Ask yourself:  am I loved enough to love others yet?  (The day will reveal the answer)

Love is not forced and it is not laborious or burdensome.  If loving others feels burdensome check yourself!  It should be of utmost importance that you love from a pure heart.  Not from a sacred heart or a self righteous heart...but a pure love is the same love you believe God shows you.  Go for the real intense love.  Fight to know this love.  Because THAT love is God.

Jmegrey