Learning to Give Thanks for Trials

I am currently making my way through 31 Days of Praise by Ruth Myers. This morning, the selection I read was really important for me to hear....this is definitely something that is still very "in process" in my life.

Thank You, my gracious and sovereign God, that You have been with me and carried me from the day of my birth until today...that You have known my whole life, from beginning to end, since before I was born...and that You wrote in Your book all the days that You ordained for me before one of them came to be.

Thank You that in Your gracious plan to bless and use me, You've allowed me to go through hard times, through trials that many people go through in this fallen world. How glad I am that You're so good at reaching down and making something beautiful out of even the worst situations! How encouraged I am when I think how You did this for Joseph...how his brothers hated and abused and betrayed him, and how You worked these things out for blessing, both for Joseph and his family and for countless other people.

I praise You that the things that happened in my past, both enjoyable and painful, are raw materials for blessings, both in my life and in the lives of others. So I thank You for the specific family (or lack of family) into which I was born and the opportunities You did or did not provide. And thank You for the things in my past that appear to be limitations, hindrances, bad breaks...the wounds of old hurts, the unmet emotional needs, the mistakes or neglect of other people--even their cruelty to me, their abuse.

How comforting to know that in all my distresses You were distressed. And how I thank You, Lord Jesus, that on the cross You bore my griefs and carried my sorrows, as well as my sins...that I can kneel at the cross and worship You as the One who took on Yourself all my pain and experienced it to the full. And how comforting to know that in the present, day by day, You feel with me any pain, confusion, inner bondage, or struggles that stem from my past. Thank You that all those seeming disadvantages are a backdrop for the special, unfolding plan You have in mind for me...and that if my past still handicaps me, You are able to lead me to the kind of help I need.

I'm so grateful that all my past circumstances were permitted by You to make me see my need of You and prepare my heart for Your Word...to draw me to Yourself, and to work out Your good purposes for my life. I rejoice that You are the Blessed Controller of all things--You are now, You will be throughout the future, and You always were. All my days had Your touch of love and wisdom, whether or not I can as yet fully see it.

And Lord, I choose to look beyond my past and present troubles in this life--this temporary life--and fix my eyes on the unseen things that will last forever. I praise You for the eternal glory these things are piling up for me as I choose to trust You.

Good stuff.....may I remember and hold onto the truths contained in this.

Confirmation - God Proving His Faithfulness

It’s nice when God puts resources in my path which confirm what He’s been teaching me for the last few months. That happened to me in a double way over Christmas Break.

I’ve been feeling for a long time that God is drawing me into a much deeper, much more “real” and “alive” relationship with Him. Sometimes that’s kind of scary, because it doesn’t fit what I’ve grown up with. It feels less safe because suddenly God is breaking out of the boxes I had Him so neatly packed into as a kid. But it is so very worth it – because it fulfills a deep need and longing I had for a long time in high school.

I knew there was a disconnect somewhere. I’ve written about this before. Just this evening, though, I was doing some reading for my “Capstone Seminar in Christian Life” class that I’m taking this semester (which is AMAZING!), and it finally helped make sense of the confusion I’ve felt for so long (explained in the second paragraph of the post linked above).

In a chapter of his book Invitation to a Journey, Robert Mulholland takes the Myers-Briggs test and applies it to the choices Christians make in their spiritual practices (chapter 5). You can tell he’s studied/thought about it a lot because he nails several of his points. In his next chapter, he turns to the “shadow side” of one’s personality. His point is that people can tend to start thinking that their own personality type is the “best”/”right”/”only” way to do things. As a result, we can start thinking about the opposite way of doing things as wrong and maybe even evil (pg. 55-56).

Reading through the first section, I couldn’t initially figure out where I landed on the sensing/intuition category or the thinking/feeling one. But then he went on to discuss the dangers of the “one-sided spirituality” which can result from the problem mentioned in the previous paragraph. When we only stick to what we are familiar with, to what feels safe and comfortable for our personality type, our spiritual practices can end up disintegrating (pg. 62). Mulholland points out that this can happen in two ways – either people fall away from their faith, or they continue through the motions of spiritual practices but face feelings of stagnation (pg. 63).

Yep, stagnation – that’s the same word I used over a year ago to describe how I felt in high school. From what I’ve read so far of Mulholland, I now think this was primarily because I was only feeding the “thinking” side of processing data (pg. 52), and I was starving the “feeling” side to death. But it wouldn’t die. Instead, it filled my heart with cravings that I couldn’t satisfy through my typical “thinking” approach. It took a year and a half of college, but when the moment was right God stepped in and started pouring out His love and fulfilling that need of my heart.

Anyway, that’s not the direction I had intended this post to take {don’t you love when God hijacks something and takes it a completely different direction? J}. I thought I was just sitting down to write about the two books I read/started reading over break that helped verify for me that seeking and desiring a more experiential relationship with God wasn’t just me going off the deep end into some mystical something or other. And no, Mulholland’s books wasn’t one of the two I had in mind!

The first is Heart’s Cry: Principles of Prayer, a book about how to develop a prayerful relationship with God. While most of the chapters do focus on aspects of prayer, it’s also a wonderful, encouraging, challenging book about deepening one’s relationship with God in general. Even the fact that I have the book is a testimony to God’s leading and faithfulness. One day in October, I was taking some time in the prayer room to try to process something that had happened the night before. Afterward, I “randomly” decided to go into the JBU bookstore and look at their bargain books. As soon as I laid eyes on this one, I knew I should get it.

God knew what He was doing {obviously} because He has been using it to guide me into a very intentional growing of how I relate to Him. I’ve known for a while that my prayer practices could use improvement and growth, and this is what God is using to bring that about!

The other book was Night with a Perfect Stranger: The Conversation that Changed Everything, a fictional book by David Gregory. It is a sequel to his book Dinner with a Perfect Stranger, in which a typical modern businessman receives an invitation to have a dinner with Jesus – Christ in the flesh. The first book is more about Christianity in general, while the second is focused on how to practically live out a relationship with God.

As I said earlier, both of these books have been very encouraging to me over Christmas break. I read Gregory’s two books in one morning (they are very easy reads), and I’ve been working my way through Heart’s Cry a chapter a day as a devotional. I’ve also been reading through Ephesians, which has been filled with great reminders.

So God has been once again proving His faithfulness to me by encouraging me. He’s pretty good at that JHeaH

More of Your Grace, Dear Lord

Grace.

It’s such a simple word, and yet it is so very deep. I started realizing its vast importance less than two years ago, and yet it is beginning to define my life.

Grace: God riches at Christ’s expense, God giving us what we do not deserve – statements that try to explain an immeasurable divine attribute in an understandable way. And yet until Jan. 25, 2011, I knew the right answers but not the trueness of God’s Grace in my life.

I’ve written about this a couple of other times earlier this semester (here and here). But I’m writing about it again because it’s still a lesson God is teaching me.

This morning, the sermon at my church in Dallas came from Romans 8:1-13, one of my favorite passages of Scripture. The teaching focused on the fact that we *can* have victory in the battles of our lives, reflective of the victory that Christ has *already won* in the war. Our victory is already AND not yet. And we can choose whether to live and walk according to the flesh or according to the Spirit.

Mr. Wright focused in on the fact that positionally, our fate as children of God is sealed: We are declared righteous in God’s sight through justification. But in our daily lives, we have a choice to make: Practically, we can choose to be slaves of God, sold out to Him, being sanctified – or we can choose to continue trying to live in this world on our own.

God’s Grace does not change one iota either way. And yet my decision of which man (old, fleshly man or new, spiritual man) to feed and encourage makes a huge difference in my outlook on life. Learning to let go of my attempts to improve myself and of the belief that I had to meet God’s expectations of me before He would continue loving me has been, in some ways, a slow process. God’s faithfulness throughout this time has been a huge testimony to His continued Grace.

A couple of other comments Mr. Wright made that stood out to me…

• Christ *has already* fulfilled the requirements of the law. I do deserve condemnation under the law – but He has fully removed that.
• The Holy Spirit comes to indwell us so that we may more fully reflect God’s character, NOT so that we can then fulfill the law.
• The newness of our spiritual life is to be defined by Spirit-walking, not Law-keeping.
• Our walk and our mindset are closely connected. What is it that I focus on? That heavily impacts how I will act.

Thanks for reading this rambly rant. I hope and pray that you too may learn to experience the Grace of God, even in your moments of personal failure and weakness. Seek to grow and to make choices that are pleasing to God, YES. But never forget that there is nothing you can ever ever do to earn God’s love. Through His Grace, His Love is constant – regardless of how you feel about yourself.

Living in His Shadow

This morning I read another section from 31 Days of Power: Learning to Live in Spiritual Victory by Ruth Myers that I wanted to share. This is definitely something I need to be working on - but God is faithful to point me toward Him!

"Glory and Shadow"

Father, help me not to give Satan any advantage or delight by seeking my own glory in people's eyes. Instead let me constantly give glory to You in new ways. May I keep You at center stage as I speak of Your perfections and let You manifest Your presence through me.

Cause me to dwell day by day in Your shadow. I long to live my whole life there, with You in the bright foreground in every situation, in every opportunity. When You work through me, may be praise be Yours. May You be in the limelight as I give all the glory to You and remain in Your shadow. (Psalm 91:1, 86:12; Matthew 5:16)

Enable me to glorify You as I pass through each situation in my life—each time of blessing or progress, as well as each river I must cross, each desert I must pass through, each season of flood or drought, of pain or pleasure. May my responses honor You, not me. Deliver me from drawing attention to myself either by moaning and complaining or by subtle boasting and trying to impress. Not ot me, O Lord, not to me, but to Your name give glory. This prayer is according to Your will, so I can count on You to answer it! (Psalm 115:1; 1 John 5:14-15)

O my awesome God, I worship You for Your glory—glory that excels all others—a radiant outshining that makes all other glories fade and ultimately flicker out in oblivion. Thank You that no one has ever been able to rob You of Your glory or share it with You. I shout for joy that Lucifer lost out when he rebelled against Your rule and aspired to steal Your glory and be like the Most High. How he and his legions cringe at the thought of Your glory! How they resent it when we ascribe to You the honor and glory due Your name and refuse to seek glory for ourselves. How the devil hates it when we enthrone You as Lord of our lives and situations, and when we learn to give You the recognition You rightfully deserve. (Isaiah 48:11; Daniel 4:37)

I worship You for Your Majesty as the Most High God, exalted far above all. I worship You for Your brilliance that causes people to fall on their faces before You. I praise Your mighty dignity and awesome beauty as King of all. yours is a splendor not limited to majestic parades but one that rides forth and wins battles. You're the awesome, glorious Champion, the all-powerful Warrior who prevails against Your enemies. (Psalm 86:9; Isaiah 42:15; Psalm 45:3-4)

To You be the glory, both now and forever, Amen! (Romans 11:36, Jude 24-25)

Weeping may endure for a night...

...but joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30:5).

"Anointed with Power" - from 31 Days of Power: Learning to Live in Spiritual Victory by Ruth Myers that I "just happened" to read this morning.

Father, I praise You that Christ, anointed with Your Holy Spirit and power, continues to conquer new territory within me, filling me afresh with Your fullness, Your love, Your power. (Acts 10:38)
Thank You that Christ is my risen and victorious Lord and that in Him I've been anointed with Your Spirit to reign in life—to triumph over sin and over the evil one with his lies and deceptions. How wonderful to know Father, that right now Your Spirit intermingles with my spirit in a permanent oneness. I look to Him to continually fill me and to keep me under His influence so that His gracious and immeasurable power will be at work in me, overcoming my flesh and the world and the devil. (2 Cor. 1:21-22, 1 John 2:20)
I rejoice that Your Spirit is here to convict me of sin, to protect me from Satan, and to strengthen me with might. Thank you that this anointing I've received from You abides in me and continues to teach me—and His  teaching is true, and not a lie. And through His truth I've been set free—free from the mastery of sin and the snares of Satan, free to reign in the realm of Real Life. I rejoice that the truth counters Satan's lies. It cancels out his subtle deceptions. (1 John 2:27, John 8:52)
I'm especially grateful to You for giving me power to be effective in serving You. I praise You that I can serve by Your Spirit's power mightily at work within me, rather than having to depend on my own strngth and abilities. (Acts 1:8, Col. 1:29)
I pray for myself and for the many Christians I know, both individually and in various groups, that we'll be enriched through a growing knowledge of You. And may it dawn on us afresh that You have been made rich because we belong to You—we are Your inheritance! Encourage us through Your Word and the enlightening of Your Spirit. Make us more aware of the tremendous power available to us, to assure victory over all the evil powers we encounter. (Eph. 1:17-19)
And Father, I praise You that this close relationship with You can also knit me together with other believers by strong ties of love. I realize that loving, harmonious unity with other believers is always one of the great needs in our lives as Your children, and we can count on You to accomplish it. I praise You for the great protection this provides against the attacks and deceptions of our enemy. May I—and those I pray for—increasingly understand and experience the rich fullness and oneness that is ours in Christ. Col. 2:1-2

"You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, to the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever" (Ps. 30:11-12).

God is Good - I'm still broken

God is good. I believe this with all of my mind. He is still teaching me to trust in that truth with all of my heart. My Savior is beautiful, and He loves me – regardless of anything. Because this was never about me. It’s about Him and His glorious, amazing character.

If you haven’t read my post about brokenness from this summer, you should go read it before you keep reading this…

I was in a dark place this evening…darker than any I’ve been in before. I’ve been in dark places before, but not for a while. This one caught me off guard and dragged me under deeper than I expected. And I felt stuck.

I was praying, I was begging God for His mercy and His grace. My head knew nothing had changed in Him – but my heart refused to accept it.

God knew I was getting a big head I guess. I felt as though I’d come a long way from high school, that I knew the truth and that the truth had freed me. But I was and am still holding on to that idea that I can make myself good, that I can make my life look like I expect it to. And when I fail, I still hesitate to accept His grace.

I can’t dig myself out. I can’t make my life “work.” He calls me to let go, to lose myself in Him.

Sarah pointed me toward this song, and it fit my situation perfectly. And since this post is still focusing way too much on me, we’re just going to end it here.

Lord God, You are grace. You are peace. Father, You see me. You know me more deeply than I will ever do. Break my selfishness, my self-sufficiency. God, You alone have the words – You alone are the way.

He gave me the rest of the post!

My Lord God is victorious. He has already overcome ALL THINGS. There is nothing I or anyone can do that has not already been dealt with and answered to by the sacrifice of Christ.

Tonight at the scholarship dinner, one of the speakers mentioned three things. I don’t remember quite the exact context…but she said that God looks at us and says three things about us:
1. I created you.
2. I love you.
3. I died for you, so that someday you shall live with Me.

And that someday isn’t now. It isn’t yet. “In this world you will have tribulation – but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world” (John 16:33)

We are not left here to earn our way. We’re not left until we deserve anything. We are left to learn trust, to learn grace.

Grace: I can’t even begin to define it. God is gracious. He has overwhelmed us with His grace, freeing us from our earthly guilt. He knows. He sees. And yet He loves just the same. Because of Grace. Because His sufferings wipe us clean. Because when He looks at us, He sees the beautiful end result of His plan – not the just-begun reconstruction.

Grace. Contentment. Trust. Giving up the control I think I have.

Love – undeserved, unearned, a free gift.

Who's in Control? Pt. 7: Earning vs. Grace

I’ve written about this issue a couple of times in a couple of places….. One was last November as I started looking back over the personal revival which God had been working in my life over the past 11 months. The other is a post  I wrote last month (posted a couple days ago) for Thrive80, a website by Moody Publishing targeted at Millenials. In both of those posts, I focused on what happened on the day God revolutionized my perspective. In this post, however, I want to step back and look more at the big picture. So check those out for the snapshot version/resolution of this issue  J

I’ve always been a perfectionist. Partly as a result of this, I also grew up focused on feeling the need to earn people’s love/acceptance/approval/whatever. Yes, I knew my parents and other people loved me no matter what. But I still put pressure on myself to behave in a way that would impress them and ensure that I kept their love. I still worry far too much about people’s opinions of me. This approach to my human relationships affected how I approached God as well.

Sure, I knew I was saved by grace and not by what I did. But that didn’t keep me from thinking that I needed to make sure I was behaving myself properly so that He would keep on loving me and approving of me. Looking back now it seems so simple and rather silly – but it was the trap I was stuck in.

In Galatians 3:3, Paul asks “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” And in Titus 3:4-5 he writes “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.” I knew these verses. I had heard the latter one quoted often during a season of Bible Quizzing.

But somehow, the truth of the former verse did not make its way from my head to my heart. I tried to have a relationship with God in which I earned His pleasure. I failed to recognize that Grace extends beyond salvation, that it is at work in every moment of my life.

I knew I was a miserable failure at keeping myself “good enough.” What I guess I didn’t realize or want to accept was that even in those moments when I have messed up, God’s Grace covers that. No, this is not a license to sin (Rom. 6:1ff). I know that very well. I want to live a life of holiness, to seek to become more Christlike. My problem is that I often base my self-acceptance and my idea of whether God is accepting me on my actions alone. I tried to live by Rom. 6:1, but I forgot about Rom. 8:1.

Yes, there is a delicate balance here. It is easy to go to either the extreme of pietistic legalism, as I tend to, or to go to the other extreme of flippant licentiousness. God calls us to neither. We do not earn His favor by what we do, but we are to constantly seek to draw closer to His will for our lives.

This summer at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (see my first summer post for more about the church) they had a mini-series from Galatians 3. It seemed as though every week after that there was some mention about how we don’t earn God’s favor by our good deeds. Maybe it’s that I was finally at a place where I believed that, but I don’t remember hearing that truth emphasized in church very much ever before, if at all.

I’m thankful God spoke that truth over me 21 months ago. I wish I had learned it sooner…I wish I had been able to hear it from my church. That would have saved me some heart ache in high school. At the same time, I know God knows what He is doing. If I had learned it without struggles, I wouldn’t have the same testimony of God’s work in my life. It was the struggles I lived through that made the lesson so real and applicable.

It’s the clouds that make the sunset beautiful J