gravity

it's really a funny thing what happens when you start to get confident in yourself and you take your eyes off of god for just one second ... gravity occurs. you fall. you lose focus, identity, and start trying to find that in other things. it is not a fun feeling ... falling, i mean. however, there is something beautiful about it, the fact that my god thrives on using hard times to pull me back towards himself. it's when i am at my most vulnerable and weakest that i hear my god's voice telling me, "sarah, i love you. you are mine, and you are so enough." amazing, right? sometimes, gravity is a blessing in disguise because it can highlight an area that you didn't know you needed work on. for me, it's the confidence in the flesh instead of solely on my jesus.

sometimes "defying gravity" is counterproductive ... unless you are a green witch. sometimes, it takes falling on our faces to truly be able to look up.

back to the basics

jesus loves me this i know ...

oh how i need and cherish those words. some days, all you really need to know and focus and believe is the basic truths and elements of christianity. we are loved by a god who died for us. that's it. simple. to the point.

LOVE.

protection

so lately i have been feeling like i have been staring down the barrel of a gun, just waiting for destruction and death to come. satan has been holding the gun at me. and i've responded with fear, and trembling and weakness, completely forgetting who is walking through this desert with me. so my jesus, being completely perfect and amazing, led me to deuteronomy 2 tonight and what i read just blew my mind yet again & i hope, reader, that this brings you much comfort as well.

jesus was very direct and blunt with me tonight, which i love because frankly, he loves for me to trust and go out on a limb for him most of the time. but tonight, he knew i really needed to hear something right away. in chapter two, moses is still giving a recap of what the israelites had gone through during their time in the wilderness. verse 7 caught my eye: "for the LORD your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He has watched your every step through this great wilderness. during these forty years, the LORD your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing." wow. it's simply amazing to me that that same YHWH is with me TODAY ... it's amazing peace to me. jesus was like, "sarah, you have been so blessed by me and you miss it ... a lot. you look past my blessing and see only what you don't have which honestly are things you DON'T need otherwise i would have provided them for you. i am and always with be watching and praying and supporting you as you go through life. nothing is unseen by me. i care about every little detail. you tend to forgot i am ALWAYS with you & it breaks my heart because i love you. the next time you feel frustrated by something you don't have, remember ... you lack nothing. you have enough in me. i will satisfy you." he is crazy ... haha. that's just how i see it. but i love him for it.

the rest of the chapter god used still for me. moses goes on to recap how every time a hostile group was going to cross paths with the israelites, god warned them before hand and led them through it. and THEN ... he even purposefully put the Amorites before the israelites and told them that he would hand them over to them. "but king sihon of heshbon refused to allow us to pass through, because the LORD your God made sihon stubborn and defiant so he could help you defeat them (v30). do you get that? god put a huge scary army and situation in the israelites way just so that he could show them he had it covered ... he would defeat the king, the towns, all men, women, and children just to show them he could do it. wow.

that's my god. he is with me in my desert. so really ... why do i complain? i have no reason whatsoever to be complaining or worrying. i have everything that i need and i have a god who will and can fight of giants because he loves me.

numbers 14

so i was asking god what he wanted me to study from his word today and (being the blonde that i am) he was like, "sarah ... you're kind of on this whole desert thing, obviously you should go back to the israelites and their time in the desert!!! duh!!" ok, so he didn't really convey that to me in that fun and obvious way but it really felt that obvious. and i don't know about you, reader, but reading numbers & deuteronomy do not get me excited and super pumped. for that, i read psalms, the gospels, or the pauline epistles. but that wasn't where god was leading me today. so, i opened up to deuteronomy and started reading the first chapter. and god blew my mind. i swear, i have never written so much down after reading a passage of scripture than i did today. i've read this passage before but never have i read it in this mindset and with this hunger for understanding and for it to just satisfy my yearning heart.

so for those of you who haven't read the first chapter of deuteronomy in awhile, let me fill you in! basically, the israelites have been out of egypt and safe from captivity for a little over 2 years now. they were previously at mt. sinai where god laid out what he wanted from them in the form of the 10 commandments and they responded by building a golden calf because they got bored waiting for their leader, moses, to get his butt off the mountain. the israelites lack patience in a bad way and it gets them into trouble A LOT (kinda like me, too). god had previously promised his people that he would lead them to the land that he promised abraham years ago and that they would possess it. so, god, being the faithful god that he is does indeed lead them RIGHT to it! the israelites send ten scouts into the land to check it out and find out that the land is amazing and beautiful and "flowing with milk and honey"! and then there's the problem .. giants live in the land. and what do you think the people on focused and heard when the scouts delivered this report? the giants!! they completely miss everything else and focus only on the problem. they forgot the big picture - the fact that god had fulfilled everything he had promised them. he had indeed led them to their promised land! and yet they completely lost sight of that and started freaking out and complaining and wining. this was where god took my hand and told me to look at him and said, "sarah, this is what you have been doing. you are missing the BIG and AMAZING part of your life i have brought you too. i have never let you go astray or gotten you lost yet, right? so why are you doubting and freaking out on me now? i'm still with you and if you ask me, i will of course fight this battle for you. i am with you, you tend to forgot that a lot."

and he was absolutely right. because i do ... i look at the big scary obstacles that stand in my way, things that satan places before me and i freak. i'm like peter and let the waves and the impossible fact that i am actually walking on water start to crowd my mind and stop staring at my lord and look down at my own two feet and i fall ... fast. that is what happens when we let the bondage from our past crowd into our future. i don't know about you but i have a lot of ugly, nasty bondage and sin from my past that my god has forgiven me for ... that he has DIED for me for. it doesn't matter to him at all. but yet what do i do? i grab onto and cling to it as if that's the only thing that is keeping me from drowning. how ridiculous is that? and how often do we as humans do that??? see, i think that we need to study the old testament a lot more than we do now. we are just like the israelites and if we could just realize and see how ridiculous they were then maybe we would see just how ridiculous we are when it comes to our walk with jesus christ and we would see just how much we complain and forget to see the obvious truth that is just staring us right in the face.

i just want to challenge you all to read through numbers 11-14 to get the context if you've forgotten it and then to read the first chapter of deuteronomy. ask god to open your mind and your heart to see it in a new light and i swear, you will be blown away by it. until we stop yearning for egypt (whatever keeps us bondage) and start yearning for more and more of god, we will continue to wander in the wilderness lost and confused. i pray that that will NOT be our generation, that we will not follow in the paths of those who have gone before us. i pray that we, and that i would never revisit "egypt" again but would eagerly be awaiting our "promised land".

this is my prayer

god is a jealous god and a god of passion. he never quits on me, never stops pursuing me, never stops passionately loving me despite all the mistakes and ugly sin that my heart has in it. he forgives and heals away all the brokenness and shame that once filled my life and he has replaced it with beauty and glory and purity. HE is what makes this desert beautiful and worthwhile. for HIM, i will wait and set aside my dreams, and plans and self pursuits. for him i will wait and endure this desert with joy and thanksgiving. and for him i will seek his face and let him love me wholly and completely.

in every season, i have a reason to sing; i have a reason to worship.

frustration

dear reader,

how many times do you feel like a failure? because i feel like one every day of my life. and its getting worse. it is like satan is trying to do anything and everything to destroy me, to crush all the work and healing that jesus has done in my life. i hate this. i hate this pain that i have to go through to get to the second stage of healing that is on the other side of this wall.

i'm frustrated at myself for making a stupid, stupid choice the other day. and i'm frustrated that my heart longs to be somewhere other than in His arms. i hate that but i feel so powerless against it.

yet the truth is that my heart goes where i let it. and it's all up to me to keep it in my lover's arms ... or to hand it over to someone else so undeserving.

[and so it begins ... ]

i don't know about any of you, but i have been finding that life is ridiculously challenging. paul (and god) were not kidding when they said that we as christians would face many trials and challenges. i always hoped that i would get to this point where i would find that beautiful and sought after shalom and that it would never go away ... that my times "through the desert" would be over and would find myself perfectly happy and content with jesus in our picture-perfect house. that is NOT how my life is or frankly, ever will be. and i am slowly realizing that i never want that to be my life.

see, my god is about frustrating the CRAP out of me ... for good, i swear!! :) take for instance, what he is doing with my life at the moment. i had been a student of the most amazing college ever: moody bible institute. i absolutely loved it! last semester, i got the utter privilege to study abroad in belfast, northern ireland with a group of my fellow moody students and it was there that jesus started to rock my perfect little boat. see, i am a woman who LOVES her planner and phone wayy too much. i like to know exactly what time and where i am supposed to be at all times and i like to know where i am going to be in the next week, month, year ... just so that i can fully prepare myself. sound familiar to anyone? well, in ireland, he started planting little seeds in my mind that i was holding onto my issue with timing and planning a little to tightly and that i should prepare to let it go. i didn't think he was serious. silly, silly sarah. to make a very long story short, i am now not at moody but instead a teller with First Merit Bank. random, right?!? there is more ... i now am not saving all my hard earned money to return to school by living at home rent free (and with a free meal plan), instead i am living in akron in my first apartment with two amazing girls. so (just to make sure you are catching all of the irony here) i now am using my whole paycheck towards rent, food, utilities, etc and am now able to save only about 10% of it for school. soooo the grand conclusion is, it is going to take god and only god that is able to get me back to school. isn't that totally him??!

with that last long paragraph in mind, i now return to my first topic i proposed, the struggle life is & why i am starting this blog in the first place. if we as christians are determined to follow after christ with everyone we have, we have to be ready to struggle and fight for him just as hard as he has fought for us. it will not be fun and it will not be over quickly. but the reward will be spectacular and totally worth it in the end. see, right now in my life, i am in a place that i never thought i would be. the only way i can move forward is if i totally throw my everything in god's arms and hold on tight with all i got. i will only move forward and grow if i can fully realize that my plan is not god's plan and it never will be. he always knows best and i don't. i don't even know myself half as well as i think i do. the only way that i can move forward is if i embrace and desire this "desert" that i am in and get to the point where that is where i long to be ...

see, the desert that i am referring too is found in hosea 2:14 and that is exactly what god is doing with my life right now. i am in a desert and am thirsty and hungry and am longing for things to help me get through it. but that is not what god wants. see god is with me in this desert and he is longing passionately for me. he is "speaking softly and tenderly" to me. and me? oh i am just missing it all, because i am SO friggin' focused on trying to find something that will satisfy me. and ya know, he is right next to me, longing for me to love him as much as he loves me.

my god is so faithful, so good, so perfect to me i can't even begin to fathom it. i just have to trust and believe and pray that my heart stays in his hands. i pray that these days, these months, maybe even these years that i am in this desert are the best days, months, and years of my life. i pray that the struggles and the pain and the tears that i go through refine me so that at the end of my time, i can't see sarah but i can only see Him.

feel free to take this journey with me or just read about me. either way, He wants you to have a desert of your own. it won't look like mine, though .... but have fun reading. :)