I will bless the Lord

This song has been great encouragement to me this week and this picture is of one of my favorite places. Thought I would share.


I will bless the Lord forever,
And I will trust Him at all times.
He has delivered me from all things,
And He has set my feet upon the Rock.

I will not be moved, and I'll say of the Lord:
You are my Shield, my Strength, my Portion, Deliverer,
My Shelter, Strong Tower, my very present help in time of need.

Whom have I in Heaven but you.
There's no one I desire beside You.

You have made me glad, and I'll say of the Lord:
You are my Shield, my Strength, my Portion, Deliverer,
My Shelter, Strong Tower, my very present help in time of need.

My very present help in time of need.

My very present help in time of need.

Messes are sometimes exactly what you need.

Messes are typically thought of as a bad thing. They are meant to be cleaned and straightened back into the order that was previously held.  Sometimes I am not sure that is always the best thing.  I am sometimes a messy person especially with my clothes. I can never find what I need and so they typically go flying every which way until I find exactly what I was looking for.  Isn't that kind of how life is sometimes? Currently my bible study is going through the Old Testament and I am seeing how insanely messy these people's lives were.  There definitely wasn't anything cookie cutter and Sunday School friendly about most of these people.  These people that God used in such a great way were going in all these crazy directions making a mess out of their lives until they finally listened to God's faithful promises which was exactly what they needed.  I know in my life that God certainly has used my messes I have created with sin and disobedience to polish me and my faith to be so much more than I was before.  As Chelsea, a precious girl in my bible study so eloquently said tonight, God has been transforming beauty from ashes since the beginning of time.  Thank you Jesus. These lyrics really say what my inadequate words have been trying to say for the last paragraph. Enjoy.

"Beauty for ashes 

A garment of praise for my heaviness 

Beauty for ashes take this heart of stone 

and make it Yours 

I delight myself in the riches affair 

trading all that I have 

for all that is better 

a garment of praise for my heaviness 

You are the greatest taste 

You're the riches of faith 

You are better 

So much better than all the world 

Lord, You are better 

You taste better 

So much better"

-Shane Barnard

God is faithful

Over the past year I have truly seen how wavering, conditional, and human my faith in God is.  In the past I was very arrogant in my thinking that I would be able to withstand any problems without being tested in what I believe and am passionate about.  I was very very wrong.  At the end of the day thought what REALLY matters is that God is faithful. I have been studying Genesis and the three people that have really stood out to me are Abraham, Sarah. and Joseph.  


God makes a covenant with Abraham that he will give him land, numerous offspring and blessings.  He promises to make Abraham's people a great and prosperous nation.  God gave His word to Abraham and in that moment he had unwavering faith in what the Lord would do.  Later on through circumstances and just life happening in general, Abraham's faith falters and he doubts the Lord's promises, but God was still faithful. When God promised Abraham and Sarah that He would give them a child in their old age they both doubted.  Sarah even laughed at God's messengers and yet when Isaac was born yet again they were shown how God is faithful. Before Isaac was born Sarah did as we women sometimes do and tried to outsmart or out scheme God.  She tried to out maneuver the Creator of the Universe. How insane is that??  Anyways, Sarah gave her servant to her husband Abraham to sleep with and they had a son Ishmael. This caused a lot of strife and turned into a dysfunctional family situation.  God eventually had to intervene and send Ishmael and Hagar away.  All of this could have been avoided if they had just remembered that God is faithful. With Isaac's birth God kept His promise and with his descendant's success, wealth and prosperity He fulfilled the covenant he had made with Abraham.  God is faithful. 


I love the story of Joseph.  I wrote my Pentateuch paper in college over his story and since then I have related to him on a different level.  My absolute favorite part of Joseph's story is how God sovereignly directs the sequences of events so He fulfill His purpose and plan.  After all the mess Joseph went through with his brothers selling him into slavery, making his father believe he was dead, him being imprisoned for years, and then finally the Lord raising him up to be the Pharaoh in Egypt's second in command. God is extremely faithful.During all of these hard and difficult times amazingly enough Joseph NEVER wavered or at least the text does not speak of it.  He always knew that God would make all things work together for His good. God uses sin and evil to glorify His name.   Joseph understood that just because hardships occur that it does not mean that you are not in God's will.  Circumstances are not an indicator of God's will.  God used the awfulness Joseph experienced to fulfill the covenant he made with Abraham in making sure the Israelites were taken care of and provided for which happened through Joseph being directly under Pharaoh.  God is faithful.Joseph forgave his brothers which was not an easy feat.  Joseph saw that they were repentant and welcomed them with open arms.  The brothers were afraid of their Joseph's wrath and God used that fear to bring their hearts to repentance. Joseph reassured them that God is faithful. 


I have learned so much from these people in the Bible.  I have learned how I am certainly not alone in my human state of unbelief at times.  I learned from examples of rock solid faith and belief as well.  God has shown me through this section of the Old Testament narrative that I am definitely not alone in my struggles.  This is comforting and yet again shows me that God is faithful.  

Are we fooling ourselves?

Almost a year ago to date I started reading the book of James and it really convicted me. Today when I decided to go back to James and read again conviction was present again, but this time was different. Originally when reading the Holy Spirit brought to my attention how I worry instead of having faith, being a doer not just a hearer of the Word, control of the tongue, impartiality of others, and so much more. However today when I was reading I was reminded with the force of a kick in the face that although I was convicted of these things what have I really done with this?? A whole lotta nothing. For about a month now I am really seeing how prideful and arrogant inwardly I have been.  My walk is nothing as it should be. My prayers are not without ceasing. I do a whole lot of feeling sorry for myself and not a whole lot of looking beyond myself.  James says it so well.

"So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.  But don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.  For if you listen to the word and don't obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you carefully look into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it."

 This passage just says it all! This holds encouragement, pain for my ears, and promise.  It is so comforting to know that the grass withers and the flowers will fade and die but God's word will endure always and forever to exhort, convict and comfort.  I will do better. I must. I will fall and fail, but not like this. I cannot continue to live this life as I am currently. Here is to a new day of God's grace and mercy giving me another undeserved chance to give Him glory.

Finding Contentment

I haven't been content for some time now.  This summer was full of being miserable in who I was, what I was doing, how stagnant my spiritual walk was, and how my future seemed so blank and vast before me.  I would pick myself up only to fall even farther into the pit of desperation.  I am slowly moving more and more each day out of this black hole of sin and rebelliousness towards my Savior, but as I said it is indeed a one day at a time achievement. I would be naive and ridiculous to think that I am going to be content and never seeking more than what I have again, but I take joy and have hope in the fact that I can choose to not be stupid anymore.  I can choose to let God's mercy and grace wash over me and bring me sweet and glorious contentment that I find no where else.  No matter what I choose to do with my future (because right now the possibilities are endless) as long as I am dying to myself and living as Christ then the rest will just be.  It will not be perfect as life never is, but it will be as God wills. If I am walking with Him that should be contentment embodied. In Numbers when God instructs Moses to tell Aaron and his sons to bless Israel he gave them this special blessing:

"May the Lord bless and protect you.  May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.  May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace."

These words God spoke to Israel are an example of how God takes care of his children.  He gave this blessing after giving the people laws to follow to show how they needed God to be truly holy and that their own efforts were worthless.  The law can never be kept (except by Jesus who actually fulfilled the law), but exposes how we truly do fail so much. To be holy we must seek after God and his ways.  God is saying if you follow me and do as I intend for you to do I will smile upon you, I will be gracious and show you favor and I will give you my peace.  All of those things I am seeking after and am completely okay with.

Come what may.

Some days I feel like every lovesick girl just waiting for my knight in shining armor or something of the sort. I watch movies and day dream about my future spouse as stereotypical as that sounds. And I know its normal to want romance.  To want flowers and all that mushiness that I pretend is stupid but in the end I still think its sweet and to be loved as I deserve, (judge me if you will) but I have come to the unpleasant conclusion that it is highly possible that I want all of these things to cover up my lack of contentment in Christ.  As I get older I think that I want the fairy tale more than I did before.  I mean is it really something that I am guaranteed or God is required to give me. As much as I hate to admit it......it's really not.  Having just graduated college and now really facing life solo I have to depend on God more than ever.  I know that I should have been totally dependent on Him all along but I am human and now its is really just me and Jesus.  I have no husband, boyfriend, or fiancee to depend on.  In the past I can see that I had used a relationship as a crutch.  I lost sight of my true Sustainer.  Part of that was my fault and part of it was the boy's fault, but that doesn't really matter. The thing that matters is that I learned a lesson in all of that mess.  Being truly dependent on Jesus is so important while I am in this season of singleness.  If or when I do enter another relationship this dependence on Him will be such a blessing.  This process will be lonely and will be sometimes terrible as I die to myself.  I will want useless attention to satisfy my flesh and I will probably fail, but I will press on towards the goal.  I want to desire Jesus as much as I desire a relationship and family.  I need to desire Jesus more than that. My prayer is that my contentment will truly be in Christ and His unending and unconditional love.

His Face is all I should see

For months now I have been searching for direction and focus. What should I be focusing on?? Well it kind of all clicked together today.

"Oh Lord You're beautiful and Your face is all I see. And when Your eyes are on this child Your grace abounds to me."  -Keith Green

If I would stop focusing on myself for once and focus on God my direction wouldn't matter. As long as I am focused on Him whatever direction I am going will be the right one.  Have I been praying enough? NO. Have I been serving Him enough? NO. Have I even been trying?? NO. I have been giving up and failing miserably.  I am not being hard on myself just being honest.  I have been hiding from my problems.  Instead of facing them head on running in the opposite direction.  I need to be advancing the Kingdom not wasting away in worry.  I am reading "Just Do Something" by Kevin DeYoung and it is hurting to read some of the book. I am so glad that it is uncomfortable reading it though.  One of the things that I love that he says is how we are cowards.  We cannot trust God because we are so scared.  I am definitely one of those cowards.

"God is all-knowing and all-powerful.  He has planned out and works out every detail of our lives-the joyous days and the difficult-all for our good. (Ecclesiastes 7:14)  Because we have confidence in God's will of decree, we can radically commit ourselves to His will of desire, without fretting over a hidden will of direction.....Don't despair. God promises to be your sun and your shield and to carry you and protect with His strong right arm.  So we can stop pleading with God to show us the future and start living and obeying like we are confident that He holds the future." -Kevin DeYoung

A very good friend told me yesterday as I was worrying and stressing over a big issue in my life currently that everything happens for a reason.  I was immediately convicted and felt so small, but that was the point.  My God will supply all my needs and why waste the energy worrying and fretting over His direction.

You make all things work together for my good." -Jesus Culture

 "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." Romans 8:28 NLT

This song lyric and this verse both simultaneously popped in my head.  I have so much to place my hope and trust in.  My focus should be on the peace and power I have through Christ Jesus.