A green world under gray skies

It's been a rainy week. Day after day I've walked to class across our large campus with that annoying mist hitting my face and that eerie chill spiking the hairs on my arms. The sun seemed no where to be found. Clouds spanned from every direction. Today was no exception. As I traveled back to my car I passed through a football sized parking lot. The asphalt mixed with the shades of gray spanning the sky made me feel like I was walking through life in black and white. I reached the edge of the lot where I would cross a street to a church right off campus (my car was parked right behind it). As I glance right then left I then lifted my eyes forward to the church yard that caught my eyes with it's vibrant shades of green. The grass and bushes were so green they might as well have been glowing compared to the dimness of the rest of the world. It made me smile. "Of course", I thought. It is from being under days of gray skies that brings such lush growth. It is through the rain that things are cleaned, renewed, even born again. Praise God for such days. For there in our dimmest of days God is pruning us for ripeness, cutting off the dead and making us green again.

Quote of the Day

"God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest no where but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to." -Elisabeth Elliot

A resounding theme

It's almost becoming a resounding theme of my blog. Yep, you guessed it. Elisabeth Elliot again. While reading Keep a Quiet Heart today, I came to a conclusion. Of all the things I've gotten from reading her words the most important is probably the most simple. God, as complex as He is, does not speak to us complexly. Sometimes God gives us a disinct direction and we choose to worry about the how and whys and circumstances. None of that matters though.

When He says "Go" we are only to go, not to understand and then go, just go. When He says, "No, not right now, wait on Me" we are not to complain, or try to make it happen on our own. His answers are not to be over thought, analyzed or altered for our liking, they are simply to be done.

Why do we make this so hard? I'm still working on that answer, but in the mean time, I will love, pray and ask not what is next for me but what I can do next for Him.

Today made sense

Today is full of joy. A joy and peace that has me so shocked I don't know what to make of it. My roommate sat next to me as a moment passed that should not have been so calm and yet in my calmest voice I told her, "today, it makes sense." I wish I could express how insanely crazy it was for tears of joy to run down my cheeks for no reason at all. I kept telling her, I shouldn't feel this way! It's so bizarre that you would have had to have seen me to understand the complete unnatural peace that was upon me, that is upon me. Sometimes God shows up when you haven't asked, when you haven't prayed or hoped He would. He just comes and in the most undeniable way, I understand just how real He is, just how real He moves, touches, holds, speaks. In this moment, I know that He is for me. I know that He is truly good. His words are real because today, He let me feel them.

Apparently.. yes

"Wouldn't a mere simple request from God to trust Him be sufficient? Is it absolutely necessary for Him to yank out of sight whatever we most prize, to drag us into spiritual traumas of the severest sort, to strip us naked in the winds of His purifying spirit in order that we should learn to trust?" -Elisabeth Elliot

in the wake of murdered plans

The right thing to do is to be quiet. Deal with your thoughts in secret. Telling people just makes you seem like you can't handle everything. It makes your faith look weak. Who wants to be that vulnerable? Not you. .....not me..

I am weak. My biggest flaw is doubt. I daily fight to conquer my fear that I've already had the best moments of my life and my future is only the after math. I have moments where I think I'm always going to be living in the wake of my murdered plans, what kind of life is that? It's partly true, because I am living in the wake of my dead plans, but it's a lie that I've already been as happy as I'll ever be. I am very capable of being happy. Most days I am smiling, confident and hopeful roughly 90% of the time. The other 10% I spend reminding myself 'you're better off this way, believe it.'

Behind my fluttering confidence is the phrase "thy will be done" because on the days I raise my white flag and admit some moments still come with a sting, I have to believe it's His will. I have to stand on those four words because there is nothing I know to be more suitable. Whether it's as easy as my best days or as gut wrenching as my worst if I can just speak those words, I know He hears me. He's walking with me step for step. He doesn't just love my smile, or the wrinkles I get around my eyes with I'm happy, He loves me with angry fists, He loves me with gray streams of shame flowing down my cheeks and defeat in my voice, He loves my hiccup sobs and my snotty nose when I'm crying so hard I can barly breathe. He doesn't love us any less in moments where we seem love ourselves less. He loves us. Period. Thy will be done.

She knows me

"If my life is once surrendered, all is well. Let me not grab it back as though it were in peril in His hands and somehow safer in my own."
-Elisabeth Elliot

simple

You're staring at the Ceiling

About a year ago, God started painting me a picture of people under an evening sky in a field. There in that moment everything was pure and full of gratefulness of the true Creator. I can't count the times I'll be just going about my day and that picture will flash infront of all the other rubbish I'm thinking.

It's interesting for me to think about because the truth is majesty dwells above us every single night and yet for most of us who live in large towns or cities, the lights of man have distorted our view of this unbelieveable universe that God originally made our eyes to be able to see. In a way desensitizing us to it. I heard a song on the radio this morning on the way to class and some of the lyrics were,

"you're staring at the ceiling

but the stars are out tonight."

All I could think about was how people flock to churches to worship, raising there hands and eyes to the Father, and yet when they walk out the doors they never bother to look back up. I'm not against that atmosphere by any means, but sometimes we forget how big God is until we see his majesty all around us, not in the innovations of man but in the rawness of what has always been and always will be. I just want to look at those people and say, "you're staring at the ceiling, but the stars are out tonight!"

"He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since He is the Lord of heaven and earth, He doesn't live in man made temples." -Acts 17:24

My Cup Has Met My Portion

Free, liberated, light, burden free, somber, calm, peaceful, beautiful, strong, restored.

All of these words could describe my spirit currently. I have a lot I want to write about or speak about but then when it comes to doing it, I'm so peaceful that I can't bring myself to say anything but God is good.

I've been at this undescribable place where my cup has recognized my potion and I feel full, healthy, lacking nothing. I was talking to a good friend a few nights ago because I could just feel we were at similar places. She described it as this place of soaking, like God has you in this unbelieveable hug and in that moment all is well. She said at first it felt strange to be like that because she wasn't yelling or crying out or reaching for God and she wondered, "God is it enough for you? Is it enough for me to just sit here?" She smiled and then told me God whispered, "I see your heart, no one else has too." I loved that.

All is well with my soul.

A dead man's perfume

I had a really different idea of what I wanted to talk about tonight, and then I realized that everything I was going to say served no real purpose. They were empty words. Someone else had posted this picture. They didn't write anything. I saw it and wanted to move on to look at more lively or entertaining things, but I just couldn't.

All I could think about was crows. When I see crows it always means something has died. The thing about this picture is there are a lot of crows so this must be some sticking rotting carcass to be attracting so many. The thought made me smile.

"Yet God forbid that I should boast about anything or anybody but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, which means the world is dead to me and I am a dead man to this world." -Galatians 6:14

Bring on the crows.

Untainted Eyes

After class tonight with my 5th, 6th, and 7th grade girls I was standing around chatting with a few of them. One girl, Brinkley (I love her name so I never forget it) wasn't saying much. She just stared at me, so I gave her my attention assuming she had a question to ask.

All she said was, "I can't take my eyes off you, you're beautiful."

I say this humbly, her words were so pure and genuine that they penetrated all of my self prospective walls. This little girl made me truly feel beautiful. It makes my eyes well up with moisture that I wish I were better able to conceal.

The Lord's really been revealing to me how much He likes to use children and their faith that requires no knowledge or logic. Children believe without reason and that gives them the ability to trust and ingest things that maturation often steals.

This girl said I was beautiful without cliche', without vanity, without ulterior motive, without corrupted perspective and that is why my spirit let it pass so freely to the very core of who I am. I recognized that she could see what I can't see. We are all beautiful, but to hear it so unadulterated, gave me for a brief moment, a glimpse of myself through the untainted eyes of a child. I am thankful for that.