Am I nearly at the end?

When I got tired of running from you

I stopped right there to catch my breath

There your words they caught my ears

You said, “I miss you son. Come home”

And my sins, they watched me leave

And in my heart I so believed

The love you felt for me was mine

The love I’d wished for all this time

And when the doors were closed

I heard no I told so’s

I said the words I knew you knew

Oh God, Oh God I needed you

God all this time I needed you,

I needed you

-Relient K

No matter how long it takes?

Wow. I'll say it again, just in case you casually passed over it. Wow. I was looking through 'My Utmost For His Highest' trying to find a devotional that would fit with the study this week, and I found this. It's deep... and maybe hard to grasp... It's very good though.


" (Colossians 1:24)
'I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church...'

We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say "Here I am! Send me" (Isaiah 6:8)
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, "If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn't object!" But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, the we will have to be crushed - you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benifit His other children. "
(Oswald Chambers)


I feel lately as though I have been squeezed down to the last drop... I know I've begun to wonder if I've cried everything down to the last tear. But this brings perspective to it.
What is it that God wants to rivet my attention to? I think I'm beginning to sense the answer...

Why?

I'm getting sick again. This is going to be a tough week at work I think.

I don't know what to say anymore... I don't know why I'm doing this.
I guess I need to stick to writing when I have something encouraging to share.

How can a Christian feel so devoid of hope and joy?

I'm gonna speak the words that need no form

I got to sleep in till ten thirty this morning... I'm thankful. :o)

I'm hoping to go into town and just spend some time relaxing. I want to get some more pants... and perhaps a CD. I don't know, but I need time to think. I need to reflect.


'It is because of our trusting in experience that we see the steadfast impatience of the Holy Spirit against unbelief. All of our fears are sinful, and we create our own fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith.'
-Mr. Chambers

Galatians 2:20

I'm freezing.

I'm always amazed at the gentle way that God changes my heart when I allow Him control again. So often I allow Anxiety to take over, and it tends to drown out my assurance and trust in God.
I can't help but ask myself why I'm doing just enough to get by. I know there is something better... I know that a life directed and surrendered to God is so much more then this.


I stand tall with an arrogant grin
Filled with pride as
I chase the dreams that are riding on the wind
In ignorant determination watch me pursue
But I’m not and they’re not enough to
satisfy the hunger pains of my soul
They are like fading mirages,
illusions that leave me sold
to the truth
That’s the essence of me
. . . I’m not enough

So here I am
Broken on my knees stretching out my weary hands
Grasp them and lift me
Help me to find a rest in your arms
that can change my state of mind

I stagger the earth with one defeated sigh
I once was longing to live
now I’m longing to die
Having attained everything that I desired
was not enough
Not enough to quench the thirst for life,
for hope for peace
Captive to my pride
now I beg for sweet release
And then a voice breathes in whispers to my soul
"I am enough, I am enough"

Set my awkward steps straight in line
Move me to walk this life
with your hand in mine

-38th Parallel


I need to prepare for bible study....

.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-John McCrae

napping

Please would someone pray for me? I hear so much gutter talk at work now that it's so hard not to still have it ringing in my head. It's so hard not to focus on it... and let it come back out. I need to devolope some strategies to help me avoid adopting it.

Today was long. Very long. And hard. But I'm home now, and I get tomorrow off. :o) And God is good.

I feel as though God has been challenging me on many things lately. Especially my pride, and my unwillingness to admit mistakes. He's also been speaking to me a great deal about trust, and what it means to surrender to Him. They go hand in hand I think... When I try something, especially something that means alot to me, I try as hard as I possibly can to do it right... and then when I fail, as I do all too often, I look around for something - someone - else to blame. But I've been praying that He will begin to humble me, and teach me how to admit my mistakes, and then trust that He will still work the situation out for good. Even when I don't like it. Which is one of the hardest parts for me... Especially the times when the intensity of my emotions violently hurls me outside the walls of reason. I forget so easily that only in the assurance of absolute trust in God will I find peace.

arg... I guess this post is long enough. I keep falling asleep between sentances :o
I'm tired.

May God draw each of you into a place of intimacy and fulfilment in His loving arms. I do not think God lacks anything to fulfill what He has created.

Sunday, Nov. 7

This really spoke to me. God spoke to me through it. I was/am very low right now... I'm grateful to you Lord.

Oswald Chambers:
"The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you can't understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definate purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, 'I'm going to be my own providence here; I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that.' All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don't ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the oppertunity to intercede for them..."

...Romans 8:28...


I have been selfish. I have put my own interests before others. I am sorry.

I pray that God will not give up on trying to teach me faithfulness and trust.

Apple Pie and a content Conversation

...in a coffee shop with bar stools, and a good view of a sidewalk covered in orange leaves. Yeah.



I don't feel like writing now. I got up at 3:30 this morning, worked an 8 hour day, and got home an hour ago. And I've got to phone some people and find some material for the bible study tomorrow.

But last night.... and the sermon on Sunday, coincide strangely. I felt I needed to share about them... specifically to a friend of mine. But I wanted to attempt to share how God has been speaking to me with all of you... So I'll try.

'Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas (Peter)"'

The meaning of the name 'Simon' in hebrew is 'Reed'. Wimpy. One who is blown along with everyone else by a common wind. A crowd follower.
The meaning of 'Peter' is 'Rock'. Steadfast. Faithful.
Jesus was promising Peter that he would change. He was acknowledging that, yes, Peter was weak now, and yes, he would be blown over. He would fail. But at the same time Jesus was promising him another chance. He was saying, 'Peter, you WILL start to live as I have. You will become a rock, that I will build my church on.' Jesus told him out right, that Satan would sift him as wheat... He told him that he would deny his Lord three times before dawn. But Jesus also reassured him... saying that He had prayed that Peter's faith would not fail. He even said to him, 'When you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethern.' He gave him his ultimate mission. Before he even failed. Peter's faith was not dependant on how strong he was. His faith was tended, and made steady by God himself. It did not fail, even though Peter did.

"It would seem, that some Christians have a message of forgiveness for the unbeliever, but no message of forgiveness for the believer. I'm glad that God does!"
-George Duncan

Be perfectly certain that before you ever made a single mistake, before you were blown by the winds of sin, before you were pushed aside from your place of faithfulness... God saw it coming. He knew it would happen. Just as He knew Peter would deny Him. But He knew that your faith would hold strong! He knew that His forgiveness would buy you righteousness again. He knew that through His blood, You would be made whole again! You would be pure, and righteous again in the eyes of God!! And He said, 'Here, with my forgiveness, I will always present you with another chance.'
I have been a reed so many times in my life. I have failed. I have denied my Lord three times *many* fold! I have allowed myself to sink away from a place of surrender, a place of fulfillment... I've let myself be drawn so far away from God that I have wanted to kill myself. I'm perfectly serious. I have made every mistake I could. I have broken every commandment, and many many hearts. I have hurt people. I've been unfaithful to my King. I have looked at women lustfully, and therefore committed adultery. I have squandered much of my purity.
Yet my faith is still renewed... I'm am still given another chance to be a part of the foundation of God's church! The only way I would not be given another chance to become the faithful servent, a corner stone, that Christ has intended me to be is if *I* myself do not accept it!
The forgiveness of God is not something to take lightly. It is not to be taken for granted. Take time to just ponder it... It should be enough to fill our hearts, and souls with joy and thankfulness so deep that we would not be able to walk straight! Yet very seldom have I ever experienced something even close to that. You know why? Because I would not fully accept forgiveness, and allow His blood to clense me head to toe.
*near weeping* DO NOT STOP LONGING TO BE WHOLE AND FAULTLESS IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. I plead with you, receive the newness God is offering you. Take hold of the oppertunity to become Peter, instead of Simon. It will happen. Just as God promised Simon it would, so I believe he has also promised you and me the same.

To have known Jesus... to have walked with Him, and loved Him. Exhaulted Him as God.... and then to have betrayed Him three times... Can you picture what Peter saw of himself? Can you imagine his deep pain and shame? I think I can, because I've been there.
But your faith must stand. It WILL stand because God himself is there, with you. Weep in His arms, and discover joy. Live.


Grace and Peace surround you. May the God of all Heaven and Earth never leave you nor forsake you. May He make his face to shine upon you, and be good to you.

'Oh God, You are my God, and I will ever praise You'