Grateful.

If there is one thing I never fail to take away from any Summerfest or conference it's this. 

I don't want to be anywhere else. 

I don't want to do anything else with my life. 

I don't want to do life any other way. 

As I watch those I care about encounter God, some for the first time. 

As I see my friends families being changed right before my very eyes. 

Young people praying for each other and standing along side each other. 

People conquering. 

Poeple overcoming. 

As I watch as those I love step into what God has for them and recieve things I have prayed over their lives. 

I am overwhelmed with gratefulness that I get to be amongst this. 

And it makes every hard moment worth it, every time I ever felt like I couldn't do it anymore, every moment I wanted to give up fades away as I watch Him move among those I care about most. 

And It makes me love him so much more. 

(Photo Cred: Nathan Hyratt) 

Welcome back.

I think sometimes we are programmed to feel disappointment stronger then we feel Love. 

It might be because of our past or insecurity but it seems harder the think about how proud someone might be of us, rather then think of what we have done to disappoint people. 

I had always struggled to feel like God Loved me, I always knew it in my head but I never felt his Love easily or that he was proud of me. 

The second I screwed up though, I felt his disappointment instantly, I felt like he was ashamed of me. 

Half the time I didn't care, if he was already ashamed then I didn't wanna come back and feel that. 

I would instead run further into whatever I had got myself into. 

This is exactly the opposite of what he wants us to do. 

Every time someone in bible came back to Jesus he did not scorn them, he accepted them. 

He never once said he was disappointed. 

He never said he was ashamed to have them back. 

He just welcomed them back with open arms. 

He healed them, he set them free. 

And his Love was exactly the same when they came back. 

His love was just as deep for them. 

The prodigal son is my all time favorite example of this. 

He asks for his inheritance and his father in his love for his son gives it to him. 

Then he does exactly what he wants with it, he lives selfishly without regard to how his father might feel.

The bible says that when he came to then end of himself he thinks about how his father servants have even more then him. 

He is ashamed and cannot possibly come back as a son, but maybe, just maybe he can earn his way back to his father by serving him. 

He prepares a speech about how he has sinned and is no longer worthy. 

But when he goes to say it, his father welcomes him with open arms and rejoices. 

Isn't this what we do with God? 

And yet every single time we come back, this is exactly how he greets us. 

We prepare a speech about how we have sinned and aren't worthy.

He welcomes us with open arms. 

He Loves us. 

When I don't feel like it.

What is Leading you? 

I asked God to give me something I can use and when I opened my bible app this was the first thing that popped up: 

"My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence? (Galatians 5:16-18 MSG)"

I have found that when I am led by what I feel I am selfish and I hate it. 

The past few weeks God has been pushing me to do things that I do not want to do, go places I don't really want to go and then just stay. 

The things that gets me about this verse is that you cannot be led by the spirit and by your feelings. Trust me when you do that it ends up ruining everything. 

When you choose God even when it's so incredibly hard, you end up in freedom regardless of how many trials it takes to get there. 

So lately when all I have wanted to do is be in my bed snuggling my kitten, he calls me to go somewhere where he will speak to me. 

When all I have wanted to do is run, he's calling me to stay. 

When all I have wanted to do is to walk in offense, he calls me to pray instead. 

When all I have wanted to do is exactly what I feel like doing, he is calling me to go where he is leading me. 

Directly into his freedom. 

Directly to him. 

And when it all comes down to it that's where I am choosing to go. 

Strength.

Sometimes we pride ourselves on a strength. 

We hold onto it as if it is our only protection. 

We display it. 

We use it often and feel ashamed when we have failed too.

We harden it until it is unbreakable. 

We hide behind it and we let nobody see it's fault. 

When in fact it is our greatest weakness. 

It's what will break us should we ever relax it. 

It's a front to what is really at our core. 

Nothing but a hard shell that makes what is inside all the more fragile. 

It screams that we are strong only because without it we would become undone. 

We must uphold it at every moment. 

Never loosing control, never taking a breathe. 

Constantly repairing every tiny fracture before it breaks apart completely. 

If only we could take it down and cast it so far away that we could not take it up again. 

If only we could hand it over to the one who's strength is far greater then our own. 

Then the most broken and fragile places inside us would be strengthened within him.  

Then from within our weakness we would be strong. 

Out of our brokenness his fragrance flows.

I read this story often, I LOVE the relationship Jesus has with women and how he responds to them. 

 A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. (Luke 7:37, 38 NIV)

This woman Broke all she had and poured it out on Jesus! She wept on him and kissed him! She was so venerable in that moment but she did not care.. All she cared about was giving what she had to Jesus. 

She was not afraid to be broken in front of him, nor worried about what people would say. 

She was completely focused on him in that moment. 

Swept up in his presence and entirely immersed in his mercy. 

And his heart was captured by her. 

I wonder what she was thinking when she payed for the perfume? Was that her plan all along? 

Is that what she had in mind?

Had she battled with herself beforehand as to whether she was worthy, or whether it was enough? Whether he would accept her? Was she good enough to be in his presence? 

Was she afraid that he would turn her away? 

What was her story that deemed her to be a sinful woman? 

And where did she go when she left? 

We know none of these details, all we know is that she broke her perfume and poured out all she had on Jesus! 

All she had.... 

What's your alabaster jar? 

All I had was my story, unfinished and broken. 

And God had everything I needed. 

Once I gave him my everything, as broken as it was. That's when he changed my story and made it his, he finished it and made it whole. 

Out of my brokenness his fragrance flowed.