Having One of Those Days...

I am really struggling with being in Falls City today...I am tired of not having friends my age here...okay, I have one...I'm tired of the cold weather. I am tired of looking at all of the tacky yard crap - fake deer, dogs, fake flowers, etc...and I'm tired of meeting hopeless people, who don't want to change, people who just got out of jail or who are going to jail...lots of people here have experience with jail.

If I want to recycle, I have haul it all to a city an hour away...there's not even a movie theater here anymore. There used to be one that showed one movie at a time (maybe 2?) but they closed it down, and now all of the windows have been broken out. There is sits. Shattered glass still on the ground...only one window boarded up...the other left open for the meth addicts.

I'm tired of feeling alone, of not having anyone who can watch my child if I have to go to the doctor or even if I just want a break. I really need one right now. I am tired of not having a nice big grocery store that sells organic food, or ethnic food, and I'm tired of not having a coffee shop. I'm tired of having to drive an hour away if I need a new pair of jeans or if I want to buy groceries...or if I want to see a person who is not white. I am longing for a change of circumstances...which is not likely to happen.

I know that God wants to change me and not my circumstances...I know that He should be sufficient for me...right now....but COME ON!! Sometimes I have to ask Him why there are even places like this? I wonder what He feels when He looks down on this little town...heartbreak? I know why I am here...and I know that it is to do His work, but it is really hard to keep hoping when no one around you thinks there is anything to hope for. Only God can do that. I can't.

I feel like compassion is slowly leaking out of me...and I know just where to turn. The problem is, today I want to wallow in this shithole. I don't want to go to my Father, because somehow I feel like if I stay here, maybe He will have to come here too...and see all of this...and come with power and might and change things drastically.

Real Freedom

Ever wonder what it would be like to walk strong, never wavering, being able to say no without feeling guilty, only offering advice when it was right, taking captive all of those ugly thoughts, while not being bound by the law?

Someone posed a question the other day that made me think about freedom versus the law. They asked me, "Did God require that the Israelites take the law, or did He ask them to come and spend time with Him, but they refused? Did God give them the law because they refused a personal relationship with Him?" I've read and re-read the scriptures in Exodus...I can't really tell. You can assume that was the case, but it's not laid out in concrete clarity. One thing is obvious though...throughout the Old Testament, God's chosen ones have declined a wholehearted relationship with Him (this is also true of us today - Jew and Gentile), and opted to do the bare minimum requirements to keep themselves presentable. I wrote about this in a previous post on Isaiah 1. Considering all of this...are we bound by the written law? Are we stuck meeting requirements when there is so much more?

God has been speaking to my heart about what it means to have real freedom. This burden I've felt for so long is the LAW! I'm bound by the law instead of being free in His will. If I were to only act and speak when God tells me so, what would I need the law for? Paul explains this in detail in Galations. My faith in the goodness of God is what prompts my obedience to Him. If my heart is so in tune with His, and if I am completely His, living abandoned to His will, purposing to hear His voice all of the time, then I will know when to move and when to speak. Then...I am not taking on things that are not mine, then I can say NO and not feel guilty, speak the truth without offense.

Of course, this can only happen when your motives are pure. It's so funny, that from the outside your actions can look the same whether your motives are pure or not. This is something else that God has been showing me. He knows the difference...and when we are hearing His voice, He tells us so. Psalm 24:3 - 5 says, "Who shall go up into the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His Holy Place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted himself up to falsehood or to what is false, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation."

He is calling me to His heart, so that there I might get rid of the chains of the law that strangle me. Real freedom, resting in Him and His truth instead of the man made laws and burdens the world would have me strap on my back. When will I allow His rod to protect me and His staff to guide and correct me? When will I allow Him to invade my way of thinkng and doing? Truly taking control of my perspective? If I follow His lead, I have no need for the law. Psalm 25:12-14 says, "Who is the man who reverently fears and worships the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way that he should choose. He himself shall dwell at ease, and his offspring shall inherit the land. The secret of the sweet satisfying companionship of the Lord have they who fear Him, and He will show them His covenent and reveal to them its deep inner meaning."

Even the most innocent of words or actions on my behalf, He's been showing me are really more about my own glory than His. I've been bound by the rules of society that say I have to help someone. Then I help them, but my motivation is not pure. Sure, it looks really good on the outside...so why am I even doing it? To satisfy the world or to make sure they think highly of me? What about Him?

Tenderly He chastise me. Gently He turns me around. Softly He opens my eyes to the way I've wronged someone else - if only by having the wrong motives in my heart. I've found such freedom in this!!! I know it sounds strange, but to be able to speak because He's told me to is so much more than speaking because I want others to know that I know something important...even if the words are exactly the same!! I have to believe He's good, it all hinges on my belief that God is good and He is good TO ME.

I've always loved Jason Upton...but I think I am just now beginning to REALLY understand what he means when he talks about the "form" and "real freedom." These are some of the lyrics that struck me so deeply as I wrote this:

Freedom, not just a thought.
The understanding of Your victory.
Freedom is purity, purity in victory.

Till the ground in me until it's ready (when I'm ready to give up my own glory)
Freedom not to be like everyone else, freedom, NOT to follow the crowd - but to be as unique as I was created.

There is so much more on my heart concerning this...I can't even put it into the right words...but I feel like this is so important! I wish I'd understood before! Maybe everyone else already does, and somehow I missed it!

He Answers!

Thanks for praying for me...I think that God has really allowed me to see the light on this one, and also pointed me to a greater truth. I had taken on way too much that was not mine, but in stepping back, I can now move forward with HIM as my goal and not my own glory. There's a Jason Upton song that says, "I'm so tired of my hands in the way." That's how I feel. Now that I've let go of this "thing" I pray that God would continue to work in this person's life and show this person a way out. Maybe there has to come a breaking point. It's so funny that my post before this mess was about how we, as Christians, cannot do anything on our own - it has to be God, we simply cannot. And, if we cannot fix ourselves, how in the world do we think we can fix someone else? I guess I don't even listen to my own thoughts!!! So, God. Come in...remove everything that hinders our path to You...especially my own silly pride.

Special Unspoken

I don't even know if anyone reads this anymore, but if you do...I could use a lot of prayer. I really need direction from the Lord right now about something - a touchy situation, regarding a person who really needs help. I am concerned about the safety of my own family at times (though not overly concerned, just thinking about possible outcomes), and considering the hopeless ending. I am losing hope for this person way too early. I just need to hear from God right now, I need to know how to respond and what to do/say.

Letting Go

I think it's hard, as a Christian, to realize that our only real responsibility is to say yes to God continually. It is hard to believe that we cannot do anything apart from God, though His word tells us so. It is hard to think that we can't change ourselves, in our own strength. I always try to fix myself, I always try to hold onto things that are not mine, thinking that somehow I know better than God. Surely this is how He would have me do it...

It's not that God calls us to sit around all day and not DO anything, but I think more often than not, we do a lot of things that He hasn't called us to do...or we try to do the things HE wants to do in our hearts. Poverty of Spirit comes when we realize that we cannot. We simply cannot, apart from Him. We may be able to bandage and cover up, but the truth of what is underneath will always bring us back to Him, because we were designed that way.

We live in a do-it-yourself culture, a culture that rates our success on what we have done and if we've doen it the "right" way. We have to accomplish, have to show hard results, have to prove our worth in something concrete. It's so hard for me that this is not God's way. The thing that He has called us to, is to be in tune with His heart, to respond to Him, to wait for His lead and then follow...to ALLOW Him to lead, to open ourselves to Him, to LET Him come in and fix...to let go of the controls we have on our own lives...Respond to His love...we respond to the beating of His heart, not resisting Him by taking the reins. I am struggling with this right now...it's like giving up my own power over my life. It's easy to say, not so easy to do.

How can we be responsible for what we know, and yet...I can't put into words what I'm feeling...yet, not try to fix it when we think we know how. Oh well... :)

Like A Loser

...that is how I'm feeling at the moment. It all started with an e-mail from a friend. I'm not sure we are even still friends. I mean, we are friends, but not like we used to be, and that is part of my problem. The e-mail was about another friend we went to school with, and contained a whole conversation that had been going on between the two of them - their lives - jobs, boyfriends, weight loss, new oportunites, etc... I felt so out of the loop, so far removed.

I was bombarded with the fullness of their lives and all that they are doing, and in turn had to examine my own life. Wow. I am such a boring person! I live in a teeny tiny town that doesn't even have a movie theater or a coffee shop. I stay at home with my 14 month old little girl. Sometimes I venture out to the nursing home for devotionals, and I attend a Bible study...sometimes I go to lunch with a friend, sometimes I get out of town to buy real organic groceries. Right now the wind chill is minus 8, so we are not even able to really get outside to play!!! Even the thought of playing outside with Mayah probably sounds rediculous compared to the lives that my old friends are leading...climbing the career ladder to success. A few weeks ago I got an e-mail inviting me to a weekend in Las Vegas with all my college sisters...things like that are not even an option anymore.

It was such a shocker when we moved here from Minneapolis, but the Lord had called us to a life set apart...what better place? I quit my job when Mayah was born, we moved 3 weeks later to Nowhere, NE.....I had been praying that I would have time to just BE, to know God, to settle in and get quiet with Him, to be able to minister to Him. He has indeed answered my prayers. But, I can't help but be envious of the friendships I may no longer have...of how different my friends lives are from mine. I can't help but miss going out for a nice dinner, having a glass of wine with friends...just someone to talk to in person who is a LITTLE bit like me...but there is no one HERE. This is definitely not the place I am going to be able to pursue my own career (if I had one...). Today...this feeling causes me to ask again, what do You have in store for me, God? Am I going to do great things? Will I make a difference in someone's life?