Lord, your love is an endless mountain. I climb higher and higher but I’ll never reach the top. Yet I won’t be frustrated because your love is not an achievement. It’s not an end goal. It’s all about the journey. I will wait on you and I will keep climbing higher and higher, finding light around the bend and joy at every corner.
As I climb up the mountain, there is so much joy and love and peace. Yet this peace is not because of the place I’m in, but rather the presence I’m in. And I carry that presence with me everywhere I go. Your presence follows me down the mountain and along winding roads. Your presence follows me on city streets and under bright lights. Your presence is always in me, therefore I always have that mountaintop kind of peace inside of me. I need only to pause and rest in your presence to receive it. I will wait on you. I will keep seeking you and your love for as long as I live. I will wait on you. And as I wait, I will praise you. I will praise you for every moment in this blessed life that you’ve given me. I will praise you for your goodness. I will praise you for the challenges. I will praise you for your love and when I fall down, I will praise you for picking me back up again. Jesus, THANK YOU. Thank you for the waiting. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for this endless mountain of your love. May I never grow tired of climbing it.
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There will be days when you’ll feel uninspired and unmotivated. Like your brain is running at a thousand miles an hour but it’s not going anywhere. Like all your thoughts are a jumbled mess and you can’t seem to make sense of any of it. Like the emotions are piled up inside but you can’t find the words to describe any of it. Like you know exactly what you need to do but you have absolutely no idea how to do it.
There will be days when it feels like you’re walking in a dark forest, all alone. There will be days when you feel like giving up. There will be days when you would do anything just to escape. There will be days when you’re scared out of your mind for no reason at all. There will be days when you cry and cry and you can’t stop, and days that you need to cry but just can’t. There will be days when this world seems like the cruelest place and you can’t seem to find a single spark of good anywhere. It’s what you do on those days that matters most. Weep, mourn, grieve, destroy some paper, feel it all, do whatever you need to. Then walk it off, go on a run, lift some weights, and clear your head. Stop pushing it down and let that anger and frustration and confusion boil up inside of you. Then pour your heart out and release it all. Release the pressure. Release your need for perfection. Release control and simply BREATHE. Breathe in truth and breathe out light. Feel the peace that comes with surrender. Let your heart heal as you move on. And whatever you do, don’t give up. Keep going. Keep fighting. Come back stronger than before. Be fortified with the strength that comes from overcoming a challenge. Run forward with a renewed sense of passion and fervor for life. Learn to live and live to learn and love to learn and learn to love again. Again and again and again. And trust me, it will get better. Those dark days you face will soon be met by the rising sun. Hope will return. Joy will be renewed. Love will come back for you. You’re gonna be okay. You’re not alone. I’ve been there too. Things will get better and you will be okay. Trust me. In the meantime, I’m cheering you on. You got this. You TOTALLY got this. Pour out your heart. Let the light in. Let him meet you where you are.
And let his love transform the way you live. Share it with others. Give others the same grace you have received. Allow others the same freedom to breathe. Love well and love deeply and love without looking back. Cherish these moments. Pause to appreciate the little things. A bird on a tree. The gentle breeze. The afternoon sun. A cool morning run. The tiny grains of sand and the wrinkles in your hand. The chorus of the universe singing praises to the one who made it all. Let your gratitude change your mindset. Let challenges become opportunities. Let the awkward moments be what they are. Trust that this is all part of his plan. He has a purpose. His will is good. And he’s holding you in his hand. He loves you and he wants the best for you. So pour out your heart. Allow yourself to be filled up by his love and to overflow with grace and compassion. Speak gentle truths and bright encouragement. Let joy and peace be the song that you sing. And do this all for the glory of our king. To him who first poured his heart out for you. He loves you more than you will ever understand. You placed the stars up in the sky
You raised the mountains way up high You placed the ground under my feet You listen to every heartbeat You paint the colors of a sunset You know the hairs on my head You dug the depths of the ocean You give freedom to emotion You speak truth through a whisper You shake the whole earth with thunder You set the wildfires ablaze You soften hearts with your gaze You are solid as a rock You are graceful as a hawk You are gentle and you are kind You are strong and you are wise You are all these things You are my everything And still I can’t see Why you choose to love me I’ll never understand The details of your plan And I know I cannot earn This grace I don’t deserve Yet you pour your blessings out I still don’t understand how How your grace and love for me Reaches far and wide and deep It covers all my sin and shame It takes away the pain and blame You’ve washed me clean In your eyes, I am free Free to laugh and dance and cry Free to marvel and wonder why As I stand in utter awe Of this beautiful love song Your words are a melody That makes my bitter heart sweet For everything we’ve been through All I can say is thank you Thank you for loving, for choosing For seeing and for proving That your love for us Is completely boundless I could go on and on and on and on And still I’d sing an empty song For I can never do justice To how much you love us There are not enough words on a page Not enough lights on a stage To honor you the way you deserve So instead, I promise to serve Your purpose, your kingdom, your will, your way I’ll let my actions and what I say Be a chorus that praises your name And tells the world of your fame Be the light in me And let others see This joy, this peace, this love Only comes from above This life I live Is the good you give And I am only free Because of Christ in me Look up
Look up in the night sky See the stars there? I see them too They connect us A beautiful reminder Of the light above That watches over us You and me Together or apart Makes no difference to the light It will shine just the same Side by side Or a million miles away Light is still up there Winking back at us So trust Trust that there is light out there Besides us But don’t trust in the stars Trust the one who placed them in the sky And knows each one by name He knows you, too He knows your name He knows your scars He knows your heart He knows where you’ve fallen And all those times you refused to give up Always fighting Fighting for light So trust Trust that he has a plan His plans are good And one day, you’ll see the beauty in it all All the stars All the sky All the light And all the night Even darkness has a purpose It allows the light to shine The stars will remain When morning takes their place But the day that comes Hides their light Yet as the sun sets And night arrives Those same stars come out to greet us If only we greet them too So look up Look up in the beautiful night sky And trust Trust in the one who made the stars And the one who placed them there He made your heart, too He has a purpose and a plan And he makes it all beautiful According to heavenly time Just wait for night to come And you’ll see how light shines A gentle reminder Of all his goodness Winking back At me and you It’s a dangerous invitation
That I’m holding out to you. I display it like a rose But really, underneath, it’s covered in thorns and dripping with my blood. I bear the scars from where this invitation has hurt me in the past. I’ve held this rose too tightly. I’ve been greedy. I’ve kept it to myself. I’ve crushed the petals because of my pride. I’ve stunted its growth and refused to allow it to be pruned. I can’t prune this rose myself. I can’t bring myself to cut what seems so beautiful in the moment. But it’s only through pruning that this rose will grow again. The pruning happens before the winter. Imagine what a rose must feel like in the middle of the winter—it’s cold, it’s bare, it’s raw, it’s open, and it’s vulnerable. Pruning must seem like the cruelest punishment for doing nothing wrong. But THEN, spring returns. LIFE begins to grow on and HOPE blooms aloud. And maybe, for once, I can let this rose go. Maybe I can finally share its beauty with someone else. Maybe I can share the thorns, too. Maybe I can trust that the pruning is necessary and even GOOD. Maybe I can believe that spring is just around the corner and love is blooming for me, too. The invitation to love and to receive love is a dangerous invitation. But maybe that’s exactly the step of faith God is calling me to. What “dangerous invitation” is God calling you to respond to with daring faith? I will step out boldly in faith. I will accept this dangerous invitation. I will walk forward with bold confidence. I will step out of the shadows with a renewed sense of hope. I will dance in the light with a joy that could only be heavenly. I will run and not grow weary. I will anchor on the shore and burn the ships, never looking back. I will forge ahead, even when the path seems unclear. I will be BOLD for the sake of the gospel and the kingdom coming. I will not fear for I know that my Father is not only watching, but he is with me. I will love and I will love and I will love and I will love again. God, I’m not ready for that. But that’s the mindset I want. Change my heart. Prune me. I’m asking for that. Asking for you to prune me is a dangerous invitation, too. And I'm ready to extend that. Your will be done. “Do you ever get tired of running?”
A friend asked me this question today. I said no, because I really enjoy running. I explained that I get tired of doing the same workouts over and over again, but I don’t think I ever get tired of running itself. I haven’t really thought about that before. I repeated that question again in my head for the next several hours. I wanted to answer truthfully, so I kept questioning my initial answer until I was sure about it. I’ve decided that I don’t really get tired of running. Obviously I still get tired while running, but I don’t think I get tired of running itself. As I do with most things, I thought about how this might apply to my relationship with God. The question changed to “Do you ever get tired of running for God?” Once again, I have the same answer—no, because I really enjoy it. One of the greatest feelings in the whole world is feeling like I’m accomplishing my purpose in serving God and advancing his kingdom. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to best align my priorities with God’s will. In the past, sometimes I’ve thought, “Oh, I’ll make time to serve God when my schedule allows it and I have the energy to do so.” But serving God isn’t something we should do only when we have the energy. Rather, our lives should be an act of service to God in everything we do. Whatever “race” God has equipped you to run, run for God (Colossians 3:23). I believe that when we run for the right reasons, God will strengthen us to keep running (Isaiah 40:31). As we run the race, we must remember WHY we do it. If you train and train but never race, you’re forgetting your purpose. In track, you can train all you want, but if you never race, you’ll never know how fast you are. The same is true for life. You can spend your whole life doing nice things and trying to be a good person, but if you’re not living for God, then you’re living without a purpose (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). We train to get faster. The training itself is necessary. But at some point, we have to race. We have to remind ourselves why we train. We have to remind ourselves that ultimately, we are doing this for God’s glory, to advance his kingdom, and to be faithful with the gifts he has given us. So RUN. RUN THE RACE. And RUN FOR GOD. As you run, don’t forget to enjoy it. Look back at how far you’ve come and be grateful for every step. Look forward to the finish line and remember why you do this. And encourage others along the way, that you might inspire them to run for God, too. You are a rose. You are GROWING.
Everything that you’re going through will be worth it one day. All the emotions you feel are making you into something more beautiful. It’s okay that it hurts sometimes and that life isn’t exactly what you hoped for because you can GROW in this season. You are a rose bud. Bursting with energy and passion and beauty that no one else sees yet. Just waiting to bloom. And it’s okay if you don’t see it yet, either. It’s okay if all your thoughts and feelings are crowded together inside of you and you don’t see the beauty. Even a rose doesn’t know what it will look like until it blooms. But trust me, you will bloom. Life is ugly and thorny, but there are good days coming. The sun will rise again and you will live to see another day. There is so much beauty up ahead. Just you wait. I’ve been feeling kind of confused recently. It feels like my mind is running circles around my heart and everything is just a blur.
At the moment, I have a lot of questions and not many answers. I hate feeling like that. Yet even in my uncertainty, God has been faithful and has continued to reveal his presence to me. One question that came up today was “Why doesn’t God always bless those who are faithful to him?” This evening, I had a really good conversation with one of my friends. She has been very intentional about spending time with God and trying to seek him first in everything. We were able to celebrate the joy she is experiencing right now. It is so fun to see how God has blessed someone who has been faithful to him. As we were talking, I started to feel a little bit of jealousy creep in. As soon as I recognized that, my first thought was “AH! NO! What are you doing here, jealousy? Go away!” I thought about my feelings a little more. I began to ask myself the “why” questions. Why do I feel jealous of her joy? Why can I not just be totally and completely happy for her? Then it hit me. I have believed the lie that because I have been “good” and because I have been faithful to God, that I deserve blessings. How conceited is that?! I BELIEVED THAT I DESERVED TO BE BLESSED. Wow. That hurts to admit. That hurts a lot. We don’t deserve God’s blessings. We could never earn God’s blessings. So when God chooses to bless someone, it’s something above and beyond. God’s blessings are an act of grace. Grace is not just found in the story of salvation—blessings are undeserved gifts, too. I NEVER deserve God’s blessings. Never ever in a million years could I even come close to deserving them. That’s because there is no scale of “undeserving” to “almost deserving” or anything like that. Nope. Undeserving is undeserving. Just as no sin is greater than another, no one deserves grace any more than another. God doesn’t always bless us when we think we deserve it. That makes a lot of sense now, but it still HURTS. God doesn’t always choose to bless us. God doesn’t always choose to heal us. God doesn’t always choose to give us the desires of our heart. Even if you’re faithful, even if you seek his will, even if you do your very best to follow him, he still may not choose to bless you. AND THAT’S OKAY. I don’t believe in the prosperity gospel, and I never have. I know that is a lie. But I think I’ve bought into the lie that if I am faithful to God, I deserve to experience his blessings, at least once in a while. At least he should bless me with peace, right? At least he should bless me with fruitful relationships, right? At least he should bless me with people who support me, right? No. He “shouldn’t” anything. God gives us grace instead. He gives from the overflowing love in his heart. God is so good. When the sun rises, he is good. When the sun sets, he is good. When the rain falls, he is good. When the storms rage, he is good. When the oceans roar, he is good. When the mountains crumble, he is good. When the earth shakes, he is good. When it seems like all of life is falling apart, he is good. He is good because that is who he is, not what he does. He IS good. He IS grace. He IS love. So what is our proper response? Gratefulness. If God chooses to bless you, thank him. If you’re not experiencing the blessings you asked for, thank him anyways. Because the truth is, God blesses us all the time, whether we see it or not. Every day, every moment, every breath is a gift. We don’t even deserve life itself. Life is a gift. It is grace. It is an undeserved gift. God might bless you. And if not, he is still good. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for being so good to us, even when we don’t deserve it. We love you. Am I good enough?
This is a question we ask ourselves every day, consciously or unconsciously. In a culture of comparison, we are constantly measuring ourselves up against other people or others’ standards to see if we’re “good enough.” Culture tells us, “If you want it, go get it. You have to earn what you deserve. Nothing is given to you. Work work work. And if you stop to catch your breath for a minute, you’ll miss it.” Even in the church, we often feel the need to “prove” our worthiness to others. We ask ourselves, “Am I a good enough Christian? Do I attend enough Bible studies? Do I participate in enough service projects? Do I know enough about the Bible?” These are good things, but they should not be done to prove that we are “worthy” to call ourselves Christians. So what is the answer? Am I good enough? The honest answer is no. Now hold on a second, let me explain. The Bible says that apart from God, we can do nothing. We have all sinned and we have all fallen short of the glory of God. All by myself, I am a failure. I have failed to live up to God’s standards. And that’s exactly why we need Jesus. God met us in our unworthiness and sent the one who is worthy to take our place. God allowed the only one who is worthy to be made unclean for our sake, that we might be made clean and blameless and worthy in God’s eyes. Isn’t that so incredible?! I am only worthy in God’s eyes because Jesus is worthy. Let me repeat that—I AM ONLY WORTHY BECAUSE HE IS WORTHY. I cannot do anything to earn salvation. I cannot do anything to earn God’s favor. I cannot do anything to earn righteousness. I cannot do anything to earn God’s love. So where does that leave me? What does God ask of us? What should our response be to Jesus? He wants us to just BE. He wants us to BE in his presence and to recognize that HE is worthy. I’ve noticed an interesting shift in the way we talk about summer. Before I started college, asking “What are you going to do over the summer?” usually meant “Are you going on vacation?” Now, I’ve come to realize that it means, “What are you going to DO to further your place in life? Are you going to work? Are you going to start an internship? Are you going to take the opportunities you have to earn something for yourself?” What would it look like if we participated in a summer of just being? A summer where we learned to focus on BEING in God’s presence rather than DOING things in the world? Of course, I’m not saying to sit on the couch all day and do nothing. But even in the rhythms of school and work and whatever else we do, I wonder if we can learn to BE in God’s presence. You can DO everything for Christ, but if you’re not BEING Christlike, it is worth nothing. In our rhythms of school and work and rest and in between, I wonder what it would look like for us to learn how to just BE in God’s presence. I absolutely LOVE journaling. Journaling is a way for me to just BE in God’s presence without feeling like I have to DO anything. When I journal, I feel this huge sense of freedom in knowing that it doesn’t have to be perfect or even polished. There is freedom in not having to worry about grammar or punctuation or the formalities of writing. In a conversation with a mentor of mine the other day, as I explained how I journal both to process my life and to pray to God, she asked me, “How do you define prayer?” I had never thought about that before. I wasn’t quite sure what to say. I usually just define prayer by what follows after “Dear God…” Then my mentor asked, “What if we defined prayer relationally instead?” She explained, “We can invite God into the small moments of our lives. We can learn to simply be aware that he is present in all things. And when you start to realize this, you will see that all of your journaling can be prayer, even if it’s not a ‘Dear God’ entry.” WOW. I was stunned. What an incredible perspective shift. We can pray continually by simply acknowledging God’s presence. We can BE in his presence without having to DO anything. When we shift from an attitude of doing to an attitude of being, it gives us a huge sense of freedom. We cannot DO anything for God that he has not already done for us. Instead, he calls us to BE in his presence and to BE who he uniquely created us to be. So am I good enough? No. But is he good enough? OH YES. I AM ONLY WORTHY BECAUSE HE IS WORTHY. So just BE. |
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