A look into life...

I love you, Lord; you are my strength.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior;

my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.

He is my shield, the strength of my salvation, and my stronghold.

I will call on the Lord, who is worthy of praise,

for he saves me from my enemies.

...

But in my distress I cried out to the Lord;

yes, I prayed to my God for help.

He heard me from his sanctuary;

my cry reached his ears.

Psalm 18:1-3, 6

God brought me to this this morning in my quiet time. How amazing!

For those of you who have been following my blog, here's a little more about what God is doing in my life right now!

Can I just say that God has been completely kicking my behind in church the past two Sundays. Even before the pastor gets up to speak, God's talking to me. I'm just thankful that I'm listening.

Anyway, before the service even started yesterday God was speaking. Funny, because the whole message yesterday was about being able to hear God's voice when it speaks to you and recognizing it when it does. God brought the verse to mind, "To whom much is given, much is expected." And He asked. "What have you been given?" I honestly haven't made an assessment of that yet, but it really struck me as something I need to do. I need to look at everything I've been given and make sure I'm using it in some way.

One of the pastors stood up to greet everyone and he said something that made me think about going overseas to serve. And I thought, "if I could just go somewhere, then I could really give everything I had for You and I could love people without reservation. But God spoke again. He convicted. Why will I go "anywhere" and I just want to go "somewhere" to love people into the Kingdom, but for some reason I don't think I can do that here? More importantly, what is it in me that's not making me willing to do it here. I struggle so much with loving people here. I can't explain it.

I went out to dinner with Cerise last night. What a blessing she is! She listened and was so interested in what God is doing in my life and was thrilled for me. That was the biggest blessing to me. Someone wanted to know what God was teaching me and gave me the opportunity to share about the blessings and share my praises. Other times, when I just talk about how great God is I feel like I'm a burden because the people aren't really interested. Do you know what I mean?

I digress...She and I went to dinner and it wasn't anything planned, it just spur of the moment. We started talking about what God was doing in our life and what He was teaching us. We talked about how excited we were about being involved in the lives of these youth and thankful that God was choosing to use us in this manner.

I tried to explain, just like I will here what I'm feeling at this moment. With all that is going on and has gone on over the past couple of months, nothing has been more obvious than the tugging of my heart by my Savior. It's so hard to explain and there really aren't words to describe the feeling that I have.

But it's this deep unquenchable thirt and unsatisfiable hunger for Him. I have tried over and over to quench it and satisfy it, but I can't. It's like I'm standing on the edge of this cliff and all I have to do is jump and it would be there, but I can't jump. Not because I'm holding myself back or because I'm scared, but because there is a wall. I didn't put the wall up, someone else did. I'm being held back. I cna't explain it. I feel like I need to take a sabattical from everything in my life right now and go on some sort of pilgrimage. I know that sounds crazy, but I feel like there's nothing else to do. Nothing. I feel like I need to quit seeing people from church and other friends and need to quit eXodus to focus on Him. Now, please don't read this and think that I'm about to do all of these things. Not the case. But I'm praying about all of them. We'll see what the Lord would have me to do.

God continues to call me deeper. He's whispering to me. He's screaming at me. He speaks loudly and clearly. He is there. I can feel Him. I can hear Him.

This morning was amazing, because for the first time I was able to verbally express thanks to God for the lack of sleep, the trying times with team members and interns. I was able to finally say "thank you" because I saw God in the midst of it all. Each one of those things and others are the things that have brought me to my knees over the past 10 days. They are the things that have drawn me closer to Him. Isn't that what they're for anyway? To produce perserverance, character, hope, etc... To bring is closer to our Father and make us rely on Him. Amazing!

Thank you for your prayers! They are still being heard and they are very much appreciated! Keep praying!

One more thing I want to add in that I'm learning. And let me give a little disclaimer. I totally understand that my posts can be a little long and you may not read through them all, but they are mostly for my own personal need to digest and think through what I'm feeling and learning. And if you read about the great things that God does in and through me, then praise the Lord! May He get the glory for what He has done!

God has been steadfast in continually reminding me that He is my refuge and He does not disappoint. I have been hurt by and disappointed by some close friends of mine lately and they don't even know it. That's not the point. I wanted them to know it at first. But yesterday morning before church I took a walk outside and took that time to talk to Him. I was pouring out my heart about how hurt I was and how disappointed I was. He cointinued to tell me that I needed to forgive them whether they knew they hurt me or not. I said "No, they hurt me and they need to know it." He gently said that was not the way and I needed to forgive them and love them even if I didn't recieve it back. After a heated conversation about that, I consented:) After that, and only after, because it was then that I was finally really listening, He reminded me that He will never disappoint me. NEVER. I can trust Him completely. And He reminded me of all the great things He had done for people on earth and they all betrayed Him. They disappointed and hurt Him, yet He died out of complete love for them. The ultimate sacrifice. God is teaching me to love people. I'm really bad at it, but the Lord is gracious. I have asked for help and He is coming through, just like He promised He would. I can love people because I have the love of Christ in me first and foremost.

There's a little look into my heart and what's going on. Praise be to our God who is worthy of so much more!