Little Blessed Nest

I could give you excuses as to why it has been so long since I have written anything. I probably could muster a halfway decent one but it still would be an excuse. It’s true things have been busy with the new addition in the house, but it goes deeper than that, much deeper. See the Lord has been dealing with me in my complacency in life. Shifting through the day-to-day and seeing what is of him and what is not.

More than anything I desire for my walk to go deeper but once I really examine what it looks like if I am honest it gets scary. Things that never crossed my mind are now nagging me to act, to choose. It’s in the choice that the scary becomes hard. Why is that we so long for “freedom to choose” but when it comes to our faith and choices we can’t handle the consequences. The choices I have made have been for the COMFORTABLE and the EASY and the SAFE. Expecting people to see me and know that I am a Christian, but how can they, what distinguishes me from an unbeliever?

So this is where I have been camped out for quite some time now. Wrestling with the Lord over little things and big things. It has left me in a constant state of conviction and taken every word I had to say away. I know he’s left me there on purpose. It takes a while for anything to get through to this stubborn heart of mine and then it must conquer my head. The static noise that second guesses what the Lord just revealed in my heart. It is a sick cycle that I have been on for what feels like forever. My deepest prayer is to get things the first time. I don’t think God wired me that way. For things to click I must choose the uncomfortable road, the hard road, the scary road. See its only on that road I cling to him, it’s all about him and nothing about me.

Which is hard because everything is about me, right? It’s not but….it is. I must confess more often than not I find myself whining to God about my circumstances, my toddler didn’t sleep last night, the baby is cutting a tooth, it’s too hard to do that thing you want me to do, blah blah blah. With a 2-year-old at home I know just how awful whining is. It’s worse than nails on chalkboard ,it is a constant battle with my little one. I want her to see how BLESSED she is that she has both a mommy and daddy that love her. That she gets to do and see things most little girls around the world dream of. That she should be thankful for the Lord for…

Right there did you see it that’s one of the two lessons he keeps drilling in my head over and over. I am BLESSED and should be THANKFUL! I do know how incredibly I have been blessed it is just when I take my eyes of him and turn them to me I forget in the moment. So he has shown me over and over this past year this lesson. He has shown me that life is sooo short and that each breath is a gift. This lesson came in dealing with the death of a close childhood friend whose wit and charm has left an unmistakable impression on my heart. There is so much I want to say but there are no words…Speechless. Just prayer for the words to come and for the mending of hearts broken.

It happened today right in the doctor’s office. My daughter had an appointment with a child orthopedic to look a very minor issue that looks as if she will outgrow. While we were getting ready to turn the hall to head to the room the Lord said “SEE” there stood before me was a young boy about the age of twelve with a walker to the side and braces on each leg. The doctor told him “your brain just doesn’t know what to do yet, we will show it”. I stood there completely shaken up no words… just humbled.

I have so much to be thankful for and fail so miserably at acknowledging it in the day to day. This brings me back to my earlier question and the second lesson. For someone who has so much to be thankful for why don’t I live more that way? What distinguishes me from an unbeliever? Why do I choose the easy, comfortable and safe?

Several years ago the Lord started challenging my faith as authentic as a whole but in specific areas as well. The only thing I know a few years later is I have so far to go. To really live an authentic faith you must reach beyond yourself and truly rely on God. You must push past what the world sees as okay to find what God says. This is so easy to say but so hard to do. My ego struggles with acceptance and fitting in. My ego doesn’t want to be different from everybody else. My ego wants to measure up.

And there my dear Watson lies the problem. My Ego and my heart are in two different places. My heart is sold out to my Savior. My heart tells me I am who God says I am. My Heart tells me its His truth I seek. My heart yearns for the distinct mark of Christ. My heart battles everyday in every decision for Christ to take his throne. And I mean EVERY decision, how to discipline my daughter for …  (fill in the blank she’s two) , how to spend the time in my day, and how to love on people like Jesus would.

My ego wants the comfortable but my heart knows it is becoming uncomfortable with the way things are around me, that the change occurs and the Lord shows me his ways and higher. My ego wants the easy and my heart wants the hard for I know that is where the growth occurs and the Lord shows me a little more of who He is. My ego wants the safe but my heart wants the scary totally relying on Jesus to get me through this. It is because in that scary place where we show his Glory. Let’s face it, if we are truly following after our savior then comfortable, easy and safe should not even be in our vocabulary.

“Foxes have holes and bird of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Matthew 8:20. By choosing the cross Jesus choose the uncomfortable, hard and scary. In following Jesus we choose the way of the cross which means choosing the same. “Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever looses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 10:38-39.

It’s right there in the uncomfortable, hard and scary place where we step out in faith and know he has us right in the palm of his hand. It’s there that the mark of Christ shows. I don’t know about you but that is where I long to be more than anything. The prayer of my heart is that God would take me there to the uncomfortable places so I become overwhelmed in his presence and his glory would shine.

I could have named this part two but it doesn’t have the same ring to it. It doesn’t have the same truth to it either. This has been on my heart for sometime to write but waited for the right words to flow from him and not me.  I pray that comes across in this post in every post.

My last post talked about being comfortable and taking short cuts in my faith. Taking the throne of Christ as my own and giving in to the easy instead of the right.  I have prayed that the Lord would give me new eyes to see him and he answered my prayer in a big way. It’s like getting glasses for the first time, everything looks different not a single thing remains the same.  I am so thankful for this gift of new sight, not only for myself but getting to experience this journey with my husband in the same place.  It is amazing to know that the spirit is working in your marriage where he reveals the same truths at different times and through different sources. It has strengthened me beyond measure.

There is a funny thing about new vision it makes you realize that you saw things so fuzzy, and so wrong.  Understanding that I had gotten so much wrong, or so much fuzzy was overwhelming to say the least. In fact I felt defeated, questioning what my faith had been in the first place. Humbled and ashamed at who I had been in the name of our Savior. I want his love to flow through my veins and rub off on everyone I see. I realize I was so far from that and I am sorry for that. I owe those who I came in contact with an apology for when I wasn’t the hands and feet of Christ.

When I was too busy to listen, I am sorry. When I was too lazy to help, I am sorry.  I am sorry when I was too selfish to give.  I am sorry when I was too judgmental to extend forgiveness. When I was blinded by my own wants, to see your needs. I am sorry. For the calls I should have made, the letters I should have the written, the love I should have shared, the friend and the sister I should have been.  I AM SO SORRY.

The hardest part about the new sight is it has made me see the disconnect between my  actions and my words. I have been a hypocrite in every sense of the word. Label me a Pharisee for that is the camp I have resided in for far too long.  Saying scripture but not living it, or letting it have power in my life.

I am thankful for the vision that has increased for the past two years and look forward to his glimpses of truth everyday. Learning to see with these new glasses has taken some adjustment.  Figuring out what this meant for daily decisions and the everyday has meant a bit more two-faced, and a whole lot of yellow-bellied believer. Far too scared to stand up in the newly revealed truths in my life.

I had beat myself up about it quite a bit lately but again the Lord is so gracious. Revealing that my heart was in the right place but He had just not yet revealed his truth to me yet. He let me see my relationship with Him is similar in nature to my husband.  I thought I loved Dustin when we got engaged. However, when we exchanged vows and became Husband & Wife how much greater that love became.  As the years have rolled on and the addition of each of our girls that love has deepened and deepened.

In the same way my love for the Lord grows with each passing day. Each truth that Christ reveals in my life just makes me love him even more. Every day I seen even more of what an unworthy wretch I am and how he could love me so much to die for even me. Overwhelmed by his love and grace. I am so thankful he makes all things new, even two face yellow-bellied believers like me!

“I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.

I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.” Lamentations 3:19-24

This summer I participated in a bible study from Kelly Minter entitled “No Other Gods”.  This study rocked my world! In my mind I had always pictured idols as gold statues, this study illuminated it is anything we set our hearts on other than God.

Most of us know that in the Ten Commandments it states we should not have any other gods, and not make for ourselves idols. For the first time the placement of these two commandments as one and two struck me in that virtually every other command given through scripture becomes meaningless if you are not following the first command. Every downfall we see in scripture from Jonah, to Judas, comes from putting something else as your god.

The things we choose to worship crowd out the Lord. The things we treasure are often good things but they take away from where the Lord wants to reside in our hearts. In deconstructing the reason for idols we begin to make room for the Lord to reside.

For me it was recognizing that my idol was acceptance. I think women fall prey to this so easily. We want to measure up, but to what are we measuring? This study allowed me to see that the only measurement I have is Christ and I will always fall short. There was such freedom in letting go (and continuing to let go) in others perceptions of me.

The heavy weight I knowingly and sometimes unknowingly put on myself for fear of being different or outside the norm has been released to this sweet, sweet dependence on the Lord to tell me who I am. I am accepted, redeemed, forgiven, loved, and his treasured possession.

No matter what your idol is, letting go is hard and scary, we have become so accustom to them. But Jesus says ,”Don’t be afraid, just believe.” Mark 5:36  For me it was, “Don’t be afraid of what people think, just believe I am who I say I am and I am bigger than anything you are scared of. ”

Cannot wait to share more.