By Design

      I know that God is good. I know that He is holy, perfect, and almighty. I know that God is all powerful and that through Him anything is possible, but I didn't know-not truly- that God's plans and His design for my life could leave me feeling so empty, hurt, and broken. In my heart even through the pain, I know that this is just a season in the scheme of things; I sincerely believe that this pain; deep hurt and brokenness in me, will be the very thing that strengthens and creates my heart into the character that God has designed. But that knowledge; the understanding of that, does nothing in this moment to comfort or console the deep anguish inside of my heart and very soul.

     I always felt that my plans and dreams were by far, a lesser image of what God saw in my life, and these last few years have been evidence of that; particularly these past few months. He has taken me;  my heart, life, dreams and expectations places I never dreamed, nor wanted to go. He has challenged, corrected, disciplined, and taught me things that my little heart has carried with joy and sorrow.

    Tonight everything I have planed for my life has come to a stand still and I am being require to stand before God, and test my heart in these dreams and desires for my life. Everything I have wanted and craved is being evaluated and tried. And I am being required to set every last bit of my dreams in the hands of God, where He takes it and choose to give it or keep it, but in any case I have to have no expectation that I will receive it back on any occasion.

     All of these years I have walked, I have truly believed that I had given God my plans and dreams. I believe with my whole heart that I was walking the road that He wanted me to take. But now I question that belief, and it is perhaps the most excruciating exercise I have ever attempted. Everything I love- with the exception of God Himself- is set before God as a sacrifice, just as Abrahams only son Isaac was set upon that alter as a living Sacrifice. I have been commanded to take this sacrifice and give it to God, regardless of the outcome; perhaps He will provide a goat, or a sheep, but He is not required to, and I can't expect Him to.

    My heart is in need of healing, my life and my desires need to be God's desires for me. I want this road I walk to be the road God design for me. I want to pursue with everything in me the dreams that are truly from God. There are so many things I could do my life, the question is: 'What does God want me to do with my life. Where does He want me tomorrow. Where does He want me today?'

    It is not easy to give to God the things which have become part of my heart. But right now, tonight and tomorrow it is necessary.

    I can only pray that God will use me and my heart and my life to bring Glory to His name.

Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

         I close my eyes afraid to see the chaos of the world about my little head. I like to think of myself as strong in my Lord and faithfully unswerving in my trust in Him and His plans for me. I like to believe that my heart is whole and giving everything it is to it’s creator and the life that I live everyday. But tonight as I sit on my little chair, hard and cold, I realize how weak, unfaithful and broken I am. I am like a child shivering in the cold night, too terrified to move, lost in a big world, wondering where I am and how I came to this place so cold and hungry, longing so desperately for a tender word, a loving hand, a cradling safe place.  All around me strange shadows close in; mysterious monsters waiting for me to fall into their traps which lay in wait for an unsuspecting child, such as myself. Everything which was once familiar and safe, darkness invaded claiming it as it’s own, or so it seems in my childlike eyes. If ever there was a valley so shadowed and evil, this world I walk in everyday would be the darkest and vilest of them all. I am simply a child wondering, lost, void of any sense of direction, understanding, and hope. I am child weak, broken and in desperate need of my God. 

My heart so desperately wants to demand an explanation from God. I want Him to tell me why I am here, why I can’t understand, what good He could possibly be doing in me, and how this would be helping reach the people of this world. I want to know why things continue to exceed in tribulation and trails, when I have given everything I have to God. Why hasn’t any good come yet? How much longer do I have to walk through this before His blessings extend upon me? Yet, though these thoughts intrude upon my heart, there is a part of me even deeper than my heart; for my soul knows that God need not give any sort of explanation. He is God, and I am simply dust in the wind, here simply because He spoke my name, and breathed into me. Someone once told me that God promised two things after Jesus came and died for us. The first promise being that through Jesus’ sacrifice we have eternal life in God and will someday rest in heaven with Him, the Second; simply that we would have tribulations and trials; things which would test us, prove us, simply because we are the children of God. 

God owes me nothing in this world. He already given me something which I will never be able to repay. This Valley that I walk, cold and scared, is not supposed to be easy. I knew that when I first began down that narrow road, so I why do I question God’s will for me today? Perhaps my life will be a continual battle, and a nerve racking journey, but someday, whether on earth or in heaven, I will find peace and rest in Jesus. 

I am not ashamed to admit that I am truly terrified of this road that I’m walking down. I am falling down, stumbling blindly, but I am not alone. God is my strength. No matter what tomorrow holds, my heart must hold on to the name of my Lord. 

‘Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will fear no evil for You are with me.’

Thoughts...

'O God, thou are my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness: and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of they wings I will rejoice.'


      David's song is the cry of my heart; everything in me craves my God. I want to praise Him with all of my heart, soul, Spirit, and beyond anything I am, or have within me. My God is truly powerful and glorious beyond anything my petty little mind can imagine or comprehend. David said 'Thy lovingkindness is better than life', how much do I meditate on the fact that God's kindness and love is worth more than my life, and what my life might offer. God is worth more than any praise we can give Him, any love that we carry, anything we do. Nothing we do or are, is worth the lovingkindness of our Lord; our God. 


      I continuously evaluate my purpose in life; in my everyday, every hour, every breath I breathe.  Nothing I do will ever be enough to measure up to the praise and glory God deserves. I will never be humble enough, love enough, give enough, praise enough. And yet He helps me through everyday. How amazing is the lovingkindness of our God? No words can describe the mercy and love of our King, Lord, Almighty God. 


      I want to give all that I have though I know it still won't be enough, I want to give as much as God has given me. I want to live my every moment for my God. I want to praise Him in the darkest night. My God lives in my today! How beautiful He is. How lovely is the grace and mercy He bestows upon us unworthy. If only I could truly grasp the power and glory of my God. If only I could understand how Pure and mighty He is?! I would give anything to see the power and glory of our God. 

Life Like Heaven

       It's amazing to me, when I realize, that in a single moment, a solitary word could change the picture I see my life creating. I am a giant tapestry; a life where every moment is a thread in the master piece. I always think that I begin to understand what picture my life might create in the tapestry, but just as I begin to imagine the wonderful things God has planned, a new thread is strung, woven in such a way as to immediately change that image. A single color; a single thread can change everything. And often times, when something has been added that I didn't expect it causes my heart to cry out. I mourn for this image that I saw forming in my mind that was disturbed by this way ward thread. Everything I had begun to plan for this master piece was cut away, leaving me to wonder what good thing could come from this picture that was being woven out of my life. Could God take that thread and build off of it and make something beautiful out of it? Or was the beautiful picture I saw being created before my eyes, ruined forever?

     It seems rather foolish to me now I as recognize my concern for this image that God is creating out of my life, for God is a God who creates only good. He is beautiful, and creates us in His own image, so why am I so fearful that God won't be able to create something beautiful out of my life? If I have truly given Him my life, to use and create for me, then He is my artist, and He knows the picture my life will create if I trust what He has planed for it. I am not in charge of planing this master piece, or creating the image I believe it should be. I so often give it God and then when I begin to see what is happening and what He is doing in my life, I get excited and take the needle back and begin to thread my own life. But it doesn't work that way. Things begin to fall apart and make little sense.

       When God begins to work, and create something in me, I don't understand, and I  fail to trust what He is doing, because I am seeing an unfamiliar image. I can't make sense of what is being created or what is happening around me. But perhaps it's a lot like heaven. Perhaps I can't understand because I am ignorant to the beauty. It makes me think of heaven; for there are things in heaven that I know I can't begin to fathom; colors that are beyond this world, images, that even the most artistic and open minds can not begin to comprehend. Perhaps life is like heaven. God is creating an image that we cannot yet understand or comprehend because it is too glorious and heavenly and pure for even the most righteous hearts of us.

       As I think about all the mysteries every day holds, and all the times when my plans and dreams crumble around me, I wonder is God just doing a work in my life that I can't begin to comprehend. I have given my life to God, and I want Him to lead me where He will, but I need to trust that as He leads my life He has His picture of what my everyday will create. He knows exactly where He wants me, and the beauty it will create in me.

      These past years have been roller coasters of emotions, dreams, hopes and plans. God has taken me places I'd never dared dream of, He has fought me and my plans trying to get me to realize that His plans for me are so much better than mine. I think it is time that I surrender the needle that weaves my life picture, into God's hand.

      I want the tapestry of my life to be like heaven; a beauty I cannot begin to comprehend, colors that my mind is incapable of imagining; images that my heart dare not dream of. I want my life to be God's picture for me, because I am an amateur artist, and I cannot create the picture that God can create in me.

      God's plans are beautiful, even through the pain.

    
    

A Sweet Life

      Sometimes it easier to trust and believe that God has wonderful plans and dreams for our life, then to wait for Him to lead us to those places. Today I know with all my heart that God is truly here and leading me somewhere. But it’s difficult to wait on Him timing. The plans that I keep making, always seem to dissolve away, as does sugar in the boiling water of life. What was once a solid piece of sweet rock as dissolved away till I can no longer see any evidence of it’s existence in that water, and I doubt that the water could be anything save the plain flavorless liquid I had begun with before I placed those little saccharine crystals into the hot bowl. It was obvious that now sugar could no longer be seen, and so I could not believe that the water would be sweet in flavor. 

But sometime things aren’t as it seems. For in my minds eye, when things don’t go as planed, and my dreams don’t play out as I would have first wished it so, it does not mean that what happens isn’t a good, sweet thing in my life. Just because I couldn’t see those sugar chrysalises did not mean that the water was not sweet, in-fact as the water dissolved the sugar it absorbed it and sweetened the liquid yet more than had the little hard rocks. Had I tasted of the water, I would have discovered a divine honeyed syrup sweeter than anything I could have imagine. And even so, in life even though my plans never seem to work out as I think should, in my own timing, I know that everything will work out according to God’s plans, and the things I cannot see Him doing now, I will taste as I watch my life unfold in God’s hands. 

     

A Blissful Storm

Hope is the essence of why I choose to rise every morning. I hope in many things, but in everything my hopes always lead back to one thing: God. In God I hope; I hope in His plans and His dreams, I hope in His strength and patience. For I know deep in my heart that without the hope and faith that God would give, to give me the strength to rise, I would have given up on any dreams I ever dared dream. I would be walking a life of no value, with no thought to myself or God or these people. My life would be fruitless, my heart, a stone; cold and dead. 

I can’t help but wonder how anyone would choose to live a life without hope or knowledge that there is a God who loves and will provide for them what is necessary for survival; strength and hope; a reason worth living. How do people who have lost everything stand to rise everyday without any recognition of a higher being who will care for them? How do they choose to keep living? What is the purpose of their life?

Perhaps these are odd questions but my mind cannot rest. I look back over the past several years and I know that without God’s constant strength (even when I couldn’t see or feel Him) I would have quiet given up on everything in my life. Today everything I think, do or say is driven by a desire to live for God, trusting that He has something worth while for my life. I have a reason and purpose for rising each and everyday regardless of how hopeless and dark situations appear to become. 

Who would I even be without my God? For my God defines me: my very breath is for Him. I am driven to serve Him and to become, myself, an image of whom Jesus was. It is something which I am constantly striving for and will forever pursue. If God did not define me and my purpose for living then what would define me?

What defines those people apart from God who lives lives with little hope? Is it their actions, words, or position in life? Is it their status, friends and titles? Or perhaps all  of those together? Who would I be should any of those ‘things’ define me? Would I be anyone in the world? 

I must admit I am very glad for a God whom I choose to have faith in, for without Him I would be very little in this world, with little purpose and meaning. I would be empty, hollow and weak. Would I even have a chance in this world? Would I be able to withstand the storms that life brings?

       

       Any trail that I am able to walk with God is more of a blissful storm then a tempest at all. It is a sweet rain that refreshes the soul, though it may sting ever so slightly, simply because God protects, strengthens and uses it for good. Through life's storms, God develops us: "Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations, be assured and understand that the trials and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing."  where as walking through a  storm alone and broken can bring  ruin to the soul. 

Through God I have life. I have hope and the strength to rise. In God I have a purpose, a reason to live. God defines me and loves me; He leaves me in want of nothing. How could I ever look at my life and not see how God has provided and walked with me? God walks with me through the blissful storms and restores my broken and bruised heart. Life is hard, and that's why I need God. 

I praise God for today and tomorrow for the life I can live in Him. 

  
    
        

A Wondering Heart

       It is quiet a conflict within ones self, when you begin to listen to the worlds croons and calls. It is a misleading of the heart; a doubting, wondering heart. It is so crucial to hold on to God's truths, regardless of the circumstance and the logic of the world. Yet the conflict often becomes, what is God's truth? What He is promising me? The world as an awful habit of twisting words, meaning, and implying things which were not meant to begin with. They make sense out of things which make little sense Spiritually, but because of the logic behind it, it makes me question what God is truly saying to me...


         This month has been a battle of truth and logic. One that has left me questioning, hanging and praying for something to make sense; something which would lead my wondering heart. Perhaps something that would connect the dots in-between the opposing arguments. But what I didn't realize was the very fact that there were no dot's to connect. The only thing that mattered was God's truth; things that He asked us and things that He promised us if we walked His road.
    
        I don't have to worry about what makes sense to people. Or even what makes sense to myself, as long as I know I am doing my best to live according to the life God desires me to live. If I am seeking Him with a heart that wants to know Him and serve Him, it is true I will still make decisions that aren't always the right decisions before God, but He will lead me and guide and pick me up again. I will continue to rise even when I fall hard, because if I don't walk this road with God what do I have in this World? Part of falling, is part of learning and part of growing. I can't know everything, but if I strive to know God the more I have to stand on. In every circumstance and situation God will always provide a way because my heart is for Him and Him alone.

       My wondering heart worries much over what the world will me and my life choice. My wondering heart I often catch lusting over acceptance and the simple pleasure of even one heart which beams with pride for me. But that isn't what I'm supposed to be wondering. This life isn't about being accepted or approved of by men, but by God. I am called to be a servant, just as my Jesus was for me. No other title or ambition is acceptable in my eyes, when I want to be living for Him and like Him. He gave everything; thought nothing of Himself and things He could gain in this world. And so as I believe God is leading me somewhere, I must not let my heart wonder. For God's road isn't easy but it is the only road I can walk with a heart that truly pleases the Lord. No more wondering.

      I want to hold fast to the life I believe with my whole heart that God is calling me to lead. The world can think many things, but I will aways have a hand to hold with God.