I'm Tired

A little while back, I had found myself in a place of exhaustion...

A lot of the times tiredness can come from excessive amounts of non-stop work. Spiritually, we can become weak from lack of stopping to re-group and resourcing ourselves in the Life Giver.

Obviously, not getting enough rest can lead to feeling tired spiritually, physically, emotionally and in whatever other way you can think of. We weren't made to never stop. God created the sabbath for a reason. This I'm sure you know.

But I've learned that not always when we feel tired is it because we've been doing something wrong, or even because we've missed our devotional filling up time with God.

You and I as Christians will always be learning dependency. We will always be figuring out how to continue to rest in God and rely on Him and let Him be strong in our weakness.

So I've come to understand that I think that I will probably always come to moments in life where I become very tired, and not always just because I've been working non-stop without breaks, but because I believe that there are moments in life that I can't learn a certain type of dependency without first being weak.

It can be so easy to become apathetic and get caught up in doing life the same exact way you always have over and over without thinking about growing. It's just easier to live in comfort, to live on our own strength. This way we don't have to trust something we can't see. We don't have to have much faith. But the thing is is that we can't learn things in comfort, on our own strength that we can learn in weakness. There is a purpose for weakness. There is for sure a dependency, a reliance that we just can't learn outside of human weakness.

"...For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." - 2 Corinthians 1:8-9

I think that if our hearts desire is to please God and become more like Him then He will challenge us with everything that we put above Him.

I think we often put comfort above Him.

Comfort in created things can obscure the One. And so for our benefit I think God can sometimes take comfort away to help us see up close and personal our hearts truest need.

Him.

I don't think that life is quite right if we don't admit that we were created to live off of a strength that's not our own.

Knowing this gives me perspective.

I believe that the truest part of me is that I'm loved by Jesus Christ through and through and so I know more than anything that my God has got my back and that He wants to use anything and everything to continue me on forward down the path toward wholeness. It may not look rational, or normal to me, but His ways really are higher than mine and He knows where I'm at and what I need and what He is doing way way better than I do...

Lately I feel as though I've been learning to trust Him more in the moments of my weakness where it feels like I've got nothing left to give and I'm about to fall over... but then at the perfect time, He meets me and together we pull off way more than I could ever have if I was in perfect shape on my own. It's quite beautiful really. "...My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness..." - 2 Corinthians 12:9

Not always in the middle of the hardship can we see the hand that is holding us, but that doesn't mean it's not there. Remembering that the hand is there at all times is how we keep perspective in the bleak and unsure moments. Remembering that the hand is there is how we grow in trust, how we can fall into His arms even when we can't feel Him there with us.

"Never doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the light" - David Winter

We gain in trust when we remember what He's already done.

Father, You are my hope, my peace, my strong foundation, the reason I live. I want nothing as much as I want You. To know You more is my purpose, to do Your will is what drives me, and to make You known is my life. Take all of me, every single part. Get my attention any way possible, I surrender again all that I am for Your kingdoms cause. Make me more like You in any way You please. I just want You. I want You more than anything else. Use Your servant for Your glory. Have Your way in me. I am desperate for You. Consume me, immerse me, shake me, shape me, move me, take a hold of me like never before. I am all Yours.

"Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with Himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. I want to suffer with Him, sharing in His death,so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!" - Philippians 3:8-11

Taking a break from this...

From The Heart Of A Friend

I didn't realize that this didn't work the first time I tried posting it... so here it is again!

I found this to be inspiring, as I hope you will as well.

These words are from the heart of one of my friends,

Lori Harmer.

Lord, take her deeper and deeper into You.

"I often sit frustrated and angry with the direction my life is headed. The big decisions, the choices, consequences, and sometimes even the questions that seem to resound unanswered within a broken heart. I don’t understand why I’m here, how I feel so alone, or where this pain is taking me? I’ve walked this road before; I’ve carried the burdens that seem to haunt my footsteps. I don’t want to go there again Lord, it always leaves me broken in the end crawling blinded through the crushing darkness that cradles my shattered hopes and dreams. WHY?! I scream as the breath rips its way out of my lungs. I don’t understand; what have I done wrong? The need within me growing, eating away at my pride, my resolve to remain strong. God…my dry and bare lips part to breathe, help me please….the words falling into my abyss of pain as I collapse to the floor devoid of the energy necessary to try again.

It would seem as though my story is over, the scene has come to an end, however though the actress in me is finished, He is not. The master playwright has in fact written more.

All of a sudden around me a light begins to shine, slowly it grows brighter as it wages war against the darkness. It’s incredibly bright now, the warmth and radiance of its glow has pierced the darkest corners of my pain and grief stricken heart. I open my eyes to see this wonder, but it’s too bright, I desperately feel around me as I stumble around the floor seeking something tangible and sturdy that I can hold onto. It’s then I feel the light surround me and draw me to my feet, I’ve been enveloped in a holy embrace. The light is healing me, it’s taking away the pain, its shining beams are scattering and diligently gathering the pieces of a broken heart I thought I had lost. The light that once surrounded me immediately begins to transform into hands that set about molding for me a complete and whole heart.

It is then that a voice breaks through my silent reverie, its words whispering all around me a humbling, healing balm. My precious daughter, I long to heal you, to help you and to love you, I want to make you whole with a new and beautiful heart that beats for me, but first there must be pain. The pain has broken you, it has grieved you and left you completely open and willing to rely on me, to truly rest in me. In your brokenness you gave me the shattered pieces of your heart that I might become the glue that holds the pieces together. I break you so that I might mend you; wound you so that I might heal you. I am renewing you. Your pain is giving way to growth and change, a change in your heart that better reflects the beauty that I have created in you. Take comfort my child; I am not finished with you, though outwardly through pain you waste away, inwardly I am renewing you day by day.

And then almost as quickly as they came his light, his presence, his hands, and his voice are gone and instead in their absence I am left with an insurmountable sense of peace that washes over my entire being and more importantly over my brand new heart beating contentedly within my chest.
What was once frustration is now satisfaction, where anger once resided calm has taken its place, all revealing to me the renewal that was done.



“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
-2 Corinthians 4:16-18

I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on, there will be an end to these troubles but until that day comes still I will praise you Lord!"

"Here We Go Again"

Where I Find Myself Most

"For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." - 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Take A Breather

"Communion with God in the silence of the heart is a God-given capacity, like the rhododendron's capacity to flower, the fledgling's for flight, and the child's for self-forgetful abandon and joy. If the grace of God that suffuses and simplifies the vital generosity of our lives does not consummate this capacity while we live, then the very arms of God that embrace us as we enter the transforming mystery of death will surely do so. This self-giving God, the Being of our being, the Life of our life, has joined to Himself two givens of human life; we are built to commune with God and we will all meet death." - from the book "Into The Silent Land" by Martin Laird

So what's stopping you from taking a couple minutes every day and ceasing everything you're doing to be still and silent in this oh so noisy and fast paced world and just acknowledge that the God of the universe is closer than anything else and wants you more than anything else?

"Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind." -Ecclesiastes 4:6

"..In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.." - Isaiah 30:15

And let me encourage you, being quiet isn't as hard as it might seem.

"I look towards silence.

It is not, as I heard, a peak with natural footholds

and the crampons left by better climbers.

...

Contrary to what they say there is no map

(they may be speaking of another place)

there is only surrender..."

- "Inside Out" from Pauline Matarasso

Also, may we keep in mind, as Sue Monk Kidd says:

"Withdraw to be with God is only valid if it leads us to transform all the rest of life into a prayer"

Can we learn to invite Christ into more and more of every space and crevice of our lives?

For our wholeness sake, He wants us to.

New Switchfoot!