Simplicity.

Soo….I almost couldn’t wait to get home tonight to write this blog… even now, I don’t know where to start, but I am just excited to put words to what God has done in the past 24 hours. I don’t know when it all started, but I think it was when I got a text from Sarah that her and Derek wanted to have dinner with me… (duhn, duhn DUHNNNN!!!)… really just to check in with me and see how I was! I started to feel tears welling up already… I mean, I know that they actually, really, care about my life, my heart and my relationship with the Lord…  and that alone… waterworks!!! Well… I felt like I should start to mentally prepare to have my answers for why I was crying a lot, or to try and have it all together before dinner (that is the pride part of me!!! Ahhh)—but, really… what it did was it pricked me to just clear my head, and figure out what all was going on in my heart…

So, I do what I often do when I need to talk to the Lord—I went on a walk. I am in a new neighborhood, so I am still finding where to go in order to have the privacy to move my mouth and talk to an invisible being without people thinking I am a psychopath… haha. But, I ventured out. I started by pouring out my heart to the Lord, talking to him about my life, the state of my life, the things that bothered me and the things that concerned and weighed me down. And I hit this back corner of the neighborhood, and I started to cry (SHOCKER, I know!!!)… I stopped dead in my tracks and started telling the Lord that I was unraveling. I told him that I was coming undone. I started to walk again, and within minutes it was like my thoughts drifted off and I started sensing the Lord telling me to sing to him. Ummm… I have  a horrible voice.  I mean, its awful. But, I just started going for it and thought “I mean, what do I have to lose”…very optimistic, I know! Then, before I could start doubting and complaining again, I felt like I was supposed to just allow the Lord to bring the truth of His word up in my heart, and that I was supposed to speak those truths out loud on my walk. I began… “I am the head and not the tail, I am above and not beneath, no weapon formed against me shall prosper… I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus…” and as I spoke, no part of me believed what I was saying, but I just kept on going anyway…—sometimes repeating scriptures over and over again about God’s love for me… I needed that one, bad. Well, as I spoke, my step got a little more sure… and my confidence started to grow in what I knew of Him. And, as I turned the corner to head to another part of my walk, I saw this….

As I did…  the scripture that came to my heart was... “He lights my lamp and enlightens my darkness”—Psalm 18:28. Then, the Lord started to speak back to my heart over the next few hours… and here is just a tid bit from my journal entry last night…

“…I am asking you to continue to restore me to how you created me…. before life taught me something different—restore to me the simplicity of loving you – the simplicity of knowing you—the simplicity of loving others and being loved—all before life exploded on me. I remember when I first got saved and everything was bright… and when loving you was all I wanted—and in my mind, all that I needed. Where being in your word was as natural as breathing—not because I should, or to prove that I knew you or to compete with someone else—or to be more mature…. I want to know you and the power of your resurrection and being found in you—I want to know the fullness of your truth and explore your word from a place of discovery again… “

Then, the 3 words He gave me were…1) Simplicity—of loving you first  2) Cleanness—absence of confusion and strife 3) Truth—that penetrates and brings life.

After I journaled, I picked up a book that I just bought by Amy Carmichael called “Thou Givest, They Gather” from 1959—and on p.16  and it says "God's way is to take some word in His Book and make it spirit and life. Then, relying upon that word, it is possible for us to go on from strength to strength".  And… that is what happened last night. Strength to strength happened… when His word became spirit and life. Simply… just so simply.

SO—what is the point of blogging this… well, beside the fact that I love how God speaks… it is to just remind myself (and anyone else that might read this in the next 14 years), that… 1) God is for you!!! He wants to speak to you, settle your heart, calm you fears, quiet your anxieties, show you His love, strengthen your feeble knees, pour out His grace and strengthen your faith… even more than you want Him to!!! He is soooo FOR YOU.  And 2) Loving Him is simple… it really is… and how I have complicated it!!

Just as Sarah said to me several months ago, and Derek reiterated tonight in second Sunday prayer… we don’t get rid of sin (in my case… the sin of fear, the sin of anxiety) by looking at our sin, we get rid of it by looking at Jesus!!! (Hebrews 12:1-2)…. Catching his gaze, and we will always see His loving eyes looking back at us… always. All we do is simply come to Him… simply love Him… simply believe Him… and the rest is up to Him. THAT, I am learning, is what grace is all about.

((((Listen to this message from Judah Smith (also compliments of Sarah—man, she is blowing up my blog tonight… HAHAHA! BUT, really… its because she has been such a constant in my life… reminding me of the truth of God's unconditional LOVE… and I am so thankful)… she sent this to me earlier this week, and as I listened to it tonight, I was blown away…. Enjoy… ))) -- its called "It's Complicated" and it is exactly what I just wrote about… SOOOOO goood!!!

Check out this great Podcast: http://feeds.thecity.org/tcc-sundays