the experience must come alone.

i'm sorry that i have not posted in a while. i have to get ready for class but i read this this morning in "my utmost for his highest" and found it very truthful... about facing things alone. good for the time we are at in our lives.

Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha . . . saw him no more —2 Kings 2:11-12

It is not wrong for you to depend on your "Elijah" for as long as God gives him to you. But remember that the time will come when he must leave and will no longer be your guide and your leader, because God does not intend for him to stay. Even the thought of that causes you to say, "I cannot continue without my ’Elijah.’ " Yet God says you must continue.

Alone at Your "Jordan" ( Kings 2:14 ). The Jordan River represents the type of separation where you have no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one else can take your responsibility from you. You now have to put to the test what you learned when you were with your "Elijah." You have been to the Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are facing it alone. There is no use in saying that you cannot go— the experience is here, and you must go. If you truly want to know whether or not God is the God your faith believes Him to be, then go through your "Jordan" alone.

Alone at Your "Jericho" ( 2 Kings 2:15 ). Jericho represents the place where you have seen your "Elijah" do great things. Yet when you come alone to your "Jericho," you have a strong reluctance to take the initiative and trust in God, wanting, instead, for someone else to take it for you. But if you remain true to what you learned while with your "Elijah," you will receive a sign, as Elisha did, that God is with you.

Alone at Your "Bethel" ( 2 Kings 2:23 ). At your "Bethel" you will find yourself at your wits’ end but at the beginning of God’s wisdom. When you come to your wits’ end and feel inclined to panic— don’t! Stand true to God and He will bring out His truth in a way that will make your life an expression of worship. Put into practice what you learned while with your "Elijah"— use his mantle and pray (see 2 Kings 2:13-14 ). Make a determination to trust in God, and do not even look for Elijah anymore.

contentment

it seems like the theme that runs through our age and gender at the point in our lives now is contentment. i feel like in every Christian circle, if i talk to a girl my age it is about contentment either in finding a job, finishing school, being in a relationship, etc. it might just be my speculation, but it seems like this is the case. it's cool, though, how we can relate to each other about these things and how we can encourage one another and build one another up with things the Lord shares with us in our walk with Him. claire- i loved what you shared in your last post...that has been recirculating over and over in my head how much i am always thinking, "well i'm just going to move to nashville for something different and to branch out!" even though i pray for the Lord's Will and for Him to open doors wherever He sees fit for me, i also have things in mind (jobs, places i will end up) that i want...which there's nothing wrong in praying specifically for, but i tend to put on my blinders and only focus on where i see myself and the motives behind them are selfish. but i loved that you talked about being content where you are...what does contentment really look like when it is lived out? i feel like i have so much to learn and grasp before i really understand and know what true contentment is like. there are so many areas where i don't feel content. anyway, i think especially this semester the Lord is weighing on my heart already to lean on Him and seek Him for contentment and figuring out where He wants me down the road.
i think i told ya'll about a sermon given by emily ozier about a chapter in joshua. and how she hates change in her life...but how joshua accepted that change and trusted God and God brought about great things because of that. i highly recommend that you listen to that sermon...it is awesome. one of the things she talks about is how even in the midst of trials and difficult situations, Abraham's faith was built on nothing else but God. in hebrews 11:8-10 it says, "By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, NOT KNOWING WHERE HE WAS GOING. by faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with isaac and jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for HE WAS LOOKING FOR THE CITY WHICH HAS FOUNDATIONS, WHOSE ARCHITECT AND BUILDER IS GOD". when i was listening to this lesson again this morning, i was thinking to myself how i am always so concerned with life and the future and what i'll be doing in 5,10,15 years. and i get so consumed with school, stresses of life, and worrying about petty things that i so often forget this life should not revolve around me. my thoughts, actions, words, etc should not be centered on myself, because this is not all there is if i am holding on to the hope and assurance that the kingdom of God is coming. how i long to live kingdom-minded! "For yet in a very little while, He who is coming WILL COME, and will not delay" hebrews 10:37.
as i was unloading the dishwasher last night at my house, i was thinking about how love is a choice and it is something that comes from Christ filling us and we first must allow Him to fill. but as i was unloading it, i was thinking love is basically about little choices...i didn't want to unload the dishwasher or fold kitchen towels that had come out of the dryer. my mom has had a stomach bug for a few days and still didn't feel good last night. but i was just thinking, we shouldn't feel like we HAVE to do things for people or that we are obligated. if we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we long to serve people and our joy comes from the love of God that fills us and that can overflow into every second of our lives. our Christian life does not consist of one or two days in the week where we go to church and then spend a few minutes with Him...it is our lives. it is how we spend our time every minute of the day, how we spend money, what we fill our minds with etc. And why wouldn't we want to make our entire lives about Him? He has given us hope, eternal and abundant life, joy, salvation, redemption through the death that He chose of His own Son. we should want to share that with the world! and unloading the dishwasher or serving someone in line before ourselves or offering our things to someone are all tiny miniscule ways we can and should live out our Christ-mindedness.
ok last thing---download the sermon on The Carefulness Factor by Taylor Park from firstevan.org....go to resources...sermons on-line...and download or listen to the one entitled this. amazing. i think every believer needs to hear this and apply.
love.

Freedom

Good Morning! Claire I loved your last post. I'm so excited for you that you've found that class to be a part of. I know that must be wonderful and will really be encouraging during this stage of your life.

So I've been thinking about the freedom that Christ bought for us through His death and how much I cling to it and how much I don't even acknowledge it.

Galations 5:1 says "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."

Isaiah 61:1-3 says "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners; To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

Yesterday, Steven was preaching from 1 Peter, and he was talking about the freedom that we push aside. He gave this example. He said its as if a husband saved his wife from a rapist with hiv, and in the process was killed. It would be as if the woman, after the funeral, called up the rapist and asked him to meet her at a hotel room. That's the picture of our clinging to our past life, to our sin. I am that woman. I'm so often that woman. Its in the small amount of time I spend in God's Word and prayer, its in my need to watch my certain television shows, my inability so often to be self-disciplined, the way I can spend my money, my insecurities, and my fear of the future, of how everything's going to come together. I cling to these things living as if I have no other option, no power to fight them. In reality, the power of Christ is in me to fight them; the power of Christ has defeated them. Obviously, I'm a sinner and I'm going to continue to fail, but I can certainly live with the knowledge that God has freed me from these things.

The Lord has prepared for us garlands instead of ashes, oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of the spirit of mourning. I pray that I would begin to cling to the things of God instead.

I have to report a major praise. Living at home for the past 5 months, I have not been able to find a community of believers like I had in Auburn. I haven't felt at home in my church, even thought about visiting another one. A few weeks ago, I ran into a girl I went to high school with who goes to my church and has just moved back home after graduating. Unbeknownst to me, she is involved in a "young professionals" Sunday School class that I didn't even know existed (at my own church!) and said I should definitely come along. I have only been twice, but it has been such a blessing already! It's a small group, which I kind of like, and we have a married couple who I already know that teaches it. They are going to be alternating teaching time with a woman in her mid-thirties, married with no children. She taught today and seems really cool and relatable. She'll be teaching us about the ways of God...really just who He is and His core characteristics.

Today we talked about the fact that He is love, and the realities of that love. A major point was that He is a God of discipline and I want to share the definition she gave us: discipline - what happens when our loving Father steps in to lift us away from our own destructive and unfruitful pursuits. The phrasing really hit me. I am way capable of pursuing things that aren't for His glory. In fact, I have come to admit to myself that one of the main reasons I want to move off to a big city is so everyone will think that I'm doing something really cool with my life. That doesn't mean moving is wrong, because I honestly think sometimes I'd be happier in a place with more people my age and more job opportunities, but if I'm doing it to please men and to feel better about myself, then it's a selfish move. God hasn't opened any door for me to move yet, and I believe He is working on me in the area of contentment, one I struggle with repeatedly. In other words, He is disciplining me - to simply love Him and follow Him, knowing there will be showers of blessings, but not following Him in order to get the blessings, but because of who He is. I'm coming to see more and more each day that living in this humble state (with my parents in my hometown, not knowing exactly what I'm good at or what kind of work I want to be doing) is not some sort of punishment from our Lord, but in fact, is His good and perfect discipline, which is completely out of His love for us.

"...but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." - Hebrews 12:10-11

New Year!

so one of my resolutions is to try to write on the blog at least every other day...and if that dwindles, at least once every week.
alot of thoughts have been entering my head lately that i've been trying to be mindful of with prayer, but most of them i would rather try to take into my own hands and take control of. one of those is the future and what i will be doing after i graduate in may. when i tell people i'll be graduating, they automatically ask, "do you have a job lined up yet?" and i shyly answer, "well, i'm going to start sending my resume and applying to places this semester, but not job lined up yet." but even though i am trying to maintain calm on the outside, on the inside i am freaking out and panicing thinking, "what if i don't graduate at all?! what if i fail out? and if i do graduate, what if i don't get a job? what if the job i get is horrible?" and those questions and feelings just snowball into a million other anxious thoughts. but i have to somehow remember that the Lord is trustworthy and He has His plan already laid out for my life. and i have nothing to worry about but to trust Him.
i want ya'll to download a sermon (it's free) on iTunes. go to www.firstevan.org and go to resources. and click audio sermons (i think)...and under those there are several different categories. scroll down to women's ministries and there's an option or link where you can subscribe to the podcast there. and it will take you to iTunes where it will start downloading them. listen to the one by emily ozier, i think it's called more than conquerors. she goes through some verses in joshua that talk about how we need to trust Jesus even when we doubt Him and even when we are in the most difficult of times as Joshua and the Israelites were. it is a very encouraging word from the Lord.
another thought that's been entering my mind is how i feel so "comfortable" where i am in life with friendships, and i wonder if that's not all necessarily a good thing? should i branch out and widen my horizons or just stay in my little zone? and then i think what my motivations would be to widen my horizons and make new friends and they seem selfish...but in my heart, i want to widen them in order to love others and strangers with Christ's love. i've found it hard that when you have a really close group of people (sortof like what i had at auburn), you tend to get stuck, but then you end up knowing everything about everyone, and if you don't in that group of people then you are "left out" or you find your nutrition or growth stemming from if you know things...because if you don't then you should. i don't know, it's weird, but i have found myself thinking that alot lately. is it ok to widen horizons and go meet new people with surfacey motivations? or should we be in sincere prayer before we do, asking the Lord to fill our hearts with love so that we might branch out and extend our fellowship with others. i don't know if that made any sense, but those are things that have been running through my head lately too. i guess another reason i've thought alot about that is because i want to move to nashville when i graduate!
another thing i have been praying is that the Lord would ignite in me a deeper desire for His Word. i tend to just open my Bible and read some verses here or there, but this year i want to "study" the Word. i want to know why i believe it and why i believe it is truth to me personally.
well, this is all i can think of right now to share...i have missed blogging and i love this because it's almost like a diary that i can share with good friends :) and i know if we were all at taylor's getting chais or at cambridge coffee we would be talking about these things. what a blessing the fellowship of believers is and having a rich, deep community! love to you all!

Good Morning

I'm sorry I haven't posted in forever.

This morning I went to my car to go to church, and it wouldn't start. So, instead, I had some devotional time here at home. I began with a prayer from Valley of Vision. They are so beautiful and say words that I'm trying to say in such a clearer way.

THE DEEPS

Give me a deeper repentance,
a horror of sin, a dread of its approach;

Help me chastely to flee it,
and jealously to resolve that my heart shall be thine alone.

Give me a deeper trust, that I may lose myself to find myself in thee,
the ground of my rest, the spring of my being.

Give me a deeper knowledge of thyself as Saviour, Master, Lord, and King.
Give me a deeper power in private prayer, more sweetness in thy Word,
more steadfastness grip on its truth.

Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action,
and let me not seek moral virtue apart from thee.

Plough deep in me, great Lord, heavenly Husbandman,
that my being may be a tilled field, the roots of grace spreading far and wide,
until thou alone art seen in me, thy beauty golden like summer harvest,
thy fruitfulness as autumn plenty.

I have no Master but thee, no law but thy will, no delight but thyself,
no wealth but that thou givest, no good but that thou blessest, no peace but that thou bestowest.

I am nothing but that thou makest me,
I have nothing but that I receive from thee,
I can be nothing but that grace adorns me.

Quarry me deep, dear Lord, and then fill me to overflowing with living water.

I also opened up Ruth and read through it. Here I am, right where you were a couple of months ago Claire, not sure what I'm doing. I'm trying to figure out how to become a working artist, how to support myself, what job to get so that I can support myself but also continue to make art the priority. Right now that means being in Scottsboro. I don't know where I'm going. I feel like things are slightly clearer than maybe a week ago, but I still have so so many questions. Ruth is such a comfort to me. Its like having an aerial view, seeing from the way God sees things; a reminder that God's view is so much larger than ours. First of all, Naomi has lost all hope; she says that she has come back empty. By the end of the book, Naomi is seen as extremely blessed. Then there is Ruth who begins to follow the Lord and gives up everything besides Him by choosing to obey and follow where He leads her. In the end she becomes a mother and wife. God completely takes care of and provide for both of these women. Finally, God is using them to bring about our Savior. Its such a bigger story. Its a wonderful reminder that God has a perfect plan for my life even if it seems to be going no where right now.

Last thing, I have recently discovered Dolly Parton's Travelin' Thru. While the theology isn't always exactly right, I like the theme and humility in it.

Questions I have many, answers but a few,
But we're here to learn, the spirit burns, to know the greater truth
We've all been crucified and they nailed Jesus to the tree
and when I'm born again you're going to see a change in me.

God made me for a reason and nothing is in vain
Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain
Oh sweet Jesus if you're listening, keep me ever close to You
As I'm stumblin, tumblin, wonderin, as I'm travelin thru

I'm just travelin, travelin, travelin, I'm just travelin
Drifting like a floating boat and roaming like the wind
oh give me some direction Lord, let me lean on You
As I'm travelin, travelin, travelin thru.

Hope you all enjoy your Sunday!