Living My Faith Out Loud

I was doing my Bible study this morning and it really spoke to my heart so I wanted to blog some of it. In Isaiah 49:16 it says, “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” I never thought too much about that verse but I just found out that the Hebrew word for engraved is chaqaq and it means to hack. This Hebrew word was used for the act of cutting or chiseling laws into tablets of stone. Isn’t that cool? To think that the Lord has our very names engraved, hacked in, carved in His hand, the very hands that He knew would be pierced as He was hanging on the cross, loving us to death, literally. I wonder if He was reciting our names as His precious blood poured forth from where the nail was. I picture Him whispering them, Rachel, Sherri, Chris, La Toya, Sandra, Courtney, Mario, Will. Can you picture it?
Another verse I was studying is Zephaniah 3:17, “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” I know I have blogged about this verse before but it is one that needs to be repeated again and again. To think that the Creator of the universe delights in me is almost too much to bear. Quieting me with His love, as a Father quiets a child. Can you hear Him at times just saying, “Shhhh, it will be all right, Daddy’s here.” Then once He calms us, He begins to rejoice over us with singing. With singing! Amazing. How glorious is this God of ours! He is so loving toward us and I am just recently able to understand and believe it.
Yesterday in my Bible study for teen girls, I asked them all a question. I asked each one if they thought God was pleased with them. Only one said she thought He was a little pleased and all the others girls thought God was mad at them for things they have done. I cannot tell you how this grieved my heart! If I went through my life thinking that the Lord was mad at me, I think it would crush me. No wonder we don’t walk in victory! I explained that God hates sin and calls us to be obedient and tried to show them how much He loves them because they are His treasured possession. Most of them never stopped to think of the grace, mercy, love and tenderness of their Daddy. I hope I gave them a glimpse of how much He adores them.
Today I am going to try my best to let Him rejoice over me. I will walk in grace today and allow my Daddy to sing (and brag) over me. Does this sound weird to you? Too bad, it’s in the Bible. Read it.

If there was one thing you could ask the Lord, what would it be? I can think of about a bajillion things I’d like to ask. Like, why on earth did He make lima beans? Disgusting! Well, I was reading in the Psalms this morning and in Psalm 27:4 it says, “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” Of all the things David could have wanted from the Lord, he wanted to dwell in the house of the Lord and gaze upon His beauty. Wow. That really struck me this morning. To simply gaze upon His beauty. To bask in His presence. To just be near Him. To just be…
Not talking, not even praying, just being.
Today I pray that I won’t get so sidetracked with life that I forget to just stop and gaze upon His beauty.

I was reading this morning my Bible this morning and flipping page after page as verses kept coming to me. It’s so good to be back in the Spirit again. I didn’t realize how my hard heart was keeping me from hearing the Lord. I guess I, like Elijah, was expecting Him to show up amidst my earthquake! He was just waiting for me to quiet and still myself and get rid of the “commitee” in my head so he can whisper to me. One of the verses I read and pondered is:

Restoration is always a good thing. Confession and repentance is good for the soul. I love 1 John 1:9, it was the second scripture I memorized after I gave my heart and life to the Lord. It is amazing when you stop and ponder the words:
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse (or purify) us from ALL unrighteousness.
Not because we deserve it but because of His unfailing love for us. Not because of anything we have done, but because of what He has already done. Wow.
After spending the last few days on my face seeking the reasons for being in this valley, I am amazed and even more aware of how much the Lord loves me. One of my favorite verses that keeps coming back to me is Jeremiah 31:3, I have loved you with an everlasting love. It may not mean alot to you but to me, growing up not ever knowing I was loved, it means everything. I also love Jeremiah 1:5, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart…
Double wow. It almost leaves you speechless.
All weekend I kept asking God for a word, a fresh word, a restorative word, any word, just give me a word! As I shared yesterday, it was, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Well, you’re supposed to, your God! Then this morning I was reading my Bible and doing homework for my Bible study and I really wanted to blog a little before work, so I stopped doing my homework and closed my Bible and went to grab my laptop off the table. Guess what happened. You got it, I still had some coffee leftover in the cup and it got knocked over and spilled all over my beautiful light tan colored carpet. After I cleaned it up, I apologized to the Lord for cutting Him short and I reopened my Bible and workbook. Take one guess what the next scripture I read and had to study was…Jeremiah 31:3. Funny how the Lord has to get our attention sometimes.
I bet He was just a sitting up in heaven thinking, what a special day this will be for my sweet, beautiful, princess (ok, ok, so maybe He didn’t say all that but…) cause boy have I got a word for her! It’s gonna blow her mind. Then He is there with all the angels pointing down at me and saying, Look, she’s almost to the scripture, look….oh no, what is she doing? No she did NOT just close her Bible and workbook. She begs me for days for a fresh word and just as I am going to give to her, she blows me off! Are you kidding me?
I know it sounds funny but that’s how I picture Him with me sometimes.

ok, so most of you know that I have not been in bloggerville very much since I came back from Africa. I have had a really hard time adjusting back to life and am in a valley, the lowest I have ever been in. Praise God He is helping me and is pulling me out of it. I can see the light, no pun intended!
I am still trying to figure out where all the junk in my heart is coming from cause I thought I had worked through all of it. Apparently not! During my women’s Bible study last week, we were watching a video and it was centered on rejection. Ouch! We had a room full of crying women, not a dry eye in the house. It hit me so hard so that it took everything in me not to fall apart in front of the class. It is hard sometimes to be the leader but I did share some stuff and where I am struggling right now with the women and it felt good.
The Lord has been showing me the hardness of my heart lately and it ain’t pretty, to say the least. It is so hard to keep my relationship with the Lord separate with the “church,” know what I mean? It is so easy to blame the church then to blame God and keep them lumped together and He is really showing me that the church is made up of messed up people! I know that, I mean really know it but you don’t expect certain people to act in certain ways. Anyways, I will not continue to blame other people for the hurt in my heart, I will own my part in it.
Yesterday was an awesome day because I went to my “happy” place, which is a beautiful lake in the mountains. No cell phone, no email, no laptop, no nothing but my Bible and journal. It amazes how well I can hear the Lord speak to me when I shut everything off and actually listen! He showed me my hardened heart and because He loves me so much, gave me a spanking. You know how it doesn’t feel good at the time but you know you deserve it and later, you feel better? Well, that is how I feel. Confession and repentance are good for us, duh. So I’m slow sometimes!
As I was sitting there looking out over the lake and listening to the leaves rustling in the wind, I clearly heard the Lord tell me this, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” This scripture keeps coming up! Every time I am alone with Him, He tells me that. I know He loves me but I think He has to keep reminding me that His love is everlasting, endless, never ending.
Another scripture is from Ezekiel 36:25-27:
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
That is what I am clinging to. As hard and scary as it is, I am praying for the Lord to wreck me, break my hard heart into a thousand pieces so He can put it back together again.