Fullness of Joy

Joy is a funny thing.

Uncontainable, invisible, elusive yet we try and wrap our arms around it, only to come up empty.

Fleeting as a laugh or a smile rising up without warning.

As quickly as it ignites, it can be put out.

Stolen by a glimpse of the past, and restored by a vision of the future, it can redirect our eyes to the wings of our soul or the weight of our sin. 

So easily shoved from a place of confidence, the voice of a condemning heart blurring through our mind echoes the fears of a heart shifting to shaky ground.

Yet You, Jesus, came so that we may have joy to the full.

Yet believing that this joy emanates from anything of this world to accomplish, use, or even see with our eyes is simply not true. 

Choosing fragmented pieces of our own design, we piece together our own version.

Jagged pieces of glass are scattered on the floor  yet we believe with the most cautious of movements we will not get hurt. 

Shoving people to fit into our story, jamming people to change and flourish into what we desire them to be, and believing that the achievement of a goal will bring satisfaction, we are incorrect.  We choose to dream of these rough patches being smoothed and paved over to perfection...but we are missing the core.

In Your heart our joy is found and made complete.  No where else.

The cornerstone of our lives, the anchor to our souls, the portion of our hearts You are.

And when this “joy” slips so easily through our loosening grips we finally see it was not what we believed it to be in the first place. 

Nothing more than a handful of dust tossed to the wind and lost to the endless sea in comparison to Your great love.

Binding my heart back to Yours, I am where I belong.

I am who I am meant to be, feeling the truest joy I was created to feel. I experience the completeness of the love of a Savior and King beyond any human relationship, and my weary eyes are lifted to rest upon the concreteness of the promise written upon my heart from the very beginning.

You are my joy Jesus and the brilliance of hope for my soul. 

You are the One whom I cling to in my weakness, You are the One I run to in times of elation, You are the One whose Spirit dwells within me and overwhelms me with peaces, You are my King whom I have fallen deeply in love with.

When my heart breathes lies, when storms bring darkness as a cover over my eyes, May I never forget. You are my love, my joy, my everything Jesus. 

“You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound (Psalm 4:7).”

Whitewashed

The radio really annoys me.

This might be a bit harsh but it is how I have come to feel with just about every other song shooting through the airwaves expelling a newly packaged mess of the exact same message. 

Have it your way! 
It's fun, go do it!
Follow the crowd!
Love is easy, go get some!

Yes, the beats are catchy, the musicians are usually quite attractive, the music videos can be entertaining, but dig a bit deeper at the very meat of the message that this music is radiating into the world and you will find nothing of substance.  So many lyrics emptied of their meaning and overflowing with cheap worldly wisdom on love, money, and how to live your life.  And like this, the words and efforts fall flat without the brilliance of love. 


For King & Country sings, 
"If I sing but don't have love I waste my breath with every song, I bring an empty voice, a hollow noise. If I speak with a silver tongue, convince a crowd but don't have love, I leave a bitter taste with every word I say." 

Along with this, 1 Corinthians 13:1 says, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol."

Mere boring elevator music, booming club music, and static noise fills up our minds to the very brim and our purpose shifts, becoming lost amidst the noise.  Recently, I have come to the frightening conclusion that our lives have come to parallel this picture.  Losing our own heart to the world, we forfeit it and gather in our hands nothing of worth.   We quickly swallow and internalize the advice of a society spinning on an axis rooted in sand in place of the solid cornerstone of Christ. It is all about your comfort, the culturally accepted, having a faith mirroring a society obsessed with following the norm. We silence any questions that arise in fear that we might be called to change something beyond the outer appearance of our lives. We come to spew out exactly what other people want to hear.We heap up empty words of praise instead of saying what is on our heart in fear of being challenged.

We allow the words of our mouth to be just that, words.
 
Like the catchy tune found at a night club or on 96.3, we allow for our words to come from a place of comfort and what has always been. Shutting up the potential for life-giving, fruit-bearing, and Spirit-led conversation in our souls, we lock His power up within us that is waiting to be unleashed. We skim past the depth of life in order to fit back into old relationships and ways of living in order to sail through our lives smoothly, instead of stopping to challenge those around us to look up at Jesus and look inward at the frightening state of their own hearts. 

Flipping this, we so often choose to accept the path we have always taken in order to sidestep the tension that comes with truly examining the state of our own hearts. In Romans 1:21 apostle Paul calls these people out saying,"...but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." If I am honest with myself, this passage and Romans 7 comes to reflect more of my days than I would like, for I know that I do not always live by the Spirit. My heart shifts from standing in the light of the sun to darkness as I find selfish desires forcefully driving my steps instead of the King. My thinking twists me to believe I am in control of my days, my plans, my relationships, and this is where He sets me back in my rightful place far below Him on my knees. 

Wonderfully comfortable and dressed up exquisitely on the outside, our hearts are in danger of remaining unchanged.  We can feed our souls with sermons, books, and people that make us feel great about who we are, what we have done right, what fantastic Christians we are, being "good people" and allow us to fail to recognize that by our own power, we stand completely undeserving, unworthy, and empty. Without Jesus who died on our behalf, we stand condemned before the Father. 

We so easily fool ourselves into believing we can do it on our own. 
We can find the right person who will 'complete us' one day, we can raise a family by our own strength, we can spark a  change in our friends by planting the right words in conversation. Heck, we can change the whole world!...Yet how can we forget such a vital concept that we are the created not the Creator?

We are His workmanship not the Worker bringing us and this world to completion (Ephesians 2:10)
We are His children not the Father (Galatians 3:26)
We are a reflection of His furious Love not Love Himself (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Without the backing of the most High King, we are paupers.


In "Proof of Your Love" For King and Country sings, "If I give to a needy soul but don't have love then who is poor? It seems all the poverty is found in me."

We are spiritually, emotionally, and materially a mass of moving dry bones that speak on our own accord.  The expanse of our lives is a landscape of muted and silenced colors, stagnant and barely shifting.  Doesn't matter the pile of money heaped up in your bank account, the college or high school you attend, or how bright your future appears, you are a needy soul without Jesus.  

Passing a homeless person on the corner, they may not have much money, clothing, or food but if they have Jesus, they are the ones with the treasure of this life.  You might be the one laughing now but standing before God, He will be the one looked favorably upon. 


Matthew 23:27 speaks to the reality of this with the scribes and Pharisees labeling them "hypocrites" and calling them out as Jesus says,

"For you are like whitewashed tombs, 
which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness."

We are whitewashed tombs.
We are scrubbing at external nicks and scratches on each other's tombstones, failing to realize we may be living in this world but we are not truly alive without Him.  We may be able to trick the world into believing that we are just fine by slapping on a smile and a nice outfit, but the true state of our heart is something to be unveiled and handed over to the only One who has the power to heal its broken state in full.  We were bound to the old way of the law through the written code that held us captive, but now we can walk in the Spirit (Romans 7:6). 


Without Jesus, we are dead in a grave. Plain and simple.   


We can be blind to the One calling out our names to be awakened. 
We shovel truckloads of dirt onto our chest, unknowingly blinding our eyes, and suffocating, as we miss out on living our every moment for the glory of Jesus Christ whose glory outshines all things this world has to offer.


Dressing up the exterior, we can trick ourselves into believing that our heart will beat forevermore.  In reality, we are in desperate need of His furious love to sweep through our souls, bringing the breath of new life to our slowing heart beats.  By the Spirit that bears witness, we are called His children but by this comes the responsibility and duty to love others with the same sacrificial love He gave on the cross not simply resorting to the old ways.

You can commit your life to doing missions in Africa, sell your entire wardrobe to the local Salvation Army, volunteer every single day for the rest of your life at the soup kitchen in the inner city, but if Love Himself is not at the center, what do you have?


You have....nothing.


1 Corinthians 13:2 says, "If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." 


John 15:5 says, "...for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned." 

Wait...you mean all these 'good deeds', powers, knowledge, and faith don't mean anything? Nope.

Isaiah 64:6 “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” 

Romans 3:23 "For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

Jesus, Love Himself, is the justification we have gained.  
Out of His heart alone is where these things flow and are given true meaning and depth.  He is the One whose blood has covered our sin and raises us to new life. Without His Spirit within us, we are dry bones. We are empty shells stumbling and tripping over our own fumbled steps as we chase the passions of a heart chained to this life.


You will find yourself gasping for the true oxygen that fills your lungs once you have a taste of who He is. Without Him, you have dust slipping through your hands. 


Against a bloodshot sunset of gorgeous pinks and oranges, stands the contrasting white tombs of those He has created.  Stagnant and unchanging, these tombs sit atop a hill with their owners furiously scrubbing away at their tombstone, scratching away at dirt spots, modifying and changing the outside all the while in slumber to the deadened heart beating within.  Even in knowledge of Christ, their sight is momentarily blinded to the life awaiting them at the bottom of the hill, their eyes entranced by the world and its momentary glitter. 


Time is not on our side.
One day with a final breath given to the wind, we will pass on and what will remain of you?  
A life song of empty noise or one of praise to the King of Kings whom you will spend eternity with? A written story of your own making spent scrubbing the exterior of a box surrounding the desperate heart encased within? 


Singing out in the final curtain call, For King & Country sings, "When it's all said and done
When we sing our final song, Only love remains."


Hear that?
Love remains. He is the eternal One, we are the temporary.  One day we will no longer wake up, our heart shall not beat, and the clock will be silenced for our time has passed.
And this tune we choose to live our lives to will be telling of the state of our hearts and whether we chose to trust His holy name or lean on our own weak standing.  


May we be people who choose to take up our own cross for His sake.
To follow Truth and to stop scrubbing away at the mere surface of this life to find ourselves instead transfixed by the God who calls us to look inward.  To have the courage to look within our own fragmented soul and those around us to find hearts in incredible longing for Jesus and to take action.  The wholeness He offers through the cross is unveiled and tangible as we surrender our lives to making His glory known to this world. 


Shaking us from slumber, He is the only One to awaken us as this invisible cord is released that once bound us to our own tombstones shatter and wither in light of His glory.  Running down the hill, we are freed to embrace Life and Love Himself standing with open arms and mighty hands to heal our afflictions and points us to living life in such a way where we live in light of eternity and find the abundance of a life filled with more and more of Jesus.

Legacy: John 17:4

I want You.

I want the treasure of a life centered around You, revolving around You, brimming with You, telling of You, glorifying You, yearning for more of You.

I don't want what is most comfortable, what pleases me the most, what is my way.  I do not want to squeeze my wrinkled eyes shut one day to find a heart beat that has settled into beating in tune with the world, desperately wishing I would have taken more risks for you. I do not want to gaze deep into the majesty of the heavens with a sinking pit of regret for not allowing You to mold me into a new creation in You.

Tear me away from the grip I have on the easy route.

Plant me upon Your rock to see that no matter where You are leading me, You will provide.  The waters drawing me near frighten me and I want to resort to the old ways.  Not because they are dangerous in themselves but because they radically crash upon my heart and are pushing me to do something about the injustice I see all around me. 

You are enough to instill a spirit of tremendous courage that knocks out the shouts of the world to find peace in the gravity of a mere whisper from You (2 Timothy 1:7, Isaiah 30:21)

I am not merely an 18 year drifting along with the current.

I am a daughter of the most High King with dreams yet to be unveiled for my generation that will accomplish my purpose for Your glory.  

Silence the world so that I might find the path marked out for me and enter wholeheartedly into a story that exceeds the dreams I so carefully plot out. 

Show me the next step of this journey, I wait expectantly for Your leading.

"Now to him who is able to do abundantly more than all we could ask or think according to his power at work within us." [Ephesians 3:20]

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.  Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." [John 14:12-14]

There will come a day when the curtain of my life will fall and those endless chances and open doors will be sealed. I want the legacy I leave to shine for the glory of Your name.  Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “…for death is the destiny of every man, the living should take this to heart.” Teach me God to live my days taking my numbered days and turning them into opportunities to shine who You are and what You have come to do.

May the journey of my life leave a glimpse of Your glory with words as beautiful as those scripted in John 17:4:

"I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do." 

"I want to leave an offering 

                                  A child of mercy and grace who blessed your name 

                                                                unapologetically

                                                    And leave that kind of legacy...

                                               Not well traveled, not well read, 

not well-to-do or well bred 

Just want to hear instead, 

"Well Done" good and faithful one..."

-"Legacy" by Nichole Nordeman

Evolving

Breaking through the damp soil is a plant.

Roots bursting with life and soaking in the water poured out from above, new life emerges from hiding. Once buried in dry ground, a small and insignificant seed has been recognized and called to spring forth.  Evolving into a delicate flower, the dirt has been shaken off.  The sky encircles this small plant, the sun shines the brilliance of light with each new dawning, yet the plant forgets and begins believing its sufficiency has arisen out of its own personal growth and desire to extend its petals closer to the Sun.

For the past few years, I thought I could do it.

I thought that by my own efforts, my understanding of His sovereign rule would expand.  The more fervently I climbed the ladder of faith rung by rung, the closer I was brought in an intimate relationship with Christ.  The more I sought, the more I believed that I was finding His hands extended through the thick haze to pull me nearer and nearer.  The more Christian things I poured into my glass, the more I felt I was drinking in the heart of the Creator.

Yesterday, as I had a wonderful day of conversation with a friend of mine, Sara, God connected us with a man sitting to our right in a small Starbucks.  Overhearing our talk about spreading the Gospel, he became thrilled.  Launching into a talk about his work to become a pastor and his understanding of the Bible, I was quickly stopped by a simple statement that cut across the conversation.  

Chuckling and laughing, he was excited and quick to say that God's word is "evolving with the times." Thinking through this statement, I quickly stepped back and began contemplating the ramifications of this statement and came to solidify my own opinion.

I believe that the God of the Bible and His word are Truth, the solid rock, and the one thing within this fleeting life that never changes. Ever the same, His Truth will stand even when the earth gives way beneath our very feet. No matter how many trends filter through the swinging doors of our mind, what the "popular" Americanized Christian opinion is, or what is casually splattered across the latest OK! magazine, He is the same...always.

Scripture says quite clearly, 

"But you, O Lord, sit enthroned forever, your renown endures through all the generations...but you remain the same, and your years will never end." 

(Psalm 102:12, 27)

Yet, how often do I find myself modifying Truth as if I have the final say? How often do I belittle God setting aside heaping piles of heavenly wisdom in favor of what I believe fits the track of my life and the cultural context?  How many times do I reconfigure my idea of God and lower Him to my sinful nature that sways, shifts, and changes by the day if not bound to Him? 

Numbers 23:19 says, "God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind." 

In this way, I am reminded of a world that consistently molds and changes Jesus into something pleasing and comfortable for us to accept...ourselves.  Eliminating, highlighting, and ripping out pieces that stir tension meant to change our hearts, we buy into a Christianity that steadily jogs alongside our culture and settles us quite nicely into a state of false equilibrium within our souls.  Gazing at our own image in the mirror, we can become quite pleased with what we see.  This subtly enables us to chase our own comforting image instead of the image of a Savior who challenges us to change.

"Radical" by David Platt has challenged me in several ways recently particularly in a striking passage saying,

[We are molding Jesus into our image. He is beginning to look a lot like us because, after all, that is who we are most comfortable with. And the danger now is that when we gather in our church buildings to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead we may be worshiping ourselves.]

Soaking this in and meditating upon this challenge, God began revealing to me just how much I had been clinging to the strength of my own weak soul and looking to myself for guidance.   I had wrapped my heart around works with the intention of justifying myself before Him, failing to rest in the completion of the work on the cross.   Whenever a shadow darted across my walk of faith, secretly installing fearful doubting, raining shame upon my head, and unearthing guilt, I would turn my eyes inward as feelings of unworthiness bubbled up. I had actually believed my own futile efforts were bringing me closer to God. 

Yet in Isaiah 64:6 God nearly places a megaphone to my ear with Isaiah the prophet seemingly yelling, "All these "things" you're doing, even the most Mother Theresa-like acts are like filthy rags before God." With ears ringing, I sat down and process such a thought.

How can this be? The outward appearance of many Christians around me seems to suggest we are earning our way deeper into God's heart. I am finally beginning to see that the cross is the only thing justifying me in the sight of the Father. 

John 19:30 further contrasts with my previous pattern of thinking and refocuses my eyes on the place where they need to be saying, "...Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." 

As a person with a major type A personality, the idea of resting in the completion of a task can be a real struggle for me as I constantly look ahead to improving my faith walk. Always making to-do lists, goals, and sometimes allowing my sense of worthiness to rise out of my own "A+ efforts", I can cast an unintentional shadow over my foolish heart as it spins into constant overdrive, taking on the weight of a world I wouldn't be able to support or save in my wildest dreams.  I had elevated and uplifted my own role in gaining salvation and growing closer to Him without even realizing it.  My mind had flipped it backwards, believing God was the One who needed to accommodate my growth instead of my own heart in desperate need of more of His transformative grace.

Giving Jesus more and more of my fragile heart, undivided attention, and escalating devotion, He has brought me to a place of deeper humility upon my bruised knees before His throne.  Nothing apart from His grace, I am mere bones of dust and a heart inclined to further my own glory.  Head bowed and eyes closed, I envision Him.  Clothed in light and shining brilliantly, Jesus stands the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

And thus, my understanding of Jesus is evolving.

And as I pause and glance backwards at the incredible walk of this year, He has unearthed and awoken more of this identity lying within His steady heart (I have a long way to go as we all do). My roots have come alive and thriving solely because of the new life that I have received through the justification of Christ's death for me on the cross.  It is not because of anything I have done by my own strength but by His.  

Nothing about Jesus has changed this year.

Not His heart for me, His reign over this world, or His unending grace, rather He has stirred a deep change and transformation within me that has just begun.  I have not ripped the sheet off of a God of consistent movement that chooses to modify himself and shift along with this rampant culture of change, but a sovereign God of permanence and everlasting promises.  With words that hold true generation from generation, we are given the guidance of a God who wishes to lead our lives not merely piggyback on our own meager attempts to reach His heart. 

With every day we need to be praying for His perfect and peaceable wisdom to cover our lives.  We need to be on our knees praying to tear down these walls of ignorance around our hearts that forcefully shut out the grace He wishes to impart. 

Jesus is the permanent King of Love who draws beauty out of dormant souls by the Spirit awakened and alive in us.  As walls of weakness crumble, He builds a dwelling place for Himself within us and we begin to evolve into the identity we were designed for.  

Philippians 1:6 says, "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at they day of Jesus Christ."

A constant journey towards experiencing the treasure in Christ is the aim.  

I may think that I am extending my petals to the sun by my own accord but it this light of His that has drawn me closer to the fullness of who He is.  I may be running after Him out of love and devotion, but His love has been scripted into my shifting heart before I ever had the chance love Him (Jeremiah 1:5).

By recognizing that He is the One bringing evolving journeys of faith to completion in Him one day, hearts delving deeper and farther into the Father's are born as we release a tight grip on our own efforts to embrace the redemptive work on the cross.  

In a world of constant chaos, driving fear, and beautiful change, may you be strengthened by the God who whispers He is enough...always.

Betrothed

For so long, I didn't understand it. 


Love, one of the most beautiful things that God has given us, seemed so easy at first.
The simplicity of two hearts as one, the contentment and fulfillment of finding another who seems to understand us as we are, and the eloquently scripted happy ending that rolled with the credits. 

Reality has set in.


Terribly messy, forceful, bruised, and bent are the hearts of too many.
So quickly we uproot our fragile hearts from the soil of seeds that Christ is sowing with diligence within us. Messily we shake off our dirt, polish our outside to the utmost, and set it in places that cannot keep us or cannot support us.  We set our hearts upon shaky surface, cracking beneath, parched for the living God.  Unknowingly relinquishing our hope and trust in the One who desires to protect us, love shakes our souls to believe that the empty seat next to us is to be filled with haste.  Shaken to the core, we shrug off the pull back into the soil and reshape a new hardened shrunken heart dulled and nicked on the edges. 


"Love" was a thought floating through my mind, a song rushing through the airwaves, a beautiful idea pressing my heart to feel.  Moving through the chambers of the heart, this "love" rushes through and empties itself as quickly as it begins.  I began to see this idea was merely the silhouette of what I have spent my whole life searching for.  Love is more than spoken words in a scripted song, a hello in passing that causes your heart to skip, but the majestic sonnet of Jesus who deeply desires for our whole hearts.  I have found myself awestruck by the truth that the true love I desire is encased within the heart of my Savior.  


I have come to see that feelings do not always carry the significance we believe them to.  Casting Crowns sings, "I can't live by what I feel, but by the Truth Your word reveals." Truth reveals to us that we need to be protected from our feelings.  Carrying this into my mind, I  begin to understand just how misled the heart can be.  I do not believe every feeling for another is God-inspired for we live in the flesh and Romans 7 reminds us we are constantly battling between the Spirit and the flesh.  Feelings are not the enemy but I am coming to see that if we let our feelings dictate our actions instead of relying on the guidance of Christ first, we will be misled.  We push aside the peace of Christ in favor of our own weak walls that soon come crumbling down.


Song of Solomon 8:6-7 says,


"Set me as a seal upon your heart, 
as a seal upon your arm, 
for love is as strong as death, 
jealousy as fierce as the grave. 
Its flashes are flashes of fire, 
the very flame of the Lord. 
Many waters cannot quench love, 
neither can floods drown it..." 

Love spilled out His own blood so that I may live.

Love strapped my guilt and shame to His back so that I may be free.

Love laid down His love to demonstrate His devotion and faithfulness. 

This is a testament to the fierce love of Christ for the Church, also thought to reflect the type of love to be at the center of a marriage centered in Christ.  


We must live giving room for the Shepherd to guide us patiently through the storms ahead.
We cannot truly live without His leading especially in the matters of the heart which are too easily given.  


God, we all need this patience to still our own anxious hearts.  We need Your presence to silence the world to lift our heads and open our ears to the beauty of Truth filling the air and radiating such a light that stirs in us a heart to love and trust.  


Our hearts are bound to You first.
All things flow directly out of our relationship with You including the area of dating and relationships.  


Hosea 2:19-20 says, "I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.  I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord."  


Loving Him is taking Him at His word.
 It is believing beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is using your surrendered heart to accomplish His Kingdom purposes here and now.  It means placing the most precious heart He has given You and allowing Him to guard it continually until the timing is right.

You are betrothed to Christ.
You deserve somebody one day who will love and treasure you with similar devotion.  Placing Your heart in His tender hands will unveil a beauty and fire within you that will radiate into this world and compel you to trust and seek Him more.  In time, His plan for you will be unveiled.


"I lean not on my own understanding. My life is in the hands of the maker of Heaven.  I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open...I am so in love with You, there is no one else for me..."
                                                                                 {United Pursuit Band} (Proverbs 3:5-6)