It's been a wrestling sort of week. Wrestling with emotions, with confidence in discerning God's voice, and with loneliness-- missing spending time with people who truly know me and all that my life is. When I think of wrestling matches, there's a lot of waiting... waiting to see what the other will do. My other is God. He is not my opponent or my adversary. He is for me, He sees me, He knows my heart better than I do, and He is safe to give my cares to. He knows what the outcome will be and bring. I choose to trust Him and increase my view of who He is.
You see, God has beautifully pursued me with His grace and provoked me to seek Him no matter the cost. I am, literally, eternally grateful. He has taught me the single most defining lesson of my life that "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free," and therefore I must "Stand firm then, and do not be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1). The lessons I am learning in being free because of Christ's ministry and sacrifice are forever crushing the chains of bondage I felt, being enslaved to and because of another's sin, and my own because of theirs'. The joy I feel in being blessed with this understanding, and the many lessons that are coming with it in stride, are pure gifts from God as He sees that my heart truly wants HIM and what He may have for me. I want so much for my life to glorify Him to the ends of the earth. I accepted Jesus into my heart when I was four. I remember it clearly. I have loved Him as much as I could for as long as I can remember. But these past couple of months have shown me a God I missed somewhere along the way, a God I limited with my small understanding of the words "God is Love." He is HUGE. He is beautiful. He is so majestic. Jesus is so humble. I understood salvation as a past event, when I was four. Christ gives salvation everyday to His people who already believe in who He is and choose to trust His grace to save us from ourselves. I don't have to keep the parts of me I don't like because He will help me purge my life of them. Out with the perfectionism. Out with the over-emotional. Out with the unforgiving and self-disgust and awkward. Hello, unconditional love, calmness, confidence, and peace. Hello, my true and unadulterated identity--who I am-- founded in Christ's sacrifice in letting me be the me His Father created me to truly be, strengthened by His Holy Spirit. "That's just how you are" is this world's excuse for not wanting to put forth the effort in cooperating and letting the Holy Spirit change the icky parts of us. I want to change. I want to be different. I want to be so much more like Jesus, and as God lends His hand through His Word, His Son's life-example, and the Holy Spirit's prompting, I will run towards the heavenly help!
As I re-learn to cast all of my cares, all of my heart, all of my dreams, and all of my prayers at His humble feet, I am taught the difference of the two yokes. In Galatians 5, I am told of the yoke of slavery. In Matthew 11, I am told of Jesus's yoke (that's the one I want!). My Savior says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened," (check, check) "and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gently and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." It is true. I've absolutely experienced the yoke of slavery and when I intentionally cast everything on Him, I experience the trueness of Christ's words. I begin to rest. I begin to feel the knots and angst in heart loosen simply because I am giving it to Him to take care of. In my surrender, He can work.
With all this learning and growing, I want more than anything to hear and discern God's voice in my life. O how I want to hear Him speak to me! I read His word and I wait. and wait. and try my darnedest to be still before Him. I am afraid I am reading into what I am reading, even though it feels like the words are popping up right at me. I am afraid I am interpreting it to say what I want it to say to me, but this brings up two things: one, I am not seeking out these verses (that I am questioning my interpretation of this week) as band-aids--in fact, I have never read the chapters before, and two, if in fact I am interpreting it correctly-- if I am hearing God correctly-- I do not want to limit Him or dumb down what He is saying. I don't want to jump the gun in case I am wrong and I don't want to doubt in case I am right. So then I become where I am presently: a bit anxious and confused-- which leads me to more prayer, asking Him to please make it clearer. This last step is repeated everyday as I practice to "be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him" and "not fret" (Psalm 37:7). I pray for confidence to accept what He shows me and pray that He will light up my steps, speak into my life, and truly allow me to understand what He really means by all of it. I want to hear Him for what He means to tell me. I don't want even my heart to get in the way. And I pray that my desires are completely in line with His will for my life.
So I give Him my heart through the restlessness and the wrestling, and I choose to trust that He will make sense of it in His timing, and that He will work it out. This is an active trust; I must choose it everyday. And I constantly surrender my heart to Him because He knows it even better than I do. And because He is safe.
Jenna! Okay so I see two different parts in this: what you have learned and what you are learning. You are learning about FREEDOM and what it means to live and bask in the glory of God and who He is. You are learning how to trust Him in everything and surrender your entire self to His hands. This is SUCH an important lesson Jenna. It is so life changing. It allows you to live a life of continual worship and thanksgiving. Not in the sense that you are always happy, because Lord knows we can't always be, but in the sense that even though we are unhappy, we are still crying out to Him and praising His name. Since the first time we sat down for coffee to the last time a few days ago, I have seen such redemption in you Jenna. Not only in the obvious ways that we talked about, but just your presence. You have this new peace about you. You seem more settled with yourself and more settled in Christ. You are more focused and sober minded. All of these new things are preparing you for what you are learning, DISCERNMENT. You are seeking what God has to say to you and what He has to show you. Your new focus will allow you to meditate on the daily lessons he has for you. Sometimes, God takes people away in our lives, because he wants ALL of our focus. I know you know that, just a reminder. You are in the Word daily and Jenna, I can promise you that YOU WILL HEAR HIM. He is going to reveal so much to you. He promises that. Continue to seek Him. He wants to meet you and have that intimacy with you. I am so glad and so encouraged by how much you seek God. You are one of the only people in my life that I can look up to in that area. Your taking up of the cross daily is something I admire so much and your disciplined attitude towards Christ has helped me more than you know. By what you're reading and learning and sharing with me, God has used to show me amazing things. I love you so much and I'm so exciting to keep growing in our friendship and growing towards Christ in that. I will continue to pray for you daily and especially about the friend situation, I know it is hard and it hurts. Remember that, yes you are wrestling, but you are wrestling with GOOD things. Things of the Lord. You don't have to wrestle with the pain and torment that God delivered you from in the past couple weeks, months and years. I pray that we always wrestle with things of the Lord, because that will leave no room for complacency.
ReplyDeleteThis is really good & I really needed these words. As I was reading please know that I was praying for you. It was all rather intense, but I think you're getting it right & I think the Lord wants you to worry less. May His heart and the way He cherishes and loves you be made known to you. May He reveal more of Himself to you every day & may you lose yourself as you find more of Him. I envision you bowing humbly at His feet and He is pulling you up into His arms and squeezing you tight calling you daughter and blessed and beautiful and the love for you is unending, abounding, never ceasing, beyond anything that you have experienced or imagine. He is holding you close, may you feel it, may everything else fall away as you rejoice and just soak in this. It is so incredibly amazing. Words will never be able to explain His love for you. May the ways and the things of this word continue to fall away. May you recognize your struggles are not with flesh & blood. May you walk in the fact that Christ already has the victory. May you rest in our Father's arms because He is holding you.
ReplyDeleteso beautiful, jenna. thank you so much for sharing all of this. the chains falling, the freedom from slavery--this is my favorite metaphor for what life in Christ is like. where so many who don't have the Holy Spirit see restriction in christian doctrine, we see and feel and taste and hear FREEDOM, and freedom in abundance at that. your practice of patience is wonderful and i affirm that in you. often, we think that we shouldn't have to do something if it doesn't come easily to us, but throughout scripture we see a call to be disciplined, and to discipline ourselves in the fruit of the Spirit. i love you, i thank God for what He is working in you.
ReplyDeleteJenna, I apologize that my comment is so late on your post. I am encouraged by reading this. I also am struggling with the same things. I also grew up Christian from a young age and I think in the last few years I have been learning who God is and the freedom I can have in Him. I think that your hearts desire is beautiful in choosing to trust Him. As we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. Sometimes it is hard to trust when we don't understand. The more you pursue Him and surrender God will speak and work. I think I am now learning how God speaks. It is not always the way I think. He speaks to me through other people, books, blogs, Circles, church, etc. I will be praying for you that as you pursue Him you will learn to distinguish His voice and fall more in love with Him. :)
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