I was reading through some Psalms, my favorites, and came upon these verses: "Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me." Psalm 63:3-8
I watched Matt Chandler on TV tonight. If you don't know him, he is a pastor in Dallas. He had a brain tumor and has undergone surgeries and treatments for a while now. It was so powerful to listen to his wife talk about the positive things that have come from this. How she had always seen Matt as her rock, and this totally shook the foundations of her faith & brought her back to the only Rock for her soul. When I read that Psalm, I wondered how much I am trusting people more than God, and how much importance I place on the relationships I have. I was trying to put myself in her situation, and thinking how frightening that would be to see the person you love the most almost lose their life.
I've realized that it's very, VERY hard for me to find a balance in things. I'm not sure what you would call that? Overly passionate? Too radical? I don't feel like a "radical" person, but maybe I am. I've been getting this feeling lately. And I know it well. It's the feeling I feel when I'm not putting Him first, and things or people in my life start to slip away from me. They might not literally be slipping away, but it sure does feel that way. He has always had a firm hand with me. And I'm so thankful for it. I'm not a physically clingy person at all, but my soul definitely likes to cling to things. If He brings a spiritual leader and friend into my life, I tend to depend too much on them and what they have to say. If He allows me to be that to someone else, I tend to take too much pride in it and either let myself down or am too easily let down by them. I have wanted to stay single honestly because I fear the level of intensity of which I would love my husband. I think it would be so unhealthy! Maybe I am confusing the love I have for God with the kind I would have for a man, because that is always who He has been to me. My lover, my closest friend, pretty much the only great Man in my life! It seems so hard. But I assume too much. This is just on my mind.
Change of subject: I'm reading through one of my all-time favorite books, Searching for God Knows What, by Donald Miller. He is truly my inspiration for writing. I thought to be a great writer you have to have this crazy, wild imagination and be able to create these other worlds and characters. I love the fact that Don seems to write from the depths of his soul, the questions of his mind, the sincerity of his heart and his love for God. He has shown me a whole new world, really. (I kind of want to break into the Aladdin love song right now...) So anyway, this is some of what I've been reading today:
... I feel my life is a story more than a list. I feel this blood slipping through my veins and these chemicals in my brain telling me I am hungry or lonely, sad or angry, in love or despondent. And I don't feel that a list could ever explain the complexity of all this beauty, all this sun and moon, this smell of coming rain, the beautiful mysteries of women, or the truck-like complexity of men. It seems near heresy to explain the gospel of Jesus, this message an infinitely complex God had delivered to an infinitely complex humanity, in bullet points. How amazing it is that Christ would explain that to be His followers we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, and that He is the Bridegroom and we are the bride, and that we will be unified with Him in His death, and that we will live forever with Him in glory...
I go back to Eden, in my mind, to imagine what it's going to be like for you & me in heaven. I suppose it will be a new and marvelous paradise, where love will exist in its purest form, where the beauty of diversity will be understood for the first time, where self-hatred will fade into an agreement with God about the splendor of His creation, where physical beauty will no longer be used as a commodity, where you & I will feel free in our sincere love for others, ourselves, and God. And I suppose it will be in heaven that you and I actually understand each other, all the arguments seeming so inconsequential, and the glory of God before us in all His majesty, shining like sunlight through our souls. This will be a good thing, my friend.
To me, it is more beautiful to trust Christ, deny our fathers and refuse our names, die to ourselves and live again in Him, raised up in the wave of His resurrection, baptized and made new in the purity of His righteousness. I hope you will join me in clinging to Him.
1 comment:
as i read these words with tear filled eyes God ministered to my soul in a thousand ways. your words are deep and pure and full of His heart.
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