Doubt – Embracing His Presence

March 3, 2016March 3, 2016

The unspoken, broken.

When words won’t come.

The searing pain that cuts so deep, bores into wounds laid bare long ago. Your tender heart is raw and exposed.. With each effort to speak the words of pain and prayer to the only One who can heal them – you find yourself – unspoken. Without a word. Without a way. Without a wandering moment of hope.

You ache to put into words the pain that torments your soul. You long to find solace in the strength of letting go. You keep looking for the clearing up ahead – grasping for words to alleviate this pain.. For you know when you begin speaking words of truth, you often find light, you find grace, you find peace.

Time stands still.

At eternity seems to hold you as the quietness echoes in the caverns of your soul. Your broken, weary, grace starved soul. You wrestle to discern the longings that are buried there. The broken places of insecurity. The abandoned places aching to belong. The desperate cries of a wounded heart for the deepest need of all, love. Thoughts erupt from the darkness that you try to keep at bay. You find yourself asking the question that plagues a desperate soul – to speak, the unspoken, broken, “how long?”

Really, how long oh God? How long will this pain endure? How long must I wait for your answer? How long until the days of liberation and deliverance? I know that your Mighty Hand can choose to deliver me in one breath, yet, here I am.

How long. Oh God?

I can hear some of you whom are reading this now. “Don’t ask that question. Accept God’s provision for you. Don’t doubt the Lord. Keep your thoughts to yourself. Just pray and you will feel better. Crucify those doubts that keep you from growing.”Before you decide that I am asking a question that should not ever be asked – speaking of the unspoken, broken that lives within each of us. I’d ask you to open your Bibles to Psalm 13 and read along with me:

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;

    my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the Lord’s praise,

    for he has been good to me.”
Friends, it is precisely our unspoken, broken that brings us into a deeper and authentic relationship with God. The Psalmist queries the LORD asking Him how long, well then, so can I and so can you. Don’t question whether you can doubt. Allow yourself to be in the moments that the LORD provides. Sit in the spaces where even the Lord is quiet. Go ahead, ask.
How long?
In your personal darkness it’s okay to ask God to look on you and answer you . Bring all your thoughts to God, every one. Your doubts, Your fears. Your insecurities. Let your heart be exposed and vulnerable. Choose to dig inside the scary places. Engage the painful waiting. Believe in the One who can save you.
Sometimes in our walks of faith and community, we see pain and struggle as weakness. We look for quick fixes. Easy answers. Familiar prayers. We celebrate victory while those who linger in darkness among us, remain on the outside. Let’s set aside the lie that we don’t suffer. Go ahead, ask – “how long?”
When I gaze upon Jesus hanging on the cross, I realize that God’s plan was never easy. Remember what the LORD did to sacrifice Himself for you. So -when the words don’t come for you, as they often don’t for me. When you find yourself weighed down by the old battles you once had victory over. When your unspoken, broken shackles your feet and you feel all hope is lost.
Look at Psalm 13 again, and know you aren’t alone.
Read that again. You are not alone. Do not fear the questions that you have within your soul. Let them out. Give them voice. Let the LORD answer them for you. Don’t give them power over you anymore. Be real, be authentic, be broken.
And speak it.
Trust in God’s unfailing love for you (Psa 13:5). Read that again, trust in God’s unfailing love for you. His love is for you. Not just me, or anyone else in your life. but you. YOU. It is God’s love that we trust in. Not how well you observe His laws, quote His Scripture or even how you might be serving others.
Gods love is His gift to you which can carry you forward. His love can lead you out. His love can empower you. His love can give you the words to speak your unspoken, broken. Don’t hide any longer my friends. Don’t let yourself be complacent anymore. It’s going to hurt, deeply, to rattle your comfort zone. It’s going to frighten to share those things you’ve been holding onto. Don’t let yourself miss out on the power of God.
You can keep on asking how long oh God – and He looks right back at you and ask, “how long, my child?” How long will you remain silent? Speak your unspoken, broken and let your God lead you to salvation.
How long?

February 16, 2014

God is… love

God is love.

It’s just that simple – and that complicated.

Love. It is this deep need we have within ourselves. We desire to be loved. We yearn for it. We seek it out and perhaps get a bit desperate sometimes. We search for it, looking all over, as it we lost it somehow. Love – we fall into it, out of it, we give it, receive it, refuse to offer it sometimes and can even give way too much of it.

Love. God is love.

When I think of God, I don’t think of an emotional being, not at all. I think of a spiritual, transformational, powerful, all knowing and ever present being. I rarely think or contemplate this nature of God, yet the Bible tells us that God is love. One of the shortest verses in Scripture is packed with such profound truth.

He is love and because He is love, we too, can love. God is the author of love Himself. The provider of strength to those seeking it. The giver of hope when you can’t seem to find the way to express it. God is love and it’s His love that can mold us into being love to others. His love works in us and through us.

The greatest story ever told, is the story of love itself.

God loves you, yes YOU – so very much that He choose to send His very own son, Jesus, to bring us back into relationship with Him. God chose to love us, even when we did nothing to receive that love. God chose to love us even when we didn’t deserve it. It’s this amazing picture of selfless, sacrificial and devotional love.

God chose to send His son. God chose to sacrifice Him. God chose for Him to be resurrected. God chose to send His Spirit. God chose this plan for your salvation. God chose. God chose. God chose.

Love my friends, it’s not just a emotional feeling or response – it’s a choice. Sometimes we just don’t feel loved. When we don’t feel it, it’s so much harder to choose love, isn’t it?

^“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:16-19)

God not only loves us, but wants us to grasp how wide, how long, how high and how deep is the love of Christ! This love is so huge! It’s so hard for our finite minds to grasp and yet He calls us to it, Paul said it’s his prayer. The Spirit of the Living God can strengthen your inner being. You can be filled to the measure of the fullness of God. How amazing this love is!

God is love.

Why do we complicate something so beautiful?

Chose Him.

February 9, 2014

Standing on the Word

The waves of doubt come crashing in, surrounding me and encasing me in fear. Yes, fear. That thing we dread and we pretend doesn’t happen to us – the uncertainty we can battle each and every moment. Yearning to answer the question – do we really believe? No, let’s get real.

Do I really believe?

Jesus, the Eternal One, the Most High God, my Savior – do I believe, in You? Not just your words, your story, the parables, the miracles and the victory. But YOU. If you asked me to share a Scripture, I could probably quote it. If you asked me to serve on a committee, I may just be able to lead it. But if you asked me to trust you – I would doubt. Oh, I would doubt.

Doubt your love, doubt your care – doubt the truth that you are really there. I look for signs scattered about, of your love and your compassion. It’s like a treasure I seek, a yearning to be filled – that shall never satisfy me.

Ah.

The water rises higher, I gasp to get my breath but I sense the truth you want to eradicate from the depths of my being. You see – it’s me. Me. I am the one who sinks into doubt. No. One. But. Me. No pointing fingers for the reasons for my doubt, only the realization that fear starts – with me.

Will my soul ever be comforted? My heart cease it’s taunting? I crave intimacy I can only find – in You. I have searched for it in relationships – with family and friends, expected it from people who just couldn’t give it, desired it in ways I regret. Yet, with each failed hope and lost opportunity – the waters rose and waves began to lap at my very soul. Experiences became etched together like a tapestry in my mind. My lack of faith kept me still. Not a stillness as in being still with God, oh no. Still – in not knowing what to do – where to turn or how to go. That stillness that immobilizes you, is fear.

My doubt was drowning out His voice.

“Don’t panic. I’m with you.
There’s no need to fear for I’m your God.
I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you.
I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you.” – Isaiah 41:10

It’s Him I need to fill me.

To complete me. To hold me steady. To keep a firm grip on me. It’s Jesus. Him. He wants to redirect the waves and let them gently drift over me. He can allow them to rise, and to fall – cascading and flowing, yet never drowning. You see these waves, they redirect our focus. Sometimes we get overwhelmed by their pull and fight the undercurrent. Other times we are crushed to the ground as the waves pound our backs. As we tread water to survive, we look for places to rest our feet.

On His Word.

Trust. I must trust. I must engulf myself with His presence, His love, His Spirit and His truth. To trust you more Jesus, I need to love me – less. I need to let go of my fear, my doubt and the voices which assail me. That tapestry in my mind may be unwoven, yet it does not have to suffocate me.

Do not panic. Do. Not. Panic. Do not.

I’m with you.

It’s time, He’s calling me and perhaps He’s calling you too. To trust Him and only Him. To let go. Let. Go. GO. Knowing that He will help. He will give strength. He will hold me and hold you steady. Steady. Not tossed back and forth like the waves. Steady. Firm. Constant.

Stand on the Word and it will lift you above the water. Gasp for breath as you need to. Dive into the waters when you slip. When you are ready, let Him guide you back up to stand with Him. Right back on His Word and into a deeper relationship with Him.

Keep your eyes above the waves. and focus.

On Him.

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