I fell apart at praise night tonight. Snot, tears, head buried in my hands...it was the whole shebang. All of the stress and worry and concerns accumulated from the past three weeks simply melted away in His presence. I can't describe it. I went to praise night desiring rest in God, seeking conversation with Him, yearning deeply to hear His voice; I'm so glad I went.
Even after the breakdown, I had a tough time focusing. Focusing during prayer has always been a chronic problem for me. If I'm able to pray for 15 minutes without falling asleep, I count it as a success. My mind loves to wander all over the place. Even after I broke down, I still had to expend a fair amount of energy in order to settle down and focus on actually listening to Him, which took me a good hour for some reason. But such is my depravity.
You know, prayer and my attitude towards it is such a funny thing. My flesh abhors prayer, my body doesn't desire it one bit. I'd rather literally do anything else. I'll come up with excuse after excuse just to avoid it. But the funny thing is when I do actually sit down and pray, when I'm spending time pouring it all out and also sitting in silence listening for Him, meditating on the Word, there is no other place I would rather be than right there. I think, "This is the best thing ever!" And yet, my flesh continues to avoid it. I can relate well to Paul in this when he says in Romans 7, "When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
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I was the last one in the room tonight. The time with Him was some of the sweetest i've ever experienced. The uncertainties, hurts, loss..Jesus told me he knows what it feels like too. No grand epiphanies, but His words were more than enough.
Even now as I type this, I have a hard time remembering what happened just a scant few hours ago. How sinful am I? It's ridiculous. I'm like a pendulum, swinging wildly back and forth, only catching a glimpse of the real Jesus when I'm centered for that split second. But what I do remember...God told me that He loves me. All the stuff i've been preaching to my IBS guys, the stuff I spent the entire past summer telling to strangers overseas...I saw it all through fresh eyes tonight once again. It may have been only for a few moments, but it was crystal clear: God loves me.
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You know I love you. I chose you before time began. And my Spirit is my gift showing you so.
God...you...don't have to...you don't have to...love me anymore, if you don't want to, I mean. I don't know what I mean. It's just...I'm sure you have better things to do. ... This is foolish, I'm going to stop talking now. I fumbled in reply.
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It's easy to say God's called you to certain place, school, or fellowship when things are going well. But when things start to go down the tubes, how certain are you of that original call? Things suddenly are no longer as clear.
But this is where the trial begins. When I boil it down, the answer is so, so simple. Follow Jesus. That's it. This is what He's been teaching me these past three weeks, through John 9 and 10, through Joe Dickan's amazing facebook note, through the story of Zacchaeus we studied for IBS...it is clear He wants to lead. All I need to do is listen and follow. And when I'm doing that, the most glaring and disturbing of questions fade into the background, and I'm filled with unexplainable joy.
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I've decided against sharing the specifics, because this blog medium is not the right place to share such things. And honestly, if I were to share the specifics, this post would quickly fall off the cliff into a sea of self-pity (nate knows from my email haha). But yea. Sigh.
So the time has come to make a choice. There are two. 1) Cut and run...a rather enticing option. 2) Give up. Give up striving, give up every concern, give up every qualm, every hurt, pang of sadness, thoughts of loss, give up my questions and doubts. It is not a 'give them up' as in forget about them, but a 'give them up' so I may instead expend myself simply following Jesus. Truly listening. Entrenched in prayer, as daniel yap put it so well last friday to me. Giving up, surrendering to the Shepherd, giving up and finding rest, letting Him lead me to life to the fullest. Oh my soul, forget not all of His benefits! Don't forget who forgives all of your sins, who fulfills your desires with good things, who renews your heart time and time again, who shows unending patience!
I want so bad to take the latter option, but the first one entices. How easy it would be to cut and run. Please pray that He would be my strength to remain in the fight.
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Alright, that's enough of that. If you want to know more specifically, I guess just email or ask. But I have a feeling God has put me through this trial relatively alone for a distinct reason.
The concept of redemption blows my mind.
A little something that my really good friend sent me. Hope you enjoy.
