Please God don' let that be me...

  So yesterday, I had a very nice and amazing experience with God. I felt like I truly understood something He had been trying to get me to see about myself and how to deal with others. It was quite wonderous and sad at the same time. I began to really see others more as God sees them and not as how they try to portray themselves to be. It was freeing and also a heavy feeling. I wanted to help, to give them what I have. I began to see their pressures and fears. I began to feel the panic and desperation of their insecurities and how to live, survive, be. I asked God to help me to be, not someone who is stuck in their own fears and insecurities.  I want to be the person who can leave my wants and comforts and desires behind so that I can serve others without me and my need to be loved and validated and approved and liked getting in the way. I don't want to be that person. I hate being that. And I cannot do anything about that.  I am so naturally bound by these insecurities and desperations. I wake up and struggle to fight off the hurts and cries and pleas and lies that come from the depraved core of me.  And some days it is all I can do to just cling to the knowledge that God can change me, that He can work through me and accomplish something of true love and service. I find myself lately just praying that I will be confident in Him. I find myself hungering for humility and selflessness.  I find that i despise my sinful self more and more and hate the hold that it still seems to have on me at times. All I know is that my only hope, my only refuge is to cling to Him, submit, depend, surrender, rely....worship...serve.

Creation & creator...

  So a few weeks ago I heard this, "The creation is supposed to make us think about the creator...but instead we worship the creation." Now I could go many different directions here, but i don't want to lose us in the main idea.  When we see anything in creation...even food...we should be responding to the creator. We have so distorted this and began to worship the creation or the parts of it.
   So as I've been faced this week by some of the most spectacular views and aspects of the creation...I've been really focusing on the worship, the awesomeness of the creator. I love looking at the colors, the textures, the variety and the complexity of  all things in creation and how it all fits and works together. and yes this does make me think of God and how this could not possibly be some kind of cosmic accident but a beautiful and artfully crafted design...a planned celebration of the glory and power of God.
   So stop and look at the creation. Expect to be turned back to the creator. He will draw close to Him.

Oh Peter...

I read John 18...

I started thinking about Peter and his thoughts.

   You were so brave, so full of passion. You faced down soldiers- prepared to die for him. A man from nowhere who called you from your nets just months ago.

    And now you are so full of fear and doubt. Standing in the night. He is inside. All of society is screaming accusations and raining down their jealousies on him. They are scared too- scaredbecause he is not them. Yet they are losing control. And they are terrified and livid- a man saying things, doing things. They beleive He cannot possibly be the messiah because He is not here to conquer and kill. He is not here to destroy their enemies and place their people over all others. These people who live shrouded in judgement and rules. They are afraid because He is something they are not. And they are too blind to see Him.

   And yet Peter, you stand here afraid in the night- in the flickering light of the fire. Shadows are crossing their faces like like devils stalking you in the night. They are sneering and pointing. They are aking you to claim Him. They are calling you one of his followers. And now you who ate with Him, walked with Him- saw His glory revealed on the mountain, witnessed his healing of so many...now you stand in fear with a torment raging between your heart and the very thought of being pulled into the midst of the mob with Him. Remember Peter how He told you that He would build his church upon you. So many things he said and you did not understand. But you knew that you loved Him, loved him like no other. You loved him enough to walk away from everything- your life, all that you know. And now in the darkest hour, the darkest night you are going to be so afraid of them that you will deny this man. I wonder if his eyes, his face flashes before you when you hear your mouth declare your denial.

    And then not once but three times you say out loud that you do not know this Jesus- this man who has changed your life. Then the rooster crows. His words come back to you. Your adamant rejection, "No Lord! I will never deny you!", rings in your ears. It pounds with every beat of your heart. Peter, the anguish you must feel in your soul. The tears and the sick feeling- the realization of how horrible, how utterly undeserving of him you are.

   I know the feeling well. So many times my fear, my insatiable desire for approval and popularity has been so much more important than my Lord. I have worshiped so many false gods and utterly denied my Jesus, your Jesus. I know full well Peter- the ache, the hurt and the shame. I too have denied my Lord. I too have been in the dark night and heard my own denials. I have felt my own bile rise up in  my throat from the horrendous despair that wants to over take me. I want to wretch because I know that I have spit upon all that he has done for me. Oh Peter, I know. Peter, I know too well...