Hallelujah, light has come

I have been listening to this song by BarlowGirl (yes I am listening to Christmas music already!) and it has gotten my mind thinking about how amazing God is and how truly unworthy I am to have a relationship with him. He came to save me, knowing what I would do to disgrace Him. I feel like I cannot get close to God like I want to no matter how hard I try lately. I am so frustrated with my inability to trust and lean on Him. I KNOW what to do, I just seem to choose not to most days. Listening to this song and thinking of My Savior as an innocent infant, and then realizing He was innocent His entire life. How humbling is that? He truly is amazing.

I was reading my Bible this morning and loved the verse in Zephaniah 3:17 I love this verse and how it expresses God's love for me. It really overwhelms me when I think of how much He loves me and how much of my sinful, selfish desires must offend Him. He only wants me to love Him. HE delights in me???? He sings over me???? His grace and forgiveness make me think about my relationships. If God almighty can forgive me and delight in me...surely I can forgive and take delight in people He has placed in my life. God you are amazing!

The Lord your God is with you,

He is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

He will quiet you with His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

The Kings

I am reading about the kings that reigned over Israel in the OT. I am fascinated with the things they were able to accomplish at such a young age and how God used them and sometimes punished them. Everything was about pride.

I find the story of Uzziah the most intriguing. He was 16 when he became king and he did a great job as king, up until the last days of his life, when he succumbed to his selfish desires=pride. Ultimately he stopped seeking God, didn't talk to Him as much and assumed he was doing a great job all by himself. Unfortunately he forgot that His God was doing the prospering...not him. He was the most powerful person in the entire kingdom as king, he could do ANYTHING. However, there was one thing he could not do, and this may be the reason he tried. He felt He deserved the honor of burning incense on the altar in the temple. Azariah, the priest, and 80 other BRAVE priest approached him and told him he couldn't do this! He was not allowed/permitted to burn incense. They called him unfaithful and a disgrace. He got all hot tempered and was getting all over them when he broke out in leprosy and was rushed out of the temple. He knew he was wrong and above all he knew the skin disease was a punishment from God.

It amazed me to see the boldness and determination of the priests to keep the Temple pure and holy. They could have been killed on the spot by command from the king and surely they knew this. However, their job was to ensure that the Temple be a place of praise and glory for God. God, in the end was glorified and took care of the prideful attitude of this king.

What's so sad is that Uzziah spent the rest of his life in quarantine and was never allowed to enter the Temple of God. He was cut off from everything. He had leprosy for the rest of his life. Even after his life was over he continued to be punished by not being granted a king's royal burial. The skin disease prohibited him from being buried in the royal cemetery. He died and was only remembered as "the guy with the skin disease". How sad is that? He did so much good. He made the country a better place. He had a strong military. However, because he allowed his relationship with God to dwindle, his great name was reduced to basically nothing.

I pray that God would humble me every single time I think I am doing fine on my own or when I feel like I've got things under control. God, never let me behave in such a way that I forget that you are God alone. You never change. You never falter. Help me trust you.

I am a runner!

Not in the putting on my Nike's and hitting the road sense, but in the Christian faith, yes. I have always read the scriptures about "pressing on toward the prize" and "run the race with endurance", but I am realizing more and more that I am in a relationship with God and I am running either with or away from God. I have to realize that I am in a race and run like I mean it. I can't allow myself to "hit the wall" when I am challenged or just get tired. I have to depend on God to guide me and lead me through, over or under the trials I will face. Beth Moore made it clear in saying that sometimes we go through the fire, sometimes God allows us to avoid it and sometimes God decides to take us home. I just want to glorify my Savior and show others the love of God through my relationship with Him. Are you a runner?

Stone Under Rushing Water

I chose this title because that is what I am and lately the water has seemed quite forceful and painful. It is the title of a song by the band needtobreathe. Although that song, to me, is talking about a relationship between a man and a woman it's not much different than my relationship with the Father. I have, in the past 2 years experienced several low lows in my relationship with God and felt so far away that it was almost as if I didn't even have a relationship with Him. But I have had some great times with Him too. There were times in my walk with God in the past 2 years when I didn't speak to Him for weeks at a time...I couldn't even listen to Christian music because it convicted me so much. I was at the lowest point I have ever been with God. Thankfully, He continued to pursue me and call me back to Himself daily...even when I completely ignored Him. I missed my intimate times with God. I missed my fellowship with the Lord.  I am so thankful that my God is a forgiving and passionate lover of my soul. 

My Sunday school teacher talked about conviction this morning in a way I had NEVER thought about it before. We have been talking about the trinity and our relationship with God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. We talked about how we get physical symptoms when we are under conviction such as sweating, pounding heart and like a compressing weight on our chests. Last week we discussed how Jesus always touched people He healed. There was always that physical element in the stories we read in the NT. Thinking about how Jesus could possibly physically interact with us now, since He's not on Earth anymore as a man, we discussed how the physical manifestations of conviction are Jesus "touching" our very soul through the conviction of the HS. This also leads us to obedience to God the Father. By responding to conviction, the trinity is able to guide us and lead us down the path of obedience. We are able to respond to what God is calling us to do through the HS who convicts us and Jesus touches our hearts to respond. I think that's the most beautiful description I have ever heard. Conviction isn't a nasty, make you feel bad tactic God uses. It's a lovely invitation to love and obey a God who loves us enough to care. Thank you Lord for convicting me...even when I don't want to hear it.