Jesus introduces me to New Year Resolutions

I’m not the sort of person who makes New Year Resolutions.  I know there are a billion things in my life that I would love to resolve and work on, but I have never really set out the beginning of a new year with some personal goal in mind.  So to be perfectly honest I am not the person who should be giving advice on how to do that, or what to do, or even share countless success stories.  I have a very strong resolve when it comes to others, even strangers, but I have very little resolve when it comes to myself.  I would love to say it is because I am humble and selfless … now that would be awesome.  It would, however, throw out my self-proclaimed humbleness right out the window.  No, my reason is dark.  I try to make light of it often without really getting to the heart of the issue.  Even now I have had to delete several sentences.  I want to sarcastically refer to this as a ‘gift’.  But that’s wrong.  My Pastor, Mark Driscoll, has been going through the book of Malachi these last few weeks, and one of the condemnations of God against rebellious Israel is that they call bad things good and good things bad.  This really hit home for me, and I feel the desperate need to sin in this fashion.  I want to hide my sin in sarcasm, but truly it is a heart issue I have with the LORD.  In my heart I know I am accusing Him of allowing me to be given this ‘gift’.  But what does all of this have to do with New Year Resolutions and why I don’t make them?  I don’t make resolutions for myself because I don’t consider myself.

I don’t mean that flippantly, or humbly.  I don’t value myself.  I don’t find myself worthy of that sort of attention or intention or interest.  I am learning that this is a reverse form of pride because it is still about me, all about me.  It is about how I see myself, rather than how God sees me.  This is a very deep rooted sin my heart and soul. It is a sin I have to work on, but it is painful.  Those who know me know some of why I am like this, but those of you who don’t know …someone hurt me.  Before I knew Jesus I was involved with a man who abused me.  The first night he raped me I was ashamed and in so much pain.  The very next night the same thing happened, and the shame went deeper.  Then went the third night, the fourth night, the tenth night, the twenty-fifth night.  I once told people he raped, abused, and tortured me for six months.  Daily.  I didn’t see an end in sight.  But one night I ended up screaming so loud and I shattered.  I went away.  I can’t really tell you where I went because I don’t really know.  I felt like a zombie.  Something happened that night when I broke that scared him …and after that he no longer raped me with sexual intercourse.

Last year I started this process of healing.  Of walking through this with the LORD, and he is showing me things I didn’t remember, things I didn’t want to see or remember.  I didn’t break up with this man or escape this man that night.  He continued to be my boyfriend/fiancée/master/abuser for a good year and a half.  He made me do things I didn’t want to do.  And as I look back at those moments I realized I lost value in myself.  I no longer cared what happened to me physically.  I simply couldn’t care because I had no escape.  There was no end.  I hated everything about myself because there was no part of me that didn’t hurt, that didn’t feel defiled, and that didn’t feel disgusting.

When I gave myself to Jesus, and fell on my face behind His righteousness …I didn’t open that door for Him.  I had so forgotten myself that I didn’t realize there was a door there for Him to open.  My life was so riddled with obvious sin of paganism and copious amounts of sexual immorality that it was my focus to drastically change and turn my back on all that.  It has been four years of challenges and struggles to let go of all of these things.  And I by no means have it perfected yet.  This year, however …2014 … is the start of my fifth year as a Christian.  And as I read Facebook posts and internet articles about resolutions …God has knocked the wind out of me as I realized all that I am writing to you.

I don’t want to make a resolution.  It feels uncomfortable.  And that bothers me.  I don’t like knowing that I think so little of me.  And my lack of self-value affects all my relationships.  I don’t let people close, but I hunger for friendship.  I want to reach out, but when I look at my own metaphorical hand I see something twisted and dead.  And all of this is a lie.  It is a lie that the enemy has told me.  And I didn’t know how to fix that hand.  So I just focused on learning more.  In my learning through Mars Hill, each Community Group I have been to, the Women’s Mid-week Studies, and my friendships I found myself finding this door, and having to confront it.  And I don’t want to open it.  I don’t want to walk through it with Jesus.  I want to take an alternative route.  So I began to make up a list of all the reasons New Year Resolutions are stupid.

First, they are nearly impossible to keep with.  Second, I change and make improvements because of my relationship with Jesus and not because the planet earth has made one more revolution around the sun.  As a pagan the new year came at the end of October and it was all about the renewing of life.  But I am no longer a pagan so that was a notch against a New Year Resolution.  Then following that vein of thought our culture isn’t about renewing life, it is about renewing self.  How will I make myself a better version of me than last year?  So after combining all of this with all of what I shared earlier I nearly talked myself out of it.  Then the Holy Spirit happened.

I was showering and a soft voice inside me told me I was clean.  At first I was like, “Yeah duh.  Soap will do that to you.”  But the Holy Spirit didn’t allow me to be so dismissive of this profound statement.  I am clean.  For some reason I stopped and closed my eyes.  I just let the water fall over me.  As I stood there with my eyes closed (I know this will sound weird) I felt the blood of Christ washing over me rather than the water.  At first all I could do was sink to my knees and cry.  Then I heard His voice tell me to wash myself with the blood.  So I did.  I washed every inch of me without opening my eyes.  I have never felt this clean.  I thought when I opened my eyes the feeling would vanish.  It didn’t.  That statement stuck with me … Wash myself with the blood.  I thought I had.

But that is my default thinking.  I understood it as skin deep.  I had washed myself with the blood.  I had wept.  My skin actually still feels slightly raw.  The Holy Spirit kept at me.  He kept telling me to wash myself with the blood.  To be honest I started to get frustrated.  So I did the only ‘logical’ thing to do.  I began to argue with the Holy Spirit.

They are impossible to keep.  “For nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37).  When I began on the arguments of the silliness of New Year keeping, that it was simply another night devoted to people getting drunk He spoke again.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.  (Genesis 1:14-19)

God created the years, the orbit of the earth.  We were meant to keep time, to count the years.  He designed them for us.  So why do I take such a thing so lightly?  But like with everything else we tarnished and corrupted this gift.  But I stubbornly continued to argue.  New Year Resolutions in this culture are all about us, self-improvement, self-worship. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

“Wash yourself in the blood of Christ” Then it hit me.  The LORD, the maker of the Heavens and the earth, the God of Jacob, the God of Isaac, and the God of Joseph, YAHWEH has shown up to wash me.  I don’t know what I was trying to confine Him to the world’s definitions of resolutions and times.  YAHWEH has come to open the door.  I have begun to do the only thing that is right.  I have begun to understand the only correct response.  I surrendered.  I surrender all to you my LORD, my King, my God, my Savior, my Friend, my Creator.

So today, the first day of the New Year, I have not made a resolution.  I have not found obedience.  I have found a New Year Supplication.  A New Year Submission.  A New Year of surrender and slavery to the Master of all things, the King of kings, and the LORD of lords.  I have found a New Year of Love.  I am beginning to understand that this door inside of me isn’t even my door.  I belong to my LORD.  I have no right to keep it closed.  I have no right to throw my sin on what He, YAHWEH, is cleaning.

What does that mean?  It means that this year I yield myself to Christ, to the will of my Father.  I want and need Him to wash me with the blood.  And what bothers me is I know I will screw this up.  He knows I will screw this up, how I will screw this up, and when I will screw this up.  I am really not in control of anything.  I am not in the driver’s seat.  I am not the co-pilot.  I am a passenger.  This year I want this.  I beg the LORD to invade me.  I know this means more changes for me.  Changes I have tried to make on my own by my own will.  This year I want nothing to do with my will, and everything to do with His will.  His might.  His power.  Nothing is impossible with my God.  This year, starting today, I want to hold onto this truth.  I want to let go of lies.

So why am I sharing this with you?  Because since that first night he raped me I have been in hiding.  Even when I became saved, and became such a radically new creature I was given a new name, I have still been hiding.  I don’t want to hide any more.  I can’t do the things that the LORD wants me to do, and be the things the LORD wants me to be if I hide.  Today I need to read and write the truth of the LORD.  This is how the LORD sees me.  This is how the LORD sees you.  And I know this has been a long post …but please stop considering yourself …and consider what God has to say about you.

I am saved by His grace! It is a gift! It has nothing to do with my performance!

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,” (Ephesians 2:8)

 

I have been born again by the Holy Spirit if I believe in Jesus!

“Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.‘” (John 3:5-6)

 

I am altogether new IN HIM!

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17)

 

Because of this I am righteous and holy, and He has renewed the spirit of my mind!

“and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:23-24)

 

I no longer have to hide.  Darkness has no place in me!

“For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.” (1 Thessalonians 5:5)

 

I am God’s instrument to shine HIS light for you!

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6)

 

For God chose me, me of all people, to proclaim HIS glory!

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellences of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

 

IN Christ I am an heir to the Kingdom of God!

“and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. ” (Romans 8:17)

 

I did not choose Jesus.  God chose me to be a bearer of His fruit!

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” (John 15:16)

 

In fact, god made me from the beginning of time to do HIS good works!

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

 

I have a heavenly calling!

“Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,” (Hebrews 3:1)

 

I am reconciled in Christ and Christ has given me a message of reconciliation!

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

Who am I before God?

Today I had the honor and gift of being able to sit in the comfort of my home while listening to some awesome Bible preaching and teaching.  My Church set up the Resurgence Conference for free online streaming.  I was giddy this morning for what I would learn.  I was overwhelmed at the sight of so many Jesus loving individuals packed into my church …singing ….praying ….learning …living …and worshipping together.  It was an awesome sight to see the pews packed.  It actually brought tears to my eyes …because I want to see that every Sunday.  And today was a Tuesday.  A day generally not packed full of church goers.  I was in awe of my God blessing me with a sight I always want to see.  It truly was amazing!

What I took away from today amazes me more.  It isn’t something I have really thought of.  All the Pastors who spoke today touched on it spoke into this feeling inside of me, but it was brought home by Pastor Greg Laurie.  Is who I am when I am all alone with God the same person I am when I am around others?  The answer is no.  I am not the same person I am around my family that I am around my Community Group.  I am not the same person I am around my Community Group that I am every Sunday at my Church.  I am not any of those people when I am with only my husband.  And I am still not that person in any of those situations then when I am alone with just God.  I’m just not.  Oh sure I could give you a list of reasons and excuses to “sanatize” my choices.  But I am not going to.

As Pastor Crawford Loritts spoke of today I need to move away from that dissection and set my feet to the path of what I am going to do about it.  How can the awesome and redeeming power of the Gospel shine it’s light through me if I keep putting Yahweh’s lamp beneath a bucket?  So I am going to start with today.  By God’s sense of time this is the beginning of my Wednesday.  And I was blessed with spending the beginning of my Wednesday listening to the teaching and preaching of my Pastor Mark and Pastor Crawford a second time through with my husband.  It was a good start to my day and I find myself at peace with what the dawn will bring me.  And trust me when I say that very rarely is the case.

So who am I when I am alone with God?  At first I thought it was that I am more confident when I am alone with God than when I am around other people.  Because I often feel a mile behind everyone else, completely out of place, and the only platypus among a flock of swans.  I’m not even the same species.  So as I allowed myself to sink into this self-professed confidence before the LORD I quickly come to realize I am not all that confident.  I question myself before and around others, and even when it is just me and no one else can witness my pride …it isn’t displayed in confidence.  It is displayed in second guessing myself, doubting myself, condemning myself, beating myself up …and staying completely focused on myself rather than focusing on the very real and obvious fact that I am an infant in my faith before a timeless LORD who knew all of my sin before He laid the foundations of the world.  That’s intimidating.  It is also so completely loving and humbling that He went ahead and made me anyway just the way I am.  I can’t really wrap my mind around it.

If the last paragraph didn’t give the answer away I’ll say it plainly.  When I am alone before God I am a mess.  I realize that in most of my online social media stuffs that I am involved with I always mention that I am broken, but I don’t think I act that part out.  I keep it hidden because it makes me vulnerable and real and imperfect.  Granted I know everyone knows I am not perfect …but this is a whole other level of imperfection.  I am broken because I am a sinner …yes …but the shattered pieces of me go much deeper than what I allow anyone to really see on any sort of consistent level.  I know we are all broken from the start, when we are being knit in our mother’s womb.  I know that, and I don’t want to try and play the ‘who is more broken’ game with anyone.  I am just saying, and letting you know that my soul … my very core …is shattered to countless pieces in Jesus’ dust pan.  I know I have only allowed Him the briefest moments of times to begin gluing my pieces back together.  I know that every day that passes more of His glue will bind me together with the stickiness of the Holy Ghost.  Just run with that analogy, bypass its flaws.

I am in pain.  In an obvious way physically.  I have told some about the constant level and degree of pain that I live in.  When doctors ask about a pain level between 1 and 10 …I live normally at a 7.  When I sleep it jumps up to an 8 due to the fact I am asleep.  So generally I don’t sleep well.  It isn’t restive.  Every moment of every day I am in pain.  It isn’t a discomfort.  It isn’t bothersome or annoying.  It isn’t mild.  It is burning, stabbing, real pain.  And if you look at me it is doubtful you will see that pain.  It might show up briefly in a wince, but generally people don’t realize how much I hurt.  I don’t want you to know.  I go to great, exhaustive lengths so you don’t know.  I hurt.  All the time.  Even when I am smiling, laughing, singing, and lifting my hands to worship LORD …I am in pain.

The fact I am in pain is not the problem.  It is just how can you see the redeeming power of God for this pain, through this pain, and because of this pain … if you don’t even know I am in pain in the first place?  Hiding this thorn isn’t allowing the light of the Gospel to shine through those gaps and cracks.  Don’t worry I am not about to start whining around everyone, nor am I going to constantly complain.  I just know I need to start exploring the ways of shining the light of Christ through the lens of this agony rather than covering it up.  I know I will need to pray about this a lot, and actually talk with the LORD about this …rather than just at Him because of it.  He had the solution in an eternity before today.

My physical pain was the easy answer.  It is the low hanging fruit.  A piece higher up has to do with intimacy.  Oh I tell people I suck at it because I have absolutely no idea what it looks like and I have never really had living examples of it around me.  The part that people don’t know is that I still have PTSD.  The LORD has redeemed some shallower areas of this, but I haven’t really begun to explore the deeper side of the PTSD pool.  I’ll hug people hello, because that is a greeting.  But a strange man, or a man I am only acquainted with, better not come up to me and touch my arm.  If that happens no one will know it…..but inside I am freaking out.  And it doesn’t always have to be a man.  Touch, in general, I am not very good at.  Being married has exposed this problem in so many ways.

It is so obvious when it is between me and God that when I go out of town with my mom …and we share a bed to sleep in …I will sleep on the edge, corner of that bed so as not to touch her in my sleep.  I get on the verge of anxiety attacks if while we are laying there and the outsides of our arms touch very lightly.  Comfort be damned.  And that’s my mom.  I don’t think anyone realizes that every Sunday at my Church is a miracle of God because if it were any other space, any other place, I would be uncomfortable and looking for my way out.  And I would never go back, much less volunteer eagerly and willingly to associate with random people.  Every Sunday is a miracle in my bucket sheltered world that I can go to Church for hours, being around strangers, and feel at ease and protected while I am in God’s house.  I am in God’s house with God’s people enjoying God’s company learning God’s word.  If you take God out of that I would never go back a second time.  Trust me on this.  But how would you know this.  How can I portray that in a way that isn’t all about me, but about all of His light shining through those shattered parts of me?  And I don’t have an answer for that.  I will pray about that.  I know the LORD has the answer already.

So I am in physical pain, in PTSD to the point where I close my eyes if a commercial or image comes up involving tidy whites.  What else?  I hunger for His word, I hear His commanding voice, and I tend to ignore Him.  I won’t do this in front of others.  Before others I keep up appearances.  I listen to God, I do what He tells me to do, and I portray a somewhat sedated, rebellious, obedience.  Before other’s I choose Him.  But when it is just me and God hanging out …most of the time I will choose myself.  When I am alone with God I sit there in complete disbelief …confused …horrified shocked awe …at how shattered I have become.  I am overwhelmed by my mess.  I am at a loss over the loss the LORD and I look at in the parts of me that have become nothing more than a fine powder …dust.  And yeah, some of that is my sin …but some of that is just bits of me.  Bits of me I lost.  Core elements of me that just don’t work any more ….and so I don’t know how to function as me any more.  I know that the LORD has it all and that I am a new creation …but how does that new created me work, function, and exist?

I sometimes think I knew the answer, or answers, so I try to forge ahead.  And as a lot of my friends have babies and toddlers …my actions remind me of the baby who tries to craw for the first time…but still can’t figure out how to get their knees beneath them.  I would like to say I am a toddler learning how to run …but more often than not I am the babe who still needs to learn how to support and control my own head.  Because I don’t do that very well.  I don’t take every thought captive to the LORD.  I don’t pray on my knees as often as I should.  I don’t read my Bible as often as I should.  I don’t focus on all things that are true, good, and holy from the LORD.  I fill my head with crap, false gospels preached in TV series, or movies, or games, or books, or ect….and if I don’t control my head how can I possibly guard my heart?

Before God I am broken.  The puppet strings of the world have been cut …but that is still the habitual way, the normative way, I know how to move.  I exist beside the LORD looking at the shattered mess of me in horror ….and I don’t know what to do.  I know Jesus is where I need to start.  Jesus is my start, my middle, my end, my energy, my reason, my salvation, my joy, my motivation, my prize, my portion, and my support.  Just to name a few.  Before others I know I put on the front and face of this is who I am, this is my personality, this is where I am from, and this is what I do.  When it is just God and me …I feel less defined and more like a blob.  I am undefined as I set myself to the task of knowing deep in my core …in the spaces inbetween all the shattered pieces of me …who the LORD says I am and how He defines me.  I am learning those truths in the Bible, in the teaching of the Gospel, in the testimonies of the people around me …and I know it is true in my head.  I need it to sink and cement itself in the empty spaces between the pieces of me.  I need to sit, and think on it.  I need to take the time to sit with Jesus at His feet to chew on His words.

I don’t know if any of this makes any sense.  I hope I’m not writing in circles, because I am good at that.  I just wanted to get these thoughts down.  Because good men of God spoke into my life today.  The LORD spoke to me through them.  He made me who I am before Him …and I need to allow His glory, His light, His redemptive power, and His grace to shine through my mess.  He doesn’t want me to sweep it all under a rug or the bucket just because others come around.  That doesn’t glorify God.  It glorifies me.  I’m broken.  I’m a mess.  Jesus is the neat and perfect one.  And only Yahweh can shine light through the murkiness of His followers.  It doesn’t make logical sense.  It seems foolish and folly.  But the world in its wisdom does not know God.  We can’t shine a light through dirt and murkiness.  That is a miracle.  Only the power of the LORD can do that.  Because He is that awesome.  And only HE is that good!

Eternal Manna

Last night I was feeling the tempting, and sinful pull of my various distractions.  I was feeling frustrated and despondent.  I wanted to sleep, but I knew I wouldn’t.  I didn’t want to take a sleeping pill.  I want to get out of the rut of depending on sleeping pills to sleep.  So my mind was coming up with all sorts of ways to ‘pass the time’ until I felt tired.  The passing of time is mostly just me escaping my life until my life is suitable and agreeable again … i.e. until I can go to sleep.  In the middle of one of my distractions I wasn’t feeling any better, any more sleepy and tired.  So I closed my eyes and prayed for help.  And in that moment I realized I just wanted Jesus.  So I went to the book of John and began to read.  Jesus helped soothe my mind by chapter 5 and I slept beautifully, soundly.

So when I got up this morning I felt well rested.  Rather than get up immediately I just spent some time talking with God.  I opened up the book of John to read chapter 6.  There is a section in this chapter that I have always struggled with.  So I can easily imagine the struggles the people who heard Jesus say these things had.  But as I read the passage this morning the Holy Spirit opened my heart and my mind … and I finally got it.  I finally understood what Jesus was saying.  So I want to write it down, to remember.  Who knows, it might help others who have struggled with this same passage.  Or you could completely disagree with me and the Holy Spirit can be working some other thoughts in your heart and mind.  Either way, considering the words of Jesus is never time ill spent.  So here is the handful of verses in John 6:25-59

                “When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”

Jesus answered them. “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.  For on him God the Father has set his seal.”

Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of god?”

Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?  Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”

They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.  But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.  All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.  For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.  For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believe in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”  They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?  How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Jesus answered hem, “Do not grumble among yourselves.  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.  And I will raise him up on the last day.  It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’  Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.  Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.  I am the bread of life.  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.  And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man gives us his flesh to eat?”

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.  As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died.  Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

Now I did not grow up as a devote Jew, but I still know that cannibalism is bad.  But the crowd of Jewish people who heard this had Scripture to guide them.  There are several places in the Old Testament where God gives commands not do eat the flesh of man.  God also gives a command never to eat meat that still has life’s blood in it.  That’s not to say we can’t eat rare steaks.  But we can’t eat meat that still has living blood in it, like eating the meat off of a living animal.  The Lord expressly forbids the drinking of blood, or the consumption of life’s blood in any way.  So if I, a dumb gentile, has stumbled through this teaching of Jesus …how much more did the Jews there stumble?  The disciples themselves say that this is a hard word to understand.

Then the Holy Spirit brought to my mind the beginning of John’s book.  John calls Jesus the Word of God.  Jesus is the living, breathing, incarnate Word of God.  Jesus himself says the only reason He lives is because of the Father.  Jesus emphatically and repeatedly says He is here to do the will of the Father.  His actions, His words, and His life are nothing more than the reflected will of God.  Which brings me back to Genesis, where the Lord says we are created in His image, to be His image bearers.  God the Father does not have a human form or body.  He is wholly spirit.  And if Jesus perfectly reflects that, He is not teaching about flesh and worldly things.  He is teaching about spirit things.

So how, and why, do I spiritually feed on Jesus’ flesh?  Jesus knew He was going to go to the cross.  He knew he would be beaten, scourged, and crucified.  His body, His flesh, would atone for every sin that everything and everyone has ever committed against God since the beginning of time until the end of time.  John the baptizer calls Jesus God’s atoning Lamb.  Jesus is a burnt offering to the LORD.  The perfect sacrifice.  Jesus repeatedly says this is the reason He came.  This is the very reason for His flesh.  This is the very reason He took on human form.  The only reason Jesus needed to have flesh for us to feast on is to atone for our trespasses.  So when he taught, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  He was not telling me to actually eat his flesh, He was telling me to spiritually feast on the only reason He had flesh.  I am to spiritually consume, daily, His perfect atoning sacrifice on the cross.  I will get to why I know He tells me to do this daily in a moment.  I want to talk through the drinking of His blood.

The Old Testament was taught to the Jews from birth.  They knew that the Lord required blood as the payment of sin.  God said in the garden of Eden that sin would lead to death.  And God repeatedly teaches that life is in the blood.  So the only way to cover the death created by our sin is to cover it in life, to cover it with blood.  The life in the blood would wash away the stain of death.  And as I mentioned above Jesus is the perfect, sinless, spotless sacrifice.  Therefore His blood is perfect and everlasting.  Jesus calls himself the living sacrifice, which means He lives through His sacrifice.  His blood will never stop flowing, because only death can stop blood from flowing.  Jesus’ blood covers my sin.  I must continually wash myself with His blood.  The body of Christ covers my body on the outside, my flesh, in His righteousness.  The blood of Christ covers me inside, for my own blood is inside me.  His skin is my skin.  His blood is my blood.  I cannot live without either my skin or my blood.  I cannot hope to live eternally without Jesus’ skin and Jesus’ blood.

So why daily?  Because Jesus teaches me this by comparing Himself to manna.  When God brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, across the Red Sea, they had no food to eat.  They feared they would starve to death.  So they cried out to the Lord and God provided.  God gives them manna from heaven.  It dusts everything around them.  The Jews were to gather it to make bread.  Good commands them to only gather as much as they need for the day.  When a few of the Jews try to gather more than what they needed that day …the manna rotted.  God was teaching the Jews how to depend on Him daily for the very basic necessity of food.  The Lord will provide.  Yet all those Jews who ate this life giving bread in the wilderness still died.  None of them are still walking around today.  That’s because the manna was a gift of bread and life.  It was not an everlasting gift of bread that would lead to an everlasting gift of life.  Manna would rot after only a day.  The Jews could not depend on manna to live.  They needed to depend on the LORD.

That is why Jesus taught, “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died.  Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

Manna was never living.  It was a powder like substance that could be molded by human hands and turned into bread.  Eternal things are of God.  We cannot create eternal things.  We cannot alter, mold, or shape eternal things.  We are not little gods.  Jesus is saying that the Father is living, eternal, undying.  Jesus lives as the Father lives because the Father is in Him and He is in the Father.  Jesus is eternal.  Jesus died, but He did not stay dead.  That is why we do not know where He was buried.  Jesus isn’t there any more.  Jesus is the true manna from heaven, the ever living, ever eternal manna.  And just as the Jews at the manna to live in the wilderness … I must daily consume Jesus’ atonement for me in the wilderness of this world.

I know this might be a ‘no duh’ moment for some of you.  While these are things I have known, I have never really connected them to this very hard word.  I couldn’t see past the cannibalism I thought Jesus was calling these people to do.  This was one of those passages where I thought Jesus to be a little mean by giving such a hard word to the people.  But these were supposed to be godly Jews, who went to Synagogue every week.  They were to memorize the Old Testament.  These should have been things they knew.  They just didn’t have proper teachers.  Then there is the fact that Jesus is the perfect teacher.  He does not wish me to be a parrot of facts.  He does not want me to simply remember that  1+1 = 2.   He wants me to know why, and how that addition works so that I can apply the same idea to  2+2 to come up with the answer of 4.

So this was my ah-ha moment.  I no longer stumble over this piece of Scripture.  For that I am eternally grateful that the Holy Spirit took the time to teach me this morning.  And I find myself content, and at peace.  In this moment I feel completely loved by the LORD (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost).  And I am so grateful that They take the time to come spend a morning with me for a little Bible study.  I am no one doing nothing in the middle of nowhere.  But to God I am His daughter, and Jesus has time for all His children, and there is never a place the Holy Spirit cannot go or find.  Which makes me perfectly special to the LORD.  And that is a miracle I would like to never get over.

My Mircale

[Jesus said] “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering” (Mark 5:31-34 NIV).

            This passage has really hit me this week.  Two weeks ago the LORD gifted me with a healing miracle.  I had a very nasty eye disease that would take a long while to clear up.  During the weeks or months of trying to get this condition under control I could develop scarring inside my eyes that could lead to blindness and/or glaucoma.  In the first week alone that I had this condition my eyes got worse and I had an intensely unpleasant migraine because of my eyes.  My doctor was concerned.  I was scared.  The Pastors at Mars Hill Church prayed over me that Sunday, and then my Community Group prayed over me on Thursday.  The following morning I went in to see the doctor.  Much to her surprise, and my own, she found absolutely no traces of the disease in my eyes.  She said she expected them to be worse, not to be completely healed.  I just laughed.  She said the medicine must have really worked with my body.  I told her I was pretty sure it was Jesus.

Following this miracle healing I had to tell everyone, naturally.  I felt so completely giddy inside.  I wish I could say I now have a better understanding of how the woman in this passage must have felt; but I doubt it would be accurate.  I had this eye problem for all of two weeks.  The woman in this passage had been bleeding for twelve years.  For twelve years she suffered.  She was an outcast.  She spent everything she had on trying to fix this problem.  Then in an instant, when she was bold enough to reach out to Jesus … to touch Him … she was healed.  Completely healed.  She was freed from her suffering.

While this is one of my favorite stories in the Bible it wasn’t until yesterday that I was struck sorta dumb by it.  When I first read this verse of Scripture I immediately thought of my eyes.  I did a mental jig with the Holy Ghost, and wiggled in my seat.  Then as I continued to read the “Girlfriends in God” devotional I was struck by my lack of understanding and faith.  I had no doubt in my heart that God could heal my eyes.  But I do have … maybe not doubt … more like a lack of understanding when it comes to a ‘condition’ I have been living with for twelve years.  What surprised me is I had never looked at this wonderful story and applied it to my condition.

For about twelve years now I have been doing everything I can to deal with my condition.  I poured out all my money into going to school to help me better deal with aspects of my condition.  I have kept myself an outcast, refusing to get close to people.  Twelve years ago the man I was in love with, engaged to, decided to do me harm.  I had been in a car accident.  I pinched three nerves in my lower back and crushed my kneecap.  I was in so much pain.  He didn’t want to hear about how sex hurt.  Not even when I begged him to stop.  So for six months he raped, abused, and tormented me every day and night.  The physical therapists couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting better.  He was the only one there to help me.  So my abuser would assault me, then help me shower to get cleaned up, then take me to the doctor or to physical therapy, and then he would take me home to assault me again.

This destroyed a good decade of my life.  No one around us knew what was going on.  I had completely checked out.  It took me about seven years before I would check back in.  By that time it was too late to press charges.  And it took several more years for me to really understand it wasn’t my fault.  Sometimes I still slip into that lie.  But because of that abuse I put on a lot of weight.  I thought if I had gained weight he would no longer find me attractive and so he would leave me alone.  After we broke up I kept the weight on because I wanted to keep everyone away from me.  I felt so disgusting and horrible on the inside, it felt appropriate to look it on the outside.  It hasn’t been until this past year that I have been in a good enough place spiritually that I can finally start to work on my weight.  I hadn’t felt good enough inside until Christ.

Now I had become a Christian almost four years ago, but I was dealing with so many other issues that I hadn’t really immediately invited Jesus into this part of me.  I had always assumed I would always be completely broken inside.  My soul is like thousands of tiny shards of glass scattered across the ground.  Jesus and I are just starting to mend those pieces back together.  I went to Redemption Group at Mars Hill.  It was really good, but I fear I might need to go again.  I know I am just scratching the surface of all the ick I have locked away.  I know Jesus has taken away the sins done against me.  I know He takes away my shame.  I know these things, but my heart doesn’t always understand them.

So considering this is one of my favorite stories in the Gospels you can imagine my dumbfounded surprise when I read this devotional by “Girlfriends in God”.  I am freed from my suffering.  My faith healed my eyes.  I know I need to pray for the faith to heal these much deeper wounds.  The wounds that have spread into every aspect of my life.  Reading that verse over and over again my head knows all I have to do is reach out my hand to Jesus.  It is really that simple.  I can’t really explain to you why my heart thumps in my chest dimwittedly.  I don’t know why this concept is so hard to put into action.  I love Jesus.  I want Him in every part of my life.  But I am not entirely sure how to give this to Him.

It’s not like I don’t want to. I just don’t know how to.  This has been mine for so long, and I have been trying everything I can to simply function around people in a normal way as possible.  Most people are completely oblivious to how often I simply want to run, hide, scream, or freak out.  People have no idea how hard it is for me not to scratch the skin right off my hands sometimes.  It is getting better, so much better.  My PTSD is improving.  Since having giving my life to Jesus I haven’t had a single night terror where as I used to have them once a week.  I still haven’t had a good night’s sleep, however, in twelve years.  It is an improvement, but I know I am stuck.

I am working on a journal to walk through what happened to me with the LORD.  I am not enjoying that journaling.  Most of the time I avoid it for as long as I can.  I just don’t want to go there.  I am being stubborn about it, I know.  But I want more of this peace I am already tasting.  I want to be freed of my suffering.  I know a major part of my problem is I cling to the chains.  The chains are all I know for the last 12 years.  I have only known Jesus for almost four years.  I know Jesus is trustworthy, and yet I don’t know why I struggle with it.  I know part of it is shame, and fear, despite the fact I know Jesus took my shame and tells me to not fear.  It is a battle of wills and I want mine to lose.  I pray mine will lose.  I want my faith to heal me.  I want to be bold enough to reach out my hand to touch the hem of His robe.

It was so easy to do when it was my eyes.  It was so easy to trust the LORD with my health through cancer.  I even found it easier to sink into the love of my Savior with the crippling of my ankle/leg.  It is simple for me to trust with physical things.  The deeper things go, the more I clam up, and the more distant I become.  I don’t want that sort of relationship with Christ.  I know He doesn’t want that sort of relationship with me.  The deeper sides to me are no more complex to the LORD than my eyes.  He is fully capable of perfectly mending my soul.  It doesn’t make sense to doubt Him.  I know deep inside I don’t.  I am trying to figure out why these shallower and medium levels hesitate and resist.

Abba, Father I believe, please help me with my unbelief.  Turn this fear filled heart of stone to the trusting beating heart of flesh.  Build in me the trust for my deeper understanding of you.  Help me break  down these walls of fear and years of building.  I know I can’t do it on my own.  Only Your mighty hand, and Your great mercy can safe me from my self.  You are powerful enough to mend our broken bodies.  You are gracious enough to soothe our tortured souls.  You only are worthy of praise, worship, and unfailing trust.  And yet I fail to give you all those so often.  Please help us LORD to be better worshipers of Your glory.  Holy Spirit please soak me in love for Christ, drench us all in love to be the abject slaves of our Savior.  In Jesus’ name I pray.  Amen.

My LORD, my Master

I’ve sold myself to people – men and women – for a fleshly price

I’ve sold myself to ideas – for the cost of acceptance

I’ve sold myself for pleasure; I’ve sold myself for pain

I set my purchase price, I picked my owners, I determined the time

I sought, I found, I decided

But not with You

You thought of me before I existed

You sought me – the first time that’s ever happened for me

You bought me two thousand years ago

When You suffered I was in Your heart

From the first drop of blood You branded me YOUR possession

I am not Your convert, I am not Your servant

You purchased me with Your suffering

Just as Paul is, just as James is, I am Your slave

You are my Master

I get that now

You alone are worthy of my worship, and abject adoration

I am on my knees, fall on my face, because You bought me with Your love through Your blood

I don’t worship You for heaven

If hell must be my head – I will still worship You

Because YOU alone are worthy my LORD0

And my heart aches with Your awesomeness and glory

My mind reels with the purchased price

I am Your reward, Your treasure, because YOU wanted me

In You I can stand, but because of You I am on my knees

I love You seems so pale and faded, but YOU can make it great bright and brilliant

My LORD, my Savior, My God

Never cease seeking me, I beg of you, and I will try not to stray

Just call my knee, and give me the strength I plead to always answer

“Here I am”

My personal Psalm

In the dark I have withered

Unknowingly lost I have wasted away

I did not know I was blind as I feasted on Gahanna

Unafraid I lived boldly against you

Unchecked, I challenged Your people, and threw down the weak

As a worm ridden guide I led many down my rut into Your justified, wrathful fire

I’d shamefully claim ignorance, but I knew of You from a young age

I deserved Your hell richly, and I spat in Your face as I drove the nails in

In horror I shudder to think of the piddlily amount I would have taken, 30 would seem like so much

But You would not settle for my rebellion

My denials fell on open ears as You came near

I flinch to think of how many scars on Your heart belong to my teeth and nails as You drew me into Your arms

In my wretched terror You whispered three words to me

“You are mine”

In a moment You shattered me like a long forgotten window beneath a wrecking ball

And then everything changed . . .

 

For the first time I opened my eyes and saw the brilliant promises of Your rainbow

With the eyes of a babe I looked on the cross and wept tears drawn up through my soul

And You did not leave me

Instead you picked up my broken body from the sludge of my debauchery

You carried me from the dark as my muscles were non-existent as I had never used them before

Not even to inch my way from my own cancerous slime

You washed the feet of Your disciples but You bathed all of me with Your tears through Your blood

Each day You mend my destruction, teaching me how myself truly works

Like an infant I am unable to walk, though You are teaching me first to crawl

Through each breath You teach me to depend on You – even when I attempt to crawl away to temptation

But You do not leave me

Your Spirit richly plagues me to thirst after Your word, which strengthens me day by day

I think I might stand one day, but Your unimaginable love keeps me on my knees

Despite these words and my heart I know I will still fall

I will still wander and stray

But You do not leave me

The depth of worldly loss is wholly known to me, but the ocean of ALL I gain in YOU LORD still finds me in the shallows

I am in no hurry to get to the deep end

For every drop of Your all-consuming water drenches me in cherished love for You

I know I will still lean toward the beach

But You do not leave me

My toes feel an edge beneath me and before me

I fear an abyss I know does not exist in the ocean of Your love

Despite the fear of the path You put me on You still do not leave me

So in You LORD is my hope

You are my redemption

You slay all my monsters and free me from my demons

You show me a new mirror to see myself in

You bathe me in a new love to exist inside

As each new fear arises through every beat of my heart You take it away and replace it with peace

So in You I hope, in You I rejoice, in You I sing, in You I dance, in You I worship, in You I kneel, in You I pray, in You I fall on my face

In You I am shielded and clothed before You

“Thank You” are the only small words I have, but You know my heart

And You still do not leave me

Thank you for loving all of me, for never giving up on me, for calling me

Daughter

I love you, so much

Abba, Father

Heavenly Daddy

Amen

I am Deaf, Blind, and Dumb

“(1) Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. (2) Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:1-2)

This is a fitting note to ponder over considering just last night I finally yielded to the Holy Spirit and changed my name to Lael (Lay-el).  This was not an easy decision.  I will admit I haven’t even told my mom yet.  To be honest I am nervous about doing this.  I have no idea how she will react I just know it won’t be a good reaction.  It is a matter I am praying over.  But what this has made me wonder about is how many other urgings of the Holy Ghost am I disobeying?  How many commands has H.G. given me that I am completely unaware of because I am so wrapped up in my life?  The honest number frightens me.

Here I thought I was pretty good at listening to the Holy Ghost.  Last night shamed me, proved me wrong.  And that was a command H.G. had been pressing on my heart for years.  What other areas of my life am I completely failing at in the offering of being a living sacrifice?  This is not a fun list to compile.  As I start to think about this list I cringe and find myself getting physically lower and closer to the ground.  I can only guess this is an inkling of what people in the Bible felt when they were confronted with God, Jesus, or an angle … and they fell on their face.  I am truly sorry Holy Ghost that I am so deaf, blind, and dumb.

‘In view of God’s mercy.’  A mercy I am so ill-deserving of.  If this sin of mine makes me want to wretch I can’t imagine how it makes God feel.  I can’t imagine how many times I have broken the heart of the Holy Ghost.  He is with me always, talking to me to guide me in the right direction.  And I ignore Him.  I go on about my day as if He isn’t even there.  The closest thing I can akin this to would be having my fiancé at my side all day every day and simply ignoring his existence because I don’t need him.  Which is a complete lie.  I do need Jeremy.  I need H.G. even more.  So why is it so danged hard to listen to Him?

Because I am completely conformed to the pattern of this world.  I get caught up in the wants of my flesh, in the distractions of the world, and the whispering s of the enemy that I really don’t make time for the Holy Ghost to do His work in me and through me.  This means I am not truly and properly worshipping God.  This, in itself, is a terrifying and horrifying thought.  I dread the day of falling on my face before the throne of Christ … and Him showing me every missed, ignored, and denied opportunity I had to be a living sacrifice for Him.  I know there will be a ton of them.  I am a Chief among sinners.  I screw up all the time.

Just today I was listening to a sermon on the internet and I found my flesh wanting to distract myself with other things.  Not because the sermon wasn’t intense or wonderful.  It was simply because my fingers and mouse could click the button at the same time my ears are hearing.  I corrected myself of this no less than four times in the hour my Pastor was talking.  The Holy Ghost was poking at me, and giving me the strength to deny the need of my flesh to always be multitasking.  When I am at Church it is easy to sit still and listen with all my soul to what is being said.  But when I am home … my mind tells my body of all the other things that need to get done that I could be getting done while I ‘listened’ to the sermon.  The ginormous problem with this is … that wouldn’t be listening.  I would be hearing.  I wouldn’t be paying attention to the depths of my soul.  I wouldn’t be availing myself to hear the soft whispering of the Holy Ghost to the things He wants me to work on, notice, or be convicted of.  I become Martha who passes up time at Jesus’ feet because she has a list to complete.

The only list I should be completing is how to become holy and pleasing to God.  The only ‘to dos’ I need to really pay attention to are the things H.G. brings to my attention.  That is if He can get me to pay attention.  Yesterday I thought I was paying attention attentively.  I figured I was actually pretty good at this.  I am so completely, utterly, and dead wrong.

My life needs to be about God’s will.  It’s not that it ‘should be’ or that it ‘would be nice if’ it was all about God’s will.  It NEEDS to be about God’s will.  My heavenly Daddy is perfect, good, and altogether wonderful.  If I would just listen to the Holy Ghost I can’t even fathom where I would be right now.   I want my life, heart, and soul to be so close and tight with H.G. that someone might mistake us for a twizzler.

I am not a living sacrifice right now.  If I died tonight I don’t know if the light and love of Christ would be left in my wake.  Would people know Lael, or would they only remember all the things that Sarah did?  I am stunned into shame when I sit here thinking about all the ways I have failed to let Jesus’ light shine through me.  I don’t want people to say “Wow, she really loved Jesus.”  That would be nice.  What is nicer is what is said about the apostle John.  John is the beloved one of Christ.  The fact that John loved Jesus was so known, common, and consistent that everyone knew he loved the LORD.  What was more surprising, noteworthy, and shocking to people is how much Christ’s love for John shown throughout his life.  And I am certain that love spilled out of John onto everyone he met.  Jesus is like that.  God is perfect, pleasing and good.

Every moment of my life is an act of worship.  Am I worshiping the LORD as John did?  And if I am not what in the heck am I worshiping with every breath?  I don’t like this about me.  I am a perfectionist so I really hate being this bad at something.  I know I need to slow down.  I know I need to be in prayer more, constantly, with H.G. so I can strengthen my recognition of His voice.  I know I need to be in my Bible more so that I may get to know my God and my Savior better.  I know I never will be perfect at any of this, but the truth of the matter is I could be doing a heck of a lot better than I am right now.

So tonight I am frustrated and ashamed.  The good news is that tomorrow I am given a clean slate, a fresh start.  I know for certain that as I type these words out I am already forgiven … and thus I am spotless and without blemish … a pure white sheep before the Lamb of God.  The good news is that God is merciful and loving.  He gave us His only Son, Jesus Christ.  The good news is that no matter how many times I screw this up—and trust me it will be a lot—the Holy Ghost will never give up on me.  God will never abandon me.  And Christ will never let me go.  I am loved of God, and thankfully He has graced me with more chances to shine His abundant love onto everyone around me.

Abba, Father … thank you Daddy for being so good to me.  Thank you for your long suffering patient with this fallen, lost sheep.  You amaze me at the depths of love You will go to for me, and for us.  I know my understanding of all of this puts me in the kiddy pool of the ocean of Your affection for us.  I am so sorry for my countless missed chances, but I am eternally grateful for the slew and magnitude of chances You will continue to bestow on me.  Holy Ghost, please help me get out of my own way.  Please help me to unplug my ears, and open my eyes, so that I may receive Your guidance and love.  Jesus I yearn to be a living sacrifice for You and to You.  I hunger to truly and properly worship You.  I know I will never get this perfect, and probably not even close to good.  I will continue trying, though.  Thank You sooo much that Your mercy, righteousness, and forgiveness has nothing at all to do with my works … but are wholly dependent on Your work through the cross.  I do love You so much.  I will strive to be a more agreeable sheep tomorrow.  I am sorry You have to keep hiking through rough terrain to find me, and bring me back to the flock.  At the same time I am so glad You do.

I pray that one day You will find all my friends and family.  Please keep them out of Hell.  Holy Ghost would you please work on their hearts as You work on mine.  In Jesus’ name I pray all these things and more …the longings of my heart … Amen.

The LORD’s name for me

“No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.” (Genesis 17:5)

“(15)Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. (16) And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.’” (Genesis 17:15-16)

“And He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.’” (Genesis 32:28)

“(17) Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. (18) And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.’” (Matthew 16:17-18)

“Then Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him.” (Acts 13:9)

I was saved four years ago this autumn.  Very soon after I was saved by the blood of Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit laid something on my soul.  The problem was that I was a new Christian, I didn’t know much about the Holy Spirit, and I thought this ‘thing’ being laid onto my heart was just in my head.  I was told to change my name.  That I was such a completely different person, this change went down to the very roots of my being.  I am not the person I used to be.  I am nowhere near that person.  But I didn’t understand the fact I was a new creation.  I didn’t have the Biblical knowledge that God did this sort of thing; changed people’s names at key moments in their life.

You see I, Sarah, was a practicing pagan: a Druid.  I had a spell book, practiced rituals, and belonged to a grove.  I regularly communed with spirits.  I was also heavily into the BDSM community.  I was a submissive, a sexual slave.  Sarah is a masochist.  In my life I have had numerous sexual encounters with males and females, some younger and some much older, some married.  On top of all of that I persecuted Christians.  I mocked them, belittled them, and lashed out at them in so many horrific ways.  I told myself it made us ‘even’ since it was the Catholics who burned Druids, and tortured Shamans.  I think somewhere in my heart I was angry at Jesus for doing this, or supporting this, or thinking this was okay.  I assumed this is what Christians wanted.  And I was adamantly against reading the Bible to learn any differently.

Then I got cancer and I started to read the Bible thanks to the pushing of my fiancé Jeremy.  I read the book of John three times before I had surgery to remove the tumors.  I was terrified of the surgery.  My neck is the one place on my body where I am not supposed to have cut open.  I prayed a lot that day as I waited to be taken back.  Then, right before I went under, I heard the most amazing thing.  Three words were spoken to me that changed my entire life.  I heard Jesus say to me, “You are mine.”

When I woke up everything was different.

Everything had changed.  I actually couldn’t remember anything about my old religion.  I couldn’t tell you the names of the gods or goddesses.  I couldn’t remember if it was Winter Solstice or a Winter Equinox.  I couldn’t remember my spells.  I couldn’t remember the meaning behind any of my rituals.  My desire to go back to the fetish club was gone.  For the first time in my life I began to long for monogamy and hungered for marriage.  I found myself thirsting for the Word, and I began to read my Bible a lot.  I stopped persecuting Christians and instead publically proclaimed myself one.  I lost almost all of my friends.  My entire world turned upside down.  Nothing about me was the same.  From the inside out I felt different.  Everyone who was still around me began to pick up on the difference.  I no longer responded to things and situations as Sarah would have.

Back then, nearly four years ago, the Holy Spirit laid it on my heart to change my name.  I resisted Him.  I told myself it was just my imagination.  I knew that it would hurt my mom deeply if I changed my name.  I couldn’t even begin to fathom how to get people to start calling me a new name.  I convinced myself it was too much work for such a little thing.  For such a simple thing.  So every time the Holy Spirit continued to bring it up, I shoved it back down.  It was nonsense.  I told the Holy Spirit it wasn’t something that happened in the Bible.  So He took me to several verses, the ones above, to show me it was Biblical.  That when Jesus grabs a hold of someone for God they so completely change that they are a new person.  A new creation.  Who Sarah was died four years ago.  She was left under the water when I was baptized.  Someone new came out of that water.  Someone I am still learning and at times fighting for.

What has brought this to a head in these last few weeks is that I began attending a Redemption Group.  I signed up because I read the most wonderfully horrific book I have ever read in a long time, “Rid of My Disgrace” by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb.  If you have ever been raped, sexually assaulted, or abused this is a book I HIGHLY recommend reading.  It took me nearly three months to read it.  It was so hard, but in reading it I realized I have PTSD from being tormented and raped all those years ago.  Despite having seen a rape counselor I am not okay.  I realized he helped me merely to function again as a normal human being, but I wasn’t healed.  I was so broken inside and I had just come to accept the fact I would always be broken.  For six months of my life I was tortured in a hell I couldn’t escape.  Then I lost five years of my life because I was completely checked out of my life.  I haven’t grieved all of that.  All the gritty, horrific, terrifyingly painful memories.

And I have been fighting the Holy Spirit again.  He is walking me through this.  He is the reason I joined a Redemption Group.  On the first night He pressed in on me so tightly.  Despite what Jay did to me I am a new creation in Christ.  I am completely redeemed.  I can be whole through the cross.  The blood of Jesus covers even what happened to me.  My identity can no longer be there, nor can it be held captive any longer.  I struggle with this concept.  I struggle with fear.  I struggle with the weight the Holy Ghost, HG, has placed on my soul.

I am not who I was.  I haven’t been for four years.  For four years I have been a new creation.  I am a new woman, a fresh and good tree, one who bears the figged fruited desires of God.  HG has told me the name of this new creature, this new being, this godly woman.  And I am scared to call me by His name for me.  I still don’t want to hurt my mom.  I don’t want to offend her because I don’t think she will understand.  I know this is a fear of man issue.  I know Jesus gave me a name.  I know I need to start using it.  So I pray I have the strength.

Abba, Father … You are wonderful, mighty, and worthy of praise.  I can’t believe you wanted a wretch like me.  I am in humbled awe that You, Jesus, pursued me for 30 years.  You never gave up.  LORD you are so good.  You are so incredibly good to me.  Thank you for giving me this chance to be the woman You want me to be.  Thank You for taking out my heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh.  Holy Spirit, please, I beg you to be with me.  You have been after me for nearly four years now to do this.  I want to stop resisting you.  I want to fall into the freedom of Your strength, guidance, and control of my life.  You wove me together from the very start.  LORD You had a name for me from the beginning.  Please give me the wisdom to explain this change to those who question.  I need Your strength.  I will curl up in the comfort of your arms Heavenly Daddy.  I will be your daughter.

My name is Lael (Lay-el).  It means “Belongs to God.”

I pray that will always be true.  I hope to always strive to live up to this name You have given me.  In Jesus’ most holy, profound, and wonderful name I pray.  Amen.

Strugging with being led

“(1) Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  (2) And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.

(3) Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’

(4) But He answered and said, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by the very word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”’” (Matthew 4:1-4)

 

Then Jesus was led.  Led.  My Almighty Savior and Lord was led.  He followed someone else.  Jesus was subservient to another person’s will.  He was submissive in walking second in line rather than first in line.  And Jesus lost none of His strength, none of His dignity, Jesus didn’t become less valuable in doing so, and He certainly didn’t become any less God.  These four words are some of my favorite in the Bible because they justify me as a submissive woman and they challenge the world’s long held beliefs on what it means to be submissive.

These four words also challenge me by what follows them.  Jesus did not just submit to any Tom, Dick, or Harry.  Jesus Christ followed the will of the Holy Spirit.  If you are going to follow anyone, the Holy Spirit should be it.  And that is where I am challenged.  Before I became a Christian I was really good at following various Dominants, or Masters/Mistresses.  I was a fairly obedient submissive.  I know how to follow physical instruction well.  Go here, do this, come back.  I follow baking and cooking instructions perfectly too.  And I am actually really good at putting together furniture from the complicated instruction things you get from stores.  If you gave me directions, or a map, I can find my way anywhere.  I am pretty good at following.

But then I became a Christian and the one thing I was really good at was challenged.  The Holy Spirit led Jesus, and I am to be like Jesus, which means I need to be led by the Holy Spirit.  The problem is the Holy Spirit doesn’t come with a map, an instruction manual, or a Google webpage of ‘How To’s”.  Or at least not a reliable one made by a sane person.  Instead I have to get to know Him.  And that meant recognizing the fact that the Holy Spirit is indeed a Him.  Then I have to begin to recognize His voice among all the other noise going on in my head and heart.  I needed to cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit.  At this point I realized this would take time.  This made me realize that Jesus didn’t just come up from being baptized in the Jordan, introduce Himself to the Holy Spirit, and follow Him perfectly immediately.  Jesus had spent years, probably His entire life, getting to know the Holy Spirit intimately and personally so that when this day came He could follow the Spirit into the wilderness easily without getting lost.

I know this is true because it says in various other places in Scripture that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit.  They knew one another that well.  Right now I don’t think the Holy Spirit would want to fill me.  I have too much stuff inside of me still that would completely offend Him.  Stuff I am working on with the Holy Spirit to clean up His living quarters inside of me.  So I can be filled and led.  But right now I am not there.  I feel the Holy Spirit’s urging me, or His guiding hand sometimes.  But it is never with the distinction of being led.  Or maybe I am just making up the distinction, but from the world I come from…when you submit to someone….there is a distinct difference between being guided by them….submitting to their urging…and being led.  Being led is like being blindfolded, hands tied behind your back, and completely trusting the other person to get you to the place you are going.  I can’t say I have that sort of trust yet with the Holy Spirit.  I still buck and ask too many questions, and demand to know too many answers.  And I know I don’t know the Holy Spirit well enough, yet, to perfectly hear His leading direction.

With those thoughts in mind I continue forward in my swimming in verse one to read where the Holy Spirit was leading Jesus to.  The Holy Spirit wasn’t taking Jesus to the nearest five star hotels.  The Holy Spirit wasn’t taking Jesus on the easiest and safest road.  The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness knowing Jesus had no tent, no food, no camping gear … nothing.  And what amazes me is that Jesus followed, knowing They were going out into the middle of nowhere with nothing on hand.  I know I wouldn’t have that kind of faith or trust.  I know that if the Holy Spirit began to lead me out into the mountains or the Cascades I would be like…..um no.  I would claim the Holy Spirit’s voice as me losing my mind.  I would turn my back and go home.

Jesus doesn’t do that.  He continues to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit into dangerous and unknown territory.  He knows the Holy Spirit well enough to trust Him.  Jesus doesn’t worry about His comfort, or His stomach, or His safety.  He trusts completely, wholly, and without reservation.  Jesus, instead, looks forward to this time to be alone with His Father.  He doesn’t worry about spending one day gorging on all His favorite foods before this fast.  He just follows the Holy Spirit, who leads Him into nowhere land, and says……Hey let’s fast and pray for 40 days and 40 nights.  And Jesus is okay with that.  He would rather spend time communing with His Father and with the Holy Spirit…..than eating, than sleeping in a bed, than hanging out and partying with His friends.  God is His priority.  In a way I can’t comprehend.  In a way I admire in awe, and with great humility.  Because this Man, this Jesus, would then come away from His time with God to be tortured, beaten, flogged beyond recognition, and then hung on a cross to bear the weight of my sin, the sin done against me, and all my shame.  And He followed God, and the Holy Spirit there, willingly…again.

Now I believe it is the book of James that says God does not tempt us to sin.  Only Satan, the world, and our flesh tempt us to sin.  But never God.  So I know and trust that completely.  Which makes the end of verse one hard for me to really grasp because the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  Verse two tells me the tempting was not the only reason; there was communion with the Father as well, prayer, fasting, and by Jesus’ answers I am going to assume some Old Testament Scripture study occurred during those forty days and forty nights.  And I guess I struggle with this because I have this ‘world’ view that being a Child of God means God will lead me away from pain and suffering and only onto good paths away from bad things.

But if I were to read my Bible I would know differently.  Jesus tells me I will suffer if I follow Him.  Jesus warns me that if I follow the lead of the Holy Spirit I will be attacked by the devil, by people who hate Jesus and therefore hate will hate me, and that the storms will come.  Jesus actually prays for my protection in this world because the only way I will ever follow a safe path led by the Holy Spirit is outside of this world.  Apart from this world when I am in heaven.  And I want to rail against that, denying that claim saying no no no no no no…..my world will be perfectly safe, and a model of a little heaven with a house and a yard, and picture perfect.  The problem is when I do that I buy into the world, I invest into this world and this life and put it into the place of most importance….and I tell my Lord and my God and my Holy Spirit…..sorry you need to lower down on the list because I don’t agree with you.

In this little snippet of Scripture I am shown the right away.  What is wonderful about Jesus is that he doesn’t just tell me the way to do it, but He models this for me.  He doesn’t ask me to do anything He did not do in all His humanity rather than in His divinity.

After forty days and forty nights Jesus is hungry.  It seems like a no brainer statement, but I think a lot of us need to hear it.  I know I need to hear it.  Jesus is my Lord and Savior.  He rose from the dead.  He is my God.  So in my mind I tend to forget Jesus is also human.  He got hungry.  He needed to sleep.  He was fully human with all the weaknesses of our bodies.  I doubt not eating all those days was something easy for Him.  I am sure He had stomach cramps and pains.  I doubt He got cranky and testy like I would have, but it is a question I plan on asking Him.

So there Jesus was, unbelievably hungry, with the vague possibility of being cranky, and physically weak from lack of nourishment.  The Bible doesn’t tell us He was barely able to move, or that He was crawling, or unable to walk.  Jesus had His mind about Him.  He was standing with the devil on the pinnacle of the Temple.  I have seen people come out of a week long fast and they are almost like zombies.  They are completely drained.  Jesus, however, doesn’t seem to be like that at all and He fasted for forty days.  Which leaves me to believe there is some real truth to the words He speaks to the devil.  So real truth to that Scripture He quotes that I don’t always take advantage of.

First of all the devil challenges Jesus’ identity by saying ‘if’ He is the Son of God, as if Jesus might be unsure of who He is.  The thought seems ridiculous in the context of Jesus..but it is common place in the context of me.  I know I struggle sometimes with the identities the enemy wants to put on me to replace the identity Christ put on me.  I am in Christ.  I belong to Christ.  I am a Child of God.  I belong to Jesus.  I know this, but then little whispers in my ear bring up my past.  They tell me I am a sinner, I am a whore, I am a victim, I have been raped, I have led other people down into the pit with a smile on my face.  Sometimes I give in to those lies.  Sometimes I reach out to put on those identities again and cover up my true identity in Christ.  Jesus is the only identity that counts any more.  All the others have been washed away.

Jesus models how I should respond to this type of badgering.  This type of lie.  He doesn’t even acknowledge it.  It doesn’t affect Him.  Jesus is so secure in His knowledge of who He is He brushes the attempt away easily.  It doesn’t get to Him.  It doesn’t bother Him.  Which I think it is a very important point.  I know that when I respond to an identity being pinned on me it is because there is some small part of me that fears it is true, so I feel I have to defend my true identity.  The truth is I don’t need to defend my true identity.  My identity in Christ it the truth, and nothing can change the truth.  No matter what anyone says, Jesus has a hold of me and nothing will make Him let go.  I need to remember that.

Then Satan tries to get Jesus to perform on command like a dog trick or a pony.  Jesus will turn water into wine.  He will feed thousands upon thousands with a child’s lunchable.  If he wanted to, he could have done what the devil said.  He could have turned the rocks into magnificent feasts to eat.  Jesus doesn’t take orders from satan.  He doesn’t perform on command for His enemy.  He doesn’t need to justify Himself, or validate Himself, to anyone … much less a fallen angel who knows exactly who He is and what He is capable of.  And that is exactly what a lot of non-Christians want me to do.  They want me to perform on command for them so that they might believe or see Christ.  When they really have no interest of seeing Christ at all, they merely want to make me dance.  Jesus doesn’t perform on command for His enemies, for the Pharisees, to make them believers.  Neither should I.

The last part of this section is Jesus’ answer to Satan.  What I love about this is that Jesus answers a non-believers question with Scripture.  He quotes text from Deuteronomy.  Men don’t live on bread alone, they are sustained by the words of God.  And Jesus is proof of that.  Forty days he didn’t have food and he came out of that with His mind intact.  He wasn’t feeble.  He wasn’t falling over.  He wasn’t near death.  Jesus fed His soul, which in turn fed His body.  Which is something that goes against science.  I am, by no means, encouraging people to not eat.  I don’t even think people should go out and fast for forty days and nights without seriously talking to their doctors first.  They aren’t Jesus.  We aren’t filled with the Holy Spirit.  We don’t have that sort of relationship, but it has been done in the past by others.  So it is doable.  But it is just something for me to think about.  I eat three meals a day and what not to feed my body.  Am I reading enough Bible, or doing enough study in God’s word, to feed my soul?  Or is my soul starving?

Back to my original thought, I love that Jesus answers this question with Scripture.  I know a lot of people argue non-Christians with science and everything else.  They do combat on academic worlds and planes.  Jesus quotes Scripture.  The perfect book that God wrote is enough.  People may ridicule me for quoting Scripture to them, but at least I know that the source is good and Holy and right.  The point of teaching I get from this is that Jesus didn’t quote Scripture to Satan to convert him.  Jesus knew it was impossible.  He knew there is no forgiveness for Satan and his minions.  Jesus quoted Scripture because it is the truth.  So when I discuss religion with people and my only book source is the Bible….I am not trying to convert them or win the argument.  The only agenda I have in the conversation is sharing the light of Jesus into their life for whatever amount of time they will allow me.  What happens to those seeds afterward is up to the Holy Spirit.

Jesus spoke Scripture because it was true; and not simply because He wanted to be right.  I need to repent of wanting to be right, or to be understood.  I simply need to share what is true and let the Holy Spirit have His way.  Which goes back to that leading thing.

Sluggard/Slacker

“(6) Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, (7) which, having no captain, overseer or ruler, (8) provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. (9) How long will you slumber, O sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep? (10) A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep—(11) So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler, and your need like an armed man. (Proverbs 6:6-11)

                Wow. Another hard word for me today. I am actually sitting here rather shocked at, again, how relevant this to me right now. This is something else I am struggling with. This is something else I have asked people to pray for me about. This again has to do with the breaking of old habits of the forming of new habits. Since I am still fiddling with the depths of fear I was hoping to have a “consider the lilies” sort of day. Guess that isn’t going to happen. But today’s Our Daily Bread snippet is written by Cindy Hess Kasper. She, again, hits the nail right on the head with what I am struggling with. She also starts out with a very good suggestion to make this passage easier to read. Miss Kasper suggests changing the word ‘sluggard’ to the word ‘slacker’. Fitting, accurate, and something we can more easily relate to.

                This proverb section is all about the follies of being lazy. There are several such passages in the book of Proverbs. When I read them the first thing I usually think of is physical laziness. Oh I need to exercise more. I should really get out in the yard this weekend if it is nice. If it isn’t raining tonight I will go for a walk after dinner. This is one way to look at this proverb, and others like it. They do not encourage laziness. They do encourage us to do more. To get up and do more. So this did fit into me wanting to form more healthy and consistent exercising habits in my life. But that is not what I asked others to pray for me about. And exercise was not the point Ms. Kasper made in her devotional either. My degree of uncomfortable shame would be much less if it were.

                Ms. Kasper spoke of spiritual slackery. Yes, I just made that word up. Which is something that I do struggle with. I really need to tattoo the book of James more permanently on my heart. She talks about the various forms of slacking off spiritually: not witnessing, not reading the Bible, not praying, and not doing what God tells us to do. The one I struggle with is not doing what God tells me to do. The Holy Spirit has really leaned on my heart to get something done, several somethings in fact, but I have not devoted my whole self to those things as I should have. Oh I could give a long list of reasons and excuses as to why that is, but I really don’t want to offend the Holy Spirit more than I already have. The truth is there is no reason or excuse for my behaviors. He put these things on my heart, heavily on my heart, for a reason. They are important. That should have been enough.

                Instead I have been like Moses, but God who am I to talk to these people? I have also been a lot like Jonah, and have simply ran the other direction. Thankfully God did not see fit to have me swallowed by a giant fish. He very well could have, I have been taking a ferry across the Sound at least twice a week. I need to pray in my heart to respond more like Noah and Mary. Mary had questions but was obedient. Noah was simply immediately obedient in faith. I need their hearts. I need to follow their examples. And I know my biggest problem with all of this has been myself. I have been trying to do this all on my own, so I get distracted and stuck and lost along the way. With me at the center I get a whole lot of nowhere.

                I have only just recently begun to cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Since He is the one really leaning on my heart it would only make since to implore Him for His help, and to follow His lead. This, of course, means I have to give up my lead. I don’t have a problem with that, but I don’t have any real experience following the Holy Spirit, so I don’t know how this will go. I know He is patient with me, because He is still here with me after all of this. It has just been one of those “duh” sort of moments. Just like right now, despite the fact this was hard for me to read, it was a ‘duh’ sort of moment. The Holy Spirit is here with me now, showing up, answering prayer.

                I want to form the habit of following His lead. I want to break the habit of being a sluggard/slacker. I can’t do this on my own. I can’t do this without His help. Jesus told me this flat out, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5 ESV) Apart from God, from the Holy Spirit, from Jesus, I am as effective as a fish out of water. I flounder really well. So although today’s devotional was a hard one for me to read, I take it as the Holy Spirit telling me to stop flopping around so He can put me back in the water. That way I can swim where He wants me to.  Which means He will put me in the right stream, going the right way; all I have to do is swim.

                Thank you Holy Spirit for waking me up out of my slumber. Thank you Jesus for giving us Yourself, and our Comforter. I am undeserving of the both of You. Holy Spirit I know that with Your help I can stop being a slacker, do the things I am meant to do to help shine the light of Jesus into all the dark places of this world.