So yeah, this society is more focused on mushy feelings than deep commitment. I think we're straight up scared to commit ourselves to something or someone for our entire lives... to pledge our hearts to someone forever.
But at the same time, don't we miss deep beauty when all we know is shallow relationships? Maybe there's something to be said for opening up the depths of our heart to the same person every. single. day. Of going through every high and low with the same best friend. Of learning to love that friend even when we'd rather run away and hide in a cave so they can't see our messed up hearts. I run this morning and somehow, I can't seem to take my eyes off the rainbow. Because He wasn't afraid to commit Himself to me forever. My heart still trembles at what it really means to live every single day of my life as best Friends with Him. But it jitters a bit with excitement too... Because really, I want to taste the deep waters of commitment to One. Even if they are a bit scary. They're worth it. He's worth it. #dailysoulmoments #lostartofcommitment #wecouldbetheonestobringitback
0 Comments
*I've been praying a lot lately about how I can best let God use this little life for His glory. It was in those long conversations with God that I realized again how much I love to write... I write hundreds of words a day that are read only by Him, but I've decided to take a step of faith and write words daily to be shared with all of you. I'll still be writing longer posts on a weekly basis, but plan on taking a moment each day to put into words the way my God is shaping my heart to love His...
Dear weary heart, Sometimes we all have this aching deep down that we're never going to be as close to God as we want... that's it is not possible for us to ever walk with God like Enoch. I hear you. I find myself wondering the same more often than I'd like to admit. This morning I pulled up Day One (best journal app ever for IOS) on my computer and typed my admittance to God that once again, I wasn't sure how to be friends with Him. His response was simple. Today I may not see or feel what I've felt in days past but it doesn't change it's reality. Best friends don't always feel a burning affection for the other, but that is no proof that the friendship is not deep and strong. Our inability to always feel God right beside us is not proof that He is not there. His promise is more reliable than our senses. Maybe staying in love is more about believing than seeing. Perhaps for today it all comes down to this... Believe in the invisible. And then open our eyes because we might find that it becomes visible after all. #quietcornerinacrazyworld #dailysoulmoments We all have those days where we feel like a failure… When the word “useless" seems to be ringing in our ears so loudly that we cannot silence it. We know we should rise above the doubts but they keep coming like a tsunami and we’re not sure we can keep our head above. Sometimes, if we’re honest, we wonder if we’re even still friends with God. If He really still wants to put up with us or even notice our existence. Or if we’re somehow below the reach of His eyes. While we know with our head that our God loves us, our hearts don’t always seem to embrace the fact. A love like His can seem so magical that we don’t even know it in real experience. Or maybe we thought once that we did and now we’re not so sure. I've been praying about such days of late and how we can let them be trumped by love. Yesterday I opened my Bible to Matthew 11 with a prayer to see the love of my Jesus once again and found myself stunned by what I read. An hour later these were the words penned in my journal. I share them because something tells me this story wasn’t just for me… He sits in a dungeon. Alone. Darkness stealing over every inch of his body. Flies buzz around him, his chains cut deep, and the floor he sits on is hard. But that is the least of his worries tonight. In fact, it has been for awhile. He keeps thinking of the face of the One who is his cousin, but more than that, his one hope. He had given his life to prepare the way for the One. It hadn’t been easy. The standing alone. Being misunderstood. Carrying burdens for the souls of men. After all, he hadn’t been asked to be a disciple. He hadn’t been permitted to spend hours at Jesus’ side. He had less time with Him than many of the people he preached to. Sitting in his cell, the doubts nagged his mind. They had for weeks, but he had determined to resist them. Tonight they called louder than ever. Maybe He isn’t the One. What is He doing to set your people free? What is He doing to set you free? Nothing. Precisely. He hasn’t even visited you. You who did so much for Him. He’s probably forgotten you. How can a man like that be the One? And if He isn’t, all your work was in vain. Pointless. Maybe you didn’t hear the call right in the beginning. Maybe you were supposed to be a normal man with a family. Instead you ended up here. In prison. He didn’t want to listen to these thoughts, but they were driving him crazy and he had to know. Were they true? Was Jesus really the One after all? To find out would take gut-wrenching honesty. After all, he was the one who had led thousands to the Messiah. And now he’s sitting here wondering himself. He takes the plunge and sends two of his followers to Jesus with a simple question. Are you the One who was to come, or should we look for someone else? Jesus doesn’t attack or flip out at such a question. He keeps healing and teaching and eventually sends the men back to tell John what they have seen. But not before sending a message directly for his hurting cousin… Blessed is he who isn’t offended because of me. John hears the words and he smiles. Jesus had sensed the heart of his question. He knew. And He still cared. He’d accepted the hard question and responded with a hard but loving answer. But John did not know all. He didn’t see the love that burned in the heart of his cousin for him. He didn’t hear the words spoken by the Son of God about the one who was battling doubts and feelings of failure. He didn’t know, but we do. Maybe because Jesus knew we needed to know and hear more than John did. Jesus didn’t condemn His cousin to the multitude. He did the opposite. His words echo down the ages into my little heart… What did you come out to the wilderness to see? A weak man? What did you come for? To see a man rich and comfortable? No. Such men live in palaces. So why did you really come? To see a prophet? Yes, but this one was more than a prophet. This was the one who was sent to prepare the ground before me. I’m telling you, of all the men born of women, there is none greater than this one. This one who feels like a failure. This one who is seemingly so distant from Jesus that he wonders if they’re really friends. This one who seems ignored by the God who is his own flesh and blood. This one is loved and honored even when he doesn’t see it. Even after asking gut-wrenching questions. In fact, right in the middle of it. Even when he feels like a failure to the crown. Even when he’s not sure if he believes in a Jesus like this. Even when he wonders if he and God are really friends anymore. This one is loved and honored right then. And so am I. So are you.
It’s been way too long since I’ve written anything here. Being away more than I am home cuts into any free time I may want to write. Of late though, something inside of me has missed this and I’m again compelled to realize that for me, really living and writing are inexplicably tied. So here I am again. :) I’ve been doing a lot of thinking of late about the purpose of a day. We’re all given them. But do we really know what they are for? Honestly, when I think of a day I think of a period of time to complete work. I think of projects, deadlines, and schedules. We’re given days to accomplish things right? I mean, if that’s not what they’re for, what is our life for? Somehow though, those of us with this mindset don’t ever tend to feel like our work is done. Days and projects come and go and somehow we’re always convinced the end is in sight, but find that when we stumble on it, it’s only a mirage. One thing finished always seems to lead to another to be accomplished. I’ve long since known that busyness is one of the biggest things I need to guard against in my own life and I’ve spent years trying to change my tendency to pack my days to overflowing. In some ways I have been successful. I’m learning to say no and not cram my days so full that I have no time for the things that are really important. But the truth of the matter is that if you ask me how I’m doing I’ll still respond with the same answer I’ve been fighting for years. “Busy.” Really, my days are not as packed as they could be. Sure, I still have an unaccomplished to do list in the back of my head, but I’m starting to realize that maybe busyness is not the root of my problem anymore. Maybe it’s a mindset— a misunderstanding of what a day is for. I look around me and I sense that I’m not the only one battling this mindset. It’s predominant in our culture and it’s taking thousands in it’s grip. There is an element of society that sees each day as playtime. The very thought of studying and working is irksome. Why work when you can goof off? Normally though, such mindsets are not esteemed too highly in our accomplishment driven society. I wonder if a lot of us have swung to the other extreme. What if our days weren’t about accomplishment after all? When the first man was given his first day, was it really all about accomplishing things? I’m sitting here trying to imagine Adam running around the garden of Eden in a mad panic because he hadn’t named every animal yet, or mowed all the grass on the hills, or picked enough different kinds of fruit. Seriously? It sounds absurd. Almost sacrilegious. And yet we think it’s ok for us. Maybe Adam was not given the gift of a day to accomplish. He was given the gift of a day to love and learn and grow and give himself to relationships. It was all about being a companion of God… about enjoying the beauty God had surrounded him with and learning as much as he could from the world around him. When did that change? Or did it? Sin came in, but I’ve never read anywhere that the purpose of a day changed. We were given work as a safeguard from evil— as something to healthfully occupy our hands and draw our hearts to God. I can’t help thinking how different that sounds to the kind of work we do now. Aren’t we the ones who are always talking about how busy we are and how it’s hard to have time for God? Wait a minute. If our work was given us so that we wouldn’t slip from His side in an evil world, is it possible that we have turned one of our greatest blessings into one of our greatest curses? When we say we define our days in terms of busyness we admit that we have forgotten the very purpose of those days. When we say we are so busy working that we don’t have time for God, we prove that we no longer understand why we were given work in the first place. I’m preaching to myself here. I can’t say I’m an expert at uprooting a mentality that has gone so deep into our society and my own soul. Most days I don’t know where to start. But I think I’m starting to get a taste, and the more I taste, the more I want. Maybe the most important thing in our day is to be a companion to the One we were made to love. Maybe the very thing we were created for never changed. Because really, where did taking walks with God in the cool of the day become replaced by studying or working long into the night? Maybe what we learn in a day is worth ten times what we accomplish. Maybe stopping to listen to that person who is hurting or reach that need placed in our path is a hundred times more important than our to do list. Maybe we can’t plan every part of our days out. Maybe true joy comes from spontaneous conversations with God and the people He places around us. I can’t help wondering how different we would be if we saw our days as He does. Would we then take time for long and deep conversations with God at unexpected times? Would we learn the lessons He’s been trying to teach us for years but we never even heard because we were too busy to listen? I don’t want to keep wondering. I want to know from personal experience. Because really, maybe we’ll rush through all of our jam-packed days with empty hearts until we learn to lay our busy mindset down and empty our days before Him so that He can fill them with Himself. Something tells me it is then we’ll taste the true blessing of work… then that we’ll experience the real companionship with God that we were made for. Maybe it is only then we will taste the real purpose of a day… and slowly the days will add up and we’ll find the real purpose of our life. To be friends with God. Every day. Every minute. Every second. |
Hannah Rayne20. Lover of Jesus. Daughter. Sister. Friend. Servant. Fan of the kitchen. Graduate of Masters of Biblical Counseling.
Blog Archives
January 2017
Categories
All
Follow this BlogFollow Me on Google+Instrument for TheeAbby Eagan
Ariana Brinckhaus
Aubrey Seiler
Glimpses of GraceGlesni Mason
Hands Open. Heart Full.Madison Suekert
Nebblett Family
Paul Dysinger
Sean Nebblett
Family |