Worship Is Just Love

I've learned--not even to say I've fully learned this--that worship is not as complex as we make it. It's not the certain way we hold our hands or how we sing the words. Whether we're screaming or softly whispering our song. God hears us. And he's standing there right next to us. Laughing at how joyful it makes him to hear our voices. That we want to sing to him. We don't have to sing a certain way. We don't have to know exactly what we want to say to God and make sure it sounds just as good as the worship song's words. Worship is just love. Our love is messy and we sometimes just spit out words. But he wants to hear them. Our love is up and down and not every day is a walk in the park. But he wants to know how you feel. Our love is impatient, emotional and it doesn't always know what it wants. But he wants to take it all from us. Because he is the God of listening, feeling our pain, and taking it all away to give us his voice. His plan. His intimate time with us. The answer to our worship; his love. We give our love to him, imperfect and human, and he gives us his love, perfect and righteous. He knows everything about us and we don't have to build ourselves up to be more holy in the time of worship. He wants us just the way we are.

Plucked From the Light, Into the Dark

I've soaked up my light. I've dug my roots into my good soil. I've been molded into a vessel of joy, love, and light. And now it's time to stretch my mold. I've enjoyed the encouragement and pampered life of a preparing heart. But now it's time to get dirt underneath my fingernails. I was never once called to a comfortable life of becoming a fireworks show. I'd much rather be a small lit candle that lasts through the night than a combustable flare that is shrouded by darkness in seconds. The darkness cannot put out the light, it can only make the light brighter.
I live just outside of a city that is the least likely to be a city on a hill. Below sea level, but figuratively it is full of darkness. And I am 100% blessed to be here. To be just a small candle of the sea of candles flooding this area. We have another hit coming in a few days that could flush out some light. However as the floods are rising, the lights are getting brighter. Some blow out, but as one blows out, even more are added in its place. What is the point of being a candle in a room that is already lit? I have darkness just outside my door. I begged to put in that darkness. I finally was put there, and my flame is already wavering. It's being spit on and trampled. It's in a muggy environment. It's not used to this. But it will not go out. Because my light is not for show. It is brighten up the darkness, to draw people closer, and to lead them to the person who's really holding the candle.

Surrender Becoming A Song

Well, this season has been the absolute hardest, most challenging, mind blowing, uncomfortable, God seeking season ever. I look back on who I was before and can't begin to fathom how I am where I am. Being put in my own type of ministry, with the total control and honor given to the Lord. It is different and crazy at some points. I'm placed in plenty different areas of ministry that it has been challenging to put my wholeness into each area; in God's timing and calling. But thank God ministry isn't categorized it's unified. I'm stepping into a season of complete change, combining my season of growth and submission with total surrender. Surrender brings thoughts of loneliness. Surrendering is giving your all, faith being your stronghold. You cannot surrender and come back shortly after and beg for the values, people, dreams, and goals that you gave up. Submission is a daily practice, but surrendering is a life given up with no turning back. You can run away from submission but not from surrender. I wonder every day if I will ever have the strength to surrender. I hand Him piece by piece of my life and still find that he wants more. Not in a demanding way. But in a way to where He is showing me it will be so much more rewarding if I hand everything over now. Surrender is not a solo act of obedience. It's a vocalist beginning the song, flowing the song to the Partner, and beginning the lovely duet that will fill the ears of all that hear. Alone a voice is heard, but combined a duet becomes a choir, impressing a song into hearts.

Dance With Me

Where you are at right now is where He wants you. In His arms, dancing with him. We do not always have to move forward. We don't have to look beyond our present to see our future. Jesus can tell us our future, and by all means want you to pursue it as well. But to get to the then you have to understand, live in, and believe in the now. You can't believe in the future without being fully supportive and believing what is going on in your life now. There is no fast forward button. God longs to speak to you and even more to just embrace you. To dance with you. To hold you for a minute, tell you you're beautiful and he's absolutely crazy about you. Take your chains of the moment and throw them to the floor. Twirl you around until you're laughing hysterically. Pour his grace and new mercies out onto you. He is in your present, he is in your presence. You are in his presence constantly and he just wants to dance with you. He wants to hear you worship him and he wants to tell you your worth. Hold you in his arms until all of your mess is squeezed out of you. Until you fall to your knees in awe and adoration of just him dancing with you. Think about it, the Lord of the heavens wants to stop all of your life for a moment and dance with you. To interrupt your constant motion and schedule. Not to stop you from doing his will or living life, but to shower his love on you and catapult you into your next steps. Your steps can be a path and direction, but they can also be a dance.

"It's not the provision I needed, it's the provider."

We practically beg God for improvement in our lives. Whether it's in our nation or in the small circle of our friends, we want God to rain down. Sometimes we don't even realize how desperate we are. We are longing for attention from God. We cry out to God for change. We beg for salvation, freedom, cleansing, love, a new heart, to break our hearts for what breaks His. And our God is so good, so purely and selflessly good, that he gave it all to us through his son Jesus. He gives us what we ask for. He gives us an abundance. We are given light and healing. And when it is given to us, we keep walking. We keep living our normal, comfortable lives. Day by day wondering when God will bless us next. Cry out day to day. We keep moving and we wonder why we move in a straight line. We pray for provision and are thankful for all God does for us. But when do our lives truly change? When does the presence of God become thick and tangible in our lives? There is provision because of the greatness of God and we give him praise and worship him. But we don't glorify him. Glorifying means to treat as more splendid and excellent than would normally be considered. People normally praise God because they are thankful for the provision in their lives. But to glorify God is to honor and to worship with every fiber of being, holding nothing back, unashamed of the person you are in Christ, and thanking God not for provision but that he is the provider.
I've wanted provision but only for a fresh burst of life. I wanted to see the glory of God but only to see it. To entertain my future. I worship God and hold back because I am ashamed of how I cannot fully serve God. I receive with hardly any thankfulness the things God has given me, the way he has completely transformed my life. I take what he gives me and keep walking. The Lord wouldn't send an anointing if he wasn't looking for someone. He wouldn't give you everything he's given you if you didn't have a purpose. You are a purpose. He is inviting us into a divine relationship that was never meant to be one way. Not just for salvation but for a savior. Not just for forgiveness but for a forgiver. Not just for peace but for the peace maker. Not just for redemption for a redeemer. Not just for love but a lover. For the author of life. An abundance of breath. An inspiration.

After Your Heart

It's easy to neglect God. I will sometimes run straight to the components instead. I'll worship until my heart wants to give out, receive encouragement and council, anything. I can handle leadership, mission trips, ministry, worship, and even intercession but I sometimes cannot handle having a conversation with the person who these things all revolve around. I run over God with the things that are like him. I can easily fill in the empty spaces in my life with these things. But sometimes I can't fill my empty heart with the actual person. The actual presence that redeems all lost hearts. Sometimes it's because I'm afraid. Sometimes it's because I'm distracted. Sometimes I'm ashamed. And sometimes I feel hopeless which is crazy because that's the reason he came. They all are reasons. And here I am, worrying about such small problems and there you are ready to bring me peace. When I mess up, there you are ready to bring forgiveness. When I neglect you and finally come back to you in repentance, there you are waiting with love and compassion. Here I am, a human, and there you are, a God, who allows me to become like his Son. I want to be after your heart, not just the things produced from your goodness.

Just Enough Room

I'm going through a process that I don't understand. Mixing a mind who wishes it was a perfectionist,  a heart who wants nothing of the sort, and a God that is bigger than life and just wants me to be obedient and submit doesn't cram into one person too well. Which is exactly why I am a 5'2 human being with not enough room to store all of how I think I am created to be. It's not about me having enough room, it's about opening the door to that room; making just enough room for God to squeeze through and swallow up all of my being to use for his will. Life was created just as human beings were: crammed, constantly moving, evolving, and easily swayed. But we have capability. We have strength and patience and peace. I aspire to be inspired daily by God. I long to carry out a quest greater than my own life. To take God with my steps. God has given me dreams and gifts but at the end of the day my plan of life is not what matters most. My future is not most important. It's who guides my steps and holds me up each day.

Jesus speaks to me in poetry sometimes.

“Let me in to a sweet and tender heart
That allows gentle hands to prick and prod
Where great fear and desperation are at start
My hands work best against a strong facade.
For love is not love as reverence stands single
We cannot be in love without doubt and incertitude
For you are yearning and so feeble
And there is my entrance for my somber interlude.
Hold closed the doors to poor inheritance
But love, I came to bring heartsease
For as I leaned toward my overbearing glance
You kept me at bay with my eyes in peace.
If I have ever owned a more ravishing soul
You have stolen me by the whole.”

Confession #3

Or I guess more of an experience. Expectations are hard to meet. Especially the ones we give ourselves. God didn't give us expectations, he gave us choice and also demands. He demands that we love people and reach them. He also gave us freedom and love. There is not a certain level to meet for God. No level of worship or serving. God doesn't expect us to be perfect. He doesn't expect the same level of worship or serving from everyone.
I expected my worship to be met by God in a radical way. And when I wasn't met, I was frustrated. I wondered why, I was trying so hard to hear from God. So I fell and almost gave up. But then I realized, you can't try to hear from God. You just hear him. In the right time. God told me to get back up and keep worshipping and that he would meet me if I just got back up. I wasn't met until the end when I processed everything that had happened.
I expected to move to Africa straight out of school. I had the expectation of being a missionary and my perspective of mission work was changed with just a conversation. Mission work isn't about the future or the places you go to reach the nations. It's not about the needs that are met or how many people are brought back to nourishment. It's not about how comfortable you are. It's about ministry and ministry is now. It's about people and their lives being radically changed by God. So many people diminish and twist what missions actually is. It's not always about helping people. its about Jesus and watching his glory fall across the nations. Watching nations give their hearts to Christ and raising up generations for the call.

Deeper In Love

Two songs have stuck out to me today. They're Deeper In Love by Charlie Hall and Never Once by Matt Redman. The lyrics just stuck out to me. Because tonight was a night of realizing how much I want to love God and how loved I am by him. I get so frustrated because I want to hear so badly from God. I want him to speak to me about people and about my life. But I haven't been hearing from God. Then I realize that He doesn't want me to have revelations or hear extraordinary messages from him. He wants me to see how much he loves me. He wants me to fall in love with His son. He poured out his love and I was totally in awe of how much he could love a person like me.
I'm falling deeper in love with Jesus. I see more and more of his unfailing, sacrificial love for me day by day. I see him as my dear loving Father who never once has left me. He never once let me walk alone. He never once let me stray for too long, he always brought me back. My eyes are being opened to things I have never noticed. My heart is being stretched to make room for new depths that His love is taking me to. I love every minute of where he is taking me.

Confession #2

And it may be quite blank: I have been struggling and I haven't even known it.

Once things became such a pattern and part of my routine of life, they began to cover up my true self. A temporary veil was put in front of my eyes and I was blind to everything. Everything that God tried to whisper to me through people and even what the enemy was speaking to me. I have believed one huge lie that could've completely destroyed me. And that lie is that I'm fake.

I have always strived to be everything but fake. I've always desired to be authentic. Not to stand out or get attention but because I have seen the hypocritical world and was almost sucked into it and God scared me away from it. I was not meant to be in that world. None of us are. But that lie snuck into my heart so fast and completely overwhelmed my thoughts. Anything I did I thought it was fake and without true meaning.

Up until about last year, I was one of the most depressed people you could ever meet. I was a pawn of the world, I did whatever it told me. It got to the point where I didn't want to live. And for the longest time I thought I was alive only so the devil could toy with me, because he did. He penetrated my mind and completely warped every single one of my thoughts to be of how unworthy, shameful, disgusting, lost, and dangerous I was. But I didn't want any of that, I hated who I was. And God saw how much I desired to serve him and be completely transformed by him. He made me new. From then on, I became genuine about everything I did. My heart swells with passion for the lost, the hurting, the depressed, the oppressed, the poor, the sick, the orphans, the trafficked, and the people just like how I was. I long to be loyal to God. I desire for God to change people's lives like he changed mine.

And I was reminded tonight that if my life has changed that much, there is no way my heart is fake.

Fragile

One of our pastor's little girls every time I see her looks at me and tells me I'm beautiful. Usually it's early in the morning when she comes into class and it's just after I worked and look absolutely disgusting. I feel so dirty and ugly. But this precious little girl has the sweetest soul to tell me that. I guess that's God's reminder that when I think I look horrible that day that He thinks I'm beautiful.
After that she smiles and says, "You're fragile." She's only two so I don't think she knows what that word means. And I wondered why her dad taught her that word. But I think it's because her dad wants her to know that she is fragile; Jesus holds her carefully in His hands. She is a princess and can break really easily. But Jesus can mend her back together. Frailty is not always bad, because no matter how fragile something is, it can be put back together. He wanted her to know she is gentle, she's light-hearted and is God's precious daughter that he will never leave broken. She is fragile like a flower that grows new petals every season.
And I have been very fragile. But that is exactly what I needed to know.

Punch into the Spirit

There are times to rest in the Holy Spirit. Times of listening and Jesus's divine intervention. Where we stop to the world and stop to soak in God's love. We use up our energy and our own love like water from a plastic water bottle. And others use us up like a vending machine, just keep taking out, and it takes us a while to be replenished. So we pause to feel the radical presence of the God who sees our suffering and fills us up to the very top until we overflow. There are times of floating across his presence and basking in His love. The time where we are empty and need to be refilled. Where we adore our amazing savior.

Then there are times of complete desperation. Times where we cannot wait. God does not always call us to wait on him. He actually demands we seek Him to be able to seek others. It would be so comfortable to wait on God all of our days. But we have not been called to a life of comfort but a life of demanded discomfort, rebellion, and answering the call. There is the term of "pressing in" to the Spirit, but pressing in gets me only so far. It's like pressing down on a nail that you are trying to compact into a board. It's like pressing that button that is stuck and doesn't want to budge. I declare a life of punching into the Spirit. Because it demands that God would meet me and I would seek His will for my life. It shows there is no time for waiting. It shows I am desperate to be sent out into the world and to be a vessel. When I am waiting, there are others dying. There are children hungry, girls being robbed of their innocence, and a grandmother wishing to feed all of her starving grandchildren. There are familiar faces that are being ignored as if they were not familiar. There is a people wanting to be met by a divine intervention but do not know how to be met.

I cannot be hasty and yet I am waiting for the perfect moment handed down for God to reveal His glory. For God to move in the nation I so desire to reach. For God to grab hold of the hearts so dear to me. For God to open the eyes of the people I am practically begging open. I am already knee deep in their lives and I am waiting on the God who gave me full potential and authority. There are times for me to stop the rushing movement of my life and give all control to God. And once that task is accomplished, it is time to punch in.

I Have A Confession

Well, two. One is I may confess things more than once. Because I'm not going to let these confessions take a hold of me anymore.
The second is I do not fit.

Or at least I don't feel like I do. I feel like I'm being jammed into a puzzle at that spot that I just don't fit at. Or a square being shoved in a round hole. While other people spend their days searching for that one thing that will make their lives satisfactory, I would rather be putting together puzzles or shoving the the squares and circles in the holes. I've had plenty of moments to myself and they have helped me grow extremely dependent of God. Just me and kids. Kids make me happy. I don't think any other living person besides a child could make me more happy at the moment. Sometimes I wish I had a good group of friends to express myself with. But there aren't many people like me. Maybe I am preparing myself to leave. I have only a couple of months before life on my own starts. And then who knows where I will be taken. Which is also a really scary thought.

In The Eyes of A Child

Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of you heart will also be- Matthew 6:21


I've overlooked this verse so many times. I looked at it for years thinking it only meant my treasure stored in heaven. But it means the desires of my heart are the same place my treasures are. And my treasure is serving people. My treasure is raising children in church and watching them grow into young leaders ready to take on the world and fall in love with their savior. My treasure is knowing that a child can go from completely angered to a sweet and loving human being through faith and love. My treasure is love and care for children who don't know what it means to be hugged and squeezed, tickled until the can't breathe, kissed millions of times, or held in loving arms. My treasure is taking in every wise word from an innocent child.

This is my treasure because five years ago I had absolutely no love for children. My heart was not open and hard toward children. I would say that I never wanted to have kids and I would find something better to do with my life. I saw them as a waste of energy and time. They were ignorant and needy. I would not go near a child. But God wasn't going to have that. He literally shoved me through the door of taking the opportunity to take on the job of working in childcare.

Now I don't see myself doing anything else than working with children. Being a mother to the motherless, giving orphans a family, loving all of them until they feel they will burst. Watching them bloom from tiny buds that could do nothing except stay pinched up in the sun's protection into radiant flowers that spread their arms to greet the world with a colorful expression no one can deny. Opening their arms to Jesus and letting Him fill their lives.

This would not be a treasure if I didn't find each child valuable. Children are the future; they're the ones who fill in our spaces that we missed and do even greater things than these. They are each unique and have different smiles and talents to brighten your day and feed their nation. My love for these children is abounding and stretches across my heart. They have taught me the true meaning of joy and love. I believe for these kids. No one else is believing for them. We believe for ourselves and our generation. But the next is so much more important because they're learning from us. A child longs to learn.

This would not be my treasure if God wouldn't have cracked open my heart and turned my eyes to the eyes of a child. It's my heart's desires meet my treasure. In the eyes of a child.

Waving in the Wind

Sometimes I forget how beautiful you are. I seem to lose sight of the hands that hold me up and think I'm floating in thin air and will eventually stumble back. I see more cold mornings than the afternoon suns. I fall into this occurring nonsense scheduled to make me feel secure and that my life is leading to something. I become a wind-up toy and my key will rust. Sometimes I forget how I am beautiful to you.

But your people with warm smiles and hands waving joy in the sun kissed air, how can I forget them? Waving at me, waiting for me to come see them. Waiting for a single person to lift them high in the sky so they feel like a bird soaring for the first time. Little songbirds always singing with their note that they were written for. Because when I see them half broken and bandaged, torn from wounds, and still waving the wind, how should I help but see beauty? The darkness welcomes them and instead they allow light to caress their faces, smoothing their smiles to perfect shape. Hearts full of laughter and gladness that they are alive. Sifting through catastrophes and problems and finding the gold pieces of truth. If these people are more than overwhelmingly glorious to me, then I can be the same in your eyes. You are beautiful, and I see your glory. I want to touch it, be able to feel the face of love. The coarse-skinned nation you've created.

This is Africa

I don't know if you have one thing that you think about every single day. I don't know if it's someone who left or someone who is right beside you. I don't know if it's about something extraordinary or something tragic. I don't know if you love that thought or hate it. But I absolutely love mine, no I am in love with mine. And I've never even met it, never approached it, never even been so close as to touch its surroundings. It's not close by, it's thousands of miles away from my desperate reach. It's extraordinary and quite tragic at the same time. I don't think of just one person I think of a people. My one thought is not a single being but a massive whole. Countries. A continent. A nation. My one thought is Africa.

I cannot ever explain why this place seemed to land itself into my passionate soul. I don't know why I am so moved by any mention of Africa. My only explanation is that God must want me to have something to do with this nation. My one and only passion before this was writing and I would flow freely in and out of my unstable ingenuity that my mind yearned to be in. But now each time I write, I cannot stand when the nation is left out of whatever I create. Africa will not leave me alone, but this is the way I like it.

My desperation is calling for justice to this world, but for an even greater sub-calling: I want this continent to experience love. We experience love each day when our family tells us they are proud, when someone holds a door open, when we hug our children, when we feed off of the attention provided for daily, when we sing songs of it. These people are sometimes brought up without one hint of the word love. Love has never been squeezed into their bones or muttered to them in times of starvation or disease. Love has never walked past through villages or swept over their skies. Love has been stored away here and is abundantly being thrown around its boundaries. Love is dying to wrap its arms around a child who has never been showed love. Love wants to heal the sick and feed the hungry. Love wants to home the homeless. Love wants to hear its name sung in tribal hymns and praises. Love wants to see its progress shining on the smiles of this people's face. Love wants to spread. Love wants to break free.