Treasure in the arms of Christ

"In this life I know what I've been, but in your arms I know what I am...my mistakes are running through my mind...when I don't measure up to much in this life...I'm a treasure in the arms of Christ"

I heard this in a song by Sanctus Real while I was driving today and it hit me so hard. I've been struggling lately with guilt and realizing I don't measure up. I messed up and I all I could think was how did I let it happen? How did I fall so far into complacency that I didn't hear God's voice as clearly as I know I should...as I know I want to?? But when I heard this song, I was blown away by the fact "when I don't measure up to much in this life...I'm a TREASURE in the arms of Christ." A treasure?? I just can't even comprehend how after all of the mistakes I've made, God could hold me and see me as a treasure...a precious possession...that's what I am when I'm in His arms. Maybe that's the point. His love is so great, His grace so complete, His forgiveness so final, that He makes me a treasure...makes me something so much more than I could ever be on my own. I still just feel at a loss for words with a love like that. I am nothing, and I too often put myself and my pride and my desires above God, the maker of everything. And yet to Him, I'm a treasure.

Jesus I love you, I need you, broken I come before you....wash me clean. Thank you that I am your treasure...may you always be mine...always.

Forced to be Still

So this week God has been pulling me back to Himself. It's amazing how fast complacency can creep in...before you know it, life, business, and tasks take the place of quietness and seeking God's face. I am so beyond grateful God never stops chasing me. This whole semester has been full of ups and downs, and honestly one of the most stressful semesters I've ever had. This past week, all my friends left for spring break and I stayed back to get in some work hours for my internship. Then.....I got sick. All week feeling terrible, till I finally went to the doctor and he told me I had Mono.

Looking back, it was probably a hilarious scene. This male doctor tells me I have mono and I couldn't help but cry. Yup, right there, tears start rolling down my face and I couldn't stop them (gotta love being a girl). He no doubt felt very awkward and unsure what to do, and I felt embarrassed but completely just to the end of my rope. Mono??? The sickness that lasts FOREVER....well weeks at least, but might as well be forever. Even though I'm 24, I had to call my mom and have her tell me what to do, and I can't wait for her to come down and be taken care of again. But since then, I've spent countless hours sleeping, reading, listening to sermons, Adventures in Odyssey (oh yes), and laying in bed. As awful as it is to feel the way I do, I might have needed this to make myself chill out from life for a while and spend time with God again...get reconnected. I wish it didn't take something like this to get refocused, but God is using it. As a friend reminded me today, it makes the verse "Be still and know that I am God" very real. Today God just reminded me that we are His children, He loves us more than we know, and He's got it all in His hands.

Jesus thank you for who you are. Thank you for never stopping the chase. Renew my passion for you and forgive my complacency, because you are the One who is everything that's worth living for. I love you.

Focused on who He is...

This morning I heard a sermon based on the life of Daniel and His choice to honor God no matter the chaos that was going on around him. He chose to be the man God called him to be no matter what the cost.

"Daniel didn't wait for all the details to work out or to hear the end of the story. He lived a life that was centered and focused...He had made up his mind way before he knew what would happen...He didn't know how, he didn't know where, He didn't know when, but He knew what...He knew what He was gonna do and who He was going to serve. He knew his God would be true to Him. He knew He would choose to love for Him no matter what it cost. We need to decide what our priorities are going to be. We determine who and where our allegiance is going to be...our choice and no one elses" (Steve Saccone)

It must be God's theme this year to teach me about uncertainty. I heard this this morning and realized the importance of being confident in who God promises He is rather than to focus on all that seems to be confusing around me. "God wants you to pray confident prayers based on who you know Him to be and what you know he has promised to give you....He is the only one who will never fail you. God is the only one who will never let you down" (Alice Smith). I want God to be my priority. In reality it's the only truly safe place to be. It seems like such a paradox in the sense that a life with God is often full of uncertainty, risk, and surrender...everything that seems to lack control and safety. But it's really the only place that is completely safe. The only place that I will not be let down. I only see what is present and what has happened in the past....God sees all of it...past, present, future. He knows where, when, and how. I want to be like Daniel and despite the uncertainty, despite swimming upstream from everyone else, choose to live for Him no matter what the cost.

God give me the confidence and security to focus on on what I know about who you are, rather than what I don't know about the details of life or the next steps to take...

Time

"We're trapped in time. We can only move forward. Not to the right, to the left, or backward. What if there's a being who sees it all...beginning, middle, end? What if there's a being who can walk around time, see time, all of time? God is not trapped in time as we are. He stands outside of it. He IS existence in its purest form. He transcends time and space. He is Spirit. The "I am." Rob Bell said this in his sermon entitled "Everything is Spiritual." He held out a marker to be like a time line. We can only move forward, and can only see backward. But think about it. God sees it all. The past, present, and future. It's interesting how sometimes I feel stuck. Not sure where to go next, unsure about my next step. Yet I've got the One on my side who sees it all. He knows what's coming. He knows what my next step is to be. And He's my best friend. Why wouldn't He show me where to go? It should be easier to trust. We're stuck, but God is not.

God help me remember that all of time is in your hands. And when I see only tunnel vision, you see the panorama...

In the stillness

I love the snow, and I miss it. Of course the day I leave home to come back to school in Virginia there's a huge storm with lots of snow. Here? 60 degrees outside. At first I was pretty bummed....well, in all honesty I still am...but this morning I decided to make the best of it and enjoy the weather for what it is. I went for a run and decided to take some quality time with God at the beach. There's something about the ocean, the sand, the stillness, that just changes things....changes my attitude and my outlook. So I decided to read.

I was reading a book by Max Lucado and he was talking about how he gave an orphan some food and the boy later found him, looked at him with his big brown eyes and said "Obrigado" (Thank you). Lucado talks about how moved he was to have that little boy thank him for a simple piece of bread. And how much more God must be moved when I actually take the time to say thank you...for saving my soul. I looked over the ocean, with the birds flying around and the calmness that seemed to fall over everything and saw things in a new way. Thank you Jesus for what you did. Thank you for saving my soul. How petty my problems seem, how insignificant my worries. All my concerns and requests I wanted to bring before God this morning, I put aside to just thank Him for who He is....not for what He can do for me. Thank Him for always being there and for saving such a complaining, fearful, hesitant, girl like me.

The words of Hillsong played on my ipod that seemed to solidify my new perspective: "There is no one else for me, none but Jesus. Crucified to set me free...now I LIVE to bring Him praise. In the stillness, in the quiet, I know you are God....All my delight is you...all of my hope, all of my strength"

Change and Uncertainty

It seems so odd to think how something like change can be so exciting and thrilling yet terrifying and uncertain. Sometimes I want God to just change everything, take me and do what He will….but then when it comes to the reality of it, I take back the reign and put parameters on God. I specify what I want, what it should look like, and what's ok and not ok. And yet hard truth is it’s not about me. Not about my happiness or my wants or my desires. But it’s about the bigger picture. God’s picture and God’s story.

It’s interesting that somehow I feel like I have the right to place demands on God. I say I surrender my dreams but wrap it in a box of what things should look like. I pray for direction but am scared of the answer and frustrated that I don't know the future. As I think about it, what is uncertainty really? Is it the fact I am not sure I’ll get what I want? Is it that I’m afraid God will let me down? Or is it maybe that I just want to have control? I guess truth of it is that uncertainty only means God is going to pull through. I wonder if I truly relied on God…truly, not in words but honestly deep in my heart relied on God, that uncertainty wouldn’t be near as frightening or frustrating for that matter. What if I realized that God will not let me down? He will pull through EVERY time. I wonder how things would be different in my life.

Change and Uncertainty are two things that can either imply stress, fear, and frustration…..or peace, acceptance, and adventure.

God, there is so much about my future I don't know and so much uncertainty in life. Give me the faith to truly rely on you and follow you in whatever changes come….

Trust

I wonder why it is that it takes me so long to learn something....truly learn it, and get it? It seems like the past two years, time after time, I've faced decisions, circumstances, or situations full of uncertainty. And time after time God has been trying to teach me to trust. Looking back, I see how every time God has pulled through, and yet when a new situation comes up that I'm unsure about, the lessons I've learned seem to go out the window as I struggle to trust that God can handle it. But a few weeks ago God got me to start thinking about all of this and why it takes me so long to learn that He can be trusted with the little and big parts of my life including boys, school, my future...all of it.

I was praying and journaling when God quietly asked if I trust Him. My reaction? "God, of course I trust you. Come on...You're GOD...You can do ANYTHING...why would you even ask me that?" And He came back with, "Jaim, Do-you-trust-me? Totally, completely, with everything..." And in all honesty, I realized I didn't. If I TRULY and SINCERELY trusted God with all the uncertainty or hard times I was facing, I would be able to rest and not try to figure it all out on my own. I would stop trying to manipulate things and circumstances to work out the way I wanted it to work out. I would relax and have the confidence that God knows what's best and that I don't have to make things happen, HE will. I would recognize that He is bigger than anything I do. I can't mess up His plans, or miss His plans. Sometimes I get so worried I'll miss out on what He has because I'll make a wrong move, or mess up. Then He comes back with, 'Do you you trust Me?'

When I looked up the word trust it fit perfectly...

"reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, of a person or thing; confidence."

I guess it all goes back to God's character. Who is God? Who do I believe (honestly believe) that God is? What is God like? It makes me want to go back through Scripture and look at it in a new way, find out the answers to these questions. Not for my knowledge, because it's easy to rattle off answers, but for my heart to grasp. If I truly knew and believed that God is who He says He is, wouldn't I trust Him with EVERY aspect of my life. And if I did trust Him completely, wouldn't my actions be different?

"There are many things that are uncertain to us, but we KNOW that God is good, that He can be TRUSTED with our lives, and that we should live our lives in PURSUIT of the future HE paints for us" -Erwin McManus