i have sat down a few times (and thought about sitting down a few times) to write, but i just haven't been able to think of anything blog-worthy.
i sort of like to blog mostly as a "note to self: you learned this," but sometimes it's hard to figure out what exactly i'm learning. so i might just, true to my thought processes, do a bullet-pointed list...we'll see how we go.
-pride & humility-
the first shall be last and the last shall be first, aye? but sometimes... sometimes i think that we (read: i) assume that we already are "last" or something, because we don't act like we don't need God and we're not as lame as the pharisees (or are we?) and so we actually start walking around like that "shall be first" part has already come. news flash to self: it hasn't. God does the exalting, i do the bowing down. lower, lower, lower.
like a waterfall: the joy of going lower and ever-giving. (props to hannah hurnard for that observation, and to God for pointing it out to her)
[sub-point: humility before God is a whole new sort of thing. not a new idea... just so much different than humility before people. isn't it? or is it not... because humility before people tends to be stuff like, "sorry, i was wrong," and not acting like you're better than everyone you meet and what not.
humility before God is more like..."woah, i do not know what's best for every person and situation in the world," and in a similar fashion, "not my will but yours... seriously."
my biggest downfall in this is that i have a hard time accepting this moment for what it is, without the things that i want it to be... people and places and such that i think should be in the present moment but are, apparently, in the future (or not).
i'm impatient, and my impatience says to God, "hey, you're not very good at planning." pride.]
-joy & strength-
what strength have we without joy in the Lord?
my day-to-day life doesn't always make me leap for joy; it's a choice to stop and rejoice in the Lord, to remember that my strength comes not from gritting my teeth and making it through, but from delighting my soul in the Lord. why? because i am a spirit with a body, not the other way around. i have to remember where the real food is.
-perseverance & honour-
i have recently been reading excerpts from the aforementioned hannah hurnard's journal, which has been uh-mazing. (do you ever read something that just stuns you? like you just can't make your eyes move past this word, this phrase, this thought...) she wrote, "Shall the clay vessel on the Lord's wheel and under his loving, molding hands, think of pain in the last stage of a long, joyous yielding to his patient fashioning?"
to my heart this said, "have we come so far only to give up now?" and what would such a concession to failure say of our Lord's faithfulness? here we have walked along toting a message of God's unending faithfulness and and unwillingness to concede the fruitfulness of his children, when suddenly all has ceased and we are yet to reach our boldly proclaimed destination. the truth is that it is i, not the Lord, who stops short of the finish line, but the message spoken to a curiously observant public is that maybe this so-called "faithful God" is not so faithful after all. the question that hits my brain and brings tears to my eyes is how could i thus dishonour the Lord? the one who has been so faithful to me? how could i let him be thought of as such? so contrary to the truth i know. (yeah, sometimes my brain talks to itself with words like "thus" and "as such". don't judge.)
surely it is the Lord's to defend is own honour... certainly he is able to make his glory known in all the earth, to every creature... but it is my glory to add honour. it's my glory to defend his name.
if i don't praise his name, even the rocks will cry out. no thanks, rocks, that's my gig.
-the value of blood-
i can't explain this one terribly well, but it's quite certain that the shocking value and necessity of Jesus' blood has been hitting my heart over and over recently, pounding me like sneaker waves. i am nowhere without it. more accurately: i'm somewhere i do not want to be.
the veil is torn and i get to go in now. the sacrifice is made my ransom is paid now. grace. how does that work?
it's like the reality that i am washed clean by Jesus' blood has hit my heart without really going through my brain... i don't get it, but i feel it.
i think that's sort of the end of it. there's more, surely, but one could go on forever rambling about thoughts and such...
oh i lift you high and bow down low;
how high can you be? how low can i go?
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