It is finally cold here in Houston. It rained for the first time in about six weeks and the rain brought the cold. Houston's cold is unlike many places in the world. Houston has humidity. Humidity + cold = bone chilling. A Houston 45 degree day with humidity is absolutely frigid - almost unbearable. A Denver, Colorado 45 degree day is beautiful and requires only a long sleeve t-shirt. Humidity --- it's a game changer. Humidity, a small factor in the greater scheme of things, when added with several other elements completely changes the big picture. It's the little things .....
I was talking with one my good friends this past weekend in Dallas about what it looks like to completely abandon oneself to God on a day to day basis. She was asking and wondering, same as me, what that looked like and where are the women in this world that are good examples of this. I was just as equally stumped as her as to how to answer this question.
In the past year or so I read Francine Rivers biography on her website. In in she states the each of her books that she has written is her trying to figure out a question in her life. The book is a result of her looking at all the possible answers and allowing God to guide her to something more concrete. This little tidbit of information has kind of just living inside of me for awhile, and this week it came back to my mind.
The past three days have been somewhat of "doozies" for me and Chris. I cannot go into all the details because some of the situations involve people other than me and Chris. As I said in my last post we have recently just bought a house and are in the throws of putting it together. The thing is we have only been in town one weekend since we moved in! Since we moved into Houston, i.e. civilization, we have had the opportunity to hang out with lots of people that we usually do not get to see very often. This is great and wonderful and everything I wanted - it is just my house and my life are not all wrapped up with pretty bows on them. I still have boxes to unpack, mini blinds to hang, furniture to buy, closets to organize, grass to mow, and lots of things in the house to fix. So take a new house that needs fixing, going out of town a ton + not having a lot of alone time + lots of ends left untied + un-fun people situations and you get: A Chris and Jess duo who are tired and running a little emotionally thin.
The amazing thing is God has grown the two of us up enough to have peace in these "not so perfect" times which has been pretty mind opening. I have realized that you can have trials in your life and still maintain peace, joy, and stability. The way you do this is to lean on God everyday --- you decide to abandon yourself to Him on a moment by moment basis.
This morning I had just come to a place where I did not anything left inside of me to give. I had a good cry and called my friend Julie and she prayed for me. I then sat down with my bible and remembered what Francine Rivers had said in her biography --- that basically these great masterpiece novels that she has written are the result of her having unresolved questions in her life and her allowing God to answer them. So I straight up asked God -- What does it look like to completely abandon myself to you, everyday?
For so long I wanted this answer to be one of those ground breaking, light bulb lighting, earth shattering realizations that completely change you instantly. But, for some reason this morning I was ready to receive the completely normal and non-earth shattering answer God had for me. It is this: abandoning yourself to God everyday means that you choose God in every single situation.
How do you do this practically? John gives a good description in 1 John 2:4-6 " If someone claims, "I know him well!" but doesn't keep his commandments, he's obviously a liar. His life doesn't match his words. But the one who keeps God's word is the person in whom we see God's mature love. This is the only way to be sure we're in God. Anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived" (The MSG). The great big picture that we all see down the road, the big picture we are all aiming for, to get to the end of life and have God say "well done good and faithful servant" is made up of many little decisions that many times no one even knows about.
Abandoning myself to God is a choice that I make each and every day. It means that I read the bible whether I feel like it or not. It means that I memorize scripture so that I have some good solid ground to stand on when my emotions start becoming a hurricane inside of me. It means making decisions about how I am going to react to certain situations before they even happen. It means having people people in my life that also live out God's word and can speak God's word into my life. It means applying God's word to my life and not JUST reading it.
Practically and applicably (because I mean what's all this if it does not apply to the really really small things):
1. Choosing to get up early enough or making time at the end of the day to read the word
2. Believing God's truth when the enemy starts lying to me about myself and my life. Example: Two weeks ago we had a plumbing issue in our house and my thoughts started running wild. Thoughts like: We chose the wrong house, nothing can go right, I am never going to get all the furniture I want, I am going to have poop floating down my hall way, I want to scream and cry and have a nervous breakdown. As many of you girls know these thoughts happen a lightning speeds and your emotions quickly follow. So in the course of about 20 seconds you are in the great blue funk and hysterical. BUT - in that moment I CHOSE to not believe ANY of those thoughts and to take each thought captive into the obedience of Chris [2 Corinthians 10:5]. Guess what? I did not have a nervous breakdown and was calm and peaceful and absolutely everything with the plumbing was fixed about $45.
3. Disciplining myself to do things that my flesh absolutely does not want to do but is good for me like: getting enough sleep, eating right, exercising, having wise counsel around me, cleaning the house, being productive ......
4. Deciding to not compare myself to other people or care what they think. I found that if I start caring what other people think about me and my life then I start isolating myself from people ... and that is not what I want. I want to love people and people generally want some lovin! Practical application: Having people over at my new house when it is not decorated or something is broken and being confident about it and welcoming them into my home.
It is when you start adding up all these small decisions that the big picture starts looking really great. All of these small victories give us momentum for the really big decisions and situations in life. This is not at all one those romantic truths that sounds good and you quote on facebook, but it is real and it works! Do not receive these things in legalism like I most certainly would have several years ago. Everything must be done out of love for and out of reverence of God. When you do these things BECAUSE you love God and BECAUSE you want to know Him more and be more like Him is when these small battles reveal their great importance in your life!
"We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us." Collosians 1:12 The MSG
love the blog novel writer,
2 comments:
Thank you for writing this. Love you, sweet friend!
I love this post! Thanks for sharing your heart!
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