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Love compels us to sell all of our belongings or to lay down our life for a stranger or to sit next to someone's death bed...love compels us to bring a cup of coffee to a coworker, to let someone take the last parking spot...love compels us to hold open the door for the elderly...
I have recently come to admire Mother Teresa and things that she said and did. This is partly to blame on friends of mine who inspired me to read books that spoke of her deeds. I had one already…then last week a new friend bought me a happy (if you do not know what that means just ask me) and she gave me another book full of wisdom from Mother Teresa. And well, as for Jesus, I have his ultimate book of wisdom, knowledge, romance, and so forth in one large volume…the Bible.
I think that we can all agree, no matter what our stance on life that Jesus was self-less. He was self-sacrificing in so many ways. Mother Teresa, well, most would agree she was self-less. She gave up on material possessions and held onto God’s direction and promises in her life…thus making a difference in the lives of those around her…
As I was thinking tonight about the many things I am learning right now, I was so overwhelmed. I not only learn from my mistakes but also from the mistakes of others. I learn from God’s Word and from the wisdom of the precious people around me. For me to pinpoint on specific thing on my heart this week that I would want to share with you all is almost impossible. God wants me to speak but when I open my mouth I fumble for words…and even on paper things cannot come out properly. But I said the heck with it…hopefully something in this messy rendition of a blog or journal you will find a little piece of truth between you and God. Because the whole point in me writing anything in the first place is to show off my Big God…to give Him glory…to challenge myself and you believers and non-believers to think about what is going on inside of you. Maybe you disagree with what I have to say…that is fine. Maybe you wish you express your own thoughts about the topic…please share the love…literally and figuratively.
I initially posted a few weeks ago about what it means to rend our hearts. To rend could mean to shatter or break apart. Then, we looked at the word render…and established that if you render your heart you are yielding it to something, submitting it, giving into something greater…so, you rend your heart and break away from all the things that you thought you could not live without, and render your heart and surrender to something greater than yourself…God of the Bible. Your heart is made up of the inner core of who you are…it can be hard to put the word heart with a concrete definition, but I think most of you understand what I am trying to convey. If not, help me out please.
I keep coming back to hurting hearts, to this idea of painful love. For so long, especially in a world desensitized by the media and society on what true love is, I believed in love that was unrealistic, but what I have seen in the lives of those around me and those I read about and see even in my own life is this: Love is inseparable from pain. If you dare to truly love, then you dare to be hurt. Jesus was the ultimate example of this painful love.
Mother Teresa once said, “We should ask ourselves, ‘Have I really experienced the joy of loving?’ True love is love that causes us pain, that hurts, and yet brings us joy. That is why we must pray and ask for the courage to love.”
Man, I wish I could have put it better…but this is beautiful.
Another sweet woman I know once wrote me a letter when I was going through a very difficult time in my life and she said this: “The connection and friendship we all desire comes with some high costs…including being willing to be OK with the stuff, the baggage, the hang-ups of those we love. Only Jesus will be open and honest, with no fear or agenda…Tell Him everything. He is our safe haven, and we surely need one, so we can be a safe haven friend for others.”
You see, I am not talking about those of us who stay in relationships and friendships that are a hindrance and cause us physical pain, such as abusive relationships. I am also not talking about you staying in any relationship that is not glorifying God for the sake of you believing you are “in love.” This is not at all what I am talking about. If you are being hurt by someone physically because you think you are in love with that person then please let me or someone else know…ok?
Alrighty, moving on. I would venture to say that Mother Teresa, having seen the things she saw and physically been a part of the lives of the poor and needy, had a severe understanding of what it meant to love people and to hurt. What a heart wrenching thing to look out in India, Africa, or any other country, take your pick, yes America even, and see those suffering and truly hurt for them. Maybe you have to sacrifice physically or financially to love on them. It is easy to love when you are in your comfort zone…things feel good and warm. I am convinced that once we start to see one another through God’s eyes then this life becomes less about us and more about others around us, thus, us loving deeper, harder, more passionately…giving compassion and tending to the needs of others.
Think about this. You want to be loved…and you want to love. At least most of us do anyway, if you say you don’t then you are not being honest with yourself. Here is one of my hang ups…we say we want these things and yet we are not willing to be open and honest with pure intentions. We also only want to love others if they are basically perfect. Then if you hold yourself to this same standard you will probably become guilt ridden and full of shame for your lack of ability to be perfect. Now you would never tell someone that (at least most of you wouldn’t tell someone that), but you think it. The fact of the matter, however, is that we all carry baggage, we have all experienced hang ups…so in order to be friends with someone or even to be in a relationship with someone, you have to be willing to look past that baggage. Though my friend said that “only Jesus will be open and honest, with no fear or agenda,” I believe that it is possible for us to be that way together…to be this way with each other. This is part of hurting and carrying each other’s pain.
All I know after writing this is that I can’t do this on my own. I can’t look past my own baggage, the baggage of others, and learn to love sacrificially and with my whole heart on my own. A friend of mine recently put it this way, “If only I would stop trying to do things in my own strength and live life on my own; the key is to stop trying so hard in our own strength and allow the Holy Spirit to live life through us.” I am like uh yea…this is so true. So much less exhausting and so much more fulfilling. I pray that you guys can read this and be encouraged to seek one another out but also to seek God. Blessings and peace.
"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." Colossians 3:12-14
This might hurt a little…at least for me.
I do not know about the rest of you, but I am sick of learning lessons the hard way! You know, when we are stubborn and think that we can do things our own way and get away with it..then it blows up in our faces. Maybe you have experienced this. Maybe it hasn’t happened to you yet! Personally, I wish I weren’t so stubborn that God has to teach and then re-teach me a lesson so that my heart actually receives the discipline. I guess I should be thanking him for his mercy and the gift of second chances.
Warning: Some of you men might find this a little too “heart” felt or mushy…you are sick of this love stuff…well, stop whining please and just keep reading. Jesus was the ultimate man…and He had no problem talking about love and demonstrating love…He showed us the ultimate sacrifice of one’s love for another by dying for us.
God is a jealous God. This does NOT mean he is jealous of you. Why would He be? He created you and He did not make a piece of junk. You are an intricately crafted piece of art created by the most creative artist ever (Read Pslam 139). It means He is jealous for you; for your affection, for your attention. He does not want you to worship or love anything above Him (Read 2 Corinthians). This is emptiness anyway. For me, this means that He loves me so much and wants to have a relationship with me so much that if anything stands in the way of His heart and my heart connecting, He is going to weed it out. He is going to go in there and dig that joker out of my heart (whatever that “joker” might be). Now, don’t get me wrong, God is a gentleman…even to you men reading this. He knocks and waits for us to open the door; He gives us a chance to rend our own hearts, but He definitely knows how to discipline us and teach us lessons, even if it means breaking us a little bit…or a lot, depending on how thick your skull is. Ha.
A few years ago I had to learn a lesson that was very painful…well it was probably a few lessons in one life experience, but the main one was learning that I do NOT have nor do I need control over my life. What a mess I would make it anyway. I only think I know what is best for me until God compares what I desire as best to His actual best…then what I wanted seems like smelly trash.
The second one was that the relationships I have with people cannot get in the way of the relationship I have with God, my first true love. I may get closer to some people than others and I may feel the compelled to lavish a little more “love” on some than I do others, but this is usually because God is teaching me or that other person a lesson. I have found that those that God has me pour into the hardest and the fastest are those that are not meant to be in my life but for a season. This hurts but it is so worth every minute, every tear, and every piece of myself that I give away. (I still hope for the few more in my life that get to stay a lifetime.)
I believe that God does NOT make mistakes and He knows the people that need to be put in my path. Sometimes, however, He has to rip people out of my path for me to learn, mature, and grow closer to Him.
You see-my heart in and of itself is a smelly, rotten, stained, shattered, decaying place that no one would ever want to enter. But with God, my heart is pure, holy, complete, and steadfast; the inside of who I am has been transformed from a darkened dungeon full of dreadful dragons into a beautifully lit palace. Now, don’t get me wrong here. I am not perfect yet, but when I allow God to clean out the wounds I allow Him to give me more space to love Him and to love others.
You still don’t get it?
Let me give you another visual that one of my professors gave me…if you have ever seen or been around burn victims you know that they must have their burns scraped and cleaned out often in order for healing to occur. Despite the pain that they are in, the doctor must scrape and dig out the rotting flesh in order for new skin to grow. Now I don’t know if you can imagine that but it hurts me to the core just thinking about it. While this is a painful process for the burn victim, the doctor knows that the pain he is causing right now can save that person’s body and help them to heal properly as time goes by.
Well, this is what God does, he scrapes out the crap (I know, this word is so lady like) that has managed to clog up your life and your heart, and it hurts like crazy. But He knows that if he can make you clean then you can heal and by healing, you live a more abundant life. I prayed often that I would love God more and that He would help me. Well, he heard that prayer when he ripped someone from my life that I had thought could fill a void in my heart. Now, I see that it took God removing that person from my life for me to understand His love for me and it makes me realize my need to cling to my Father in heaven first. It makes me sad at times that God would deem it necessary to do this in order for my stubborn heart to be cleaned out, but it also makes me aware that I never ever want to be so hard headed again that He has to do it twice.
So, recently I am learning that I have to fight to love God and I have to fight to love people with a pure, holy, and unselfish love. I have to fight against my flesh that tells me that other things can satisfy my spirit and heart. I have to fight against the enemy that says I can’t have overflowing relationships that are pleasing to God. I have to fight against my own desire to sabotage relationships prematurely because I fear God is going to take that person away or for fear of rejection…as my dad says, “let them feel the weight of who you are and then let them decide if they can handle it…”
At the end of the day I think of this. Love is a choice. It is a decision. Yes, there are emotions and goose bumps and butterflies; there are tears and laughter, but these things do not make up love, they only accompany certain stages of growing in love. So, at the end of the day I hope that I can say, at least majority of the time, that I loved deep, I loved hard, I loved without reservation or concern for myself, I loved unconditionally as Jesus did despite what others said about Him.
If you do not know what I am talking about try reading some of God’s Word. You’ll find the most splendid love story of all, just waiting to unfold before your eyes.
I John 3:19-24
This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Take Two…Let’s See where this takes us…
“To Echo”…this is one of my favorite definition of the word render. As a Christian (and by that I mean sold out follower of Jesus Christ, the God of the Bible…not a fake representation of something that we have no real relationship with…not a person who puts up a façade to make the world think that we are perfect…okay I am hopping off of the peach box. Ha.), I could only think about what it means to echo something. I know as a child when I would visit the caves in the hills of Tennessee (you know, the ones that have all the neat natural sculptures, running water, and man-made colored lights to give it a cool effect), how I use to want to yell and hear my voice echo throughout the canyons. Of course, the echo of my voice never sounded the same as my exact voice and it would eventually fade away as the sound waves got further and further away from their original source (in this case, my big mouth). The further away from the source, the less of a reflection the echo was to my ears.
This is exactly why I love that definition of the word render. If render means “to echo,” then what is my heart echoing to the world? What is YOUR heart echoing to the world? What is YOUR heart echoing to you? Whatever "source" we are closer to, is what we echo to the world and to ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I agree with the saying “Garbage in, garbage out. Righteousness in, righteousness out.” Some of you reading this are like, oh boy, another dumb Christian saying…blah blah blah…Well, you’re probably the one that has been in the same boat as me.
I don’t know about you but I may need an attitude check (1, 2, 3)..Okay we’re good to go. Take a deep breath and keep reading.
So, I have noticed that what I fill myself with is what oozes (this is a nasty sounding word) out of my heart and sometimes out of my mouth and my deeds towards other people…if not toward other people, then toward God. If I am filling myself with things that are pleasing to God, then hopefully that is what people get a dose of when they “bump into me” spiritually, emotionally, mentally, etc. Honestly, days that I have a bad attitude or people leave a sour taste in my mouth, it is because I am so consumed with myself or some “thing” that has caught my attention...and unfortunately that thing has placed itself on the throne where God should be sitting.
If we are to reflect Christ in our lives then our hearts have to be broken, broken over our sin and our struggle to continue returning to our own temptations or as some would say, to our own vomit. What would it look like if we decided to rend our hearts and break away from the things in life that do not fulfill us? I mean, what if we broke away from the sex, the drunkenness, the hate acts: or maybe you deem yourself a good person and do not act on these things. Well, what about lustful thoughts, envious thoughts, hateful reactions, jealousy; maybe you are overly emotional and hang your every emotion on what others say or don't say or do or don't do, etc. It is easy to think that if we do not act on things that it is not a hindrance in life but I beg to differ. When our hearts and minds linger on the things that God so desperately wants us to get rid of, we are licking up our own vomit and digging our own grave. For those of you who know Christ as Savior, you do not have to wait until you get to heaven to be free! For those of you do not know Christ yet, you do not have to change yourself to find perfect unrelenting love.
We can’t echo the heart of God to the world if we are so consumed with other things; if we want to sound like Jesus and echo Him to others then we have remain close to Him, the source of abundant life. Lately, God has been telling me to let Him search my heart and rend it away from anything that would be displeasing to Him. What a scary thing to do…because it hurts for him to search the inner most parts of my heart and see the imperfections. However, by letting Him break my heart I am learning to render my heart and my life to Him. This is when this life becomes truly satisfying. I am able to stand before God and before man pure and holy declaring His love, His peace, His joy, His faithfulness, His grace, His forgiveness, and His unrelenting pursuit of us.
In order to echo the voice and heart of God we have to be in tune with Him. God forgive me, forgive us for being so consumed with ourselves and with what we want; forgive us for not loving You and others first; forgive us for not allowing you to love others through us and declare Your life giving grace to the world.
Luke 6:44-46
"Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."
Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.
A few days ago I was at the WATCH (Waiting Awakened To Change History) prayer meeting here on the mountain. I have only been a few times but knew that I could expect great things from the lives and lips of those around me. I felt compelled to go initially because I have been waiting expectantly to meet with God. You know, I want to have those encounters with the most High God in all His splendor and greatness that I do not know what to do...personally I want to stop breathing for fear of missing something. Sound crazy? If it does, I hope that you grow to desire a close encounter with God or as they say at the WATCH, a manifestation of God's Spirit. If you do not know nor desire God I hope you keep reading anyway...if nothing else you have a story to tell others about this crazy girl on the internet who talks about God all the time. :)
For each of you reading this desperate attempt at writing, I pray that you seek and find and see the glory of the Lord. It might knock you down on your knees or your face, but you will not regret it.
When I first came into the service, I sense a sweet Spirit of the Lord. Of course I knew how to ruin that in the first few minutes by letting my mind wander to the events of the day, the homework I had to finish, the family I was missing, the fact that I could not remember if I put my cell phone on silent (wouldn't want to be embarrassed by it suddenly going off) and so forth. The worst part was when I suddenly felt uncomfortable to stand up, raise my hands, and declare aloud something to the God who saved me from heartache and pain many years ago. Talk about a let-down to God I am sure, but THANKFULLY I came to my senses. With my head bowed, I started to tell God how I can't do this alone...this thing called life...this day to day breathing, sleeping, eating, working, schooling routine that I find myself in these days.
I don't know about you but life with God, especially when I allow Him to have control over my life is the real adventure. So far, I am not disappointed in the adventures of God and I wait expectantly for the ones to come. Tomorrow could be one. Pssshhh...the next few minutes could be one for all I know. Throughout the service, I became more and more aware of the Holy Spirit speaking into my heart (if you are not sure what I mean by this I probably will not be any good at explaining it but you can ask me!)...some of which manifested itself out of my mouth in word or song or something that resembled the two. I was having an amazing time with God in all His greatness...BUT
It was not until the end of the service that I started to feel that uneasiness that I felt in the beginning. Those of you who have had encounters with God probably have experienced that feeling in your gut that tells you that you are about to be asked to do something out of your comfort zone..."Lord WHAT do you WANT me to do?!" I screamed in my heart. Somewhat of an agitated scream but thankfully God forgives and sees past our irritability...He was probably laughing and going "OH yea, Ms. Jess, you think you got it all figured out do ya?" Then...the dear person leading the service (whom I have not asked to use his name so I won't) said that they would play one last song and if anyone needed prayer to come down to the front.
Bahahaha. I laugh because I had just told my roommate that I really wanted prayer warriors to pray for my healing. For those of you who may not know, I have had somewhat severe allergy problems over the last year. Some are hindering to my days being productive. The doctors honestly have not been of much help. I have been rebuking and speaking against this problem in the Name of Jesus for some time now. But nothing miraculous has happened...no physical healing...only more doubt and frustration and discomfort.
As we were singing about God's faithfulness I knew that I was suppose to take a few steps down an aisle (Lord knows the last time I "walked an aisle at church") and ask for prayer. If it is uncomfortable for me, having known God for most of my life at this point, I can only imagine how people feel who have never been in church. Let me just say, DON'T ignore those strong poundings in your heart, or the sickening feeling in your gut that you are suppose to physically move; you know, get up, raise your hand or whatever to make a declaration that you want to have the time of your life by seeking Jesus or to pray...I truly believe that is a physical representation of God urging you to draw closer to Him. Satan would do all he could to glue your booty to the seat. (It is not the moving that saves you or heals you but the believing faith behind the move).
So, with tears already running down my face and most of my mascara and eyeliner already gone (I am such a girl), I made that breathtaking journey down the aisle. Upon arriving at my destination I had every intention of only mentioning my physical ailments but God had other plans...of which I will possibly share at a later time.
DON'T fall asleep yet, PLEASE. The most humbling thing about being up there is the fact that only about three people actually know me...and I would question the depth of them knowing me at that point. I had no idea of the other people in the room either. That did not matter since we all have at least one common factor..we are all sons and daughters of the living God. As everyone gathered around me and like in a movie, the music played in the background (one of the only moments in my life I have had my own background music. ;) ), I could not hold back the tears because in that moment I knew that God was and is able to do all things.
One of the most powerful moments was when we were asked to picture Jesus and to hold on to that picture. I have no idea how the others pictured Jesus, maybe dying on the cross, maybe the resurrection, maybe walking on water; all I could see was Jesus walking toward me, arms out in front of him, palms up, waiting to take my hand. He was moving toward me and asking me to take the step out and take his hand, to latch onto Him and never ever let go. I felt overwhelmed in my heart and I almost lost my breath. Jesus-the Son of God-wanting me. I was reminded of the woman in the Bible who just wanted to touch Jesus' robe as he passed through the crowd in order to be healed. What FAITH she must have had.
I was on a spiritual high when I left. I had not planned for any of that to happen, but that is how God works. I had a moment of very deep faith that God would do what I had asked at God's throne. Of course, the next day, doubt set in. I am being vulnerable when I say that I wish I had a faith like the woman who reached out and touched Jesus, but the reality is that I need God's help. You see, I don't know about the rest of you, but in my life it is much easier to pray for others to be healed and believe it can be done than it is to pray and believe for myself.
Weird how that works huh? My thoughts have been in the past, why would God want to heal me or answer my prayers? Why would I think that God could heal someone else but not heal me?
God is continually working in my heart that He loves me enough to perform miraculous wonders in my life. (Funny how He has shown this to me many times and yet I still doubt. Shame on me.) It is ironic that I can see Jesus in my heart reaching out to me but still have trouble touching Him and believing Him. I am trusting God for miracles now because I know He hears my prayers and cares for me his daughter just the same way He cares for YOU, believer or not, He loves you.
I shared this long drawn out story to say BELIEVE God for great things! Ask Him, He loves you. Cry out to Him, He will dry your tears. Step out in the aisle, He will meet you at the point of your need.
Rend your heart from the things holding you back and let God render your heart and restore you. In the mean time, I am down on my knees praying that God forgive my unbelief and to SHOW OUT in my life because He gets all the glory, honor, and praise.
With Love,
Jessica
RENDER YOUR HEART...Many of you are probably wondering what that could possibly mean. I heard a song on the radio by a Christian artist and in the lyrics he was saying to "rend your heart." I am sometimes intelligent, but I had NO idea as to what that could mean. Therefore, I went on a journey to find out what someone is DOING when they REND their hearts. Rend is another word for separation, for splitting, for ripping, for scratching...does NOT sound very pleasant does it? Personally, I picture a cat fight...literally or figuratively. :)
But what was he saying to split your heart from? Well...I could guess and talk about that later! I like what that the word render means something a little different...and that is where I want to start.
To render-to melt down-to give up-to yield-to submit-to reflect-to impart-to restore-to echo...
These synonyms may not seem like much at first, but on this little journey called life, I have discovered that we all, no matter what our faith, religious beliefs, ethnicity, or cultural background submit our inner most being or our hearts to something or perhaps to someone. We reflect something or someone. One of my favorites among the list of words is "to echo." I will tell you all (the few of you that get a hold of this crazy attempt to have a voice and possibly write somethiing that can even possibly make a difference in someone's life) later why it is one of my favorites...
My desire in writing on this blog (after spending several hours of my day on a computer for work) is to hopefully share things about life. A few things about me you will find, but I hope that in reading the posts that I do write, you will find something greater to look at...or to search for.
Join me on this attempted journey and let me know your thoughts...I hope to keep it up but we shall see what my commitment level is!
Blessings!
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