You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'hope' tag.
-John 1:5
I have wanted, for so long now, to be able to write something of substance here. I have wanted to make something tangible out of what has been my experience with God for the past few weeks. I’ve wanted to say simple truths in elegant ways, and leave my dear readers with nuggets of wisdom and truth to apply to their own lives.
I just can’t. Tonight, there were only tears.
God broke me down tonight, starting with a particular worship song that was played at a college group I visited with some friends, and finishing with a blog written by a friend/leader who is now in Thailand working with NightLight Jewelry.
I wish I had something to write, but I just don’t.
There is so much pain and darkness in this world it can be altogether overwhelming at times. But God is the star in my cloudy sky, the One who shines through all the heartbreak and longing and injustice. He alone can save the day. He alone is all we will ever need and more.
~*~
You are everything I long for
You are everything I need
And I can’t help but give my life
You are everything I long for
Jesus, I am so in love with You
When the sky is dark and cloudy
When the world is crashing ’round me
You’ll be there to light my way
You’ll be there to lift my face
You are everything I long for
Of course, it is the middle of the night. My heart is so awake now, and my thoughts are zooming along on a path I wish to document. At night, or in the “wee” hours of the morning, life feels so epic- almost like a movie. I get these inexplicable feelings of adventure and grandness, of true love and an awesome, yet-to-be-unlocked potential. It is in these times I feel I can see everything clearly; I understand the gravity of all the elements of my life, and of God’s story for humanity. I wish I could capture this feeling and re-experience it at will, but alas, that will never be. I will wake up tomorrow feeling as normal as ever.
At this particular moment in time, I feel as though I’ve been given a glimpse into the “possible” future. Anything and everything is possible with God (Luke 18:27). If we simply trust Him with all that is within us, yield ourselves to His will, and put in whatever effort He asks of us, there is no reason why we should not have an incredible, adventurous life. So many people, it seems, get stuck at the very first step. They act as though trusting God too much will cause Him to fail them, which couldn’t be farther from the truth.
There have been plenty of times I’ve had to tell God I wasn’t ready to trust Him for something. Usually, I’m too afraid to let it go, give up control, and depend on Him to bring about the outcome He chooses. What if it’s different from the outcome I want? What will I do then?
In most of these times, I fight Him for ten to fifteen minutes, realize resistance is futile, and let Him have His way. They’re rather comical moments for us.
~*~
There is someone on my mind at this midnight hour. This someone is quite an amazing person, in my humble opinion. I feel that they could be an incredibly powerful vessel for Christ, that they could make such a huge impact in His name if they reached their full potential. At the moment, I can see one hinderance in their way: lack of direction. There is so little one can do without direction from God, except to wait.
Brian Kiley, our soon-to-be-former college pastor, gave a message on hope last year for Advent that really stuck with me. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he made the point that the words “hope” and “wait” were essentially the same in the original language of the passage we were studying. Suddenly, I clearly saw the nature of waiting on the Lord for what it is: an attitude of expectancy, that at any moment, God is going to show up.
In March 2008, I was lamenting the fact that God was asking me to “wait” for something. It’s been one year and three months, and I’m still waiting. Since then, however, I have learned how to wait in hope, with the expectation of a fulfilled promise. I’m anything but an expert at waiting patiently, but I have definitely learned to wait in a much different and more productive way than that of the selfish fretting in which I used to engage.
I’ve been praying for this person on my mind, that God would direct them and guide them, giving them a vision for the ministry of their life. I greatly desire to see them used by God; I feel they have a fantastic journey ahead of them.
~*~
There is nothing more I want than to sit at Jesus’ feet and just be, and then to let my life simply tumble out as He would have it as a result of that. I want to start each day with fire in my heart, overflowing with passion and love that will propel me through the monotony of everyday and into the kingdom of God. I want to give up everything, even if it hurts, just so I can watch God move in mighty ways. I want to receive a vision for the work that He has prepared for me, and then stop at nothing to do it to the best of my ability, including Him every step of the way. I want to pray for people who will never know I did so, and sing songs to Jesus that no one else will ever hear. I want Him to break me down so that I can see my heart for what it truly is, and then tell me that He loves me ridiculously in spite of that.
In short, I want God. I want the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, unbridled and out of the box. And the best part about that is that He wants it too. No matter how weak I am, no matter how short I come up, He will fill in the gaps with His grace and give me His heart if I give Him mine. What a beautiful marriage that is! I truly can think of nothing better.
I can’t even tell you how much I am in love with the kingdom of God. Every time I talk about it, I bubble over with excitement. I start talking faster and faster, and my ears heat up and turn red, and sometimes my hands even shake. Today I even started crying. The kingdom of God does weird things to me.
I have learned so many things and grown in so many ways in the past week. I can’t even begin to attempt to share it all with you. God’s been weeding things out of my life lately, more than ever before you might say. He silenced the Enemy’s voice in my mind last week and gave me tools to combat it in the future. He healed a very tender open wound and purified my heart of any of its ugly remains. He removed my feelings of urgent frustration over an extremely difficult relationship. He reassured me that my basic needs will always be met. He revealed a couple of next steps in His plans for my life. He gave me confidence in my decision to stop being anxious for a romantic relationship and instead wait for Him to arrange it. He essentially took all the junk that’s been crowding my head and heart, boxed it up, and threw it in the spiritual woodchipper.
Now, to fill the empty spaces the junk once occupied, He is teaching me constantly. Lessons like the value of accountability and what it means to FULLY trust Him. I’m learning the simplicity and importance of casting all my anxieties on Him and what my identity as His daughter means. He’s beginning to show me what the scope of the ministry He has prepared for me is. He is asking me to give Him more: more trust, more faith, more love, more sacrifice, more worship. He is asking me to expect Him to show up everywhere, to expect Him to do miracles around me. He is asking me to set my eyes on Him and forget that peripheral vision exists. It’s exactly like the song (as of course I relate everything to one song or another):
The cross before me, the world behind; no turning back, raise the banner high! It’s not for us; it’s all for You.
That is the perfect picture of my life at this moment. I long for it to always be the perfect picture of my life. There is nothing else worth gazing at but the cross. I have not a single urge to look back and even consider what things would be like had I not chosen to accept this calling, had I never written “COUNT ME IN!!!” on my bedroom wall. Any beauty that my heart reflects, any wisdom that passes my lips, any love that flows forth from me, is all because of Jesus. None of that is Courtney. I absolutely love that fact. Dying to self is an incredible experience. Each time I surrender another part of me to Him, He grows my maturity, and suddenly I am producing His fruit. It’s a beautiful gift; He rewards us for our submission by making us look more and more like Him. There is no way we can lay any claim to that kind of character, because it isn’t us. It’s God in us! How awesome is that? The God of the Universe wants to be reflected in us!
My life has taken its craziest turns in the past 3 years. I graduated high school at the tender age of 16. I moved to Canada all by myself and lived there for a year. I danced among some of the greatest professional ballet dancers in the world. I returned home with a severe injury. I started college (something I literally thought would NEVER happen). I finally fell in love with Jesus. I discovered Christ-centered friendships and the importance and beauty of church. I stopped talking to my dad for 8 months. I received a call to full-time ministry. I changed my major a hundred times (or so it seemed). My relationship with my dad was miraculously redeemed. I moved out of my mother’s house (much to her chagrin) and into my father’s. I stopped dancing for the first time in 16 and a half years. I quit school and then decided to go back.
And then there were the firsts. I was surrounded by all non-Christians for the first time. I experienced truly having more than just a “crush” on a guy and then got rejected, big time. I flew internationally by myself multiple times. I didn’t dance for six months. I didn’t guard my heart and fell in love. I began to rebel against my mother. I got asked out on a date for the first time and then it never happened. I was at the heart of a major “drama.” I dated someone. I dyed my hair and got my nose pierced. I became a night owl. I miraculously got over my first love. I knowingly hurt a friend deeply. I dated someone again. I got a piece of my heart broken.
Through all of these events, I could have been completely broken. I could have lost my way and gotten caught up in the rollercoaster of action that seemed to be the new normal for me. Instead, God moved. He gave me a gift of faith, and that is the only way that my relationship with Him is where it is. He used each one of the things to refine me and grow me- even the blatant mistakes! He redeemed all of it. On top of that, I have come through all of that chaos peaceful and assured of God’s plan more than ever before. I am so in awe of Him that I hardly have anything else to say. My only hope and prayer is that someone reading this will begin to believe in His power for their life as well! There is power in testimony.
(Again with the songs) There have been 2 songs that have struck me as perfect descriptions of my life. The first is “I Will Waste My Life” by Misty Edwards. Word for word, I could have written that song. It is my experience and my heart. The second is “I Don’t Regret” by Barlow Girl. Again, a song I could have written. I don’t think there is any better way to convey everything I’ve been trying to say to you than for you to simply listen to these, so I’ll close with this (couldn’t find the Barlow Girl one anywhere, sorry):
Ahhh it makes me so emotional! :)
