There are times when I long for the old. Maybe not necessarily what used to be, but more for simplicity. Something that just calms your heart. A warm cup of coffee, and book, and no worries. I have been having a real time of reflection and thinking upon life and where the Lord has me right now, where I long to be, what my wants and desires are, and just where I am realistically. I think it is okay to dream. To want for the future and even get excited about what the future might hold, but I also try to keep my heart grounded. I try not to get in that all-encompassing daydream for the future. I try not to get ahead of where the Lord has me right now, even at times I think it may be a little easier to look past where I am right now and think on the future.
I have been praying a lot here lately about what the Lord wants me to do with this time that I have right now. I feel like some big decisions are around the corner, and just asking Him to show me where He desires to use me and what He desires to do with my time and my heart and my energies. That prayer being something that has been becoming a recurrent theme here in the past week especially, the Lord gently slapped me across the face last night with an answer. It seems to be the answer that has also become a recurrent theme in the past month and a half. This theme in my life is not something that I really love because I am not very good at it. It is called...drum roll please...waiting patiently. Waiting on the Lord and the Lord, ALONE. Have you ever been in a time of waiting?
I have the opportunity to speak in a conference for teen girls coming up very soon. To tell you that I am excited about this would be the understatement of the century. I have felt like the Lord would have me work and share my story with teen girls for a VERY, very long time. Over and over again I have felt the Lord speak this into my heart, especially when I was in the midst of a battle with my flesh over a serious stronghold. I have felt he would use me for Him in some sort of way with what I have struggled with in the past. Out of nowhere, quite frankly, I was asked to be apart of this conference. I get to speak to teen girls about eating issues and really more about the idols we hold in our hearts and how we put them upon the throne of our hearts instead of our Sweet Jesus. I get to talk about my journey and how the Lord has wooed me to Himself. As I was searching though my journals of the past 5-6 years, the Lord really showed me something I could truly use where i am right now. He also showed me how much of a pattern He has with me. Literally in ALL of my journals the phrase "wait patiently" was written over and over again. Crazy, right? Over and over and over again, here lately the Lord shows me He has a plan with what He is doing in me and through me and will do for me if I would just trust him and WAIT on Him. Not wait on a specific person, but wait on Him. Another word that was constantly written over and over and over again was the word trust. As I was going through my 11 journals I was amazed at 1- how much the Lord has chosen to do (and I don't say this in a prideful way, I say this in a the Lord is awesome because I was an absolute MESS) and 2- how much of what He has said in the past is still so relate able to where I am right now and 3- how the Lord has done what He has spoken to my heart so far.
I think in a time of uncertainty the Lord has been so gracious to let some things happen for me that are things I have prayed over for years. He has allowed some things to come into my life and has shown me even when I am in a desperate cry of uncertainty and misunderstanding that He is on the throne, He knows what He is doing, and He will do what He has promised. I may not get to choose how that looks or what or when that will be, but He has a plan and He is not someone who gives empty promises. It is not a coincidence that I have kept journals over the trials of life and my everyday and where the Lord has brought me from. It is not coincidence that the Lord had Autumn ask me to be apart of the conference. It is not coincidence that there are phrases written over and over and over again in my journals that the Lord is speaking into my heart right now. The Lord is good and gracious and does not change. He longs for his children to be secure in HIm. And Him alone. Not a dream, but in Him.
Have you ever been in a place where the Lord, even though speaking so gently to your heart, has to absolutely flood you with the truth of who He is? The Lord loves me so much because I know He is doing this. In times of sadness or times of loss or uncertainty which is where I am at right now or feel like I am at right now, the Lord shows me His love has not grown cold. Last night in some serious time of prayer I was praying that the Lord would show me where He wants me. It doesn't matter where I want to be, but where does he want me? What does HE want me to do? I have come to a point of frustration with myself and I just really, really want to do what HE wants...not me. Because His will is going to prevail at all costs, so regardless of what I may want to happen or what I may desire, I think it would be MUCH easier to just submit to His plan for me. What is it, I ask over and over and over again. What do you desire for me to learn, what do you desire to do in this time?! After I prayed these words last night I looked up Streams in the Desert. What was the devotional entitled, "Wait on God's Time'. It was about Sarah and Abraham. "If God had told Abraham in Haran that he must wait for thirty years until he pressed the promised child to his bosom, his heart would have failed him. So, in gracious love, the length of the weary years was hidden, and only as they were nearly spent, and there were only a few more month to sait, God told him that "according to the time of life, Sarah shall have a son" (Gen 18:14).
"Take heart, waiting one, thou waitest for One who cannot disappoint thee; and who will not be five minutes behind the appointed moment; ere long "your sorrow shall be turned into joy".
As if that was not enough, I went to my bed got out my Bible and my Charles Spurgeon devotional and started to read and digest it. "Get thee up into the high mountain." Isaiah 40:9 "Rouse yourself, O believer, from your low condition! Cast away your sloth, your lethargy, your coldness, or whatever interferes with your pure love for Christ, your soul's Husband. What beguiles you into such folly that you remain in the pit when you may sit on a throne? Do not live in the lowlands of bondage now that mountain liberty has been conferred on you. Do not be satisfied any long with your dwarfish attainments, but press forward to more sublime and heavenly things.
I went on to read Isaiah 40:9-319 Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good news; [1]
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news; [2]
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold your God!”
10 Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has measured [3] the Spirit of the Lord,
or what man shows him his counsel?
14 Whom did he consult,
and who made him understand?
Who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?
15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
16 Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
17 All the nations are as nothing before him,
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
18 To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?
19 An idol! A craftsman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
and casts for it silver chains.
20 He who is too impoverished for an offering
chooses wood [4] that will not rot;
he seeks out a skillful craftsman
to set up an idol that will not move.
21 Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
23 who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
25 To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
Okay, God...you have got my attention. Whatever the future holds, I know the Lord is going to do something with this time that He has me in. He will do good because He is good. And I also believe He will continue to nail this into my head until I believe Him. Oh, simplicity in Him. Oh, to not only KNOW He is better and His plans are better, to BELIEVE Him.
Wanted to share how sweet our God is to me. Love you all, and HAPPY Thanksgiving! love love love you.
Ash
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