Prickly People

"Prickly people." This is a term my friend uses to describe people who rub you the wrong way. God answered my prayer this week. I asked God to use me. I want to pour out my life as a living sacrifice to be used by him. This week he tried to use me and I failed miserably. God put someone in my life this week to show love to, but this person gets on my nerves. So for the last several days I've lived in bondage by choosing to be selfish and drawing boundary lines. This is MY SPACE, MY HOME, MY TIME!!! After voicing my problems to a girlfriend this morning, the Holy Spirit was speaking to me. God tried to use me to show love and I can do nothing but complain. God, please forgive me! It's easy to love our friends (that we choose), but God needs us to love the un-lovely, the un-loving. He needs us to go into the world, into the depths and shine HIS light. Fill me, Lord with your love that does not fail. My flesh fails. I need your life in me to flow out of me. His love softens the touch of the prickly people. His love never fails.

Waiting

Seems I'm always waiting on something. It just comes in cycles. Waiting on God to do this or that, to see just what he has in store. For months I've been waiting in a career situation. Now that it has been resolved and I've seen God work all the way through it, I'm waiting on something else. This time it's a family situation. Family is not perfect--we know none of us are. Sometimes the waiting is fearful. Sometimes it is painful. Sometimes it is exciting. Right now, it's painful. It hurts my heart. But in the turmoil I look up to God and know that I must honor him by praising his name and abiding in his joy. He has a plan and I'm just a very small part of it. There's a much bigger picture. I know that he has to work his purpose in each of us and in our families.
I was talking to a friend of mine today, and that's where she is--waiting. Her husband has this plan and dream of a business for them. She's fearful. But, by honoring God by following her husband, God's plan will surface. Following and waiting is fearful. It's like stepping off a cliff and free falling--because we're not in control--God is. Isn't that where we want to be? In HIS plan. Here's to the free fall and the liberation it brings. I trust YOU God. Not my thoughts, fears, or reservations, but what YOU have in store!

Listen to the song "While I'm Waiting" on John Waller's website--powerful!

http://www.myspace.com/johnwaller

LIVE IN IT!

AH HA!! That's the moment I had this morning. Amazing when that happens. I've been in a valley and kept questioning...WHY????? And, today, God finally showed me. All of this time I've been trying to figure it all out. What great sin is in my life? What am I not doing right? Why am I here, at this place God? It wasn't anything I had done, but a work he was doing IN me.

Isn't that just like we humans? Trying to figure it all out--what have WE done? It's all about us, right? NO NO NO! God speaks loudly, but we are too busy listening to the lies of how incapable and ill equipped we are and how we are destined for failure. These are the lies, the whispers in our ear that we yield to, when God has SO MANY GREATER THINGS FOR US!!!!

God speaks in many ways, and to me it is in music so many times. A friend and I were talking a whiile ago about this valley I was in and she quoted some words to a song:

"...(His) Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy..."

That's where I was, feeling like I was about to break, and then--it happened. Just like a sunrise peeking over the hillside was the light I was looking for. And today, here I sit, basking in the joy and love that only God can give.

As I drove to work this morning, I was listening to this song (the same one my friend quoted from above). God began to show me. He opened my eyes. It's not all about you or where you are or what you've done, it's only about HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU and how I want you to KNOW that--REALLY KNOW THAT!!! Here you have been knowing that I love you, but not living in it. And, oh my gosh, when his love rushed over me it was so OVERWHELMING!!!! He loves us that much...more than we could ever imagine.

Don't just know it--live in it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoC1ec-lYps He Loves Us, Kim Walker