Hephzibah

חֶפְצִי־בָהּ Hephzi-bah: “My delight is in her”

from chephets: delight, pleasure; hence (abstractly) desire; concretely, a valuable thing; hence (by extension) a matter (as something in mind) — acceptable, delight(-some), desire, things desired, matter, pleasant(-ure), purpose, willingly.

from chaphets: to be pleased with, desire.  A primitive root; properly, to incline to; by implication (literally but rarely) to bend; figuratively, to be pleased with, desire — X any at all, (have, take) delight, desire, favour, like, move, be (well) pleased, have pleasure, will, would.

Let it soak in…that’s how He thinks of me and you.

Still Here Waiting…

My head automatically tries to see everything from all sorts of angles.  For example, a simple decision about whether I should go to the Lion Park turns into a litany of streaming thought: if I go then I won’t have as much time to run, but then I might be missing out on hanging out with people and then again I would have to get up early and maybe I need to just have a day where I can do whatever I want, although, I don’t always get these opportunities to do things off base so maybe I should jump on it, but I like to sleep in and it is a day off and well I don’t know.  I play out all the pros and cons.  Sometimes this can be a great help when really weighing in on decisions, but other times I end up torn between the choices and pondering for a while.

Then on the other hand, I make a decision and that’s that.  There’s no question.  I will follow through and there’s no wavering.  Before I started running yesterday, I decided to run a 10k.  So I did.  I decide to climb a rock.  So I do.  No matter the cost, the time, the sacrifice, I follow through with the decision.

I live in this juxtaposition of knowing exactly what I want and yet seeing all the implications of all the potential choices.  Yet, as I’ve written about before.  I’m in a time of waiting.  I would much rather go find all the choices and play out the scenarios in my head so I can at least be torn over them and then decide.  Instead, I trust, I rest, I ask, I set my eyes, I wait.

Loving on the Driscoll Sermons Again

Trial: Marriage and Men

Trial: Marriage and Women

Yikes…Mark Driscoll sure knows how to bring the heat and speak some godly truth.  Here are some of the key points or statements that I found particularly interesting from these two sermons:

• Ephesians 5:25. Husbands are to love their wives as the church. Is he selfish or selfless does he take from you or give himself up from you.
• Some of you ladies are very foolish on who you spend time with. You’re like Eve.
• You men are dating and wanting to marry God’s daughters.  Do you really think you can lie, manipulate, hit her, neglect her, abuse her, put your hands all over her? You are damaging His daughter. God is her Father and you cannot think that after abusing His daughter that you can cry out for His help and ask for help to do it some more….there is no excuse for any man who claims the name of Christ to treat a woman in a dishonorable, disrespectful way
• Don’t just date a man you can put up with.  Date a man you can trust and respect.  Date someone who is godly not one who is harsh, inconsiderate, immature.
• Marry a man who you agree with the course of his life and if you don’t agree with the course of his life then you shouldn’t marry him because wherever he is going that is where you’re going and once you are married then you’re going there too.

While we’re at it….here are some points from Francis and Lisa Chan’s podcast on Christ-Centered Marriages.(What can I say…I have to listen to something while I’m running!)

• The goal is not to have a happy marriage. You can have a happy marriage and still come to the end of your life and realize that you didn’t please God. The idea is having a Christ-centered marriage and one of the by-products is a happy, fulfilled marriage.
• Those who are most ready for marriage are those who need it the least. That doesn’t mean there’s not a desire to get married.
• I found life in Christ. I don’t need somebody to give me life.
• Think through ahead of time. Are we after the same thing? Do we both want God to be number one in our lives?
• There’s this mission first and my marriage is a part of that and comes under that. I don’t have time.  There’s more to life.

Scenic Route

Here are a few quotes from WIld Goose Chase:

• He loves leading us down the scenic route because that’s where we learn our most valuable lessons
• “Alexandria, Minnesota” !!!!!! whoohoo
• Because we have a natural tendency to remember what we should forget and forget what we should remember.

I’m on the scenic route.  Although, let’s be honest, sometimes the scenic route toughing it out through the skunk, cow, or chicken smell.  There are valleys and mountains.  Somedays I find myself saying, “I’m done.  I don’t want to. I don’t want to do this anymore.”  Other days, the sun peaks out a little and I’ve got a speck of hope keeping me on the road.  I’ve learned some lessons so far, but I know more will come.  I’m learning to let go of the “whys.”  I’m trying so hard to differentiate between truths and lies.  I’m seeking Him.  I’m begging Him to tell me the truth so I don’t keep buying into the lies.  So, today, in response to a longing in my heart, I’m unplugging from the internet and going on an adventure. Alone. Because I don’t need to always have a boyfriend hold my hand. Not saying that I don’t desire one nor that they aren’t ridiculous fun.  Just saying that I need to learn another lesson. 

Signing off until I’ve gone on an adventure.

Depending on Others

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand p. 143

“…If I found a job, a project, an idea or a person I wanted–I’d have to depend on the whole world.  Everything has strings leading to everything else.  We’re all so tied together. We’re all in a net, the net is waiting, and we’re pushed into it by one single desire.  You want a thing and it’s precious to you.  Do you know who is standing ready to tear it out of your hands? You can’t know, it may be so involved and so far away, but someone is ready, and you’re afraid of them all.  And you cringe and you crawl and you beg and you accept them–just so they’ll let you keep it. And look at whom you come to accept.”

….”What do you want? Perfection?”

“–or nothing. So, you see, I take the nothing.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom.”

“You call that freedom?”

“To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”