Bam!

If you know me even a little, then you probably know that I tend to think….think a lot.  Sometimes to the point where it gets in the way and puts up walls (not a good thing) and stops things from going from my head to my heart.  The last few days I got all caught up in the thinking.  The heady, here’s what experience tells me.  I “know” the truth, but I couldn’t shake the all over the board emotions ranging from confused to frustrated to happy to disappointed to sad to lonely to okay to everything else.  I bounced around and couldn’t find my footing on the solid rock.

Until today. I sat in class and I tried to pay attention and engage in conversation, but every once in a while my thoughts would overwhelm me still.  Until I heard these words, “Follow Me.”  Funny thing is that we were talking about ministering to youth and I really don’t remember how that fit in and neither does my roomie (I asked her later).  So then, God immediately brought to mind the verse below:

“…what is that to you?  You follow Me!”

My reaction: Whoa. Lord, you are so here.  You are so getting my attention.  Because really.  What is it to me that ___ is doing this or that God is working in that way in their lives.  Even, who is that to me and what is that to you that I’m working in a way you didn’t expect.  When all I need to focus on is following Him then everything else fades away.  Africa fades away. Lindo fades away. Thrive fades away. Hope House kids fade away. Marriage fades away.

Yes, good things and yes, serving is good, but He just wants me to “be.”  He loves me when I’m just sitting on the floor with Him leaning against my bed.  He wants me to follow Him and be with Him.  He wants to step out only on His firm foundation.

“It had opened her eyes to the fact that right down in the depths of her own heart she really had but one passionate desire, not for the things which the Shepherd had promised but for himself.  All she wanted was to be allowed to follow him forever. “Nothing else really matters only to love him and to do what he tells me.” -Hinds Feet in High Places

Nothing Missing, Nothing Broken

He calls us to be salty.

To let the world see the difference.

He calls us to repentance.

To stand on the promise that we are chosen by God, holy and dearly loved.

He calls us to love and walk as a new creation in Christ.

To experience the Hands of the Healer.

He says “Follow Me.” Immediately.

To show us that he doesn’t run away from our needs, even needs wrongly met, because they reveal something about us that He wants to transform, to redeem, to deepen our roots through relationship with Him.

He looks at the Samaritan woman with love and maybe we should say: “Look at what potential she has for God.  See how hard she’s trying to find the right thing in all the wrong places.”

To ask us if we looking at messy, real lives and saying “that’s wrong” or if we are penetrating the walls and masks to seek why they are in such trouble in order to love them where they are?

He reminds us that our message is not that we have it all together.  Our message is that we know the one who does!

To let us rest in shalom שָׁלוֹם: nothing missing. nothing broken. life as it was meant to be.