I’m so very thankful. I have millions of things to be thankful for, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have struggles. It means that I am thankful despite my surroundings and circumstances because God is good. All the time.
Today is just one of those “Jesus come today” days.
I am always shocked in the moments when God speaks to me and uses me despite my brokenness. How He encourages me to reach out and lean in even when I feel like I don’t have the strength. And then I go there. I think about Him on the cross, when they beat Him and put vinegar in His mouth, and they are screaming at Him, and He says “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). I bet there might even been moments when He was in His human form that He thought He couldn’t go on. I wonder if He prayed, “Come on Daddy, can’t we just skip this part…” I don’t know if Jesus really said that however, in Mark 14:32-36 it says:
32 They went to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, “Sit here while I go and pray.” 33 He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he became deeply troubled and distressed. 34 He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
35 He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. 36 “Abba, Father,”[a] he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
And I think there is no way I can’t reach out. Because He is in me. And I don’t just say that because I think it’s what I should say, I say it because even if it’s hard, I want more of Him in me and less of me in me. So I do what’s hard. I do things that He asks me to do, even if I’m uncomfortable and sometimes it hurts. And sometimes I think “really, that can’t be something I want to do, so it must be You Lord.
I know obedience is better than sacrifice. (1 Sam 15:22) and sometimes I have to do both, being obedient to God is a sacrifice. A sacrifice of my wants and needs to put someone else before me. And truthfully, I hate it sometimes.
It makes things seem dark. “If God loves me, then why?”
You know what I’d tell someone else? “Because He has better plans for you than you do” but that feels like a bunch of crap when someone says it to you… and it feels like a bunch of crap when you say it to yourself, even if you know it’s true.
I keep trying to remember that it is darkest before the dawn, and joy comes in the morning. I was talking to my friend this morning and I was reminded of John 1:5
I started to cry. I couldn’t even say it without crying.
That is truth right there.
So I take it all, the praises, the prayers, my gifts, the sacrifice, the obedience, I take it all to Him. Let Him figure it all out. I’m too tired, too weary, too pukey, too a lot of things to figure it out. All I know is that I love Him, and in my brokenness before Him, He will make me whole and healed.
Praying today, that in spite of me, He will be glorified.
1 Sam 15:22 But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.
John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it
Today is just one of those “Jesus come today” days.
I am always shocked in the moments when God speaks to me and uses me despite my brokenness. How He encourages me to reach out and lean in even when I feel like I don’t have the strength. And then I go there. I think about Him on the cross, when they beat Him and put vinegar in His mouth, and they are screaming at Him, and He says “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). I bet there might even been moments when He was in His human form that He thought He couldn’t go on. I wonder if He prayed, “Come on Daddy, can’t we just skip this part…” I don’t know if Jesus really said that however, in Mark 14:32-36 it says:
32 They went to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, “Sit here while I go and pray.” 33 He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he became deeply troubled and distressed. 34 He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
35 He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. 36 “Abba, Father,”[a] he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
And I think there is no way I can’t reach out. Because He is in me. And I don’t just say that because I think it’s what I should say, I say it because even if it’s hard, I want more of Him in me and less of me in me. So I do what’s hard. I do things that He asks me to do, even if I’m uncomfortable and sometimes it hurts. And sometimes I think “really, that can’t be something I want to do, so it must be You Lord.
I know obedience is better than sacrifice. (1 Sam 15:22) and sometimes I have to do both, being obedient to God is a sacrifice. A sacrifice of my wants and needs to put someone else before me. And truthfully, I hate it sometimes.
It makes things seem dark. “If God loves me, then why?”
You know what I’d tell someone else? “Because He has better plans for you than you do” but that feels like a bunch of crap when someone says it to you… and it feels like a bunch of crap when you say it to yourself, even if you know it’s true.
I keep trying to remember that it is darkest before the dawn, and joy comes in the morning. I was talking to my friend this morning and I was reminded of John 1:5
I started to cry. I couldn’t even say it without crying.
That is truth right there.
So I take it all, the praises, the prayers, my gifts, the sacrifice, the obedience, I take it all to Him. Let Him figure it all out. I’m too tired, too weary, too pukey, too a lot of things to figure it out. All I know is that I love Him, and in my brokenness before Him, He will make me whole and healed.
Praying today, that in spite of me, He will be glorified.
1 Sam 15:22 But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.
John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it
Comments