"You know He's doin' it...God is doin' a nu thang...you know He's doin' it (Yo, Who's doin' it?) God is doin' a nu thang..." Thank you, DC Talk!
Well, it's been awhile since I posted, so how in the world are you? The Lord is doing a new thing in me you guys...I don't even really have a handle on all of it and am still processing most of it so this may just be nothing more than a jumbled mess, but here goes.
You know how you can be a Christian for quite a number of years and get to a point or go through a phase where you feel like you've heard it all? Every story is familiar from Noah to Moses, and from Peter to Paul. Well, I gotta tell ya, the Lord has been lighting me up lately! We all grow stale from time to time don't we? We all sort of plateau and even out and just plain don't grow very much. Well, for me it started with the soil. Yes, Matthew Chapter 13 with the Parable of the Sower. I read this in my daily quiet time one day and after that I kept hearing it everywhere, on the radio, on TV, everywhere. I thought, "The Lord must be trying to tell me something." I kept thinking, "How come I can't hear God right now?" "How come I'm not growing?" "How come I'm not bearing fruit right now?" The Lord told me, "because you have no depth of soil". What is the condition of my heart? What is the condition of the soil or the ground where the Lord is trying to work? So, that's been working on me...then...JUMP!
Next subject, my family. For all of my life my mother has gone through "well days, weeks, months, and years" and "sick days, months, weeks, and years". It's the lovely roller-coaster cycle that accompanies bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia. When I was little and she would check in to a hospital, I thought they were going to make her all better. As I grew older, I realized it didn't always "take"...at least not for very long. I went through a lot of years of being angry. I thought if my mother loved me she would get better....for me. Well, when I finally came to terms and accepted the fact that she might not EVER get better or be completely healed on this side of eternity, I was reminded that I just have time to love her and let her know that. Well, then I got married and then I had two children...had a life and family of my own that I focused on and got wrapped up in. I actually thought, "Oh, we've had children now who are her grandchildren, maybe she'll stay well for them..." Nope. They really haven't been a part of her life and she hasn't been a part of theirs. Okay, I can deal with that and move on...she hasn't been there for all of the most important parts of my life (graduation, wedding, birth of children, etc.) so why do I need her now all of a sudden? Ugh...stab in the heart, knot in my stomach...I haven't had her all of my life...why now? Well, the Lord wants me to see something. Through this latest episode in the hospital with my mom while she was in ICU...one night I went in to say goodnight and it was just me and her. It wasn't even 5 minutes and I told her goodnight and kissed her on the head and right then and there, God gave me a phrase. I tried brushing it off and I left and went down the elevator, into the parking lot, got in my truck and started driving home. I was driving down the street and God kept saying the phrase to me over and over again and then the flood of tears began. The phrase He gave me was..."Daughter of God". God told me, "Wendy, your mom is not only your mom...she is My daughter." I realized that He wanted me to see her the way He does. In that one moment standing at her bedside He said to me, "She is my daughter, you are my daughter, and your daughter is my daughter...I've got you ALL under my protective wings." and I just felt completely surrounded with His love. The Lord reminded me yet again that I don't have much time left...I only have time to love her and to tell her so. I shared this with a friend the next day since it was fresh on my heart and he said, "So you're already through it..." and I said, "No, God just told me this last night...I'm still digesting it..." and this came to mind: "12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained." --Philippians 3:12-16 (ESV)
And finally, two revolutionary thoughts that are sermons in themselves have just entered my realm of thinking and they haven't quite settled in yet...I'm still processing them. I don't want to forget them though, so I need to write them down so bear with me while I sort of take notes on the thought process in my brain. Two Wednesday nights ago during our Wednesday night devotional time, our youth pastor said a phrase that landed in my brain and then exploded like a firecracker...gross, right? Sorry....don't know really how else to describe it. It might not strike you the same way it did me, but I gotta write it down. He said, "When David wrote the Psalms he hadn't seen the cross yet, and you have." ...................................... In the 15 years I have been a Christian and for the time I have studied the Scriptures and the Psalms and have held God's Word in my hands...I have never thought about that before in my entire life. Again, not that I have already obtained anything, but that LIT ME UP. We have been studying the Old Testament in Sunday School and to be honest parts of it have been like drudgery...drudging...dragging..."I've heard this before" boring and once in a while God will literally LIGHT IT UP in a new way. That's what this was for me. I was in bad need of a POW kind of a thought and got it just when I needed it most.
You guys don't understand...music is my life. When I was going through everything with my mom growing up, my getaway was music. Music understood me, embraced me, was my outlet, everything. When God took music away from me my freshman year of college when He called me into the ministry, I literally mourned and was in literal anguish. Little did I know, God was going to give music back to me in a "new" or rather, nu way. :) He graced me with the most wonderful Christian friends and accountability partners who just happened to be in a praise band and they let me in. Later, God worked it out so I could play the guitar...later again, God gave me new words and wrote poems and songs in me that He put to music. Many of those songs were inspired by the Psalms. Now, reading the Psalms for me is all new again. To view the Psalms AFTER receiving a knowledge of the Truth and AFTER encountering the Savior of the World and AFTER feeling, knowing, and experiencing His Love first-hand...well, I don't know about you, but that gives me a reason to PRAISE the Lord like never before! That totally transforms my worship and my life.
The second mind-altering thought was about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and our youth pastor said it at the Revival last weekend. How much more basic can you get in the Bible than the story of Adam and Eve? How familiar are we all with this story? Lost people are even familiar with this story! Anyway...heard something I have never thought about before in my entire life that made the Bible come alive for me anew again. Awhile back, after I got my new ESV study Bible, I started reading the Bible from the very beginning again and studied Creation and Genesis and all of that. I found out that like two or three verses into the very first words in the Bible, there is what scholars believe to be a hint of the Trinity. "And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters" (Genesis 1:2) This ties into John 1 and how Jesus was "with God in the beginning". Anyway, that was pretty cool, but this is cooler. In the middle of our trek through the Old Testament and as a Christian always having these "ancient words" in our hands, sometimes we struggle seeing how it all ties together. Because of our study, now more than ever I am beginning to see how Jesus is weaved into ALL of the Bible Old to New and everywhere! This idea solidified that for me. So okay, Adam and Eve, God's first, perfect creation in a perfect, sinless paradise. Throughout all of the Old Testament we see people sacrificing animals in order to be "made right" with God. A sacrifice must be killed, and blood must be shed. They made their altars, pitched their tents, entered their temples, burnt their sacrifices and did whatever they felt necessary to appease God and atone for their sins. So...the first people, the first sin...the first death. A death had to occur for them to be made right. They sin and then their eyes are opened. Then, what does God do? Check out Genesis 3:21 "And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them." Talk about fireworks...a million and one verses begin popping into my mind! Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is DEATH..." Romans 5:12 "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and DEATH through sin, and so DEATH spread to all men because all sinned..." and recently I read Hebrews 9 throughout my quiet time that explains it better than anything! "11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come,[e] then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify[f] for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God,purify our[g] conscience from dead works to serve the living God. 15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.[h]16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying,“This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." HALLELUJAH! When Adam and Eve committed the first sin, an animal had to die to literally COVER their sin. What did the first death look like? When I thought about the Creator God walking up to Adam and Eve and literally COVERING their sin...it shook me to the bone. It was a literal picture of what Jesus did for us on the cross. He said, "I love you, you're covered." Then I think of the song that we played at our wedding that says, "Your grace flows down and covers me..." The reason I picked that song and wanted it repeated and played while everyone was entering was because I wanted everyone to feel God's grace covering us all as it sings, "And covers me....and covers me..." I wanted everyone to know that God's grace is for you, and you, and you, and you...it is sufficient for ALL. The theme of our wedding was "Grace and Love" and that was the name of the song by "Kutless" on our wedding video. The name of the hymn that the women's ensemble sang at our wedding was "Grace That Is Greater Than All Our Sin". There was a reason behind all of it.
Anyway...these two thoughts have transformed the way I view the Bible...I feel even more knit into the story now....and my fire has been re-ignited to share the story...the WHOLE story. It gives me the motivation to press on towards the goal. The goal is to KNOW Him. The goal is to become LIKE Him. The goal is to LOVE the way He loves. I haven't already obtained any of it, but I am learning and I am growing once again. Is God's Word just collecting dust on a shelf in your heart? Is it nothing more than a collection of old words and old stories? No...if you let Him, He'll show it to you in a completely new light.
