Twelve Stones

He told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.” Joshua 4:5-7

The Lord dried up the river so the people could cross, then had the twelve men carry the stones on their backs...

Many times we go through trails, struggles in our life and wonder "where is/was God during this time"? I ask the Lord this many times and He showed me through his word this morning.

The answer is, He is drying the river so we may continue walking through it, yes we carry those heavy stones on our backs the whole way, and we struggle, stop for rest, stray off the path... but the Lord clears the way and dries up that sea so we may walk through it.
Those hard stones that we focuses so much on as our struggles, they are placed there as a reminder of what God rescued us from.

My prayer becomes that I will not bury those stones and keep them in the dark, but that I will give God the glory for them and praise him for parting the sea for me.

JJ Heller - Only Love remains

I love this song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3BDYBGhSgI
Lyrics to Only Love Remains :
Scenes of you come rushing through You are breaking me down So break me into pieces That will grow in the ground I know that I deserve to die For the murder in my heart
So be gentle with me Jesus As you tear me apart
Please kill the liar
Kill the thief in meYou know that I am tired of their cruelty
Breathe into my spirit
Breathe into my veins
Until only love remains
You burn away the ropes that bind And hold me to the earth
The fire only leaves behind whatever is of worth I begin to see reality For the first time in my lifeI know that I’m a shadow But I’m dancing in your light. Teach me to be humble. Call me from the grave. Show me how to walk with you upon the waves.Breathe into my spirit.Breathe into my veins
Until only love remains

Matthew 13

Matthew 13:53-58

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+13&version=NIV

When Jesus had finished telling these stories and illustrations, he left that part of the country. He returned to Nazareth, his hometown. When he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son. Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.” And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief.








This has become my life, the world I live in. Jesus told them, "a prophet is honored everywhere except in his hometown."



Have I become so comfortable in "knowing" Jesus that I will not believe or allow Him to work wonders in me, through me. When He is standing there saying "let me show you more". What would happen if we didn't limit our God?



He can move mountains, calm the seas... yet I still limit Him.



He has put this dream in my heart to travel to the unknown and open orphan homes to display a family unit to the fatherless. But, that is what is has become,a dream. A dream that I am holding onto and will not give to God because, 'I am just a carpenters son'. It has stayed a dream because of my unbelief.



I pray I give it over to Him along with my plans, pride, comfort, freedom, family and skills.

My soul thirst for you

So...I had this plant that i loved and was taking great care of it. Watering it, placing it in the sunlight. I went out of town and totally forgot about the plant and came home to this.
My poor little plant had no sunlight, no water and was clearly in bad shape.
I immediately started to water it and put it into the light, but days went by and still no change. The plant was still in bad shape and looked ugly.

The once green flourishing leaves were now brown and dropping.
God started speaking to me through my plant situation. This plant is just like my life. When I am in the word, living for Abba, filled with His spirit I am flourishing. However, when I am living in darkness and not feeding myself with the word this is what happens to me. I fall in sin. Get angry with the Lord and keep hidden in the darkness because I am shameful. When I call on the Lord He is there, saying "come, daughter. Rest in me my child".
The thing is, every time I'm on my know knees covered in sin. I come to the lord and he says" bear it no more". But instead of giving him it all. I try to fix it. I, like my plant am broken and try to cover up my sins and hope I will continue to grow. That can't happen because I will always be bearing that sin and it will hold me down.
Abba, want me to give it all to him. He wants to individually pluck the dead broken leaves off me. So I may grow and flourish in Him.
Matthew 13: 24-30
Amen.

Psalm 51:16

Even though my sins tear me down and I struggle daily, Father desires my broken heart, he wants my struggles to take them on so I will not bear them. Why do we feel guilty, when our father did not create us to carry our guilt. He desires my broken spirit, when we are dried out laying on the floor covered in the filth of our sins, the Lord looks at us as His precious child and picks us up and makes us clean. Hallelujah!

16 You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.

November 2,2011

I want to go there because every time I served overseas I was so close to Jesus and I wanted more. I felt His presence so much because I was serving Him daily, I was leaning on Him daily and I trusted Him daily. Everyday I would strive to be His hands and feet, trying to be like Jesus. What if I did that here? What if i didn't waste my day away and got up every morning ready to serve Him?

I want there to be nothing left of me everyday because I am spent for Jesus. I want Him to accomplish things through me that He had planned for me. I want to bring glory to His name.

I want His heart

That is my prayer. Wherever He may send me, I pray I bring glory to His name.

Bind this heart.

I have been living in the dark and running from God and his presence for many months. There have been situations in my life that I was unable to overcome and instead of calling on the lord, I became angry at him.
There was a situation that I was involved in where the lord lead me into and purposely freed me from it, but instead of being thankful I left it feeling not good enough and thinking that God decided that he could not use me...
So I ran from him... and committed many sins. Which leads to guilt and shame, which brought me further from the lord.
Long story short... I am in the process of moving home. Of course, I became depressed, feeling like a loser and am broke with no friends here. Questioning if I made the right choice. Meanwhile, the enemy kept feeding me lies and I truly believed that I could never return to Abba.
I began this slup of not reading my Bible, not praying, even when a Christian song would come on I would turn it so quick, feeling disgusted with the song or maybe at myself.
My family tried and tried bringing me to church but I refused to go. Why would I want to go when I would just leave feeling guilty? Why would I want to go and put on a fake smile, so the world wouldn't see my brokenness?
Today, I finally went to church, Jesus was preparing my heart even when I didn't realize it. I thought I would walk in feeling overwhelmed with His spirit or cry my eyes out. But it wasn't that at all... I felt Peace... calmness of my soul. The kind of peace where you feel everything is right. The kind of Peace that can only come from our lord and savior. HIS peace for me.
When I left, I wanted more, I felt like an addict, I couldn't focus on anything else but going home, hiding in my closet and praying. When I got home I did just that. I wanted to speak to Him but where do I begin? I'm sorry for screwing up the life you had planned for me? Forgive me? I then opened up my journal and read some old entries I wrote of my listening prayers. This is one that I read: date April 1, 2011
Me: lord, I feel I cannot serve you because of my sin.
Lord: come to me
Me: I want to, but I'm shameful
Lord: Jesus paid it all
Me: I want to believe, but look what I've done.
Lord: Paul was a liar, murderer, adulteress. I still love him and you.
Me: forgive me Abba
Lord: surrender
Me: I try but fail
Lord: be still, why are you running?
Me: because I'm afraid
Lord: I will chase after you. Rest in me my child. He then brought to my mind the book of Hosea.
What a blessing that he would bring that journal to light. How sovereign that He will chase after us. When I began to pray, God brought the story of Jonah to light, and how Jonah flees from the presence of the lord and The Lord captured his attention by sending a whale to swallow Jonah. Just like He has captured my attention by moving me home where I have nothing and nobody to turn to but Him.
Am I a sinner? Yes. Will I continue to sin? Probably. Will our sovereign God forgive me? Absolutely!
As I was praying to the lord on my knees feeling overwhelmed by my sin, he whispered ever so gently seventy times seven. In Matthew 18:15 bear it no more.
Even though, I sit here not knowing what tomorrow brings, I am filled with His peace. I know I have doubt, fear and sometimes unbelief. But my prayer is that He will bind this wandering heart to thee.
Amen.

Your steadfast love endures forever.

God is good and I see that and know that, but there are times when I am angry at Him and doubt him and then that is when I start to run from Him. God has blessed me with a job that on paper I am not qualified for and not to mention that I am the youngest person in my company and now I am there boss, which is really strange at times, and also really hard. Everyone keeps telling me that God is growing me through this and will do great things with this and through this experience. However, it is hard and I am sometimes at the point where i do not want it anymore. I am thankful that God has given me an amazing opportunity BUT I really hate it.
Then I start doubting and running from God. Then I tend to resort in my ways before God rescued me and I start thinking that He is keeping me from something.
Why am I so afraid to give things up for Him. He has given it all up for me...
This past month, I have been running from God and I keep trying to live life my way... this is never good...
Then today, I had such an empty feeling and decided I would do an hour of listening prayer.I started out by telling God I was sorry and to repent. Then I started telling him that He has disappointed me and it is very hard to trust Him and see the good in him. God was silent and heard me and gave me such peace.

Later I was telling my roommate that my prayer time was not a good one and I told her all I had said and she simply said "He can take it".
God hit me with that statement, he can take it and he wants me to come to him with the good, bad and the ugly. He cares for me and wants me to put it all out there for Him, my relationship will only get more intimate with him once I learn to do this.
But, God is growing me :)