Comprehensions of Joy

Psalm 40

  I waited patiently for the LORD;
   he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
   out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
   and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth,
   a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the LORD
   and put their trust in him.

First things first, a special thanks to everyone who went out of their way to offer encouragement and advise after my last post.  :) I am happy to report that I have since passed through that valley and am back to climbing mountains. 

I have had quite a few thoughts over the past few weeks about the way God works. Because, while it is normal and expected for everyone to go through trials and challenging times, i feel like my time in the pit was a little more intense than "normal." Granted, who is to say what "normal" is.. but at the same time, I've been discouraged, and I dare say I was a little bit more than discouraged. I think it would be fair to admit that I was on the edge of depression. And I really hate to admit that I would ever be that close to the line... but that's what it was. 

In general, I would like to call myself a bit of a dare devil. I like to push things to the edge, go to the line and not quite cross the line. As far as discouragement goes, I have told myself "Let's not do that again." 

Now that I am back to  more joyful season in life I have been looking back at what all could have happened that I would reach such a low point. Shortly after my last blog I found myself in a Starbucks with a great friend and our Bibles open seeking Truth. We came across this passage in Galatians 5 that jumped off the page. 

"You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?  That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.  “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty."- Galatians 5:7-10

It was was quite a moment of revelation. I think I was most discouraged by the fact that I had let myself be defeated, more than that..I had defeated myself because the enemy has no right to defeat us. But, thank goodness Jesus is there to intercede for us and cut in on the enemy.  In my search for joy while I swimming in discouragement, I was reminded of a list of verses that my mom made me memorize before I left home. It is a compilation of verses that state your true identity as a follower of Christ. One of the passages has the heading "I have been Redeemed and Forgiven of all my sins" I was looking at it and I decided to see it in context and I really enjoy the verses around the passage in the list and so I shall share with you what I have found: and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.  For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:12-14

I think after all the verses that I felt were not sinking in and not offering any encouragement..Christ broke through and now everything I read is like soothing cream on a painful wound. Really wonderful and twice as encouraging as the last thing I read.  I really like how this says that the Father has qualified us to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. Because that totally blows up the lie that we are not good enough people to be baring the name of Christ. I have often felt disqualified by my actions or lack of faith. But that is me disqualifying myself because God has already qualified me. AND!  we're qualified to share in the inheritance. We're qualified to be in the kingdom of light. And, on top of all that... he came to our rescue and pulled us out of darkness and into the kingdom of his Son. SO much wonderful happenings going on in that Truth passage.  One of the most wonderful things I think I have taken away from Perspectives class so far is the idea of the kingdom. The way they explained it is there are two circles side by side. On one circle is kingdom of light that is filled with all sorts of truths about us like how we are loved, important, precious, etc. And the other circle is the kingdom of darkness that is filled with lies about who we are. Lies like, we are not loved, we are not important, failure, etc. And sometimes, the dark circle comes over and darkens our view and creates an eclipse.  We are in darkness by the lies we believe, but the glory of God can always be seen and it pushes out the darkness. I think it adds a whole new perspective to the words in the song How He Loves because it says "When all of the sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me" 

That's totally true. Yeah, being in darkness was NOT fun at all. But, I got to see God's glory come from behind the darkness and push it away. :) 

Oh I'm running to Your arms
I'm running to Your arms
The riches of Your love
Will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

contemplations of joy

February! Wow.. I cannot tell you how many blogs I have drafted over the last month. I started quite a few and then changed my mind on whether to post them.  Then I would be inspired again and then discouraged again. I guess you could say that has been the theme of my entire last month. Discouragement. I have not been filled with joy like I was last semester. Last semester (after a really rough start) I found myself bubbling over with the glorious joy that Peter talks about. 
This new semester... not so much. I'm not even sure why. I'm in a SUPER AWESOME Bible class called Perspectives that is wonderful encouraging. I've read one or two great devotion books already this year (I usually start but not finish). I read my Bible, I pray, I go to church and Bible study and prayer time and I have Christian friends and bloddy bloddy blah. It's not really making any difference in my life. As discouraging as life often is, I usually bounce back in a week or two.. but this has dragged on. Never mind that I'm going to be going to a whole other COUNTRY in month to tell children about Jesus! (THAT'S EXCITING!) I still don't have joy. 


I feel like I have spent the last few weeks in a cloud or a dream or some vague thing. I'm quite exhausted.. mentally, physically, emotionally exhausted. It's not a very fun feeling. Drifting along.. I feel like I have absolutely zero purpose. Which is a really super awful feeling because I'm a Christian. Christians are supposed to have purpose, right? They're supposed to tell the world about Jesus and be happy and glorify God and be a good example and know what's up and have joy in the midst of life. So that just makes me feel like uber fail because i don't have joy. I don't have purpose. 


A couple days ago I watched a one-man play called "the Bema" for the second time. It's about this guy who is taken to heaven when Jesus comes back and he gets to see how he wasted his life living the American Dream rather than investing in eternity. K.. so the concept has been pounded into my head since I was a child. "store up your treasures in heaven.." Gah. I have Jesus in my heart. I know Jesus loves me.. I mean.. I think I know Jesus loves me. But For the last bunch of weeks.. I have felt completely worthless in life. Not only as a person.. but as a Christian. And all the thoughts were driven deeper in after watching The Bema again. I don't feel like I've made any impact on eternity or am making any impact on eternity. I honestly can't imagine a worse feeling than being spiritually worthless. It's not like I haven't tried either. There was youth group and Bridges and cru and Salt and non-Christian friends, and Christian friends and family and whatever else not. But what have I done with the things God has placed in my life? As I've been thinking on it.. I'm pretty sure all of those things that I have been in would have and will continue to thrive with or without me. In fact.. I'm not entirely sure that I'm not a hinderance to others. Like.. maybe perhaps I'm being detrimental to the spiritual growth of my friends and/or ministries in which I'm involved. As I have realized.. the state of one's spiritual life has the most positive or negative impact on the people around them.  


And!!! I've also heard again and again and again that God doesn't need you. If you say 'no' to His calling then.. whatevs.. He'll just call someone else. Well  that's a wonderful way to get your self-concept off the floor. Sure God loves you.. but he doesn't need you. Why the heck did He make me then? Was the whole entire reason for my existence so that I would grow up and MAYBE serve God IF I CHOOSE (because of free will) but it's not a big deal if i do or not cuz God will use other people. And what of the hand full of people I helped "lead to Christ"? I was there.. I shared with them.. but no big. God woulda used someone else if I wasn't there. Siiiiigh. 


To drive it all in a little more.. Perspectives last night was another pill to swallow. The speaker went on and on and on about how we don't treasure Jesus, we're not passionate for Jesus, we're not sharing a real Gospel.. on and on. It wasn't exactly a great feeling to hear that HOW i lead the handfull of people to Christ that I did was wrong. And now those few people are going to be like the seeds sown among the rocks or the thorns because they're weren't planted well. 


So what can I do about it? I listen to the Christian music. The one's that are supposed to make you feel good no matter what.. ya know? 
I opened my Bible to try to find even the tiniest bit of encouragement and I found myself looking at the hall of faith in Hebrews. By faith all these people did things that seemed crazy to the world but God rewarded them. And it was accredited to them as righteousness. Faith. I feel like that's something I don't have right now. How many times have I come to this low point in my life where I feel like I have no faith? Too many! And it's because of this familiar spot on my path that I feel like I've just been walking in circles for a long time. I've been here before. Again and again and again. And every time I look at the Bible verses about faith. 




Hebrews 11:1
 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see


Romans 1:17
For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”


James 1:3
because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.


Romans 12:3
 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.


 It's almost a routine now.. I know exactly where to look in my Bible, too. What page. What color highlighter is on the page. What note is written on the side of the page next to the verse. So how do I make it sink in? The verses are familiar.. does that mean I've built up an immunity to encouraging verses? Or encouragement at all? It's quite discouraging to know that even having all the "right" answers. Or knowing all the "right" steps to take to crawling outta the pit that you have somehow found yourself in again.. you can't. No matter how deep or shallow a pit I fall in.. I'm helpless. And I've prayed. I've been praying. I still pray. But... I'm still stuck. So what am I doing wrong? Am I not trusting enough? Am I not being faithful enough? Am I not serving enough? 
I thought all Christ-followers were supposed to feel like they had purpose and value and joy. But I wonder about myself. It's not like I don't love Jesus. I do. A lot. But I don't have joy. And I don't feel like I have value. And I don't feel like I have purpose. 

Philippians 2

Imitating Christ’s Humility

 ¹ Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.