10 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and good understanding have all who practice it.
The love of the LORD, I fear, is the beginning of a sort of, well, stupidity.
Of course I’m joking. It’s just… He’s love. He’s quite wonderful. He makes people love Him. He makes you grateful, to be loved, esteemed even, by Him. He gives and has given so much that He makes you want to give… and then you pray prayers and sing songs like “Take my life, and let it be| Consecrated, Lord, to Thee”, “Have Thine Own Way”, or, the new favourite in my church, “I Give Myself Away”. Like, asking Him to make you holy, like Him. Or promising that you’ll give Him everything… promising to lay down your puny little life for Him, like He laid His down for you. He tells you, “you’re not dirty. I have made you clean, I’ve made you whole. You are son, brother, bride, friend. “
He says, “Ask and you will receive”. Can I say that He doesn’t lie. Duh.
Anyway. I was thinking about how asking Him for certain things is, well, a death sentence.
Like how, He proved to me a few months ago that He has not forgotten a single word of every prayer I’ve ever prayed… and I don’t think my memory goes that far back. Like, He got someone to repeat my exact words… on more than one occasion.
So, if I tell Him I want a pair of shoes, no probs. Such a tiny, trivial thing… but it’s a little not-easy to find a pair of cute heels in size 42…
And when I think about the little stuff like that, it makes me wonder… What about the other prayers? About consecrating me to Him no matter the cost, about completely transforming my heart till it was One with His, about making me an equally-yoked bride? He is faithful, and He is holy, and I’d better believe He will do it. Though, sometimes I think He’d look at me and say “You know not what you ask.”
E.g. sharing in His holiness requires chastisement. And it’s not exactly easy to fix your gaze on the Joy set before you… but, well, I am glad that He’s made it so much easier. He has been so faithful… He hasn’t let me go, and sometimes I wonder if I’d still be “with Him” in slightly different circumstances. Would I prove to be, like my pastor preached about today, the stony heart… tall growth with shallow roots. Would I still be in this place of knowing that He loves me, and He’s committed to me, and that He is who He says He is, if He hadn’t taken the trouble to keep sending me encouragement in different forms, week-to-week, day-to-day, month-to-month? (Is it really worth it to focus on this person called “me” and all that’s wrong with her… when I could be looking to Him?)
It’s odd… I know I have definitely been falling short… but I’m not 100% sure exactly what to do… and I’ve found that sometimes He’d say something and I’d be dense-and-clueless and not get what He was saying till later. And I find that it’s good to write down what I get ASAP.
I am grateful… for His love (which is sometimes expressed as a rebuke, but, well, I think I’ve become slightly obsessed with being rebuked …), for Him, His Word, His Blood, His Spirit, His Life. For brothers and sisters in Him; I LUHV my church family. And someday, I will come to love the entire Body of Christ. Amen.
Over the past several months, I’ve seen myself be foolish, immature, stubborn, disobedient, selfish, stingy… and I’ve seen Him be wise, kind, generous, patient, faithful, unyieldingly true, firm, generous… it just occurred to me that I’m actually attempting to describe Someone I actually barely know and could never comprehend with my human mind. Only with the mind of Christ. Only when 1 Cor 13:12 happens. For now, I know just enough to make people who don’t know Him at all think I know Him very well. 
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So. In answer to my other question. No. Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word (rhema) that proceeds out of the mouth of God. If He decided to go totally silent on us, we’d die. But He is always speaking, praise Him. The only people who seem “alive” without His Word are those whose spirits have not been, well, made righteous, to begin with. Well, that’s my opinion. But I know FOR SURE that if He hadn’t continued to beckon me, draw me, speak to me by any means necessary… I’d be goodness-knows-where by now. A good church family doesn’t hurt either. 
