speaking life

Sometimes

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I really, really hate to admit this after all my talk of how God has healed me in the past. It feels like I’m pulling a fast one on you after I’ve announced to everyone how God has been delivering me from my fears. But here it is.

Sometimes at night when I’m tired, I get overwhelmed for a moment by fears.

I fear that this time I really have said or done the absolute stupid and wrong thing and a particular friend is gone for good. He or she has un-friended me and taped a picture of me to a dartboard for target practice.

I fear that I will always be single because no girl will ever find me attractive or desirable and I will always be left with this unfulfilled longing inside of me.

I fear that I’m really not good at anything and really won’t ever find a career that really makes me come alive to who God created me to be.

I think the difference this time is that I can name these thoughts as lies. It may not completely take away the panic and the pain, but it helps when I see these thoughts for what they are and their true origin from the father of lies.

I know now that most of the time a good night’s sleep will help these fears go away. Sometimes, it’s a glass of warm milk. Sometimes, it’s just practicing deep breathing. Sometimes, it’s saying, “Abba Father” over and over. Sometimes, it’s resting in the eternal Arms of my Abba Father and listening as He sings over me to calm my anxiety.

It’s okay for me to have setbacks and regressions, because they keep me grateful and thankful for the times when I am living out of faith and not fear. And those times are more and more prevalent.

There will always be something to fear. There will always be those moments when you give in to that fear. The question is: Can you name that fear for what it is and claim the promises of Jesus over it? Sometimes, you have to claim them out loud, but even when you don’t have a voice to speak them out, they are still powerful and true and for you.

Perfect love casts out all fear. In my case, perfect Love is casting out all fears, one at a time. I hope you find this to be true for you. Because the freedom is so much more than worth it.

It’s So Amazing

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground” (Brennan Manning)

It’s so amazing when you discover that there is more to life than stuff, when you find yourself no longer owned by your possessions, but you can hold them with open hands, ready to give everything up if Jesus asks you to.

It’s amazing when you see your dreams denied or delayed and you find that you’re not falling apart. You find that your trust in Jesus is stronger than ever and that even if you never see another dream come true, you would be okay.

It’s amazing when you are finding yourself losing the need to please others all the time. When you realize that you’re moving from approval-addiction to the freedom of of finally being yourself and finding out that the “real you” you were so afraid of anyone seeing is the one God uses to encourage and bless others. It’s mind-blowing when you find out that people really like you for you and not just what you bring to the table. I am living proof that God can change anybody at anytime anywhere.

It still amazes me that God looked at me out of all the people in the world and said, “That’s the one I want on my team. That’s the one that I choose to set my affections upon and make like my Son Jesus.

It amazes me even further that God could ever use me to do His work. That God would even want to use me for any reason. I get to be a part of His radical love revolution in the world and I get blessed so much more than I ever could be a blessing.

It absolutely blows my mind that God has surrounded me with such amazing and beautiful and wonderful people. I love the people I call family, whether they are blood-related or just Jesus-related. I am finding healing and wholeness and joy because of the Jesus I see in you. You rock.

It’s the most incredible thing in the world that God can take anybody at anytime, no matter how scarred or broken, and make that person not just better or improved, but a whole new creation. Something like the world has never seen before and something so glorious and astounding the angels clap and cheer and shout for joy over.

I’m living proof of that.

Speaking Life into Each Other

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Have you ever posted something on facebook with one specific person in mind, just hoping that person would read it and comment on it? I have. . . I mean, a friend of mine has. . . . ok, I’m so busted. That was me.

Maybe if you’ve done it, too, you were like me and felt crushed and ignored when said person didn’t comment or even like the post.

I realize now how co-dependent and passive-agressive that was (not to mention somewhat OCD). Looking back, I see just how silly and juvenile that was.

The thing with co-dependency is that you always need to be liked and affirmed and acknowledged. The sad part is no matter how people do, it will never be enough. It’s kinda like a drug, where you need more and more to feel normal.

What I need are friends who will tell me the truth in love.

As I have mentioned before, I am in the healing process. I am finally learning to like me. I can finally stand to look at myself in the mirror. I can finally like being around me.

It’s because I have people around me who speak life and healing and wisdom into me. I have people who see me the way God sees me and help me to see myself that way.

In a conversation with a friend at Starbucks, I had an interesting revelation. My friend said that Hebrews speaks of Jesus as putting a human face on God. Then I got to thinking afterward, maybe you and I put hands and feet to Jesus when we serve each other and those around us in need. When we speak the words of Jesus into each others’ lives.

I am a lot better at not wigging out when people don’t respond to my posts or texts. I get that people have lives and issues other than me and that I can’t realistically demand to be the center of everybody’s attention all the time. That’s not healthy.

But I know that I have God’s full attention 24/7 and that He is speaking to me all the time. Sometimes when I’m alone with my Bible open or sometimes when I’m in a one-on-one conversation with a friend or sometimes through random posts or texts or sightings around town.

I am coming to the point where it’s not about me, but helping people to find their YES in Jesus and come to know and believe about themselves what God says about them and sees in them. That’s my ministry and calling.

May you be as comfortable in silence and solitude as you are in a crowd and learn to love yourself as God does. It is so very freeing.

Ya Never Know

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

Sometimes, ya just never know, do ya? I mean really. You think you have it all figured out, then the job you thought would last forever ends and the people you thought would never leave you leave you.

But it’s not always bad things.

I have had people I never expected would ever want anything to do with me come into my life and speak powerfully into it. I have had people I initially dismissed or brushed off as arrogant or shallow or worldly turn out to be some of the biggest impacters in my life.

I have had people to affirm God’s calling in my life. I have had people help me see that I’m not invisible or unwanted or a reject. I have had people who saw hope and a future for me when I couldn’t see anything but despair and darkness.

Sure, I have had people disappear on me. I’ve had people that I thought would be around for the long haul get married and move off and start new lives. Those aren’t bad things by any means, but it still means those people aren’t as immediately present in my life as they once were.

I have had people come up to me and tell me they love my blogs when I had no clue that they even read them. I even had someone I didn’t know come up to me and tell me how much I glowed with Jesus. That was one of those “out of left field” moments, but it came at the exact moment when I needed encouragement in a big way.

You never know who’s watching. That’s both comforting and challanging.

It’s challenging because it changes how you live. You can’t say one thing and live another and get away with it anymore. People may not call you on it to your face, but they notice and they might well form their opinion of Jesus and faith from your not-so-pristine example.

It’s also comforting. It means that nothing you ever do for Jesus, no matter how small and insignificant it seems, is ever in vain. In the words of the old Margaret Becker song, “It’s never for nothing.”

The words you choose have the power to speak life into someone else. You might just be the person that helps someone through a hard time in his or her life. You might be the person who helps someone keep going for one more day and helps that person to trust Jesus a little bit more.

Whose life will you speak into today? Who will you be Jesus to by your kind words and acts of service and forgiving and compassionate spirit?

Because you never know what even one random small act of love done in the power of a great God will do. Ya just never know.

Speaking Life

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 5 Comments

A bit of a conversation I had earlier today is still ringing in my ears. A well-turned phrase won’t let go of my mind.

We speak into each others’ lives. As believers, we call life out of each other and bring out the best in each other.

I can see in you what you can’t see in yourself. I can speak beauty and faithfulness into your life and you can speak the same into mine.

The best example I know of this is a man who married a woman many considered unattractive and plain.  Over the years, he spoke beauty into her life, telling her she was more lovely and telling everyone he met how beautiful she was. Eventually, she became the beauty he always said she was.

Only God can speak creation out of nothing. Only God in us can speak hope into hopelessness, love into apathy, courage into fear, and life into death.

What are you speaking into the lives of those around you? Who is speaking into your life?

I know many times people saw things in me I couldn’t see in myself and helped me to see myself through God’s eyes.

One of the reasons for this little blog is so I can hopefully speak life and hope and peace and love into your lives and more importantly, help you to hear what God is speaking into your life right now.

May He speak beauty into your ashes, a testimony into your trials, compassion into your pain, and a minstry into your scars. May you ever hear the voice of your Abba singing over you nightly, calling you Beloved.

And may we encourage each other daily and spur each other to love radically, serve sacrificially, and be no less than Jesus to everyone we encounter wherever we go.

Amen.