4-14-2011
“I want to listen to worship music and lose myself in Heaven.”
I feel like I did this tonight. i was driving home and i worshipped for an hour in my car like i was in the throne room of Heaven. a friend who called me later said i sounded so happy, like i was filled with so much joy. because i was! it was uncontainable.
One of my friend’s wrote this for a paper we had to write for school. It’s so beautiful. It shows his beautiful heart for God and reflects my heart as well!
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“The romantic heart seeks out new and creative ways to reach the one it beats for.” I want that statement to permeate everything I do whether I’m writing a new worship song, eating, and even the way I speak to others on a daily basis. Though tradition and repetition have their place in life, it won’t have a place in my heart when it comes to pursuing God. The same old thing will not cut it anymore; this love between God and I will not become a checklist of religion, nor a repeating prayer. If you look at what pursuing God has come to these days and even in the church, it makes my heart cry and ask God, “how can we become so dull in your presence?” I will never stop going deeper and closer with the God who created me; especially when it comes to music. I listen to Christian music today and hear the same things that Christian musicians were doing years ago. Being an unpredictable worshipper will be a priority in my life and ministry. Since He is the most creative being that ever created, should we not also be the most creative followers that ever created? Unpredictable in growing closer to God will be an oath of my life. If I find myself becoming complacent in my relationship with God, I want to immediately look up to the sky and think about who made it. The white clouds, mysterious sky, and the bright sun are all banners for God’s glory. All advertising the depths of God’s creativeness. Looking up at the greatness of God will be a friendly reminder that I can’t be predictable when I worship God. For no cloud is the same, no sunrise or sunset is the same, and the shades of the sky are never quite the same. The unpredictability of nature and of God will only ever remind me of how I need to pursue God.”
I think what people use for a bookmark can say a lot about them.
For example, someone who bought a bookmark may appreciate the finer things. Someone who made a bookmark might be crafty. Someone who uses whatever they find may be too engrossed in the book to make time to find/make a proper bookmark. Or maybe they just like to use seemingly ordinary things in unexpected ways.
(Source: runswithvamps, via booklover)
i’m at this really strange place in my brain/heart/life.
i’m ready to get out of the college environment and have my own place and work and just be an adult in the adult world.
but i love the people that i get to see every day.
i don’t know how i lived for 22 years without these people and i’m not sure how i’m going to forward from here and not see their faces everyday and be ok with that.
my heart aches just thinking about it right now.
That moment when you finish a book, look around, and realize that everyone is just carrying on with their lives as though you didn’t just experience emotional trauma at the hands of a paperback.
(Source: unbearable-bear, via booklover)
“how do you expect to maintain relationships with other people if you can’t maintain a relationship with me?”
This is what the Lord spoke to me tonight. with all gentleness and love.
How arrogant of me to believe I could maintain the relationships around me all by myself. I can’t even maintain my personal relationship with the Lord.
Don’t get me wrong. I pray. worship. read the Word.
but somewhere along the way, intimacy was lost.
somewhere in the last 2 weeks, that is.
all relationships stem from this One relationship.
i feel as though all of my relationships are disinegrating. sand through my fingers.
disintegrate: break into parts, typically as the result of impact or decay
ever since the fast, i feel like all of my relationships have been weakening. decaying.
including and especially my relationship with Jesus.
never confuse activity with intimacy.
not that i haven’t been praying. because i do. in my car. in the shower. as i run.
but it’s not the same. it’s not a relationship.
and as a result, i’m clinging too hard to my earthly relationships.
out of pride.
as if I, all by myself, was enough to hold a relationship together.
I’m not enough to hold myself together.
here i’ve been acting on the assumption that my friendships are somehow separate from my relationship with my Father.
of course i don’t feel adequate for the work He’s calling me to.
It’s only Jesus who qualifies me and I’m doing nothing to maintain relationship with someone who loves me so deeply.
i am humbled.
“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.”
(via booklover)
this is not true. but i DO love that show!
(via booklover)
i had no idea that being single was a process. well. it may not actually be a process, but ever since breaking up with Colin in May of 2010, learning to be in relationship with Jesus.. just me and Him.. has been a process.
fall 2010 was the beginning of the balance between what my flesh wanted and what my spirit wanted. it was learning to take time to spend with the Lord. staying in on a friday night instead of partying. sacrificing some of my social life for promises I’d made to the Lord about our time together. this was really stripping off outer layers of our relationship.
spring 2011 was another layer. i realized that i was still walking the world/heaven line. I wanted both. i wanted Heaven to invade my heart and i wanted to have what the world had to offer. i realized that i was allowing guys in the world to romance me but i would not allow the Lord to do so. and even when i did, the way i acted said that the Lord’s affections were not enough for me. that is not the true cry of my heart. but i sure acted like it was. late in the spring and most of the summer of 2011 was learning to be obedient in the time God asked me to set out for him. a wonderful guy came into my life and i learned what the beginnings of a relationship should look like, but i also learned what it looked like to stop the relationship when the Lord said no and how to deal with all that afterwards without pursuing my flesh desires. and for the first time in my life i said no when a boy tried to kiss me. one small step for some people, one huge step for Liz.
strip everything away, til all i have is you.
fall 2011 we start getting into the inner layers. the Lord deals with me on how to treat guys in relationships. the Lord teaches me submission through guy friends and other male authority in my life. and at the end of the semester, the Lord starts working on my mind. my heart has had so much time to learn and grow and there is still learning and growing, but God starts dealing with how i need to be taking every thought captive and not just allowing my mind to wander and work and do it’s own thing.
and now, while still in the “thought training process” i find myself in this situation. it’s strange. i’m examining a close friendship i have with a guy friend. and i’m at this place where instead of allowing the unspoken flirtation to continue that i need to step up and ask for my brother in Christ to protect my heart. this. is. weird. but it’s not the first friendship that i had with a guy that had a blurry friendship line.
i wrote this text message earlier to a friend in regards to the situation:
it makes me sick to accept his little flirting things. i’m just doing it for attention. the Lord said no dating and i’m not honoring or protecting that by flirting or allowing him to flirt with me and i need him to protect me as well. I’d rather just be friends. it is my deepest desire to give my undivided heart to my Savior, Father and friend.. not some earthly guy who doesn’t want it.
i’m appalled by how much i’ve changed. the base desire was always the same: Jesus. i just needed to get out of my own skin to get to Him. I’m still working on that.. but recognizing that there needs to be a line even in the friendship is a huge step for me. i’m astounded by the work of the Lord.
