This Is His Time

This Is His Time

 

            Three days.  In exactly three days I’ll be nineteen-years-old.  For most people, especially young people like me, birthdays are times of excitement and anticipation, but for me these past few years, they’ve been times of reflection, perhaps this year more than any.

            My parents and I watched a movie last week called This Is Our Time.  For being the girl who never cries in movies, tears were running down my face the whole time, and even later that night when I was alone in my bedroom, hours after the movie had ended, I was still crying as God spoke to me through its message.

            The movie tells the story of five friends who graduate together from college and head out with high hopes and ambitions of changing the world and making a difference.  It introduces us to Ryder, an outgoing, likeable guy who gets a promising job working with social media.  It introduces us to his un-official girlfriend Catherine, a bold young lady with her dream job at a big company.  We meet Alé, a sweet, warm-hearted, loving young woman and her husband Luke, both of who move to India to work with a real-life group called Embrace A Village who share God’s love while caring for people with leprosy.  And then there’s Ethan.  Alé’s brother.  Ethan who has an English degree and is a good writer, but Ethan who is single, turned down by the graduate schools, and finds himself working in his dad’s sandwich shop while his friends, sister, and brother-in-law all go off chasing their dreams and changing the world.  Ethan who is listening for God’s voice of direction but hears only silence.  Ethan who feels like he’s sitting on a bench on the sidelines watching from a distance.

            Of the five young people in the movie, I related most to Ethan.  I saw myself in Ethan.  Single, yes.  Turned down in attempts to step out, yes.  A good writer, yes.  Listening for direction but hearing nothing, yes.  And sitting on a bench?  Well, I’ve described it before as sitting on a shelf instead, but you get the point.

            So now that you about Ethan’s situation, let me give you a glimpse into my life as an almost-nineteen-year-old.  Let me share part of my story.  At the beginning of the year, I had high ambitions like the rest of the kids my age.  I was going to get an interning position as a horse trainer when I graduated from high school, become a professional horse trainer, and additionally, write Christian novels.  I had even chosen a literary agent to contact about presenting my manuscript to a publishing house and representing me.  I was set.  My course was charted.

            Then came the end of March.  God told me it was time to move on from those old dreams.  They had been my plans for my future and not His plans for me.  They had been for a season, but they were not meant to be a part of my life forever, and my passion for those dreams was no longer what it had once been.  So I left them behind and looked toward the future with bright anticipation.  I had no idea where I was going, but I felt confident that God had something big in store for me just around the bend.

            Then came graduation.  It was the beginning of June and I was a high school graduate.  According to my plans, I should’ve been interning with a horse trainer and had a novel on its way to the press already.  But instead, I found myself with a diploma in hand and not a hint of direction for my future.  Without any clear guidance from the Lord as to what He wanted me to do, I vouched not to go to college unless or until He told me that His calling for me was something I would need a degree for.  Nonetheless, the uncertainty and the questioning of His direction for my life was confusing and a little discouraging to say the least, and my ACT scores I received in the mail did nothing to boost my morale as I realized I hadn’t even met the college readiness benchmark in science and mathematics.

            I knew I would need to find a job to supply me with an income.  That’s when God opened the door for me to be a nanny to an eight-month-old baby girl two days a week.  I was elated at the opportunity to not only make the little bit of pocket-change I needed but to be able to invest in a little life at the same time.

            But this too was not to last though I realized when, due to understandable financial circumstances, I was let go.  Exactly a month after being hired, I found myself unemployed again.  That very day, however, God provided me with the opportunity of a six-week job co-teaching a class at my church for elementary-age children on Wednesday nights.  I accepted.  The payment from those six weeks was a blessing to my depleting bank account and I grew attached to the children and loved every minute of teaching them.  They taught me so much in return.  But the six weeks passed, and again, I was without a job.

            By this time, I had applied for my first real job and had been rejected.  I filled out several other applications and heard nothing more from the companies.  Like Ethan’s father in the movie, my dad tried urging me to search more for jobs, to apply for more positions, to do something with myself because he loved me and wanted me to be productive and successful.  But rejection and discouragement had begun setting in.

            By the time last month that I had applied for a job, been interviewed for my very first time ever, and had been turned down, my feelings had grown to be more than just rejection and discouragement though.  God had given me passions.  A passion to work with children and a burden to minister to teenage girls.  And at the thought of retail or restaurant work…  I knew God had something else for me.  I knew He had something more in store for me, an opportunity for me to use those passions He had placed inside my heart.  A job that I could be excited and enthusiastic about, rather than simply working for the sheer necessity of money.  I felt like I was looking for a job for the wrong reasons. 

            So there I found myself.  Unemployed, uncertain of my future, unsure of what to do next, and living, to an extent, just day-to-day in waiting and listening for His voice of direction.  But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. 

            I watched as the kids I grew up with made plans and went off to pursue their dreams and make their ambitions become reality.  Some got jobs; some were in college.  One girl from my church was going to school for a biology major; another wanted to become a teacher and work on the mission field.  Two girls were considering degrees as nurses, and one had even already spent a season working on a foreign mission field, as had a young man in our church.  One guy was working toward becoming a special education English teacher, and God had even called one young man to move far away out of state.  My best friend was witnessing at her job and had gotten plugged into a college group at her church, making friends with her amiable personality.  Through Facebook, I had reconnected with kids I had known as a little girl, and I learned one girl was now working as a tutor while finishing high school and another had a successful singing career ahead of her with several of her own albums already for sale on iTunes.

            And me.  What was my dream?  I wanted to teach a Sunday school or some kind of church class for children, and I wanted to write Christian books for teenage girls, maybe eventually lead a Bible study for girls, and perhaps even speak at girls’ retreats someday.  But instead, I found myself without a job, therefore without an income, without seeing any green light from God, and without any idea of how to go about pursuing those dreams and how He wanted me to use those passions.  I felt like I was sitting on a shelf, simply watching others and living life’s adventures through their lives.  I felt left behind.  Watching as they entertained the social life I’ve never known, watching as they went off to places I only dream of seeing someday.  Watching as relationships fell together for some of them.  Wondering what my calling was, what my purpose was.  What I’m even supposed to do while I’m here.  I cheered others in their goals and their journeys from the sidelines, but I only dreamed of ever playing in the game myself.  I was the girl who shared encouragement to raise morale, but whose own morale was running low. 

I began to feel slightly inferior, slightly less significant.  Why was God making me wait so long?  Why was He keeping me on the sidelines when I was so eager and willing to get in the game and be used by Him to touch lives and make a difference?  Couple all that with donating your hair in pursuing humility, the excitement of being a first-time aunt, and some distance between you and your best friend, and you have some major emotional over-activity going on.  To say I was confused, discouraged, and less than motivated is an understatement.

            And then I watched This Is Our Time, and for the first time, as I watched my feelings and struggles portrayed in the lives of those five college graduates in the story, I didn’t feel like such an oddball anymore.  I didn’t feel weird or over-dramatic.  For the first time, I began to think that maybe my feelings were more normal for a young adult than I realized.  Through the message of that movie, God brought me a new perspective and introduced to me some new ideas.

            There’s a scene in the movie when Ethan is talking to his former college professor.  It’s perhaps one of the best scenes in the movie.  They’re discussing life callings.  “But that’s the problem with calling,” Professor Callahan tells Ethan.  “Too often we think of it as something we are meant to do, when really it’s something we’re meant to be.  God may have seemingly random assignments for us to do all through our lives, but they’re only going to make sense from the person He’s made you to be.

“So in this moment when you’re asking a lot of questions that you’ll never have the answers to, the most important question is, ‘Who is God asking me to be?’”

This struck me.  All those months I had been watching others and yearning to fulfill God’s calling on my life.  But as the words of the professor in that movie resonated in my spirit, I realized that maybe I had had it wrong all that time.  I had been feeling unfulfilled because I thought there was something else I should be doing.  That God had put me on a shelf and I wasn’t being used like I so longed to be.

            But that night, as God spoke to my heart late into the early hours of the morning, I realized I wasn’t on the bench.  I wasn’t sitting in the dugout on the sidelines, watching.  I was in the game after all.  I was just in the outfield away from the action that gets in the news and gets publicized.

            I began evaluating my life through this new lens.  Yes, God had given me passions to use to bring Him glory, and these were a part of me now, a part of the new me He had begun making me into.  A part of the person He was asking me to be.  They were a part of the person He’s uniquely called me to be.  So if my real calling was not something He calls me to do but something He calls me to be, then maybe I had been walking in my calling and not even realized it.

            I thought of the radical changes He’s done in my character over the past spring and summer.  I thought of my passions.  He had opened the door of opportunity for me to babysit for some couples in my church: I was working with children.  He had opened the door of opportunity for me to encourage a young friend and set for her a good role model: I was ministering to teenage girls.  He had opened the door of opportunity for me to share His truths on my blog and my Facebook: I was writing for His glory.  I realized that I was already using the passions and the gifts that I had so long yearned to use.  I had been trying to work by my own timetable, and God doesn’t work like that.  He works on His schedule.  As the five young adults in the movie learned, it’s ultimately His time, not ours.

            We all have our dreams and our ideas of how we should use the talents that God has given us, but as I learned, sometimes, our ideas of how they should be used and His ideas aren’t always the same.  I was thinking more along the lines of big scale, and when I wasn’t seeing that happening, I felt unfilled because I felt like I wasn’t fulfilling His calling for me by using my gifts.  But God was thinking more small scale, more the everyday stuff.  Why?  Because it isn’t so much about what we do as it is about what we are.

When I graduated back in June, I had been a dreamer.  I always had been.  I had expectations.  But the real world wasn’t what I had expected it to be, and I found myself trying to find my place of belonging and acceptance in the adult world.  Nothing happened the way I had thought it would.  Maybe someday it will and God will call me to those big assignments I dream of, or maybe it never will unfold the way I had thought it would.  But though my assignments may seem small in the outfield where few people may ever see my work, I’m learning in walk in the role He’s called me to.  I am fulfilling my calling even where I am.

Yes, this post was more of a journal entry than much of a devotional, but I pray that somewhere one of you who reads this will find encouragement from my story for your own life.  I realize that some aspects of this post were a little vague in their lessons and that I’ve left some unanswered questions and some loose ends to the story.  There’s a reason for this.  Because there were too many lessons and too much to share in each of those loose ends to fit into this post.  Needless to say, in the next few posts coming, I’ll be sharing a few more of the lessons that God taught me through the movie This Is Our Time and through my reflections surrounding my upcoming birthday.  Until then, may God’s love envelope each of you today.  Be blessed, readers.

 

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah 29:11

 

 

 

 

Abstract photo courtesy: www.123rf.com

 

~We’ve all heard of the phrase “pulling on her/ his heartstrings,” but heart-chords?  I was struggling to decide what to name my blog.  I wanted it to be a name that was both creative and meaningful.  As I pondered, my gaze fell upon my acoustic guitar where it stands in my bedroom, and the Lord reminded me that our hearts- our lives- are instruments.  They are constantly in song, but what melody our heart plays is each of our own decisions.  They can play a melody for praise or for entertainment.  A musician selects his songs according to his audience.  So do we.  Whether our audience is the world or the Lord, our song will be different.  This blog is designed to first, increase my awareness in finding God and His guidance in my every day and second, to share the music lessons He teaches me in tuning my heart to learn the chords of praise He longs to play on my heart-instrument.  Music is a powerful tool.  Use it for His glory.  “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.” Psalm 40:3

 

When We Wonder Why

When We Wonder Why

 

            For the past few months, my posts here have taken on a bit more solemn tone than they used to.  They’re kind of a little depressing even, I know.  But the lessons of my posts are lessons that the Lord teaches me personally and that I pass along to you, my readers.  Therefore, my posts reflect the spiritual seasons of my life and, as it’s been one of the harder seasons for me, my posts as I said, are more somber. 

            With this said, I expected my pageview count to fall off.  This surprisingly hasn’t been the case though.  In fact, more people in more countries have been visiting Heart-chords in the past several months than they had been prior.  Either they enjoy reading it as drama like a literary soap opera, or it speaks to something deep within them.  I’m inclined to believe the latter.  Nobody likes reading about some of the “depressing” things I’ve been writing about, but in truth, the things I’ve been experiencing are really no different than the things that we all face at some point, only I choose to put them down on paper.  The reality is that there are people all over the world going through emotional and spiritual struggles similar to those I’ve been expressing in the past posts.  There are hurting people out there who I truly believe benefit from reading about someone else’s struggles, being able to relate to them, and being able to learn from them.  With that said, I feel compelled to discuss a topic this time that comes in the recovery of a season of hardship and hurting: the answer to the ultimate question of “why?”

            There are many things in life that make us ask this question, aren’t there?  We’ve all asked it at some point.  In fact, when I have sobbed my heart out in my room, praying, I have asked this question rather frequently.  So I ask you, when someone you love passes away… why?  When your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you… why?  When the bank forecloses on your home… why?  When your peers treat you like an outcast… why?  When you get laid off your job and the bills are due… why?  When your kitchen shelves are empty but so is your bank account… why?  When the test results come back positive… why? 

            The list can go on.  And unfortunately, no one can really answer that question; none of us can provide an answer- only God can.  I’m not a grief counselor or anything; I’m just an eighteen-year-old who goes through problems and struggles similar to those we all face.  But as I was on my knees at my bedside one time asking God “why,” this is the answer He revealed to me, an answer which I believe we can all find comfort and recovery in no matter what our situation is.

            When trials come in our lives, some people say it’s God’s will and just all part of God’s plan.  If they understand all the mysteries of God that well, than I wish I knew their secret, because truthfully, I don’t always know God’s plan so I can’t really say.  Is it God’s will for us to encounter all the hardships that we do or is the Enemy responsible for some or all of our physical and emotional afflictions?  God knows all things so was it part of His plan that Job undergo the trials that Satan attacked him with?  Again, I’m no theologian, so I really can’t say.  But I do know this: God will always use our difficult situations and our trying times to teach us something.  “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.  Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him…”  (Heb 5:7-9)  Even Jesus learned from pain and suffering.  And God can always make something good and something beautiful out of all of our tears and trials.  I think of the words of Joseph to his brothers: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”  (Ge 50:20)  “He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  (Ecc 3:11)  No matter what our situation is, God will always weave a lesson into the thread of its design.    So too, I believe that nothing can possibly change the plans that God has for His children.  Trials that the Enemy may place in our paths may stand as an obstacle and may act as a detour in our journey, but no hardship can change the destiny that God has for those who call Him Lord and Savior. 

            Trials require a far greater amount of faith and trust than do the typical every day of a spiritual walk.  They require us to be more alert as we search for what lessons God wants to use our hardships to teach us.  It’s in these seasons therefore, that we perhaps experience the most spiritual growth.  Difficult times in our spiritual walk mature us in the Lord.  Our perspectives may begin to change as the Lord speaks to us and opens our eyes further to His truths.  Our conversations and behaviors may begin to change as He makes us more like Him, as He transforms us more into His image and conforms our will more into His will.  When I first entered this season, I used to pray fervently that God would take away the difficulty that I was facing.  That He would save me from it, remove it from my heart, and not make me go through the season I had unwillingly been ushered into.  But about a month ago, as I was praying again at my bedside, I realized that my prayer had changed over the months.  Rather than praying for deliverance and escape from the difficulty, I found myself praying instead that if I had to walk through that season, then so be it, but I found myself praying for strength, for Him to help me learn whatever I needed to learn from the experience, for Him to lessen the pain of it if it wouldn’t detract from the effectiveness of the lesson.  Rather than praying for rescue from the season, I found myself praying for help for the season.  Rather than praying from frustration and confusion, I realized my prayer was coming now from faith and from submission to His will.  He had begun changing and maturing my perspective.  I was reminded of Jesus’ prayer to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane in His sorrow and distress as He faced the approaching time of His betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion.  “Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.  Yet not as I will, but as you will.’”  (Mt 26:39)  “He went away a second time and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.’”  (Mt 26:42) 

            Trying times do more than mature us spiritually and teach us though.  I’m learning too that they help us minister to others better and make us more sensitive and compassionate to others’ needs.  They help us relate to others and help us encourage, pray for, and give advice based off of our own experience.

            I’m reminded of a Sunday morning many weeks ago.  The service had ended and I had made my way back to my seat after praying at the altar.  People were leaving the sanctuary but a few rows in front of me sat a teenage girl.  There were two other young ladies praying with her, but as I watched her bent over her lap sobbing, her hair falling around her face as concealment for her tears, my heart was suddenly filled with compassion.  I knew now from experience the kind of pain that brought those heaves of sobs.  My heart broke for her and as I remembered one Sunday morning prior when I had been crying myself, I was drawn to join those two girls praying for her.  I took a seat beside her and simply wrapped an arm around her shoulders and rubbed her arm.  I remembered the comfort it had been to me to simply feel the connection of touch, and gleaning from my own experience, I simply loved on her and prayed a simple prayer.  It was a general prayer because I didn’t know what she was going through and I had little to no experience in ministering to people that way, but I prayed from the compassion in my heart.

            So too recently, I was given the beautiful privilege of being able to counsel a young friend of mine based off my own experiences in my preteen and early teenage years when I struggled with insecurities, low self-esteem, and trying to make friends and fit in.  Seasons of difficulties lay a foundation and create a background from which we can minister to others.  And at the same time, we can find comfort in our own situations by remembering that Christ Himself can relate to any and all of the emotions and struggles that we face here as humans in this world, for He came and lived and walked on this earth as a man.  Just as we can sympathize with others from our own struggles, so Jesus sympathizes, comforts, ministers, and teaches us through understanding what we’re going through, what we face, what we struggle against.

            When the road gets rough, desperation begins to grow in hearts.  This can be either beneficial or devastating though.  Desperate people do desperate things, and sadly, many misguided and confused people have sought a fatal escape from their situation in their desperation.  Suicide is not entirely uncommon anymore in the dark world in which we live.  Desperation leads some to make the wrong choices in their lives.

But as I said, this desperation can be beneficial instead.  Trials and tears can instead bring a sense of desperation into our desire for more of God’s presence.  It has been in some of the darkest moments of my life that I’ve drawn closest to God.  When you’re hurting, when you experience hardship and pain, desperation somehow overcomes all of the qualms, all of the hesitancy, and it brings a boldness to your relationship with the Lord in seeking His face.  In truth, I typically keep to the shadows and the background in a group; I don’t like to be the center of attention and stand out much.  But as I entered this season, desperation for more of God’s presence and healing touch gave me a boldness and I suddenly found myself praying at the altar in church, raising my hands in worship, joining others in worshipping at the front of the sanctuary, and crying unashamed in the midst of my church family.  Desperation for the Lord made me no longer care what anyone thought of me.

We see this desperation and boldness in Mark 5:24-34 and Luke 8:43-48 in the faith of the sick woman.  She had a bleeding condition and was unclean according to society, but her hardship made her desperate and made her bold.  When she learned Jesus was passing by, she no longer cared what anyone thought of her for coming out of her home when she was unclean.  She was desperate for Jesus’ healing touch… and she was healed as she touched the hem of His garment.  “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”  (Ps 147:3)  “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.  A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.”  (Ps 34:18&19) 

            Difficult seasons also keep our relationship with the Lord in proper perspective.  They keep us humble and remind us of our need for Him.  They help us realize the limitations of ourselves as imperfect human beings and recognize our ultimate dependency on God.

            And lastly, dark moments help us appreciate the sunny times more.  Gilbert Chesterton once said, “Without the rain there would be no rainbow.”  The rain helps us better appreciate the rainbows in our lives.  It makes us grateful for the people and the things that the Lord has blessed us with and it makes us thankful for the good memories we have to look back on.  Rain is not a bad thing.  Without it there would be not only any rainbows but nothing would grow.  We need the rain in our lives to grow as believers.

            Just as rain is not a bad thing though, I want to spend some time on another aspect of pain.  Sometimes, tears are thought to be a bad thing.  Crying is sometimes considered a sign of weakness or of a lack of faith.  This is absolutely not true!  Do not let anyone ever make you feel guilty or ashamed for crying.  Crying is a natural expression of our emotions; God created us with the ability to cry.  He gave our eyes tear-ducts for that very reason.  As we find in the Bible, Jesus Himself even cried while here on this earth.  He cried over the death of His friend Lazarus; He grieved and mourned.  “When Jesus saw her (Mary) weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.  Jesus wept.”  (Jn 11:33&35)

            Sometimes situations in life will affect us with emotions that we can’t control.  When someone you love passes away, it’s impossible not to grieve, isn’t it?  When a friend moves away or a significant person in your life breaks off your relationship, it’s impossible not to think of them sometimes and miss them and feel a little lonely.  When something unpleasant happens in our lives, we can’t help feeling sadness.  It’s okay to feel these emotions; they’re natural and we all feel them at one time or another.

But just because we can’t control the feelings of grief, sadness, loneliness, missing someone, we can control the extent of how far we allow these emotions to affect us.  When we’re in a low point of our lives, we don’t have to allow other emotions to stem from those natural responses to a sad and unpleasant situation.  We don’t have to embrace depression, doubt, discouragement, insecurity, feelings of inferiority, feelings of uselessness and worthlessness, pessimism, or negativity.  We don’t have to start doubting God’s plan and purpose for our life; we don’t have to allow our faith to waver and begin to distrust Him.  Even if that hardship is God’s will for you, it is not His will that you accept those negative feelings and allow the situation to debilitate your life physically and spiritually.

But there’s also another point I want to note.  It’s a question really: “Is it possible to be hopeful and still hurting?”  I believe it is.  This may sound strange and many months ago, I might’ve thought differently, but there are many things that I have learned from experience since the beginning of this year.

I believe you can be hopeful and still hurting.  Just because you hold onto the promises of God and fight against the attacks of discouragement that the Enemy tries to throw at you does not mean that the pain will go away.

At the beginning of this year at the close of January, I shared in my post Red, Black, and… a Smile! Pt. 3- The Sunny Smile of Hope what the Lord was teaching me about hope:  “What is hope?  Is it a feeling, an emotion?  Is it a resolution?  Is it a state of mind?  I believe it’s all three of those.  Like many probably, I used to think it was only a feeling though, but I’ve come to learn it’s much more.  Hope goes deeper than our emotions.  The world in which we live is not favorable to hope.  In fact, the Enemy in the world will do everything within his power to kill and destroy hope in you.  He wants to rob you of the joy found in hope.  And that’s why hope cannot be only an emotion.”

            “Some days, you won’t always feel very hopeful.  When your situation looks glum and impossible, you probably won’t feel hope.  But can you still have hope even when you don’t feel it?  I believe you can.  Because our hearts can be so fickle, we have to follow not our hearts, but the guidance of God, which means that our emotions and what we know to be true won’t always coincide.  Sometimes they’ll be at odds with each other, in fact.  We have to learn to control our hearts, or should I say, to allow the Lord to control them.  Hope is a resolution we must make to embrace in our lives, and it’s a state of mind and spirit that we must adopt even when our hearts feel hopeless.  We must learn to not always believe what our hearts tell us, but rather to tell our hearts what we believe.  You have to first know and understand the hope you have in Christ no matter what and then you must adhere to a resolution to believe in that hope when your heart tells you there is no hope left.”

            With that said then, I believe it is possible to be hopeful and still hurting because hope is much more than just something we feel.  It’s something we know and believe in and cling to even when we don’t feel hopeful.  Even when we’re grieving.  Even when our hearts are hurting.  Just because you still feel pain does not mean that you cannot still be hopeful for the future and see the light at the end of the tunnel by standing on the promises of God and on His faithfulness and love.

I’ve been through some stuff emotionally lately.  Some of you all have too.  Some of you have been through some stuff physically even.  And it’s not fun or pleasant.  It makes us ask questions and wonder “Why?”  But truthfully, in the light of this answer that God gave me to that question, I can honestly and whole-heartedly declare that I am learning to give thanks now in all circumstances.  “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  (1Th 5:16-18)  I can thank God now for my hard seasons; I thank Him now for the trials and the tears and the pain because I see now the work He has done in me through it.  I see now that there are lessons to be learned through the hardships, that I can better minister to others because of it, that I have grown closer to Him and more spiritually mature in our relationship.  I’m learning to see the benefits of this season- difficult as it is- and to be thankful for it.  In fact, if I could go back and choose whether to walk this rough part of the road or to skip it, I would choose the more difficult path because I would not have wanted to miss out on these precious moments with God when He has comforted me and taught me in these dark moments of my journey.  Strange as it sounds, I am learning to love the seasons of rain in my life more than the seasons of sunshine because I’m finding that it’s in the rain that I grow most, that I draw nearest to God, and that I’m forced to rely not on my own wisdom and understanding but to depend entirely on Him.

So I encourage you today, learn to dance in the rain.  We may not always know all the answers and be able to see why everything happens in our lives.  But pain is really not such a bad thing.  It is a blessing in disguise.  We learn from it, we grow from it, we produce fruit because of it, we develop character through it.  “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”  (Ro 5:3-5)

  As I was writing this, I suddenly got a picture in my mind of a little girl in the rain.  The picture was simple but so beautiful.  The little girl had brown pigtails tied with red bows and she was wearing a yellow raincoat and boots.  Everything was all gray around her and she stood in the middle of a puddle of water.  The pool mirrored her reflection.  And the rain was pouring down.  She was smiling and jumping in the puddle of water, splashing in it.  The raindrops were running down the ruddy freckled cheeks of her pale face but teardrops too were slipping down from the corners of her eyes and running mingled with the raindrops in rivulets down her cheeks.  She was smiling, enjoying the rain, yet still crying.  As the well-known quote goes, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storms to pass.  It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”  Learn to dance in the rain, my friends, even when your tears are falling with the raindrops.

 

 

 

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  1Thessalonians 5:16-18

 

 

 

*For those of you, my readers, who have Facebook accounts, I’m happy to be able to announce that you can follow Heart-chords on Facebook now at facebook.com.  Not only will I be posting frequent food for thought and Scripture verses, but you’ll also be able to find summaries of the posts here on the blog for those moments when you just don’t have time to sit down and read the entire post.  Of course, it won’t compare to reading the real thing, but I thought I’d provide you all with quick references to the lessons in a nutshell.

 

Photo courtesy: www.123rf.com

 

~We’ve all heard of the phrase “pulling on her/ his heartstrings,” but heart-chords?  I was struggling to decide what to name my blog.  I wanted it to be a name that was both creative and meaningful.  As I pondered, my gaze fell upon my acoustic guitar where it stands in my bedroom, and the Lord reminded me that our hearts- our lives- are instruments.  They are constantly in song, but what melody our heart plays is each of our own decisions.  They can play a melody for praise or for entertainment.  A musician selects his songs according to his audience.  So do we.  Whether our audience is the world or the Lord, our song will be different.  This blog is designed to first, increase my awareness in finding God and His guidance in my every day and second, to share the music lessons He teaches me in tuning my heart to learn the chords of praise He longs to play on my heart-instrument.  Music is a powerful tool.  Use it for His glory.  “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.” Psalm 40:3

 

 

 

Drawing Near

Drawing Near

 

Sometimes God speaks to us in unconventional ways, doesn’t He?  Sometimes He uses repetition to get our attention.  And sometimes, He uses unlikely people we would never have expected to speak to us through.  Just as it sometimes happens to many of us, this happened to me very recently.

            It was the night of April 12th this past spring.  I was among the group of young adults that had gathered in the dark sanctuary of our church for the young adult worship service, and as it began, one of my brothers in the Lord stepped up to the microphone on the stage lit by colored lights and shared a word he felt the Lord had put on his heart to speak.  A verse that he said the Lord had kept bringing him to.  “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you (Jas 4:8),” he read from his iPhone.  “God doesn’t break His promises,” he reminded us.  Therefore, if we would only set aside everything, seek His face in worship, and draw near to Him, then God would draw near to us just as in His Word He said He would, he encouraged all of us gathered there that night.  If we could only get our eyes off of ourselves and stop asking God for things: for Him to rain down His presence, for Him to come fill us up, etc. and understand that worship is about bringing glory to Him first.  That worship isn’t about us; that it’s about the Lord and bringing praise to Him.  All we have to do is just get out of the way our circumstances and our selfishness- stop making worship about us and our needs and wants- and all of the things that battle for our attention and distract us.  My church brother encouraged us that night to set aside all of the distractions and just to worship God for Who He is.  To simply draw near to Him, enter into His presence, and feel Him draw near to us.

            The Lord used that word to speak to me and a few months later, as the words of that brother returned to me one Sunday morning, I realized that God had used them to shift my perspective and therefore my approach to worship.  I found myself now entering into the Lord’s presence on a different and deeper level.

            The months then passed until it was August 21st.  That evening, as my parents and I entered our church sanctuary for the Wednesday night Bible study, our pastor’s voice reached my ears as the service had already begun.  “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you,” our pastor quoted.  He went on to encourage the small group of believers there with what I recognized as the same message of the word that was shared on that night back in April.

            In the weeks that followed, our pastor shared that word several times more both on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings.  It was not that church brother’s word; God had simply spoken the same message to our pastor as He had to that brother.  On Wednesday nights, we began singing a song by one of my favorite music groups- Draw Near by Bethel Music.  This verse, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you,” was strangely beginning to cross my path more and more.

            It was this past Saturday night when I sat, my back against my bed, and read a mini devotional someone had posted on Instagram.  They had mentioned this particular phrase of this particular verse.  Though it was late at night and I should’ve been crawling into bed, I suddenly felt a peculiar urge to look for similar Scripture passages and began searching in the Bible concordance apps on my iPod.  Next I began flipping through all of my Bibles, reading footnotes and verses referenced to in the page margins.  I was beginning to sense something strange about this verse.

            The following morning, our pastor once again mentioned the verse, urging us to draw near to God in our worship.  That afternoon, I found again that someone else had posted on their Instagram the verse that was becoming so familiar to me.

            I was more convinced then than ever that God was trying to speak to me through that verse.  Every time I encountered it, something stirred within me, telling me its message was for me.  But that one phrase that kept haunting me was so simple.  “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”  Its truth seemed so elementary, but yet, I kept sensing that there was something deeper to it.  That there was something more to that verse that God wanted to speak to me, but that I just wasn’t getting.

            So I resolved to dig deeper into that verse until I discovered what God wanted to teach me through it.  The next day, I logged onto the internet and skimmed commentary after commentary on the verse.  Nothing.  I asked the opinion of someone close to me, what her thoughts were on the verse and what it meant to her personally, hoping maybe it would shed some light on the verse from a different angle.  Again, nothing.  She interpreted it exactly for what it said: if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us.  Exactly what was the only thing I kept seeing in the verse.

            But the gnawing persisted.  There was something more to that Scripture than I understood.  It was eerie how it continued to pop up all over the place.  But again, its simplicity puzzled me.  I kept sensing that maybe what God was trying to tell me had to do with that verse, yes, but not only the verse.  The words of my church brother and later the same words my pastor had frequently repeated continued to ring in my ears.  But I had already learned that lesson and applied it to my worship life.  What more in that word was there for me to gain?  I broadened my view and began considering the entire passage of Scripture in which the verse was found.  Still nothing.  I kept being drawn only to that one simple sentence: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

            I began to grow discouraged and doubt.  Maybe I had been off base.  Maybe I had been wrong.  Maybe I was making more of it all than there really was.  Maybe I was looking for something that didn’t exist.  I began to feel a little crazy.  Had I gone a little off the deep end this time?  Could I really trust my own judgment?  Maybe it hadn’t been the Holy Spirit’s stirring in me that I had discerned after all.  I began to doubt whether I should’ve even told anyone.  What if I never found the answer?  What if there was no answer to be found?  The repetition of the verse, the stirring in my spirit, my strange sensing…  It all seemed a little too supernatural to be real.  Like something that only happens in movies or books.  Did God really work like that?

So I stopped searching; I stopped asking God for an answer.  As many of us do, I had begun doubting the stirring in my spirit when the results were taking longer than I had expected, when I didn’t see any product.  In truth, when God takes longer than we anticipated to work out a situation, to reveal His reasons and His plans, to give us answers, we have a tendency to grow discouraged, question ourselves and if it was really God speaking and leading us after all, and we give up on waiting.  We allow the Enemy to plant doubts, discouragements, and disappointments, to whisper little lies into our ears.  When my search came back fruitless, I chose to forget about it and abandon the idea.

            Yesterday night however, my parents and I were again at our church for the Wednesday night Bible study when something happened.  The musicians began playing a relatively older worship song- The Heart of Worship by Matt Redman, something very uncommon for them to do.  I will confess, as a modern eighteen-year-old, I was initially a little disappointed by their choice of an “old” song.  An old, outdated, worn-out song it seemed.

            But as I began focusing for the first time on the words of that song I was singing, I found myself again reminded of the familiar word first given that night back in April.  That night that seemed so long ago then.  And I finally understood.  It finally clicked; I got it.  I finally understood what God had been trying to teach me through that word and through that verse.  “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

            Yes, I had learned to set aside all of my troubles and simply worship God for Who He is and all that He does.  I had learned that my ability to worship is not contingent on my situation or my feelings, but that it is a choice I have to make to tell myself that I will worship God despite what might be going on in my life or despite how I feel at the moment.  I had learned to draw near to God in worship.

            But now, God was telling me that that wasn’t enough anymore.  It was time now to take my worship experience outside of the bounds of music.  To learn to worship Him not only in church with our incredible worship band, not only when I have worship music playing in my bedroom, not only when I’m playing worship songs on my guitar, but to worship Him with every minute of my every day.  And to do that, would mean laying aside all of my troubles, all of the distractions, everything that worries me, every anxious thought.  To stop dwelling on the imperfections of this season, to stop fretting about how all of my passions and dreams are going to fit together, about getting my life together and figuring out my future.  To lay aside all of the pressures that overwhelm me and bring me mental and emotional stress, and to simply live to praise God for Who He is and all that He does.  To set my sights on drawing near to Him and keeping that relationship as it should be and growing ever closer, in fact.  To make drawing nearer to Him my goal.  “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship.”  (Ro 12:1)  “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’  You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”  (Mk 7:6-8)  Clearly then, true worship should come from the heart and therefore, it should not be dependent on the presence or absence of music.  Our true spiritual act of worshipping God should be found in every minute of our life.  When we leave the church, when we turn off the worship music, when we lay down our guitar, it should not be the end of our worship.  Worship should be ongoing, never-ceasing in our lives.

            As I stood there in that church sanctuary, I heard a few minutes later, another one of my brothers in Christ speak up.  He shared that he felt God telling our group there not to give up on the dreams that He had placed in us.  He reminded us that all of God’s promises are “yes” and “amen.”  “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.  And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God.”  (2Co 1:20)  I was reminded again of one statement that had strangely stood out to me and stuck with me all those months since April: “God doesn’t break His promises.”  For me, this word confirmed and sealed the lesson God had just revealed to me.  It was Him saying don’t worry about how everything’s going to turn out, how everything’s going to fit together.  That’s for Me to handle.  Set your focus entirely on Me, worship Me every day with every aspect of your life, draw closer to Me, and I will work out the details of everything else when you focus on what really matters.  Draw near to Me, and I will teach you.  And I will open up doors that no man can shut.   

            So this morning, I took the first step in learning to apply this to my life.  When I awoke, I crawled out from beneath the comforter of my bed, knelt down at my bedside, and gave God my day.  I chose to worship God with every minute of my time.  Everything in my life still existed as it had the night before, the anxious thoughts still arose in my mind, but I made the conscious decision to dwell not on the pressures and the problems, but to dwell on the greatness of God and to worship Him for Who He is and all He does in my life.  To dwell on His faithfulness and His love that always sees me through every hard season.  To dwell on His infinite wisdom and sovereignty that works all things for good and knows what’s best.  “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”  (Col 3:2)  And doing so, I had a day far better than I have had in a long time.

            So I thank God for using people in our lives to speak to us through.  I thank Him for my pastor, for my older brother in the Lord, and for my younger brother in Him, who, unbeknownst to them, He used them to help teach me this lesson.  I thank Him for taking our simple acts of obedience and our steps of faith and using them to produce a return in ways that we may never even realize, in ways that we could never imagine.  Never underestimate what God can do when you surrender everything, obey, and offer what you have to bring for His glory and His service.  So the boy with the five loaves and two fish learned this lesson.  (Jn 6:8-13) 

            I encourage you, readers, to join me in learning to apply this lesson to our lives.  “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”  (Jas 4:8)  Such a seemingly simple verse.  But let us learn to draw near to God in worship not only when the music is present, when we feel like it, and when all is going well, but let us learn to draw near to God in worship with every minute of our lives, with everything we say and do and think.  To choose to worship Him unconditionally.  When you understand and accept this into your act of worship, it will transform your life and your relationship with the Lord.  Be blessed, friends.

 

“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Fathers seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:23&24

 

 

Photo courtesy: www.123rf.com

 

~We’ve all heard of the phrase “pulling on her/ his heartstrings,” but heart-chords?  I was struggling to decide what to name my blog.  I wanted it to be a name that was both creative and meaningful.  As I pondered, my gaze fell upon my acoustic guitar where it stands in my bedroom, and the Lord reminded me that our hearts- our lives- are instruments.  They are constantly in song, but what melody our heart plays is each of our own decisions.  They can play a melody for praise or for entertainment.  A musician selects his songs according to his audience.  So do we.  Whether our audience is the world or the Lord, our song will be different.  This blog is designed to first, increase my awareness in finding God and His guidance in my every day and second, to share the music lessons He teaches me in tuning my heart to learn the chords of praise He longs to play on my heart-instrument.  Music is a powerful tool.  Use it for His glory.  “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.” Psalm 40:3