The Fear of Something Endless

As I arrived in Herrnhut, Germany I felt an uncomfortable tension unpacking my bags. This place once felt like home, once was comfortable, once was familiar. I sensed God had something to teach me even the first day as I arrived in Herrnhut. Throughout the first week, a lot was happening with me emotionally. I didn’t feel that I fit in so well anymore, people have moved on, friends have left, and what once felt like family faded away too quickly.

As I was having meetings with the art group I am a part of, Pick A Pocket, I began to realize a lot about how I felt with this group and these people. How I didn’t want to be a part of this group anymore, I’d rather do something else than heal others through art (which is such a crazy thought for me).

In the past few days God has been working on me so much about my fear of commitments. If I do not see how a situation is going to end, I do not want to be a part of it. I once could not stand to be in Pick A Pocket, because it is a dedication to a cause and a ministry til death, or til God decides you are finished serving them. Without seeing the result in our works as Pick A Pocket, I needed to leave. I needed to express my frustration, the tension I felt in my spirit and heart. It even led to me not even liking who I once called friends.

I have never been like this in my life… and I was scaring myself, to be honest.

One night a friend of mine spoke truthfully and harshly into my life. I needed to change my thinking. I needed to be challenged with my life and how I perceive things. I needed to come into agreement that it is ok to be stretched and to work on something if you can’t even see the end of it.

How can I live life to the fullest if I do not trust God in guiding me, showing me, and teaching me how to live life.

I’m sure the root of this horrific fear results in how I lived my teenage life. I always moved every 3 years, I began to not expect to be “best friends” with anyone nor anyone to call me theirs. Knowing that I will move soon built a wall between me and others. I desired so bad to be someones best friend and to have one, but in searching for that, I never truly found one. I have learned that “it just has to happen and come on it’s own timing.” You cannot make a friendship that is like that. It has to be from God, and it is only from God.

I have feared that I have missed out on a lot of relationships, intimately and friendship-wise, because I have tried to create something that humans cannot create, or because I have been too scared to trust someone that deep within my heart.

Trust is such a huge thing for me. It is absolutely so hard for me to think of marriage. How can someone trust me that deep?

I have the fear that someone will depend on me too much for their needs, and of course, since I’m human, I’ll always fail them. And that is what is scary about marriage to me. Trusting someone too much to the point where nothing can satisfy you. This is where God comes into the picture… and this is what God is teaching me about trust, fear and commitments.

So, these last 2 weeks have been so hard for me. To make commitments in Pick A Pocket that I cannot see the end of, to be open for God to work on my character about not making friends with everyone, but allow some friendships to go deeper than I’ve experienced.

God, I’m open for you and what you have to do with me. My trust in you is not what it should be, but yet, I want to learn and be challenged. So please, do challenge me. I know you are with me all the way, through challenges and times when no one can satisfy me. With that truth, I am satisfied. For you are always here.

Thus From My Lips Comes Praise

Today I reread Psalm 37. Knowing that this chapter is my “theme” from the 2 months I came home, I wanted to read it again since the end of my 2 months is tomorrow.

I love reflecting. Reflecting on how you have grown, how God has put you certain seasons in a specific time for you to learn something so valuable. In this season being at home alone, was such a tough and complicated season for me. But I am completely, 110% confident that I have gained exactly what God was wanting to teach me.

In this time, He was trying to show me how it is to live with Him alone. How you have to make initiative to worship, pray, give, encourage, love, etc etc. Living in a YWAM community, those things come natural daily. But when you are alone in your own apartment for a period of time, you have to create that atmosphere yourself. Any missionary can relate the feeling what it is to “be a missionary” on the field, then come home and take time off. It is so hard and challenging. But it is so necessary, healthy and character/faith building for us to experience that.

So, as I was rereading Psalm 37, I was simply just looking to see if I feel confident on what God has placed on my heart earlier in this season.

The main verses for me are 3 - 7.

How David writes to commit everything to the Lord, delight in Him, trust in Him and be patient and silent before Him.

That has a whole new meaning now after being in this season.

But, as I kept on reading, this verse popped out vibrantly.

Psalm 37 : 30-31 

“The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just. The law of his God is in his heart; his feet do not slip.”

For some reason, this just hit my heart and soul like a ton of bricks.

I simply sat back in my couch, stretched out my arms, opened my mouth and just felt the presence of God come.

Hearing the worship music in front of me, just in awe of how hard I was hit by these 2 simple verses. The Spirit was really stirring me up and wanted to plant something in me from this.

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If we do not have wisdom in life, why live?

I realize more and more daily that as a Christian, it is prominent for us to have wisdom. We need to desire wisdom, daily. Seek for wisdom, not just search, but seek with everything we are. Without wisdom how could we talk and share with others? How could we have a relationship with others? Solomon writes a whole chapter in the book of Proverbs about wisdom.

Proverbs 2 : 2 & 4

Tune your ears to wisdom and concentrate on understanding.

Search for wisdom and understanding as you would for silver; SEEK THEM like hidden treasures.

It just hit me as I typed that last line… But what did God create first in the entire universe? What was from the beginning before anything else?

Some may say “light”, but that is wrong.

God created wisdom before anything else was created.

Proverbs 3:19

“By wisdom the Lord founded the earth; by understanding he created the heavens.”

He needed wisdom to create the world, science, love, animals, relationships, light, and us.

That was the first and foremost important aspect before He started his 6 day work of creating the universe.

Wisdom is so key to our relationship with God. I desire for God to plant the seed of Wisdom in me daily and help it grow. There is nothing that I can do to make wisdom come to me. I simply have to be open for God to work on it in my life. I cannot gain any wisdom without going to God first. And without going to God first in my life in this 2 month season of being home, I would have never gained the wisdom I have now about gaining wisdom and being with God fully.

Wow, praise God for this revelation and for this wisdom.

Amen.

The Judgment, The Slaughter, The Exiled.

Here are some verses from Ezekiel that I want to press on and dig deeper into. I feel like these verses will stretch our knowledge of who God is and question some “truths” that we were raised by. Look them up for yourself and form your own opinion. I am simply explaining my opinion and what I felt like God is teaching me about them. I might abrubtly end on some topics because, I simply do not know how to end sometimes. These are just my thoughts scattered, but not organized on a nice and neat blog.

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Quick history lesson on Ezekiel :

The book of Ezekiel is his story of how God used him to bring judgment on Jerusalem, Judah and all of Israel. It is a narrative of God speaking to Ezekiel, telling him what to say to the people of this nation, calling them out for their sins, for how they live and how they don’t care about the lives of others or a life with God. How God called the people of Israel, of Jerusalem His own at one point, but now they’ve turned his back on Him. God is now using Ezekiel to be a messenger and a watchmen for all of Israel.

Ezekiel 8:17

[In chapter 8, God is sharing with Ezekiel what the leaders of Israel are doing in the Lords Temple. The leaders of Israel are worshiping other gods beside God Himself. Therefore, this particular sin is called a detestable sin.]

“Have you seen this, son of man?” he asked. “Is it nothing to the people of Judah that they commit these detestable sins, leading the whole nation into violence, thumbing their noses at me, and provoking my anger?”

What really hit me about this specific verse is this key fragment

“…that they commit these detestable sins, leading the whole nation into violence…”

This specific verse really creates tension with faith.
Will God allow a whole nation be led into violence and destruction if the leaders, or even people, decide to commit “detestable sins?” What about the innocent? The ones who did not know what their leaders were doing in secret?

In this chapter, if you look up yourself, you will see that it describes the leaders of Israel meeting in secret, in the night, in “a room where they cannot be seen” to create such destruction on their nation.

What first popped into my mind when I read this verse was a family (who I will not mention their name) who is known nation wide as “Christians who hate homosexuals.” I was watching a tv interview with the wife of the family and the interviewer asked her “Do you think God really hates America because we allow homosexuality and war?” Her response “Yes, God will bring judgment on all of us for allowing such “detestable sins” to enter into our nation and lives.”

Does this verse support her opinion?
Yes…
Do I like how this verse supports her opinion?
No…
Why do I not want to support her?
….

What are detestable sins?
In Ezekiel it constantly talks about : serving other idols/gods (Chapter 8)
not caring about the poor and needy (16:49)
prostituting yourself to others (16:30-34)

Another verse to chew on :

Ezekiel 12:19

Tell the people, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says concerning those living in Israel and Jerusalem : They will eat their food with trembling and sip their water in despair, for their land will be stripped bare because of their violence.”

Wow, not only will detestable sins bring violence, but when we even create violence ourselves, the land will be stripped bare in despair and trembling.

One more verse…

Ezekiel 9:9-10

Then he said to me, “The sins of the people of Israel and Judah are very, very great. The entire land is full of murder, the city is filled with injustice. They are saying, “The Lord doesn’t see it! The Lord has abandoned the land!” So I will not spare them or have any pity on them. I will fully repay them for all they have done.”

2 actions : injustice & murder

I don’t need to say anymore than this. I hope you get the picture of what I’m trying to convey here.

If we allow these to happen even in our own city, what is there to come for us in the future? Is this really true, if we allow what these verses to talk about to happen in our lives, what will come of us?

Honestly, I do not know how to end this topic. But for me, this is something to chew on and think about. It helps me learn another side/view of God. Even though this breaks so many boxes in my head on “who God is” it really helps me to expand and see more of the bigger picture of how we truly have to live responsibly with our lives. I don’t want to be one of those Christians that goes on the street and yells “REPENT OR GO TO HELL!” I’m not trying to convict you in any way if you are reading this, it is just something that has caught my attention and I needed to blog to feel more “structured” in my head.

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I constantly run into intense, thought provoking and also faith bending verses like these. How we are never taught these subjects; but we are always taught “Jesus loves you.”

Thankfully, I am super happy that I am learning more than just God is love. It’s obvious that He is, but how is He love in these situations. And this tension really brings questions, mystery and somehow joy in my life. Not that I like seeing towns or people being utterly destroyed, but how God is so much bigger than we can think and it’ll take my whole life to even catch a glimpse of who He really is.

Ezekiel

I haven’t blogged in awhile, sorry for that.

The past few days or week I have been having ups and downs with my daily walk. Still trying to adjust to this extreme difference in environment. From being in a “Christian bubble” to now living in the “real world.” It is still difficult, but it’s about me living the way God wants me to, and not God living the way I want Him to. I transform to Him, He doesn’t transform to me. It’s such a profound concept and I think about it daily, but it’s so hard to live it sometimes; you transform to Him. What a sacrifice it truly is to live a life of sacrifice - to live a life of God!

Anyways, today as I was praying, I really felt like God asked me to re-read the book of Ezekiel. The past months I’ve drawn much inspiration from this man and his life and story. God truly tested, used and challenged Ezekiel to do radical things in this world and to many nations. He had to live a life full of sacrifice, even to the point of seeing his wife die in order to see Gods will be done over Jerusalem. Quite intense. Now, I feel like I need to read it again to dig deeper into the character of Ezekiel and see what God will reveal more.

Just an update on what my blogs will be about now, transitioning from Psalms/Proverbs to now Ezekiel.

My art show is this Friday, please be praying for everything to come together the way God needs it to be. For people to truly be challenged, touched and influenced not by me, but by the Light that is in me. It is a day before Halloween and guessing what other art shows will be themed, this will be a lot different and more unusual than the expected.

Love you all and will let you know what’s goin on soon in reading and in living.