Faith and Trust and Grace...

Three words… constantly repeated.

I’m told to have faith.

I’m told to trust.

I’m told He has insurmountable, uncontainable, ever-surpassing grace.

I thought I had it all…

I think I know what that means…

You think you know what it means until you hit a brick wall.

I’ve grossly misunderstood Grace.

I’ve had faithful faith… that keeps on as long as the sun is shining…

How about the season when the moon wanes?

I’ve had battles of trust… I’m in one now.

You know… the kind that you need the faith to muster the trust that

makes you say “… the God we serve is able to save… but even if He does not” Daniel 3: 16-18 (NIV)… I will still trust Him.

I’m obviously on threadbare grounds… I must trust even if He does not save. He is able… and even if He chooses not to, I must still trust. Even if I’m standing knee deep in the shark’s mouth… I must still trust. Most important is that I must still persevere… even if today doesn’t make sense, yesterday was a disaster and tomorrow is unsure… I must still trust…

Really? Trust? Faith? Grace? Perseverance?

I don’t think I can tell you how to have those… I’m still learning. Unfortunately, every time I feel that maybe, just maybe I’ve learnt it all, I discover that there is still much more to learn, much more room for trusting and growth. It is hard. And yet, through it all, all HE ever says is: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) (NIV). And then, there is that soothing resonance… reassurance…  

“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness…” 2 Corinthians 12 vs 9 (KJV). Grace soothes my heart… comforts me. His Grace. Trust is me believing that grace is there… believing that he provides that grace… believing that his grace is sufficient to carry me through… and taking leaps of faith; acting in ways that show that I trust…

As I wobble with all these five letter commonly used words that fall on my sometimes deaf ears, sometimes hardened heart that doesn’t understand… I pray to keep learning how to experience and carry them out daily.

Care to join me?

Healing Is In Your Hands...

A Back-to-School Booster :D

Me and the Lyrics of David Crowder’s ‘How He Loves’

He is jealous for me;

Loves like a hurricane, I am the tree…

Which explains why everytime you let Him in –

BEWARE! Even a inch, He just gets up and decides

He will take the whole mile.

Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy

And ofcourse as I bend, because I have no other choice…

He is my Maker after all… I shake my fists at the sky and ask why

And I chime and debate different phrases inorder to understand…

I contemplate different explanations to arrive at a conclusion

That will rest my fleeting mind.

When all of a sudden,

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory…

…okay so maybe I’m beginning to get a glimpse of light here…

Am i? If I am to go by Jeremiah 1: 5 (NIV), then He says to me:

 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, 
      

  before you were born I set you apart; 
      

  I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

Really? *scratching my head and hair…

And I realise just how beautiful You are,

And how great Your affections are for me.

I can’t feel it… I’m not supposed to. It’s a walk of faith after all…

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit”, says the Lord (Zech. 4:6)

“We live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinth 5:7)

phhhssssttt! Just because I can’t feel it… doesn’t mean its not there. Just because my eyes are short-sighted and I’m not seeing doesn’t null the eternal tautology that follows…

And oh, how He loves us so,

Oh how He loves us,

How He loves us all

I don’t doubt that. But see YOU need to touch my heart… I need reassurance… I need to be jolted back to this reality daily YOU know…

We are His portion and He is our prize,

Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,

“Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes”… Click. Click.

Something is beginning to click…

If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.

I’ve been sinking since before the dawn of creation… you and I both.

And Heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss,

And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,

I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,

When I think about, the way

… I shouldn’t question anymore now should I?

I mean how can I?

The truth is staring me dead in the face.

It has been staring me dead in the face.

It hasn’t even twitched a minute for a blink.

Imagine such nonchalance.

The truth is that…

He loves me.

He loves you.

He loves them.

The people who hurt me.

The people who hurt you.

Yeah… He loves us all.

Such nonchalant truth.

Simple, and enough to get you through any situation.

Let us just leave it at that :D

Ours.

Like two birds intertwined

You at the center

Me at the circumference

Our line of sight being

The ever-guiding force

That binds us together…

Ours wasn’t that kind.

Ours wasn’t the kind

That leads to aisles

Or leads to babies

Or leads to

Seventy-year-old couple stories

Although I thought It was.

Although you wished it was.

Although we prayed it was.

Ours wasn’t the kind

That strengthens through the thick-and-thin

That smiles through the storm of distance

That threatens the tide of time.

Ours was the kind,

That lasts for a season.

The season that reveals the rust

Covering our innermost gold.

The season that preps for the

Purging hand of the blacksmith.

Ours was the kind that preps

For the benefactor

That was given the ten talents.

Ours was the kind that made us

Shake our hands in the sky and ask what

Was imperfect.

Ours was the kind that opened

Our eyes

Into

Knowing

That

We

Deserved

Not

What

We

Thought

We

Deserved

But

What

The

Maker

Wills

Instead.

So on that porchy Sunday afternoon,

That your son asks you about that love

That wasn’t given the grace to be…

Tell him ours wasn’t the kind to separate the chaff from the grain.

Tell him ours was the kind that sowed the seeds instead.

The kind that made you predict the weather wrong.

The kind that made you grow.

And on that cold and dry Sunday afternoon,

I’ll tell my daughter that the love now,

The love with her father,

Is the kind.

The kind one’d think

They’d never have

Because they were blinded

By the sights that we saw.

The love now,

Is what we’d thought we had.

The love now beat ours ten folds down.

Because the love now

Was what the blacksmith designed from the beginning of time.

Acts of Faith: Stepping-Out Part 3

“Trust and Obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey”

The lyrics of the age-old hymn ring in my head in combination with Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV) – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path”

With the heros of faith, there was that outward mark and show of faith. It required doing something – a physical act. Abraham had to move out of his Father’s land. Lot had to run and never look back. And yet, I cannot help but wonder, as they were on the move, in their process of stepping-out, how did they do it from the inside?

I’m here in this place, now that I’ve stepped-out, and am accepting it day-by-day, how do I trust from the inside-out? How do I trust and obey without letting my mind run in circles? I wish I could numb the disobedient emotions and train of thoughts.

I was thinking of the pain in my current niche as I read through Proverbs 20 vs 30 (NIV): Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.

It certainly is one crazy purge-fest here I tell you :D

Have a beautiful week ahead of you J

Acts of Faith: Stepping-Out Part 2

Genesis 19 vs 26 (NIV) – But his [Lot’s] wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

         It is almost like a thin layer difference of reminiscing and wishing things were different. It has been a couple of days since I stepped out, and I can’t help but wonder, while I do know that it was all for the best, how do I now move-on from the inside-out? There are times of assured forgetfulness during which I know this new land of over-flowing milk and honey will be nothing but secured love and assuredness in His presence will bring me the greatest fulfillment… However, I still find myself looking back at times… looking back behind [Him] like Lot’s wife did.

         I don’t want to be stuck like she was. She looked back and became fixated in the past, longing with desire. She looked back and wasn’t ever able to look forward again – she became a pillar of salt. That pillar of salt both literal and metaphorical is so symbolic of that instance when you and I know the new land we are venturing into is for our own good and yet, we stubbornly refuse to wholeheartedly do so, and in doubt we turn back and look in phlegmatic, nostalgic and drooping gazes at our past.

         Grace I need. Faith I need even more. Trust as I tread unknown patterns in my mind – foreign patterns as I ask for more Mercy because I am suddenly realizing that all I thought I knew is gone. All I thought I understood is no more – the truth is that I don’t understand.

“So you just stepped out of something? I don’t know what it is you stepped out of: your it-Job? School – you just graduated, and that Job isn’t coming or you just had to leave the school you dreamt would be your alma mater? A relationship that you were so sure was it? Someone - because you lost him/her to death? A friendship that you’d have thought would last all of eternity? The dream house you swore your great-grand children would grow old in? It doesn’t matter what you stepped out of/are stepping out of… the most important thing is that you realize that God is the one who allowed that stepping out to occur in your life, and just like Abraham who didn’t know where he was being called to, He has called you out of your comfort zone into a zone where you are holding onto Him and only Him. He is calling you into a land of fulfilled purpose. And yes, it hurts to step-out… He knows that… He built you that way… and He built you even better to live through that stepping-out victoriously.”

Join me as I give you the verse a lady told me before I left my Father’s land 4 years ago, and has gotten me through doubting days:

Proverbs 3 vs 5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path.

         

Acts of Faith: Stepping-Out Part 1

“Now I have the peace I’ve never known before

I find myself complete, My heart is spoken for” – Spoken For, MercyMe

Nothing screams a better “remain-in-the-moment” siren like a long bus ride. Ignore the context of the ride, luxurious or otherwise (although I would tend to think you would pout at the inconvenience of your situation in the latter case). Sitting here in my context-less bus ride, musing over circumstances and living in the moment, I realized that I identify with Abraham.

            Abraham was sitting in the land of his father – his comfort zone when God called out to him: “Leave your country, your people and your Father's household and go to the land I will show you” Gen 12 vs 1 (NIV). He didn’t know what that was… I mean if I was suddenly told to go to New York and settle there because that is the land that would be given to my descendants… Yeah… So I don’t know about you but I would flip. I would be so confused. I mean I would not just be confused, but I would want to know why… how… where???

            And yet, Abraham didn’t question. He didn’t ask. He simply obeyed. The old Man took his wife, servants and all he owned and followed the God who made the entire galaxies and universe by speaking into them. He listened, trusted, and obeyed.

            God answered me… finally! And that answer means a total overhaul and re-vamp… it’s a calling out into a land of the unknown… away from what I’ve known for a long time… away from the familiar and a purpose I thought I was called to… It is a step-out into grounds and waters where I’m constantly laughing as HE rides me through the ultimate purpose He created me for.

            It is therefore with uplifted hands of gratitude that I see Abraham’s faith and aspire to follow in his footsteps and do even more.

            It is with great enthusiasm that I talk to you directly:

           

“So you just stepped out of something? I don’t know what it is you stepped out of: your it-Job? School – you just graduated, and that Job isn’t coming or you just had to leave the school you dreamt would be your alma mater? A relationship that you were so sure was it? Someone - because you lost him/her to death? A friendship that you’d have thought would last all of eternity? The dream house you swore your great-grand children would grow old in? It doesn’t matter what you stepped out of/are stepping out of… the most important thing is that you realize that God is the one who allowed that stepping out to occur in your life, and just like Abraham who didn’t know where he was being called to, He has called you out of your comfort zone into a zone where you are holding onto Him and only Him. He is calling you into a land of fulfilled purpose. And yes, it hurts to step-out… He knows that… He built you that way… and He built you even better to live through that stepping-out victoriously.”

            With the time left on my state-of-the-art-live-in-the-present bus ride, I’ll continue to muse over and appreciate my current call and stepping-out. I hope you learn to do so as well :D

            Smile and have a beautiful and love-filled week ahead.