The Bride's Journey

And It's Three Years Later...

2009-06-09T19:03:00.002-04:00

And I'm realizing that I'm missing the opportunity to write about the journey of "brideship" that I'm on...I was thinking about starting a blog and then I realized I already had one dedicated to that purpose. So, I'm back. Again.

Turn my eyes from looking at what is worthless; give me life in Your ways.

(Psalm 119:37)

I've been pray-reading my way through Psalm 119 in my devotional time for the last week or two. And it just continues to open up this desire, this hunger in my heart to encounter God through His decrees.

And I was at a loss trying to decide how to describe where I'm at right now and then I realized this post I wrote says it just fine.

Dove's Eyes

2006-02-23T12:33:00.000-05:00

I sleep, but my heart is awake. A sound! My love is knocking!
(Song of Solomon 5:2 HCSB)

I belong to my love, and his desire is for me.
(Song of Solomon 7:10 HCSB)

This morning, the Lord had me reading through Song of Solomon. Heidi's doing a study of Song of Solomon right now (she talked about it a little in her last post) and it's one of those things that's been cropping up all over the place. I'm fully aware of its natural meaning of the joys of married love, but, today, I was reading it with an eye towards its spiritual meaning of the Lord pursuing us as a bridegroom pursues his bride.

He finds me desirable and my heart thrills and responds to His love.

How beautiful you are, my darling. How very beautiful! Your eyes are doves.
(Song of Solomon 1:15 HCSB)

I read last night in Bob Sorge's Secrets of the Secret Place that doves have no peripheral vision. So, when the Lord says our eyes are doves, He is saying our gaze needs to be firmly fixed on Him to the exclusion of everything else. We have tunnel vision--nothing else even registers but Him.

And the joy of it is, His eyes are described as doves as well. He is gazing back at us with that same intensity of adoration!

His eyes are like doves beside streams of water, washed in milk and set like jewels.
(Song of Solomon 5:12 HCSB)

Oh, Lord, I set my gaze fully on You. Be magnified in my sight until You are all I can see. Hold my attention, Lord--don't let me be distracted by anything. I want to be captured and enthralled with You and You alone.

And, Lord, I thank You that You have fixed Your faze firmly upon me. I have no idea why You have chosen me, why You look upon me with such intensity, but I am so thankful for it. Teach me to respond to Your love--enlarge my heart's capacity to receive from You.

Amen.

my Beloved had turned away and was gone

2006-02-20T13:50:00.000-05:00

"I sleep, but my heart is awake; It is the voice of my beloved! He knocks, saying, “ Open for Me, my sister, my love, My dove, my perfect one; For my head is covered with dew, My locks with the drops of the night.”
I have taken off my robe; How can I put it on again? I have washed my feet; How can I defile them?
My beloved put his hand by the latch of the door, and my heart yearned for him.
I arose to open for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the lock.
I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and was gone."
Song of Songs 5:2-6 (NKJV)

(I am only beginning in a study of the Song of Songs, so my understanding and revelation is still small, but this passage has been on my heart all morning).

Literally, God was trying to get me out of bed this morning to come spend time with him. At 4am when he woke me up as He often does, I rolled back over in bed. At 5am when my alarm went off, I actually turned it off. And I knew He wanted me to get up. Talk about not making it to the door in time to let His Majesty in before He turns away. I have a daily morning reminder of the tug of war between what my flesh desires and what my spirit longs for. In this season of my life, God is pursuing me at my door. He is calling to me in my spirit and desiring me to respond quickly and completely, and in doing so, to say no to my natural urges. I am so accustomed to comforting myself with things like food and sleep that when God calls me to find my life source in Him instead, it is like breaking an addictive bond.

The only way is through His grace poured out giving me strength. I need Him. I can't let Him walk away from the door. I've had a taste of His love, and I want to keep wanting Him. I don't want Him to stop knocking, to stop waking me up in the morning. It's hard enough to get up, even when my first thought of the morning is "HE woke me up. " My alarm clock does not give me that thought.

The point is about more than just waking up in the morning and getting out of bed. God wants His people to enter into intimacy and partnership with Him. He longs for us to have a hunger for Him and His ways. So often we are preoccupied with satisfying the desires and needs of our hearts with natural things that we don't have an appetite for Him. It is by His revelation and grace that we are able to be stirred to this hunger. After our appetite and desire for Him have been struck, we need to sustain and even increase it, again with His strength. He has given us the disciplines of fasting, the Word, prayer, and worship for this purpose. He also uses His presence to draw us, and may even "step away from our door" to cause us to miss Him and come pursuing after Him. What a powerful move.

Lord, I want to be awakened. I want to come out of the comfort of my bed and into communion with You. I need Your grace to be poured out on me daily, giving me the desire and the strength to pursue You with my whole heart. Help me get up in the morning. Because I know I will find You at my door if I will get up and open it to You. And I can't do it in my own strength. Don't leave my door God. Please, I want to come and meet with You. My heart wants more of You. I don't want to lose that wanting feeling, that desperation, that urgency that You have stirred up there.

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me .
Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit."
Psalm 51:10-12 (NKJV)

Amen.

Glow

2006-02-17T13:57:00.000-05:00

A week ago, we sat at my computer looking through old posts, and I said, "I can't believe I lost so much of the last few years. I can't believe I walked so far from the things He was showing me back then. I lost so much time." I felt deep sadness. I thought I was back at square one, that I must be so far behind in fulfilling my calling.

The other side of the coin was a feeling of amazement at how several years later I have been drawn into the same focus and themes that I had literally forgotten about, God bringing me to exact passages of scripture and rerevealing Himself and His purposes. Amazement.

Monday night someone said to me, "Heidi, I can't believe how much you have changed in the past year. You are so completely different. A year ago, I was actually afraid of you. You always looked mad."

It occured to me that I probably was angry a lot. I was stuck in some major ruts in my life, and I did not have any hope of getting out. And I was desperately trying to control situations and people in my life.

She went on to say, "You are a new person. You look totally different. You glow. And it is awesome to see how God changed you."

It is awesome. Sometimes I can't believe it myself. Sometimes I am so stuck in the middle of a situation that I need to "zoom out" and see the whole process He has taken me through. When I do that, what I see is what other people see. That He has literally transformed me. He has freed from some of the most destructive spirits I know of.

He is sovereign. Nothing about the way He took me through the process made sense in the natural, but I learned to trust Him completely through it. His character and His ways are perfect.

I have so appreciated the feedback I have received like my conversation Monday. There have been several times over the last year that someone has commented on the change in my appearance or my demeanor, telling me how different I am. What an encouragement, being able to step back and see where I have come from. To see how quickly and perfectly He has done this after I had tried for so long to make something happen myself, something that was a cheap imitation of what He was wanting to do.

I guess I am glowing. I love Jesus more than ever, and I desire to bear His image more completely.

How does my conversation on Monday relate to my initial thoughts about the last few years? I am struck by how quickly and completely God changed me. Did I lose so much time? I wasn't pursuing Him and His ways, but He was pursuing me. He had a plan to restore my heart to Himself. He would stop at nothing to have my heart. He removed all of the earthly distractions and reminded me that only He satisfies the yearnings of my heart. And after that, he began to reveal Himself to me again as my Bridegroom God, jealous and in love with His soon to be wife. He has been revealing my beauty to me.

"Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready."

God you are awesome and sovereign. You have done so much for me, and I thank You. I want to discover Your love more every day.

Fasting Words

2006-02-16T17:00:00.000-05:00

Skip (who, apparently, intends to post as well and plans to post by the name everyone else knows her as) let me borrow a book a week or two ago. Was it that short a time ago? So much has changed since then. Anyway, the book is called The Rewards of Fasting: Experiencing the Power and Affections of God by Mike Bickle with Dana Candler. It's a great book and it's totally rocked my world, bringing me into a deeper realization of what fasting is and what it's designed for.

There's a chapter in the book called "The Five Expressions of a Fasted Lifestyle" and it explains that we can fast food, time, energy, money, and words. These are expressed by fasting food, praying, serving, giving, and blessing your enemies. The "blessing your enemies" bit is what surprised me--I'd never heard that before.

Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.
(Matt 5:44)

For if you forgive men their tresspasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
(Matt 6:14)

I know I can't be the only one who realizes how insane a commandment that is and how utterly uncapable we are of doing that outside of God. I'm learning firsthand just how quickly I move to defend myself, how easy it is to snap back, or to complain to my husband or friends how unfairly I'm being treated.

This is the area of fasting that is most quickly bringing up the character traits that I need to submit to God, the things in my soul that need to be purified by His holy fire. I know the only way these ugly things can be rooted out of me is to stay in these situations and die to myself, die to the things that I want to do. It's a constant checking of my first response and giving God complete control of my tongue, of my words.

This is the area of my life that forces me to my knees, repenting of what I have done (said, thought) crying out for God to give me grace, to give me strength. I am wholly unable to do this on my own, it makes me realize how completely dependent I must be on God.

Our selfishness has to die before we are able to leave our defense completely in God's hands. Refusing to speak against those who mistreat us goes against our natural tendency of self-preservation. Jesus committed Himself to God to make things right when men reviled and threatened Him...

When we bless our enemies, we give up the right to the emotional and social strength we might have gotten from fighting back. We fast from defending our reputation, and trust the Lord to fight for us when we are silent. This is perhaps the expression of the fasted lifestyle taken the least literally by believers. We think, surely God would not want me to be silent right now when that person is so overtly wrong! He would want the truth to win out, right? Confident that we are doing the right thing, we speak out to defend ourselves and expose our enemies. Yet the invitation and call of God is to willingly and agressively entrust ourselves, our reputations and our relationships into the hands of God--not seeking to perserve them ourselves, but trusting Him with them entirely.

(The Rewards of Fasting by Mike Bickle with Dana Candler, pgs 76-77, emphasis added)

Lord, teach me to rest in You. Whether I am ever redeemed from this situation or not, let me rest wholly in Your love for me. Help me to guard my mouth, Lord, to only speak Your words of love in this situation.

Holy Spirit, love this person through me. Let Your supernatural love flow through me, shift my heart towards them. Amen.

Significance

2006-02-11T19:34:00.000-05:00

Turn my eyes from looking at what is worthless; give me life in Your ways.
(Psalm 119:37 HCSB)

And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you can determine what really matters and can be pure and blameless in the day of Christ.
(Philippians 1:9-10 HCSB)

Those are some verses that have been smacking me in my face lately. For the last week, in my personal prayer time, two of my focal points have been praying my way through Psalm 119 and the apostolic prayers of Paul. So, each day, I would come across these verses and each day they touched off a realization in my heart, a new way of thinking that I have to step into on a daily basis.

The Lord desires for us to be able to discern what has eternal significance. It is the mark of a mature believer to be able to focus on eternity and not just be blown about by whatever we feel is important at that particular moment.

When believers are sucked into the cares of this world, it includes being utterly consumed by the urgent things, and not being able to determine what is truly significant.

God has been challenging me lately to examine my life and see the quality of the work I have produced. Have I built on the foundation with gold, silver, and costly stones...things that will last? Or have I used wood, hay, or straw, those things that will perish in the Day of Judgement when they are tested with fire (1 Corinthian 3:12-13)? Each day I have to make a renewed commitment to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33).

Lord, turn my eyes from looking at worthless things. Enlarge my ability to walk in Your love and discernment, to determine what really matters and has significance. Teach me how to make seeking you first the focus of each day. Let everything else that I do on any given day flow out of tapping into Your heart for the people and situations I come in contact with.

I'm Back

2006-02-11T12:56:00.000-05:00

Four years ago, my friend, Skip, and I started this blog. We were starting to have some pretty intense conversations about what God was teaching us and we decided to chronicle them here, kind of in a way to continue our discussions when we weren't together. And then, we let it fall to the side as our lives shifted and we started to focus on other things.

In the last six months, God has totally drawn both of our hearts to seeking Him as our first love. It's been pretty amazing hearing what God is doing in the other person's life because it totally encourages us to keep moving forward, to keep seeking after him. And I started thinking about our defunct blog again, wondering if it might be time to dust this off and start posting here again.

A couple of days ago, I decided it was time. Not only to talk about what God is doing in my own life, but also because I see God doing this all across our generation. I hear it in conversations, I read it in my friends' blogs. So, I wanted a place to write about it too. A record for myself to see what God is doing, a place where I can dialogue with others and encourage them to respond to God drawing them.

I don't know yet if Skip will join me again. She knows I'm opening the blog back up, but I don't think she's made a decision about her role yet. For the moment, we've decided to leave our old posts up. I read some of them to her yesterday and it was amazing how God spoke to us then and how it echoes what He's telling us now.

Anyways, this is my "welcome back" post. I'm pretty much just shouting into the abyss right now since there's no one reading this (yet), but that's okay. I'll be back later to share a little more about what God is doing in me right now.

2002-11-27T23:23:00.000-05:00

It's Been A While. I just realized that instead of complaining about half the crap going on in my life right now, I should realize that this is exactly the opportunity I've been looking for. The opportunity to surrender everything that I want, all the selfish little nitpicky things that are getting stepped on, and submerge myself in who God is and in who He desires for me to be. This is the moment when I should be "dying to self", ruthlessly rooting out that portion of myself that's protesting being molded like clay. So, yeah, I realize that now is the time. How am I going to get myself to do it?

2002-11-09T00:08:00.000-05:00

"Precious one, I understand that in places where you hurt the deepest, your tendency is to run from My touch. I know your pain to a greater depth than even you know. I inhabit you and am intimately acquainted with everything about you. So come. Come, My dear one and pour it all out upon Me."

"Allow Me the access to touch your heart. Open your heart before Me and let your tears flow. Let the yearnings and groanings of your heart express concisely what your silent tears do not voice. Put words to your tears and come to Me."

"Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest." (Ps 126:5-6 NLT)

2002-08-28T22:16:00.000-04:00

some excerpts from an article on the relevant site...which seem sorta...relevant.
"So I’ve admitted I’m a doubter, a wrestler. Like Jacob, I’ve been thrown alone into a place where I can’t see so far ahead, where faith is something I’m reaching for every morning—a girl fumbling in the dark to find her glasses. Sometimes I think how Jesus only asked us to have the faith of a mustard seed. And maybe I have that kind of faith, the kind that is small enough to keep me holding on to a God who knows me, who allows me to kick until I’m tired, until I’m wounded, until I’m still...
...I’m learning here in this broken world where it all feels too frightening, where we wrestle like Jacob just to hang on to God, that if we are brave enough to fold our fists around the tiny bit of faith we can find, if we can face up to those moments when God calls us to know the very in “very courageous,” we will be like Joshua. We will see those miracles when God stills the sun in the sky, when He splits open rivers so we can walk across dry ground, when He shatters walls with the sounds of our battered and off-key trumpets...
...We will be like Jacob: struck by the hand of God. Every time we limp we will remember that we never struggled alone. Perhaps, after the battle, we will stand together, leaning on our crutches. And we will worship."
here's the full article:
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=481&mode=&order=0

2002-07-06T10:00:00.000-04:00

Maybe I Can Make It Through This. After posting the entry from last night, I decided to take a look at some of the old Bride's Journey blogs and the stuff I wrote on waiting (from way back in February) helped...a lot. So, I guess that's where I'm at. Waiting and realizing that means so much more than just hanging around and waiting for something else to launch me out of this place in which I managed to land.

2002-07-05T19:50:00.000-04:00

Totally Dependent. Due to current events that have happened in my life (see my blog for an extremely incomplete explanation), I have found myself in a place of feeling completely and totally abandoned and alone. This is one of those times when I guess the lesson to be learned is "lean on God and He will provide". Hmm. We'll see if I can live that out because although depending on God is what I should be doing, I just feel like I'm drowning or being slowly suffocated. I hate this place I'm in. Truly I hate it. And I've been crying or feeling like I want to cry every minute of the day. And I hate it.

2002-05-23T13:02:00.000-04:00

Aloha. I just went to check the Bride's Journey (the last time I, ValMarie, posted was 2 months and 13 days-sorry 'bout that) and it was saying "Page Not Found"...so this is a maintenance check I guess. And I'll post something real soon.

2002-04-03T22:14:00.000-05:00

Magnificent Obsession by Steven Curtis Chapman

Lord, You know how much
I want to know so much
In the way of answers and explanations
I have cried and prayed
And still I seem to stay
In the middle of life’s complications
All this pursuing leaves me feeling like I’m chasing down the wind
And I can see again

This is everything I want
This is everything I need
I want this to be my one consuming passion
Everything my heart desires
Lord, I want it all to be for You, Jesus
Be my magnificent obsession

So capture my heart again
Take me to depths I’ve never been
Into the riches of Your grace and Your mercy
Return me to the cross
And let me be completely lost
In the wonder of the love
That You’ve shown me
Cut through these chains that tie me down
To so many lesser things
Let all my dreams fall to the ground
Until this one remains

You are everything I want
You are everything I need
I want You to me my one consuming passion
Everything my heart desires
Lord, I want it all to be for You
I want it all to be for You

Amen...

2002-03-10T22:14:00.000-05:00

Surround Me. We sung that song in church today:

Surround me, O Lord
Surround me, O Lord
Surround me, O Lord
Let Your presence fill this place

Simple, sweet, to the point. Surround me, Lord...

2002-02-25T09:54:00.000-05:00

More About Waiting. Waiting is not merely a period of lazy inactivity, of lolling around while keeping one ear half-cocked for God's 150-decibel Words Of Instruction. No, to wait is to continually hold one's self in a still, silent attitude of readiness or expectancy in order to be able to immediately respond to His whisper. It is to continually and diligently seek Him, His Face. It is to place one's self in a hidden, concealed position (the secret place) in order to block out any distractions that may keep you from hearing/seeing his direction for yoour life. It is applying yourself to the pursuit of His Presence. It is seizing every moment to apply truths God has already revealed to your life. It is realizing being weak is the point of greatest strength.

I'm not really sure what I'm getting at. However, I realize that purification/consecration/waiting all hinge on our inadequacy to live the life expected/ordained for us. If I could do it on my own, why would I submit myself to fires that set ablaze every single thing I hold dear to my heart? If I could do it on my own, why would I go through the frustration of not knowing what happens next? Doing things this way hurts! I'm blind, helpless, naked and limping down a very narrow path...What's the point?

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead...I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of Crist Jesus...for our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is even able to subdue all things to Himself." (Philippians 3:8-11, 14, 20-21)

2002-02-24T22:56:00.000-05:00

So...this will be the 2nd time I sit and write this...mostly because I just lost the first version...not sure exactly what happened, but it is definitely gone. So I'll try again. This will be the shortened version, as it is 1030pm and I'm out of energy.

Val, right on. I like the waiting on God thing...a friend gave me that revelation a few years ago, and it registered with me on an intellectual level, so I'm sure there's a reason it's coming back up.

The past couple times I've been searching in the word, I've been reading Jeremiah 32 and 33. In Chapter 32, God's addressing disobedience. It's sometimes easy for me to get caught up in rationalizing my life by comparing it to those who appear (in human terms) to be more disobedient. But I've been noticing that God is pointing out several places where I've been not obedient enough...which really basically translates to not being obedient. In Chapter 33, God says if we call on Him, He will answer, will show us great and mighty things, will reveal the abundance of peace and truth, and will cleanse them and pardon their iniquity. Verses 10-11 give me encouragement:

"Again there shall be heard in this place...the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say, Praise the Lord of hosts: for the Lord is good; and His mercy endures forever..."

So there is a way into that deeper relationship with Him. It will no doubt require a painful proces of burning off of the areas of my disobedience and a total revamping of my mindset. But it's worth it when I have a glimpse of the end result. It brings each of my decisions into a new perspective.
I'm in wonder of God. He says call unto Me.
So God, I call unto You.

2002-02-24T14:37:00.000-05:00

I was listening to this (Vineyard's "Hungry") in Skip's car on the way home from service this morning:

Hungry, I come to You for I know You satisfy
I am empty, but I know Your love does not run dry
And so I wait for You, so I wait for You

I'm falling on my knees
Offering all of me
Jesus, You're all this heart is living for

Broken, I run to You for Your arms are open wide
I am weary, but I know Your touch restores my life
And so I wait for You, I wait for You

I'm falling on my knees
Offering all of me
Jesus, You're all this heart is living for

And I started thinking: Everywhere people talk about "waiting on the Lord" and I realized that I'm not entirely sure what that means....so I looked the word "wait" up:

"Wait": (n) a state or attitude of watchfulness or expectancy; a hidden or concealed position; (v) to remain inactive in readiness or expectation; to be ready

And I interpreted that to mean that waiting isn't a passive thing. It is active, something you do...waiting on the Lord is something you determine to do not something you stumble in to...you set yourself aside (hidden, concealed position) to wait...I don't know, I'm still stumbling through this...however, that's what I'm thinking of right now...

2002-02-19T22:54:00.000-05:00

good to hear your thoughts, skip... :o)

2002-02-17T23:40:00.000-05:00

PLEASE NOTE...i wrote the following stuff down about a week ago, and i'm just now getting the time and energy to copy and paste to here, even though it's been on my mind the whole time...so here goes...

[So, this is just random, but I was listening to one of my cd's (Paul Alan), and the lyrics from his song The One Thing jumped out at me. I played it again and then got out the cover to read the words again...Here they are.
Drive away the cold
From this winter's soul
And renew Your spirit in me
Let the rain fall sweet
From Your mercy seat
Remind me that you never will forget
To wash away the bitter in the end
'Cause we all reach for something, don't we?
Live and breathe this one thing, don't we? We do.
And I know you're there
Just beyond this prayer
I believe You silent as you are
And the emptiness
Is not purposeless
It's only thirst compelling us to drink
Only questions find the answers that we seek.
Every atom in me waits
Every breath anticipates
But if this is what it takes
I'll sit right here with You.
'Cause we all reach for something, don't we?
Live and breathe this one thing, don't we? We do.
The one thing I need is You.

Those aren't my words, but boy do they seem to fit me tonight.]

and btw, i'm just getting totally excited for some real "bride" fellowship time...

2002-02-07T23:58:00.000-05:00

I logged in to Blogger with the intent of replying to Skip's blog. However, I just got out of the car with her and I'm definitely in this chewing-digesting mode from everything we discussed. So, I guess I'll be responding later when I've really thought about everything. Meanwhile, I was working on cleaning out my closet...really cleaning it. I pulled out all the clothes and I've been trying them on and sorting into piles: "definite keeps", "need to be fixed or cleaned or something", "dubious", and "nots". And I realized that pretty much describes my life right now...I'm holding up every piece of it to the light of God's Word and examining it: "Is this right?", "Does it fit with where God wants me right now?", "Does it need to be cleaned and restored?", "Do I need to get rid of it?"...

2002-02-06T18:39:00.000-05:00

I'm becoming more and more aware of my inability to function without the strength from the Lord. This is especially evident in the number of times I have sat at the computer and started to write something like this...only to be interrupted by one more seeming crisis. I am at peace to know that He has it all in control, even though the past two weeks has driven my stress level up significantly. I keep coming back to the realization that I am inadequate apart from God. Many scriptures and sermons lately have pointed to the act of dying to self. It means something new to me everytime I hear it. Today, I am thinking about my independence and my self-dependence (probably not a word, but it seems to define what I'm talking about better than the word independence). I think that's a piece of my self that is still in the process of dying. The fact that I am feeling in over my head strikes me as an opportunity to notice how dependent I am on Him. I'm reading some of the stuff I just got from Val...(from Passion and Purity)...a book I haven't read yet, but hope to borrow from her as soon as tomorrow. Anyway, the part she sent me is about recognizing the things/people who serve as the "water from the well of Bethlehem" in your life. I can think of at least a few things/people I have turned to even recently. Gotta love it when God hits you with the truth and it's not at all vague. It's amazing how deceitful the devil is to offer us something "good" to substitute for the "best" that God has for us, or to point us in just barely the wrong direction with that thing God has given us. I think that's why sometimes it's hard for us to recognize the "dying to self" type of changes that need to happen. So, obviously, even as I'm writing this, I'm getting a little more acquainted with what God has in store for me. Anyway, I'm already late for my bible study group tonight (we're going through the book God Chasers-definitely a must read). I'm feeling a little disorganized so I'm not sure if all that came out right, but it's where I'm at right now.

2002-02-06T00:08:00.000-05:00

Tonight I rediscovered Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot. I went thumbing through my (well-marked) copy, just reading little bits and snatches, and came across some amazing words of wisdom...

Discipleship usually brings us into the necessity of choice between duty and desire. They are not always mutually exclusive, however. When our hearts are set on obedience, we can be sure of the needed wisdom to tell between a conflict and a harmony. It may be a slow and painful process.

2002-02-03T19:43:00.000-05:00

Lord, I give You my heart, I give You my soul, I live for You alone. With every breath that I take, every moment I'm awake, Lord have Your way in me. We sung that song in church today and it struck me that those lyrics are the ultimate expression of brideship (a word that Skip and I invented)...an active giving of everything you are in order to receive Him and everything He is...

2002-02-01T20:57:00.000-05:00

So now i have my user id. so cool.

2002-02-01T20:41:00.000-05:00

I bullied Skip (who is a girl) into starting a team blog with me. We have to go set up a user id for her now though.