"I am changing, less and less asleep
made of different stuff than when I began."
Shadowfeet
Brooke Fraser
What astonishing truth. Drawing closer to Him feels like waking up, my head clearing, thoughts and actions becoming more transparent. My skin loses numbness. My eyes lose blindness. Mist seems to drift away, and yet I see that there is more mist ahead. The mist isn't quite so frightening anymore.
I feel so utterly different, yet similar. As I draw in close to Him, as I am changed, it is as though I am becoming someone I met before, or is it someone I dreamt about? Maybe it is someone He told me about-I cannot be sure. I am still myself, yet I am constructed of better flesh and blood, purer and stronger.
That is what He does to us. for us. in us.
July 14, 2012
July 8, 2012
Quality battles Quantity
Thousands of words. If not more. The alphabetical representation of thoughts and musings poured bravely out to be seen by ten eyes, if even that many. So often we measure success in numbers. How many people like your facebook statuses? Retweet you? Follow you on tumblr? Read your blog?
What if we realized that numbers are not always the most clear measurement. I have watched the number of people who read my blog steadily...flatline. Never change. But God doesn't measure in numbers, but obedience. And I have learned that my words are used by God in the hearts of the few who do read it.
Rather than mildly amusing a hundred people, I am able to use my words, my gift from God, to really encourage and speak to at least two people. What an amazing thought, to think that anyone should be touched by my words! To think that God really does work in my selfish heart and inspire phrases and thoughts that express not only my own thoughts but the thoughts of others, thoughts that help other people along, maybe even people I am unaware of.
Some days are more difficult than others. I get discouraged, and stop trusting in His plan for this blog. But I try to remember that even the humblest word can be used for His glory, and whether it is before two or two thousand people, it is still for Him and He loves it. My blog's value is not in the number of people who comment, read or share it, but in the value Christ has given it, in His fingerprints left between the letters and the imprint on the hearts of those who read it.
And so my value is not in the number of people I reach, but in the obedience to Him and the value He gives me by loving me. I am valued not for my works, but for the simple fact that He created me, that He loves me. And so I cannot lose my value.
{The world screams: "We are what we do, we are what we have, we are what people think about us!" Christ whispers, "You are mine and I am yours."}
tweet by Mike Donehey
What if we realized that numbers are not always the most clear measurement. I have watched the number of people who read my blog steadily...flatline. Never change. But God doesn't measure in numbers, but obedience. And I have learned that my words are used by God in the hearts of the few who do read it.
Rather than mildly amusing a hundred people, I am able to use my words, my gift from God, to really encourage and speak to at least two people. What an amazing thought, to think that anyone should be touched by my words! To think that God really does work in my selfish heart and inspire phrases and thoughts that express not only my own thoughts but the thoughts of others, thoughts that help other people along, maybe even people I am unaware of.
Some days are more difficult than others. I get discouraged, and stop trusting in His plan for this blog. But I try to remember that even the humblest word can be used for His glory, and whether it is before two or two thousand people, it is still for Him and He loves it. My blog's value is not in the number of people who comment, read or share it, but in the value Christ has given it, in His fingerprints left between the letters and the imprint on the hearts of those who read it.
And so my value is not in the number of people I reach, but in the obedience to Him and the value He gives me by loving me. I am valued not for my works, but for the simple fact that He created me, that He loves me. And so I cannot lose my value.
{The world screams: "We are what we do, we are what we have, we are what people think about us!" Christ whispers, "You are mine and I am yours."}
tweet by Mike Donehey
July 2, 2012
summer's wash
A haven of repose. Those are the best words I can think of to describe my summer. Though I have not been idle, the rest this summer is bringing is overwhelmingly marvelous. My mind has been at ease, not fretting over projects or desperately trying to remember what I have to do tonight. The end of the school year was a time of flurried farewells and dizzying amounts of work that poured a burdensome cloak of fatigue about me.
Of course it isn't perfect, there are troubles and small worries that must be prayed over and fought. Yet these seem unimportant and surmountable in the glaze of the summer sun.
In an inexplicable way, I feel as though I am learning so much. I haven't really a clue as to what it is that I am learning, but I feel the gears turning and the thoughts being fashioned by greater hands than my own. It is the first summer that has not been one of drifting, but one of drawing near to Him. He helped me, kept me going through the year, and now has let me fall back into His hands and rest, rejuvenate, prepare for what is ahead. I am grateful for this repose. My sweat is drying, my face is being washed, my muscles are healing and my energy is storing up for the things I will have to do this next school year: not only school responsibilities, but people responsibilities.
I am socially secluded here at home, seeing mostly my family and a few old friends made of the dearest stuff. At school, I am socially bombarded, surrounded, immersed. There are many people that God has called me to care for, to support and listen to. Here, I am left to wander amongst familiarity and comfort. I know that my comfort will not last long, so I savor it as I would a good piece of dark chocolate. God will spring me right out of my comfortableness and into the introvert's exhaustive insanity of meeting new people all over. My rest has its' purpose. Even Jesus withdrew from the crowd to pray and rest.
{Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.}
Ada Louise Huxtable
Of course it isn't perfect, there are troubles and small worries that must be prayed over and fought. Yet these seem unimportant and surmountable in the glaze of the summer sun.
In an inexplicable way, I feel as though I am learning so much. I haven't really a clue as to what it is that I am learning, but I feel the gears turning and the thoughts being fashioned by greater hands than my own. It is the first summer that has not been one of drifting, but one of drawing near to Him. He helped me, kept me going through the year, and now has let me fall back into His hands and rest, rejuvenate, prepare for what is ahead. I am grateful for this repose. My sweat is drying, my face is being washed, my muscles are healing and my energy is storing up for the things I will have to do this next school year: not only school responsibilities, but people responsibilities.
I am socially secluded here at home, seeing mostly my family and a few old friends made of the dearest stuff. At school, I am socially bombarded, surrounded, immersed. There are many people that God has called me to care for, to support and listen to. Here, I am left to wander amongst familiarity and comfort. I know that my comfort will not last long, so I savor it as I would a good piece of dark chocolate. God will spring me right out of my comfortableness and into the introvert's exhaustive insanity of meeting new people all over. My rest has its' purpose. Even Jesus withdrew from the crowd to pray and rest.
{Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.}
Ada Louise Huxtable
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