"Who Am I?" This is NOT a blog about identity...

... this IS a blog about the relationships that exist between Jesus Christ & me and between me & others around me.

Often times I find myself in a position where I feel mistreated, or I feel unappreciated, or I feel looked over. When those times come I have two distinct options: 1. I could allow myself to have a "pitty party" and wallow in my sorrows and make it known to the world that I'm hurt or 2. I can respond with the joy of the Lord who is my strength and show love to the same people(or person) who made me feel mistreated, unappreciated or looked-over.

When I first dwell on the fact that I feel mistreated, unappreciated or looked-over I tend to subconsciously slide right into the "pitty party". Next I unknowingly start to think about how I can subtly show the other person that I am hurt by what they did... "I could act really sad tomorrow and they would have to ask me what's wrong! Or I could purposefully have a really subdued attitude and they'd recognize it and talk to me about it! Or what if I ..." But as i think of these things and get the unsettling feeling in my stomach I always end up at the same question-- "Who am I?"

Who am I to deny to someone else the immense and abundant grace the Lord showed me?
Who am I to receive inexplicable forgiveness from Christ and not forgive this person I love?
Who am I to acknowledge and accept the unconditional love of my father and not repay it to you?
Who am I to disregard the fact that Christ called me to "love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me"?
Who am I to receive blessing and favor from the Lord and repay His son/daughter with animosity?

I can make you this promise, no matter how you spin it, there is no rationale that can justify making someone else feel bad/guilty for treating me the way they did. Turn the other cheek.

Luke 6:27-29

"But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 

bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 

If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. 

If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them."

We are not called to turn the other cheek so that we have a bruised face and the person who "hit" us has to look at it for the rest of the day and feel guilty. We are called to turn the other cheek because if you and I were in Jerusalem as Jesus was carrying the cross up to the hill of Golgotha, you and I could very easily have been standing there watching, maybe even joining in the hateful chants. And even so, God died for you. So take this moment today to repay hurt with love and kindness.

Jimmy Needham has lyrics that say, "they will know us by our love". No truer words could be said. God is most seen through us when we take a situation and instead of reacting the way the world would deem appropriate, we react the way Christ did, accepting all blame for the sake of The Father and for the sake of bringing Him glory.

Romans 2:1-3

"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, 

for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, 

because you who pass judgment do the same things. 

Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 

So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, 

do you think you will escape God's judgement?"

Take away two things from that scripture: 1. You and the person who hurt you are equal in stature and status in the hierarchy of life, you are both under the reign of a Holy and Mighty God and 2. You, more than likely, have committed the same hurtful action to someone else whether unknowingly or consciously. So recognize that you are human just as is the person who hurt you, whom I would venture to guess is someone you love or care deeply about, and show them a love that forgives them without them even asking.

The final point I leave you with is this-- people will not always meet up to your expectations of them. Please get used to it, don't expect it, but be aware that this will happen! I am as loyal a girl as they come, and consequently I crave loyalty. And I am constantly hurt when someone does not repay my loyalty with loyalty. But something I have had to learn is that no human being will ever not hurt you. ("For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23) So when they do you need to default to the loyalty that comes from your Father. Because though everyone else will inadvertently fail you and let you down, He is the only one who never will. Take comfort in this. And know that He will never leave you nor forsake you. So when your dad or mom, or your sibling, or one of your best friends does something to hurt you give them the grace they deserve and default to God and give Him your dependence.

(I say these things as a guide, not as law. And not to be depressing, but to be real. If your friends are constantly hurting you every day they probably aren't worth your time. But if the people you love the most hurt you every once and a while, this may be helpful to remember.)

Who am I? I am a daughter of the King who has been saved by grace and called to show the world of the great freedom and love that comes with a grace so glorious.

Whitney

Chase Your Fear!

A couple nights ago I started reading In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day by Mark Batterson. I actually received the book as a gift for being a first-time attender at River Valley Church. I've been utterly intrigued by the book since I started it-- don't let the title of the book fool you, this one will blow you away.

In the third chapter Batterson is teaching a new concept(at least to me): Unlearning Your Fears.He states that spiritual growth is half learning, understanding and grasping new knowledge and the other half is unlearning what you've already learned. ("Half of spiritual growth is learning what we don't know, the other half of spiritual growth is unlearning what we do know.") Initially the concept was a bit puzzling. But as he dug deeper into exposing the reason for unlearning he continued to talk about our fears. And I realized the word fear wasn't stimulating anything i am particularly fearful of. So I stopped and asked myself, "What am I afraid of? What do I fear?" And here's the blunt honesty. I thought of one thing-- I am deathly afraid of getting my heart broken.

I didn't always make the wisest choices in high school, especially where it came to guarding my heart. I was an innocent, sheltered, Christian teenage girl who wanted to prove my popularity by gaining the attention of any guy. And because I made that decision I lived with a lot of heart ache. I have a good share of painful memories from "relationships" gone wrong in high school. Somehow I always seemed to give my heart away to the lowest bidder and then just waited for it to be stepped on. (For which I promise I have personally taken responsibility for.) This track record though has taught me to fear.

A few years later, here I am, a much more mature Christian who is fighting to guard my heart. I have gone on a number of dates in the past couple years, none of which ended how one would wish. I've incurred some heart ache even since high school, and I continually ask the Lord why. Why, Lord? When I'm so careful who I talk to, how intentional I am with my conversation with guys, I've almost completely rid myself of one-on-one time with guys, I rarely flirt (if you're a high school friend reading this you may be scoffing, it is pretty miraculous, I'll give you that, but totally true), and I am constantly asking the Lord for discernment with every guy who asks me to go for coffee, but I still endure heart ache. Something that has boggled my mind.

But Mark Batterson brought my attention to this, he said, "The cure for the fear of failure is not success. It's failure. The cure for the fear of rejection is not acceptance. It's rejection. You've got to be exposed to small quantities of whatever you're afraid of. That's how you build up immunity." For me to find relief from my fear of heart break the Lord has given me ample opportunity to experience the distaste of heart ache, and to therefore use said experiences to learn and condition myself to respond differently.

We don't taste what we're afraid of because God's wrath is upon us, or we have sinned an unforgettable sin, or we have asked for one-too-many things from the Lord (all of which are lies from the devil and you need to know right now not to let them penetrate your thoughts). We taste what we're afraid of because our God is a loving father who knows we will miss the greatness in store when we continue to run from our fear-- recognizing it is there, and making decisions based on not wanting to encounter those fears.

Is it irrational for me to not want to date/become close to someone of the opposite sex for fear of heart break, no maybe not irrational. But will I therefore run from the man the Lord has promised me-in His perfect and precise timing- if my decisions are driven by my fear? Personally, I'm not willing to be controlled by my fear, and I'm certainly not willing to miss out on the man the Lord desires for my life. So my prayer?

"Jesus, teach me to run after my fear! Continue to give me opportunities to be obedient to Your discernment in my heart. May I not be controlled by my fear, but be moved and guided according to Your presence, and Your Holy Spirit dwelling in me as your temple. Lord, where I am weak be my strength! Continue to reveal what fears are controlling me so those too can be surrendered and submitted to you so I have no other master than you--not even fear."

Chase your fears dear friends! Run after them with the Lord holding your hand! He's ready to break them down with you! Deuteronomy 20:4 "For the Lord your God is He who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory."

Lyrics of 12/15

Listening to a Kari Jobe playlist while studying for finals, I kept hearing encouragement run through my ears.

"Come find peace

everyone needs a little -- rest

everyone needs a little -- joy

and a song to sing in the darkest night.

life -- even when its gets you down

hope -- will turn it all around but

love -- is the greatest of these."

... "Everyone Needs A Little"

"Your mercy and Your grace will be my dwelling place."

... "Joyfully"

"I know that You are for me, I know that You are for me

I know that You will never forsake me in my weaknesses.

I know that You have come now, even if to write upon my heart

to remind me who You are."

... "You Are For Me"

"I'm singing to a God who brings redemption to the nations,

kings and oceans bow to Him in praise.

I'm singing to the God who wrote the book on our salvation,

to the One who covers me in grace I'm singing.

...Only one man took the nails."

... "I'm singing"

"You hold my every moment.

You calm my raging seas.

You walk with me through fire

and heal all my disease.

I trust in You.

Lord, I trust in You.

I believe You're my healer,

I believe You are all need.

I believe You're my portion.

I believe You're more than enough for me.

Jesus You're all I need.

Nothing is impossible for You

Nothing is impossible.

Nothing is impossible for You

You hold my world in Your hands."

... "Healer"

"Healer", by virtually any artist, happens to be my favorite worship song. You can't sing this song, and thus proclaim these words from your heart, without having a change of attitude, reverence and a re-posturing of your heart. If you're not giving the Lord lip service, then listen to what you're saying!

(reiteration of lyrics) He is in my every moment. He brings peace to my storm. He walks with me through refinement. He brings me physical, emotional and spiritual restoration. And knowing what He does as He walks with me in my every moment I say... Jesus, Savior, Father, King! I trust you to heal me and make me whole. I PROCLAIM that You are all I need. Jesus you are my portion! You are abundantly more than enough nourishment for me! I KNOW again Lord, that You are all I need. And proclaiming what you do for me... Father I see that nothing is impossible for You, that with the world in Your hands, I am surrendering to the creator of the universe, of night and day and life in between. I surrender and know that nothing is impossible for You God.

Worshiping the Lord with this song you are doing these three things:

1. Recognizing that He is constantly walking with you & giving what you need in each moment.

2. Proclaiming His place in your life!

3. Understanding He holds power over everything created & thus nothing limits Him.

Once you've gone through this process in worship, you have re-centered the purpose for all your actions, and have placed God as Lord over your life. I hope you too find peace in having God taking His place as Lord over your life.

Mmm.. now there is power in that!!!

Merry (almost) Christmas! & hey, do me a favor. Say a prayer over Tim Tebow today. Pray that he would continue to seek Christ as his strength & continue to fear God and not man.

Whitney

Can I have more of you?

Day 1 of [Manna]: a deeper level of trust- submission

God I love You and all You do,

Your joy lives inside and does me good

Can I have more of You?

Amazing grace how sweet the sound

oh my God You'll never let me down

Can I have more of You?

"Can I Have More of You?" - Kim Walker

This song is a good preface to the next fourteen days for me. Today is the start of a 14 day "fast" of sorts. A fast based on Exodus 16, at which point the Israelites had been led out of imprisonment in Egypt, experiencing true freedom and grace from the Lord after which they responded in selfishness.

"In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, 'If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.'" Exodus 16: 2-3

When I was reading this in August the Lord just burdened my heart. I remember being angry at the Israelites for acting so callous and selfish. I couldn't fathom receiving such a blessing as freedom from slavery and persecution and only a few days later be ungratefully complaining. Through Holy Spirit intervention & revelation I realized that this was a reminder of how quick we are to return to our flesh, and how quickly we so earnestly give our flesh and our sinful nature power, of which our emotions, attitude and actions are a reflection.

Throughout Exodus 16, the Lord daily provides ENOUGH manna in the morning and quail in the evening, straight from Heaven. A daily portion. The Lord said, "I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions." I believe there is much more beyond obedience in this 'test'. Within obedience is a level of trust, and an even deeper level of trust is submission. I believe the Lord was asking the Israelites if they would be satisfied with having Him, with being His people, with having His love, joy and blessings in abundance, or if they would continue to revert to their indulgences in Egypt.

For the next 2 weeks, I am going to run from indulgences, I will fast eating only plain oatmeal and water for 14 days. My prayer and my heart's cry in the midst of this fast is for more of Him! I want to be filled to overflowing with the Lord, I want to be supersaturated(which in Chemistry terms means a solution that contains a higher than concentration) by the Holy Spirit, so that my actions are constantly a reaction of being supersaturated, and thus are rooted in divinity and direction from the Lord.

I want to take you on this journey with me. I can't guarantee to blog everyday, I will certainly try, but I know I will fall a bit short.

My prayer for you, is that the Lord will show you areas in your life that you need to learn submission, areas where you need to hand back to the Lord and be expectant that He will guide the desires of your heart because you want to walk in His plan, and not ask Him to come with you in your own.

James 2:17

:)

My Father's Shadow

This past weekend I went home to Appleton, still my favorite place on earth, to go see my family. Life never ceases to be abundantly full of love and encouragement when I go back to that house on Apple Creek Road.

My dad, who is an avid biker and happens to be training to ride 100 miles for JDRF in August, mentioned he needed to get a 25 mile ride in on Saturday. So I excitedly, and naively, jumped at the opportunity to go with him. As we prepared our bikes, checked the wind speed and direction, got our water and filled our tires with air I was a tad anxious, ready to get on the road. We finally jumped on our bikes and commenced the trek. Not even three miles into the ride and I was panting. I consider myself an active person, but my heart and my lungs were getting a tough work out. At about the fourth mile my dad, his skill and his fancy speed/racer bike got ahead of me pretty good as we coasted down a hill, and when I caught up to him he said with concern, but not inferiority, "Are you tired Whit?" My indignant response, determined to not seem weak, was that I was fine. "If we need to slow down Whit, just say so."

How many times does this happen in our lives? As we prepare for the spiritual wilderness, making sure our lives are tuned and focused in the right direction, and then the moment comes to jump on the bike, into the hardship of life, and almost instantaneously we get weary. How many times does our father in Heaven tell us the same thing my dad said to me, "If we need to slow down Whit, just say so." Daughter/Son, if you're tired, exhausted and you feel weary--tell me. Our God who so compassionately and deeply desires for us to be free in our circumstances so that He can grant us a supernatural confidence that we are safe with Him and loved by Him. All He is asking us to do, is tell Him, confide in Him so that He can bring your heart rest.

We were about halfway, and biking against the gusty wind and hitting some pretty tough hills and my dad saw my exhaustion and offered me rest, "stay within a foot or less of my bike tire that way I break the wind for you so you can ride easier." Selfless.

How can we forget so frequently that close to our Father we find rest? When life and all of it's trials (1 Peter 1:6-7) tend to make us lose sight of our hope can we not hear the Lord telling us, stay close to me and you will find rest, draw near to me and I will draw near to you, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death I am with you. I don't know about you but man sometimes I need to bike a little closer and let the Lord break the wind. The devil can be so devious, so adamant, so determined to make us fail, to make us insecure and bring out our weaknesses. But we have to know that the Lord is offering to break the wind! He's desiring to take the brute of the pain so we can coast close behind him.

It's not always easy to get within a foot of my dad's tire. It takes extra endurance and strength in the midst of exhaustion go the short distance. But know this, He wants you to be close to Him more than your body aches for the rest you know you'll find. So in that moment, when we need a supernatural bout of strength and we ask the Lord to empower us with courage and perseverance to make it into the rest of His shadow, we will not only be empowered to get there, but when we do arrive we will be restored.

I about lost it in the middle of this bike ride when I heard my dad offer me selfless love and compassion, it was the ever so soft reminder that I am never alone, and that I can be confident that I always have My Father's Shadow to rest in.

Hebrews 12:28

:)

Redeeming Love: aftertaste

I finished reading Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers, for the second time in three months yesterday, it took me the same amount of time to read the 500 pages as it did the first time--2 days. There were just as many tears falling from my eyes this time as there had been the first. The same fears crept through me as I read. But what was different was my reaction to the whole story. More so this time did I see why Rivers wrote the book. Not as a truly endearing love story of forgiveness, unconditional love (which means way more than we give it credit for), perseverance, grace, mercy (in abundance!), freedom and so many other desiring qualities I could go on forever, all of which this book encapsulates, but I kept relating to the truth within the metaphor.

So often we fight the embrace of the Lord's love. We tell ourselves we're asking too much of Him, that soon the blessings and answered prayers will run out, we taunt ourselves to think that He doesn't speak to us but twice a week and we shouldn't waste those revelations on meaningless emotional shortcomings, that our sins are continually pushing Him away from us, and so many other lies we continually feed ourselves that widen the non-existent "gap" between us and our Heavenly Father which weakens our understanding of His love which bridges the gap.

First truth: The moment Christ came down and walked this earth, becoming son of man, the infinite gap, formed by sin starting at Adam and Eve, between Christ and His creation forever bridged.

Second truth: As Christ, first-and-foremost son of God, became son of man we, sons& daughters of men, became sons& daughters of God--IMMEDIATELY givings us authority.

We have authority over emotion.
We have authority over sickness.
We have authority over hatred.
We have authority over our sinful nature.
We have authority over the enemy.
We have authority over ________. You fill in the blank with what the enemy is using today to help you feel claustrophobic.

Third truth: Unconditional love. We hear God's love being described as unconditional all the time. We have authority over condemnation. Unconditional by definition means without conditions or limitations, absolute. The further we run from the Lord, His love remains the same. The closer we draw nearer, His love remains the same. When we catch ourselves in continuous sin, His love remains the same. When we keep fighting against Him, His love remains the same. This is not a love of human nature, it is not a love we will ever experience through sinful, fallen, imperfect, humanity

My prayer for you today, that you would recognize the things in your life that you feel are separating from your Heavenly Father. And as He reveals those separations to you, that you would understand first of all that you obtain an unconditional, absolute love from your Father and He has given you power over what is constricting your breath.





Revelation 3:19 (The people I love, I call to account--prod and correct and guide so that they'll live at they're best. Up on your feet, then! Run after God!)

My prayer for today.

Lord, reveal to me what it means to fear you-help me

understand. Lord, humble me, I want to be a servant. Lord, reveal to me

your h.o.l.i.n.e.s.s-impart your holiness on me-make me peculiar.

Show me how to walk in the Spirit.

Bless me with a life abundant with freedom.

... repeat.

repeat until your heart senses comfort &accepts truth.

stop looking for an earthly resolution to a spiritual matter.