Living Life for Christ Alone

Seasons of great need - how easily we shun them like the plague.   The past several weeks have been drenched in many challenges and needs for me and my family.  Need that has had me crying out to God, “how long?”  I beg him for a time limit, some light at the end of the tunnel, but when I look for it, I just see more tunnel.  What is the purpose of a season like this?  This is the question I have found myself asking God on a near daily basis.  I won’t say I’ve found out the fullness of the answer yet, but pressing the question so much has yielded some light for me.  After all, He promises that those who seek will find.  And one thing He keeps pressing into my soul is this:  My need is my opportunity to test the limits I think God has on the amount of grace He will give me.  And oh, if I could recount to you all the ways He has already poured so much grace, you would think me a spoiled daughter of the King.  But if you saw how each d...

  When suffering grows long… Pretense is cast away and the true colors of our faith are revealed. Questions surface, doubts speak, and endurance wears thin.  This is when we are purified by fire. How will we answer the questions?  How will we fight the doubts?  How will we keep going through the suffering when the endurance all but disappears?  The answer is simple. So simple in fact, that we easily overlook it.  We can’t. Our own resources are not enough to pull us through. And when we finally embrace that fact, we open ourselves up to One greater than our weakness.  He steps amid the rubble of our broken lives, sees the crushed self-will, the shredded self-confidence, the sense that all control is lost, and finds us in a place where He can do something with us.  For before the long season of suffering began, though we thought we had built up something He could use, He saw how we were trying to mix self in with His power. And He also saw the grea...

"Much-Afraid shrank back. 'I am afraid,' she said. 'I have been told that if you really love someone you give that loved one the power to hurt and pain you in a way nothing else can.' "'That is true,' agreed the Shepherd. 'To love does mean to put yourself into the power of the loved one and to become very vulnerable to pain, and you are very Much-Afraid of pain, are you not?' "She nodded miserably and then said shamefacedly, 'yes, very much afraid of it.' "'But it is so happy to love,' said the Shepherd quietly. 'It is happy to love even if you are not loved in return. There is pain too, certainly, but Love does not think that very significant.' ... "'...Love and Pain go together, for a time at least. If you would know Love, you must know pain too.'"  -Hinds Feet on High places // "...If you would know love, you must know pain too." How close to home this phrase hits.  It is painful...

"'Has love no power to save apart from suffering? Why must love suffer at all, and why, above all else, must love suffer long?' "'It is because the very essence of love is oneness,' said the King.  "'That is why love must suffer. If the beloved creatures whom the Creator created for love's sake must suffer, then the oneness of love makes it impossible for Him to allow them to suffer anything which He is not willing to suffer with them.'"   (Mountains of Spices, Hannah Hurnard) //   "...The very essence of love is oneness..." This phrase has echoed in my mind many times this week.  It is impossible for our God to let us suffer without suffering with us. It is impossible for trials and pressures to squeeze us on every side without Him feeling those trials and pressures too.  And yet, how often do I try to handle them on my own?  Standing up under pressure without supernatural strength holding you can only last so long.  My own sou...

It is so easy to assume certain things about God, to assume certain things about the way He views me.  This meditation below encouraged my heart along this line of thought this morning.  Be encouraged as you read along. Maybe read it as though you yourself had written it.  I needed it. It lifted my heart towards Him.  May it do the same for you.  "...He rescued me because He delights in me." (Psalm 18:19) HE delights in me: The God of the Universe. The King of kings. The sinless, perfect One. The One who sees all and knows all. The One who sees me. The One whose glance makes the earth tremble and whose touch makes the mountains smoke. The One who needs only to utter a word and things are created out of nothing, miracles happen, lives are forever changed. He DELIGHTS in me: That God (the only God) delights in me. He smiles when He thinks of me. There is pleasure in His heart over me. He rejoices over me with singing.  I bring Him joy. He is not sad about me,...

 "Blessed be... the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation..." -2 Corinthians 1:3-4 All  leaves nothing out.  Perhaps my greatest tribulation at the moment is a mere backache. Or perhaps the time comes when the backache seems like nothing next to extreme loss.  Perhaps the tribulation is a battle in the mind- perplexities, emotions that pull all different directions, confusing thoughts, lies... Or perhaps it is outward circumstances that have you confused.  Perhaps it's extreme difficulty. But more often than not, our tribulations come in small packages that on the outside don't appear very threatening, until we find ourselves overwhelmed afresh with our own inability to take another step.  Whatever the tribulation may be, in every one of them, Jesus draws near in order to comfort. Never will He speak words of condemnation to the soul in distress. His aim is to encourage -which is to infuse with courage - so tha...