In prayer, there is life.

This was an image I saw in my head while in worship one day. I was thinking about how in prayer we connect to the Lord, the beginning and source of all life. He is the source of all good things, and we have nothing good apart from Him. I don't have specific verse that this came from, it was several all colliding in my mind and heart at the same time, but real quick it makes me think of John 17:3 "Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." and

Psalm 36

" ¹ I have a message from God in my heart

concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:
There is no fear of God
before their eyes.

² In their own eyes they flatter themselves
too much to detect or hate their sin.
³ The words of their mouths are wicked and deceitful;
they fail to act wisely or do good.
⁴ Even on their beds they plot evil;
they commit themselves to a sinful course
and do not reject what is wrong.

⁵ Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.
⁶ Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
your justice like the great deep.
You, LORD, preserve both people and animals.
⁷ How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house;
you give them drink from your river of delights.
⁹ For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light.

¹⁰ Continue your love to those who know you,
your righteousness to the upright in heart.
¹¹ May the foot of the proud not come against me,
nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.
¹² See how the evildoers lie fallen—
thrown down, not able to rise! "

He is so faithful even when I'm not.

This is basically almost verbatim to what I wrote in my journal yesterday. I don't apologize for it being so long, but it's too amazing not to share:

The past couple of days have been a bit rough, as I’m trying to loose un-biblical mindsets and understandings of who God is and have them changed into correct ones. Now this may seem a bit confusing if you read this post too close after the last one, but in my head it actually kinda makes some sense. By gaining revelation of His love it will allow me to let go and walk away from wrong perceptions of Him; one that reduce His power, glory, love, goodness… I could probably go one for a while. And just because it’s good doesn’t mean it feels good now. There are lots of different half formed ideas and thoughts about who He is running around in my head that don’t fit together and I’m trying to figure out how they fit.

Thursday I had a long talk with Robert about this question, where does sin come from, where does sickness come from, who’s fault is it, whose in charge of what aspects, the story of Job, the story of the man born blind, the woman with the issue of blood, our authority in Christ… Like I said, it was a long conversation that came after me balling my eyes out for a few hours as I wrestled with faith and offense. I walked away from my talk with Robert still pretty conflicted, but I did feel a bit better to get it out.

Robert didn’t really have an answer to the “why” questions, which I wasn’t expecting him to, but he didn’t discourage me from asking them. That was new. And he could actually relate to me grappling with questions of “why did this happen?” and “where were you when…?” better than most people can. He did to encourage me to turn around my questioning though. Rather than starting from my stand point, looking at this world and pointing back to God, he was saying I need to start with God and work from there. God is good even when I don’t understand it. He didn’t create us to die, but as we sow, we shall reap. Adam, who is the father of us all, sowed sin and he’s reaping big time. God could repeal the curse that sin ahs brought in, but He hasn’t. But the Bible, and the Hebrew people it was originally written to have a way different view on death then we do in our society now. The bible’s view is that the dead are just sleeping; some in ecstasy, others in torment, because it’s not really the end. Biblically the “second death” s what we should really be worried about. This isn’t viewed rightly either, because if it was, sin would be a lot less enticing. When we’ve been tempted to sin (lie, cheat, steal, gossip, sexual immorality) we’d remember that the result of that would be a trip to the lake of fire, and we’d say ‘it’s not worth it.’

Trying to reconcile cancer and Dad’s death is going to be tough. Robert was encouraging me to really pour my attention to studying and meditating of the resurrection of the dead when Jesus returns. The Bible repeatedly describes this as our hope. Also as I’m wrestling with these issues to not push God out of it. To not let go of praying the prayers, and singing the songs, reading the books, because He wasn’t to be a part of the wrestle with me. Man, this is going to be long…

All day long I had one of the songs from the prayer room repeating in my head, which isn’t too new, most days I have a song in my head, and here I’ve definitely had a worship song in my head all day long. It was the “selection” (I don’t usually do the picking you see) that was a bit odd considering that my heart has been hurting so much and wrestling with my emotions and thoughts to choose to trust and love the Lord. All day long the lines I kept hearing were:

“God is my refuge, my help in time of trouble
God is my refuge, my help in time of need.”

It’s a chorus frequently sung by Audra Lynn’s team, and that night I was reading in Proverbs 18: 10, it says; “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe.” I’d say the odds of my thoughts preemptively matching up with the reading I’ll be doing later, are pretty slim. Even as I sat there, struggling to believe it, it warmed my heart to see His faithfulness to my heart. How adamant He is that I really get it, and really believe.

A short time later in the prayer room as I’m still writing, (though I’ve changed the order to help make it clear to the reader.) the worship team is singing through Psalm 46:1-3, which is weird because it says:

"God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear thought the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though it’s waters roar and from the mountains quake with their swelling.”

And a chorus of

“I will trust in the name of the Lord
I will trust in my God
I will trust in the name of the Lord
I will run into Your name.”

This has definitely been the theme of my day, even in my wrestle.

The next day a friend prayed for me, and not knowing my situation or my day before, she said she felt like the Lord told her to tell me to read Psalm 28:7

“The Lord is my strength and my shield,
my heart trust in Him and I and helped.
My heart leaps for joy and I will
give thanks to Him in song.”

He's so good to me, even as I'm trying to believe it.

pb

Ephesians 3:17-19

This has been one of my favorite prayers in the Bible for a while, within my favorite book. The more I read, pray, and meditate on it in the prayer room, the more I like it.

Ephesians 3:14-19: " ¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. "

Paul is praying that we will know the extent of this love that surpasses knowledge. Firstly; I think it's awesome that it's written in the Bible, and since it's all God breathed, that means that it's God's prayer for us to know His love. (If you need to, you can go let this blow your mind and come finish this post later. It'll still be here.) Second; That means that no one has known Him that way, or even fully searched out His love. This isn't even mentioning His glory, power, knowledge or physical dimensions (Yes, the Father and Jesus both have physical bodies. Feel free to leave and come back if your cranium needs a break.) whihc are all massively unfathomable, but it's His love that is crucial for us to grasp at and know. No one has ever fully searched it out; not Moses who spoke to Him face to face as a friend, not David who was a man after His own heart, not Solomon, the most wise one, not john, who is declared but himself (albeit by himself, but the other disciples recognized it too) "the disciple whom Jesus loved" not even Enoch, who was so loved by God that he never tasted death. "Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." (Gen 5:24)

He loves me (and you) more then anyone has ever loved anyone. EVER! Husbands and wives, siblings, parents and children, best friends. He loves me more then all of those relationships, and He wants me to search it out. I suspect I'll never find the edges, even after eternity,but I'm excited to start walking!

1 Corinthians 12

So this post is actually one something that's a couple nights old, I just haven't had a chance to sit down and get it written out yet, but it's still blowing my mind.

So 1 Corinthians 12 contains the body passage, so I've read it dozens of dozens of time because it was the main passage that the St. George's camp at Shrine Mont where I attended and worked, so it's held a special place in my heart. However verses 27-31 was what was really standing out to this time around:

1 Corinthians 12:27-31 "²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸ And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰ Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹ Now eagerly desire the greater gifts."
(emphasis added by me)

Now this is blowing my mind for a couple of reasons:

1) God is placing "miracles" and "healings" on the same level as "helps" and "administration"! To me, that says that this is standard expectation. Church 101. It makes sense because for healing and miracles, all I really do is place my hand on someone and pray for God to show up and do what He loves to do. He does all the hard work.

2) He, God, is telling us to desire the higher levels of the moves of His Spirit. And He defines miracles and healing on the entry level. We would probably all agree that we see these more flashy impressive gifts would be greater, because we're more impressed by them. I can promise you, that when a person who is a helper shows up to give a conference at church, not very many people would be excited. People are usually glad when the helper is around, and even occasionally grateful of what they do, but people are stoked when a miracle worker prays for them.

3) I'm pretty sure that if the good good God who put that last verse"But eagerly desire the greater gifts." in the same Bible where He says "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 then He intends to do it!

4) Chapter 13 is right after this, which is what Paul is pointing us to when he says "And yet I will show you the most excellent way." The "most excellent way" is love. Even after all of the gifts , the standard by which the Lord will measure us is love. DANG! I think the way we do Chapter 13 is by doing Chapter 12. By gaining a revelation of Jesus, we gain love for Him, which gives us the ability for us to love others.

I had to take a moment to repent for not valuing the things that the Lord values, and not valuing them in myself. It helped me to realize the way the Lord values out interactions with one another and we serve to help each other, and to have better appreciation for those around me. Also this makes me realize the accessibility of the the moves of God that are "greater" and those that are actually greater in the Lord's eyes.

a little gift.

This has taken me a while to post, but I wanted to share an image I had one day when I was in the prayer room. I used watercolors because it's less toxic and quicker then the oil paints I typically use, which makes them all around more conducive to life right now since I don't an actual studio place. I may re-do it later in oil, and I'm trying to figure out ways to pair the image with the words together in a more official format.

This may be the first time I ever had a writing part to go with it. It's not quite a poem, and it's not quite a caption, I think I can only describe it as the verbal discussion I had while having a visual conversation with the Lord. I know it's not just for me though, so I hope it blesses and encourage you and your walk with the Lord too.

...I could barely feel it, it weighed almost nothing at all. I’m sure I’d lose it if I didn’t keep checking that it was still there. And as I lifted it up and offered it to Him, all I could do was mumble; “I... I know it’s not much...” “It’s all I wanted.” “I’m sorry it’s so small...” “I’m not” “I wish it was bigger...” “I’ll take it. It’s beautiful to me.” “Well, it’s always been Yours.” “Yes, but I’m glad you are giving it to me.” He gently reached over and between two fingers, slowly lifted it and brought it close to his face. I couldn’ t even feel it as He lifted it from my hand. He looked at it, so intensely, yet with a smile spreading across His face. For the first time I noticed the color of his eyes. Had they always been this bright? As He starred, it began to glow, brighter and brighter still. I covered my eyes, but He never looked away. And then...I was warm.

We have to KNOW Him

During one of our briefing times with Robert, we had a pretty interesting discussion. He was telling us about hope and kinda gave us biblical parameters for what that means; one hope is that Jesus really will come back one day and bring us to Him (either in the process of this body dying or when He returns and gathers all the faithful to Him.) and also the hope that Jesus is now and during His reign during His second coming, preparing the entire world for the return of the Father. That’s going to be awesome!

Someone asked the interesting question, of ‘if God felt sorrow or grief’. He kinda let us go around with answers then told us we needed to find support in scriptures, not just concepts. This was a bit harder. I felt pretty confident sighting 2Cor. 1:3-7:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any troubles with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ low over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”

How could He comfort us with what He does not know? Also Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would be our comforter and perfect helper. It seems like I, also along with the group was kinda missing the mark. I’ll admit that didn’t have a firm scripture to definitively show that the Lord will mourn or grieve with us, and can relate to us in every emotional state. I knew it was true, because I’ve met him there, but would that be enough to convince anyone else? Would it be enough to re-convince myself if I ever need to? There were days and weeks strung together were I felt mere inches away from completely losing my grip on sanity as I’m trying to convince myself of truths I know but have no evidence for when I have an over abundance of evidence for things I don’t agree with. I was “stuck” in John 6:68-69 right after many of those following Jesus get offended and left, He asks the 12 apostles if they were going to leave too “Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Robert was really looking for stronger cases of God feeling sorrow and grief. He said any of the prophets would have worked, showing that He is “hurt” by loss or broken relationships with people. We’re so temporary, and inconstant it blows my mind that He is affected emotionally (not in His power or His glory) by our relationship. Not that He “needs” it or anything, but that it matters to Him if we choose to be in relationship with Him or not. He pointed out that most of us were bringing up pieces of sermons we’ve heard, but that in the time of need, either ours or when we’re trying to comfort someone else, that this wont be enough. “I think that…” or “I’ve heard that…” will not be enough to get us through when life hits the proverbial fan. I can attest to that as well. I know I didn’t want to hear a “good message” after my dad died. I needed to meet God, for myself, and be convinced of His character. I still do. Knowing Him and encountering Him in the Word, and His breath upon it to make it real to our hearts will be the only thing that will keep is strong through…life.

pb

(insert clever play on words useing "sale" and "sail" here.)

After seeing the shoes I did for my former boss, my friend and former staff worker Dabney asked if I would be able to do a pair for her friend who had a birthday coming up. Dabney had the idea for sailboats because her friend "is originally from Florida and because she is really preppy." I just glad she wasn't a world class sailing enthusiast who would know all the technical terms for the pieces I abstracted or left out. Also, her logic was just awesome. This is what I came up with:


Dabney very generously agreed to pay me as well, which I'm of course supper stoked about. I've been wanting to get a small water color paint set to flesh out more of the images I've been getting in my head during prayer and worship to the Lord. I've already got a couple lined up that I'm excited to get wrapped up and posted here to share with you. My time during the internship has been pretty well claimed, but I'm excited to get these images on a more solid format then just my brain.