I love music. And I always imagine my life with my very own soundtrack playing in the background. Kinda like those iTunes commercials with the black sillouhettes dancing around with the awesome songs playing in the background. Yeah. Kinda like that. Today the soundtrack to my life was simply beautiful. Some days the songs have a low tone. Monotone almost, as I simply walk through the day as routinely as they seem. Other days the songs are loud and angry, other days they are soft and soothing, but the days I love most are the days when they are bubbly, full of fun, full of meaning. Today was one of those "bubbly" days. At least it started off and ended that way...
Just about every year, around this time... I don't know just something about it. Spring, I guess. The sun shining. The flowers blooming, new life coming up everywhere...something about it always brings me back to this place of evaluation of my life.
Mainly. My walk. My faith.
With beauty and light all around me, how could that not stir up the heart I have for God? Don't get me wrong. I can just as easily see His beauty in the winter. I love the winter. Cold and I don't necessarily get along, but Oh how cute are the scarves and boots and sweaters and
coats??!!?!.... Anyway. As I was saying. It just seems that almost yearly, at this point I get the urge to push myself to dive deeper into my faith. To be more thankful. To learn more about the Savior I love so much. That loves me. To fix my attitudes, to be more patient, to understand Grace...
Ultimately to make my God smile when he looks down at me.
I've always been fascinated with the concept of Spiritual Warfare. "Fascinated" may not be the word for it. But just curious, just interested to know how to protect myself, to know when I am under attack, to know how to protect my heart from the Liar.
Needless to say. I was under spiritual attack today. Big time. But no need to worry, it led me to this awesome revelation. About so much of my life.
I've always been fascinated with the concept of Spiritual Warfare. "Fascinated" may not be the word for it. But just curious, just interested to know how to protect myself, to know when I am under attack, to know how to protect my heart from the Liar.
Needless to say. I was under spiritual attack today. Big time. But no need to worry, it led me to this awesome revelation. About so much of my life.
When God tells you to do something. We should do it. More times than not, we don't do it. And we continue down certain paths that lead to things that hurt us. It takes that hurt to finally realize He really was right all along, and if only we were strong and humble enough to trust him in the first place we wouldn't be here. But, even then He uses that to show us His beauty and mercy and grace and Glory. Today I realized one of those things. Something that He told me to step away from long long ago, that even though it's over now, still hurts me at times, and did today.
I was home alone for a while this afternoon. Studying for a midterm tonight (which I think I did pretty good on by the way) and I started dwelling on some of these things that have hurt me. It was all I could think about, and as I would read through my study guide, as soon as I would get to the end of the page I would realize I had retained nothing of it because my mind was too busy processing these thoughts on other (we'll call them "dark") things. I scanned through that same page about 7 more times before I finally realized what was happening.
I was under attack.
There Satan was.
Sitting on my shoulder.
Whispering all those horrible lies in my ear and it was all I could concentrate on.
So in that very moment I knew I had to do something about it. I sat my paper down. And closed my eyes and started praying to Jesus about it. Simply asking him to take the burden from me, to give me grace, and peace, to help me realize this was not my burden to carry, and to tell Satan in the name of Jesus to GET AWAY from me. It was a majestic moment when I finished whispering "Amen." and opened my eyes.
It was gone.
The thoughts.
The heavy weight I was feeling.
The hurt, and sadness.
I was crying at this point and I just couldn't end my prayer. All I wanted to do was praise Him. To thank Him, and talk to Him, and thank Him some more...
So I started thanking Him...
Ohhh How blessed I am. HOW blessed?!?! It's too much. Much more than I could ever deserve. Much more than I could ever explain with words. Especially here. But I am.
Have you ever been loved so much by someone that that person, and their example of love thrusts you and your own heart to the throne of God? That's all it can do. Sometimes you can't even understand why that person loves you, or how, or why that love is so real and pure, it just is, and it just reflects God through and through. There are plenty of people in my life that love me that much. But you know there is always that person, the one that does it like no one else could. It's so rare. And it's so incredible.
And the most amazing part of that love is that it doesn't have to be felt, or spoken... It's just known. It's just a fact and I never have to be afraid to lose it, or lessen it... It just is. It's just like God's love. That...more than anything leads me to God, thanking Him endlessly for loving us first. For teaching us what love is. For sending Jesus here to be the perfect example of Love so that we can merely try and mirror it. For putting someone in my life that could love so gracefully, and patiently, and could try so hard to love the way that He does. I'm thankful for that... among the thousands and thousands of other things I am thankful for in my life.
I was finally driving home after my test as the sun was setting with the windows rolled down and of course...my music blaring. This song came on called "Set the world on Fire" & I found it highly appropriate to end my blog with tonight.
I wanna set the world on fire
Until it’s burning bright for You
It’s everything that I desire
Can I be the one You use?
I, I am small but
You, You are big enough
I, I am weak but
You, You are strong enough to
Take my dreams
Come and give them wings
Lord with You
There’s nothing I can not do
Nothing I cannot do
I wanna feed the hungry children
And reach across the farthest land
And tell the broken there is healing
And mercy in the Father’s hands
My hands my feet
My everything
My life, my love
Lord, use me
I wanna set the world on fire
I wanna set the world on fire, yeah
I’m gonna set the world on fire
Set the world on fire
P.S. Aric brought this to me today...
Just because.
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