Sacred Claim

First off, I apologize to all who at one time read my blog. I am going to throw out the excuse of being without a computer. My roommate has a computer and so does my work, but I am rarely on it long enough to blog about the things on my heart that I really want to share. However, tonight my roommate is gone and I am once again left pondering alone in my apartment on a Saturday night. Please don't feel sorry for me though, lately I intentionally spend time alone for no other purpose than to hear my creator speak to me. I am beginning to enjoy a newfound appreciation for introversion.

With that being said, life has been full of revelation, joy, and contentment for me in Bowling Green. I have come to know the full meaning of God "bringing all things together for the good of those who love him." (Romans 8:28). I believe there a is still a lot of good to be seen in my lifetime, but in this stage of my life I am seeing an abundance of goodness and fruit. I am blessed to be lead and taught by a church body whose purpose is to raise up disciples and send them out to bowling green, to the nations and to the ends of the earth. I've always known that God had a great plan for my life--that he would show me a life that brought me pure joy and that rejoiced in the purest of truth. Now, I am confident of this. I am confident of the claim he has taken on my life. This claim is SACRED, it is one that we all have and are called to see with our eyes wide open.

My eyes were truly opened to this while I sat in church a couple of weeks ago pondering where the Lord has brought me and why. It was then that I had one of the simplest yet most profound revelations that I have yet to experience in my life. The life I am living is the ONE life that I have here on this earth--what am I doing with it?? Yes I know, DUH right! I have thought of this before, but not in this way. This time there was a reverence and a Godly fear in the depths of my soul as I pondered. It was then that I began to actually desire God's glory in heaven more than anything here on earth--more than marriage, money, friends, and material things. This is not to say that I do not desire some of these things, but that anything I experience here on earth should only point me to a better inheritance I have in heaven. This also means that I will remain confident in God's purpose for my life and strive to go where I am called. This could mean that he will one day send me to another country, another state, another county, or it could possibly mean that I will continue my life in Bowling Green as I am now--discipling in the church and helping the lost and needy. Whatever that means, I am willing and I am able to go for the one who has paid my debt and has paid it in full.

Elisabeth Elliot talks in her book "Let Me Be a Woman" about a kind of pride that we should all possess; The "right" kind of pride. She actually qoutes from Isak Dinesen's book "Out of Africa" in saying:

" Pride is a faith in the idea that God had when he made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards happiness, of comfort, which may be irrelevant to God's idea of him. His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny."

I LOVE this! It speaks so much truth into my life, and I hope it does for you as well. Let us be proud of our purpose. Let us desire success in living for his glory, and most of all let his glory be carried out to all the nations through our recognition of his SACRED CLAIM on our lives!