What I'm Learning Wednesday: Silence

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation. Psalm 62:1

So, my last "What I'm Learning" post was about God screaming at me (click here if you want to read it). This post is about silence. Specifically, my silence. I was reading in, you guessed it, Psalms and this verse immediately made me think of my situation with waiting. Recently, I tend to ultimately do what God asks of me in this area, but argue with Him about it the entire time. I think that I know best and I constantly try to justify what I think I need to God to get Him to get on with it. I mean, God should listen to me, right? Because I am the one who is all-knowing and all-powerful!

This verse immediately convicted me of all the times I was "patient" with God while being highly impatient at the same time. That is the epitome of a prideful heart. God knows the desires of my heart and He can choose to honor those desires or not. It is not up to me. I think I know what is best for my life, but really, I don't. I have no idea. God has my very best interests in mind. He has my days laid out. This verse says it all. HE alone is what I need. HE alone is my salvation. All the other stuff doesn't matter. If He is there with me, rooting for me, nothing else compares!

BONUS: What I'm Learning SUNDAY: Screaming

As I mentioned earlier this week, the Lord has been screaming at me recently. If you know me, you know that the desire of my heart is to be a wife and a mother. You also will know that it has been a loooong time since I last dated anyone. The reason for the long break is because of something I heard God say to me. One day, a few years ago, I was praying about this subject and heard the Lord speak to my heart, saying "just wait". I can't really describe what it was like to hear those two words so clearly, but I definitely did. And I waited.

I waited for a long time. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful that I did. Waiting probably saved me from some bad relationships and some bad choices on my part. However, I became impatient as I tend to do so easily. I wrote about this issue a few weeks ago in another entry on waiting (you can read it here).

A few weeks ago, I was pleading with the Lord over this area of my life. I seem to have become more and more impatient since I turned 30 in September. Being married has become more of an issue for me...I guess I feel like time is ticking away. That very next week, three people mentioned three different guys to me! I agreed to be set up with one of them. We met for dinner and had a great conversation. He was very nice, a perfect gentleman, and he loves the Lord. After I went home, though, and all day every day for the rest of the week, God dealt with me. I felt like I could hear the Lord just as clearly as I had heard Him before. Only this time, He was screaming at me "I TOLD YOU TO WAIT!" Again, I can't explain what it was like for me to hear this voice in my heart, but I clearly did. I felt like He was telling me that I was trying to rush Him. I tried to brush it off at first, but the screaming only got louder until it was all I could hear.

You see, I feel like there is a very specific calling from the Lord on my life. And there is a very special man that will match that calling. If you know me, you know my heart on this issue.

I know this may sound crazy to you...it sounds a little crazy to me too. But I truly believe that this is what the Lord was screaming to me for an entire week and a half. So, I have backed off on my constant yearning to find a husband (which is not my job anyway) and will wait for the Lord to bring him to me.

I hope you can understand my ramblings on this subject. Lots of things have been running through my head on this matter and I have tried my best to organize them for you. Have you ever heard God speak to you about any particular area in your life?

What I'm Learning Wednesday: He is FOR Me

I don't even know where to begin telling you all that I am learning right now! It feels like God is screaming at me and whispering in that still, small voice all at the same time. There are so many things going through my head at all times...I can't express everything.

Probably the main thing I am learning right now is that God is FOR us. He roots for us. He is on our side. He wants us to pursue Him as He pursues us. He is strong for us, He is faithful to us, He is merciful and gracious to us. He will never leave us no matter how weak we are. I was reading in Psalm 56 and in verse 9 that phrase appears: "This I know, that God is for me." Amidst all the trouble in this world, God is gracious to us. He comforts us in the wake of attacks by our enemies. No matter what happens to us in this life and how beaten down we are by the world, we can take refuge in our great God who is always on our side.

I love it when I read a verse and a song comes to my mind! There is a song called "You are for Me" by Kari Jobe (my favorite praise and worship artist) and I sing it over and over. You can listen to the song here. It's so neat to read the words to worship songs and think about how the Lord could have been working in the lives of the songwriters to inspire the words to songs that come straight from His Word.

That's all for now. This writing is mainly about His whispers to me. I may write a bonus "What I'm Learning" entry this week to share more about all the screaming.

What I'm Learning Wednesday: Be Still

Psalm 46:10: "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"

The Lord has really been using this verse to get my attention lately. It made an appearance in my devotions this week and I logged on to my friend Kimberly Merida's blog, Be the Glory, and it was there too! I don't know about you, but whenever God really wants to get my attention about something, that same thing appears over and over (and over) in my life--in various places that are not at all connected with one another. (I think He does that part on purpose so I will know that He's talking to me!)

A lot of the time, I try to control my life. Do you ever do that? I tend to forget that I am not God. That I don't know all the answers. That He does not need to consult me before important changes and decisions take place in my life. Instead, I take matters into my own hands and try to fix things that don't need to be fixed or make things happen that aren't supposed to happen yet. In Psalm 50 (can you tell I've been reading through Psalms?) the Lord says, "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine." He doesn't need me at all.

I even refer to it as "my" life. It's not. When I asked Jesus to be my Savior, I gave up all rights to this life. It is His to do with as He pleases. Sadly, I didn't let him have control of it for a long time. There are still areas that I struggle to completely hand over to Him.

My prayer has been for the Lord to break my pride, to help me to fully realize that my life is not my own, and that He would be truly exalted through it all!

What I'm Learning Wednesday: A New Song

You know an awesome thing about God? He always knows what's going on. He knows exactly how to bring someone out of a funk! I have been reading Psalms this past week, and one of the first passages I read after writing last week's post was Psalm 40:1-3. I have come back to it over and over. You can read it below:

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
and he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the Lord.

The Lord has done all those things for me this past week. He hears our cries and lifts us out of our despair. He sets us on solid ground, so that our feet are firmly planted in Him. The one thing that has brought the most amazement to me, though, is that He has given me a new song of praise to sing to Him. I can't begin to tell you how He has used His Word and others to encourage me in my wait over this past week! From emails to words of encouragement out of nowhere! He is truly an amazing God and I will delight in Him as I wait for the man He has set aside for me. My prayer is that others will see how He has worked through my life in this area and that it will encourage them and bring them to a relationship with Him!

What I'm Learning Wednesday: Waiting

If you know me, you know that I am not married, but very much want to be. I struggle with this issue from time to time, and right now is one of those times. It is the greatest desire of my heart to be a wife and a mom. I get impatient and frustrated with this area of my life.

For the most part, waiting stinks. I don't know anyone who really likes to wait. We live in a time where almost everything is available immediately so we really don't need to wait on anything. At all. In my wait in this area, I get frustrated, lonely, and sad. But the Lord is a great help in the process. He has our days in His hands and helps us keep our focus on Him as He shapes us into people who will honor and glorify Him with our lives.

You see, the Lord has my days laid out. There is a purpose for my wait. I may not know what it is right now, but later on when I look back on this time in my life, I will (hopefully) have a better understanding of the reasons for this season in my life. I forget this fact a lot of times because of my own impatience and selfish desires. Unfortunately, I will probably forget it again. (NOTE: It is not that my desire to be married is selfish...it is the fact that I want to be married right now.)

I am excited, though, to see how God brings this man into my life...it has got to be one crazy story! Above all, I pray that He is glorified through the story of my life. For today, though, I will do my best to 'be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.' (Psalm 37:7a)

What I'm Learning Wednesday: Healing

For the past several weeks, I have been listening to a song called "Healing is in Your Hands" by Christy Nockels. I get one song that I love and will listen to it on repeat for hours at a time! Anyway, I sang it at church this past Sunday and it just really made me think about the healing power of God. You can listen to the song below with the lyrics:



God loves us so much that nothing can ever separate us from Him if we are His children, His followers. Nothing will ever take us away from Him. It reminds me of one of my favorite verses in Scripture, 1 John 4:10. "This is love, it is not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His son as a sacrifice to take away our sins."

This song, as much as it is about the healing power of God and His awesome love for us, also makes me think about why we need healing in the first place. We easily get warm fuzzies if we just concentrate on how God heals us and how much He loves us. We don't like to think, though, about why He had to heal us. We need healing because of our sin. If sin had never entered the world, there would be no sickness, no pain, no mourning. Unfortunately, it did. We are sinful people. God broke His own heart by sending Jesus, His only Son, into the world to die for sinners like me. It is truly by His grace that we can stand, that we can even get out of bed in the morning.

So with that, let us not forget to praise Him for His awesome healing power and his unending and unchanging love for us. But let us also not forget all the reasons we need that healing and that love. Let us consciously live in the shadow of His grace to us all. After all, He is all that matters.

What I'm Learning Wednesday: Faithfulness

Well, I have a confession to make. I have not done well in spending concentrated time with the Lord this week. I haven't been reading and I haven't been praying like I should. So, with this confession comes a resolution to do better next week. I hated to tell my accountability partner that yesterday at our weekly meeting. Next week will not be the case, though!

Okay, with my confession, I still need to tell you what I'm learning! Aren't you just chomping at the bit to find out?! In Sunday School this past week, we had a wonderful lesson on Hosea, which gets to me every time I read it. If you aren't familiar with the story, Hosea is called by God to marry a prostitute, someone he knew would be unfaithful to him. Later on in the story, Hosea had to go and buy his wife back from a sex slave trade. Can you imagine?! (That is the very, very short version of the story...there are lots more details I am leaving out)

Above all else, this story always reminds me of the faithfulness of God. He created us knowing the heartbreak that awaited Him. He chose to have a relationship with us, even though He knew we would be unfaithful to Him. He longs for closeness to us when He knows we are going to push Him away with our thoughts and actions. I have been doing just that. I have been unfaithful to Him with my thoughts and actions because I have not spent the necessary time investing in our relationship. He is faithful, though, when I am unfaithful.

Even though He remains faithful to me, this does not give me an excuse to remain unfaithful to Him. If I truly want to exemplify Christ through my life, I have to put in the work to know who He is and what He expects of me. I hope you will do the same. Remember He is faithful. He is constant. And He longs to be close to you.

What I'm Learning Wednesday: Interruptions

This is "What I'm Learning Wednesday", a place for me to write about things that the Lord is teaching me. Please feel free to share what He is teaching you!

Have you ever been interrupted? I’m not simply talking about conversation. You’re going on about your life and something happens that changes everything. Changes the course of your life for a bit. Or maybe forever.

These interruptions can take on lots of different forms. An opportunity to help someone unexpectedly. A project that comes up with a quick deadline. Illness. A sudden death. Interruptions are both good and bad. But I would venture to say that they are all beneficial.

I read a tiny book by Priscilla Shirer called “The Interrupted Life” and it really brought to life some of the things I struggle with. I try to take ownership of my life when it is clearly not mine. I try to do things on my time instead of waiting on the Lord’s plans for me. I try to ‘do better’ before I believe I am fit for service to Him. I try to take shortcuts in my relationship with Him. And I forget that the interruptions are His way of getting my attention, His way of using me to accomplish His purposes, His way of speaking to me and through me.

Sometimes, I forget that interruptions are part of the journey. And you never know what the Lord is going to teach you through them. I am so thankful that He interrupted my life and accepted me as one of His children. I am more than willing to take His interruptions anytime!

What I'm Learning Wednesday: One Theme at a Time

Okay, I'm going to begin a weekly post called "What I'm Learning Wednesday". I realize that Wednesday is almost over but, honestly, it is the only day of the week that sounded right when I was trying to think of a name. This weekly post will, hopefully, help keep me accountable to you as my blog readers and to the Lord as I try to become more like Christ each day. Now, on to the post!

Do you ever feel like you have a theme going on in your life? I feel that way a lot of the time. God will teach me something over and over through my personal devotions as well as different people. I think it is so neat how He works all that out. It may be, though, that I am just stubborn and God has to beat me over the head with something before it actually sinks in. :)

Anyway, the theme for my life right now is ministering to others through personal experiences. Through tragedy, through weakness, through past sin, through joys. Would you like an example? Okay!

On January 11, 2006, my younger brother suddenly passed away. It was definitely a tragic situation for my family and me as we dealt with this loss. As people encouraged and supported me through the weeks and months that followed, one of the things that I was told over and over was that God would receive glory through my brother's death. Guess what? He did. I have heard many stories of lives that had been changed through his death. You know what, though? I am changed! The Lord plucked me up from that tragedy and got hold of my life. I have grown closer to God in the past five years than I ever imagined I could.

One of the neat things about any tragedy, though, is that there are two directions a person can run: to God or away from Him. I am so thankful that I found refuge in my great God. I don't want to even think about where I would be if I had made a different decision.

A couple of weeks ago marked the five year anniversary of his passing. In the two days following, two separate friends lost brothers and sisters in tragic accidents. I now have a unique connection to each of those friends that not everyone else does. I know how it feels to lose a younger sibling unexpectedly. I know the emotions associated with the grief that follows. And I know how it feels to make it to the other side of the tragedy. My prayer is that God was glorified through my interactions with each of those friends in the days that followed their tragedies.

The Lord truly works all things together for our good and His glory! I always miss my brother. But I am thankful that I know where he is and that I will see him again soon. Most of all, though, I am reminded of the changed person I am because of His death. Right after he died, I would have never imagined that I would be the subject of God's working in that type of situation.

Remember that God has allowed certain experiences into your life for a reason. You may not know why you have to go through this thing at the time, but chances are that you will one day encounter someone else who has had that same experience. Personal experiences are just that--personal. You can use something that you have gone through to help others in their time of need.

Now, it's your turn! Have you ever helped someone by drawing on a past experience?