there are days when i am just overwhelmed with love for my kids and today is one of them. they have not done anything particularly special or sweet. they have just been their normal, happy selves. and, i just love them. my heart feels like it could bust right open and little heart confetti would spill out all over the place. thank you, Lord, for my boys!
on a completely different note, here are some excerpts that have really been speaking to my heart from the book i am reading - 1000 gifts by ann voskamp:
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in the God; trust also in me" (John 14:1 NIV). I know an untroubled heart relaxes, trusts, leans assured into His ever-dependable arms. Trust, its the antithesis of stress. "Oh, the joys of those who trust the Lord" (Psalm 40:4. But how to learn trust like that? Can tryst be conjured up simply by sheer will, on command? I've got to get this thing, what it means to trust, to gut-believe in the good touch of God toward me, because its true: I cant fill with joy until I learn how to trust: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow" (Romans 15;13 NIV). The full life, the one spilling joy and peace, happens only as I come to trust the caress of the Lover, Lover who never burdens His children with shame or self-condemnation but keeps stroking the fears with gentle grace.
If I believe, then I must let go and trust. Why do I stress? Belief in God has to be more than mental assent, more than a cliched exercise in cognition. Even the demons believe (James 2:19). What is saving belief if it isn't the radical dare to wholly trust?
Without trust in the good news of Jesus, without trust in the good news of God's saving work even in this moment, without an active, moment-by-moment trust in the good news of an all-sovereign, all-good God, how can we claim to fully believe? This is the trust I lack: to know that if disaster strikes, He carries me even there. Trust in the wholeness of the gospel - including this moment, good news too - and be saved. Choose stress, worry, anxiety, reject what God has given now, which is good news too - refuse to trust - and be condemned.
If authentic, saving belief is the act of trusting, then to choose stress is an act of disbelief ... atheism. Anything less than gratitude and trust is practical atheism.
If I deep trusted God in all the facets of my life, wouldn't that deep heal my anxiety, my self-condemnation, my soul holes?
The fear is suffocating, terrorizing, and I want the remedy, and it is trust. Trust is everything.
If fear keeps our lives small, does a life that receives all of God in this moment grow large too?
This book is really good - If you ha vent read it, you should. The end.
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