No Greater Love

Ahhh God is so cool. Every once in a while I have one of these precious moments where in the inner workings of my mind God interrupts my thoughts and implants His own, and teaches me something that I truly did not know until then.

This was one of the most powerful pieces of evidence for me that God is real; when I noticed that some of the 'thoughts' in my head were not actually my own thoughts. When I have no good reason to think or know the things that are being spoken in my mind. When these thoughts convey a truth that I have not learned elsewhere. When these thoughts lead me in a direction opposite to the way that 'I' would like to go but end up being wiser decisions. When these thoughts speak contrary to my own feelings at the time, to encourage or motivate me onward when I am feeling weak and lost. When I feel 'something' telling me to do something that seems utterly ridiculous, but as I have come to believe that this may be the Lord speaking and I have tested the waters of actually obeying this 'voice' that seems so irrational at times, I have been astonished at how later on it all makes sense somehow, and the 'irrational' thing I was asked to do helps me or someone else in a way that I could not have anticipated; but God did.

Over the years since God called me to know Him, there have been occasions where He has... I am not even sure how to explain this... it's almost as though He answers a prayer that I have been meaning to pray, or should have prayed but didn't. A small example, years ago when I was working for the City I came down with a sudden severe flu and had to leave work early. I was delirious with fever and up all night on the bathroom floor, and ended up sleeping well into the next work day before I realized that I hadn't called in sick. My work environment was one that did not feel very compassionate or forgiving in these types of situations, and I was immediately in a panic thinking I was about to get fired for not showing up for work, and not calling in. I fumbled for my phone, still completely ill and nauseous, and noticed a voicemail from work. My stomach churned and adrenaline coursed through me while I waited for the message to play. Sure enough it was my Boss,  - "Hi Carly, I just wanted to call and tell you not to bother calling in this morning. I saw how sick you were yesterday and I don't expect you in today...get some rest and we'll see you when you're feeling better." Click. Wow. I was stunned! This kind of thing did not happen where I worked. Everything was policy, strictness, and unyielding expectations. Even at times in the face of reason. I fell down on the bed, heaved a huge sigh of relief, and lay in awe of God's graciousness, that He knew I would need that mercy even before I did. And even once I knew I had messed up, I didn't even stop to ask for it. Yet there He was, having gone ahead of me, preparing it in advance anyway.

Without taking away from my absolute gratitude to God in these kinds of situations, I usually have this feeling of regret in the back of my mind. I regret that I had not thought to pray for or about whatever the need was, or that I had not devoted myself to more sincere or serious prayer. I always think, "Oh how amazing a story would it be if I could say that I really invested in this issue, faithfully praying, furiously dedicated and determined to hold the expectation that the Lord would come through...and then when He DID - what GLORY that would be! What a powerful testimony of God's faithfulness I would be able to tell..."

This is pretty close to the musing that was going on in my mind today, as I reflected on the goodness God has lavished on me over the past few days. I was wishing I had been praying more for help, because as I saw how God WAS helping me, I wanted a story to tell of His great answer to prayer. Because I love those stories. They were powerful to me when I was discovering who God was, and I'm endlessly hopeful that they will continue to be powerful to others who hear them, especially those who don't yet know that God is a God like that! He is present, current, attentive, and knows you deeply whether you know Him or not, and is anxious to make Himself known, and to show us how real He is, how good, and how mighty.

So today, as I kicked myself for not being a better pray-er and regretted not having a great story to tell of God's faithfulness in answering my prayer...His sweet soft voice came into my mind, and said this:

"What you actually want is a story of YOUR great faithfulness." Oh, shoot. This can't be true. This is true. (See, I would not have said this to myself. I am not this humble). My wish is not that God had done something greater, it's that I had done something greater! What I am actually...sadly...regretting, is that I can not tell a story of my devotion, and my faithfulness, and my amazing prayer that was so good that the God of the Everything answered it. His response was perfect. He is always good. His help was timely and more than sufficient. I am not lamenting that God could have done more. I'm lamenting that I could have. And I am totally busted.

Then He said these words to me:

"There are no stories of your great faithfulness. You are not faithful. There are only stories of your great inadequacy and my great love for you." It is HIS great faithfulness that powerful stories are made of. And as much as some of that might sound harsh and demeaning to us, it is not! There is nothing more spectacular than being loved fully for who we are despite our failings and weaknesses. What a sad world if God were only unleashed through our accomplishments! And what tragedy, if God was only faithful when we were faithful; if God was only good when we earned it; if God only loved us when we were deserving. Rejoice, that is not the truth! God does not require a thing from us to be who He is. He does not expect us to work for His presence in our lives. In fact, I bet He wishes we'd quit trying. I bet He wishes we'd get over ourselves and all the things we're trying to be, and just rest in who He is. Then we would finally be who we are. Who we were made to be. And then His Spirit, everything good and pure and lovely, could flow through us, without our visions of who we 'should' be getting in the way.

Click here to segue to a blog I read earlier this week that started out this journey I've been on with God about who I want to be and who He made me to be. Reading these words gave me such peace that it's okay to just be who I am, without striving or comparing - check it out.

The truth is this:

"God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

Read that verse over, and really ruminate on what that means... It was not at all dependent on you.

C.H. Spurgeon, in a sermon delivered November 23, 1856 said this, (I've helped myself you out by dictionary.comming some of this old-school lingo Spurgeon uses that I didn't you might not understand. You'll find new-school lingo in [these]. Here goes.) "Let us for a moment consider what sort of sinners many of us have been [how much we really do suck sometimes], and then we shall see it was marvellous grace that Christ should die for men—not as penitents [people who feel or express remorse for their mistakes], but as sinners [people who are still smack in the middle of making a bunch of mistakes, and could care less to change]. Consider how many of us have been continual sinners. We have not sinned once, nor twice, but ten thousand times [can't seem to get it right]. Our life, however upright and moral it has been [people like you, and you consider yourself a good person], is stained by a succession of sins [but you still mess up from time to time]. If we have not revolted against God in the outward acts which proclaim the profligate [badass...can I say that on here?] to be a great sinner, yet [still] the thoughts of our heart and the words of our lips are swift witnesses against us [they sell us out] that we have continually transgressed [keep screwing up]."

What do you think? Should I be an official Spurgeon translator? :)

My point in sharing that quote is to get us to really absorb the reality of our sin; the hopelessness of our ability to do the right thing, all the time. Any of us. Only because knowing this makes Jesus's death all the more poignant - that even knowing the worst of humanity's filth, He hung on that cross in absolute love with us.

Though it's important to acknowledge at times, do not ever let your sight linger too long on the issue of your sin. God will shine light on it so you can see it and renounce it, and then walk with Him away from it. He will convict you but He will not condemn you. Staring at your sin will bring guilt and condemnation. Staring at Jesus will bring life and freedom. He does not save you as a charity, because you need it and He takes pity. He saves you because you are a cherished one. He wants you, and it is worth it to Him to get you back, whole and holy. He does not call to mind your transgressions, nor does He want you to dwell on them. He wants you to dwell in Him.

Bask in this love that we can not comprehend... The hardest part to understand, because it is so out of this world, is that there is nothing we can do to earn it. We do not need to earn it. It just is. We can not shake it. It is relentless. His love is the promise that never breaks. It's what promises are meant to be. It's why we are hurt when one is broken, because we know they are meant to be kept, forever.

So my prayers do not call God to action, His love does. My devotion does not inspire God's faithfulness, His love does. My behaviour does not earn me favour with Him, His love does.

It's all Him, and no me.

This is why His strength is made perfect in our weakness, (2 Corinthians 12:19) because when we finally know our weakness we are set free from striving. When we stop trying to accomplish anything apart from Him we can be swept up in the love of God that is everything we need, where we finally understand that who we are can only be completed in Him. It's not that we are weak and He is strong...it's that He is strong and we are His.

And suddenly words like this make sense, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13)

So when I say that God is faithful despite my inadequacies, this is not an insult to me. This is my glory to God! It's a testimony of God's great love and faithfulness, and my worth and value in Him. That He doesn't need me to be anything special in order to love me. But because He loves me, that makes me something special. If a great man of stature, wealth and fame loved a plain and lowly woman, all people on earth would look in awe and wonder what secret beauty this woman held that this great man could love her so completely. They would not wonder 'if', they would wonder 'what.' The fact that she is loved rules out the 'if'. Love places value on a person. And the greater the one who loves, the more valuable is made the beloved.

I am the beloved. You are the beloved. And the One who loves us is the greatest there ever was, is or will be. The most high God. The mighty King. Of stature, wealth and fame. Your beauty to Him is incomparable. And your value is unaffected by who you are, or what you've done. Your value is intrinsic because He placed it there when He formed you with His hands. He calls you beautiful. He proves you valuable. He made you, and when He lost you, He traded His life to get you back.

You are worth dying for. There is no greater Love than this.

You Have A Choice.

My Husband and I have started a 'fast' from fast food. So many reasons for this, besides my struggle with food; our general health, wanting to raise our children without dependence on drive-thrus, the financial benefit of eating at home, and the list could go on, I'm sure. We also both realize the actual addictive nature of 'bad' food, and while we believe in praying and asking for God's help, we also feel that we need to take a stand and lay down our fleshly desires to honour God with our decisions about our bodies and our health. So we are fasting. For 'a month' apparently, but I hope longer! (I'm not going to mention here that we decided to begin this fast while pulled over in the car, chowing down on Wendy's burgers, fries and frosties, because that's just not important.)

We are using a meal plan from Men's Health magazine that was just convenient because it includes simple breakfasts, lunches and snacks and then a recipe for each dinner, as well as providing a shopping list for the week (YES! This is a new favourite thing of mine - meal plans and shopping lists, and the way they combat the temptation to buy a bunch of things I shouldn't while at the grocery store). On day three of the fast, we ate our delicious and satisfying homemade dinner, and headed out to a friends place for a visit. On the way there I confessed to my Husband that I was struggling with a sugar craving, as I often do after eating a really healthy meal (spiritual attack?) and even more so after a few days of eating well (I think so). He suggested that we pray, and while he was praying for me he was talking about how these cravings are either from the enemy or from the flesh, but they are not from God. As He spoke I felt God so gently say, "Do you really choose me?" I tear up just typing this because of the impact of this question on my heart. Do I really choose God? I'd like to say I do, but when I turn to food for comfort or escape in times of emotional pain, is that me choosing God? If I'm just bored and restless, but instead of picking up my bible like I always wish I had more time to, or praying for all those people I've said I will, I search for something to eat instead, is that me choosing God? If food has been a struggle for me to the point that I have hidden it and lied about it, and even somehow felt that I was keeping it secret from the Lord, leaving Him completely out of this struggle as I often did, is that me choosing God? I say I am a Christian. I believe that Jesus is God - not was God, IS God - that He died on the cross, but did not stay dead, that He is actually alive and all powerful, having beat death for us so we can follow Him through that path into a life that lasts and is not filled with all the evil and horror of this life we find ourselves in now; with addictions and suffering, murder and hate, and so many struggles that are confined to this world but will not be in the next. If I keep choosing this addiction when I believe that Christ has set me free, that can not be choosing Him! I am choosing these chains. He cut them off me, but I have picked them back up and carry them along with myself willingly. This is CRAZY! So God filled my head with all this truth, as my Husband prayed for me (thank you Lord) and it has given me a new drive and determination to choose self-control, which is a fruit of the Spirit, over addiction, which is a trap set by the devil to lead us into death.

The next thing my Husband said to me, that God used to profoundly alter my mindset about the choices I make, is this: "If God gave you this proposition, "You can either have unlimited Blizzards, every day for the rest of your life (okay I have a weakness and he knows it - but I knew exactly what was coming next), or you can wake up tomorrow and be thin and healthy", what would you choose?" I could almost have laughed out loud, if tears hadn't been stinging my eyes, because its comical that this would even be posed as a choice. There is no choice here, the answer is so blatantly clear. No contest! I want, and have always only ever wanted to be thin and healthy. Compared to this, I have no desire whatsoever for sugar or any other food.This is not a vain desire - it's not that I hope to be some bombshell with a perfect body, I am just so sick of the shame that shrouds my opinion of my body; tired of endlessly adjusting clothing because nothing fits right or  because clothes ride up when I sit or stand or move a certain way. Tired of avoiding having my photo taken, or making sure that no photo is taken below the shoulders because I cant stand the disgust I feel when I have to see myself. These self-image and self-hate issues are a whole other conversation, but I have learned that being thin will not fix these feelings, I have to do that first; I have to love myself well to care for myself well. But these feelings, for now, are the reality of why I so desire to improve my health and body. The thought of waking up and being 'fixed', outwardly anyways, is incredible, and though I know this is not a choice I will ever actually have, what God spoke to me through my Husband's pointed question is that - I DO HAVE THIS CHOICE! Do I want the Blizzard, or do I want to be healthy? So often I'm nearsighted and I actually think it's the Blizzard I want. My Husband's words showed me so clearly, that is not what I want! I want to make a different choice. I can make this choice every time I feel the need to run through a drive thru, or pick up a chocolate bar, or make a batch of cookies that I know I will eat most of by myself. I GET to choose - do I really want [whatever the fix is at the time], or do I want to be WELL!?

Jesus, I want to be well! I want to choose You! Please help me to keep choosing You and keep choosing health over temporary satisfaction and ultimately death.

You have a choice.

Dear God

This is for you.

May you lead me in what to share, and what not to share...

May you be glorified...

May you be lifted up, and draw all people to yourself...

May you be revealed as the Way, the Truth, and the Light...

May you use this honesty to break the power of shame in my life...

May you use my story to show others they are not alone, in their struggle nor in their life...

May your light cause the darkness to flee...

May you set the captives free!

AMEN <3