Hey, Friends!
Redemption is such a beautiful word. It denotes rescue; salvation from something that is far bigger than anything we can handle on our own. We each need to be rescued: from ourselves, from our circumstances, from our selfish ambitions that get us stuck in the mindset that life is all about us.
Last fall was the hardest semester of my life. For the first several months, my priorties were completely messed up. I took my eyes off Jesus and tried to find my value and worth in a relationship I desperately wanted; in having my future career all mapped out; in the acceptance and approval of those I loved. All of the above fell through. The boy found someone else; I found out I didn't want to use the major I was studying for the rest of my life; I felt devauled , insignificant, irreplaceable, and easly forgotten by others.
When I finally bottomed out, Jesus was patiently waiting to scoop me up. I stumbled across Psalm 73 one day and it changed my life. In the first part, Asaph is bemoaning his lot in life. He is absolutely miserable; everyone around him is in tall cotton and it seems as though he is the only one who has been betrayed, the only one who has had his heart ripped out. He knew God was good, but everything in his life contradicted that belief:
Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.
3 For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 They have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong.
5 They are free from common human burdens;
they are not plagued by human ills.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
they clothe themselves with violence.
7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity;
their evil imaginations have no limits.
8 They scoff, and speak with malice;
with arrogance they threaten oppression.
9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth.
10 Therefore their people turn to them
and drink up waters in abundance.
11 They say, “How would God know?
Does the Most High know anything?”
12 This is what the wicked are like—
always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.
The cry of Asaph's heart was a heart-rending "Why?!" He had done everything right; he had tried so hard to be the best he could be, to bring glory to his God by living a righteous life...and for what?
13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure
and have washed my hands in innocence.
14 All day long I have been afflicted,
and every morning brings new punishments.
15 If I had spoken out like that,
I would have betrayed your children.
But at this point, when Asaph hit rock bottom, he finally had no one, nothing else to look at but Jesus. Because he had been stripped of everything, his perspective was finally able to be centered on the only One who should have been that priority in the first place.
16 When I tried to understand all this,
it troubled me deeply
17 till I entered the sanctuary of God;
then I understood their final destiny.
18 Surely you place them on slippery ground;
you cast them down to ruin.
19 How suddenly are they destroyed,
completely swept away by terrors!
20 They are like a dream when one awakes;
when you arise, Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies.
Asaph realized that God had stripped him away of all the destractions to save him; to redeem him by showing that He is the only One who could feel that void in his life. In brokenness and joy, Asaph confesses and offers praise to God for his rescue.
21 When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
22 I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
27 Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.
God is not trying to harm us. He is a rewarder. And something He has revealed to me over the past two months is that He is a rewarder even when we don't deserve it! How beautiful is that?! Your life right now may be miserable. It may seem as though He is up in Heaven taunting you, maliciously thinking up yet another trial that will bring you even more hurt, even more pain. Friends, there is no truth in that mindset whatsoever! It is an outright LIE. The truth is that your Father is crazy about you and wants to bless your socks off! But He can't bless your life until He is the center of your life. When He is, everything else - relationships, career, school, you name it - will fall into place exactly where it should be.
One of my dear friends, Brittany, shared this beautiful book expert with me today. The passage perfectly sums up these thoughts.
"Why did God curse Eve with loneliness and heartache, an emptiness that nothing would be able to fill? Wasn't her life going to be hard enough out there in the world, banished from the Garden that was her true home, her only home, never able to return? It seems unkind. Cruel, even.
He did it to SAVE her. For as we all know personally, something in Eve's heart shifted at the Fall. Something sent its roots down deep into her soul-- and ours-- that mistrust of God's heart, that resolution to find life on our own terms. So God has to thwart her. In love, he has to block her attempts until, wounded and aching, she turns to him and him alone for her rescue.
Therefore I will block her bath with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so she cannot find her way.
She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them (Hos. 2:6-7)
Jesus has to thwart us too-- thwart our self- redemptive plans, our controlling and our hiding, thwart the ways we are seeking to fill the ache within us. Otherwise, we would never fully turn to him for our rescue. Oh, we might turn to him for our "salvation", for a ticket to heaven when we die. We might turn to him even in the form of Christian service, regular church attendance, a moral life. But inside, our hearts remain broken and captive and far from the One who can help us.
Wherever it is we have sought life apart from him, he disrupts our plans, our "way of life" which is not life at all."
He truly is a rewarder. Everything He does to us, each joy or trial He sends our way, is done out of His unfathomable love. He knows we can never experience true joy or life until He is at the center, and so He relentlessly pursues each of His children to bring it about.
Until Wednesday!
Amber Noel
Friday, September 9, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
101 in 1001
Happy Wednesday!
Well friends, I buckled to peer pressure and finally made my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. The heart behind this new trend is to take ownership of your life; to stop talking about how you need to do things "one day" or "when you get around to it", but to actively take steps to actually accomplish those things. It's all about being proactive.
The dictionary defines proactive as an adjective for:
"Acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty; anticipatory."
It's a given: life is going to through us curve balls. We are going to have to deal with sucky situations that are difficult and unexpected. But if we cultivate the habit of preparing ourselves to the best of our ability before those situations arise, we will be better able to face them.
We shouldn't live in fear, but we should be alert. We shouldn't think that we can have difficult situations all figured out because nothing will ever go as planned, but we should take whatever steps we can in the hear and now so that we can be wise stewards of the life we have been given. How awful to reach the end of life and realize that we had wasted so much of it! To realize that there were so many opportunities we let slip by because we just "didn't get around to it"!
"Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. ~ Matthew 24:42 ~
Okay, here's my Bucket List for the next year and a half:
1. Learn to play guitar
2. Make homemade pizza
3. Run the Boston Marathon
4. Tell someone about Christ
5. Ride a motorcycle
6. Read all the Harry Potter books
7. Choreograph my own dance…and perform it
8. Make a scrapbook
9. Go to the Bahamas
10. Change the oil in my car
11. French braid my hair
12. Memorize my bank account number
13. Go rock climbing
14. Fly in a noncommercial plane
15. Have a picnic
16. Ride the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier
17. Lie on a blanket outside and star gaze
18. Buy coffee for someone in line behind me
19. Get my AAAI PFI certification
20. Go to a spa
21. Hold a newborn baby
22. Drink a 5-hour Energy
23. Watch a sunrise and sunset in one setting
24. Snow ski in Colorado
25. Learn a magic trick
26. Dance in the rain
27. Go to a County Fair
28. Memorize a book of the Bible
29. Get my gun permit
30. Buy a meal for someone who’s homeless
31. Write a poem
32. Play laser tag
33. Paint a room
34. Go swimming at midnight
35. Eat Dim Sum
36. Get my spinning certification
37. Volunteer at Montgomery Village
38. Paintball
39. Go to Paris, France
40. Have a granola party with my sister
41. Ride Superman
42. Visit an orphanage and play with babies
43. Cross stitch something
44. Go to Puppy Zone
45. Ring in the New Year in Times Square
46. Skype a friend
47. Paint a canvas
48. Ride a horse
49. Volunteer at Lost Sheep
50. Watch a UT vs. FL game in the Swamp
51. Be in a wedding
52. Give someone a hug
53. Make pancakes with my roommates
54. Ride a scary roller coaster with my hands up the entire time
55. Send someone a handwritten letter
56. Have a Disney movie marathon
57. Go to the Grand Canyon
58. Call an old friend
59. Swing Dance
60. Go snorkeling
61. Drink a homemade milkshake
62. Go through Ayres Hall
63. Graduate college
64. Go to Niagara Falls
65. Do a triathlon
66. Go scuba diving
67. Take a back road with my car windows down
68. Change a tire
69. Learn the dance routine for Thriller
70. Drive a stick shift
71. Jet ski at Tablerock Lake
72. Bring a friend breakfast in bed
73. Go to a Lady Antebellum concert
74. Give someone a back massage
75. Laugh until I cry and start to hyperventilate
76. Play in the fountains at World’s Fair Park
78. Bake bread
79. Take ballroom dancing classes
80. Go white water rafting
81. Surprise someone at work
82. Have a photo-shoot
83. Make cheesecake
84. Watch Forest Gump in its entirety
85. Mattress surf
86. Write a book
87. Play a round of golf
88. Watch fireworks over water
89. Slide down a banister
90. Watch all the Lord of the Rings movies
91. Tie-Dye a t-shirt
92. Travel to Washington, D.C. and NYC on the Megabus
93. Buy a pair of chacos
94. Go to a Zumba class
95. Play Ultimate Frisbee
96. Take a cooking class
97. Rock on the front porch with a good friend
98. Tell someone she’s beautiful
99. Throw a surprise party
100. Play hide-and-seek outside
101. Learn Jesus Loves Me in Creole
This list begins today, August 10 2011 and will hopefully be completed by May 6, 2014! Proactivity has to start somewhere, and for me it might as well begin with this list. Updates will be posted as they are completed, so stay tuned. :)
~Amber Noel
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