Beauty.

I have quite simply put had a morning of beauty.

I got on a computer at school to do work for class and I decided to look at Spencer and Melody's blog because I hadn't read it in a while and really had very little knowledge of how things have been going. As I began to check out their blog it I put on the new Gungor CD, and was overwhelmed by the beauty I saw in the pictures they posted and that coupled with the beautiful music that Gungor makes was a bit too much for me. As I began to now read I was so overwhelmed with how I was able to watch this story of what they had been through unfold not knowing what was going to happen next. Yet, the thing that was stirred up in me was this deep knowledge and recognition of the fact that they belong to the lord, that they are his and He was surely going to put himself on display in their lives and that these hard times were merely going to be the backdrop and the stage that he would use to truly display his glory. I was filled with such hope for them knowing His goodness and being fully persuaded that He does good.

As I read further I watched this story unfold that did not leave my hopes and expectations wanting or disappointed. I was tearing up the whole time I was reading and had my hand over my mouth trying to contain myself and all of the joy and passion and hope that I was feeling. It blessed me so much getting to see how God has come through for them and how he has displayed himself as a good loving daddy who adores in a delights in his children.

I can hardly begin to express the hope that I now feel as a result of this with just the knowledge and reminder of his goodness and the intimate and gentle leading of his hand as it presses against our backs leading us deeper and deeper into him and past the fringes of his power and glory, as we get right into the midst of it all and are allowed to behold his glory.

I have been missing this kind of intimate walking with the Lord because I have been fixing my eyes, thoughts, and affections on all of the wrong places...namely, myself. So this has really stirred up in me this great longing and desire to break away from where my heart has been which has been grounded in principle and teaching and theology which are all wonderful but in light of the one whom those things are about and refer to they are poor empty and vain substitutes I for one am tired of drinking from the wells of religion and fear and an orphan mentality. I long to allow myself to be caught up in his love again and be captivated by him and enamored with him rather than myself and rather than settling for just learning about him. I want to see him. I want to experience him. Right here, right now. I'm so stirred up with a reminder of how beautiful the Lord is and how wonderful his love and his leading. Oh, how much time I wasted in things that do not satisfy and indeed cannot satisfy!

We are caught up in this wonderful epic that is so much bigger than ourselves, but so why then do I choose to take side roles or be a part of the audience and spectate when Jesus is extending his hand to me and you offering us to come alongside him and be a part of his story as he takes center stage. We ought to rejoice that he is made much of in the trials and terrors of my life and that he is so loving to allow this to draw me nearer to him and to make himself known. It truly is in these times that God puts himself on display disclosing a little more of himself to us and unfolding the story a little further. He is the point, and when we lose sight of that we begin thinking that we should be the one with the leading role or we begin feeling left out or even entitled that we deserve more. but if He is truly what we are after and these are the means by which to gain him then ought we not to rejoice with Paul and count all things as loss compared to knowing him. Or to walk as Jesus did and become the lowest to show us a glory in the highest, who endured the cross scorning its shame for the sake of the joy set before him.

I have much to learn, and it will not be done by reading books. It will be done by coming and sitting before the Lord with unveiled face in the temple of meeting and being transformed with ever increasing glory into his likeness from glory to glory. I don't want to to just try my best to act like him, behave like him, and conform my life to the word...I want to become like him, i want to know him. Paul says this comes with sharing in his sufferings, and his death, and his resurrection. It is all about loving communion. Like Misty Edwards said at this past OneThing, the only reason that Jesus asks us to leave behind everything we have ever known and to take up our cross and follow his path of pain, tears, and suffering and to receive a cal to die is because that is the path that he walk. "This is the voice of the Bridegroom saying to His bride...come leave your father-s house, come away with me and come and be with me where I am." This is the path we must walk to get to him. It's gonna be worth it.

So come Lord, and put yourself on display in my life and allow me to fellowship with you all the more as I share in your sufferings which you promised would come and as you lead me to walk with you across stormy seas, taking me through places I had not intended to go and bringing me to places I could never have dreamed of.

You are worth it all. You are.