Spiritual Honesty - Learning how to still obey

A letter from senior demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, a Junior tempter.

"You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will ( as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do ) would be for Him useless. He can not ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this sate of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs -- to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot 'tempt' to virtue as we do vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is please even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. our cause is never more in dance than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."


Excerpt from The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

A letter to my younger self.

Two days ago was my 1-year anniversary of graduating college. This made me reflect on that past year shocked that it has been that long since I walked across the stage to claim my degrees. It made me think of the seniors about to graduate from college this coming weekend and thus lead me to writing this post.

Last May I fell for false security. I thought I knew exactly where my life was headed, I thought I knew who I could possibly be with for the rest of my life, what country I would move to for a few years and what exactly the next year of my life would look like. This all proved to be wrong by August when I moved back to Searcy to continue the pursuit of these things. Here I was, in Searcy Arkansas after signing a school-year lease on a house with no future plans. All that I knew was that I had two jobs, and no future.

After some nights crying myself to sleep, yelling, and telling God what I thought about being in Searcy with no plan I began to dream again. I dreamed of what I could do on my own so I pursued those plans. Everything was looking up, I had a plan and an answer for people when they asked, “So what are you doing now, after college?” I had a plan. Within a few months those plans came to a screeching halt and I yet again had no idea what I was doing with my life, let alone what I would be doing the following week. I finally gave in and accepted the fact that I didn’t have an answer for people when they asked what I was doing with my life. This was when I finally was able to receive what the Lord was trying to tell me.

My identity is not found in what I am doing after college, nor what job I will start, nor who I will marry. I never thought cognitively that these were shaping my identity, but that is exactly how Satan does it. He sneaks into our perceptions of what we deem important and tells us that our worth is found in achieving those things. I have believed this lie, and the Lord quickly showed me that I was wrong.

He showed me my self-worth through Him. Through a great community of friends where I have grown spiritually more in the past year than I did all 4 years at Harding University combined. He showed me my self-worth through constant worship of who he is and what he does in my life.

I still get questions about what I am doing, and even snide comments from past teachers and friends who do not understand why I have two degrees and work as a waitress and a barista. But knowing that the Lord has me in this waiting period of growing gives me the freedom to not have an answer to anyone. It gives me the freedom to tell those people that I am waiting, and while I may not know why that reason is, that I know the Lord is working in me and through me wherever I am. When the time is right, I will move and have whatever job he puts in my way, but until that day, I just seek to know the wrinkles of his face.

So this is what I want to tell you seniors about to graduate. Whether you have a job lined up or not, whether you are graduating from school with a spouse or single, whether you know what your future looks like or not, the Lord will always provide and is always worth more than any of those things. Your identity should be found in Him, and he will make sure that you understand that one way or the other. Do not spend your time worrying about what people will think, because in the end it doesn’t matter if your days are fulfilled through him. Enjoy your time of wandering and wondering because you may not have this season again in your life. I have never felt more alive than when i am depending fully on him to sustain and to provide for me; neither will you.

Isaiah 40:28-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

and to him who has no might he increases strength.

Even youths shall faint and be weary,

and young men shall fall exhausted;

but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.

.written on our hearts.

Yesterday in one of my classes something was brought to my attention that i had never thought of before. We as Christians have been misusing the scripture Jeremiah 31:33 & therefore also Hebrews 10:16. Jeremiah 31:33 says,

"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people."

In the Old Testament the diviners or priests of other gods such as Ba'al would use a procedure called extispicy which is the practice of using animals entrails to predict or divine future events. The priest would cut open the animal before sacrifice and interpret the organs such as the liver, intestines, lungs & sometimes the heart. It was a medium for the gods; a way they could send messages to the humans on earth. The practice of extipicy wasn't fully complete until after the animal had gone through the sacrificial routine which ends as a burnt offering.

When the Lord says that He will write it on our hearts it is not in reference to our own benefit of having His word on our heart but it is in reference to extispicy. God is making us a medium for what He is wanting to reveal to the world about Himself & the future.

What implications does this have for us? We are the sacrificial animal for the world who is practicing divination. In giving ourselves for sacrifice we reveal to the world the message that God is trying to get across through us. So when He says He's going to write His law on our hearts it is for the world to cut us open and in our very being, the heart, God is revealed to the fullest. This is a realistic explanation of the scripture because God has used the things we put before Him several times for the salvation of people. One example is in Numbers with the plague of poisonous serpents; God gives the Israelites a bronze serpent that they only need look at for salvation from death by poison. God uses the things we make idols out of irony for our good because undoubtedly He knows that a dog always returns to his vomit like a man returns to his sin. He is willing to use whatever means he must to get our attention.

2 Corthinians 3:1-3 says,

"Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."

We as Christians must allow the world to read what is written on our hearts by being a living sacrifice.

Strivings

I do not know where to begin this conversation. Maybe to tell you that in my Youth Ministry class we've been talking about why high school kids feel the need to go to parties and fool around. In this class my teacher made a statement that got me really thinking about what we strive for. Scott Adair said,

'What if sin is the product of an unhealthy striving for community, belonging, and fulfillment that actually stems from a healthy yearning?'

In Genesis God creates human life and says it is good, and everything that took place in the garden before the fall of man was fulfillment of the striving that God placed in the human heart. Adam and Eve walked and talked with God, they had a personal relationship with Him. They found fulfillment in their relationship with God, but then Satan tried to entice them into a different striving for that fulfillment. This is what Satan does. He takes things that God created as good and uses them against us. 

The things that are the easiest to make our idols are things that God created. In my prophets class we have been talking about the temple in Jeremiah and how the Hebrews created a Zionist religion that assumed God was protecting Jerusalem, that it was indestructible because God had chosen it as a permanent place for His temple. They thought surely God would not allow a foreign nation to come and conquer the land would He? They were completely oblivious to the fact that God had already left the temple and that He was trying to save them from their own destruction. In fact He even states in Jeremiah 7:4,

"Do not trust in these deceptive words:'This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." 

Then in Jeremiah 7:8-11,

"“Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the LORD." 

So many times we go into church and have no intention of drawing near, embracing the Holy Spirit that Jesus left for us. We go through the routine claiming, "WE ARE DELIVERED" and when we leave the church we participate in everything that is not of Christ.We think that because we go to church, a place that, "God dwells" that we are saved, when God is not contained by walls.

How does this relate to the quote from my Youth Ministry class? We are all created to have a relationship with God, but we turn what is supposed to be a healthy striving into a to do list. We make going to church 3 times a week, singing in church, taking communion, and hearing a lesson into a list of things we must do to be a Christian, which was not the intention of these rituals by God. All this to say, in our hearts we have a healthy desire for this communication, this relationship with God, but it is when we just go through the motions that we are like the Hebrews in Jeremiah. They were breaking God's heart. Read Jeremiah and learn from them because when you participate in divine communion and worship with the LORD, it impacts all of your actions. Or at least, it should.

Just doin' me

I like to call Harding University, "The Marriage Factory."
This is where people come, they meet someone, swing 3 times on the beautiful white wooden swings and then if they reach that stage in their relationship they are meant to be married.
I, among this reality, am single.
Hah! As i just typed that, my computer froze, it didn't know what to do.
Symbolic of peoples reaction at Harding when you tell them you're a single senior? Possibly.
I graduate on May 5th with the stark reality that i could still be single.
Now, this isn't a pity party but i have been asking myself this question recently.

If God calls me to join a team, and i end up leaving to do mission work overseas, could i, as a single woman, be strong enough to join a team of couples alone?

To this i do not have the answer because that is not a reality for me yet.
All i know is that while i am in Africa, i am more alive than i have ever been & if that means facing the unknown and the only bride i am to be is Jesus' then to that i say, ok.
But for now, until that day comes, i am going to just do me.

Proverb 31:30 & 31

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,

but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Give her of the fruit of her hands,

and let her works praise her in the gates.

Kelly Clarkson

It doesn't mean I'm lonely just because I'm alone.

Joel 2:28 & your daughters shall prophesy

At the end of my fall semester Junior year at Harding University i was at a worship service called, "The Exchange" and a mentor of mine, named Cary, prophesied over me saying that there was something locked in my heart that the Lord was going to reveal to me, it was a desire of my heart. This was frustrating to me because it seemed so generic, and i wasn't hiding anything from the Lord. He knew everything about my heart, what could i possibly have locked or hidden? I took it with a grain of salt and moved on thinking maybe that word wasn't really meant for me.

Later that December i went to a convention called The OneThing Conference. It's held every year in downtown Kansas City with thousands of participants. It is 4 days filled with worship and teaching. During one of the night sessions, Allen Hood, who is the President of the International House of Prayer prayed over the youth and college students in the building, asking God to reveal more of Himself to them in dreams just like Joel 2:28 mentions. At that point, i had never had a prophetic dream before.

After the conference i went home and that Sunday night i had a dream. I was running fast, pushing, pursing and trying to tell people something that was of great importance but nobody would listen to me. I was frustrated, flustered and annoyed. Nobody seemed to care. I was having to push past people who were trying to stop me from telling people which made me try even harder. My dream finally ended as i was approaching the doors of somebody of great importance, almost like i was approaching a throne and then i woke up. Immediately i felt the need to read Ezekiel 4:9 & 10 which reads,

"And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and emmer, and put them into a single vessel and make your bread from them. During the number of days that you lie on your side, 390 days, you shall eat it. And your food that you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a say; from day to day you should eat it."

I had no idea what all of this meant so i consulted some mentors of mine, Sandra and Michele, who would know what to do about it. They prayed for me and i fasted while we waited for more of a revelation. Reading the surrounding chapters it was revealed to us that i was in a time of preparation before i was to walk into a time of awaking dry bones. The scripture revealed to me was the food that Ezekiel lived from in a dry place. We felt that the dry place signified Harding University and the lack of the Holy Spirit. That there was a time about to be entered where the Holy Spirit would reveal himself in ways these college students had never seen before.

Christmas break ends and i return to school. Half way through the semester my friend Monique told me that she had given my name to the board of directors to speak at the Lectureship Harding holds every year. I was shocked and just flattered that my name would even be submitted. There were many names submitted and i just was in awe of what the Lord was doing with my life, that somebody would think me suited enough to speak as a lecturer. I walked away from that conversation just beaming from the delight i felt that the Lord had through me.

In the middle of my spring semester i received the e-mail asking me to speak as a student lecturer at Harding University's 88th Annual Bible Lectureship. Wow. You have got to be kidding me. I was laughing from joy. What an honor and opportunity to speak to the women on campus. All these little details brought me such joy. It was like unwrapping a small piece of a large present every time something happened. I already knew what i was going to speak about.

Soon after i was asked to speak at the lectureship i was sitting in one of my classes where a Bible teacher was telling me that God does not speak to us directly anymore. That prophecy doesn't happen and that those gifts of the Holy Spirit don't exist anymore. Right after he said that God smacked me with a reality that i had been oblivious to all along. That by having me speak at lectureship, he was giving me the desire of my heart. See what i had forgotten was Freshman year sitting in one of the student lectures desiring to one day be able to speak to the women of Harding. My heart longed for it every year, but it wasn't something i, myself, could achieve so i soon forgot about it. So the prophecy was true, there was something on my heart, locked, that God gave to me and that's why i didn't even know what it was. I had never told anyone, not even my mother that i desired this opportunity. But the Father, who gives GOOD and GRACIOUS gifts knows what those desires of our hearts are. I realized all of this while my teacher was telling me that God doesn't work like that anymore, and to that i laughed.

I spoke at lectureship this past fall semester to over 150 women about my struggle with self-confidence and finding my beauty. I talked about how God wants us to love our outward frame, not just our inward. This was a concept not spoken about here. This is why in my dream i am frantically trying to tell people something important. Harding was the dry land where there is a famine of the Holy Spirit. I was to awaken dry bones, to reveal to these women freedom from the captivity that Satan has over our bodies and our minds about our physical frame to which the Lord did.

Even towards the end of the semester i was having women come up to me and talk to me about lectureship. I have even been able to pray over several of them. God is STILL using something that at the very least, told me of His great love for me.

Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.