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overwhelmed

alyssapebbles

The sheer weight and force of God’s love is too overwhelming for us to bear. We cannot comprehend the heights and the depths of His love for us. Sometimes I feel as though I’m drowning in it.

How could I deserve such love, someone like me? What did I do to earn it?

Once again, He’s teaching to me to receive. To remember the treasure that I am as His daughter, and to fully rest in it.

We like to think that we are completely in control of our lives, until He knocks us off our feet and we find ourselves in over our heads. He’s looking to see how we respond to those times- will we turn to Him or try to handle everything ourselves? Will we lean in or run away?

When His love comes in a way we don’t expect, our tendency is to believe it’s too good to be true. But this undermines what He is trying to do; our job is never to determine the appropriateness of His love, to decide what we do or don’t deserve. He loves us the way He loves us, and receiving it is a part of obedience. It’s part of our walk to let Him lavish us, even when it makes us squeamish.

We don’t hold onto the gifts- we cling to the Giver. He will always be faithful and His promises will always stand. Part of His loving us includes giving us gifts, but that is not the love itself. We must continue to rest in Love Himself.

The worship song “In Over My Head” by Jenn Johnson comes to mind, a song about losing control but finding freedom in His overwhelming love:

I have come to this place in my life
I’m full but I’ve not satisfied
This longing to have more of You
And I can feel it my heart is convinced
I’m thirsty my soul can’t be quenched
You already know this but still
Come and do whatever You want to
I’m standing knee deep but I’m out where I’ve never been
I feel You coming and I hear Your voice on the wind
Would you come and tear down the boxes that I have tried to put You in
Let love come teach me who You are again
Would you take me back to the place where my heart was only about You
And all I wanted was just to be with You
Come and do whatever You want to
And further and further my heart moves away from the shore
Whatever it looks like, whatever may come I am Yours
And further and further my heart moves away from the shore
Whatever it looks like, whatever may come I am Yours
Then You crash over me and I’ve lost control but I’m free
I’m going under, I’m in over my head
And You crash over me, I’m where You want me to be
I’m going under, I’m in over my head
Whether I sink, whether I swim
Oh it makes no difference when I’m beautifully in over my head
And whether I sink, whether I swim
It makes no difference when I’m beautifully in over my head
I’m beautifully in over my head
Beautifully in over my head
I want to lose myself in His love, and no other. I want to be His first, before I belong to anyone else. And even when my heart for Him is restrained, even when I hold back out of fear, He continues to pursue me. I would rather drown in His ocean than stand on sinking sand. His grace covers my weaknesses, fears, and doubts, and I am secure in Him.
In these deep waters, we are held.
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focus

alyssapebbles

When I lose the focal point of my life- Christ Himself- nothing makes sense.

The world is so distracting. My attention jumps from one thing to the next throughout the day as I’m bombarded by sensory information and stimulation. Whatever I’m feeling one moment completely changes within the next hour; my thoughts are so scattered that I become a stranger to myself. My mind is going down one track, only to be interrupted and taken down a completely different route by changing circumstances and different ideas.

How do I focus this energy? How can I find a consistent thread to cling to, one that won’t be disturbed by everyday occurrences and crises? Something sustaining and lasting- something that transcends my schizophrenic experiences of the world.

I long to abide in Him completely.

I used to think the only way to do this was to physically escape- to physically remove myself from my circumstances and be alone with Him:

Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

~Matthew 6:6 The Message

Certainly this is a powerful and grounding way to reconnect with Him- sometimes it is the only way- when you’re so absorbed in your own grievances and caught up in yourself that you need to stop everything and be still.

But what if we can do this in the course of our everyday lives… what if we learned how to continuously keep our attention and focus on Him so that we are never apart, even in the midst of the chaos of our lives?

In The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence encapsulates this idea. He lives in the presence of God, in everything He does. He offers his everyday life as a sacrifice before God. Although he is a simple kitchen worker and nothing about his work is inherently holy, he learns how to experience God through all of it.

Eugene Peterson also eloquently paraphrases this kind of life in Romans 12:1-2:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

The more we mature in God, the more we will feel the pull of a thousand opposite directions, from culture (the world), from our own flesh, and from the devil, trying to lead us astray and away from Him. The enemy does not want us to walk on the straight and narrow road- he wants to distract us. He’ll do everything he can to make us forget the Point of our existence and be caught up things that don’t have eternal value.

So we must keep our eyes fixed above, to the Author and Perfecter of our faith. There is no other way besides His way, and we can walk in it in the midst of our daily lives. We simply have to present everything we have and do before Him and allow Him to do what He wants with us.

A wise friend recently told me that everything God establishes in our life will stand, while everything else will fall away. This encouraged and reminded me that even as I try to establish my own kingdoms, they will only be temporary. Only the things of God will remain in my life as I continue to pursue Him. He will prune me as I go, stripping away all that is unnecessary and getting in the way of His purposes, refining me with His holy fire.

The path of righteousness is narrow, but it’s the only path I want to travel.

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discouragement

alyssapebbles

I think one of the main (and most effective) ways the enemy tries to attack us is through discouragement.

If he can make us lose our hope, he can steal our joy. If he can steal our joy, he can make us question and doubt everything that God is trying to do in our lives. We stop believing that there is a purpose and reason for the trials we are going through, and simply begin to think we are experiencing meaningless suffering.

The seeds of bitterness are planted.

Once our joy is stolen, life becomes drudgery. We become exhausted with our daily lives and can’t seem to find the refreshment our soul is looking for. We feel scattered and burnt out…lost. What is all of this pointing toward?

We begin to become cynical, focusing on all of the negative things, the things that could go wrong. We let worries and fears creep in and have their way in us, wearing out our already tired souls.

We are exhausted…

What if there is another way?

What if there is a way to find joy again, to have hope restored?

What if all of these challenges that feel defeating are actually strengthening you, and you didn’t even realize it?

That you’re actually stronger than you know, because you are held by a greater Strength?

When you feel down and lost and forgotten and ashamed, there is One who knows your name. There is One who ushers you deeper into His presence and gives your soul rest. His love for you is more exquisite than you would dare to imagine, and when you think you can’t go on any longer, He’s the One who will carry you.

You have to stop trying so hard to figure it all out.

My verse always remains the same, the one He’s spoken to me since the beginning:

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me- watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. 

I’m not forgotten. I’m right in the middle of His will.

My mentor describes the times when we feel like we are in a fog as the times when God is actually the closest and most active. We can’t see anything around us and we are confused; we don’t understand what is happening or why. It seems chaotic and empty at the same time.

But as soon as we step out and look back, we can see what He was doing. It becomes clear as the fog lifts.

What if we learned to have the eyes of faith in the midst of what we can’t see? To trust God instead of our circumstances- to rest in His promises and know that all is well despite our very real and tangible struggles. To live in this world but not of it…so that we remember we are set apart and sacred, that nothing unclean can really touch or claim us at all.

My feelings will always betray me, but Christ remains constant and steady. I never have to be overtaken by the spirit of discouragement, because God is redeeming all things to Himself. While my circumstances change, His Word remains true. I don’t have to give in to despair.

I’m walking a new way.

 

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a holy responsibility

alyssapebbles

When we decide to follow Christ, we are given a huge and beautiful responsibility:

To love others.

We are given the opportunity to lay down our own needs and wants and to serve one another in love.

Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction.

~2 Corinthians 1:3-4

It’s actually not a choice to love others- it’s a command. And it happens because we were loved first. We received love from Christ, and now we get to spread that love to a very broken world.

It’s a privilege.

However, when I think about all the people that God has placed in my life to love, I feel overwhelmed. There’s a lot of people, and a lot of pain. A lot of complicated stories and murky waters. Something cold in my heart tells me to back away, to not become too involved or engaged- because I already have enough to deal with. I don’t need to absorb others hurts. I don’t need more pain in my life. There’s a fierce protective mechanism inside of me that  tells me to shut others out. To only get so close. If I get too close I might get burned, or lost in someone else’s story.

What a strange idea.

Sometimes I feel like people need too much from me, and I don’t have enough to give. I wish I had the energy to love everyone as they need to be loved. I wish I could always disregard myself and have a heart only for those around me. But it can be so exhausting.

Because I’m looking at it the wrong way.

In my pride and selfishness, I’m taking it on as completely my own responsibility. It is a responsibility, but it’s not fully mine. The way that I love others is not by sheer effort and determination. My weak and selfish heart could never handle that burden; I am so limited as a human- I don’t have the capacity to love the way I am supposed to.

I can’t do it on my own. I can’t love well- not when I am trying to do it by myself.

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

~1 John 4:7-8

Here’s the beautiful part: God loves for us. He is Love.

So the love we have for others does not come from ourself, from our own efforts. When we choose to love the people God has put in our lives, we are not left alone to figure out how to do it. He will show us how, and can even change our feelings about people (although love is by no means just a feeling). He will give us His spirit of discernment, to help us see what they really need instead of what they may want. To see our specific role in their lives, instead of trying to be everything for them.

We can’t be everything for anyone. 

Loving people is not about pleasing them, or making sure they are comfortable all the time. It is about pointing them back to the Father, who is love Himself. 

When I know to my core that I am deeply loved by God, I am able to love others well. It’s as simple as that. Our relationship with Him will overflow into our relationships with others, for better or for worse. When I am trying to love people in my own strength, my love will not be strong enough.

And then it’s no longer really a responsibility at all. Then I am free to enjoy people because I am not trying so hard- because I am not carrying a burden that is not mine to bear. And something wild and natural begins to happen: real love begins to grow as I see the person for who they are and meet them where they are at. I can see how God is showing up in our relationship- how He has orchestrated things so that we would connect in a certain way, through a certain conversation or circumstance. It only happens when I remember that it’s not up to me.

I’m so grateful that the best way to love others is by loving God the most. Because God is easy to love, whereas people are not. God’s character is perfect and consistent, and He has proven Himself faithful over and over again. I never have to doubt His motives with me, or question His authority in my life. I know He will always be there for me, and knows just the way to speak to my heart.

A love like that has to be shared.

 

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on purpose

alyssapebbles

As Christians, we often think that we are not fulfilling our purpose unless we are out in the world doing something “big.” We narrow the scope of ministry to preaching, teaching the Bible to kids in Africa, or traveling around the world on missions. By elevating this kind of work to be “God’s work,” we are diminishing the every day, ordinary ways God uses His people. We forget that God is not only in one place and in one kind of vocation.

We forget that we can (and indeed are called to) minister right where we are- right where God has placed us. 

In fact, that is exactly where he calls us to His purposes for us.

I feel the resistance in my own heart against the  mundanity of every day life, as though if I’m not doing something glamorous or being recognized for the gifts and talents God has given me, I am somehow not fulfilling my purpose. As though my purpose is really mine at all.

There is a restlessness inside of me that’s screaming to be discovered- I’m all too eager for my “time to shine”- my moments of glory. A sense of invisibility and anonymity has overtaken me, which reveals the unseemly state of my heart- I’m looking for human approval and affirmation instead of God’s.

God sees everything.

There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven

~Ecclesiastes 3:1

He sees the work that I’m doing now- the way I am stewarding what He’s given me. He’s watching to see how I will be faithful to Him in the present. He wants me to bring everything I do before Him:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

~Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)

If God allowed us to do the big things we really want to do right now, we would take God’s kingdom work into our own hands and minister out of a place of self-sufficiency and pride, because of our own immaturity and that desire for human approval. God knows we aren’t ready to step into those things until our hearts are utterly inclined toward Him and Him alone; at the point when we no longer crave man’s applause but are so Gospel-centered that, like Paul, it doesn’t matter to us what people think or what our status is, as long as the truth is told:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.

~Philippians 3:8-10

Before we can ever do something large-scale like we dream about, we have to go through seasons of preparation and maturity. And those seasons aren’t sexy. They aren’t glamorous. They are messy. They involve deep heart work that can only be accomplished when we come to the end of ourselves and learn to fully depend on God. We don’t come to this place by our own strengths or talents or gifts- we actually usually come here by our failures and weaknesses.

Since moving to Santa Cruz, God has taught me a lot about my main purpose in this world, and it’s not to be in a ministry internship. It’s not even to be a leader in the church, even though that is something He has placed on my heart.

My main purpose is simply to love Him. My purpose is to enjoy Him, and to bring everything I am and everything I do before Him to allow Him to transform me.

And guess what? I can do this in any job. I can do it any place, with any people. His purpose for me is to seek Him daily, and He is available to me everywhere I go. It really makes no difference to Him whether I am in Santa Cruz or somewhere else, part of one church or another. He can accomplish what He wants to in any circumstance I find myself in, as long as I am open and willing to receive Him. If I’m not, then He can’t use me anywhere.

Maybe this season is not about “fulfilling your calling.” Maybe it’s about seeing what He’s placed directly in front of you and finding Him there.

 

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on singleness and relationships

alyssapebbles

Lately I’ve been inundated with wisdom about Christian singleness, dating and marriage. It’s the “ring before spring” season, and people are seeming to pair up faster than I can keep up. My heartstrings are being pulled as I am more aware of my singleness than ever- it’s hard not to equate it with aloneness. 

As someone who has never been in a committed, long-term relationship, it’s something my heart desperately longs for. To have someone to share experiences with- someone to share my life with. Someone to have long conversations into the night with, someone who will always be there for me and encourage me in my faith. It’s hard not to idealize and romanticize, to really believe that my life would not be any better without that “special someone.”

I want romance- I want to be pursued. I want someone to want to know me deeply down to my core, and to love me despite all my little quirks and bad habits. Despite the fact that I am deeply flawed and not actually worthy of love.

I want to be known.

It really is the greatest desire of the human heart- to be known truly and loved deeply just as we are. Being loved like this will inspire us to become better, but true love never comes with that expectation. It meets us where we’re at. It reminds us that we are beautiful creations and calls out the very best in us. True love doesn’t expect us to change but it will inevitably change us as we become more of who it tells us we are.

Because God is love. In Him is perfect love, and this love sets us free- free to be who we are, who God made us to be. And guess what? We can’t find this in a person.

There is no person on earth who can love you the way you were made to be loved. 

There is no person who can fill the aching hole in you that cries out to be known. No person can do that for you, except the Person of Christ.

He made you, and He knows the exact dimensions and shape of that hole. He knows just the way to satisfy you and fulfill you, if you will seek relationship with Him instead of trying to fill it with the imperfect love of other humans.

Now, all that being said, He also created us to be in relationship with others:

It is not good for man to be alone.

~Genesis 2:18

And specifically, He created Adam and Eve, male and female, to be together in a very particular and intimate way that is different from the way that they are in relationship with others.

It’s part of the design. A man leaves his family and is united with a woman, and they become one. This design reflects our relationship with God- we leave our flesh behind and become united with Him in Spirit. It’s the most intimate and beautiful relationship we could ever have: where two become one.

Of course we long for that and crave it. It seems like the answer and end to all loneliness, and it is- in God. We can find perfect intimacy and oneness with Him, and we can come very close to that with other humans, but we will never experience complete unity with other people on this side of Heaven. No one can know us and love us completely and wholly except our Creator.

As I continue to wait for my person, I do so not impatiently but relishing in the gift of singleness. I am reminded that during this season my heart can be completely His, not distracted by another person. As He pursues me and continues to draw me to Himself, He will help me to continue to become the kind of person who is able to be in a healthy relationship- one that is giving and encouraging instead of self-centered. One that is focused on Him and united in purpose. I understand that now, with more clarity than I ever have before. I can finally trust him with my relationships and longings, instead of taking matters into my own hands and winding up even more hurt and lonely.

Maybe you have been hurt in the past, and don’t believe that anyone will actually love you completely for who you are. Maybe you’ve lost hope that there is someone out there for you, that there is someone who really does want to know you and love you. It’s easy to become discouraged and to lose hope. I find myself doing that sometimes when I look around me and it seems as though everyone is in a happily committed relationship- as though all of their relational needs are being met while I am still here alone and unknown. But that isn’t the truth.

The truth is that even people who are in relationships can be lonely. I know this because I know lonely people who are in relationships. The only way to be free of the loneliness that we all feel- regardless of whether we have a significant other- is to bring our needs before the Lord. He is our comforter, lover, and best friend. He is the one who will provide us with companionship and intimacy when we feel alone, the one with whom we can share our joys and our fears, our hopes and our disappointments. He wants to be intimately involved in our lives, so much so that He gave us His Spirit. We never have to be alone.

Although there are times when I long deeply to be in a romantic relationship, I know those longings are only pointing me back to my Creator, and when the time is right, He will fulfill that desire. But for now, I continue to trust Him and lay out my life before Him. My identity is not in whether or not I am in a relationship with another person- it is in my relationship with Him.

 

 

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the war

alyssapebbles

There is a war going on. It’s all around us, and if we can train our eyes to see it, we can begin to learn how to fight.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

~Ephesians 6:12-17

I have never felt more spiritually attacked than when I was working for the church. The enemy did not want me in the church. He did not want me discovering God’s power in me, the impact I could have on the body of Christ. He hates the church with a passion- it is one of his greatest desires to destroy the church. And he does it by slowly picking away at each member- at the most basic levels of their worth and identity.

I let his sneaky and conniving voice take up space in my mind with lies. I gave him room in my heart to get comfy with bitterness and envy. I allowed him to intimidate me with fear and shame, to shake my confidence in the One who loves me and instead be suspicious of His motives. Instead of fighting with the armor of my Beloved- the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness- I succumbed to the darkness and gave it power over me.

Because that’s the thing about this war: we get to decide who we let have the power in our lives. God has the ultimate power, and He doesn’t need to convince us of that. It’s in His nature. It’s who He is: the omniscient, all-powerful God. His still, small voice can move mountains.

The devil, on the other hand, has to do a lot of convincing. He has to inundate us with poisonous lies and try enormously hard to make us think he has even an ounce of authority. He tries to capture our attention with cheap distractions and plays on our fleshly desires. He, like God, knows our sinful condition and how prone we are to give into our temptations if we’re not careful. And when we do, he’s quick to catch us in the trap and remind us of how very sinful and hopeless we are.

But if God has the victory, then why do we still fall into his snare? Why does the darkness sometimes feel like the realest thing, and His truth far from true?

Because there was a fall.

And the prince of darkness rules the earth…for now. God is making everything right, and restoring everything and everyone to Himself, but in the meantime Satan is still rampant and looking for victims:

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

~1 Peter 5:8

This battle is not only going on in the spiritual realm- it is going on inside of us. We are not passive in this fight. We must actively engage with God and remain strengthened in Him and His truth or we will be subject to the tactics of the enemy.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

~James 4:7

Fortunately for us, we are not alone in the fight. We have God’s Spirit in us, and with Him we are more than equipped to stand against the wiles of the devil and his angels. The more we begin to recognize His voice and know His character, the more we will be able to recognize what is not from Him. We will be able to discern the truth from the lies. We will see the enemy clearly for who he is: a thief who comes only to kill and destroy. And when that happens, his power over us is gone.

This battle is not like any other. It is not fought with violence, but with peace. It is fought with hope and joy, with trust and faith. It is by abiding in our Father and remaining in Him- not by our own strength- that we will be able to stand.

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unashamed

alyssapebbles

Those who look to him are radiant;

There faces are never covered with shame.

~Psalm 34:5

Since I have decided to follow Christ with my life, I have been inexplicably drawn to people who seem to know Him, and I mean really know Him. The people that have that glint in their eye as they speak about Him, as though He is their most intimate and truest friend.

I have known very few people who have this kind of relationship with Him, but when I meet them and get to know them, I know that I want what they have. I want to know Him like that- like a best friend and ever-present companion, like someone who is always so close and so near that I can feel Him breathing through my lungs. The people who know Him like that are not ashamed of Him- they can do nothing but exude His presence in the lives of those around them; it emits from their very being. They are always thinking about Him and talking about Him- and talking to Him. They are so deeply in love with Him.

It should not be unusual to meet people like this, especially in the church. But it is.

How many people do you really know who completely lay down their lives for Him, who live and breathe His breath? Who constantly meditate on His word, and continually abide in His presence? I know very few.

My question is: why are we ashamed of Christ?

Why are we afraid to seem “overly spiritual” or even perhaps crazy to people who don’t know Him? What are we to gain by stifling His spirit in us?

In modern, Western culture Christianity, it is okay to go to church and be involved serving in the body of Christ, so long as you don’t offend others with your faith. It is okay as long as you don’t weird people out with your relationship to the Lord by talking to Him or being led by the Spirit in certain ways that people don’t understand. As a result, we’ve discouraged personal relationship. We’ve encouraged public testimony and appearing a certain way. But we’ve forgotten the whole point: Christ.

We’ve forgotten the whole reason we signed up for this thing in the first place; all this pain and sacrifice and dying to self. It’s all because of Him, and if we weren’t in love with Him, we would never go through all this. If our faith is not motivated by love for Christ, but instead becomes a way to make ourselves look good, we are lost. When we judge our brothers and sisters for the way God manifests Himself in their lives, as though He can only work in one way, we lose our own connection to Him.

We have to stop trying to please people. We have to stop expecting our relationship to look the same as anybody else’s. The Creator of the Universe loves each of us in unique and wildly different ways. He gave us passions and interests and joys and fears, and He knows what makes each one of us tick. He loves it when we delight in Him, when we enjoy Him- because He enjoys us. When we begin to truly get to know Him, we unlock His heart. We can begin to understand the magnitude of His love for us, and it will absolutely overwhelm us.

Let’s not forget who our First and Last is, and let’s never let fear of what other people think cause us to be ashamed of Him.

He is not ashamed of us.

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perseverance

alyssapebbles

A close friend texted a word of encouragement to me the other day: it was an exhortation to keep persevering and enduring in this seemingly endless season of uncertainty in my life.

Though I’ve witnessed God’s powerful and life-changing work, there is still always the temptation to give up- to stop being hopeful and give into cynicism and discouragement over the reality of my circumstances.

But through it all, He has been guarding my heart and mind. He has given me the ability to persevere. I am able to get up early each morning instead of sleeping in, not knowing what my plans will be for the day but trusting that He will be in whatever I do- whether it’s applying for the twenty-fifth job or going on a spontaneous adventure with a friend. He’s in it. I don’t worry anymore because worry does absolutely nothing but hold us back.

If worry and fear are no longer options, there is only one choice: to press on. To continue in Him with strength and discipline, to move forward. Dwelling on the past and fretting about the future are both wastes of time, and He calls me to be with Him here and now.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

~Matthew 6:34

We spend so much energy worrying about things that are out of our control. We let our troubles consume us, as though obsessing about them will somehow make them go away. We magnify our problems and minimize Christ.

But God asks of us a simple obedience out of trust- to actually trust Him in all the trials we face, not just some. Once we begin to consistently obey Him in everything, we begin to experience the hard work of perseverance:

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

~James 1:4

Of course God doesn’t allow hardship into our life to defeat us. Testing and trials are all for our benefit, and all can draw us closer to Him. The road ahead may look long and arduous, and the outcome may be unclear. You may only have a glimpse of the plan, or perhaps it is completely hazy. There will be dry spells and wilderness seasons. We will have times where we feel like we are wandering, unsure exactly where we are headed- or if we are headed anywhere at all. But we must not be discouraged in these times:

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

~Joshua 1:9

That’s when we turn to what we can’t see- when our human lenses fail us, we must rely on faith. We must keep showing up and meeting with God. If we continue to hope and endure, He will reward us. We will begin to see the fruit in our lives that can only develop through trials: the fruits of patience, peace, gentleness, self-control- the fruit of joy. We will become mature and more and more like Christ, as he prunes away the dead parts of us that were getting in the way. We must look ahead to the other side of the mountain, where God is waiting with open arms.

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

~Isaiah 40:31

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faithful with a little

alyssapebbles

In October of 2016, I wrote about what it means to be a good steward. Here it is if you haven’t read it:

https://alyssapebbles.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/steward/

That word, now tattooed in cursive black ink across my wrist, still holds significant meaning for me, especially during this season of waiting.

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

~Luke 16:10

I, like many people, have a tendency towards short cuts. Skipping steps. Trying to get to Point C without passing through point B. You could call it instant gratification- I want to have arrived. I’m a results girl; all about the finished product.

But our God is a God of process. The One we serve requires great patience, endurance, and sacrifice from us- there is no way around it:

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

~Matthew 7:14

The path is not an easy one, and it requires all of us and all that we have along the way. That’s why it’s critical that we understand the value of stewardship: of being faithful with what we have now, so that we can be trusted with more in the future. If we don’t honor God in little that He has given us, why would He ever dare bless us with more?

What this means is that we have to be present. It means that we have to be thankful for circumstances and resources we have now, even if we don’t feel grateful or things are not ideal (which they never will be, by the way!) It means that how we use our time matters. It means that how we use our money matters:

Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops;

~Proverbs 4:7

Basically, all that we have we must give up to God as an offering. We have to remember the nothing we have is our own, anyway- it’s all from God in the first place, including our very own bodies. When we remember it all belongs to Him, we can move away from selfish ambition and prioritizing self-interest in our lives to being generous. From a place of generosity (with our time, money, talents, listening ears, etc.), God will bless us with more as He sees that we are being faithful. And we will find that the more we have, the more we will want to give away; this is the fruit of abundance and the way that our Father intended for us to live.

God is calling me right now, right where I am, to offer my life as a living sacrifice in all the daily small things. It’s not glamorous and it won’t draw attention from others, but God will see it and it will honor Him. It’s only through daily discipline and obedience in small, seemingly insignificant tasks, that I will become all that God has called me to be. Great leaders have been sanctified from the inside out- they know God intimately in the small details of life and therefore can be trusted by Him to do bigger works.

We all want to be used in big ways by God, but it starts with the small. Show Him you can be trusted with what He’s given you, and more will be added.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

~Matthew 6:33