Tag: Christ

Uncategorized

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.
Uncategorized

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.

Uncategorized

community

alyssapebbles

As I am plunged into this new and vibrant community, I am reminded of why God holds community, communion, so dear. Without community- without people around us intentionally and adamantly pursuing our hearts and our growth, and people that we in turn can support and love- we cannot experience the true love of Christ.

com·mun·ion
kəˈmyo͞onyən/
noun
  1. 1.
    the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level. ~Dictionary.com

Coming from a huge faith community in Seattle where I could hide behind anonymity if I so wished, this experience has been rather jarring. The accountability that comes with a smaller circle of believers has already made me question the decisions that I make and the motives in my heart.

There is no hiding here.

As someone who likes to run away from her problems (California–>Seattle–>California, you get the gist), coming into a place where everyone already knows my name is weird. People can see me here. It reminds me of where I grew up- the smallness that sometimes felt suffocating- and the desire to escape it. Oh, I hid back then. Hiding is so much easier than being known.

But what I’ve found here is not like where I grew up. The community is welcoming, embracing, and loving. I have already felt pursued and reaffirmed that this is where I am supposed to be. I know this place will hold me to a higher standard, and in doing so will bring out the very best in me. That’s what a good community does- stays with you through thick and thin, and helps you hold on when you can no longer do so by yourself.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. ~Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

The teaching at my new and beloved church yesterday was precisely this: we cannot do this alone. As much as I have cultivated my independence over the last few years, buying into the individualistic culture our society tells us good and right, I know that I was not made for aloneness. Love can only be perfected when it is practiced, and it cannot be practiced alone. We need others to find fulfillment and lasting satisfaction- we will never be happy on our own, because we weren’t created that way. We are made for relationship, first and foremost with Christ, but also with our brothers and and sisters in Christ:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as  yourself.’ ~Matthew 22:37-39

I never thought I would be living in community again, but God had other plans (as He usually does). I can’t wait to see how He uses this year to continue to shape me into the person He wants me to become, and uses me to speak into the lives of others. I feel utterly privileged and amazed at His providence in my life.

I don’t deserve the incredible people that God has surrounded me with, but I accept them as gifts from the good Giver who sees me, knows me, and loves me.

Uncategorized

pursued

alyssapebbles

During my last few weeks in Seattle, God has been pursuing my heart quite tremendously- through beautiful scenery, spontaneous adventures, breathtaking music, and generous and loving people after His own heart. It is truly magical the way He seeks and woos us (yes, I said woos). I have felt invited into more intimacy with Him as I become more intimate with His creation. It is exciting and enlivening, yet also a little terrifying.

I feel myself pull back.

I crave that intimacy, yet I also fear it- fear my soul being so completely and utterly exposed. Being pursued by God (and by other people) makes you become so self-aware that it can be a little freaky. It can make you want to hide.

But the beautiful thing is that when God pursues us, He has no intentions other than to bring us closer to Him- to become more perfect in love. He is completely trustworthy; we have nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide that He cannot handle, or better yet, redeem. And He will not hurt us or abandon us, which is what we fear the most when we give our hearts to other people.

I think God is pursuing me so adamantly in this time because I am about to embark a new journey, one in which I will need to be so assured of His love for me every single day in order to assure others of the same. He woos and romances my heart now so that I will be prepared for the heartbreak that I will inevitably experience up ahead in our fallen world- so I will come running back into His safe and loving arms. How reassuring and comforting that is.

God calls us the “bride” of Christ, and He pursues us like a groom pursues his bride- with uncontained affection, adoration, and love. His love for us is unconditional and so beyond what we could ever imagine or understand. He knows the secret keys to our hearts; the secret pleasures we delight in that nobody else knows about, the things that our heart yearns the most for. He knows these things because He created us: He made us this way, and therefore knows exactly how to capture our hearts.

Psalm 139 is a beautiful ode to His intimate knowledge of and love for us. Read it to yourself and be reminded of who you are and how much your Father, and Lover, loves and pursues you.

Only because we are pursued can we pursue.