most scattered blog EVER award.

this is going to be scattered, but this is just a small summary of whats been going on in my heart and head these past few weeks. this isn't rocket science and these aren't radically deep thoughts, but they have had great meaning to me lately..

tonight, at bible study, we got into a really interesting conversation about grace and about brokenness. we began to agree that we all struggle with accepting grace.. even grasping the concept of it. it's tough and I know personally, its been something that I've had to allow God to just almost PROVE to me. That His blood IS indeed sufficient and that it DOES cover every sin.. past, present, future.
Grace is a lofty concept.
wait.. or is it? Do we spend too much time trying to analyze God and what He has done and miss out on what He did?
what do you think? tell me.
I dont know. I'm still chewing on it.
As we talked of grace, we shared about brokenness, about how we had or did feel broken in these past few days. It's so true what they say, "if it ain't broke you can't fix it". If we aren't broken, He can't mold us or remodel us. Keith Chancey shared this summer that we must go high to get low. So true. In order to ARISE IN CHRIST, we have to fall face first at the throne. We have to GIVE UP.we must humbly shatter the very image WE have of life, love, circumstances, etc, and say Jesus this is YOURS. WE HAVE TO TAKE ON His ideas and we must accept His identity as our own.
But we CAN'T stop there. We must allow him to heal us, to put our pieces back together. This is the hard part. I feel like we WANT to stay broken. myself included. We want to just say ok I'm broken! I'm broken!, while never giving God time to fix us. I know that for me, its hard not to wallow in pity and just wait for some miracle to come and change me or my situation. Instead of taking initiative and CLAIMING His truths and promises, we tend to just sit around and lolly-gag in our faults and in our struggles. NO MAM. NO SIR. NUH-UH. NOT O.K. (ha.. beth that was for you!!!! :).That is Satan feeding us a lie, he wants us to stay stagnant, to remain inactive. We can't just stop at being broken, we must CLAIM IN HIS NAME THAT WE will and WANT to be remodeled and reshaped for HIS GLORY. sure, its hard.. sitting in the waiting room.. walking through the desert is yuck sometimes. but its where He speaks tenderly to us. We must get off our bumpers (kamp woot woot), get out of our pity parties and ARISE and AWAKEN to our newness, the fresh life He gives!!!!!!
With that brokenness comes such freedom. Ok let just use this analogy, if a pot is broken, it can't hold water. ha crazy, i know. Its free-flowing, not contained. The same with our flesh and our sin.. when they are poured out, we gain FREEDOM. freedom is a beautiful thing and just saying that word outloud brings me such joy and peace. really. say it out loud right now. FREEDOM! its good. its priceless. matchless.. and we can ONLY get it from Him. It allows us to be real.
Speaking of being real (like I said, this blog is a scattered clump of what I've been soaking up lately), a sweet friend of mine said this and it really has stirred up my heart. really. like super intensely. ok. so she said "why can't the church be more broken??" she said this as she wept and shared of how what I have may have seen on the outside of her, wasn't the same picture I would see on the inside. Y'all. for real. WHY CAN'T THE CHURCH BE MORE REAL. we have PRIDEEEEEEEEEEEE. horrible disgusting UGLY pride. and im the frontrunner. I have so much pride. why do we think we can do this on our own. JESUS DIED TO SAVE US. How about we give Him some credit by letting Him do it. He wants to. HE ABSOLUTELY delights in it because that makes us more like Father and that brings Glory to HIM!
i mean, do you ever have a problem and you go to someone and they are like "just give it to the Lord, just give it to the Lord.." and while that is necessary and demanded of us, God also places us in each others lives as comforter.. . we are made to glorify Him and we do that by being Him to others. but so many times we are told to just supress that. WHY? that closes ourselves and our faults off to others and then they dont see the real us. We weren't stressing the fact that we needed to share our deepest darkest secret with the world or to have a person that we confess all of our sins too, thats why we have Jesus... but what we were communicating is that if all of us would stop trying to be these lofty theologians and start being honest with not only others, but ourselves about our dirtiness then we can be real. we can be free. not to mention how many unbelievers would finally feel comfortable after seeing us without the facade of perfection. they would feel welcome to be their selves and woudl be attracted to the redemption that we only get in Christ. when we take our shame to the cross, we can shamelessly ask of God and of others because we (and they) know that there we are not perfection.. that we aren't striving to be an "awesome" christian. but simply that we are learning to live our lives for the ALL-SUFFICIENT God and bring glory to His Holy name.
basically, it all comes back to grace. when we allow God to reveal what His grace looks like and really start to let Him cover us, then we stand blameless, pure! we stand FREE in Him. we stand full of the joy from Him. When we allow His grace to be enough, and stop letting sin or wordly things take the place.. we experience what it means to live BOLDLY in Him.
ya'll thats good stuff.
let our theology become our reality (thanks clo)
i love you guys.



Lord, You are all-knowing. You know the deepest pit of our souls and even in the tiniest crevice, you speak LIFE into us. Thank you for covering me with grace. Thank you that your grace is so big and rich and uncontainable, that it has seeking to know You more. Teach me to revel in it, to soak it up. You are mercy. You are grace. You are love. YOU SATISFY ME and what you did on the cross IS ENOUGH.