God, would you give me the heart of Hosea?
Would you show me that nothing I ever endure or put up with compares with how often and how grievously I wrong you. Teach me not to judge. And teach me to commit to a love that is unfathomable, a love that holds no record of wrongs, a love that delights in goodness.
For I am no different than that prostitute-wife. I have the relationship with a God who commits me to like Hosea did. Teach me to go that next step, and be Hosea-like to that one individual. And let me take true delight in any change that comes, and if no change does come, then to yield myself to admitting, "vengeance is the Lord's." I lay everything into Your hands, and ask for strength simply to love from here on out...
I refuse to be brought down. I WILL live in the joy that I have found.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Single-Mindedness
So... for my Trojan class, we're entering the season of being post-grads. And as the number of days increase since our graduation, I'm coming to realize exactly how divided and distracted my heart has been. What I mean by this is that the singular desire to pursue and be pursued by God has been curved, twisted, or interrupted by so many other concerns as of late.
It's funny how Satan works; we know fully well how sovereign and mighty and "for us" our God was in our undergraduate years, but when the (arguably) more important season of the open-ended future comes, we tell God, "ok God, I let you do Your thing for that time. I want it back now!" At least that's how it's been for me these last few days. Undergraduate education has been, what I consider, the prepping period. And maybe in light of the immediacy of impending concerns and how I succumbed to it, one interpretation might even be that I failed to put into use all that prepping until God brought me to this realization.
So... what are these concerns? Law school, for one. The location of the school and specialization of law that I decide on will have a huge bearing on many different things regarding my lifestyle: obviously money, number of workhours (and hence free time, too), (very likely) the search for a new home church for 3(+) years, etc. And secondly, money. I don't know exactly how many of my friends know this, since I don't advertise this much, but my dad's construction company has yet to find a job/client in over a year, closing in on a year and a half. Living off savings for that long is draining financially, but also draining in terms of hope and optimism. I guess both of these kind of make up my prayer requests as well...
I remember the day that God showed me a vision for what He could potentially be wanting me to do. I was at GLDI, maybe week 4 or so of 7 weeks, and Dr. Kim and Dr. Pak were saying something I really hated hearing..."Ask God for Your vision! He has one for You! Ask for it to be made known now!" I didn't hate it because I didnt' believe it to be true. But in the back of my mind, I was reserving questions like, "What if God doesn't intend to show me my vision for years to come?" and "Do visions come in situations like this where you're motivated to ask for it simply because a speaker tells you to?"
I had an epiphany the other day about this. I believe, as I think most Christians would, that all of God's servants labor for the Kingdom of God with a vision. Without God's vision motivating them and pushing them on, it becomes an ego-trip just to see how much the individual can accomplish.The sacredness and "set-apartness" of their actions is stripped away without that vision. The point is... does God not equip those He puts to work? and wouldn't vision be one of those things that God equips His workers with? Then if I am so fearful or hesitant in receiving a vision and believing it is from God Himself, I was forced to ask myself, "Am I unfit to be put to work as I am now?"
I told a few people about the vision that God shown me at GLDI. I am still scared of the grandness of it. In fact, for all the above reasons, financial crisis in the home, worries of lawschool and the future, the vision seems even bleaker at times. If that vision is a road, it used to be a straight road. Now it's become a winding, curving road with rest stops every 5 miles that tempt me to get off and just lounge there, tempting me to forget my destination.
But our God is a Faithful Father. I am reassured that God is for me, and He will be with me along the way. What can our Father not provide if we ask Him in earnest? If my prayer is for boldness of faith, to be able to believe that God will see His vision for me through, then I believe whole-heartedly that that faith will come! The kind of reckless abandon and utter surrender into His plans.
So God, this is my petition for strength, for single-mindedness. I want to be faithful to the vision You call me to. Who knows, I may not see it to completion, I may only be one of the many people who will come after that will see this vision to its end. But I want to be faithful to You. I want to be equipped, and I want to be sent to work! God I know You WANT to put me to work. So I ask Lord that You refine my actions and my motives to be singularly in pursuit of You and this vision. Show me the who, what when, where and how, because You have shown me why. And as I pursue that, Father, I believe You will take care of all things along the way.
And this is my request of friends... that they would spur me on in this same singlemindedness when I stray. That whenever I begin to doubt, that they lead me back to remembering the Faithfulness of the Father. For acocuntability.
It's funny how Satan works; we know fully well how sovereign and mighty and "for us" our God was in our undergraduate years, but when the (arguably) more important season of the open-ended future comes, we tell God, "ok God, I let you do Your thing for that time. I want it back now!" At least that's how it's been for me these last few days. Undergraduate education has been, what I consider, the prepping period. And maybe in light of the immediacy of impending concerns and how I succumbed to it, one interpretation might even be that I failed to put into use all that prepping until God brought me to this realization.
So... what are these concerns? Law school, for one. The location of the school and specialization of law that I decide on will have a huge bearing on many different things regarding my lifestyle: obviously money, number of workhours (and hence free time, too), (very likely) the search for a new home church for 3(+) years, etc. And secondly, money. I don't know exactly how many of my friends know this, since I don't advertise this much, but my dad's construction company has yet to find a job/client in over a year, closing in on a year and a half. Living off savings for that long is draining financially, but also draining in terms of hope and optimism. I guess both of these kind of make up my prayer requests as well...
I remember the day that God showed me a vision for what He could potentially be wanting me to do. I was at GLDI, maybe week 4 or so of 7 weeks, and Dr. Kim and Dr. Pak were saying something I really hated hearing..."Ask God for Your vision! He has one for You! Ask for it to be made known now!" I didn't hate it because I didnt' believe it to be true. But in the back of my mind, I was reserving questions like, "What if God doesn't intend to show me my vision for years to come?" and "Do visions come in situations like this where you're motivated to ask for it simply because a speaker tells you to?"
I had an epiphany the other day about this. I believe, as I think most Christians would, that all of God's servants labor for the Kingdom of God with a vision. Without God's vision motivating them and pushing them on, it becomes an ego-trip just to see how much the individual can accomplish.The sacredness and "set-apartness" of their actions is stripped away without that vision. The point is... does God not equip those He puts to work? and wouldn't vision be one of those things that God equips His workers with? Then if I am so fearful or hesitant in receiving a vision and believing it is from God Himself, I was forced to ask myself, "Am I unfit to be put to work as I am now?"
I told a few people about the vision that God shown me at GLDI. I am still scared of the grandness of it. In fact, for all the above reasons, financial crisis in the home, worries of lawschool and the future, the vision seems even bleaker at times. If that vision is a road, it used to be a straight road. Now it's become a winding, curving road with rest stops every 5 miles that tempt me to get off and just lounge there, tempting me to forget my destination.
But our God is a Faithful Father. I am reassured that God is for me, and He will be with me along the way. What can our Father not provide if we ask Him in earnest? If my prayer is for boldness of faith, to be able to believe that God will see His vision for me through, then I believe whole-heartedly that that faith will come! The kind of reckless abandon and utter surrender into His plans.
So God, this is my petition for strength, for single-mindedness. I want to be faithful to the vision You call me to. Who knows, I may not see it to completion, I may only be one of the many people who will come after that will see this vision to its end. But I want to be faithful to You. I want to be equipped, and I want to be sent to work! God I know You WANT to put me to work. So I ask Lord that You refine my actions and my motives to be singularly in pursuit of You and this vision. Show me the who, what when, where and how, because You have shown me why. And as I pursue that, Father, I believe You will take care of all things along the way.
And this is my request of friends... that they would spur me on in this same singlemindedness when I stray. That whenever I begin to doubt, that they lead me back to remembering the Faithfulness of the Father. For acocuntability.
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