Revive me

I've been obsessed with Jeremy Camp this week... especially this song. It's so calming, and I've watched God revive me this week in ways I've been praying so hard for. He is so faithful.

Revive me, according to your loving kindness
Revive me, that I may seek you
Revive me, according to your loving kindness
Revive me, oh Lord

You give me understanding
According to your word
Great peace for those who seek your face
I long for salvation
My lips shall praise your name
I rejoice in the treasure of your keep

For all my ways are before you
I let your hand become my help
My soul longs and adores you
Let my cry come before you oh Lord

Revive me, according to your loving kindness
Revive me, that I may seek your word
Revive me, according to your loving kindnes
Revive me, oh Lord

I feel revived. Praise God! I'm realizing how it's a minute-by-minute, day-by-day choice to see the world through His eyes. I found myself yesterday being so focused on ME. My eyes were back on me, my feelings, my hopes, and my wants... and the second my focus was off my Savior, I started sinking. Sinking fast. Praise God for the mercy that opened up my eyes this morning to the captivating love that is incomparable. His love is SO much bigger and better than the love of ANY person! It's so much better than any pleasure this world can offer. You know why?

His love is NOT conditional. It does NOT depend on feelings, moods, circumstances, or what I do. THAT'S AMAZING! I've never met a single person with unconditional love like His. Even the most wonderful people on earth who are trying to look like Christ fail in comparison. They still fall short in loving me the way I need and loving me like only my God can! That's wonderful. Talk about a perspective change... again. I needed to hear how all else fails compared to Him.

I'm so thankful for amazing friends who can remind me of this. I don't even think they realize how much life their words bring to me....

For Him, to Him, and through Him all things are made. Glory to His name :)

i have no life...

Why am I writing on here again?

Oh yeah, because I have no life and I'm putting off doing homework for as long as I can.

I think I've moved from Facebook stalking to blog stalking. I LOVE reading about people's lives... even people who I don't know.

This week has been SUCH a breath of fresh air. I really can't contain the joy inside of me. Actually, this joy makes me want to CRY because it's such an obvious, beautiful blessing from my God. I feel like after walking through the valley for a while, I can finally see the world in COLOR again. For the first time in a while, I am finding joy in my life being totally out of my control.

It's beautiful.

My God is so good.

freedom :)

Philippians 3:7-9
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him

Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Jeremiah 10:23
I know, O Lord, that a man's life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.

I find a common theme in all these verses... a theme that I am being refined through each day by God's grace. Every year of my life in college has had a theme. Sometimes it's different every semester... sometimes it takes me much longer to learn. And even when I think I've learned it well, I soon discover that I still have so much to learn. Being put through this refining process has been so hard, beautiful, exciting, scary, heartbreaking, and any other emotion you can come up with it. But at the end of the day, it has been totally worth it.

Isaiah 29:16
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "He did not make me"? Can the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing"?

Jeremiah 18:3-6
So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

I want to be the kind of clay that allows the Potter to shape and bold. I don't want to be stubborn, holding fast to what I know and what I think is best. HE is Sovereign. My life is HIS. If my life doesn't belong to me, then who am I to say, "God, why are you doing this to me? You should have left me the way I was. I was living for you; I was bringing You glory. I was doing everything I was supposed to do. WHY do you want to change me? I'm fine just the way I am." Honestly, I would be totally ignorant if that's what I said. I would be ignorant of how weak and inadequate I am without the saving grace of my King. I would be so ignorant to think I have it all together and that I'm fine the way I am. I'm not. I am NOT okay the way I am. I'm finally in the place where I WANT to be stripped of everything that is Rebecca and to be molded and shaped into something that looks more like Christ. And through it all, I'm learning this:

Philippians 1:27
Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ

No matter WHAT happens. No matter how I'm feeling. No matter what's making me sad. No matter what I'm upset about. No matter what's not going my way, I am supposed to live in a manner that is worthy of His grace. WOW. I'm not worthy of His grace... not at all. But I'm supposed to live in a way that honors His name and shows people what He did. Talk about a tall order... by myself. But my life is hidden with Christ. I've been crucified. I don't live, but Christ lives in me. THAT'S how I can live a life worthy of Christ... through Him who is at work in me.

These truths make living life so much easier. They give me purpose for waking up in the morning. And even when hurts come creeping back in my mind and when memories consume me, I just need to call His word into my mind and dwell on those things.

Philippians 3:13-14
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

not looking back

Forget the former things;
Do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
And streams in the wasteland.
(Isaiah 43:18-19)

These verses have defined the past two weeks of my life. I always knew that 2009 would hold so many changes, but I never thought those changes would start turning my life around so soon! I don't know what I would have done without my God... my gracious and loving Father holding me up and giving me hope for a new day.

I'm not the same person I was two weeks ago. I love being able to say that! That's proof that the Lord is at work in my life, not because I deserve it by any means, but because He who promised is faithful, and He who began a good work in me is carrying it onto completion. I haven't always had this outlook on things... sometimes I wondered WHY he was teaching me so much and WHY He didn't want to just leave me the same! But that sounds so silly to me right now. Why on earth would I want to be the same person? Why would I want weak, selfish, sinful, human Rebecca to keep on living in me when I could hide myself in Christ and surrender everything that is weak and impure for the One who is complete? I don't want that. I want to be renewed day by day.

It's funny now when I think back to last semester... I prayed so much that I would be able to lay down my life, my desires, my hopes, my dreams, my emotions, my pride, my everything to have Him become great in my life, taking over everything. I prayed so much that Rebecca would die and that I would die daily to myself. God is SO faithful to His promises that He did just that. He took away things in my life that I desired and that I thought were best for me and replaced them with an immense need for Him. A deep longing... a thirst that can't be quenched by anything or anyone but my Creator.

There have been times these past few weeks when I have been so helpless and broken, recognizing that the Lord is ALL I need. I don't need food. I don't need love. I don't need people. I don't need success. I don't need direction. I don't need everything the world says I need to have a happy, healthy life. I just need the Lord. And He's so good that when I finally saw my need for Him, He started healing, renewing, and satisfying me in ways I could never imagine.

Great is thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed thy hands have provided
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.

If I can take anything away from these few weeks, it would be His command to forget the former things and to stop dwelling on the past... for me to stop thinking about what was, what could have been, what didn't happen, what hurt, what broke me, what was wonderful, what was normal, what was beautiful, what was painful, the possibilities of happiness, blah blah blah. basically everything that has ever happened. FORGET THESE THINGS, BECCA... That's what He's been telling me. I AM DOING A NEW THING! Don't you see it? I'm making a way in the desert.

Those words have brought so much healing into my life. My Daddy is making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. These times of refining and brokenness in my life are preparing for me a new, beautiful thing that He is doing and making for me. In me. through me. I'm so excited. I can't wait to see it... and while I wait, I can enjoy the presence of my loving Father. I can be assured that His hand is upon me and that my heart is safely hidden in His hands. There's no safer place. That's exactly where I want to be.