Settle

My favorite thing to hear people say about my blog is that it's "raw." People tell me a lot of things about this blog. But I get that one most often. Raw. Maybe it's the way I write, my style. Maybe it's the topics I choose. Maybe it's conveying openness in a way that makes people say, "me too." I'm not sure of the exact reason, but it feels true when I hear it. And because of that I don't write to just write. I don't write to make deadlines or pay the bills. I don't write just so people consistently have something to read. Or so I get a certain number of "like's". I don't even write to be insightful or theological. Sometimes I remind myself of this, like now, in front of you all. Blogging for the sake of blogging becomes watered down. And who wants a watered down version of anything.

I can't completely explain it. I may write a blog, or read a blog, and I think "that was really great and insightful and I need to remember those lessons." And then, there are the other blogs. The ones that feel like the Holy Spirit typed them up himself. The words are so alive that they're jumping off the screen and filling you with new life. Line. By. Line. Mark Batterson, author of The Circle Maker, says...

 "The right book in the right hands at the right time can save a marriage, avert a mistake, demand a decision, plant a seed, conceive a dream, solve a problem, and prompt a prayer. That is why I write. And that's why, for me, a book sold is not a book sold; a book sold is a prayer answered. I don't know the name and situation of every reader, but God does, and that's all that matters.”

 

And so, I sat in church yesterday morning and knew it was time to write again. I could feel it inside of me. I say "it", but it was the Holy Spirit. It was like a twilight zone. I kept hearing the same two sentences over and over. And then the same word over and over.

 

"God is for me, he is never against me. Settle this in your heart today." Settle this in your heart. Settle this in your heart. Settle this in your heart.

 

Settle.

 

Settle.

 

Settle.

We all have something we don't understand. Maybe a lot of things. Things that hurt. Things that confuse. Things that don't seem fair. Jesus might have been the only one that knew my heart wasn't settled on Sunday. Why doesn't he just let us hide? Sometimes I just want to hide. But when God says he's for us, he means it. He always runs us down. He doesn't cause us harm, and he doesn't give us everything we want. He see's the big picture, and he goes before us. He turns tragedies and wrong decisions and broken things around and works them all for our good.

  

Every Thursday I get to hang with the Faith Church Young Adults. They're my family. They're really family. It gets messy and we don't always get along, but the common ground is Jesus and that we all adopted each other. A girl in our family lost her husband two years ago. Their son was just a baby at the time. Last Thursday was the 2 year anniversary of her husband's death. A lot of us cried with her. And I prayed over her, the only two things I knew to pray in that moment....that she know this family loves her and is for her, and that her heart would stay soft towards Jesus and she'd know He's for her too. I hadn't heard Sunday's message yet, but that prayer is a little too ironic. There was nothing I could say or do to provide understanding for this girl. But I knew the only way she was going to find joy in the morning was to settle it. God is for her. We are for her.

I don't have all the answers for how we get here. Especially when it doesn't feel like God is for us. Or when it doesn't feel like God knows what he's doing. It doesn't feel settled when we don't understand.

 

"We shouldn't act surprised, when we don't understand what a God who says He passes all understanding is doing with our lives." - Bob Goff

 

Our pastor said some other things I'm sure, but this is all I heard. This and something about an Escalade, maybe. Regardless, God is for us, and if we haven't settled that in our hearts we will never move forward. We'll continue to question his goodness. His holiness. His grace. His plans. His timelines. We'll doubt the future. The next step. We'll question the calling and the vision. There are no buts. No exceptions. This has to be done. So let these words be a prayer over your life. Let them reach out and shake you to your core. It's time to settle this in your heart.

More to come- J