Hey Jesus ... it has been a couple of days. My heart has been calling to You a lot lately often in a confused and lost way. Lost because I feel like I don't recognize where I am. The only thing that is familiar is the ache for You... that takes over inside and washes over me with an intensity that sometimes leaves me breathless. You know, there are sometimes Jesus that I am more afraid of myself than anything else. What really is scarier or more threatening than what we are capable of inside our own hearts and souls? What can pull us away from You easier than our own demons our own vices ... the pride that has so many faces to hide it's ugliness. What of our desire for control? Our desire for our own happiness and comfort? The sheer ignorance of our indecent and indignant demand for what we deserve... what we are entitled to? In the clarity of this moment I see just how sacrificial You are by stepping into our lives and asking us to surrender. The biggest sacrifice is not what we are giving up. It is what You do... what You are willing to do... what You have already done so You would be always right there ready to step in, to pour out, to hold us before the word has even left our lips. We are so sadly deluded into thinking that You are asking so much of us. It all leaves me a little sick inside, at the extent of the facade we hold onto with a grip that leaves gouges, threatening wounds that will fester and bleed.

    I sit here a little stunned and what I think is this. There is something I want to ask for Jesus... first is Jesus, Father and sweet sweet Holy Spirit... I want a relationship with You more than anything (yet I know I fail miserably at this over and again). Next is I know my battle with the carefully erected facade will not leave without constant and vigilant battle so I want to ask You Jesus for a weapon. I want to ask that You would place in the deepest part of my heart a picture or word or ??? of the truth. The truth of living in You... and what that really required and requires of You... yes You not me. We've masterfully twisted it and I don't want to anymore. I want to fight against that part of me. I don't know where this will take me but Jesus knowing that I will need You for all of it sits right with me.
journal entry... Feb 6/11

Father speaks into my fear

...journal entry Jan 28/11

 
Jesus something is really weighing on me.

   Father... I know I need to love You for no other reason than, I am simply that, in love with You. I have been reading about how we can have other motives in loving You and it scares me to hear that.  Whether they have power for any length of time or are being fought against  I get that they are there and it is unsettling; scary even.  Father, I don't want to ask You for a blessed life anymore. In fact it has even been some time since I have been comfortable asking You for safety (I know You understand that) and it is the same thing.  
  
   Wanting You to give us a good life... knowing it is You that can give it doesn't water down the selfish motive behind asking for it. I know that I don't want comfort over You. I want our relationship to super cede my wanting of comfort and protection and blessing. 

   I know that having that ridiculously close existence with You moment to moment outweighs all things because of many realities. First of all the craver (that selfish inner man) begins to starve when we are tight... my perspectives start to skew to Yours and I grasp a little tighter to 'not being about myself' becoming more willing to let You take care of that. Trusting You to take care of that. Of me. When we are tight, troubles and trials have this amazing potential of shifting into times of purpose, redemption or healing so completely opposite to what the enemy wants of course.  Yet we fight against ever getting into those 'hard' times because they threaten our belief that we are okay.  That it is only a punishment or a fallen world consequence we need to get through, which is 'undeserved' (might as well say it that way) cause we resent at times what we have to go through, we feel indignant that life or You are demanding that of us. But here's the thing I see... or hear... You allow us to walk into those very places (which ironically we often demand to go into due to our selfish and limited human logic) yet Your mercy and grace transform those times to accomplish mind blowing things both in us and around us. You let us walk into the darkness of only thinking of ourselves and bring us out of it "to bring us in..." to You. Into the freedom of loving You for You ... not for what You do or will do but for who You are. And this is back to where I started.  "If you love Me only when I immediately satisfy your desires, your love is merely one more form of self-centeredness. Your love becomes trust only when you choose to believe that I brought you out of something bad to bring you into something good before you experience that something good. Then your love is sustained by confidence in My character, not by enjoyment of current blessings. "pg 19 66 Love Letters, by Dr. Larry Crabb "Love has no meaning unless it remains alive when the one you claim to love seems distant and unresponsive. " Now here is where my fear sits. I want to ask You, Father, to burn away that selfishness in me so that our relationship can be real and real close BUT I am afraid that in asking that You will test me by being distant and asking me to love You when You aren't loving me in the way I am so used to now. In that nearly tangible presence, in thoughts, in my heart, in circumstance and events, in words of those around me or even in revealing Yourself and Your thoughts in Your Word as I have come to know deeper as of late.

   Okay so this is you fighting against what you believe is a dark or hard time ... you said just a few sentences ago (with an air of disgust or unbelief at your lack of belief or trust in Me) that the facade of what those times really are ... are just that... these times and situations are not what they present themselves as (or more accurately your fear paints them as) They are not huge, dark and scary. Sure they are not easy or even comfortable but can I bring You through them without being right there beside You? no... being right inside you? Sure I may exist in a form or way that your eyes or eyes of your heart may not yet know, thus cannot see through lack of understanding, but that doesn't mean I am not there! Look back at what I just walked you through... I asked you to see Me in a different way, to interact with Me in a new way, to trust me when you couldn't reason through what was happening. Because of my brilliant ways you knew you were arguing between Me in one form over Me in a new form and you couldn't grasp any logical argument cause the fight was for Me either way and if it was Me how could one be better than the other???  But really, think about it... you don't need to be concerned with how I burn away your selfishness ... trust Me to do that messy stuff. I love you Tam ... my desire for you to want me the way I want you is beyond measuring. So just keep your eyes on Me on KNOWING Me. Fear? It has no place between us! Connect fear with the word trust how about? As soon as you feel it rising up ask yourself ... "if I am really trusting Jesus with my whole life what do I have left to be afraid of? Like really."

   Father, thank You. Here I have been stewing in this for a few days and once again due to the love I cannot explain You come. You come and sit with me and talk to me. The weight of what lengths You go to love me is not lost on me. It breaks me every time. And I love You Father ... Jesus You know I can't look in Your eyes without going all soft... and Holy Spirit oh the rivers of thanks that flow from my very soul that You are with me... so faithful.