Jess vs. the shower

Do you ever have those times when you're completely overwhelmed with the brokenness of this world? I'm never one to like Debbie Downers so that's not my goal here. But I'll be completely transparent with you. Last night, I had one of those nights. I thought to myself, we are all trapped. We are all stuck in something. I don't care who you are, how blessed you've been, or how good of a person you are, we are all stuck! ... As I was thinking these thoughts my heart began to get real heavy and then I began to cry because I was so overwhelmed with helplessness. Some of us are stuck because someone we used to love never chose us. Some of us are stuck because we struggle to be happy. Some of us are stuck in sexual sin. Some of us are stuck because of generational sin. Some of us are stuck because our families are broken. Some of us are stuck because we feel betrayed by God. Some of us are stuck because we don't feel God with us. All of us get stuck at some point, and we need a way out. We need the chains to break free of us so we can truly live. We need joy.

In my overwhelmed pitiful state I opened my Bible, because I knew that this was the only thing powerful enough to break me out of the state I was in. I turned to Psalm 23 because you can always count on good ole David to have been in a similar state at some point in his life.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me."

Shepherds know their sheep. They know what each of their sheep needs. Every single one. A shepherd provides for his sheep to the point where we shall not want! Translation: we lack nothing. We have everything that we need because our shepherd is watching over us. Not only is God our provider, but he restores our soul. When I reached this point in the passage, the weight on my heart began to lift, not all at once, but slowly, gently. He restores my soul.

Restore: to bring back into existence; to reestablish to a former state of health, soundness, or vigor.

The word renew also comes to mind. Restore. Replenish. Revive. This is what the good shepherd does for us. But notice that he only does this for one reason... to bring glory to his name.

John Piper said, "God's quest to be glorified and our quest to be satisfied reach their goal in his one experience: our delight in God, which overflows with praise."

As humans in a broken world, we are constantly seeking to be satisfied in life. To be happy, to feel like we have a purpose. To feel joy. We chase after many things in this world to try to achieve this state of eternal happiness, and some of us will go to any length to get it. But it doesn't matter what you do or who you are, there is still only way to have joy. And that's through Jesus Christ. It's through following the Shepherd and allowing his Spirit to dwell inside of you. It's through forsaking all the worldly things and ideas that lead us away from God and away from giving Him the glory.

Matthew 13:44 says, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy  he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." That's some serious devotion. For some serious joy.

I think that the Lord wants us to be joyful. Because I think He wants us to bring Him glory. Remember, the two go hand in hand. John Piper also said, "If God were not infinitely devoted to the preservation, display, and enjoyment of His own glory, we could have no hope of finding happiness in Him."

Psalm 16:11 says, "You make known to me the paths of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

And there are many more verses in the Bible that talk about joy.

So what does joy look like? What does it mean? How does it manifest itself? Well, joy results in praise. When we irrevocably have joy in our heavenly Father we can not help but praise Him. Joy can not be contained for very long, it must burst forth and create new waves of influence. That's not to say that joy has to be fleeting, here for a second and gone the next. Actually, joy is contagious and replicating. Joy isn't just a production, it's a reproduction.

I'm giving a lot of shout outs to John Piper today, but I think he makes some good points about the relationship between our joy and God's glory. Here's something else he says...

"The most obvious fact about praise- whether of God or anything- strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it... We praise what we enjoy because the delight is incomplete until is is expressed in praise... So if God loves us enough to make our joy full, He must not only give us Himself; He must also win from us the praise of our hearts- not because He needs to shore up some weakness in Himself or compensate for some deficiency, but because He loves us and seeks the fullness of our joy that can be found only in knowing and praising Him, the most magnificent of all Beings. If He is truly for us, He must be for himself!"

Daang. Ok so what John is saying is this; if we want to have complete joy in God, then we must praise him. It's ok to enjoy God. It's ok to delight in Him. It's more than ok. It's a good thing! But a part of this is praising Him.

It's interesting because believe it or not, I did not plan this blog today at all. I did not plan on feeling like I was in a pit with the rest of mankind last night and I also did not plan on what happened this morning in the shower.

Now remember the context here. Heavy heart, overwhelming sadness for humankind. Trapped. Stuck. Then I open my Bible and read Psalm 23. And I pray. I pray for release from the chains that hold me down. For the chains that hold down the people that I love. I pray for freedom. I pray for joy. And finally after the tears and prayers have fully escaped me, I go to sleep. Fast forward to the morning. Before class I decided to download some new music by Bethel Live and Jesus Culture. There's this one song called Glorious by John and Katie Torwalt that is AWESOME. I put it on while I was in the shower. And all of a sudden, I am overcome with pure joy. At the risk of some chuckles and lapses in my reputation I will digress into what happened next.

I started dancing. In the shower. Alone. I sing along with my laptop as it plays the melody that has managed to move my soul. To move my mind. To move my heart. And yes, even my body. I have a brief moment of fear that I will fall and severely injure myself but it is fleeting and I just keep on dancing and singing. I just keep praising. Because I felt joy. And the praise led to more joy. And the joy led to more praise. Again, joy produces and it reproduces.  And I know, in that moment, that nothing in this world can bring me more joy than my heavenly Father. Only my shepherd can bring me such joy. Only my shepherd can restore my soul.

No pit is too deep for your heavenly Father. No chains too strong. No sin too dark for his light.

Going back to the last part of Psalm 23 above...

Even though I walk through the valley 

of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me."

We all have pits. We all have dark places. We all have struggles. We all feel stuck sometimes. But even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we declare that we will fear no evil, for our God is with us. Our shepherd is with us always. Watching over us. Seeing us. Knowing us. Comforting us. 

In Him is the fullness of joy. So whatever you're dealing with, whatever is chaining you down, whatever weight is on your soul, pray for joy. But most importantly remember: PRAISE HIM. Dance naked in your shower. Sing at the top of your lungs. David did this too as I recall, just not in his shower. At any moment Stephen could have come in and exposed me in my moment of pure joy. Yes he is my husband but I still would have been embarassed. I will try not to be so embarrassed about my joy. Joy is so good. And there's only one way to get it. 

Jess vs. Mt. Rainier

Lately, the Lord has been teaching me a lot of things about what it means to truly be a follower of Christ. It's both challenging and exciting. Let me back up a bit and tell you a little about myself and what God has done in my life.

I am blessed to have grown up in a Christian home with loving Godly parents who taught me about my heavenly Father. I grew up going to church and practically living at church because at least one of my parents has always been on staff in some capacity. I learned right and wrong very early and like most children, saw the world in a very black and white way. But then I got older and the black and white seemed to run together and turn into gray. I began to realize that life is hard. It's messy. Bad things happen   in the world. People have struggles. That, of course, begged the question, why? Why do bad things happen? Why do people suffer? Why do things go not the way we want them to sometimes? Well I don't claim to have all the answers to these questions but I do think I have somewhere to start. It's rather simple, really. Bad things happen because we live in a fallen world. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, everything changed. Sin entered the world and everything changed. Their hearts changed. Their purpose changed. And their world changed. We still live in a broken world, and it goes back to that day in the garden when Eve listened to the voice of the enemy and tried to be like God. She tried to take control. This was never meant to be. And because of that one act, I am sinful. I am broken. Just like you.

I have not always realized how sinful I am. Like I said, I grew up in a Christian home and in the church. I knew about God and I was a "good person". I always hated getting into trouble and I never wanted to be in the wrong. You see, the thing about being a good person is we can easily convince ourselves that we are not really sinful. We can convince ourselves that we are good, but we are not. It wasn't until college when I truly realized just how sinful I am. I mean, I really felt it. I felt dirty, broken, useless, helpless, and overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed with just how much I needed someone to literally save me from my sinfulness. We are all born as a morally evil being. Now I know this sounds so awful that it almost can't be true, but it is. When we come into this world, we are dead in our sin. We need someone who can take us from death to life! Without Christ and the regeneration that the Holy Spirit brings to our lives, we are enslaved to sin. Now some of us might be doing drugs, or struggle with drinking, or we're living in sexual sin, etc.... but others of us are just going through the motions. Both are equally sinful. God says that he spits the lukewarm out of his mouth. The point is, no matter what we struggle with, we need the power of God in our lives, working daily to transform us and to renew us.

This is my testimony in a bottom line... God brought me out of death and into life. Life that is so rich, satisfying, and powerful that nothing else can compare. Being a good person does not have saving power. But the name of God has saving power. He will take you out of whatever pit you are in and bring you into marvelous life. A lot of times it is easy to feel like we don't have a testimony if we don't have this huge story that blows peoples minds and signs book deals. But here's the thing: every story is huge because the fact that we were dead in our sin, literally on a track that was heading for eternal death, where we were living on this earth apart from God and moving to being alive in Christ, with the assurance of one day being in heaven praising our God forever, and living with God right here and right now on this earth is incredible! THAT IS HUGE. Believe it.

Here's the thing though... if we want this transforming power in our lives, this abundant life, then we must let it take over every aspect of our lives. Knowing ABOUT God is not enough. We must KNOW God. Tonight I went to this event on campus where Louie Giglio spoke and Kristian Stanfill and Christy Nockels led worship. It was an amazing time. Louie talked about the difference between information and revelation. In other words, the difference between knowing about God and actually knowing him. He gave this example...

In college I took this geography class and on the first day of lab we took out all these topographical maps. While everyone else was cussing and complaining about having to study maps, I was secretly really excited. He said that he loves maps, and to this day has a world atlas next to his bed that he reads at night. Ha. He owned up to being an oober nerd. Anyways, they were studying Mt. Rainier, which is in Washington. When it came time to take the test, he said that he was disappointed because the test didn't ask him enough about Mt. Rainier, so he wrote on the back... things that I know about Mt. Rainier that you didn't put on the test... and then he proceeded to write tons of extra information on the back of the test. True story. He ended up getting a 118 on his geography test and becoming an expert on Mt. Rainier. Fast forward to the summer and he goes on this camping trip with a buddy all across North America. One of the places they went to was Mt. Rainier. After they got to the top of the mountain, which is 5,000 ft. above sea level, they got out of their car and started walking through a meadow where the snow was just melting even though it was July. Then, right before Louie was going to give his presentation on Mt. Rainier to his friend, he said he started sobbing. Not like a few tears falling on your face crying, but sobbing. He said he couldn't stop sobbing and he didn't know what happened. So he just went back to the car and drove back down the mountain to the campsite. The next night when they stopped at a new campsite, he was lying in the tent asking God what had happened to him and why he just broke down like that. He said he felt like God told him that he was teaching him something... He was teaching him the difference between knowing information about something and actually experiencing something and knowing it. So powerful.

He shared this story because he was trying to help us see something. Just knowing about God is not enough. The worst thing to think is that we are fine. Psalm 34 says to taste and see that the Lord is good! We can only taste and see when we know Him. God must give us revelation and open our eyes to see how sinful we are, but how adequate He is. No matter what your struggle is, whether you see it as something big or something small, the Lord can deliver you from it. The Lord wants to let his Spirit rest on you, to let his joy rest on you, and to let his peace rest on you. We must trust that the blood of Jesus Christ covers our brokenness and our sinfulness. We must believe that the Holy Spirit can do a work in our lives and transform our hearts. If you want to step out of death and into life, there is only one way to do it!

Father, we pray to you, in the name of your Son, and in the dependency on the Holy Spirit. Break into our lives and renew us. Release the chains of sin. Break off the shackles of shame. Release us from the things that keep pulling us back into sin. We need you and the life that you desire to give to us. Real, powerful, everlasting life. We desire to walk with you daily. Teach us your ways oh Lord, that we might know you more. Help us to see that knowing you is the most important thing. And from there, we are commanded to share this truth with others. This is what you delight in Lord. May we, as your servants, hear your voice and obey.

The good Word:

"But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life."- Titus 3:5

"We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For the one who has died has been set free from sin."- Romans 6:6-7

"Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."- 1 Corinthians 15: 55-58

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."- 2 Corinthians 5:17

"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."- 2 Corinthians 12:9

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."- Galatians 5:1