To one of God's creations, wonderfully & fearfully made in His image

It saddens me to see that you would choose to pursue me with such a cheap romance. I am worth that much? Or in more suitable words, am I really worth that little? It saddens me to see that I would be considered as like a piece of candy on the store's rack where you pick and choose as you please. Did you realise that when you looked at me, you were looking at one of God's creations, handpicked specially by Him for His purpose? Did you see that as you decided to choose the Internet as communication over talking face-to-face made the value of your words lesser? An email is too easy, words are cheap when you’re safely hidden behind a computer screen. What really is my value in your eyes? Did your eyes wander and did your mind lust when I walked past you; did your imagination fantasize of what it would be like if I was yours? Perhaps that sounded too vulgar, but sin is vulgar and you cannot sugar coat it. But be honest with yourself, is a lady to you just another person created to fulfill your selfish desires? Or else what is the purpose of pursuing a relationship when there is no firm foundation or common ground that leads to commitment and marriage? I ask myself these things as I watch you and as I hear you talk to others about other beautiful creations of God. There is no respect, there is no brotherly love, there is no realisation that God is their Father. You didn't see me listen, but I heard. Heard enough to have my heart break that I could be degraded to such a point where it seems like I am no longer special or uniquely sculpted by the master Painter, but just another girl you lust after to have your desires fulfilled...

There is a difference between a man who thinks that he is God’s gift to women, and a man who remembers that woman was God’s gift to man. I will be praying for you, dear child of God.

From
The girl that did not forget to reply

"So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn, And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth." -Hosea 6:3

Lord, I want to talk with You this morning.

The verse says that Your "going forth" is as certain as the dawn, so I'm confident that You're here with me. And this bare winter ground is ready to drink in the early rain with a soft, pliable heart--and with her face upturned.

Your Word tells me that You know my every thought, so You must be available to me. You're ready to converse with me on a lot of subjects that no one knows about except You--very personal, very deep subjects that I wouldn't want to share with anyone else. You know what I'm thinking. You know what I would like to say but can't. You know why I'm hesitant to bring up certain thoughts. You know me.

The question I'm concerned about is this: Am I available to You? Do I know You well enough to talk with You?

Well, Your Word is You. Your thoughts, written down. But sometimes You place a distinct thought between the lines and say to me, "Do you understand this verse, Anabel? Let Me explain it to you." Or, "Can You see this from My perspective?"

Sometimes You draw a mental picture for me that opens a file I had never thought of opening, making a passage relevant to me and to my world--now. How I love for You to do that . . . and I start cross-referencing, probing, finding out what Your thoughts are about the subject, getting to know You a little better.

I really don't want to spend our time together telling You about all my problems and making suggestions as to how You should take care of them. You know my needs before I even ask.

No, this time is just for You and for me. I want to know You, Lord. I want to be able to converse with You on some of Your favorite topics. Please talk to me. I love being with You and listening to Your voice.

And thank You, Lord Jesus, for making this awesome, powerful, infinite, all-knowing God an approachable Father.

///Day 9, Lifetime Daily Devotions

 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be. 

To the Apple of My Eye

I look at you and I think, wow, what a beauty. I love the way your falls into that state where it's neither waves, nor is it straight, but its just. Your hair. Do you know that I keep count of every strand? And I know which strands are ebony black, and which ones are slightly brown, and which ones are just brown. I think your eyes are beautiful, even if you look into the mirror and to you, all you see are just two black dots staring back at you - I look into your eyes and I see all the tears you've ever cried; yes, every single teardrop shed. I look deeper into your eyes and to Me, they are just like the stars I first created at the beginning of time where the blank skies were the beginning of my masterpiece. You are my masterpiece. I love the way your skin browns so easily; did you know that that was how I intended it to be from the very moment that I decided I was going to create you? The moment your form was in my mind, I was delighted. I couldn't wait to breathe life into you and bring you into this world, knowing that you would belong to Me and I would have the ultimate pleasure of guiding you, working all things out for your good. I laughed with the angels, I grabbed them by the shoulders and danced jubilantly around Heaven; I couldn't stop telling them about the wonderful person I was going to create, that was you! The angels simply couldn't understand my excitement, but they must be pretty used to My kind of behavior by now. Imagine my elation when you were finally brought into the world, your very first cries were like notes of joy to my ears. I couldn't help but waltz around Heaven again, enchanted by how wonderful the works of My hands were.

I never tire of looking at you, listening to your voice, waiting for you. Each time I look at you is just like the first time I saw you in my minds eye - perfect; fearfully and wonderfully made. I know my works are wonderful too, I never ever make mistakes. Do you know how much I delight in you? When you make certain choices that go against society's norm because your first thought was to please me - My heart swells with delight. I balloon up with love and joy like that silly pufferfish I created when I see you faithfully read My word and seek Me, and I think the angels are tired of Me telling them all the time at how much I love it when you sing to Me a love song from your heart. Everything that you pour out from your heart to give to Me, I diligently take. I look at you and I can't believe I had it in Me to create such a treasured possession - I can't help it but love you. It's who I am. I love you with all I am.

Your everlasting Lover, Sustainer, Restorer, Teacher, Father, King -
Jesus.

He's the God of yesterdays, todays & tomorrows

In the end, all you can give God is today. Yesterday is gone, so let it go. You can make vows about tomorrow, but you can’t fulfill that vow until you get there, so what difference does that make?

It’s about today. Give God today. Who knows what tomorrow brings, but you can endure anything for one day. And at the end of the day, when you’ve stuck to whatever change you wanted to make, come up with some little thing to reward yourself. Celebrate your victory, and give thanks to God.

You might think strong Christians are people who sorely grieve over their defeats. You’d be dead wrong. Those people wallow forever without getting anywhere. Strong Christians are ones who know how to celebrate victories and move from strength to strength.

And when you stumble, the main thing is to focus on gaining wisdom.

But instead of looking deeply into these stumbles for insight, you’ve turned your head away in shame, time and again. Learn from your mistakes (by seeking Godly wisdom), celebrate your victories (giving credit to God where it’s due), and take your time.

God is not in a hurry.

////

"I will bless the Lord at all times"

 The most important decision we make on a day-to-day basis is our choice of an attitude. It either keeps us moving ahead or cripples our progress. When our attitude is right, there is no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme and no challenge too great.. Especially when we've got the God of all creation on our side.

You know, God could be working earth-shattering miracles right before your eyes in the supernatural, but you'll never be able to get a glimpse of it if your attitude is that of a wounded, irritable, miserable hamster, angry at the world or everyone around you and asking God why He lets certain things happen.

Did you know that

(1) Gratitude is an attitude
King David said, "I will bless the Lord at all times..." *Psalms 34:1. What does it mean to bless the Lord? It means to speak well of his greatness and goodness. It is almost synonymous with praise. Psalms 34:1 puts them together like this: “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” And notice the word mouth. “His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” Blessing the Lord means speaking or singing about the goodness and greatness of the Lord.

It wasn't an impulse or a reaction to some circumstance, it was a choice he made!

Thank God for all He's done for you, even when feelings or circumstances seem bad.
I think we all need a reminder to just take some time to stop for a while when we catch ourselves slipping into an 'attitude' and say - Lord, I choose to give You praise!



//UCB UK, DesiringGod

I see the filth on my hands and the dirt and oil under my fingernails and I scrape it out and spread it on my arms and I scream at you “See? Don’t you see? I did this. I chose this. Let me go.” Like I try to prove to you you made a mistake. Like I try to prove to you that you should just leave me here. Like I try to prove to you that you don’t want me, you only think you do. Like they all have.

You get so fractured that you decide to refuse to accept love. It’s much easier to stay in your little empty fortress. Solitary. Out of disbelief. Untrusting. Others have entered and promised to stay and promised they were allies over and over and meant it but instead they changed their minds. They set fire to your house in the night and fled. Trojan horse. Ambush.

But when I refuse love I refuse you because that’s what you are. Even when I slam the door in your face and lean against it and cry. Even when you send others to knock and show me that I can open it again and I just stand there with my attitude and my sarcasm and my jokes and my pretending, I am yours and you dont need a door. I am yours and the door has no locks. I am yours and I will not flee and crawl out the window because it’s dark outside and I cant see anything without you. I spread oil on my arms and tried to prove to you I was dirty because I never believe you when you tell me I’m not.You wrapped me in warm cloths soaked in blood and when you took them off I was porcelain and I cried for hours because you meant it. You locked the door behind you when you came in and stood there for me. Solid. Unchanging. Even when I don’t believe it.

////////

Everyone is somehow asking me if I'm okay and I'm not sure how to reply. Is it possible for me to be okay and yet at the same time not okay? I'm broken, tired and hurt, but at the same time I have never known such joy, peace and rest. I'm still learning, definitely - I just need Him more.

God will make everything beautiful at the Right Place,
at the Right Time,
for the Best Reason.

I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion... therefore I will wait for Him. {Lamentations 3:24}

Jesus: Beloved, it's alright. You don't need to love me. Because what matters is My love for you. I know what is best for you, and these walls I will break down one-by-one with My love. I will teach you... to trust Me. Because I never fail, no, not even once. I will keep loving and helping and teaching you over and over and over and over and over again until You are so assured and so secure with My love and who I Am and who You Are in Me. But right now - just know that I will never let you go. Cast all your burdens on Me, I give you rest.

Joy unspeakable, never lets me go! Its nice knowing that I don't even have to try :) God loves me for who I am, victory in Christ!

It's real easy to talk about the right thing to do when it's not your life

I'm a person that doesn't trust easily, or at all. For me to even partially trust another person is a huge, huge, huge deal in my life and I expect a lot when I give out my trust. Because I'm afraid of being hurt. Trusting another person opens you up to so many ways of getting hurt, because people fail. All the time. No one is perfect, that's what we've all learnt. Watching so many of my friends get hurt because of the trust they gave out to another made me wary and I made a decision to never let anyone in deep enough to hurt me. Being heartbroken, back-stabbed, and hurt just seemed to me not worth the trust. I was a lot younger when I made that decision, but now I'm facing the consequences years later. Years of building up walls around my heart, shutting everything in and not letting anything out -

I just don't know how to trust. The very point is - I'm afraid of trusting in His love because I'm scared that if I trust Him, He'll let me down and I'll be hurt beyond pain. That if I actually believe His words, it might turn out that He didn't mean it after all. Its ridiculous. I know. God is love. He is Love. He is the very epitome of Love and Forgiveness- how could I not trust that? But I guess I'm like Thomas. Jesus could have been wearing a ballerina costume and performing live right in front of him, but he would still have insisted, "Show me your hands and I will believe!"

Writing this out is terrifying. Searching your own heart is terrifying. The prophet Jeremiah knew what he was saying when he said that the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick - who can understand it? I've been denying that I've got trust issues but God can't shine His light in only certain corners of my life and ignore the things that I don't want brought up. His light searches all things and makes known all things and shines on dark, dusty, walled-up places.

Its difficult for me to see Jesus as loving me. Its hard for me to understand it when He tells me that He loves me - and He's not just saying it with words that have no substance or meaning. When His love is described as unrelenting, fierce, jealous, incredible, and His love is all for me. Always running after me, forever willing to look beyond mistakes as long as I came back to Him every single time. And He's pleased with me, just because I am His daughter? I can't even comprehend it. I can't even allow it to take root into my heart. All because of trust.

One night He told me that I was like an apple pie - I looked like I had it all together on the outside, perfect and worthy of presenting on a bakers stand. But on the inside, I was a mess. And at one touch, I could crumble.

He was right.

'cause i know how it feels to be hurt unintentionally
by words that were never meant to be arrows
sticks and stones may break my bones
but words will never hurt me
that's a lie we all know
words sting more than physical pain

and we would all rather have had a broken hip
than a heart broken by words

'cause i know how words can impact a heart
by words that drop as beautiful seeds in a person's lives
deep down into good soil, bringing forth a bountiful harvest
blossoming as flowers, bursting in delightful fragrance
that's a delight we all yearn for
encouragement builds up

and yet we are all too painfully aware of all the times
we could have loved another by words
but did not

'cause i know how words hurt and
'cause i know how words heal

it's a choice i'll make
to never break a person down with something that cannot be tamed
a small flame that easily becomes a wildfire
this tongue will bring glory to it's Maker

I've been getting back my mid-term exam results this week, and God has just really been so faithful. Once again, His blessings just shines through in my studies. Its not amazing results, but so much better than what I expected from only managing to study a week before exams. Truth is, no matter what people seem to think, I'm not that kind of person that doesn't need to listen in class and not do my homework and not study to get great results. I actually really, really, really need to push myself to study and focus just to achieve decent grades......... By my own strength, that is. But it doesn't have to be that way.

We've got a great God that desires us to have good things, do you know that? Maybe you know that, but do you really believe it in your life? Studying has always been a problem for me because I'm pretty lazy and I procrastinate. A lot. Which is bad because, "Those too lazy to plow in the right season will have no food at the harvest." (Proverbs 20:4). So I end up studying last minute and stressing out, staying up real late at night to finish studying topics, and then I get really sick after the exams. But that was when I did things by my own strength.

Now I've found, its a lot less stressful to study when I'm trusting in God to lead me to the right topics. I'm sure we've all at some point gone to some silly seminar on "How to Study" or "Effective tips to achieving good results in exams" or something like that. Most of the time, there'll be advice to 'pray before you study'. Maybe some of us tried it and it didn't work (Those darned D's keep popping up in the report card) and so, we come to the conclusion... Prayer might work for life-threatening situations or whenever we need God, but not studies. Problems, of course, anything but studies, doh.

Actually, prayer does work. Prayer works when you... believe. Faith and a belief that my simple prayer to bless my studies will be answered because it is actually heard by a living God that doesn't just sit in Heaven and hand-pick 'important' prayers to answer because 'the studies of My children aren't important enough to bless'. Nope. Studies are a major part of a students life. If its a major part of your life, you can bet He's interested. Before I open my textbook to study, no matter how last minute or stressed out I am or how I really really really can't lose any more time to finish memorising one million chapters of Sejarah - I pray. (starting to sound a lil' like Justin Bieber here ha-ha)

God, I know I'm praying this prayer again. I know I told you during the last exam that I wouldn't put off studying till the last minute for the upcoming exam.... but I did. I'm sorry God, but you know I really need Your help once again! I can't do this on my own, and I know You're the God of infinite knowledge and You know everything, even the exam questions... Ahem, but I'm not asking You to reveal the exam questions to me. Ahem. God, will you please lead me to learn the right things when I study, to remember the important parts and the understand all that I read? Please bless my studies, and I know I will be blessed because all good things come from Your hand. Thank You, Father, amen.

Believing is a huge part of trusting in God to pull me through my studies. In all honesty, I achieve good results not because of my brains or strength or huge efforts to study or whatever preconceived idea of what a smart student has, but the results of my studies are truly a blessing from God and the answers to prayers. Not by my own strength, I am as normal as any other student in class, but the fact that I have a loving Father going before me. :)

Trusting God with my studies has surprisingly taught me to trust God in other areas of my life. My thinking goes, if God who is so Big and Great can care about me enough to take an interest and help me in my studies, then He's also faithful about other matters in my life. Be blessed! :)


"Yet I am confident I will see the LORD's goodness while I am here in the land of the living." -Psalms 27:31

"O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusts in Him!" -Psalms 34:8

As children of God and loving the Father who created us, all we can do is give all that we are up to Him. We offer up our lives as living sacrifices, and this includes reserving our body for the marriage bed. This physical purity is often mentioned in His Word, however, is purity all about the sex, lust and matters of the body? Purity also has its place in the heart, amongst our emotions and feelings. Although having a 'crush' or someone that you consider special is never mentioned as 'sinful' in the Bible, His Word clearly mentions one thing - "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." (Proverbs 4:23) Another version states, "Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."

Distractions can come, even in the form of childish fantasies that seem harmless (Hmm.. I wonder how it would be like if he were my boyfriend... *insert fantasy full of perfume scented unicorns and scenes from The Notebook here*) but whats dangerous (or so I've found out) is when you let your emotions cloud your judgement and wisdom. Just something I've been pondering. Just because lips haven't met doesn't mean hearts haven't joined - So what really is emotional purity? How can I keep my heart pure for Jesus and for the man He has already kept in His plans for me? How far is too far in my affections for others till the point where I am compromising the purity of my heart? What does Jesus think about the state of my purity, where do the boundaries lie?

Right now, I think that whatever (Or, you know, whoever) draws me further from where He is instead of bringing closer and closer towards Him, is just not where I am supposed to be. That if I am desiring something else other than His presence and His love, then I've got a biiiiiiiig problem. That if I prefer being in the presence of another instead of spending time with Him, then that shows that my heart is not satisfied with what I have experienced of God, and I'll be darned if I'm gonna allow myself to stop running after Him and experiencing the fullness of His love!

Our culture teaches us that if something is good, we should seek to enjoy it immediately. So we microwave our food, e-mail our letters, and express mail our packages. We do our best to escape the confines of time by accelerating our schedules, speeding up our pace, and doing whatever it takes to beat the clock. You probably know what I mean. How did you respond last time you had to wait in line for something? Did you patiently wait your turn, or did you tap your toe and try to rush the experience?

God has many wonderful experiences He wants to give to us, but He also assigns these experiences to particular seasons of our lives. We often make the mistake, however, of taking a good thing out of its appropriate season to enjoy it when we want it. Just because something is good doesn’t mean we should pursue it right now. Remember that the right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing.
—Joshua Harris

I'll end this post with Philippians 4:7, "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" and a statement... Paul wouldn't have said that Christ would guard your hearts if there were nuthin' to guard.