Only yesterday I posted a blog in response to a comment a wise friend of mine posed;

“Spiritual maturity is not judged by what we do, but by our hearts response to mistreatment”

It has stuck with me since then and during today which has to be said, was one of the hardest days this week yet. I have been so frustrated at myself, not eating, lying awake, sleeping all day, unable to escape from my thoughts, my emotions, hurt and pain and anxiety. I have not been like this in so long, I hated that the old me appeared to be back again. I was and am so tired. And yet tonight something broke, it is as if I finally have the answer to where I am at right now. What is my hearts response? Not what am I gonna do or how am I gonna do it, but what am I going to choose my heart response to be?

God is Faithful.

It was tonight I gained further revelation of Gods beautiful, overwhelming faithfulness. In the midst of it all He has been faithful, He does not change, He is I AM, He is the same yesterday and today and tomorrow and next week. I was so dumb struck, so overwhelmed, so broken by the fact that HE never changes and that HIS FAITHFULNESS is not dependant upon OUR EMOTION or on us period. I was reminded His response to Moses and it made me chuckle.

“So now go. I am sending you…”

“Who am I that I should go?”

And God said? …. “I will be with you” – Ex 3:10-12

What a beautiful expression of our humanness and God Godliness. God sent Moses just like He has and is sending me. Moses saw His inability, His insecurities surfaced and all of a sudden He became not only insecure and fearful and anxious but also in need of personal affirmation. Did God give Him either? In a way yes He did, but what God said was not “You are great, I made you for the job, you have a wonderful speaking voice” or “don’t question my judgement just get out there and do it” or any other variation. In fact, the wonderful aspect of this passage is that God does not address Moses’ ability or person at all. Who is He that He should go? God just replies that He will be with Him.

We are nobody, we are unable, our security cannot be in ourselves and we cannot be driven by emotion or the need for someone to affirm us so that we can walk the next step. Our security, our bedrock can only be on the very character of God. Tonight my flesh response is still all over the place but I pause, I realize that I have a choice as to how my heart responds. I look into the eyes of my saviour and I am flooded with grace and I choose how I wish to respond.

My God is Faithful. He never changes. His love is not conditional nor dependant upon where I am at or even how I treat Him. He will not and does not reject me nor hate me nor love me less nor get irritated with me. He loves with an undying love, He pours out His grace immeasurably. My God is unchanging.

My God is a Faithful God.

Period.

A observation posted by a beautiful friend of mine...

"Spiritual maturity is not measured in how much we do, but by the heart's response to mistreatment."

ouch.

part of me wants to write reams of essays on that and unpack it. the other part wants to not touch it, not at all.

the latter has won.

laters x

I will never be the same again
I will can never return
I've closed the door.
I will walk the path,
I'll run the race and I will never be the same again

No I will never be the same again
Burn like fire fall like rain
Flow like mighty waters again and again,
sweep away the darkness burn away the chafe
and let a flame burn to glorify YOUR NAME...

Burn like fire fall like rain
flow like mighty waters again and again,
sweep away the darkness burn away the chafe
and let a flame burn to glorify your name....

There are higher heights-

There are deeper deeps...
(*so*)
Whatever you need to do, Lord, do in me.
The GLORY of God FILLS my life,
and

I will NEVER be the same again

no,

I will NEVER be the same again.

[First off i apologize for not blogging much as of late, art has kind of taken all my journaling and put it onto canvas, but I will try and come back on here as much as I am able. God is doing so much that I am not currently articulating that if you want information as to what i am actually doing in life, you will have to talk to me face to face :) but in the meantime i will continue to explore what He calls me to explore on here and to lay down t His feet...the only thing I can do]

“So all of my hopes and my best laid plans
Are safe and secure when I place them in your hands
So I’m gonna lay it down
I’m gonna learn to trust you now
Oh what more can I do?
Cos everything I am depends on you
And if the sun don’t come back up
You know your love would be enough
I’m gonna let it be
I’m gonna let it go
I’m gonna lay it down
I’m gonna lay it down.” - Jaci Velasquez

Daddy that is where I begin. Laying into your hands everything that has been bugging me today, upsetting me, making me wonder, doubt, question, ponder. Daddy I lay it all down and I just continue to praise, to worship, to adore, oh daddy I wanna be even more in your heart, I wanna be back on your lap again, it has been too long since me and you just cuddled. I miss that, I have loved worshipping with paint. I wanna stay here! I wanna move in deeper into you! I love you with everything in me! I am so addicted to you! So consumed!

I lay down before you therefore the stuff that is bothering me right now. Daddy I give it to you, I don’t want it anymore, I like it when you hold all this stuff, I like it the most because it means I don’t hold it, you tuck it away in your heart safely and then we just carry on as normal, me and you, loving on each other. Daddy I love it this way the best. Please help me to give it to you quicker and easier than I do and not fall into the trap where I think that somehow I can sort it if I keep hold of it.

Thankyou so much for my job btw! I am loving that today I met a guy who is best mates with Abi’s brother today and an awesome Christian! I love that so many people are considering buying my stuff and there has just been so much favor there AND I have been able to do all my art work at the same time!

So what do you want me to write this evening? What do you wish me to ponder? I would love to go back to psalm 73 and explore once again the transformation that occurs when we enter the sanctuary of the Lord, but instead I look for the fresh bread, the word for today, daddy what is it you taught me today?

You taught me that your grace is sufficient.

Where my grace is not, where my love fails me, where my understanding grinds to a halt, where my feelings and emotions draw from circumstance and perception….YOUR grace is sufficient. Enough. Plenty. All I need. Adequate. Ample. Satisfactory. Sufficient.

God you just blow me away. Over and over again. The fact that not only do you know my infallibility and my human weakness, but you allow me to draw from you all the time, non stop, I am so needy, I am so in need of you, always hungry, always thirsty, always desperate, always completely unable, as weak and dependant as a newborn and yet you let me draw from you until it is sufficient, until you have sorted it. You know that my grace is not sufficient, that I fall, that I don’t understand, that I feel hurt or confused or scared and worried about the future You know all of that but instead of making mine enough, instead of demanding that somehow I step up to a mark…You just says You are sufficient. Oh God. I am not worthy of such grace. You are my everything, when you are in me and pour through me like you are doing right now, the breath of your nostrils on my head, your chest rising lifting me slowly up and down….I am filled with grace and love again and I see how you see. I see that somehow it is going to be ok. I see that whatever the outcome, me and you are still ok and can still come here one on one. I can see the lessons I am learning about depending on you, I can see that I cant see all of it and however much I want to think I know everything about something or someone, I don’t. not even slightly. All I know is what you tell me. Only you are sufficient for me.

Ahhhhh that’s better. Thankyou daddy. I still have residue feelings in the pit of my stomach but I know you can get rid of them in a heartbeat and that at the end of the day, what I feel and perceive doesn’t in fact mean much at all. It is inconsequential. You are everything

You are everything
You are everything.

And you look at me and I hear you sing…

“You’re my beloved
You’re my bride
To sing over you is my delight
Come away with me my love
Under my mercy come and wait
Til we are standing face to face
I see no stain on you my child.
You’re beautiful to me
So beautiful to me
I sing over you my song of peace
Cast all your cares down at my feet
Come and find your rest in me.
I’ll breathe my life inside of you
I’ll bear you up on eagles wings
And hide you in the shadow of my strength
I’ll take you to my quiet waters
I’ll restore your soul
Come rest in me and be made whole.
You’re my beloved
You’re my bride
To sing over you is my delight
Come away with me my love” - Kari Jobe

That is enough

You are enough

Your grace is sufficient for me…

...for always.

amen

Isn’t it incredible how much offense can eat away at our very being? How embarrassing to even admit that it is there, that some residue of pride still remains within our bones, within our psyche that drives an invisible rod between ourselves and those we love. Why? How could it do such a thing? Because offense momentarily closes our ears to dad and plants a tiny doubt that opens our ears to the lies of the accuser. If we choose to be offended, choose to be upset, we will begin to listen to and believe that which the enemy tells us in careful repeated lies about that person. All of a sudden the truths of who dad is and who we are fade away and we cannot quite grasp or recollect them and in the same instance, we find ourselves curiously wondering whether there could be some substantiation in what devil has been trying to tell us after all.

If we choose to take offense and allow our flesh to rule even for the tiniest of seconds….well it’s the same thing as rebelling against this whole bond servant thing isn’t it? Do I have a right to anything? Therefore does offense by natural consequence of that sentence even exist in my vocabulary? No. by definition, if one does not have a right to anything, one cannot be offended by the lack of it.

Today I allowed my hormonal, emotion-ridden brain to, for a split second, be consumed not with His truth and what I know within my heart, but with what I saw, perceived and most annoyingly, old demons from so many years ago you would have thought they would have just faded away. But no, what do I discover? They are still there, the wounds still deep. Daddy would you come and not only put your salve, but heal completely those areas that still sting and burn from the pain of old. Daddy it hurt then and today I have discovered it still hurts now.

Maybe this blog is redundant, in fact I almost know it is and yet seeing as I have not written in so so long, I will continue to write and get it out, if only to scribe once more and fill the void that is my brain brimming with unspoken, unpainted thoughts, visions and dreams.

Isn’t it interesting how we project old stuff onto new situations? Today, for example, actually had hardly nething to do with the individual it concerned, I love her and in our relationship, there is a grace that covers all things. So then what was today about?

When God brings up old stuff, it is so often because He wished to dig out the roots, to consume every part of everything, it is intriguing that we do not let him do this work immediately and without question, why would we ever want to hold onto hurt and pain? …unless they are part of that which has for so long identified us. What if…what if instead of reacting with hurt and “this happened before so it will happen again” inevitability and insecurity, we do not move, we do not move, we do not move until Dad comes and pours Himself into us to give us the grace to love as He loves, to put the past behind us and walk out with heads held high, in a new found confidence. I do not want to any longer live upon the past of rejection, bullying and hurt, I especially refuse to live in a place of inevitability. No longer! No longer! Thus far and no further!

Therefore today is a new day. Even now, Daddy I ask you simply to come and consume the chaff, this chaff. Consume the last dregs of the stuff I didn’t even know still existed so that I would manifest in my actions, words and attitudes that which my heart feels, a deep love and grace determined by You and not by my own emotion.

Oh Dad you are so so good. I praise you for all of this. I am sorry for today. I praise you that you have brought breakthrough from such a cruddy emotional flesh day, thankyou that there has not been one day this week you have not moved nad broken through and taken things to new levels! Oh Dad would I not take any of this for granted, walking naturally supernatural, new perspectives, oh daddy forgive me for how I have been today, transform me permanently daddy! I wanna be consumed! I wanna be consumed! I wanna be consumed! Oh God consume me! Consume me! Take me back to heaven! Open my natural eyes to see your glory and your angels and your FACE! Oh Jesus I wanna see into you\r eyes, I wanna see your face, oh Jesus oh Jesus oh Jesus how beautiful you are and yet you call me beautiful. I am nothing and yet you call me beloved. Oh I am so undone by you even when I think about looking into your eyes. I am undone to an intensity which scares me and yet there is no fear in it, its just overwhelmingly intense. I will not run anymore. I cannot survive without you, I am miserable without you. Oh God search me and find any wicked way in me, have mercy! Forgive me! And transform me for your purposes. I lay everything down. I lay it down and I just love on you again. I love on you again. I want to shine daddy, please may you make me shine? Daddy. I love you. So so much, I love you. I love you. Oh I can never express it but that is all I have. I love you. I am yours. Amen x