faith
Feeling Like Peter
I have recently been finding my way back to serving God with more consistency, making sure to read my Bible, writing more, and ministering to others. For quite some time I had become stagnant in my faith, I had become still and lazy. Now I have discovered in myself a new found passion for serving my God. I have been able to remind myself of this deep and beautiful love connection that I have with God and how vital it is to my very existence.
I have been feeling better than ever but yesterday on my way to work I began to pray. When I started to pray it was a simple prayer like many others that I have prayed but as it went on I reached this point of talking to God about how much I had been pushing him aside lately and I found myself praying repeatedly, ” I love you Lord, I love you Lord”. In this moment I think I understood the Interaction between Peter and Jesus after Peter denied Jesus three times Jesus asked Peter, “do you love me”, three times and each time Peter replied yes but was hurt that Jesus had asked him 3 times. (John 21:15-17) I think Peter felt that Jesus was calling into question his love but I think that is far from the case. In this passage Jesus is helping Peter to reaffirm his love for Jesus and to forgive himself for denying Christ.
Peter could have gone on feeling ashamed of what he had done, feeling like he no longer deserved to serve God. or to minister to others. Jesus freed Peter of his would be shackles though and told Peter, “feed my sheep”. Jesus in this passage says to Peter that what matters is that he loves Jesus and from that point continues to serve him. In each, “yes you know I love you Lord” Peter is given an opportunity to in a way apologize while reminding himself of his love of Jesus. Jesus knew that Peter would go onto Minister and do great things in the nations in the name of God, He knew that Peter’s story was not over yet. When I was repeating to God in my Prayer that I loved Him over and over it was not for His benefit but for my own. I in that moment of vulnerability had to apologize to God for each time that I had picked something else over Him, each time that I had pushed God aside, and reaffirm for myself that I truly deeply love God.
I have understood for but a moment how Peter must have felt, the need and sorrowful thirst for a forgiving unrelenting love. I found myself with tears in my eyes because with each, “I love you” that I prayed I could only hear the words, “I know”. In my sorrow that I had turned my back on the lover of my soul and healer of my heart I knew that I did not deserve open arms and a loving embrace but that is exactly what I was given. God looked on me with compassion and said that He knew all along I would return, I was never doubted for a second, God was waiting with arms stretched wide. Now in my heart I cannot believe that I let the love letter from my God gain even one speck of dust, I hold my Bible tight and know that my story is not over. From this point on I will continue to serve God in many ways. A great path is set before me and I am beyond excited for each step that I will take.
This Light That I Have Seen
Why is my heart so distracted by her, why has my heart become so overwhelmed? Why does it feel as though I am feeling for the very first time? My soul grasps at a beauty that I do not understand. I see her spirit and it is light itself. My heart is overjoyed by the simplest of things, to hear from her at all each word fills my heart until it overflows. I feel pathetic and foolish because I can see that she is the most beautiful soul I have yet to encounter and yet I am too hesitant and too fearful to even reach out. She sets a fire within me that cannot be quelled. She has a soul that is hard to miss, it overtakes the room. I feel that I can truly see her soul, and I can’t help but want to know more. I can see in her the perfect love of God and I believe that is what has stopped me in my tracks. She is a true woman of God and I see in her more beauty then I thought possible to find. I am overjoyed by her existence, but too fearful to do anything but feel these things from afar. She has affected my very soul and it has become hard to keep the cries of my spirit quiet. My heart is shouting out at me but I am pushing my emotions aside. Without pursuing I can’t fail, but in not pursuing I feel as though I have failed myself. She seems to be an unreachable light, what am I to do, what path do I take? All I can do now is pray and listen for God’s voice. Is she someone I can reach, or is she just an inspiration to push me on, I do not know yet. What I do know is that I am deeply happy that I have met someone like her, a woman with such a spirit that my heart would be this deeply moved. I only hope that she knows she is beautiful, and that she knows that she is an astounding image of the love of God.
Fading Lights
A Letter From My Heart “Not Again”
We, The Beloved Tools
My Heart’s Eyes Opened
Ramblings About Love
My heart used to flutter at every romantic song and movie. With each heartfelt line of love I would be filled with hope for my own future. What pains has this world put me through though that now those child like eyes have stopped seeing hope and only see romance as something that is likely to just end in great pain? I have learned through trial and error that proper happiness is hard to find within another. It becomes hard to convince one’s self that love is worth fighting for when most of one’s fights have been with love.
I have fought against love until I was blue in the face. I have written poem after poem, but still to no avail; I did not understand love.
Love is the very force that makes one’s heart desire to keep beating but yet the same force causes one’s heart to want to stop and never beat again. Love is a dangerous destructive force with the strength to take down the world… but still my heart cries out for love.
I in saying all these terrible things about love have to stop to explain that I speak only of human love. Love can be so undeniably pure, but in the form we so often find it in it only tears apart. Love is meant to build up, to make one whole, to give purpose to an otherwise purposeless life. Love is so boundlessly vital to our existence that we must make sure to understand it the best that we can.
I cannot imagine living the rest of my life without love but yet I cannot fathom going through any more pain. My heart has ached so deeply in the past that I never thought id recover. Now, that I am quite well off I don’t know that I ever really did recover. I have reached a point of fear for love, I wish not to seek it and often wish to avoid it.
Now I reach my point, I believe I have found the purpose behind my pain and tribulations. Had I not acquired such a distaste for this human romantic love, I never would have stopped to realize all the flaws. I never would have looked to God to sustain me, I would have looked to a woman instead. I could be so lost right now, had I not been through such pain and so many mistakes.
Now in my wisdom I have discovered that the only way to find love is to not seek it. True love is a wild fire in the heart caused by a single spark that nobody could expect. The blue prints for love were in front of me the whole time, but I ignored them still. I had to find my own words, my own experiences, and I had to create my own answer.
Sometimes as I have learned humans just don’t have it in them to learn unless through brute force of life teaching them the lesson. The Bible clearly tells me the definition of love in many different ways, plenty enough to make me understand, yet I ignored it and searched on my own.
I have found love, many years ago. I have had love all along in its truest purest form. The love I have from God is beyond reason, unexplainable, unfailing, always forgiving, never giving up on you, never leaving you, I will die for you, and Ill give it all up for you kind of love. God gives us the world without us giving Him a thing he deserves in return.
God’s love refuses to back down and once we embrace that love everything will come to light. We don’t know how to find love and while sometimes it works out the easiest most painless way to find true love is to find love with God, follow Him, and let the rest come naturally. We need not worry, God did not plan for man to be alone, woman was made for our perfect partnership, to bring us joy, companionship, and fulfillment.
So, in conclusion look to God as hard as you can and when someone else shows up staring up at Him with that same admiration, you will know. God hears the cries of your heart and will deliver unto you someone to make you happy for all your days in due time. Trust God and you will surpass the pains of love to find that which God has set out for you. Now take to mind that it still will not be easy, love is a constant project that you must work on with your partner. The challenge will often feel hard but the reward will always be greater. Love is never to be taken lightly, it is one of the greatest gifts this life has to offer, but in order to find it one must be patient and look to God to sustain.
1 Corinthians 13 New International Version (NIV)
1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
A Pen For A War
broken, but so loved by my Lord.
Today
Today my car is broken down, its completley un-drivable. Today I want to be stressed out, I want to worry about the money, the future, and what ill have to do tomorrow. Today I am trying to figure out Gods plan for me and trying to think that I may have screwed it up. Today I was down in the dumps. Today I was afraid. Today I was anxious. Today I felt like I would be consumed by negativity, but today God has my life in His hands. Today I’m living a life in which I have been completley delivered from my depression, today I am free from the very grips of death, today I am free from the mind that wanted me dead, today I am free, today I am alive, today I shout this battle cry at the top of my lungs. I have no worries I cast it all on Him, my Lord on high. Yahweh, my own personal savior is waking with me today. So in conclusion today, it is well with my soul.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord , “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
1 Peter 5:7 NIV
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34 NIV
Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life ?
Matthew 6:27 NIV