God

Tangible Love

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I want to explore the type of love that humans most seek out. I feel that we most often seek out a love that is most tangible to us. We want a love that we can run to, a love that we can feel, hear, and see. We want a love that can be proved because we are doubting insecure beings. We even often convince ourselves that we deserve someone’s love just because we gave love to them. The truth behind the tangible love we usually experience though is that it is inconsistent, it fails, and both people need to reciprocate the love for it to work.

The reason I’ve set out to explain our connection with this tangible love is so that I can explore why it is so difficult for us to seek earnestly the perfect love of God. The perfect love of God does not need to be reciprocated, it is given to us without question. God’s love is unfailing and always the same, which is why it can feel foreign and seems almost impossible that it could exist. God’s love often feels intangible, we cannot touch it, or prove it by the verbal affirmation we are used to receiving from people.

The love we receive from God is different, but it is better. We do not have to work for this love, it is there for us constantly, and the words of affirmation that we seek and feel that we don’t receive are hidden in pages in that book that collects dust on most of our shelves. Whenever one begins to feel separated from God it can often mean that they aren’t communicating with Him, and long distance relationships are always hard without communication, in fact any relationship is.

God’s way of communicating His love for us is best felt through digging into the scripture, the pages of the Bible are truly a love letter written for us. We expect to be able to connect with God and return His love when we will not even read the pages on which the Lord of all creation poured His very heart out on. Our father in Heaven gave us the perfect reminder of His love in the Bible, and the Bible is a tangible thing, we can feel it, we can see it, we can run to it, and while we may not necessarily be able to prove it all, that is where faith steps in. The success of our relationship with God is based solely on our faith and willingness to participate in the relationship.

God is already constantly putting in His half of the work, so when we don’t feel God’s love we must ask ourselves how we are disconnecting from Him. While God’s love for us is perfect the relationship itself is flawed if we are not putting in work as well. Not only are we disadvantaged by not reading the scripture but we are also held back if we do not take opportunities to tell God we love Him. I am sure many would say that they say they love the Lord but ask yourself when the last time was that you poured your heart out in worship or prayed a prayer that brought you to tears. How often do we with full sincerity while putting meaning behind our words tell God that we love Him?

In the Church, we often use the phrasing “God knows my heart”, but isn’t this just being lazy and avoiding the effort that we should be putting into our relationship with God. God may know what you want to say but if you do not pour your heart out earnestly you are doing yourself a disservice, not God. It is our hearts that seek out verbal affirmation and our hearts that not only need to hear it but need to feel like they are being heard as well. God is always listening but if we aren’t talking there is nothing that can be done for us.

So, my challenge for anyone who reads this post is to make your love relationship with God a tangible one, read your Bible, make it to Church, worship with full abandon, and make sure you are expressing your love to God in everything you do. Without love we have nothing, but if we can be in a true reciprocal tangible relationship with God then my friend, we have everything.

Facing Our Worries

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Early this Sunday morning im thinking about worries. Every day I feel anxious about something, worrying about the things ahead of me. The thing about worrying though is that each and every one of them is something that we cannot change. Usually this bad thing that may happen, if it does there is nothing we can do about it. This is where God comes in, we are told to cast our worries on Him.

Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.
Psalm 55:22 NIV

Give it all to God today, do not be shaken, conquer every fear, and let God handle what you can’t. There are many things that we wont be able to change, but for those things God is our only option. I think this is pretty comforting, it makes the thought process pretty simple. Go through the steps and ask yourself, can you change it? If the answer is no give it to God. Now if we have given this worry to God then who are we to continue to worry about what the God of all creation will do with our situation? God has a purpose for all things, and if the worse should come to pass take confidence that He will use it for good. Focus on what is in front of you, not what is ahead.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34 NIV

No worry is too small or too big, God will gladly handle your situation. It will be a challenge because you have to trust in God’s timing as well, but in the end it will always be well worth it. Remember in your struggle that God is constant and hears your prayers, but perfect timing doesnt happen right when you ask for it, it happens when the timing is perfect. When you look back on struggles in your past you will usually notice great blessings that only came because of what you went through. I was talking to a friend just recently about something bad that he had went through that made him feel like he had really been set back in life. We sat and looked at the situation though, if he hadn’t gone through that we wouldn’t have been so close, he wouldn’t have been as driven as he is now, and he may not have been as happy as he now is. The point is, sure he could have been further in life already, but he is catching up. He learned allot through that struggle, he will go forward in life stronger, more confidently, and wiser than before. New opportunities await him that may be greater than ones he would have had without that struggle. New opportunities await you as well, never focus on the sorrow that is, but instead on the joy that will be.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Romans 8:18 NIV

We have free will, that means that there are going to be mistakes, but oh what an all powerful God we serve that he moves the very earth around us to compensate for each one. Don’t question God’s plan, He will make happen what is supposed to happen, and eventually in His time you will find your joy. Worries are not worth our time, spend time in prayer and God will grant you comfort. Remember that it is out of your hands. We need to remember to let go, and humble ourselves. We do not need to control everything we face. Let your Father in Heaven handle the things that you can’t, it doesn’t make you weak, it makes you wise. Be comforted that while we are merely human the most powerful being that is has your situation in His hands, and nothing can stop the hands of God.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6‭-‬7 NIV

For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?
Isaiah 14:27 NIV

Feeling Like Peter

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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

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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.

A Letter From My Heart “Not Again”

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   Not again, you can’t possibly do this to us again we have learned our lesson it has to end.
   I have so many scars I don’t even look like me anymore, how could you risk me like this, how could you put me in danger it’s just a girl she is practically a stranger.
   I don’t see how you can act this way, after all we have been through after all the tears, you still think I have the capacity for love… after all of these years?
   I thought we had reached an understanding, I thought you shut me off, I was resting and now suddenly I’m beating once more, and what is it all for how can she be worth it… I’m just far too sore.
   I am trying so hard but you just keep pushing, I keep telling you too give up before it is too late, but still you try and you tell me that It’s fate.
   How can you be such a fool, I am so broken, if this goes wrong there is no way that I will survive, please just stop and think about my life.
   So, she might be your muse, it has happened before, you act like it means something just because she brings us joy does not mean she won’t break us at our very core!
   You are so lost in her eyes you can’t even think straight, she could kill us, how is that for fate?
   I just don’t get why I had to belong to you, you love too easily, and you’ve broken me all the way through.
   I hope you will just listen because I’m saying this as a friend, I want us to live, we do not have anything left to give.
   I don’t think you can hear me right now, mainly because she just smiled again, I know because I’m beating faster, and yes it feels good but at what price… I… I am caught in a vise.
   I can’t deny that I want to love again, I feel a spark when you look at her, but still this fire could die and then what, will you just leave me to fry?
   I know you want this and partly I do too but just listen to me, you can’t do this… it will probably all be in vain, just please I’m begging you now, not again…

My Heart’s Eyes Opened

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Ah, the sweet joy of my heart, as it beats and flutters once more, what I had lost is back 2 fold, I give thanks to my God for it is He who has restored.
This beauty before me, is beyond what I’ve seen, a bright light in the darkest of rooms, and a flower in it’s bloom.
Just by looking on I have found my joy, so if nothing else comes from this… I will still find bliss.
I cannot be lost, not while you are near the sweet sound of your voice is like an angel’s whisper into my ear.
Once again I am caught up on a person, but I can’t imagine you not being worth it, even though I know you can’t be perfect.
But still, my heart overflows at the prospect of you, new life is within me, and all because of that smile that made me see.

Ramblings About Love

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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

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Let pen be grasped as sword, for this battle, and this war.

I fight for freedom that was given unto me, I fight for others, so that they may see.

My eyes have opened up wide so that I would finally see this world, beat down,
broken, but so loved by my Lord.

This brokenness I find, God has made it my purpose to fill the cracks with gold, because beautifully broken is how I see it all, with the eyes of my soul.

So I live this life for God, taking Him with me on every step of the way, my God is a clear path that the world cannot sway.

I will follow this path until the end of my days, for my Lord has restored me, so in Him I shall stay.

I claim these words for God that some would read and be saved, the Lord of creation loves you, and so His son for YOU He gave.

Salvation is in your grasp, so claim it today, there is more than heaven to gain, there is a life full of meaning, and a loss of all shame.

You’re meant for so much more, so please take up your pen… your sword, together we strike at Satan and claim proudly that Christ is Lord.

We are free on this day from our sorrows and soars this battle we have won, but suit up dear child, there is still a war.

Today

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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

Some Thoughts and A Poem

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I prequisite My newest, poem which I believe to be one of my greatest yet with some of my thoughts. To start I will say that I give all glory to God for the beauty that has ensued in my life as of late and I will proudly spread the message of my God. I will fearlessly stand for what I believe in and know to be true by my experiances.

My depression has been a great oppresion on my life for years now and had plagued my mind in a way that I feared my own self. At my worst if you had asked me what my greatest fear was, I would have answered that I was afraid to one day lose the fight and take my own life, I was deeply afraid to lose sight of what I had left holding me to this life. What I had was my family, friends, my writing, and most importantly God. God can be seen even through the other things that kept me holding on, but one of the things that most truly kept me going was the writing which He had blessed me with. Had I not been able to purge the very cries of my anguished soul onto countless pages I truly would have festered in my own sorrow until I was lost. My writing was my salvation and still is, this salvation does though come by the hand of God.

Now to the purpose behind my newest poem, I in my darker times had come up with how I viewed my depression. The way I viewed my depression was a small boy locked in a small cage inside my head always crying with a lurking beast outside ready to devour him whole. I believe I saw this boy as me in those times, back then I could see no escape. My new poem is about that boys journey, and the deliverance he and I both have found.

“A Boy, A Beast, and A Man”

There was a little boy inside my mind trapped inside a cage, outside was a gnawing beast roaring with great rage!

The boy would cry more and more with each day that passed, never to grow up, never to see what life had in store.

The boy was plagued by this beast with its gnashing claws, he would reach out for help but nothing he reached for would reach back; it all felt relentless, a never ending attack.

The boy was so lost he would have reached for anything that walked by, but the voice that would save him was drowned out by the beast’s horrid cry.

The boy was all but dead until he finally took control, friends and family worked to make his saviors voice louder than that of the beast’s they shouted and shouted for the boy’s release.

The boy finally stood up with the tears fading from his eyes and took hold of the door, it was never locked… and suddenly the cage disappeared.

The monster before him that had looked like Hell it’s self was whimpering beneath his feet with the saviors voice finally loud and clear.

This day a battle was waged and in a swift strike it was done, he heard that voice say don’t worry they can’t hurt you, YOU are MY son.

From this day forth the boy grew into his own following his savior closely, his savior like a river constantly molding and strengthening a stone.

Now this man is not a boy, he now stands firm, the battlefield is empty of enemies but he is surrounded by great soldiers, the angels his savior sent him he finally feels no fear.

This man is free now, freer than he ever thought he could be, so he roams the battlefields searching for those in a cage, he shouts to them with great passion always making sure to be louder than the beasts rage.