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"Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." Romans 11:33-36

How incredible is God! Basking in the fullness of a dusky-gold moon last night, I tried to fathom its size and distance. How terrifying it is to look into the eternal sky and try to grasp the billions of stars in our galaxy, and the billions more housed by billions of other galaxies! We'll never see more than the tiniest fraction of them. Yet God has given each one a name.

"Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing." Isaiah 40:26

Louie Giglio talks about this in his devotional, Wired: "We know God is infinitely awesome... Infinite means having no limits. Never running out. Having no end. Existing forever. Unbound. Timeless. Stuff we can't fully comprehend. God has never been tired. Never slept. Never aged. Never upgraded. He's self-sufficient. Self-contained. God doesn't need anything... God is pure. Radiant. Without blemish or stain. He is untainted goodness. Without fault or blame. Perfection personified."

As I read this yesterday, I was duly overwhelmed by my finiteness, my insufficiency compared to this awesome God whom I cannot even fully comprehend. I am nothing like Him, how can I dare to know Him? But then this thought came to me, I am made in the image of God. Wow. It's like a child who, after years and years of separation, meets his birth parents for the first time. Certain gestures, facial expressions, a laugh, these things are familiar to the son and he realizes that he came from these people. He recognizes himself in them. These people explain his existence.... that's how I think it is when I see God. The what and why and how of myself are answered in Him. I recognize Him.

Not to say that I am anywhere near to being the same as God, I am only made in His IMAGE. But it is HIS image... and that is mind-blowingly beautiful. God made me in His image, nothing could be more intimate, or more wonderful.

A Confession

Rough day. My heart is heavy and my mind worn down. I need to release some creative and comical expression, and so, my confession: Since I can remember, I've desperately wanted to be a whale, for a day.
No seriously, This is legit; I've put much thought into it. My jealously of whale life is immense.

I'd kill to be an orca, the hottest whale in the sea. I mean, look at this baby jump! And just for the fun of it. They're not all fun and games however, you're looking at a seriously violence-prone animal (what!? Shamu? Willy?). Um, Killer whale for a reason kids.

Say hello to Moby. Sperm whales rock a flippin 20 pound brain (thus why Ahab couldn't out-smart em!), the largest brain of any animal. ever. but don't tease them, they're sensitive, emotional souls (I'm not making this up).

Blue whales are the largest animals on God's green (and blue) earth. Try 108ft on for size. I'd flip to be one of these giant Lone Rangers for a day!

Just. look. at. this. dude.... I love him. Bowhead whales sing continually, and live up to 200 years. no joke. It's a good thing too, because these fantastical creatures are endangered thanks to idiots who think they make good mounts.

What is there to say? Who WOULDN'T want to be a narwhal?!?!?

And yet, (call me sentimental), I want to spend a day as a humpback whale most of all. These softies have a 300 pound, 4 chamber heart and a massive tail and fins (the better to flop about above water, my dear!) The loudest singer and most agile acrobat, the humpback wins.

Exposed

The climax occurred yesterday while I felt like shit. Literally. I frequently experience funks, and am learning how to deal with them, but this one destroyed me. What made me so miserable? A tiny instance I blew WAY out of proportion, but it caused me to seek out the real issue beneath the circumstance. I found what I "grasp."
Let's back up. Philippians 2 has always been one of my favorite passages of the Bible, (is it okay to have favorites in God's Word?) but reading it a few weeks ago slammed me with a deeper revelation.

Philippians
2:1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [1] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, [2] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

You can glean so much from this passage, but what struck me this time was the word grasped. Jesus did not count equality with God as something to be grasped. I had always thought "grasp" in this context meant "reach for," that Jesus did not consider equality with God as something to reach for, because it cannot be obtained, and he was already "in the form of God" and so was already equal with God, so he didn't have to prove his equality by grasping it.
Although this is true, a word study revealed the word "grasp" in this context actually means "hold on." Jesus did not consider equality with God as something to hold on to. He let it go. Not meaning he lost his equality with God, but he forsook the rights of equality, something he already firmly held, for no other reason than to obey the Father and to save our souls.
For me, that's a world of difference. Jesus let go. Jesus let go. What was rightfully his, he let go... wow. How humbling. Hallelujah.
Then I asked myself, what am I grasping? If Jesus let go of what was rightfully his, who am I to hold on to anything? Especially considering I deserve nothing?
We come back to my feeling like shit yesterday. While tormenting myself over the tiny circumstance, I asked myself a question a dear friend often asks: can't you just let it go? It clicked. I wasn't letting this thing go, which means I was holding on to it, I was grasping it.
At the root of the tiny circumstance was this: I have set what those I love think of me as the bottom of my joy. I obsess with being in good standing with my friends and family. Is it good to have healthy relationships? Yes! To have them as the ultimate value in my life? No! It's lead me to care more about my appearance rather than my integrity.
And integrity is vital. Something else God is teaching me.

1 John 1
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Light is truth (Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." -John 3:20-21), and so walking in the light is walking in the truth. Honest living, something I don't do. Walking in honesty means being vulnerable (a word my flesh detests most of all!), confessing our sin. Being vulnerable with people gains their trust and brings us into deeper fellowship with them. Not that we should tell each other every sin we've ever committed, but we should be characterized by honesty. Being honest about our sin also allows the blood of Jesus to cleanse our sin. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This call to walk in the light does not mean to walk in perfection. For us, perfection is impossible; we can only pretend, and if we do that, then we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
This was HUGE for me. Walk in honesty, humility, vulnerability, and HE will make me clean by His abundant grace. I am not called to walk in righteousness on my own, then I only become a liar!

Please pray God continues to work this out in me. I want to walk exposed to the light, but I've still got a long way to get to freedom in this. Pray especially for me while I'm in Ukraine; I will not be a good leader if I can't serve others rather than use them to wrongly meet my needs, and I will never gain their trust unless I am vulnerable (and if you know me at all, vulnerable and I can only mix by a miracle of God!).

Necklaces for Ukraine!

I'm making crochet necklaces to raise support for my internship in Ukraine this summer. Check them out!

Either copy and paste the link below or click on the title of this post.

http://abicrochets.blogspot.com/

Tension

I'm sitting with classmates and our prof around the oak Round Table, waiting for a prompt. "Sum up your life in one word, the first that comes to your mind." First there's the panic of being put on the spot, then a word comes. "What word did you write?" the prof asks.
"Freedom."
"Love."
"Happiness."
"Improvement."
"Unique."
"Love."
"Adventure."
Then my turn; "tension." What? Why tension? It didn't make much sense at the time, so I dismissed it as a stupid attempt at being different. But now I think I was on to something.

A few days ago, the Witty Rat and I were having one of those random conversations of brilliance that thrill me to no end. (I gotta say, my buddy Jack nailed it: "Those are the golden sessions... when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk.") We talked about the tensions in our lives, and in our relationship with Jesus. As humans, we tend to sway from one extreme to another, but so often the Word calls us to a balance: God's sovereignty AND our responsibility, truth AND love, justice AND mercy, for example. Balance requires incredible energy (trust us, we're dancers); its not simply staying still. You have to fight hard to hold position in the middle ground.

(It's not that these things actually oppose each other; if one truly embraces justice, he or she will also have to embrace mercy. In our limited understandings however, these things often just look like opposing forces.)

But why the tension?(Now I'm not talking about the tension between good and evil or right and wrong, that's a whole different discussion; I'm talking about the balance between two truths.) Why can't we just pick one and be done? Well, I think it's because God has set eternity in our hearts. He created us for eternal relationship with Him, wouldn't it only make sense that we can't ever be done with what is meant to last forever? We can never learn enough about Him. The depth of our relationship with Him is bottomless. We can't become good enough or content with Him enough.

So let's not become lazy. Tension forces us into constant action, and that's how our relationship with Christ should be, active.

I hope this makes sense, I had a hard time trying to express it.

Inlustrat

"On the glorious splendor of Your majesty,
and on Your wonderous works, I will meditate.
They shall speak of the might of Your awesome deeds,
and I will declare Your greatness.
They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
and shall sing aloud of Your righteousness." ~Psalm 145:5-7

"The steadfast love of The Lord never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness.
'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul,
'therefore I will hope in Him.'
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
to the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of The Lord." ~ Lamentations 3:22-26

"If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there Your hand shall lead me,
and Your right hand shall hold me." ~ Psalm 139:9-10