My life has a theme... (I think sometimes it has a theme song... and I might be humming it...but I digress)
My life has a theme - year to year it seems God is showing me things that I didn't understand. And I have a choice, I can reject those things as hard, new, strange, weird - or I can dive into the difficult and figure it out together with Him. I have chosen the later.
So last year (and it really does tend to run fall to fall!) the theme was "I AM doing new thing" - The I AM being God himself and his message to me that He was doing something new and to HOLD ON because I will miss it, I will barely perceive it.
Isaiah 43:19-21 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.
This was very true- one year and our family looks entirely different, one year and our jobs look entirely different, one year and our lives look ENTIRELY different. He wasn't kidding - He was doing a NEW THING. New things can be hard things. I can choose the new thing, but sometimes that means I have to let the old thing break, be shattered into a million pieces so that the new thing can come out of it. New things can sound so good - until you realize that means leaving the old things behind.
This year my theme has been changed - still in the midst of the new things being born, still in the midst of a LOT of personal change - my theme has become REMEMBER.
Remember - and there isn't just a single verse, but the entire book of Deuteronomy, and Ruth, and Job. So remembering has a bigger vision - it's like: Remember who I AM, and Remember who you were, and who you are now, Remember what I have brought you through, Remember what I have commanded you to do....
Remembering is a whole lot like Faith. It is the personal testimony of each of us, it is the Faith-evidence that we each hold, not a wishy washy feeling of "I have faith" but the concrete, the proven, the tried and true, the assurance that remembering God's goodness towards us, God's pursuit of us, God's faithfulness, God's forgiveness and even God's displeasure towards us - helps us to better run the race that is before us.
Hebrews 11:1-3
Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. 2 Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation.3 By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.
A favorite quote of mine is "Sometimes when things are falling apart, they are really falling together for your good." and this is so important and part of that soul amnesia that we all suffer from - that we have to, have to, HAVE TO! keep remembering the goodness, faithfulness, righteousness, and awe-inspiringness of God.
Sometimes, when you go through a thing you just survive it. You look back and wonder how that happened, life seems like a blur - it is only later that you see the pieces of it - how it fell together, and how the Lord blessed.
My first remember moment, although there are a few before this - times when I heard the Lord speak and really wanted to follow Him and do right but had no idea how to do that - comes when I was 27 years old.
Working as a counselor, married, three kids in school - we had purchased a home in Heath and we blessed by every worldly standard there was. Our neighbors were lovely, our house was fantastic, our kids did well in school, we had a great church, a great group of friends, nice cars - life was good - all the way around - life was good.
And then - I heard God speak to me one day at church - I was under heavy conviction to quit my job.... Quit my JOB!!?? what? That can't be right! I have a great job, they love me here - I worked HARD to get here - they are sooo happy with me and I looove it! NO! I can't quit my job - how foolish, I must have misheard that one...
And then another week - "Quit your job!" So I talked to Drason about it - no way we could make it if I quit my job, that is foolishness for sure - nope! I can't quit my job!
And then again - "Quit your job" and again - week after week for about 6 months, I could not escape the fact that I was constantly bombarded with the conviction that I needed to quit my job and I consistently said "no way!"
It was fall, there was a special speaker at our church that day and the fire alarms started to go off. Drason got up to go help turn them off (of course he was the one with the knowledge of how to do that) and comes back to sit down... about 20 minutes later they go off again - again, Drason gets up and handles it.... and about 15 more minutes they go off again.... I still to this day can not tell you what that message was about, but it was the one I needed to hear that day. It is time for the invitation, Drason takes his seat beside me, and I hear the Lord speak to me again, but this time it is different, this time it is like a huge download of information in just a few words - "This is the last time" This is the last time I'm going to ask you to follow me, to quit your job. Either you decide today that you will follow me, or not. I won't ask again....
I was crying, Drason who had literally just sat down takes my arm and helps me to the alter, I just sob and in that moment I give God my "Yes" forever, whatever He wants, for as long as I live, it is His - even quitting my job.
Every day before this day, I had doubts about my salvation - and every day since I never have. My life changed drastically that Fall day, I turned in my 2 weeks notice the next day and they offered me a raise and a better schedule (which I still refused).
It occurred to me for the first time the other day that God pursued me. It was a shocking revelation for me. Wonderful and too good to be true - but completely true. For 6 months God - creator of the universe - pursued me. That is scandalous love, love that is beyond my reasoning.
Remembering makes us whole human beings. I needed to know, to remember, that I was pursued by the creator of the universe.
Thank you Heavenly Father!
Amanda
