For thus says the High and Lofty One
Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
"I dwell in the high and holy place,
With him who has a contrite and humble spirit,
To revive the spirit of the humble,
And to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
- Isaiah 57:15
"But on this one I will look:
On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit,
And who trembles at My word."
- Isaiah 66:2
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
But let patience have its perfect work,
that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
- James 1:2-4
But the meek shall inherit the earth
And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
- Psalm 37:11
The past weeks, I noticed a pattern in the books, Scripture passages, Bible lessons, online audio messages, and spiritual enrichment websites I have been reading, listening to, or studying.
One common thread runs through most of them... brokenness, being humble, poor in spirit, meek, and having a contrite heart.
The repetition is no longer just a mere coincidence.
Abba Father is calling my attention.
Abba Father is calling my attention.
So I have taken notice, and I am listening.
I was in Manila for nearly five weeks in May to June. Just a few days before I returned to Bacolod City, the Lord led me and my daughter to do a spiritual housecleaning over our home.
At that time God spoke clearly to me of letting go of an idol, fear, that had somehow positioned itself into my heart.
I dealt with it, at least I thought I did. But upon returning to my home city, I discovered that not only had it returned (probably it never left), it also had a companion, doubt.
What a relief to bare my heart before God and sense Him speaking truth to me -- that fear and doubt come as default emotions when I choose not to fully believe in His goodness.
Understandably, the human emotions of fear, insecurity, uncertainty, doubt... and so much more, are part of our fallen nature. To transform my way of thinking, a process of building up my faith is required, giving God room to change the way I perceive and respond to my life circumstances.
Like the Israelites who were delivered after 400 years as slaves under Egyptian cruel taskmasters, I need to live out my true identity as a daughter of the King... rescued, ransomed, and liberated, no longer in chains or in prison.
I need to shake off my slave mentality and assume my true identity as royalty.
It is a process, a lifelong process of renewing my mind.
You'd think that after having been a born-again Christian for nearly 43 years, I would already be fully transformed into thinking and behaving like the royal princess that I know I am.
Well, there are good days and not-so-good days, that's for sure.
As I often say, I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there.
Below is my story of how God brought me out of fear to a deeper faith in Him, in this my season of brokenness.
This year started off on a high note. Full of expectations of God's best plans for me, I welcomed the first few weeks of 2016, believing this was going to be a beautiful year.
Three weeks into the new year, the bomb dropped. It caught me off-guard, and thus began my emotional roller coaster ride.
It felt like the ship I was on had broken loose from its moorings, drifting far from the security of the harbor and out into the stormy sea.
It is easy to understand how fear enters such a picture.
What happened is not my fault, and definitely not my doing.
Going back over the timeline of my life, I know it is a petition I had offered before God dating thirty years back. Even then, I had held on to promises from His word, assuring me of a favorable response to my requests.
Now the children have all grown up. Eight years ago Ernie went home to heaven.
Humanly speaking, I am on my own.
Thirty years is a long time to wait... and yet, what choice do I have, but to wait some more?
I wanted to cry out to God, Foul! Father, it's not fair.
Right at the start, I could have opened my heart, told Him how I felt, and asked Him to show me what was going on.
Allowed myself to be vulnerable.
But that's not what I did.
Instead, I went on self-righteous mode and shifted my intellectual faith into high gear. I will trust in Him. He will provide, He will deliver. He is the God who keeps His promises.
It was, at best, a feeble effort to convince myself.
And of course it didn't work. Because in the spiritual realm, intellectual faith can only go so far.
A mental assent is, in reality, a wall of protection that we build around our hearts. Holding on to mere intellectual faith, or rulebook faith, results in spiritual pride and causes the heart to harden.
A theoretical response is not what God is looking for.
Having been away for over a month, I looked forward to being at our weekly Monday night Bible lessons again.
Lyndon briefly introduced the book of James, our new study series, then went right into the meat of the matter.
Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. - James 1:2,3
I knew Father God was talking to me. I whispered, Speak, Lord. Your daughter is listening.
Count it all joy...
The word hegeomai is the Greek word for count. It is an accounting term that literally means to account, specifically "to write a credit entry in an accounting book."
Each time I am confronted by a challenging situation, James says, "Put in a credit entry that reads Joy." That's right. The trials I encounter in life are to be considered as assets, not liabilities.
"Let trials fill up my Joy tank?!" I asked myself.
Although I have read and studied this book many times before, it was only now that my heart understood how trials can be a source of deep joy. Something to rejoice about, not to fear.
God desires to refine my rough edges. In the difficult circumstances of life He invites me to cooperate with Him in the process. I can rejoice and be glad for the opportunity to grow in grace.
A trial, contrary to what we normally think, is really a good thing. It is a test to prove if something is genuine or false. A sift to filter out the worthless so what is essential will remain.
They are tools God uses, first to reveal, then to purify, the quality of one's faith.
As in gold. Or silver.
Purifying gold takes time. The hardened rock must first go through a breaking process to expose the precious metals hidden within.
The crushed pieces of ore are then placed in a crucible, a melting pot that can withstand extreme heat of up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The intense heat in the furnace liquifies the gold and causes the dross to float to the surface. The refiner removes the dross.
But it doesn't end there. As the molten gold simmers in the crucible, heat is added, and more impurities rise to the surface which the goldsmith patiently and carefully removes. The process continues until the gold is smooth.
According to Psalm 12:6, this is a process repeated up to seven times:
The words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
Only when the refiner can see his undistorted reflection in the gold or the silver is the crucible removed from the fire. The molten precious metal is then poured into pre-heated molds and allowed to cool.
The refiner's fire! What a profound picture of how God purifies our hearts!
The crucial question is, Will I trust Him in this process?
In truth, life is a series of tests.
A pilot has to be tested before he can qualify to fly an airplane.
A surgeon has to be tested before he can be certified to perform operations.
How much more are tests needed to prove our faith is genuine! Only faith that has been purified, tested, and proven true, can withstand difficult circumstances and endure to the end.
Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
- James 1:4
By this time, I was fully convinced of the necessity of trials in my life.
I don't want a presumptuous faith, or unbroken faith. I want authentic faith, one that has been tried, and proven true.
The kind of faith I possess will spell the difference where I spend forever: everlasting life or eternal damnation.
Really, I should be grateful for the faith tests that come my way. They protect me from spiritual naïveté and equip me to make choices that lead to my eternal destiny.
Oftentimes, when adversity comes, I am so focused on the solution or the way out.
Understanding the foundational purpose of trials in life gave me a different perspective.
Something of eternal value is waiting to happen behind the scenes; it all depends on how I choose to respond.
God is building His kingly character into my heart. He is not into short cuts, and He does all things well.
He is refining my character.
I am after all, an unpolished chunk of ore. Trials are needed to break me to pieces, and be heated in the furnace of His love, until my faith is proven genuine and it can persevere to the end.
The way I understand it, the trial itself, and what God is doing in me through the trial, are two separate things. But maybe in God's eternal scheme of things that is not how it works. While I am hoping for a favorable resolution of the difficult circumstances I am facing, God is changing my heart in the process. He wants me to trust Him completely... even when the road is dark and the end is not in sight.
It is easier said than done. But that is what trust is all about.
His goal is to produce in me an enduring faith.
Only genuine faith will preserve my soul.
I will focus on the process, and trust God for the outcome.
I submit my will to God, agree with His purpose, and cooperate with Him.
Luke 21:19 is a timely reminder: By your patience, possess your souls.
Another version puts it this way: By your endurance you will gain your lives.
Being patient in the process takes more than a mere intellectual understanding. It requires a heart response.
Thus James points out the need to ask God for wisdom, that our response may align with what He intends to accomplish in our lives.
The waiting process is a vital part of it.
The book I am reading, Brokenness by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, has been speaking to me about this.
The heart God revives is one that is humble and contrite.
Nancy writes:
It is amazing how these different lessons are coming at me almost one after the other. I am an unrefined rock that must first be broken to pieces before the gold can be processed. I need to humble myself and cooperate with God.
He is the Refiner, He knows what He is doing.
Two Sundays ago Pastor Jim Cecy was the visiting speaker at our church. Pastor Jim has served as senior pastor and teacher at the Campus Bible Church in Fresno, California, for the past twenty years.
Again, the message he gave cut through my heart.
He spoke on Psalm 37, one of the Bible passages I consider as my turn-around passage. Many years ago, in the midst of a difficult season, Abba Father, through this psalm imparted a powerful truth to me, challenging me to live a life well-lived in the circumstances I was in.
Do not fret because of evildoers
Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity...
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
To fret is to be anxious, or to worry.
Worry tells us to put our faith in fear, which is such an abomination to God.
Worry opens the door to jealousy, and jealousy leads to death.
A person who is always worrying eventually becomes an envious person, because he or she is always comparing his circumstances with that of others whom he perceives as being better off than himself.
Worry is pure and simple unbelief in the face of God's goodness and faithfulness. It undermines the faith process needed to make us become mature sons and daughters of God our Father.
Worry is the antithesis of trust. It is Satan's scheme to make us become like him. Taking this low road is a downhill path to death, ultimately turning us into grumblers, complainers, fault-finders.
Faith points me in the opposite direction.
I choose to walk up the high road of humility and delight.
Delight yourself also in the LORD,
and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
This is the kind of response that God honors.
Delight, in Hebrew is עָנַג (anog) and literally means "to have a soft, delicate, and pliable heart."
Giving fear the authority to rule my life hardens my heart, preventing me from cooperating with God's beautiful purposes.
On the other hand, to delight in Him is to humble myself before him, seek Him first, respond with joy at knowing Him more... making my heart soft, delicate, and tender.
And He shall give me what my heart desires!
God's been really drawing my attention. Many articles I've read online hit the nail right on the head. Here's one excerpt:
What amazes me is how God is compiling all these related insights under one file, like reference materials for a post-graduate course in the school called Life.
Abba Father was taking hold of my heart.
My heart really overflows these days... feeling the soft warm and gentle rays of the morning sun shining through the window of my heart... pushing back the darkness, melting the hardness.
I am so thankful that God has taken time to explain things clearly to me. And for giving me a different perspective from which to see the circumstances that had been weighing me down the past months.
He has made my heart soft and pliable again.
The over-all lesson is to rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him (Psalm 37:7).
Resting in the LORD is to quiet myself before Him. To be still and to listen.
But to wait patiently is קָוָה (qavah) in Hebrew, means to twist, to stretch. It refers to the tension that results in being stretched, yet being able to endure. An active kind of waiting. Actually a paradox -- the resting is at the same time a stretching, both are happening at the same time.
As this beautiful, gentle month of August draws to a close, I name it: Embracing Brokenness.
Yes, I am embracing my season of brokenness.
I am allowing patience and perseverance to build character and hope into my heart.
Enduring faith is what I desire.
Postscript. Sunday, August 21, 2016, 4:06 a.m.
In this season of being broken, pulverized maybe... of wanting to make sense of what is happening... when my familiar comforts are slipping away... when best friends I thought would be forever are moving on... without me... when my well laid out plans are being re-written by an Unseen Hand...
I no longer want to fight back.
Not in the sense of giving up, or being resigned. No, not that. But there's release in giving in, and letting go seems to be the only way. Letting the One writing my story have His way.
It's His story, you see.
No longer a fighting back, or attempting to recover the pieces... or wishing for the sense of order and security of the years gone by to return.
Just this ... it's a new season of embracing my brokenness... hugging my new normal... and knowing deep within that a new kind of rugged beauty is replacing what I thought I have lost. And realizing that nothing was really lost. All the pieces are still there... nothing is wasted. Life doesn't have to be perfect. It's fine to be just good enough. For the Master Builder is doing a masterpiece. And He's not finished yet.
Kintsugi.... a Japanese kind of art that highlights the brokenness. I have fallen in love with the concept. Putting gold in the cracks... Beautiful, simply beautiful. Leaves me breathless at the thought. Lost for words. Makes me embrace my brokenness just a little bit closer.
I am kintsukuroi. A work in progress. The Kintsugi Master. He's really good at making broken things beautiful. I can trust Him. I want to trust Him. I choose to trust Him. My life is in His hands.
He knows the way that I take... and when He has tested me, I will come out as gold. Job 23:10
This year will be beautiful year after all. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
My heart responds in worship.
I was in Manila for nearly five weeks in May to June. Just a few days before I returned to Bacolod City, the Lord led me and my daughter to do a spiritual housecleaning over our home.
At that time God spoke clearly to me of letting go of an idol, fear, that had somehow positioned itself into my heart.
I dealt with it, at least I thought I did. But upon returning to my home city, I discovered that not only had it returned (probably it never left), it also had a companion, doubt.
What a relief to bare my heart before God and sense Him speaking truth to me -- that fear and doubt come as default emotions when I choose not to fully believe in His goodness.
Understandably, the human emotions of fear, insecurity, uncertainty, doubt... and so much more, are part of our fallen nature. To transform my way of thinking, a process of building up my faith is required, giving God room to change the way I perceive and respond to my life circumstances.
Like the Israelites who were delivered after 400 years as slaves under Egyptian cruel taskmasters, I need to live out my true identity as a daughter of the King... rescued, ransomed, and liberated, no longer in chains or in prison.
It is a process, a lifelong process of renewing my mind.
You'd think that after having been a born-again Christian for nearly 43 years, I would already be fully transformed into thinking and behaving like the royal princess that I know I am.
Well, there are good days and not-so-good days, that's for sure.
As I often say, I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there.
Below is my story of how God brought me out of fear to a deeper faith in Him, in this my season of brokenness.
Three weeks into the new year, the bomb dropped. It caught me off-guard, and thus began my emotional roller coaster ride.
It felt like the ship I was on had broken loose from its moorings, drifting far from the security of the harbor and out into the stormy sea.
It is easy to understand how fear enters such a picture.
What happened is not my fault, and definitely not my doing.
Going back over the timeline of my life, I know it is a petition I had offered before God dating thirty years back. Even then, I had held on to promises from His word, assuring me of a favorable response to my requests.
Now the children have all grown up. Eight years ago Ernie went home to heaven.
Humanly speaking, I am on my own.
Thirty years is a long time to wait... and yet, what choice do I have, but to wait some more?
I wanted to cry out to God, Foul! Father, it's not fair.
Right at the start, I could have opened my heart, told Him how I felt, and asked Him to show me what was going on.
Allowed myself to be vulnerable.
But that's not what I did.
Instead, I went on self-righteous mode and shifted my intellectual faith into high gear. I will trust in Him. He will provide, He will deliver. He is the God who keeps His promises.
It was, at best, a feeble effort to convince myself.
And of course it didn't work. Because in the spiritual realm, intellectual faith can only go so far.
A mental assent is, in reality, a wall of protection that we build around our hearts. Holding on to mere intellectual faith, or rulebook faith, results in spiritual pride and causes the heart to harden.
A theoretical response is not what God is looking for.
Having been away for over a month, I looked forward to being at our weekly Monday night Bible lessons again.
Lyndon briefly introduced the book of James, our new study series, then went right into the meat of the matter.
Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. - James 1:2,3
I knew Father God was talking to me. I whispered, Speak, Lord. Your daughter is listening.
Count it all joy...
The word hegeomai is the Greek word for count. It is an accounting term that literally means to account, specifically "to write a credit entry in an accounting book."
Each time I am confronted by a challenging situation, James says, "Put in a credit entry that reads Joy." That's right. The trials I encounter in life are to be considered as assets, not liabilities.
"Let trials fill up my Joy tank?!" I asked myself.
Although I have read and studied this book many times before, it was only now that my heart understood how trials can be a source of deep joy. Something to rejoice about, not to fear.
God desires to refine my rough edges. In the difficult circumstances of life He invites me to cooperate with Him in the process. I can rejoice and be glad for the opportunity to grow in grace.
As in gold. Or silver.
Purifying gold takes time. The hardened rock must first go through a breaking process to expose the precious metals hidden within.
The crushed pieces of ore are then placed in a crucible, a melting pot that can withstand extreme heat of up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The intense heat in the furnace liquifies the gold and causes the dross to float to the surface. The refiner removes the dross.
The Refiner's Fire
But it doesn't end there. As the molten gold simmers in the crucible, heat is added, and more impurities rise to the surface which the goldsmith patiently and carefully removes. The process continues until the gold is smooth.
According to Psalm 12:6, this is a process repeated up to seven times:
The words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
Only when the refiner can see his undistorted reflection in the gold or the silver is the crucible removed from the fire. The molten precious metal is then poured into pre-heated molds and allowed to cool.
The crucial question is, Will I trust Him in this process?
In truth, life is a series of tests.
A pilot has to be tested before he can qualify to fly an airplane.
A surgeon has to be tested before he can be certified to perform operations.
How much more are tests needed to prove our faith is genuine! Only faith that has been purified, tested, and proven true, can withstand difficult circumstances and endure to the end.
Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
- James 1:4
By this time, I was fully convinced of the necessity of trials in my life.
I don't want a presumptuous faith, or unbroken faith. I want authentic faith, one that has been tried, and proven true.
The kind of faith I possess will spell the difference where I spend forever: everlasting life or eternal damnation.
Really, I should be grateful for the faith tests that come my way. They protect me from spiritual naïveté and equip me to make choices that lead to my eternal destiny.
Oftentimes, when adversity comes, I am so focused on the solution or the way out.
Understanding the foundational purpose of trials in life gave me a different perspective.
Something of eternal value is waiting to happen behind the scenes; it all depends on how I choose to respond.
God is building His kingly character into my heart. He is not into short cuts, and He does all things well.
He is refining my character.
I am after all, an unpolished chunk of ore. Trials are needed to break me to pieces, and be heated in the furnace of His love, until my faith is proven genuine and it can persevere to the end.
The way I understand it, the trial itself, and what God is doing in me through the trial, are two separate things. But maybe in God's eternal scheme of things that is not how it works. While I am hoping for a favorable resolution of the difficult circumstances I am facing, God is changing my heart in the process. He wants me to trust Him completely... even when the road is dark and the end is not in sight.
It is easier said than done. But that is what trust is all about.
His goal is to produce in me an enduring faith.
Only genuine faith will preserve my soul.
I will focus on the process, and trust God for the outcome.
I submit my will to God, agree with His purpose, and cooperate with Him.
Luke 21:19 is a timely reminder: By your patience, possess your souls.
Another version puts it this way: By your endurance you will gain your lives.
Being patient in the process takes more than a mere intellectual understanding. It requires a heart response.
Thus James points out the need to ask God for wisdom, that our response may align with what He intends to accomplish in our lives.
The waiting process is a vital part of it.
The book I am reading, Brokenness by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, has been speaking to me about this.
The heart God revives is one that is humble and contrite.
Nancy writes:
Contrite is one word that is used in the Old Testament to speak of brokenness. That word suggests something that is crushed into small particles or ground into powder, as a rock is pulverized. What is it that God wants to pulverize in us? It is not our spirit He wants to break, nor is it our essential personhood, He wants to break our self-will... True brokenness is the breaking of my self-will, so that the life and spirit of the Lord Jesus may be released through me.
It is amazing how these different lessons are coming at me almost one after the other. I am an unrefined rock that must first be broken to pieces before the gold can be processed. I need to humble myself and cooperate with God.
He is the Refiner, He knows what He is doing.
Two Sundays ago Pastor Jim Cecy was the visiting speaker at our church. Pastor Jim has served as senior pastor and teacher at the Campus Bible Church in Fresno, California, for the past twenty years.
Again, the message he gave cut through my heart.
He spoke on Psalm 37, one of the Bible passages I consider as my turn-around passage. Many years ago, in the midst of a difficult season, Abba Father, through this psalm imparted a powerful truth to me, challenging me to live a life well-lived in the circumstances I was in.
Do not fret because of evildoers
Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity...
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
To fret is to be anxious, or to worry.
Worry tells us to put our faith in fear, which is such an abomination to God.
Worry opens the door to jealousy, and jealousy leads to death.
A person who is always worrying eventually becomes an envious person, because he or she is always comparing his circumstances with that of others whom he perceives as being better off than himself.
Worry is pure and simple unbelief in the face of God's goodness and faithfulness. It undermines the faith process needed to make us become mature sons and daughters of God our Father.
Worry is the antithesis of trust. It is Satan's scheme to make us become like him. Taking this low road is a downhill path to death, ultimately turning us into grumblers, complainers, fault-finders.
Faith points me in the opposite direction.
I choose to walk up the high road of humility and delight.
Delight yourself also in the LORD,
and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
- Psalm 37:4
This is the kind of response that God honors.
Delight, in Hebrew is עָנַג (anog) and literally means "to have a soft, delicate, and pliable heart."
Giving fear the authority to rule my life hardens my heart, preventing me from cooperating with God's beautiful purposes.
On the other hand, to delight in Him is to humble myself before him, seek Him first, respond with joy at knowing Him more... making my heart soft, delicate, and tender.
And He shall give me what my heart desires!
God's been really drawing my attention. Many articles I've read online hit the nail right on the head. Here's one excerpt:
God seriously messed up Abraham's life plan, and it turned out to be a really good thing. God accomplished for Abraham what Abraham could never have accomplished on his own.
The moral of the story? God really, truly knows what He is doing. He usually takes longer than we would like. He often leads us through strange territory. Sometimes He defers, or even destroys, our dreams. But God, our loving, tender, delightful Father, knows exactly what He is doing. He is accomplishing more in you and through you than you could ever think or imagine.
Are you in a place you never expected to be? Has God taken you on a path you never would have willfully chosen? Take heart. God hasn't deserted you. He hasn't forgotten you. He hasn't made a mistake. He knows exactly what he's doing. He knows exactly what you need and where you need to be.
The truth is, God's life plan is always better than mine. (Stephen Altrogge)
What amazes me is how God is compiling all these related insights under one file, like reference materials for a post-graduate course in the school called Life.
Abba Father was taking hold of my heart.
My heart really overflows these days... feeling the soft warm and gentle rays of the morning sun shining through the window of my heart... pushing back the darkness, melting the hardness.
I am so thankful that God has taken time to explain things clearly to me. And for giving me a different perspective from which to see the circumstances that had been weighing me down the past months.
He has made my heart soft and pliable again.
The over-all lesson is to rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him (Psalm 37:7).
Resting in the LORD is to quiet myself before Him. To be still and to listen.
But to wait patiently is קָוָה (qavah) in Hebrew, means to twist, to stretch. It refers to the tension that results in being stretched, yet being able to endure. An active kind of waiting. Actually a paradox -- the resting is at the same time a stretching, both are happening at the same time.
As this beautiful, gentle month of August draws to a close, I name it: Embracing Brokenness.
Yes, I am embracing my season of brokenness.
I am allowing patience and perseverance to build character and hope into my heart.
Enduring faith is what I desire.
In this season of being broken, pulverized maybe... of wanting to make sense of what is happening... when my familiar comforts are slipping away... when best friends I thought would be forever are moving on... without me... when my well laid out plans are being re-written by an Unseen Hand...
I no longer want to fight back.
Not in the sense of giving up, or being resigned. No, not that. But there's release in giving in, and letting go seems to be the only way. Letting the One writing my story have His way.
It's His story, you see.
No longer a fighting back, or attempting to recover the pieces... or wishing for the sense of order and security of the years gone by to return.
Just this ... it's a new season of embracing my brokenness... hugging my new normal... and knowing deep within that a new kind of rugged beauty is replacing what I thought I have lost. And realizing that nothing was really lost. All the pieces are still there... nothing is wasted. Life doesn't have to be perfect. It's fine to be just good enough. For the Master Builder is doing a masterpiece. And He's not finished yet.
Kintsugi.... a Japanese kind of art that highlights the brokenness. I have fallen in love with the concept. Putting gold in the cracks... Beautiful, simply beautiful. Leaves me breathless at the thought. Lost for words. Makes me embrace my brokenness just a little bit closer.
I am kintsukuroi. A work in progress. The Kintsugi Master. He's really good at making broken things beautiful. I can trust Him. I want to trust Him. I choose to trust Him. My life is in His hands.
He knows the way that I take... and when He has tested me, I will come out as gold. Job 23:10
photo credits
This year will be beautiful year after all. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
My heart responds in worship.
7 comments:
This post held a profound message for me in the sum of these parts:
” that fear and doubt come as default emotions when I choose not to fully believe in His goodness.”
”It is a process, a lifelong process of renewing my mind.”
”Because in the spiritual realm, intellectual faith can only go so far.”
The accounting analogy really hit home and confirmed that this would be a bookmarked post that I would reread again and again….and this sentence - ”I will focus on the process, and trust God for the outcome.” needs to be a plaque on the wall of my office…
How wonderful and amazing our God is to lead us to His words spoken or written by His children…my heart is encouraged today and I thank you for that.
It gets so weary at times ... but God is always there for us... gently leading us through those times...I love the way you share your life thoughts and christian faith...
Dearest Lidia, May all get better soon and it will. I felt I have experience this process already, I was not able to control anything that was happening in my life, God wanted to break me and it was the best thing that could have happened to me, but going through the valley was the hardest. I believe God will continue to break my self will again in time. I feel I couldn't have been where I'm in my life now if I hadn't experienced what I felt. Joy is coming to you, God is preparing you for it :O) Sandy xo
p.s. this will be a big change for you
The Japanese vessel art spoke profoundly to me and I'm grateful to look at my brokenness that way too, seeing it like the Lord does. Psalm 37 throws me a life savor in so many ways. I would also highlight those verses! Thanks for stopping by and paying me a visit. Your words are always precious whenever or wherever I see them!
Sometimes your words speak so profoundly to my heart, into just the place and season that I am in, that I myself am at a loss for words to tell you. This post is like that for me, reaching deep into me. I have also felt a sense of brokenness for the last several months. And yes, I have made fear an idol - always paying so much attention to it, giving it priority. I am praying for relief and release from its power. And praying that God will repair the cracks in my heart that fear has caused.
May we always know, dear sister, that The Potter is good. And His shaping is done with great and unfailing love.
GOD BLESS!
Much love, dear friend. You are such a blessing to our sisterhood .. so glad to have met you, too. Praying for you that God's plans are revealed in His perfect timing. Take comfort in His great love for you.
When reading I heard. "You have been faithful over little. I will give you more." I don't know if the words were meant for you or me. So I am sharing.
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