Arise from the dead....

My Utmost for His Highest has to be one of the most challenging books I've encountered. It's great though. Summer 2005, I lived in NC before I moved here in January 2006, in a cabin in the woods, alone, and I read My Utmost every morning and I just learned and grew so much that summer, it was probably the best thing that happened to me, but that's a story for another post.

So I decided to pick it back up this week after seeing a friend reading it and remembering how useful it had been to me before. I just did some flipping, decided to not follow the dates today and landed on February 16, entitled The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative. This one is just so good and applicable, I just have to share it.

I'm pretty much going to type out the whole thing here, it's pretty self-explanatory, so I don't have too much to interject.

"Arise from the dead..." (Eph. 5:14) Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, "Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard -just do what needs to be done!" That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, "Get up and get going," suddenly we find that initiative is inspired. We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, "Arise from the dead...." When God sends His inspiration, it comes to use with such miraculous power that we are able to "arise from the dead" and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we "get up and get going." God does not give us overcoming life - he gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says. "Arise from the dead...," we have to get ourselves up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, "Stretch out your hand" (Matt. 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life.


I guess this rings true with me b/c after quitting my job and stepping into the unknown, I truly was dead in my job b/c it wasn't my passion and now that I took the initiative and I am following my passion, I have His inspiration and I really do have life as I am overcoming.

AND! With the celebration of Easter last week and the hope that comes from the tomb, knowing that God/Christ is only capable of rising from the dead, then it would only make sense that only He can tell us to "Arise from the dead..." and give us life through spiritual initiative.

holy crap it's been a while....

....i'll try to do better for my faithfulchrissextonreaders.

so a lot has been going on, if i blogged all of my thoughts, well, at least people would have something to read.

i downloaded this song from apple's free downloads of the week and since i can't articulate my feelings well, i let songs do it, here are some of the lyrics. i'm just going to be vulnerable with this one, but it's something i've been dealing with a lot lately. here goes...

She loves her mama's lemonade,
Hates the sounds that goodbyes make.
She prays one day she'll find someone to need her.
She swears that there's no difference,
Between the lies and complements.
It's all the same if everybody leaves her.

And every magazine tells her she's not good enough,
The pictures that she sees make her cry.

And she would change everything, everything just ask her.
Caught in the in between of beautiful disaster,
And she needs someone to take her home.

She's giving boys what they want, tries to act so nonchalant,
Afraid they'll see that she's lost her direction.
She never stays the same for long,
Assuming that she'll get it wrong.
Perfect only in her imperfection.

She's not a drama queen,
She doesn't want to feel this way

Cuz she's just the way she is, but no ones told her that's ok.

And she would change everything, everything just ask her.
Caught in the in between of beautiful disaster,

I really feel like this. i think most girls do, but i'm really struggling with loving myself. and loving oneself is very different from being selfish. i've always felt this way, but i'm finally letting myself admit to myself that i don't love myself...are you following me?

i don't think i'll ever find someone until i can finally love the me God created. sometimes i think that no one will ever love me b/c of all the reasons i don't love myself, but how can i ever let someone else love me if i don't love myself? whew, that was a tongue twister! just something i've been thinking a lot about lately.