"Draw me"

I stand amazed. This quote goes along perfectly with what I have been pondering of late. Read it carefully! The Spirit of God gives wisdom and understanding. Praise God!

-------------------------------

The Drawing Of The Father

"No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him." John vi. 44.

"When God draws me, the issue of my will comes in at once--- will I react on the revelation which God gives---will I come to Him? Discussion on spiritual matters is an impertinence. Never discuss with anyone when God speaks. Belief is not an intellectual act; belief is a moral act whereby I deliberately commit myself. Will I dump myself down absolutely on God and transact on what He says? If I will, I shall find I am based on Reality that is as sure as God's throne.

In preaching the gospel, always push an issue of will. Belief must be the will to believe. There must be a surrender of the will, not a surrender to persuasive power, a deliberate launching forth on God and on what He says until I am no longer confident in what I have done, I am confident only in God. The hindrance is that I will not trust God, but only my mental understanding. As far as feelings go, I must stake all blindly. I must will to believe, and this can never be done without a violent effort on my part to disassociate myself from my old ways of looking at things, and by putting myself right over to Him.

Every man is made to reach out beyond his grasp. It is God who draws me, and my relationship to Him in the first place is a personal one, not an intellectual one. I am introduced into the relationship by the miracle of God and my own will to believe, then I begin to get an intelligent appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transaction."

-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest pg. 357

----------------------------

This really blew me away. It is God who draws us, and when He calls we must not discuss it; we must go. No time to sit and decide whether or not He has called; He has, and we must obey. Belief is not understanding of the mind, but of the heart. Will we abandon unto Him? We must forsake all; we must pick up our cross. He has left it up to us to decide, but it is He that will do it. And He will so get us out of the way that it is only obvious that it is He that did it, and not anything that we accomplished. We pray to fall in love; He draws us, and then He shows us what He has done by gently revealing to us the Wisdom of His ways and giving us His Spirit of understanding. Then all that we can to is praise Him. Oh, and the Love that comes with understanding! I think that the heavenly pattern for love is that when we love someone, we seek to know everything there is to know about the person. We note the things they love, the things they hate, the things that make their eyes shine, or make them laugh. Our eyes follow theirs to see what they care about. We love to listen to them talk about the things they delight in. We seek to know the things that make them weep so that we might weep with them. And we do not study them just for head knowledge about them! We take it to our heart, and then the end result is meant to be one thing: greater love.

Such is how our relationship with God is meant to be. That our love "may abound still more and more in knowledge and discernment." That we may approve the things that are excellent!!!

A (Girly) Cheer For The Warrior-Poets!

A Letter To:
The men in my life, young and old, who desire the Christ Life above all else:
Greetings.
In a world of mediocre men with a mediocre view of manhood, mediocre expectations, mediocre dreams, mediocre love, mediocre faith, and mediocre Christianity...

It is my earnest desire that you would not stop halfway up the mountain.

That when you begin to grow weary or complacent, you would behold the Man who did not stop halfway, but carried the weight of the world to the top of the mountain and died there amidst scorn and mockery---and find your strength in this truth: "He is risen!"
Oh, that you would know Him in the power of His risen Life---the Life which flows and fills to overflowing, if only you would open up and receive it.

Where are the Chivalrous? Where are the Knights in shining armor? Where are the Mighty Men of old?

Behold the Man who ever stands Victorious! If you would but go to Him and lay yourself at His feet, show Him all the wretchedness of sinful flesh, the heart so black, so cold, so petrified within your chest... Then, only then, will He draw His mighty Sword and knight you, that you may bear His Name, His Sword, His Love, and His Life. And you will be more than a conqueror through Him.

I pray that you would learn to be leaders, not as those in this world, but as the One Great Leader, who did nothing of His own, but only that which His Father sent Him to do.
Depend on Him, Who is your Life, Who knows no end, for everything you may need.
When yieldedness comes, then dreams come true. I know this personally, by His great grace. So bring in the tithes, the tithes of all, no matter how broken and small... and you will look up to find Heaven's windows opened wide. Try Him in this; He is ever faithful.

I know I am but a young girl with still so many young girls' dreams in my heart, but if you would
pause and consider these things it would bring me great joy.
And know this: I am running this race by the same Strength, near you, and am cheering you on more than you know.
As your sister/daughter in the Lord, I pray that my own life would encourage and not harm you in your pursuit of the Prize.

The reason I ended up writing this letter is because... the Bravehearted Gospel website is up!!!
With all my heart do I commend such manhood as this.
Check it out!
There's some really powerful and encouraging stuff on there. It has been a huge blessing to me (and I'm a girl!) More and more I'm beginning to like the manly stuff; I find my mighty King in the midst of it.

So this is just one girl's letter to the guys in her life---
with a girly "huzzah!" for the Warrior-Poets!

May you follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.

Soli Deo Gloria!
Sarochka

www.braveheartedgospel.com

...And A New Song

Lord, our heart to You we bring

Overflowing with this theme

We recite our offering

About our King

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are fairer than all men

Grace is poured upon Your lips

Lord, You ride in righteousness,

Mercy, and truth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And we worship You

We worship You

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Son of God, Risen King

We will never cease to sing

Lord, Your Name will be known

...always

Lamb of God, Clothed in Strength

We will never cease to praise

Lord, Your Name will be great

...always

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Any beauty we possess

Lord, is given by Your grace
If Your desire is for us

Then here we are

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gird Your sword through endless days

You are mighty in your ways

We will, Lord, forget our name

To take on Yours

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And we worship You

Lord, we worship You

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Son of God, Risen King

We will never cease to sing

Lord, Your Name will be known

...always

Lamb of God, clothed in strength

We will never cease to praise

Lord, Your name will be great

...always
------------------------------
Scripture: Psalm 45

written March 3, 09

An Old Song...

In the beauty of a rainbow

There's something that whispers Your name

There's more than a promise

In those colors all aflame

They're singing about tomorrow

And beautiful things to come

pre-chorus:

I know that You are returning

That's why I'm always looking at the sky

Because I am longing

For that day when You arrive

chorus:

I want to see You, Jesus

I want to be with You

I can't wait for that day when You're coming

I want to hear Your voice

And walk with You

I can't wait for the day when You're coming back

When you come to take me home someday

To be with You for eternity

I will bow before Your mighty throne

And that's where I will stay

In the wonder of a sunrise

I feel Your Presence near

More than a new day

Your washing away the fear

And I'm catching a glimpse of Your glory

And beautiful things to come

In the power of the ocean
The waves are singing Your praise

More than a new song

Of all Your glorious ways

I'm dreaming about the future

And powerful things to come

written: dec. 18, 2007 + feb. 2008

1. God Is Love---In His Very Nature

"Some exceptionally gifted men may derive their conception of God from other sources than the Bible, but all I know of God I have got from the Bible, and those who taught me got what they taught from the Bible. In all my dreams and imaginings and visions I see God, but it is the God of the Bible that I see, and I feel Him to be near me. I see ever amid the mysteries of Providence and Grace and Creation 'a Face like my face,' and 'a Hand like this hand.' and I have learned to love God Who gave me such a sure way of knowing Him and left me not to the vain imaginings of my own sin-warped intellect.
In Creation. The love of God gives us a new method of seeing Nature. His voice is on the rolling air, we see Him in the rising sun, and in the setting He is fair; in the singing of birds, in the love of human hearts, the voice of God is in all. Had we but ears to hear the stars singing, to catch the glorious pealing anthem of praise echoing from the hills of immortality by the heavenly hosts!
In His Wisdom. God did not create man as a puppet to please a despotic idea of His own, He created us out of the superabundant flow of overflowing love and goodness, He created us susceptible of all the blessedness which He has ordained for us. He 'thought' us in the rapture of His own great heart, and lo, we are! Created in the image of God were we, innocent of evil, of great God-like capacities.
In His Power. The whole world moves but to His great inscrutable will, animate and inanimate creation, the celestial bodies moving on their orbits, the globe with all its diversified issues and accompaniments, are all subservient to this end.

Yes, God is good, in earth and sky,

In ocean depth and swelling wood,

Ten thousand voices ever cry,

God mad us all, and God is good.

In His Holiness. God walked with man and talked with him, He told him His mind, and showed him the precise path in which he must walk in order to enjoy the happiness He had ordained for him; He rejoiced in the fullness of His nature over man as His child, the offspring of His love. He left nothing unrevealed to man; He loved him. Oh, the joy and rapture of God the Father over man His son!

In His Justice. God showed to man that compliance with His dictates would ever mean eternal bliss and joy unspeakable and life and knowledge for evermore, but that ceasing to comply would mean loss of life with God and eternal death.

That was in the world's bright mornings when the morning stars sang together and all creation leapt in joy, but the wild, wild desolation of sin and disobedience and pride and selfish sinfulness entered and drave a great gulf between God's children and Himself. But, as ever, Love found a way, God came to us and for us, and we this day with chastened hearts and quivering lips and glistening eyes, say all afresh with deep adoration, God is Love.

If God exhibits such glorious love in His Nature, what, oh what, shall we say of the glories of the dispensation of His Grace! That God would have walked this earth had sin never entered is very likely, yet sin did not refrain Him from graciously walking and revealing Himself in communion with men. No, still He came. But men were so blinded by sin that they saw Him not, they knew Him not, while He hewed a way back through the hard face of sin to the heavenly shores."

(an excerpt from The Love of God, by Oswald Chambers)

A Dozen Girls + Snow!!!

Snow trip 2009 has come and gone, leaving in it's wake a dozen tired, red-faced girls. Our traditional trip was a bit different this year due to the fact that when we speedily made plans with only a few short days notice, all the guys were already scheduled to spend their Saturday with Mr. Filteau learning the art of plumbing. So this year it was all girls, moms, and a few dads.

On Saturday morning we all loaded up and drove to Horse Mountain, where we were happy to find lots of fresh snow. Mr. Gross led the way to an awesome slope which we never even knew was there! Upon climbing to the top we were a bit nervous; it sure looked a lot steeper from the top than it does from the bottom! After a few minutes of: "you go!", "no, you go!", I jumped off the edge with my board and was soon followed by more girls.

We decided to make a nice sled run that would be slick and fast, so Juicy and I hiked up with the rake and shovel, thinking that to start a track, we would get on a boogie board and I would steer while she sat backwards and held the rake. Bad idea! In about two seconds, we found ourselves nose first in snow. I got up laughing and looked over to find Juicy with her face and one arm buried in the snow, saying, "I'm stuck!!" She too was laughing pretty hard as I pulled her out.

We then decided that it might be better to stay on our feet while carving the run. :)

Throughout the afternoon it got slicker and faster and all the screaming girls took turns speeding down the hill. Mr. Mayer made a nice jump, which provided for some pretty good action shots and a lot of bruises. What a fun day!!!

The view from the top!!!

The Love Of God

"God is Love.
No one but God could have revealed that to the world, for men, and we all indeed, see nothing but its contradiction in our own limited world of experience. It needs but little imagination to construe the life of hundreds of this city's inhabitants into a vehement laughter at such a declaration as 'God is love.' From shattered, broken lives, from caverns of despair where fiends seem living rather than men, comes the existing contradiction to any such statement. no wonder the carnal mind, the merely intellectually cultured, consider us infatuated, mere dreamers, talking of love when murder and war and famine and lust and pestilence, and all the refinement of selfish cruelty abroad in the earth. But, oh the sublimity of the Abraham-like faith that dares to place the centre of its life and confidence and action and hope in an unseen and apparently unknown God, saying, 'God is love,' in spite of all appearances to the contrary; saying 'Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.' Such faith is counted to a man for righteousness.
Look back over your own history as revealed to you by grace, and you will see one central fact growing large---God is love. No matter how often your faith in such an announcement was clouded, no matter how the pain and suffering of the moment made you speak in a wrong mood, still this statement has borne its own evidence along with it most persistently---God is love. In the future, when trial and difficulties await you, do not be fearful, whatever and whoever you may lose faith in, let not this faith slip from You---God is love; whisper it not only to your heart in its hour of darkness, but here in your corner of God's earth and man's great city, live in the belief of it; preach it by your sweetened, chastened, happy life; sing it in the consecrated moments of peaceful joy, sing until all the world around you

is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

The world does not bid you sing, but God does.

Song is the sign of an unburdened heart; then sing your songs of love unbidden, ever rising higher and higher into fuller conception of the greatest, grandest fact on the stage of Time---God is love

But words and emotions pass, precious as their influence may be for a time, so when the duller moments come and the mind comes to require something more certain and sure to consider than memory of mere emotions and stirring sentiments---consider this revelation, the eternal fact that God is Love, not, God is loving. God and love are synonymous. Love is not an attribute of God, it is God; whatever God is, love is. If your conception of love does not agree with the justice of judgement and purity and holiness, then your idea of love is wrong. It is not love you conceive of in your mind, but some vague infinite foolishness, all tears and softness and infinite weakness."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

(an excerpt from Oswald Chambers' book The Love of God)

(more to come)

I Need A Translator

My hands do fail to understand the language of my soul

And all my great imaginings do rarely reach their goal

I am undone, I cannot speak

I need a translator.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, that my hands would learn to play

The music of my heart!

And guide my pen to demonstrate

The sweetest poet's art!

~~~~~~~~~~~

But they cannot.

I am undone.

I need a translator.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, that my lips would better speak

The praises of my King!

And beauteous pictures in my mind

My painting brush might bring!

~~~~~~~~~~~

But they cannot.

I am undone.

I need a translator.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Still, what I've recieved may I ever give;

No matter how stuttered and poor.

To truly bring my offering

I need a Translator.

"Whithersoever He Goeth"

God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. (Gal. 6:14)

"They were living to themselves; self with its hopes, and promises and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and had surrendered for it to be given them at any cost, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they had asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by 'as a refiner and purifier of silver,' until they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it to them it lacerated their hands.

They had asked they knew not what, nor how, but He had taken them at their word, and granted the all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow Him so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as the apostles when they thought that they had seen a spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide His awfulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer, to do than to give up, to bear the cross than to hang upon it. But they cannot go back, for they have come too near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them His promise, 'And if, I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me' (John 12:32).

But now at last their turn has come. Before, they had only heard of the mystery, but now they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love, as He did Mary and Peter, and they can but choose to follow.

Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams, they mystery of His cross shines out upon them. They behold Him lifted up, they gaze on the glory which rays from the wounds of His holy passion; and as they gaze they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and as His name shines through them, for He dwells in them. They live alone with Him above, in unspeakable fellowship; willing to lack what others own (and what they might have had), and to be unlike all, so that they are only like Him.

Such are they in all ages, 'who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.'

Had they chosen for themselves, of their friends chosen for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here, but less glorious in His kingdom. They would have had Lot's portion, not Abraham's. If they had halted anywhere---if God had taken off His hand and let them stray back---what would they have lost? What forfeits in resurrection?

But He stayed them up, even against themselves. Many a time their foot had well nigh slipped; but He in mercy held them up. Now, even in this life, they know that all He did was done well. It was good to suffer here, that they might reign hereafter; to bear the cross below, for they shall wear the crown above; and that not their will but His was done on them and in them."

Anonymous

Streams In The Desert, pg. 320

Art

Here are some of my recent art attempts. I have always loved watercolors,but I recently took a little drawing class and decided that pencil drawing is pretty cool too.

I never seem to find the time to just sit and draw, but once in a while I will get some burst of inspiration which usually leads to a new wall-decoration. I like to work from photographs that I have taken, which is what the following are.