Reflection(s)

This month marked a year for us in a new city. The decision was not the easiest to make but we both knew it had to bed one. We heard Gods voice separately, together, publicly, privately, and said " who are we not to say yes?" I thought a bit about what I would do but really I thought about Scarlett and how this decision would change everything for her. One of the ways that God spoke to me about moving was thru the life of Abraham. He said to Him in Genesis " go for yourself ( for your own advantage ) Away from your country, from your relatives, from your fathers house to a land that I will show you " - v. 1 AMP Then he follows up with all these wonderful immeasurable blessings and goodness. But I wonder why he had to leave all he knew. After a year here I think I am starting to get the picture, I am starting to see why when the Lord wants to change you you have to get away from all that is comfortable, all that you always known, from the ways everything has always been done. To be with Him. To know that even when you were surrounded by all you knew really he was all you evr had. It made me get quiet and really think if what defines me. What was my identity. It couldn't be in my friends or family or reputation or the 'who I knew' or the ' where I work' And this is exactly what I needed. This is why that one little phrase that God spoke to Abraham " go for yourself,( for your own advantage) " has been on my mind for so long. I needed to know who I was really and who He was really. I had lots of ideas about who He was, and about who I was but it wasn't really working to well for me. I was a newly married, new mom, not working and drowning in diapers and laundry and sadness. I was grieving something but I wasn't sure what that was. I thought it was that I missed working, that my identity was lost, that " this is it? Really?" feeling. That wasn't it at all. I didn't trust God with my heart. I thought I knew who He was but somewhere I forgot that He is good, trustworthy, my fufillment, the one who meets my needs, the one who cared if the world is revolving around the sun and my heart in the same moment, that he loves me. Truly, this deep, specific, because He wants to love. I didn't notice how much I was doing it all on my own. Trying to love my husband and my baby And other people out of what felt like emptiness. What I have learned: that I can't really love well by myself. In Ephesians Paul prays for the church saying we need the eyes of our heart enlightened to the spirit of wisdom and revelation to understand the fullness of Gods love. And so I started asking " more Lord- more wisdom, more revelation" and I got it. I finally understood that I really couldn't just love, that I needed wisdom and revelation to understand how deep, how wide how high, how MUCH his love covers us When you say " I love you" to someone and they say it back, especially early in a relationship there is a Warm and floaty feeling that envelops you. You knw it's true and everything feels bright and hopeful and lovely. You feel better about yourself, skinnier, prettier, clothes look better, you love people more than you had been,. All because all of a sudden you realized something about love. This is His heart. He loves me, Hes always in a good mood, and He wants to tell me I'm pretty. He s someone I can trust. And none of this was anything I could talk myself into or work for or figure out. I just had to ask for wisdom amid revelation and wait for an answer, wa for my eyes to see and my ears to hear. This was just a small part of that "for your own advantage" stuff. -L (p