Eat The Word

Text 5
Notes I’m Taken

Past all doing. Past all striving. Take me. Past all of me. Into you. Take me. Leaving all my piles. I did this. I missed that. Take me.  Emptying my pockets. Nothing left to keep. Take me.

 Take me with you, to be with you, where you’re going. Where you are. Take me.

No more trying to get it. I can’t think hard enough. I can’t beat my own heart, or stop it. Take me.

No more planning it out. No more controlling my life. Take me. Take me through your plan. Lead me from song to song. From fragrance to fragrance. From your love to your love. Take me.

 Take me with you, to be with you, where you’re going. Where you are. Take me.

#Jesus #spirit #intimacy

Text 5
Notes I am not alone

Growing up, I often felt alone. I was a peculiar kid with a funny imagination and a weird sense of humor. My family was broken with alcoholism and different kinds of abuse twisted my parent’s understanding of love. It was tough. Not the toughest, but it was tough.

On the hardest days it felt undeniably, inexplicably true that I would be alone without an advocate, without a true guardian, forever. I adopted the religion of buddhism when I was 16 as a reinforcement of those beliefs. Life was suffering. Life is an illusion. I would hope to one day freely float back into the misty force of life and finally forget all that plagued me.

This morning I’m pressing into some big life decisions mostly concerning work. I’m walking and praying and I am not alone. I’m praying and I’m startled to remember the stark truth that is sometimes accompanied by a feeling. He’s always with me. My faithful High Priest, making intercession for me. He leads by the hand, because he’s gentle, and because he’s given me need for a hand to hold. He breaks my stubborn spirit, so that the Liar will not bind my soul, so that I can hear his perfect voice. He sings the ancient song of a son and a father to my wanting ears and I am knit together, again, and continually, and once and for all.

I am not alone. You are with me. Give me ears to hear. Give me eyes to see. Lead me with your voice.

#Jesus #intimacy #presence

Quote 2
Notes

"

As big as You are, I am small, but Your shepherding makes me great.

I adore You, Shepherd. You gently move alongside me and prod me into beauty. You take my nothing and make it something. You are a safe guide, a holy guide, a not-going-to-let-me-stay-in-one pasture guide.

When I look at You as shepherd, something changes in me. I have no more need to fend for myself or carve my own way. Your role offers me reprieve from being for myself what I was never intended to be. Your shepherding takes weight off my shoulders and lets me be child, trusting sheep.

And when I bury myself deep within You, because You are a safe shepherd — when your safety invites all of me in — I see that there is nothing I lack.

You hold in your hand everything I could possibly need. I adore You, oh fulfillment of me, fulfillment of life. And when I see You as Shepherd, I see that every single want inside of me can be asked for from You.

You offer it to me. You invite me to ask. You shepherd me into total dependence. And You make me want to ask for everything You hold in Your hand.

When I get lost in Your guidance I am found in Your safe-keeping and the want that grows inside of me is for all of You.

I love Your all of You, what little I know of it. I thank you for endless, unsearchable wealth found in You.

Simple shepherd, come to make Yourself personal to me. Holy shepherd, meeting needs I don’t even know I have yet and making me want only You.

"

Sara Hagerty of Every Bitter Thing is Sweet

http://everybitterthingissweet.com/2011/03/my-shepherd/

(via minismith)

#faith #hope #jesus

Quote

"Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted."

Hebrews 2:17-18

#temptation #jesus #promise

Quote 3
Notes

"For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering."

Hebrews 2:10

#suffering #glory #jesus

Quote 4
Notes

"1 Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.4 And you know the way to where I am going.5 Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?6 Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

John 14:1-7

(Source: youversion.com)

#promise #scripture #john #jesus #kindness

Text What do I have left to lose?

Jesus, come and take from me whatever is required for me to fully lose my life. Remove everything until I am empty enough to receive all of you. I trust you.

34 Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Matthew 10:34-39

#Suffering #life #Jesus

Quote

"So Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him."

John 18:28-30

#john #scripture #father #jesus

Quote 2
Notes

"…If you knew me, you would know my Father also."

John 8:19

#john #scripture #jesus #father

Chat

Jesus:	Do you want to go away also?
Peter:	To whom shall we go?

#jesus #help #hope