ants! Oh my!

(written by Jennifir)

Matthew 6:33

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,

and all these things will be given to you as well.

Psalm 37:4

Delight yourself in the Lord

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Thursday night as I sat outside on the the concrete sidewalk at Faith Community Church I spent some time talking to God. I sat still as he instructs and began to focus on an ant that had crawled onto my paper. I watched him as he moved fast in one direction, then switched in another. He was seeking. Seeking food. Seeking the desire of his little ant heart. He was hungry. Hungry for whatever morsel he could find. As I watched him my heart went out to him. I began thinking of how I was before I chose to believe in Jesus. How I was very much like this ant who is seeking and his path is not straight, but he has a focus. He just couldn't see it. I couldn't see what I was seeking for so long. I was searching. Stumbling on this and that. Stumbling on buddhism. Stumbling on new age stuff like tarot cards and astrology. Stumbling onto men. Stumbling onto alcohol. Stumbling onto all the things I thought I should be desiring. I was left so unsatisfied. Still seeking. And sometimes when we seek we turn down a very dark path. And I did. I was a buddhist for nearly thirteen years. It wasn't until Jesus shown through so many people at work did I start to see a direction to seek in. A direction toward Jesus. Until I turned and there he was. I saw him. I felt him. I asked him into my heart on March 15, 2008.

I had someone ask me one day how I went from being a buddhist to a lover of Jesus overnight. The answer is simple. God can move mountains. God can change hearts. When God wants to draw someone to Jesus he will turn their lives upside down and draw them. He chose to draw me in a way I could no longer ignore that night and I gladly, joyously turned from buddhism. I am so grateful He chose to draw me the way he did. I love him so much. I think back to my life before I was saved. Before I was in love with Jesus and am amazed I am still here. But the answer to that is simple. It was God's will for me to live through all I have been. He had plans for me. He has had plans for me since way before I was ever born. Jesus saw me as he hung on the cross. That is so cool. It makes all that I have seen, done, and been through worth every bit of it. I wouldn't change any of it because I would not be who I am today. I would not be so on fire for Jesus as I am now. I am totally on fire for him. I pray his will be done. Not mine. I have to keep giving back to him what I give him. It is a constant battle to not grab a hold of something on my journey toward him and not let go. But I must trust him. I declare today on this hot beautiful day made by my Lord in heaven that I will do all I can to trust in him. And I ask him for his help.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make your paths straight.

It is not for me to understand why it was so easy for me to turn from many of my old ways so easily. It is only for me to trust him in all he asks me to do. I trust him with all my heart. I don't want to be like that ant, following a crazy zigzag path that keeps taking me to the same places. I chose to follow Jesus and let him pave my path!

I know this has been a rambling blog, but my heart is on a ramble. I am just so in love with Jesus!!

Jesus is the living bread!

(written by Jennifir)

John 6:26 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth,

you want to be with me because I fed you,

not because you understand the miraculous signs."

Oh, I so don't want to be like this. I want to be with Jesus because I love Him, not because of what He can and will do for me. I just want to see Him, touch Him. Love Him. I want to be like Zacchaues (Luke 19:1-9). Just climb a tree so I can catch a glimpse of Him as He goes by and nothing more. Yet, as I struggle to not be so selfish, I find myself seeking Him out so He can give me things, from spiritual to emotional to material. And these miracles, small and large are amazing. I need to be grateful for them and use them to build my faith and purify my heart not seek Him out to do more for me. I need to be content with my current circumstances and trust in God. That He has a plan for me.

Jesus is the bread of life. He tells us over and over in John 6. John 6:33, 35, 41, 48, 51, 58. Jesus is all I truly need. If I seek Him and only Him He will provide everything I need in order to worship, love, and believe in Him with all my heart. (Matthew 6:29-35) He will provide. All I need to do is seek Him, grow close to Him. I need Jesus above all else. He should be my main focus. My manna of true substance.

As I seek Him, He paves the path. He guides me. He shows me His footsteps, one step at a time. He changes my desires. It is a difficult and painful process. The severing of the sinful nature. There are some sins that are so deeply rooted that unless I give them over to Jesus, I will never be free of them. I can't do it on my own. I'm a mere human. A sinner. The dead limbs of these sins are still attached by veins and it hurts, is bloody, and causes many tears as Jesus saws it from the healthy part of my soul, heart, and body. There are times my arms flail in protest and pain. I lash out. I cuss. In the end, it is worth it. The whole time He is telling me this is for your good , my little love. This is in the way. This is a blur in your faith. You asked for my help and I am here to help. There are times I have wrenched the saw from His loving hands and he has let me because it is my choice. Oh, the grace and mercy He showers upon me! I stumble. I cry until I relent and hand it back it to Him. I know in my heart if I don't allow Him to take this dead branch from me it will contaminate the living part of me. It is all part of my broken heartedness being healed. Sometimes the healing process is more painful than when the actual wound was afflicted. It is all part of the renewing of my mind and learning to be a true living sacrifice. (Romans 12:1-2) I must be cleaned up by Jesus in order to give myself to Him.

The past week has been a very difficult week of severing and a week of blessings. I am so grateful that although it hurts, although, the tears stream down my cheeks and stain my shirt, I let Him heal me. (Psalm 126:5-6) This week He has worked on the part of me that wants to hold onto guilt. To constantly beat myself up for sin once I have been forgiven. To allow satan to keep condemning me. Sometimes God lets me fall a little so He can demonstrate (Romans 8:1) That there is no condemnation because I belong to Jesus! This week, starting last Friday, I stumbled over a couple of very sharp rocks. I gave in to temptation. God did not condemn me although I kept trying to even after He warned me it was coming. Immediately, I cried out Him. Why can I not stop? Why do I insist on giving into my sinful nature? He told me to read Romans 7 especially verses 14-25. God was showing me: Look, if Paul, the man I choose to write a good part of the New Testament struggled with the very same question, what makes you any different? You are human, my little goose. You seek me through it all. As you drag through the briers of life keep your eyes on me. Don't look at the scratches, rips, and tears in your skin. Keep going forward. Just keep going forward. Keep seeking me. I will show you that you can't be perfect. Not until you are in heaven standing before my son, Jesus. He is right. I keep trying to be the perfect Christian. I just need to try to focus on Jesus and let Him use me. Strive to be the best I can be, perfection as a human is unattainable. Not here on earth. He knows everything I am going to do way before it comes to my mind and He forgives me. He does not condemn me. So, it is time I stop condemning myself!

Even as I sin I call out to Him. I feel chained down by my sin. God is cutting those briers even as they continue to scratch me until they cannot touch me anymore. Satan hates it. he knows the closer I get to God, the more dangerous I am to him and the more dangerous I become the stronger his attacks are. With Christ in me, I am powerful. We all are. But I have to truly believe. I have to eat and drink from the bread of life, Jesus. I have to allow God to do what He needs to do to heal me so that I may be used by Him. So that I may do the one work He has called me to do. John 6:26 Jesus told them, "This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent." Start from that one work and from that my love and faith grows. God will show and is showing me the other works He has planned for me to do. I do these works out of my pure love for Him not for the blessings He has promised me.

Yet, he blesses me anyway. I asked Him to give my daughter and me more time together. To give her a stable life and help her with her weight. Two days later, I run into one of my best friends. She's been out of work and has a son Rose's age. She is now keeping Rose for me while I work and we are paying her which helps her a little and helps me to have Rose more consistently. Rose is so active and and loving every moment she spends there. I am ever so grateful for this huge miracle God has shown me in our lives. My daughter is an amazing blessing. She believes with all her heart and sleeps in the lap of Jesus as a very dear friend puts it. By watching her relationship with Jesus grow I am learning to let go and let God heal me so my relationship with Him will grow. I believe in the living bread of life God sent here to feed my hunger and thirst. Jesus Christ!

Thank you Jesus for allowing me to drink your blood and eat from your flesh!

Amen!

The Ugly Duckling

(written by Jennifir)

So, I'm a little angry. I can't help it. I'm angry at the devil for making feel like the ugly duckling. I played into his hands last night. Hurt from rejection began to turn into anger as I woke up this morning. Last night I was angry at men all around me. At the men who made a point to talk to my friend and overlook me as if I wasn't standing there as they poured their compliments all over her. These were Christian men. Ministers of God. There to work for Jesus. I think that is why I was angry. My brothers are not supposed to overlook me, to shun me, to ignore me, to treat me as invisible because I am not pretty. One of the men had told a story of how he was not like everyone else, how he never brushed his hair, how he was the chunky kid who was never invited to parties. A man who talked of not fitting in, being rejected and here he was rejecting me. It hurt me at first. Then made me angry. Not because I was interested, but because I had been touched by his words and his actual witness nullified all he had said. Praise God I am already saved. I was and am still angry. He overlooked me. He shunned me because he was so enamored with my friend. And rightly so, she is beautiful. She is talented. But it doesn't make it ok to shake her hand and ask her name and glance my way quickly and not ask my name or shake my hand, even out of common courtesy even if he didn't care a lick about me.

It was that action that hurt me. I think he had a glimmer of realization of what he was doing. Judging by the cover. I pray he reads this. Give him some clarity and make him aware. He has to be extra careful since he is in ministry. Is this what we want to teach the lost and new Christians. Our witness doesn't stop at the podium. It is continuous. I take his human mistake and pray it stays embedded deep in my heart as a warning. As a piece of clarity and awareness to not do the same thing. To be careful to not shun or ignore people I meet no matter what they look like or wear. Sometimes the glitz is all there is. It is the digging for the depth where the reward is, but if we judge the cover and move on because it is a little rough we have missed out. And what if I were unsaved? What kind of witness would that have been for me? Our primary job on this earth is to be used to draw the lost. If we are shunning the lost we are losing children for God's kingdom. All our works are for naught and mean nothing. I am imperfect in so many ways, but my heart is for the lost. It was just a little over a year ago, I was among the lost. As we wait for Jesus to return we should not be complacent. We should strive with all our heart and faith to be used as vessels to draw the lost with Christ in us. (Romans 8). 2 Peter 2:9 The Lord isn't really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. That is why it is so important to be aware of those we shun or overlook. We are wasting time in an opportunity to be used to lead someone to Jesus. That man last night wasted time. He was so overcome by a talent and a beauty he missed the jewel standing right next to them. An opportunity to draw someone closer to the Lord. Instead, if I had not already been saved and so in love with Jesus I may have been pushed away from my father in heaven. It is crucial that we ask God for awareness and our armor to be strong. The enemy will use the good things in life to distract us from what God has called us to do. I don't want to be like this man. I am going to pray for strength with Christ in me. I don't want to miss that one person in the room who needed Jesus because I'm so busy trying to gleam what I can off the shiny jewel of the room. In doing so, the real treasure is missed. A lost child brought home to Jesus. What a tragedy.

I am angry. I am angry at the enemy for clouding the vision of a mature, Christian man. He was not the only one who lost some credibility in my eyes last night. One of the band members did the exact same thing. I left there feeling so ugly. So unimportant. Just because I had not stood on stage that night and shared my testimony. I know now why I went through this last night. God is opening my eyes, showing me, because the ministry He has placed on my heart is growing. He wants me to see this awful tactic of the enemy's. Last night, I was behind the scenes. Last. (Mark 9:35). I embrace this verse. I take comfort in it as I am last in most aspects of my life except in my growing relationship with Jesus. I was the ugly duckling. The ugly, yellow baby goose I saw at the lake a few weeks ago. The yellow, ugly teenage geese I again saw a couple of weeks ago. I am those geese. I am an outcast in the eyes of the world. I am one of God's hidden treasures right now. Only the really good discerning have seen it and encouraged and nourished my spiritual growth. I thank God for them constantly because I need their encouragement and God sends me encouragement through them. I have so much to offer in my testimony and my growth with God as a spiritual sister, but because I am not pretty, because I am not skinny, because I don't have a talent that shines, I am overlooked and I am missed out on. I am a jewel. God's jewel. I am a diamond in the rough. When I do become that beautiful swan or smooth diamond for Jesus these men are going to look back and realize that they let the surface glitter in their eyes. Blind them.

A couple of weeks ago as I sat in prayer, on a Wednesday night, I got a little fidgety. God knew I would soon hit a period of really low self esteem. Feeling ugly. Fat. Unwanted. I was gazing at my cheap, fake pink crocks. There are diamond shaped holes in them. As I studied them, I noticed most of them were not in a perfect diamond shape. God told me to study them. He asked me what I saw. I told him rough diamond shapes. Wrinkles from wear. He said yes, you have lived a life a long time in the world. You are a rough diamond. There are wrinkles and imperfections. I will use these. I will polish you. I will mold you. You are my clay. I will sift all the junk from your life, but it takes time. It will hurt at times. I was comforted by this small, yet profound revelation.

In the same sense as he has shown me the little ugly yellow geese, I could not help but compare myself to them. So young in my faith still yet clinging to Jesus for dear life as Ruth clung to Naomi. So, it hurts when I come across strong spiritual Christian men who cannot look past my ugly duckling exterior when there is so much depth within my heart and soul. It hurt to be overlooked so blatantly as if I were invisible. This is not how Christians in a ministry as they are representing their ministry especially should act. Christ is in me, but they didn't want to take the time to get to know me, even speak to me because I have no glitz on my exterior. All my glitz is in my heart. You have to take the time to see the jewel God has inside me. Has inside so many who are considered not so perfect by the world's standards. It is a very humbling experience for me. We are not witnessing just to the lost, we are discipling the saved so that they may witness to the lost. To testify. But if we show are brothers and sisters we aren't worth our time then how can we truly be used to help the lost. We are all guilty of it.

It was really rubbed in my face last night. I have felt so ugly. So unwanted. So unnecessary. So lost the past few weeks as I have been surrounded by nothing but wedded bliss, engagements, and planning of weddings. It has made me feel more alone. And yes, a little hopeless, God forgive me. He is working with me on it. I have felt last in all aspects of my life. From relationships, to financially, to work, to ministry. I am struggling to stay afloat. It is only because God has not let go of my hand that I have not drowned. (Psalm 37:23-24) Praise God for his unfailing unending love.

I am so angry that Christian men are so afraid to talk to a woman who is single and not so pretty. They are so afraid I will fall in love with them or something and that simply is not the case. Do they not realize that by helping me to grow they may be helping to draw more lost. By teaching me how to be used by God? But instead they are teaching me to be afraid. By teaching me that it is ok to pick and choose for ourselves who we are to minister to and disciple. It is a painful process for the one who is constantly overlooked and an uphill climb for the ugly duckling. But as I sit here in the library and type this I am grateful that I am the ugly duckling because God is teaching me. He is growing my heart to have a compassion. He is allowing me to feel what it is like to be shunned, overlooked, judged by my exterior so that I will be better able to recognize and minister to those who are and will go through the same thing. He is teaching me humbleness.

I may be the ugly duckling right now, but one day I will be a beautiful swan and not necessarily on the outside, but where it counts, in my heart. In my relationship with God.

I have been looking at myself. I admit I am also angry at myself. I have been seeking the approval of man for fear I may be rejected and I am rejected anyway. As I truly begin to shake the bad habit of seeking approval in all the wrong places, I begin to seek the approval of God more and more. And there will be a day that such obvious shunning will go right over my head and not phase me or the ministry God has placed on my heart. He has given me a specific vision.

That vision was reborn last night as the singer of the band sang a song he wrote called "When Angels Fly." I had given up on my dream. I'm dreaming again! And the vision is a little clearer. It is the ugly ducklings I want to reach out to because they are the diamonds in the rough. They are God's precious little jewels.

In the eyes of the world the ugly duckling finishes last, but in God's eyes, we will grow to be beautiful swans! How exciting!