as we gaze, we advance

decide.

My goodness, God is funny. When you ask Him to change every little bit of your life, you must expect that His glory will permeate every nook and cranny and it's not always smooth sailing once you've said that prayer. Despite realizing how difficult it is to follow because I'd much rather act than wait, fear than follow, question than obey, I have tasted and seen His abundant goodness and there is no return now.

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 unto Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by "as a refiner and purifier of silver," until they should reflect His image; they asked to lay hold of his cross, and when He had reached it to them it lacerated their hands.**

commit.

As God's consistently been bringing new and fresh faces into my life as well as prompting me to strengthen and deepen relationships with old ones, He's been also been reminding me that the heart and love I have for the people in my life at the present doesn't come from me and never will. I love, because He loved me first (1 John 4:19 ). The identity I have is not based on my own accomplishments or knowledge. While I will always be picked last for the team, I am chosen first in His eyes. The ability to look at this broken world around me and to be filled with compassion instead of despair + dread exists only because I know there is a hope that overshadows whatever darkness is in the past and present and it lives inside of me. Yes, resurrection power lives inside of me. While it is dark, there is also light and light pierces the darkness (Psalm 139:12). I am constantly reminded that were it not for redemption, my heart is every bit as capable of committing the greatest evil there is as the next person. Redemption provides a stark contrast to the person I would've been without it.

They had asked they knew not what, nor how, but He had taken them at their word, and granted them 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 them to His promise, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." 

ahead.

Redemption changes everything. But it doesn't stop there. Redemption leads to a response of gratefulness that should be reflected as we go about living from day-to-day. This is the heart of worship and because it is a response to God's redemption offered to us, it ought to infiltrate every area of our lives.

In short, worship is a lifestyle.

It is living saturated and steeped with the knowledge + gratitude that you are saved from your wretched self. It is the asking to be molded more and more into His likeness, begging to be cleansed of our old selves, then feasting on the Living God because nothing else can satisfy. It means your prayers should not be asking for an easy life, because easy never got anything done. Easy never advanced the Kingdom nor did God ever promise easy.

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 on Mary and Peter, and they can but choose to follow.

Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams, the 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 onto His likeness, and His name shines out 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."

advance.

Yes, there is no easy in the Kingdom, but He is faithful. And so day by day, we continue living in the promise that He will not let us down. That He is for us, not against us. So yes, a little affliction here and there will come. What does that cost us? What is a little turmoil and pain compared to the promise that we are being refined to reflect His image? Keep moving, my dear friends, because as we gaze, we advance.

Had they chosen for themselves, or 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 not have lost? What forfeits in the 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.

Not our will done, but HIS. Yes? Yes.

To a new semester + falling more and more in love with my Jesus each and every day.

**excerpt(s) taken from Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman