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You’ll never be impressive enough.

Those of low estate are but a breath;

those of high estate are a delusion;

 in the balances they go up;

 they are together lighter than a breath.

(Psalm 62:9)

I’m tired of reaching for a horizon that I can never take hold of. I give up. It’s exhausting trying to be impressive, significant, special or fascinating. It takes too much energy and there’s just not enough return. It’s an investment that keeps stealing from me and yet gives nothing back. Nothing. I’m tired of giving all of my focus and energy and heart to things that bear no lasting fruit with my name on it.

I have given too much power to the opinion of man.

I cannot seem to be impressive and fascinating enough to sustain the long-term adoration of any one human being. I’ll never be impressive enough. And even if I did reach the epitome of human significance in the eyes of a beholder, the next day, the very same eyes would wander to a peak in the distance and be on to their next conquest. I can never satiate the eyes of man. I could never be impressive enough. And that’s becoming to me a relief and a healing balm. To man, I’m just not that special. I can breathe again. The pressure’s been lifted.

How fickle are the opinions of man and yet how we lift up their value as though they were gold. We make so weighty what is essentially a vapour.

In reality, it is only the opinion of the Eternal God that matters. We are air; He is the Great Substance. We are the ungrasping wind that slips through our fingers. He is the Eternal Solidity. We are shifting sands. He is Rock. We are not. He is the great ‘I Am’.

It is this great ‘I Am’ who puts His stamp of approval on me, before I’ve put my face on, before I’ve made myself presentable to the world and before I’ve ever let a word out of my mouth.

His approval and His opinion is not based on how awesome I was on a certain occasion or how dazzling I was on one particular day over another. His heart is captivated, solidly captivated with me for no other reason than I am His beloved daughter, chosen before the substance of time was made reality.

O how I have wasted the best energy of my heart on that which is fading away. I have given what is glorious to that which has lost its luster. O how I have run so many mental-marathons, trying to grasp at the temporal opinions of mankind, whose view of me, is but a breath, only a vapour that is here today, gone tomorrow.

Those of low estate are but a breath;

those of high estate are a delusion;

 in the balances they go up;

 they are together lighter than a breath.

(Psalm 62:9)

I’m not that significant. I’m just not that impressive.

I was never meant to hold the attention of a temporal being. I was made for something much greater; I was created for the satisfied heart of my Creator. And it is here in this truth, this reality, that I find rest for my weary, tired soul.

Lift up your gaze, O weary heart. Return to your rest, O my soul. The heart of God is satisfied with you. You have caught the eye of your Maker. You have His attention and He will never look away. He will not, and He cannot. The God of the Fixed Gaze has set His heart upon you.

O Great Eternal Opinion, you have staked your claim on me, and I am Yours. Nothing else matters.

Truly, nothing else matters.

Others May, You Cannot

A reflection of the Holy Spirit. This really touched my heart deeply, and I know that this is for some of you. You'll know right away if this is God's word for you.


by G. D. Watson 

If God has called you to be really like Christ in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility and put on you such demands of obedience, that He will not allow you to follow other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

Others can brag on themselves, and their work, on their success, on their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

The Lord will let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hid away in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice fragrant fruit for His glory, which can be produced only in the shade.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making money, but it is likely God will keep you poor because he wants you to have something far better than gold and that is a helpless dependence on Him; that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day - out of an unseen treasury.

God will let others be great, but He will keep you small. He will let others do a great work for Him and get credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when He comes.

The Holy Spirit will put strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do what He pleases with His own, and He will not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealing with you. He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let other people say and do many things that you cannot do or say.

Settle it forever, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that others are not dealt with.

Now, when you are so possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this particular personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven.

Love, Sex, Marriage, Family, Singleness and the Human Body

Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West is the best book I’ve ever read on the value of the human body, sexuality, love, relationships, singleness, marriage and children (and I’ve read quite a few). Don’t let the “for Beginners” part throw you off. This book is profoundly deep. It’s definitely not “for Dummies”, but then again, all the dummies out there would be wise to get their hands on this book and get schooled. Seriously. It’s that good. And for all of you high and lofty ones, this book will challenge and stir your heart, leaving you in awe of God’s glorious purposes. So, it’s for any age, any level, any one. Are you human? If your answer is yes, then I commend this book to you.

I finished reading this transformative and foundational book recently and I pretty much highlighted, underlined and starred most of the book. The whole way through I kept thinking, ‘I MUST blog about this book. People need to read this!’ I wish I had read it years ago, but then again, I might not have appreciated the depth of truth presented within its pages back in my younger years, when I just wanted the 10 how-to steps to get a guy. Now, as I’ve grown in my relationship with God, others, myself and the world around me, I realize that it’s only really worth investing my heart, time and energy on literature that is packed with solid biblical and spiritual truths that will set me up for a reality in God that can actually carry me well into eternity. This would be one such book.

If you have ever thought that becoming a Christian or giving your life to God means that you must now repress and reject all things bodily, sexual and sensual, you have been sadly deceived. This book expounds on the whole idea that God and Christianity are “very fleshy, sensual realities. We intimately encounter God through the action of the Holy Spirit upon signs drawn from the material world: through bathing the body with water (baptism); anointing the body with oil (Baptism, anointing of the sick); eating and drinking the Body and Blood of Christ (Communion, Lord’s Supper, Eucharist); the laying on of hands (Anointing of the sick, commissioning for service); confessing with our lips (Repentance); and the unbreakable joining of man and woman in ‘one flesh’ (Marriage)."*

Christianity is all about the body, all about sex, and all about celebrating their value. Does this surprise anyone? I fear that we, as Christians, have often communicated the opposite, appearing as though we are above all things sexual and all things pertaining to the human body. No! The body and sex are central to our faith! 

“The problem with our sex-saturated culture is not that it overvalues the body and sex. The problem is that it has failed to see just how valuable the body and sex really are. Christianity does not reject the body! The flesh is the hinge of salvation. We believe in God who is creator of the flesh; we believe in the Word made flesh in order to redeem the flesh; we believe in the resurrection of the flesh, the fulfillment of both the creation and the redemption of the flesh.”*  The flesh is so important! God is trying to get our attention! “Spirit and Matter kiss! Heaven and earth embrace in a union that will never end.”*

The book goes on to declare that “the human body is, in itself, a holy sign that makes visible the invisible mystery of God. God wants to reveal Himself to us. He wants to make His invisible, spiritual mystery visible to us so that we can ‘see’ Him.”* God wants to show us Himself through the human body. Jesus Christ became human flesh to reveal God to us! The human body is loudly preaching the fact that God wants to be seen, to be known, and to commune with us in love.

God created the human body (flesh), making us male and female (sexual beings), and then put in us a desire for union (marriage), as a visible sign of the heavenly reality of the communion of love that exists within the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). This is a core value of the human heart. There’s no way around it. This is how every single human being on the planet has been made (whether they are dead or alive or yet to be born).

"We study the human body – not as a biological organism, but as a theology, as a study of God."*

This brings such value and dignity to our bodies, to our sexuality, to our relationships (as children, parents, singles, spouses, and friends). I cannot look at the human body or relationships the same anymore. My eyes have been opened to the eternal value of the human body. Our bodies and our relationships with other bodies are basically preaching without words, declaring the mystery and beauty and glory of God. We have no idea just how glorious and dignified our sexual bodies are. We have no idea how full our bodies are with the glory of God. As stated above, our sex-saturated culture has so undervalued the body and sex. It has failed to see just how valuable the body and sex really are. 

Upon my commendation, please add this book to your collection. You can read the 1st chapter for free and order the paperback version or e-book Kindle version for dirt cheap on Amazon.com or go find it in a bookstore or at another online book site.

Happy glorious reading to all of you,
Ali

* Quotes taken from the First Chapter of Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West (pages 4-6)

Remembering 12 Years Ago...

God has blessed me tonight. I am swimming in the sea of the joy of the Lord, basking in the joy of my salvation. God is so detailed. He loves me.

So, tonight, in our Friday night prayer meeting at the Tauranga House of Prayer, we had a visiting family from the House of Prayer in Malaysia come share about what God is doing in Malaysia, and humbly asked us to pray for them and for their nation. I have not crossed paths with any Malaysians in the past 12 years...  nor been in a prayer meeting in the past 12 years focused on Malaysia. We prayed for the calling on the nation of Malaysia to have intimacy with God in prayer, overflowing into radical missions and the salvation of multitudes.

It hit me suddenly, part way through the prayer meeting, that this was a divine appointment, a divine reminder of my salvation 12 years ago. While I was visiting relatives in Uganda as a 20-year old, I GOT SAVED BECAUSE OF A MALAYSIAN MAN, who came to preach and prophesy to Ugandans in the little village I was living in. God intervened all those years back, and gave words of knowledge to this Malaysian man, about the deep secrets of my heart, and he obeyed the Lord and spoke them to me. I was completely undone by the accurate knowledge of this man (who had never met me before), and ultimately, I was undone by the truth that the Lord SAW me and KNEW me and CARED so deeply for me, that He would take me out of my comfortable world in Canada, transport me to the other side of the world (Uganda), and then He would send a prophet from Malaysia to come to Uganda and speak a word just for me. How intricately detailed God is. And how infinitely grateful I am, once again, as I remember the joy of my salvation, the joy of coming into relationship with Jesus Christ 12 years ago. I highly recommend you check out the full awesome story of my salvation and divine conversion and encounter with Jesus Christ.

Tonight, in the prayer meeting, I was filled with tears of pure gratitude. Gratitude to God, and gratitude to the Malaysian people. One of them obeyed the Lord and followed Him 12 years ago to another nation, on a mission, and I was the target. God had His bulls-eye on me, and He wanted me and chose me and set His seal of love upon my heart. God pursued me all the way to the other side of the world, and He got my heart. He got what He came for.

Thank you, Malaysia, for answering the call that God has placed on your land, to know the Lord and then go out and bring the knowledge of God to the nations. I am one that was saved through your obedient response.

God, may you bring salvation to Malaysia. May it receive its full inheritance in the Lord. May they go out as prophetic messengers into the nations, from a heart of intimacy and prayer. God, may it be so!

Praise be to God, who loves us so much, and who loves the nations with zeal and passion. If you are reading this, may you hear the call of God to intimate relationship with Him, and the call to the place of prayer, and the call to the nations. He may be whispering to you, and telling you of places you need to go to, and people you need to tell about Jesus. You may just be like that man from Malaysia who spoke the word of the Lord to me and changed my life for eternity.

God, may this blog bear eternal fruit. May lives be saved. May people be reconciled to God through the testimony of the joy of my salvation.

~Alison.