It’s easy to get caught up with being prepared.
A friend who recently got married, wrote me a letter from God (at her bachelorette, when we were supposed to be celebrating her she decided to offer us encouragement instead… sweet or what?). A piece of her letter read,
“…Remember I haven’t called you to just a “call” but a relationship. I love you. You are so dear to Me and My heart. Rest in that and let all that you do flow from that sweet place with Me. You’ve seen Me. You’ve known Me. You’ve wondered if there is deeper and there is. There are aspects of My presence I still have to reveal to you. Keep pursuing Me. The purity of your pursuit is a beauty I treasure. Rest deep my child and trust. I have and hold it all and I love you. I am passionately pursuing you. Continue to respond in sweet joy.”
Key word: Relationship. The biggest way I can ‘prepare’ right now, is to keep getting to know God. We will never know all of Him right now, but we have time to try. So although I am trying to juggle 8 must-reads, an education exam, and a few other things… I need to remember it’s not about acquiring just knowledge. Knowledge is great but at the end of the day, this is about pursuing Him with all I have.
I’ll tell you ‘our story’ as if I was telling the story of a brand new relationship, but not in a creepy way…
* Noticing Him for the first time
It all started a long long time ago, when I was about two or three years old. It was most likely a partly-cloudy, grey sort-of-day, with a wind chill of 30 degrees sweeping the area of good ol’ Illinois. I was shuffling into the living room where my parent’s sat, probably watching an Everybody Loves Raymond re-run. I either just overheard my parents talking about Jesus, or had recently watched Veggie Tales but I let them know that if they got to have Jesus live inside of them, I wanted to have Jesus live inside of me. I recall my mom telling me to go to an area by myself and to ask Jesus to forgive me of my sins, call on His name and that if I believed I would receive (something along those lines). So, I took myself to the room next to the living room, and stood in a dark corner (don’t picture it, a three year old in a dark corner is creepy as is). I remember distinctly praying that God would send His son Jesus, imagining Jesus shrinking to the size of my fist, to live in my heart. And then I waited a little bit and tried to remember what my mom just said. So I repeated this a few times, because I didn’t know how many times I had to say it till it “worked” and then I left the room, and exclaimed “Ok! I did it!”. I don’t recall the aftermath, but I assume my mom then said great and prayed for me.
* Still noticing Him
Flash forward… we always had a lot of christian family friends growing up and one that we knew was a family with a little girl the same age as me (7 or so). This little girl was already filled with the Holy Spirit and could pray like no ones business. I remember thinking I wanted to have the Holy Spirit too.
* Trying to talk to Him- awkwardly
Flash forward to middle school…
Ahh, the ‘glory’ days. I remembered wanting to do cheerleading. My mom told me to pray and ask God. So I did, by flipping a coin ten times. Heads I cheered, tails I didn’t. I got heads and ended up cheerleading; which looking back was good for my self esteem. A boost in the self-confidence area is always needed. It was also around this age when I got baptized for the first time with my cousin, Allie. My dad & uncle baptized us, the whole family was there, and it was a really special day. But, I don’t think I quite understood what was really going on.
* Realizing I didn’t actually know anything about Him
Forward to highschool….
Lots of stuff went down in high school. I was still crazy about the idea of God, but wasn’t actually connecting. So, I continued in my perfectionist ways. I tried to do good, be nice to everyone, be happy, but I knew there had to be more of a purpose and I just wasn’t getting it. I was frustrated at this point. I kept questioning God, “Am I really saved?” because I continuously heard people saying that if you have to question it, chances are you’re not. I remember only really talking to God when I wanted to ask for something and otherwise I went along my merry way, thinking that if I was a “good person” I would get a ticket to heaven or “be saved”. So as you can see, my image of grace was flawed, but I HAD NO IDEA. I thought this is what being a christian was. It was like I had a giant pair of fogged-up goggles over my eyes that I forgot were there. I remember multiple key points in our relationship beginnings when I was trying to pursue Him, thinking I was the one doing the pursuing. I literally thought I was chasing Him down and doing all I could to get to know HIM!
BUT…
* He showed me who He really was
When I look back, I can CLEARLY see it was He who was chasing me. He was the one who urged me to look up at the trees every morning waiting for the school bus and sent the swoosh of a breeze at just the right moment to make me think about Him, He was the one who every time I went swimming in the ocean and held my breath underwater while looking up towards the sky, made the bubbles sparkle in the sunlight and made me wonder who made something so beautiful?, He was the one who told my mom to fill my car up with gas (so random and tiny, but I still think about it today haha), He was the one who when I was trying to figure out life and all its purposefulness told me to ‘just keep swimming’ because there was a surprise waiting for me, He was the one who nudged me when something ‘wasn’t right’, He was the one who shot stars across the sky when I asked. He was the One.
* So He asked me to make it official
Now that I figured out, “Hey wait God has loved me this whole time and not the other way around?” After I saw that I was so flawed, helpless, and missing something, He swooped in and said I love you and even when I don’t feel like He does & He always will. So, He asked me to make it official. I got re-baptized immediately after high school, (July 12, 2012- almost exactly 5 years) and I GOT it. Something clicked. That something was God showing me WHO He was, not who I thought He was. And once I understood, He wanted me to make it known whose I was.
* Now I am committed
At training camp, they told us to make a list of the qualities of God, or the characteristics. I forget the why or the what, but I got the overall message. Reading through Isaiah, I kept seeing beautiful things about God and I thought back to what they told us and although I’ve started this list many times before I never really made it anywhere significant, so I started to jot down a few things in a place I can hopefully find again.
If you’ve never made a “future spouse” list you probably aren’t even Christian, lol just kidding but as cliche as it is, many of us have one somewhere…
Don’t know what that is? Well it’s basically a list of everything you want in a future husband/wife. I didn’t know these things existed until my sister got married and told me her husband met every single characteristic and that I should make one. So I started one, because hey if someone says you can meet someone who is every quality you admire down to the tiniest detail of ” he brought me a daisy on our third date” ( YES, her husband literally brought her a bouquet of wildflowers, and then was like I don’t even know what made me start picking these, but these are for you and here you go.) I figured I should start praying now, just so I can wave around the piece of paper and say, “Look, God nailed it.” Ok, so specifics aren’t a super huge thing, but just writing down “Loves God, and collects tree frogs” is an example of a casual list. Kidding, collecting tree frogs is animal cruelty. So I decided to write this ‘list’ about God. But instead of what I “wanted” I wrote down who He is and has proven Himself to be. And I can say that for me being called to be “like Christ” I got a LONG way to go, because if you didn’t know already, He is amazing. Here is a bit of the list so far, and yes, you should make one!
I started in Isaiah in the chapter I was reading but slowly crept out of the box into how He has moved in my life, and other key verses I enjoy. I hope to keep adding (since this is really only two days worth) and if so, will continue to add to it on my blog 🙂
1. Patient and prepared- Is. 5:2
2. Poetic- Is. 18:4
3. Has High Expectations because He knows what we are capable of – Is. 5:7
4. Judges righteously- Is. 6:5-10
5. Wants firm faith- Is. 7:9
6. Willing to confirm truths – Is. 7:10
7. Safety- Is. 8:14
8. Wonderful Counselor -Is. 9:6
9. Peace- Is. 9:6
10. Fair-Is. 9:7
11. Just- Is. 9:7
12. Passionate- Is. 9:7
13. Committed- Is. 9:7
14. Willing to use anyone for His purpose- Is. 10
15. Loyal- Is. 10:27
16. Does not judge by appearance- Is. 11:3
17. Wise – Is. 11:2
18. Understanding – Is. 11:2
19.Powerful – Is. 11:4
20. Comforter – Is. 12:1
21. Deserving
22. Worthy
23. My helper- John 14:16-17
24. Healer- Mark 2:9-12
25. My ransom
26. Refuge
27. My answer
28. Grace
29. Strength in the battle
30. Anchor
31. My hope
32.Compassion
33. My Best Friend
34. A wing of shelter
35. A flame
36. A whisper
37. A nudge
38. A breeze
39. HOLY
40. A Song
41. Joy
42. Funny
43. Sweet
44. Thoughtful
45. Personable
46. Relational
47. Serves ME
48. Powerful
49. Eternal
50. Deep
51. All-knowing
52. The BEST pinky-promiser
53. Perceptive- Ps. 139
54. Feeler- John 11:35
55. With me even when I try to run- Ps.139
56. My guide- Ps. 139
57. Saw me before I was. -Caring
58. Majesty
59. Solid
60. Discreet
61. Subtle
62. Humble
63. Not stingy with love
64. Timely- kairos
65. Attentive
66. Observant
67. Freeing
68. Generous
69. Smart
70. Fun
71. Creative
72. Notices those others don’t
73. Persistent, doesn’t give up
74. Ready for all the messiness
75. A voice to the voiceless
76. Defender
77. Gentle
78. Righteous
79. Still
80. An anomaly
81. Not able to be boxed in
82. Misunderstood
83. My Identity
84. Provider
And that is our long (but cut down by several years of unmentioned instances) love story. So anyways, that’s what I’m getting out of this “preparation” time. That it’s about relationship, not about me being the most prepared. He will continue to pursue me even if I get it in my head that I’m the one doing the pursuing, and I’m still learning to embrace that.
Thank you for reading, and I hope that you’ve all said “I do” as well!
