I’ve learned a lot in the past eight months on the race. Like how to live in community; how to communicate in a language that you don’t know; how to go three weeks without a real shower; how to find a place to have “alone time” (AKA putting in your headphones in a room full of people); etc.
But my favorite thing I’ve learned, the thing that I’m going to carry with me the rest of my life… learning about God’s character, about who He is.
Psalms 16:1-2, “Keep me safe, O mighty God
I run for dear life to you, my safe place.
So, I said to the Lord God, ‘You are my maker, my mediator, and my master.
Any good thing you find in me has come from you’.”
Mediator – a go-between person – one who attempts to make people involved in a conflict come to an agreement.
God is our mediator. He steps in between us and the enemy. We don’t have to fight alone, and we literally can’t without Him.
Revelation 4:8b, “Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord God Almighty,
Who was, and is, and is to come.”
God is constant. He was, He is, He will always be. I’ve been reminding myself that the God who has been with me through the hard times, trials, times when I don’t feel like I measure up, etc. He is the SAME yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He will never change.
Colossians 2:15, “Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner, they were His!”
Colossians 3:1b “…That’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honor, and authority!”
He is powerful. When Jesus died on the cross He literally stripped away anyone’s power, physical or spiritual, to accuse us of our sins. They have no power!
Colossians 3:3-4, “Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life, and now your true life is hidden away in God in Christ. And as Christ himself is seen for who He really is, who you really are will also be revealed, for you are now one with Him in His glory!”
He is a chain breaker. With Christ we are no longer tied to the old life we used to live. We are new creations.
Psalms 104:33-34, “I will sing my song to the Lord as long as I live!
Every day I will sing my praises to God.
May you be pleased with every sweet thought I have about you,
For you are the source of my joy and gladness.”
This is one of my new favorite verses. It shows that God created us individually. It says I will sing MY song to the Lord. Not her song, not their song, not my pastor’s song.
MY song.
We praise Him differently and He loves that.
I like how it says, “every sweet thought”. Sometimes when we think about God, it’s powerful, overwhelming, it’s mighty… which are all true. But he’s also intimate, he’s sweet, and he’s caring. He takes care of us in the way we need to be cared for.
He is also our joy, our gladness. I like to say a lot that without Jesus you can be happy, but you can’t be joyful. There is no real joy in your life with Him. He creates it, and He brings it out in us.
1 John 4:16 & 19, “We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love he has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them…. Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us.”
God’s love is redemptive. He restores what was broken and lost, even if we never knew that it was broken and lost. This was a hard lesson for me. You can read the whole story behind this in my blog titled, “A Confused, Broken Heart”.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8, “Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honestly and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. Love never stops loving. It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues, which will one day fall silent. Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten.”
1 John 4:8, “The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love.”
If God is love, then God is everything that love is.
Patient
Kind
Gentle
Humble
Selfless
Honest
Enduring
Slow to anger
A safe place
We have less than three months until we’re back in the states, but I’m beyond confident that the Lord has so much more to teach me, grow me in, and just show me.
