So I guess it always comes down to if I truely do believe?
Is all of my hope, confidence, trust and faith resting in HIM?
The Lord is my strength and my portion...
Lord, please make this real to me today.

A song by Todd Agnew has been on my heart lately...the Lord has used it to brake me in ways I've never been broken before, I wanted to share it with you:
MY JESUS
Which Jesus do you follow? Which Jesus do you serve?
If Ephesians says to imitate Christ, Then why do you look so much like the world?
Cause my Jesus bled and died, He spent His time with thieves and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the arrogant, So which one do you want to be?
Blessed are the poor in spirit, or do we pray to be blessed with the wealth of this land?
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness
Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sand?
Cause my Jesus bled and died for my sins, He spent His time with thieves and sluts and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the rich, So which one do you want to be?
Who is this that you follow, This picture of the American dream
If Jesus was here would you walk right by on the other side or fall down and worship at His holy feet?
Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion
Is how you see Him as He dies for Your sins, But the Word says He was battered and scarred
Or did you miss that part? Sometimes I doubt we'd recognize him.
Cause my Jesus bled and died, He spent His time with thieves and the least of these
He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable, So which one do you want to be?
Cause my Jesus would never be accepted in my church
The blood and dirt on His feet might stain the carpet
But He reaches for the hurting and despises the proud,
I think He'd prefer Beal St. to the stained glass crowd
And I know that He can hear me if I cry out loud...
I want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my Jesus
Not a poster child for American prosperity, but like my Jesus
You see I'm tired of living for success and popularity
I want to be like my Jesus but I'm not sure what that means to be like my Jesus
Cause You said to live like You, Love like You but then you died for me...
Can I be like You Jesus?
I want to be like My Jesus...

An excerpt from a letter that I reciently wrote to a dear friend..."A right standing before God...being rightly related to God...living in the shadow of the cross-unashamed, bearing the shame He bore...the terror of the Lord and the splendor of His majesty...all comes down to truely knowing our position before our Holy God...KNOWING OUR GOD-standing in silent fear and reverant awe. My life would look so differently. I don't ever want to hide the LORD'S POWER...We have to cling to the LION to appreciate and find peace in the LAMB. I want to be like my Jesus. I am humbled and broken as I look at my filthy heart- full of pride and my "clean" hands...clean because they are comfortable and unused...I am ashamed. I want to live by Heb. 13:13 which tells us to go outside the camp bearing the disgrace He bore...As I learn more about the person of Jesus Christ I yearn to be lik emy Jesus- radical, unashamed love for the father, selfless, humble, graceful, loving without strings attatched- knowing it would often be unappreciated, unwanted, unreturned...Laying down His pleasure, will and rights...I want to be like my Jesus."
Kinda scatterd thoughts...the Lord is teaching me so much, humbling me daily. Oh how I yearn to be with my Lord...to see my God, to fall down and worship at His holy feet. Now I cry out "I am unclean!"...but He has washed me with grace like rain.

John 5:30b says "I seek not to please myself but him who sent me." I pray that I would not run after my own ambitions-even as "godly" as they might seem but to truely run after my God throwing off anything that would hinder my relationship with Him. I pray also that my pride would be crushed, ripped out, revealed...I don't want it anymore...I am disgusted by it. As I begin the grasp "the terror of the Lord and the splendor of His majesty" (Is 2:21) I know the pride of my humaness will be brought low...as I stand in awe of a Holy God realizing my position before Him- I cry out I am unworthy! I MUST decress, He MUST increase! (Jn 3:30) Pray that my motives would be pure and my heart focused on my God, King, Lover and Friend.
May the Lord bless you and draw you nearer to Him today. May we all see the terror of the Lord and stand in awe of His splendor. He is the LION and the LAMB.

The Lord always seems to use Oswald Chambers to knock me upside my head..."Don't rejoice in successful service, but rejoice because you are rightly related to Me. The snare in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service, to rejoice in the fact that God used you. You never can measure what God will do through you if you are rightly related to Jesus Christ. Keep your relationship right with Him, then whatever circumstances you are in, and whoever you meet day by day, He is pouring rivers of living water through you, and it is of His mercy that He does not let you know it." ~So here I am in San Luis Obispo, CA mentoring and discipling junior high and high school aged girls. The Lord brought me here and has provided so abundantly. I work on an apple orchard during the day and hang out with my girls at night. I so often find myself focusing on what success looks like in my ministry. The Lord is destroying my idea of success. Philippians 3:7-9 "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss of the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all thing. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." I just want to know my God, fall more in love with Him and make His great name known. My prayer is that I will consider everything else as trash, that I will be so consumed with God that I will not be able to help but to proclaim His name...and in this pursuit of God not focusing on what or how or why the Lord is using me...I just what to live in love with Him and be used up for His glory..."Irresistibly drawn to the person of Christ who I have supernaturally come to intimately know."-Paul Washer
So welcome to my blog :) I hope this can be a convenient way of keeping connected and updated while I'm away from all of you that I hold so dear. Thank you for visiting! I pray that your heart is encouraged and your faith challenged today.