of course I don't have it figured out.

Jesus, you said whatever is not planted by the Father will be uprooted. I am not the master gardner. I want to be, but I am not. I have all these things I want to plant but I cant. I am lost and torn and I hate feeling like I have it together and then getting torn down. I hate feeling like I have wasted all this time and energy and thought on stuff that will just be uprooted because it is not yours. I plant these little plants in my mind and I hide them from you and keep them for myself and you come in and just rip them right out of the ground. You say, I love you and I love you enough that I am going to destroy yours plans because I know that mine are better. Why am I so afraid of failure? You never fail. It may look like a failure. In fact, it will. The life you lived and the lives your disciples lived looked like failures to everyone else. According to the measures to the world, they were failures. But it was not for you. Let me seek your voice and learn to listen and let your soft still voice drown out all those other voices, even the good ones. Even the ones that are trying to help. Why am I so desperate to please people? If I try to make everyone happy, I won't make anyone happy. You don't need any more people pleasers. You need people who know your heart and who will listen to you, even though it means they will disappoint and offend and irritate people. 

There is still a part of me that thinks you die once and then you just to get be a part of the resurrection of Christ for the rest of your days.

We die every day. 

I keep having these awful thoughts about blogging. I think that my words suck and that its not beautiful or deep or moving. I think that no one ever reads it. That its a waste of time. But the blog has one purpose, and that is to point to Jesus. To point me to Jesus and to point readers to Jesus. And if someone is carried even a little bit closer to Jesus through reading the blog, that has nothing to do with the beauty of my words or depth of my posts. And if anyone reads it and is more impressed by the post than the Savior the post is about (or should be about) than thats a tragedy. Paul said that Jesus chose the weak to shame the strong and the foolish to shame the wise, so that no one can boast except in Jesus. So I can rest in my weakness and foolishness and continue to press on in writing and just be real and vulnerable and commit to know absolutely nothing but Christ and him crucified. What a relief. And I can say, Jesus write this post, and please don't let my words or my thoughts or stories get in the way. Just do your thing with it. 

We die every day. Every time we think we have it together or figured out, that has to get ripped out of us. Isn't lovely though that we are not tasked with winning people over to Christ? The great commission says Go but it also says Lo. 

Lo, I will be with you always. you will die and will live in you. My spirit will dwell in you, and will lead the mission I have given you. It won't make sense to you. It won't bring you glory. But I will never leave you. And I will do more than you can ever ask or think. And my father will be glorified. You couldn't stop that if you wanted to. Though you set out to stop me, I have hemmed you in and held your hand, and made you an integral beautiful part of the mission you set out to destroy. I could have left you alone, but I came after you and pursued you and will never leave you.

I am for you, who can be against you?