It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in says the Lord

 I am home.

And old wounds are raw and exposed.

And I am child again, in this house, and my pride and my egotism is injured by the thought.

And I am scared that the things that I am learning are going to fade away because they aren’t new to me, I have known them a long time now.

This I know. I got on my knees today and said “Be still and know that I am God.”

Over and over again.

So I could remember that I am not alone, that I belong to one who is with me.

Who has promised to never leave me nor forsake me.

Who humbles me.

I lift my hands up.

Which may not be a lot, but it is something.

Prayer does something, as deep cries out to deep.

And peace that does indeed pass all understanding, stills the anguish that I had gotten to you, the turbulence of the soul that can be ignored.

I found Him in an unexpectedly deep way in a moment that I was extra crushed by imperfect-ness.

God makes a covenant with David. David, in his love, comes to God and says “I will build a house for you to dwell in.”

A mighty task. Admirable. Self sacrificing. Something that people would look and say, see how much David loves the lord. See how much he serves him.

But God comes to Nathan and tells him to tell David,

It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in. For I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up Israel but I have gone from tent to tent and from dwelling to dwelling. In all the places where I have moved with all Israel, did I speak a word to whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying Why have you not built me a house of cedar. Now therefore, thus shall you say to my servant David, I took you from the pasture from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel and I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.

So humbling and so loving. David, it almost seems that he says, I love your passion for me. I love your desire to serve me. I love how you want to show the world my greatness. But remember, David, it is I who saved you. I will show my greatness by the work that I do in your life. And greater than this, it is I who will establish the throne of one our your offspring and will confirm him in my house forever.

It is God who has pursued me. And loved me. And saved me, through his son.

I’m sitting in my kitchen. I’m going to go to the Y with my mom today. I’m going to go to campaigners tonight, where I am not a leader, I am just a participant. Hopefully I can help making dinner and unloading the dishwasher. I’m really praying my little brother will come to campaigners.

That’s today. Its not magnificent. Its not daring. Its not Haiti or inner city. Its not saving lives or saving souls-but I am saved. I am saved by a God who is humbling me the way that he humbled Jacob, who would not stop running from him. He is humbling me the way he humbled David, as I so often come to him and say, I’m going to preach to those who have never heard lord. I’m going to be a counselor for you lord. I am going serve all day every day for you Lord.

But he says, Krystal. It was I who brought you up in a country and in a family where you got to go to a church and begin to learn the scriptures. It was I who was faithful to you and watching over you in middle school and high school when you pursued everything but me. It was I who revealed myself to you and changed you forever that starry night at Rockbridge. It was I who took you to Chrysalis so you could see my love lavished upon you. It is I who chose to allow brokenness in your life because I am healing you and I am using you to be present in that same brokenness in the lives of others. It was I who sent you to Nicaragua so that you could fall for a life on mission for me. It was I who sent you to be a leader of 8 middle school girls so that you could see that the only thing worth living for are girls falling in love with Jesus and being sealed for eternity with us. It was I who sent you to NC State, stripped you of all that kept you comfortable so that we could grow closer than ever before. It was I who chose you for inner city ministry in Raleigh, and I who have sustained and equipped you. I am the God of the girls that you so dearly love and I am with them when you are not. You do not need to fix them, but to point them to me because I am their Savior and their Redeemer and you are neither. It was I who sent you to Haiti, I who chose the kids that would set your heart on fire for orphans, who again stripped you of so much so that you could see me, know me, love me and worship me. And it is I who brought you to Chesapeake, where I knew you would be humbled beyond what you dreamed that you could bear, and made you a child again, because darling you are my child. Do not be so resistant to being a child. I know that you think that you are better than being anyone’s child. I see how deeply you want to be a mother and how much you despise being a child. I’m going to redeem that darling. Jesus Christ is my Son. I am to him a gather and he is to me a son. Therefore, you are to me a daughter.