Monthly Archive

This morning I awoke to sin lying heavy on my heart. I asked the Lord for forgiveness, but relief never came, time and time again I petitioned the Lord to forgive me. I begged the Father as I went about my morning errands, for not only did the sin weigh heavy on my heart, but so did the guilt of rushing past my morning quite time. I returned home yet still my heart was heavy from the sin. I began to reach out for others around me yet I felt a nagging to just come before the Lord once more. So, I headed outside to sit on our back porch with my journal and my bible in hand. As I began to write and pour out my heart’s cry to the Lord I felt a prompting to turn to Psalm 51. Reading each line the Lord opened both my eyes and heart as I began asking once again for his forgiveness. With each line I read, I paused and through David’s words I cried out just as he did to my Savior for forgiveness. David knew what it was like to truly grieve the Father’s heart. David had wrestled with sin and poured himself out before the Father, yet in the end he was known as ‘a man after God’s own heart’.

Psalm 51 (NLT)

¹    Have mercy on me, O God,

    because of your unfailing love.

    Because of your great compassion,

    blot out the stain of my sins.

²    Wash me clean from my guilt.

    Purify me from my sin.

³    For I recognize my rebellion;

    it haunts me day and night.

⁴    Against you, and you alone, have I sinned;

    I have done what is evil in your sight.

    You will be proved right in what you say,

    and your judgment against me is just.^£

⁵    For I was born a sinner—

    yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.

⁶    But you desire honesty from the womb,^£

    teaching me wisdom even there.

⁷    Purify me from my sins,^£ and I will be clean;

    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

⁸    Oh, give me back my joy again;

    you have broken me—

    now let me rejoice.

⁹    Don’t keep looking at my sins.

    Remove the stain of my guilt.

¹⁰    Create in me a clean heart, O God.

    Renew a loyal spirit within me.

¹¹    Do not banish me from your presence,

    and don’t take your Holy Spirit^£ from me.

¹²    Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

    and make me willing to obey you.

¹³    Then I will teach your ways to rebels,

    and they will return to you.

¹⁴    Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves;

    then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness.

¹⁵    Unseal my lips, O Lord,

    that my mouth may praise you.

¹⁶    You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one.

    You do not want a burnt offering.

¹⁷    The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.

    You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.

¹⁸    Look with favor on Zion and help her;

    rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

¹⁹    Then you will be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit—

    with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.

    Then bulls will again be sacrificed on your altar.

The Psalm begins as the believer mourns and grieves over his sin, and then followed by the recognition of God’s grace as well as purification and ending with the restoration of the believer’s spirit as it overflows with joy found in unfailing mercy. What a great promise we have from the Father for restoration and grace! For the Lord promises that if we come before him with a broken and repentant heart he will not reject our petition and he will in turn impart his mercy as he blots out the stains of your sins.

What a beautiful picture, as we lay face down prostrate before our King and Lord, he freely offers his hand of forgiveness out stretched to us in love. Then he ever so gently raises us back to heights we had once known as he anoints us with his forgiveness. I, too, am reminded of the story of Ester and how her King extended his grace to her as she petitioned him.

Ester 5:1-2 (ESV)

On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace, in front of the king’s quarters, while the king was sitting on his royal throne inside the throne room opposite the entrance to the palace. And when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she won favor in his sight, and he held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. Just as the King extended his scepter to Ester so Christ extended his mercy and grace to us as sinful man yet we must also accept it.             As Psalm 51 also instructs us to seek forgiveness and once we receive this forgiveness we are then told to go and praise the Lord of our salvation for he has lifted us up from the pits of sin, restoring our weary souls. I, too, followed suit and went down from the porch to a slope in the yard where I laid out a blanket, turned on my ipod, and began worshipping the Lord in song. Oh, how my heart was uplifted just by simply offering my gift of song to my God, my King. For past 5 years I have spent Sunday mornings worshipping the Lord in song from the choir loft of First Baptist Flatwoods and now to be so far away my heart’s song has sometimes gone without release. It is ever so easy to get wrapped up in the sheer joy of being in the midst of nationals worshipping, yet it is still so difficult to worship in new unfamiliar surroundings, sometimes not knowing even the meaning of the words which you are singing. During those 5 years I found some of my greatest joy in sharing God word and affection for his children through music. However, now I am learning to worship God on a new level. I am learning to praise him unashamed and not the attention or praise of peers, but to please him…my audience of one. Although learning is the key word and craving out the time to do so is just as critical; however, I still find myself filled and ever more urged to drink deeper in the depths of my Lord.             I find myself recognizing the Father in the small detail of everyday life and as I sit worshipping him. One fellow missionary woman once commented that she felt God’s presence in the songs of the birds and for myself I have begun to notice God’s presence near as the wind softly brushes against my face, my arms, and I feel him all around me. I now notice more and more the soft brushes of the breeze as they sometimes come from unknown places and at unexpected moments. I am then reminded that my God is ever near to me and I can always call on him. For we all have mountain top and valley experiences in our walk and I must freely admit that over the past few weeks I have been walking through the valley. Even though the Lord has heard my prayers and been at work in my life as well as ministry I still find myself more concerned with getting from point A to point B than truly being passionate about the Lord or interested in how better to bring him glory. The time between my last blog to present has been due to the fact that I have been suffering from writers block. Not to say the Lord hasn’t been working in my heart, but as I have sat down to write my pen nor fingers could find the right words. I found myself unable to be inspired by the Holy Spirit or prompted as to what to write. I had prayed and ask the Lord to renew my passion, my fire, my drive. Praise the Lord for his faithfulness for he heard my groaning, but first he had to remove Julia from the equation before he could do his work. The Lord needed to have my sin removed from his presence and then he needed to receive the honor and respect he so deserved from his child. I had to worship my God, my rock, my strong tower, my salvation whether I was on the mountain top or in the valley.             Yesterday morning I was reading in Charles Stanley’s devotional “Gifts from the Heart” where he described our being before we know Christ and how he draws us into a relationship with him. Dr. Stanley described the lost as “mired by ignorance and frustration”; however, at the time I didn’t fully recognize the application to my life. I could look back at my life prior to my relationship with Christ and recognized my ignorance and frustration with life, yet I was missing the current life application. For this statement is two-fold: first we can apply the ignorance and frustration of life to our inability to recognize our need for a savior and second we can apply the ignorance and frustration of life once we are saved to our own reluctance in recognizing the hidden sins in our lives that are often due to our own self-righteousness. It is easy in life to become so wrapped up in ministry and what we are doing for the Lord that we forget our own sin nature. I had forgotten in my rush to get from point A to point B that even though I am a missionary I still need to remain humbled. Our own self-righteousness often gets in the way of God accomplishing the work he first began. I was in the valley only because of my own ignorance to the sin plaguing my life. It had been months since I had truly worshipped the Lord and it had been at least a week since I had spent over 30 minutes with the Lord in prayer and study for my own benefit. I am recognizing more and more how hard the ministry in any capacity is, whether you are over seas or in the states. Ministry is demanding and with such responsibility so comes higher expectations and standards. However, God calls us to the understanding of scripture as it tells us “to daily deny ourselves and take up our cross”. We must first be fed before we can feed another hungry soul.  Anne Graham Lotz describes it as such in her book “My Jesus is…Everything”:“What is there about Him so compelling that……some of the greatest architectural achievements in Europe were built for worship of Him?…some of the world’s most beautiful art was created to honor Him?…some of the world’s most glorious music was written to praise Him?In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and Word was God. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.John 1:1, 4Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. He claimed to be God walking the earth as a man – true God, true Man! Do you believe Him? Who do you say He is?