Waiting on the Lord… Again

Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD. ~ Ps 27:14

So this morning I woke up and spent time in my prayer closet. I wanted to seek God on things for my future and give Him my day. When I finished praying, I got on my computer and saw the post from Rebekah A and it spoke exactly to where I am now.

Things may be in the works for some change in my life soon and I really wanted God to be in the midst of it all but I knew that in order for it to have any chance, my ex must be SO far out of my mind that he doesn’t even come up. I don’t know if that’s possible, but as I read the post I said that prayer that Rebekah A wrote and gave it all over to God again. If I am to move forward, my past must be so far behind me that I can’t even see it anymore.

Today itself has been an interesting day, my legs are aching so badly from having gone on a jog yesterday, I had to work on a powerpoint for the doctor I’m working with even though I’m here for research and this is completely unrelated, and I didn’t end up going to Walmart because it was pouring rain.

Then… I received a text that the very situation I had been wondering about and praying over lately and one of the very specific answers occurred today. I don’t really want to write it all out right now unless things become a little more concrete but it certainly felt like a sign was happening. Only Jesus knows where this all will lead, but I find myself in a place of needing to just trust in God that if I pray for His Will and continually check to be in His Will… then it will come to pass as He wishes.

So much of my past mistakes have been wrapped up in thinking that I was in the Will of God and running headstrong in that direction without checking with Him if He had any turns to take. Yes, He sometimes says take that road… but sometimes there are forks in the road and instead of checking in with Him we continue on the way WE think we should go.

Jesus,

I pray that You continue to lead and guild me in this situation. As I wait on Your final answer on how everything should turn out, I lay it all at Your feet to work it out as You will. Let me continually be seeking what You want instead of my own wishes and desires. Help me seek You with all that I have and watch as everything else falls into place. Let me live Matthew 6:33 (Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you). I love You Jesus with all my heart.

Rebekah M.

In His Hands: Unexpected Gifts

May16

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ~James 4:7

Although I’ve been trying to fast for a week on and off for a week and a half now, today has been a new level. Since I started coming out of my deep fasting/praying time, I’ve allowed myself to slip away little by little from the habits that helped me reach a new level in Christ. I haven’t been praying 3 times a day. I haven’t been looking at things that I’m fasting and saying “Jesus, I want You more.” I am reading my Bible but the steady, daily reading has been more this week than others recently.

I confess all this to set the stage for the two things that I want to say today.

Despite my discipline in Christ slipping away, my adoration for Him has held. It’s amazing to me that the deep, deep love for Christ that was born through those hours upon hours of prayer and weeks of fasting has remained. Just today on my way to church the sun broke through the clouds and I teared up a little and told Jesus that I adored Him. Something about the beauty in this world continually reminds me of how wonderful this Jesus of ours is. I’ll sporadically pray and with all my heart I’ll say “I adore You Jesus” and I KNOW that it’s for real. What amazing, wonderful grace God has to allow that present to say in my heart. It truly is awe-striking that He would have done such a deep work in me that I could still adore Him even when I haven’t been spending as much time with Him. Thank You Jesus.

The other gift Jesus gave me was that this morning I created a prayer closet in the house I’m staying at this month and set aside time in my morning to pray before work. I submitted my day to Him and during the afternoon, a friend of mine posted that she was now “single” on facebook. I both texted her and posted on her status update and as I was typing something on FB, she texted what God had told her the night before that brought about the change. It was FLOORING because it was exactly what I was about to post! I told her to go check it out and she was like “girl, that’s confirmation.” I told Jesus this morning that I wanted to stop wondering about how things would work out with future potential Isaacs and to get back to trying to be like Rebekah- seeking contentment in living my life daily, doing the tasks at hand. Just a few minutes this morning to submit my day and then He uses me to minister to a friend. WOW (!!!) is all I could say to that. Amazing, amazing Jesus.

I am in His hands and I’ve submitted my actions into His hands.

Jesus,

I thank You that You’ve given me these unexpected, undeserved gifts. I thank You that You decided that I could be a vessel to be used by You today to minister to a friend. I thank You that the adoration I had for You before has continued and even deepened as time as gone on. There is none like You Jesus. With ALL my heart, I know that I know that I KNOW- I adore You, I love You, with ALL my heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Rebekah M.

My Refuge

Mar10

Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah. ~ Psalm 62:8

While going through one of my reading plans on youversion.com, an online bible, I read the above verse and knew that at some point, God wanted me to post about this. I had plans to write about this on Leap Day, but God wrote a different post instead. However, on Feb 25th I wrote about how we make choices in response to the events in our lives and one of those choices is trust and on Feb 27th I poured my heart out. I had not read the above verse until after I wrote those posts. I read Psalms 62:8 and knew God would call me to finish up with this thought- through it all, God has been my refuge.

In 2007-2009, I was at a church in which the pastor and his wife were against our family. It was to the point that saints that ended up leaving that church called my parents up to apologize for the role they played- some were asked to join in secret prayer meetings against our family, some were asked to report on us as “spies”, and others revealed part of why they left was because they refused to do those things. I spent MONTHS questioning God, fearing really joining another church, and just plain scared of allowing church people to ever again have the power to hurt me as much as that church did. It took SO LONG for me to finally thank God that He saw me through that time and taught me many lessons through it.

2009 also was the year my cousin committed suicide. We had never been close but I SO DEEPLY felt as if I had somehow failed him. I knew God- I knew the hope of this world and yet my own cousin decided that this world was so dark and bleak that he ended his own life by jumping off a building. It took almost two years for me to realize that there was nothing I could have done because when he was visiting us, we brought him to church, we tried to witness and yet he rejected God. He outright rejected God (based upon things he said).

In 2010 a person at my school tried to get me kicked out. I tried to comfort a fellow student on an exam exercise that they clearly had already completed via responding to a facebook post about it. For my efforts I was called into the office and accused of helping students cheat who were supposed to go the next day. Please note: I was in the class above, I did not know their class was split over two days (ours had all been in one day), and I was responding to a reference to MY year’s (the previous year’s) exercise and not specifically theirs. Little did I know the course director didn’t change the exams from year to year and in trying to comfort that friend, the course director tried to get me kicked out. I went to the bathroom sobbing to the point I almost passed out. This was my lifelong dream and this person was trying to kill it because I was trying to assure someone that we all feel badly about how we did but the vast majority pass. A few hours later I looked at my roommate at the time and told her “I trust God. Remind me, when I start doubting, ‘[Rebekah M.] you said you were going to trust God!’ ” Within 2 hrs I received news that I would not be kicked out of the school.

The end of 2011 brought about the end of a relationship where the guy had been talking to me about how he had already picked the ring out, where I should look for jobs, and even the fact that we would have twin boys (since twins ran in his family and we realized that both of us had separately dreamed of having twins) and a little princess. He did it by calling for a break, we then had two subsequent conversations, a two week span of silence, then (without ANY communication from him) changing his status on facebook to single. As things fell apart I chose to worship Him, I turned to Him in prayer and fasting, and I believed that He had all things in His hands. In the end, I emerged closer to Him than I had ever been and stronger than before.

In ALL of those times and others not mentioned, God showed Himself to be a refuge. He was my strong tower when things tried to come against me. He was the strength of my life and my hope.

Jesus,

Let this post encourage these readers to just trust You with their lives and find in You the refuge they are seeking when they pour it all out to You. Let them find that when they are emptied of themselves, You step in and fortify them. Lord, You have been so true and real to me in my times of trouble. You have shown me that when I dance before You in my prayer closet even in my time of pain, You come. You come as surely as the sun will rise You’ll come. We are safe in You. I love You Jesus with all my heart.

Rebekah M.

My First Love

Mar6

We love Him, because He first loved us. ~ I John 4:19

Today, I randomly blurted out “I hate him!” And it floored me. Something in my gut said this intense feeling about my ex was more than just that. God freed me from him and our relationship; so then why did I say that and so intensely? It led me to go check his facebook and I saw what happened… he had defriended me. This whole time I have done nothing to him, things started going south- I prayed and fasted for him. He changes his status on facebook without telling me we were officially broken up- I never breathe a word to his friends or those who know him. God leads me to send him one last text of “I forgive you. I pray you have a blessed rest of your life” and he responds with “ok thank you.” In my book that was the end of that. So why defriend me all these weeks later?

This led to an exploration of what was truly going on within me. On the phone with my prayer partner, I realized that I truly am neutral about my ex and wish him well. However, I realized that deep down I resent myself for changing so much for someone who would treat me SO poorly. Self-loathing welled up when I thought of how much I killed parts of myself off just to please someone who threw me away like dirty trash.

It cut at me that my “first love” as SO completely undeserving of me and my heart. But as I sat in my prayer closet crying, Jesus quietly whispered to my heart “he was not your first love, I was.” And the freedom that came with that was SO amazing. His love washed over me once again and I knew just how true this statement was. Oh Lord, I love You so very much. I’m still sorry for ever giving my heart away for a short time to someone who could never care for it like You do.

July 19, 2000, we had a sacrificial giving night at church camp and at the time, I owned a Baby-G watch that my aunt and uncle in Japan gave to me. It had dolphins and I rocked that thing like I was hot. I LOVED that watch, and so as people were pouring things on the alter, I said to God, “I will give You whatever You want, just not this watch.” So I dedicated 7 years of my life to Him and Him alone. To be single and not date. Little did it strike me that those were the main dating years for many Pentecostals like myself (16-23), but I made the promise and stuck to it (I also gave the watch to my pastor the next day because I realized that NOTHING should come between Him and myself). In those years, I learned to make God my first love and although I could have done a better job focusing on Him, I know that it was worth it.

When my ex and I started dating we based our relationship on Jesus. I started falling in love with him when he took me to pray at his church on one of our first dates. Prayers were answered almost instantaneously. It was amazing to see how God moved when we bound together in Him. There seemed to be signs everywhere that we were meant to be (even prophets telling him I was the one for him). Soon, however, we started turning towards each other and a few months in, as I was leaving a restaurant he stole my first kiss. It was so unexpected and he did it so impetuously that he accidentally honked the horn of my car as he practically fell on me. Even with my previous conviction to leave my first kiss for the alter, I just shrugged and grabbed him back for a second kiss and that led to the beginning of a very painful end.

Dear Readers,

Never, never, never compromise who you are or things that you feel God wants you to do for someone else. My ex had told me he would never date anyone who wouldn’t kiss him so prior to that first kiss, I had hinted that I was wavering on that conviction. I didn’t say “because I want you more than God” but looking back, that was what was in my heart. Whomever I end up with, it will be easy to pick out the bad weeds if any of these guys refuse to date me because I won’t kiss again until my wedding day. If you are still young and haven’t had your first love make Jesus your first love. That feeling of self-loathing left me the moment I realized that Jesus was my first love. Even if I let someone else borrow my heart for a bit, my first love- Jesus- has NEVER let me down. My first love will ALWAYS be there for me. My first love is the only One worthy of my heart and one day, He’ll allow some lucky guy to help hold my heart, but not yet. For those who are in a place of regret over a past relationship (s), know that redemption is found in Him. I buried myself in Him, abhorred myself before Him, and found Him with unending grace, love, mercy, and faithfulness for me. He is just waiting to wash it all away from you.

Jesus, I love You with all my heart.
Rebekah M.

Dancing In The Closet

Jan24

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Matthew 6:6

These past few months God has been working in my heart on a new level. I know I keep mentioning it, but that emotionally taxing time was truly a turning point for me in my spiritual life. In my pain, I buried myself in Him and turned into the kind of Christian I have always wanted to be. The kind that I loved hanging around but was never willing to sacrifice myself to actually be. One who listens to sermons in her free time, one who prays EVERY day- typically multiple times a day, one who reads her Bible EVERY day, one who seeks for Him in everything- even to tell her what color to wear that day for who knows how He could use it, but He could!

Much of my life I’ve been on the platform at the churches I’ve attended as a singer. I worship Him openly in church and it has encouraged people to do the same when they would see my sincerity towards Him. It was always my prayer that I would disappear while I was up there and He would shine through. Nice as that was, it was only in the most personally painful storm of my life that I finally learned to worship Him in private. One day I found myself driving home after church and He had moved mightily in service and I even received a personal message from Him. During that drive I felt Him say to me:

Although it has always pleased me that you would openly praise and worship me in church, knowing that it allows others to feel free to open up to me too, you are already blessed then. However, when you praise and worship me in your home where no one else can see, for me- your audience of one- then am I truly pleased and will reward you.

I know with all my heart that I had received the word from Him that night specifically because before service I was dancing and jumping and shouting in praise and worship to Him. He rewards openly when you pray, praise, and worship in your closet.

This morning I woke up and spent some time in my prayer closet. God has provided me with a literal closet that I am able to sit in and pray. Thus, early this morning I sat in the closet and for almost half an hour I just imagined about how something that had become messed up in my life could potentially be turned around. As my closest (and even some acquaintances) know, I have quite the imagination. I have a hard time keeping it in check and can have elaborate daydreams of how things will work out in this or that. Finally, I stopped and just talked to God. He moved in to my closet so strongly I felt almost like He was holding me in a hug. It was amazing and I felt Him tell me to get up and dance before Him- to give Him my heart, mind, strength. Later on, my boss complimented me again today for something I did and has given me even more freedom of my time. I know that this favor is not of me. Yes, things look like they are my actions, but truly they are His working through my body. Thank You Lord for Your favor in my life. Thank You Lord for helping me heal, change, and be molded into the woman of God that You want me to be.

Dear Reader,

Learn to dance in your prayer closets. Learn to do things for the audience of One. When you do, you’ll find that He will bless you beyond what you ever imagined. This does not mean that life will be perfect and you’ll never have any problems, but it does mean that you’ll have peace beyond your circumstances, grace in the storm, joy unspeakable, and You. Will. Have. Victory. I encourage you now to live in the victorious life that God has before you through learning how to make, maintain, and even dance in a prayer closet for Him.

~Rebekah M.