God is a floralist

How do floralists become floralists anyways? But they have a knack for putting together things and making them work together, each flower can be different, but together they form a brilliant bouquet. The floralist knows this, and puts each flower in a certain spot, with another flower, to bring out its full intended beauty. But a floralist needs somewhere to grow his flowers, so he picks earth, and puts them outside to grow and hope that they will survive the storms.

Explained parable: God is the floralist, we are the flowers. Who knows how he became and what inspired him to be so compassionate and gentle. He is smart, he see's things in the big picture, knowing who he should bring together in life so they can become a bountiful bouquet, and arranges their life so they might be the most beautiful bouquet he could possibley imagine. He needed somewhere to put his people so they might choose to worship him, so he had to create earth and plant them there. As the seasons change, he wants his flowers (people) to be ok and make it through the bad weather, but there he won't change the weather too (trials,etc.). But all the while the floralist really hopes that all his delicate flowers make it through the harshness of earth. the floralist is on our side.

Sometimes i concentrate so hard on how to live that I forget too live.

Grace

I remember my first year of becoming a Christian, it was the most romantic year of my life. Clint Crivello was 2701's pastor, and every talk he gave was like a stab at my newly throbbing heart for God. He gave a message about grace, I think for the most part it was the first time I ever really thought about it. I remember him beggining saying "Wow, grace, when asked to talk about this I really did not know what to say but grace is...". He tried to explain it, although everyone knows God and his grace are unexplainable. That first year was full of passion, this crazy desire for God. I ALWAYS relate to the church in Ephesus because they were this church that found God so quickly and just was obsessed with him, then just continued to get lost and bored along the way, forgetting the very reason why the fell in love in the first place (Revelation 2:2-5, all of Ephesians, Acts 20:17-35). So my first year was powerful, I knew it was not I who chose God but he who chose me, and it was all I thought about. I wasn't as aware of my sins, because all of my faults just melted when i thought of how real and how much I loved God. I read my Bible, talked about God, and prayed all the time, much like I do now but it's different. I have this continual battle of becoming obsessed with the sins I am committing, feeling terrible that I love God so much, and fail so much. I always tell my small group girls to not let guilt keep them from God, but that is the very thing I always let antagonize me. I hate the sin that lives in me, I try too follow the bible as much as Jesus did, and just can't, I'm just not him, I'm jut not perfect.(Romans 7). I feel like sometimes I am killing the life that God has stirred up in my heart, stripping beauty, stripping energy. I grow tired, because I think self-discipline will reignite the fire that I had with God in the beggining. But as any relationship, you can't be romantic all the time, I may not always feel in love. What sparked this re-contemplation about grace is me reading "Blue like Jazz" again. It started with Donald saying this "I am self-addicted, living in the wreckage of the fall, my body, my heart, and my affections are prone to love things that kill me...I found myself trying to love the right things with out God's help and it was impossible...My answer to this dilemma was self-discipline. I figured I could just make myself do good things" He then continues to describe a year that he made a pact with a few fundamentalist Christians. they intended to thrive off self-discipline, fasting, not watching tv, no smoking,etc. clearly it didn't work out and Donald wrote "I hated the entire year. Hated it. I felt like a failure every morning...looking back I was too proud to receive free grace from God. I didn't know how to live in a system where nobody owes anybody else anything...thought I understood that God wanted nothing in return, my mind could not communicate this fact to my heart, so my life was torture...It seemed wrong to me to not have to pay for my sin, not to feel guilty about it or kick myself around...grace was too easy. I wanted to feel as though I earned my forgiveness"
Exactly what I feel, sometimes, given not always, I have points of accepting and rejecting grace, and times where I do torture myself and others with correction. Jesus said in John that loving him means following his commandments, and 1John talks a lot about living in the light, not letting anything take place in your heart where God should be, that loving God means following his commandments, that you don't know god if you don't love everyone, and that we ought to live our life for God because of all he has done for us. and I believe all those statements, I believe the bible is always right...but what? Is the key word "Ought"? does that mean I should live my life for Christ, but don't have too? (freewill, I know..) does living my life for Christ mean I am living just as Jesus did? I think that is impossible, I'm far to sinful. Galatians talks about dying to the law to live for God. And in Matthew Jesus talks about coming to fulfill what the law could not do, which was to make us right with God. So grace is hidden in there somewhere. But if you truly love Jesus...you obey his laws? Is that to obey them as best you can, or to really just obey them? Do you not love god if your not perfect? I think you can. My life goal is to store my treasures in heaven and to obtain heaven here on Earth. But I am on Earth, I am living i the wreckage of the fall. So how do I balance trying to be perfect and accepting grace? I don't think the answer would be try as best you can and when you fail accept grace. I can just walk, I just need to walk. Grace is incomprehensible. It's free, it's mine. Jesus already paid the price for me. I can't possibly earn it. I look at some older Christians I have in my life, they seem more at ease with themselves and God then anyone I know. It's not that they are sinless, but it is that they acknowledge they are sinful, and let god deal with it. They just walk and enjoy, they accept the amazing gifts God gives them, they don't feel bad about being imperfect and receiving such perfection from the Lord, they just accept. Isaiah 45 talks about God being a clay maker and us being clay. Clay is sticky and doesn't hold shape, or create shape on its own. It has to be molded, the clay maker has to use his or her hands to form it into the shape it desires. So I know ultimately that I am not the one shaping me, it is God of course. But I almost feel kind of bad just not doing anything, and thats grace. God's grace is like water; it cleanses and purifies, no one is allergic to it although some are scared of it, it never ceases to exist, it always quenches, and it never runs out. And I am a river bed. River beds may dry out for a time, but it doesn't cease to be a place that can hold water. Storms will always fill it up again with new water.

and then I remember

I have nothing to figure out with God, only things to receive from him.

the Lord is good to those who wait for him.

Incredibly good.
I can't help that it was a beautiful sunny day, and i was able to drive windows down, music turned up, with the bestest friends in the whole world, and just praised god for it. My life is all these little pieces of cloth, that God sews together to create this wildly vibrant quilt that is my life.
sometimes I feel like thee luckiest girl in the whole world, I see my life as this insane love story between creation and creator/.
The Lord is real, I love you more.

God is enough

Emotions have been so inconsistent lately, I've been pretty weighed down. And yet again I call to my closest friends to help me, I seek counsel to affirm me. But God says no: "So to keep me from becoming proud,I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness."...Now I take pleasure in my weaknesses...for when I am weak I am strong" 2Corinthian 12:7-10.
So I've been processing a lot and talking a lot to God and others, and have remained in weakness yet also in God's love for the last 3 or 4 weeks. And it's ok, I lost sight of beauty for a little bit, losing myself in a pity party for feeling the way I have been. But I experienced God's beauty in my weakness, especially this week. I have called on God for soooo long to change me, to challenge me in a way he hasn't yet, told him I will do whatever it takes to be closer to him; and he is acting. Last summer I remember having a very sad conversation with a staff member for camp. A few of us were all sitting around a table and talking about how the world is fallen, how no matter how hard we try we are still going to feel, we still won't be close enough to God. And thats something so frustrating to me, is there will always be some blockage because of how much my sinful nature holds me back, I wish I wasn't so sinful, but thats how it is (Romans 7). And among these dear friends I said something that I never wanted to face with in myself, a belief embedded deep with in me: I said "His grace just isn't enough here". I was referencing and had in mind the verse I said earlier. But just now God is telling me that he is enough, he's enough here, he is enough everywhere. He is enough. He is enough. He is enough.
In the midst of tearful eyes and a broken heart, I can still hear him saying "I am enough, and you still belong to me". I'm devoted to him, he' devoted to me. And I am thankful for what he has allowed me to see and feel these last few weeks, because it sucks and hurts like anything, but is teaching me a great deal, and I am relying on him again. god creates the light and makes there darkness therefore he is in both, Isiah 45:7. I'm thankful, not worried. And constantly reminded that knowing God was the most amazing decision I ever made, thank you Father.


"then I realized that my heart was bitter, and I was all torn up inside.
I was so foolish and ignorant-
I must have seemed like a seneless animal to you.
Yet still I belong to you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
leading me to a glorious destiny.
Whom have I in heaen but you?
I desire you more than anything on the earth.
My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
but god remains the strength of my heart;
he is mine forever"

Psalm 73:21-26

Hiking metaphor

I've noticed while I am hiking, especially on a trail quite narrow I always watch my feet. Make sure they are staying on the path, making sure I'm not running into any branches, or a tree, trying my hardest not to stumble. But nothing is beautiful about the ground, I just always forget to look up. Just breathe. Walk. And trust that even if you do hit something, get back up, you'll be fine.


When walking through trials we try not to run into things, try not to stumble. We try our hardest to keep ourselves safe, but admist that we forget to just look up. God knows what he is doing, just look up, just walk, you don't have to "try and keep yourself safe".

Just look up.