I just listened to Hillsong United's "So Will I (A Hundred Billion X)."  And I'm going to leave that statement there for a few minutes. 

Rewind to the past weekend.  I had a few minutes of meltdown alone in my garage.  Nothing overwhelming, just had gotten sick of listening the the litany of complaints in my head and feeling the anger of my heart simmering more often than not these days.  Seems everything and everyone is causing me to feel things I don't want to feel.  It's like I'm angry at the world and all I hear in my head is harshness.  I cry out to God for deliverance.  I don't want to feel this way.  I want to love as He loves.  I desire this with all my heart.  So why can't I get past myself?

I cried out to God that I was unworthy of His love, His attention....I asked Him to just leave me be and give up on me.  I would never get this right.  My heart breaks over this.  So then His answers started showing up.  And in truth I found them hard to believe.  Still do if I I'm being honest.  

First was a Facebook meme.  All it said was "God is proud of you."  Ok, now there is no way that could be for me.  LOL  That's impossible.  So I went on my way that day....living in my struggle and wretchedness.  (But as always, still trying!)  Later that night I read my bedtime daily devotional for the day.  "The Power of Being Thankful" by Joyce Meyer.  The title: God Thinks You Are Amazing.   As I read through the page, my mind was again saying, "nope, not me."  Okay agree with the sentiment of Psalm 139:14  that says "Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!  Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it."  I know that the making of a human is an amazing and wonderful feat.  The care and precision and knowledge that went into making us is beyond anything we could imagine.  It's what I've done with this creation of the Lord that I have a problem with.  

Joyce went on to talk about how our change doesn't come over night, and our struggles wouldn't instantly disappear, but that it was a process and God sees the beginning from the end.  Ok, I have an answer for that too.  LOL  I've been actively working this since 1994.  That's 26 years.  How long do I have to wait to see definitive change!  I must be the one impossible case (or one of the few LOL)

But last night at work, the Lord really started hammering it home.  I'm starting to think I can't ignore that He doesn't see me the way I do.  That He really does seem past the wretchedness, to the heart that desires with everything in it to obey Him, yet struggles to find the path of that obedience.  He sees my want even as it wars with my ability.  And that is what He rejoices over.  And that is the part, the seed He has put in me.  

As I was driving my rider jack at work, I looked down and saw in front of me an index card.  It was tattered, and dirty from people and equipment trampling over it.  It looked like it had been there for days, but I don't think it had.  I think somehow, someway that night it had fallen out of my pocketbook amid all the other index cards I had in there that I forget to look at.   It was God's timing, a God visit that I needed so badly.  

Deuteronomy 28:1-9,13  If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all HIs commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world.  You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God.  Your towns and your fields will be blessed.  Your children and your crops will be blessed.  The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed.  Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed.  Wherever you go and whatever you do, will be blessed.  The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you.  They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!  The Lord your God will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill you storehouses with grain.  The Lord you God will bless you in the land He is giving you.  If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in His ways, the Lord will establish you as His holy people as He swore He would do...If you listen to the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail and you will always be on top and never at the bottom.  

And later that night while I was on break, I came to these verses as I was doing my reading for Sunday's Bible study.

Leviticus 26:3-13   “If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,  I will send you the seasonal rains. The land will then yield its crops, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit.  Your threshing season will overlap with the grape harvest, and your grape harvest will overlap with the season of planting grain. You will eat your fill and live securely in your own land.   “I will give you peace in the land, and you will be able to sleep with no cause for fear. I will rid the land of wild animals and keep your enemies out of your land.  In fact, you will chase down your enemies and slaughter them with your swords.  Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand! All your enemies will fall beneath your sword.   “I will look favorably upon you, making you fertile and multiplying your people. And I will fulfill my covenant with you.  You will have such a surplus of crops that you will need to clear out the old grain to make room for the new harvest!  I will live among you, and I will not despise you.  I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people.  I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery from your neck so you can walk with your heads held high.

Wow.  God had a lot to say.  Now, I know this says obedience....but God knew neither the Israelites nor us would ever be perfect.  He instituted a systems of sacrifice for them, and gave the ultimate sacrifice for all of us....Jesus Christ.  But I think God is saying if you obey me...meaning if your heart is seeking to do it's absolute best to be obedient....if you seek forgiveness when you fail, following my instruction for redemption (relying on Jesus), then I will be with You, I will bless You.  God loves our hearts desire to be obedient.  I'm not saying we live a flippant life, not, "oops, I screwed up but I wanted to do right" lazy attitude.  But when I give up, I fall out of His will.  And I think we can apply these physical blessings to spiritual blessing as well.  God is not mad at me.  And He's not mad at you.  He sees our hearts desire to obey and is pleased.  

I am not perfect....far from it.  But I serve a perfect God, am saved by a perfect Savior and I need to trust His timing to remove my shortcomings, while working hard with the Holy Spirit to be all He wants me to be.  

Lord, my imperfections and anger and sinfulness cause me so much sorrow.  I know You see that.  But I am trusting Your love over my behavior.  Your mercy and compassion over my inabilities.  Thank You for sending Your love to me on four separate occasions.  Thank You for reassuring me, and whoever is reading this that we are never out of Your love and mercy.  Help us to grow, to see the changes that we want so much to see so that we may glorify You.  In Jesus name, amen.

God loves you and is proud of you!  

 Really focus on the last verse of this song.  It says so much.  The God who orchestrated the vast universes down to the tiniest detail is so enamored of you and me....He will never leave us behind.