"Go back to the grass roots. Open your hearts and search the Scriptures. Bear your cross, follow your Lord and pay no heed to the passing religious vogue. The masses are always wrong. In every generation the number of the righteous are small. Be sure you are among them." (A.W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous)

quit trying to model other people's fruit.

our eyes should not be on the fruit but the roots of the fruit.

model the Word.

model the Spirit.

get back to the root of it all, and dont be afraid if the fruit God bears in you looks a little different than other people's.

so many days of being with friends and having things to do makes the empty days feel so much lonelier.

restless.

today i want someone to want me.

that is all.

i am not an understudy or 2nd-stringer that you can just cue in when it's most convenient for you.
that's not how this works.

July 25

You do not realize now what I am doing,but later you will understand.
(John 13:7)

In this life, we have an incomplete view of God’s dealings, seeing His plan only half finished and underdeveloped. Yet once we stand in the magnificent temple of eternity, we will have the proper perspective and will see everything fitting gracefully together!

Imagine going to the mountains of Lebanon during the reign of Israel’s great king Solomon. Can you see the majestic cedar? It is the pride of all the other trees and has wrestled many years with the cold north winds! The summer sun has loved to smile upon it, while the night has caused its soft leaves to glisten with drops of dew. Birds have built their nests in its branches, and weary travelers and wandering shepherds have rested in its shade from the midday heat or taken shelter from the raging storms. And suddenly we realize that this old inhabitant of the forest has been doomed to fall victim to the woodsman’s ax!

We watch as the ax makes its first gash on the cedar’s gnarled trunk. Then we see its noble limbs stripped of their branches as the tree comes crashing to the ground. We cry out against the wanton destruction of this “Tree of God,” as it is distinctively known, and express our anger over the demolition of this proud pillar in the forest temple of nature. We are tempted to exclaim with the prophet Zechariah, “Wail, O pine tree, for the cedar has fallen . . . !” (Zech. 11:2), as if inviting the sympathy of every less-majestic plant and invoking inanimate things to also resent the offense.

We should not be so quick to complain but should follow the gigantic tree as the workmen of “Hiram king of Tyre” (2 Chron. 2:3) take it down the mountainside. From there we should watch it being sailed on rafts along the blue water of the Mediterranean. And finally, we should behold it being placed as a glorious and polished beam in the temple of God. As you contemplate its final destination, seeing it in the Holy of Holies as a jewel in the diadem of the almighty King, can you honestly complain that this “crown jewel of Lebanon” was cut down, removed from the forest, and placed in such a noble setting? The cedar had once stood majestically in nature’s sanctuary, but “the glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house” (Hag. 2:9).

So many people are like these cedars of old! God’s axes of trials have stripped them bare, and yet we can see no reason for such harsh and difficult circumstances. But God has a noble goal and purpose in mind: to place them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His heavenly Zion. And He says to them, “You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God” (Isa. 62:3). J. R. Macduff

I do not ask my cross to understand,

My way to see—

Better in darkness just to feel Your hand,

And follow Thee.

i've been feeling a little misplaced lately.

a little lonely, a little forgotten, a little...purposeless.

i'm at one of those glorious points where i dont feel like i fit anywhere and i'm not needed anywhere.

it's more than a little depressing.

i am, however, achingly aware that Satan is manipulating my feelings and trying to use them to make me feel unnecessary and sad. he'd love to keep me down, but God's truth holds me upright.

i know feelings can't be trusted.

i'm just praying this bout passes quickly and God will fill my heart with hope.