The Beat of Your Heart

Wait
by Russell Kelfer

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried;
Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate . . .
And the Master so gently said, “Wait.”

“Wait? you say wait?” my indignant reply.
“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith I have asked, and I’m claiming your Word.

“My future and all to which I relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to wait?
I’m needing a ‘yes’, a go-ahead sign,
Or even a ‘no’ to which I can resign.

“You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe,
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:
I’m weary of asking! I need a reply.”

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate,
As my Master replied again, “Wait.”
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
And grumbled to God, “So, I’m waiting for what?”

He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine . . .
and He tenderly said, “I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.

“I could give all you seek and pleased you would be.
You’d have what you want, but you wouldn’t know Me.
You’d not know the depth of my love for each saint.
You’d not know the power that I give to the faint.

“You’d not learn to see through clouds of despair;
You’d not learn to trust just by knowing I’m there.
You’d not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence are all you can see.

“You’d never experience the fullness of love
When the peace of My spirit descends like a dove.
You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,
But you’d not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

“The glow of my comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight.
The depth that’s beyond getting just what you ask
From an infinite God who makes what you have last.

“You’d never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.
Yes, your dearest dreams overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I’m doing in you.

“So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to truly know me.
And though oft My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still . . . Wait.”

How fast do these little legs go?

I have an itch today, an itch to go- to run, to sprint. I need to leave. I need to do an 180 degree turn and sprint as hard as I can away from Chapel Hill.

Sometimes I feel normal life reminds me of things that I don't want to think about or be mindful of anymore. I long for that feeling of being somewhere new, where I don't know anyone or anything and my normal life is left to the wayside.

I can't explain it very well- but that is my heart and that is where I am at right now. I want to sprint.

Freedom.

Knowing that this is my Senior year, the word freedom has been ringing in my mind. In only 2 short months, I will be free from school. Free from papers that are looming over my head. Free from set hours of class time. Free from trying to fool my professors into thinking that I have been paying attention for the past 45 minutes. Free from academia and everything it tries to pollute my mind with.

I was talking to a friend yesterday and she was telling me about some of her friends that were struggling with their faith due to some professor's lies. He claims he is not bias. He is. He claims not to have an agenda. He does. And because of the lies that he feeds hungry, bound up, students, they run away from God. Can you not see the chains he is looping around you? Do you not feel the heaviness of his claims? You think that the search for "true intellectual academia" brings freedom. Why have you fooled yourself?

God, the God who created every petal of every wildflower, the God who created every burst of sunlight, the God who created every cell in your brain that allows you to question him, loves you. He wants you. He is jealous for you. He sees these lies and he weeps over them. He sees you turning away from him and he pleads you not to turn one degree further. He doesn't think, "Oh great...have to go run after her again," but instead thinks "My child, my love, my bride- come to me. What I have for you is so much better. It is freedom."

We desire freedom. God WILL give us the desires of our hearts. He promises that to us. While we may not keep our promises, he keeps his. Our desires of freedom will be fulfilled because he gives us himself. There is freedom in the love of Christ.

Run to that, dear friends. Refuse to accept lies. Run to Freedom.

Seemingly Great

I believe I have started this post four or five times. The words have been reeling in my mind for days. I have marinated my thoughts, my emotions and my feelings, so that I am able to express fully--my heart.

I am seemingly great.

Now for some explanation as to why these four simple words have been so difficult to express. When I am sad, emotions are easy to detect. Sad is my deviant and a deviant, by property, always acts different than the norm. However, when I am normal, I usually forget to recognize my emotions. Happiness is an emotion, as well, and it deserves to be recognized. However, this normal, gets muddled in my everyday. I forget to look at triumphs because they fade into the background. What does that say about me? I can praise God or complain when I am frustrated or upset, but I completely forget to praise God during the "everyday"? Where is my focus? Where are my emotions?

I was reading some quotes by Justin Martyr recently, which mainly inspired this post, and this one particularly welled up emotion:

"And when you hear that we look for a kingdom, you suppose, without making any inquiry, that we speak of a human kingdom. Instead, we speak of that which is with God, as can be shown from the confession of their faith made by those who are charged with being Christians, even though they know that death is the punishment awarded to those who so confess. For if we looked for a human kingdom, we would deny our Christ, so that we might not be killed. We would try to escape detection, so that we might obtain what we hope for. But since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men cut us off; since death is a debt which must at all events be paid." 

The Christians during that time of persecution were so focused on heaven and the life that they would experience with Jesus that they had no care to what would happen to their bodies. They craved for life in heaven with Jesus, for they knew Paul's words were true- "To die is gain." The thought of not worshipping Christ as Lord would not enter their minds, for the thought did not exist. However, Justin does mention those who would deny Christ because their focus was not solely on heaven. Their focus was present.

Sure, I would love to believe that my thoughts were always on heaven. I would love to believe that the thought of not worshipping Christ as Lord was not present in my gallery of thoughts. I would love to believe that I could stand before persecution and be so heaven focused that the present tribulations had no room in my mind.

This is not the case, and my aforementioned emotions ring that. When I am sad, when I am troubled, and when I am frustrated, I run to Jesus- Jesus, my healer and my comforter. When I seem to be drowning in the quicksand of life, I reach for Jesus. But the truth is, Jesus wants to spit me out of his mouth. My lukewarm devotion has no place in his kingdom. I say that I desire a relationship with Jesus, yet during the "seemingly great" times, my focus is presently bound, not heavenly bound. Christ desires to rejoice in the great times. He desires to be overjoyed, when I am overjoyed. He wants to celebrate my happiness along with me.

Jesus is not solely a God of valleys. He is a God of mountains, valleys, fields, and oceans. May my mind be ever focused on Jesus so that when I am running, he is running with me, when I am walking, he is holding my hand, and when I can not walk, he is carrying me.

To be like the moon...

Have you ever had that distinct desire to start everything over?

Sometimes I get the urge to completely move away and start a new adventure. You know that feeling when you first start college? You live in a completely different place, with completely different people. Yet, somehow you know that life is going to be great for 4 years. Then comes probably the best feeling, you see the onset of a great new adventure. I love that feeling. I love the feeling when you first realize that you don't know anyone, you don't know the place you are living in, but you know it is going to be amazing.

I was listening to Matt Nathanson's song, Wedding Dress, which somewhat sparked this post. One part in the lyrics says,

"I'm jealous of the moon, for how it moved away."

Tonight, I want to start a new adventure- I'm jealous of the moon. But, I think that I too easily forget that my previous adventures make me all of who I am. Sometimes I feel like it would be easier to just leave my problems or foreseeable problems and start afresh somewhere else. That isn't life. That isn't living. Those problems make me who I am and I don't want to change that. The friends that I have here, the experiences that I have experienced here (good or bad) and the emotions that I feel here--define me. I can take a new adventure, but that won't change the hurt that I'm feeling from broken things, people, situations, and etc. surrounding me.

I want to embrace that. I want to embrace feeling broken. We are broken. Our world was broken the minute we started making more of ourselves and less of God. Of course we want to escape our brokenness, we weren't made to be broken. We were made to be perfect. Yet, we refused to deny ourselves and in turn decided to deny God. I hate that! So often I long to be walking in the garden of Eden, the grass tenderly underfoot, the trees always birthing beautiful fruits, the lamb safely nuzzled up in the mane of the lion. How I forget the great loss we suffered the day sin entered the world.

So tonight, I choose to deny myself. I choose to make much of God and make much of the great grace he has given me--The grace that even though we constantly prostitute ourselves away from God, He comes into our deepest pits and pulls us out. He beautifully gave me this life to live and this place to call my home. Tonight, I choose to be thankful.

The Simply Complex

Early this morning I trucked along my 20 minute walk to work, grumbling-wishing I was still on Thanksgiving vacation, wishing I wasn't working on a Sunday, wishing it wasn't so cold. As I was walking, complaining to myself and furthering my awful mood, I heard a little bit of crunching. Little did I realize that this crunching would completely turn around my mood.

Before I left for Thanksgiving, which was wonderful, by the way, the trees had turned color and the beautiful oranges, reds, and yellows filled the trees. The leaves were beginning to fall, just enough to hint raking, but not enough to demand it. Due to my late arrival back home, I did not spy the beautiful piles of orange and red lining the neighborhood streets. Then, this morning, they went unnoticed because my focus was elsewhere- mainly on my bad mood. Thanks to my beautifully weathered clogs- my favorite and well used shoes- the leaves did not go unnoticed for long. I don't know if you have ever worn clogs before, but they tend to make one stomp, not in a frightful way, but they are quite heavy, so they tend to come hard against the ground. Today, this stomping was well welcomed. As I heard the crunching underneath my tread, I soon felt the crisp feeling when one remembers that it is the beginning of winter. I felt renewed and alive. The simplest beauty of autumn, the falling of the leaves, renewed me this morning.

Over the summer, as I was reading Proverbs, I stumbled across a verse that said,

"How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?" Proverbs 1:22

I decided then and there that I hated being simple. I am complex. I want to be complex. I want to feel complex. Yet, there is complexity in what is viewed as simple. The changing of the leaves, how simple. It happens every year around this time. Yet, how beautifully complex.

Today friends, I hope that you will not forget the beautiful truth of simple complexity. Do not be simple, but remember that that which seems simple, may actually be complex. Revive yourself in the simply complex.  

The Beginning

Grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and enjoy a window into my life

Have you ever had the urge to just write everything down? Sometimes I get this feeling which wells up so intensely. Feelings are hard for me. I look at them and think they are not logical. I feel like emotion gets in the way. But, I want to have feelings. I want to recognize them and I want to understand that they are ok.

So here I am, trying to figure out this messy thing called life. If you read my about me, you can figure out my worldviews on life. Maybe seeing my vantage point will allow for a clarity of understanding. But a quick word about the title may bring things into prospective. I love Jesus, plain and simple. All of my posts will center around that last sentence. It's a powerful one for sure. But usually, it's a hard one to swallow. So here comes in the meaning of the title- In the book of Hosea, God tells Hosea, an Old Testament prophet, to pursue and marry a prostitute named Gomer. The ongoings between Hosea and Gomer is a picture of the troubled relationship between God and Israel. Hosea is steadfast and constant with Gomer. Hosea pursues Gomer, yet still feels outraged at her promiscuous life. Hosea offers her everything and Gomer would rather return to her filth. The same is true with God. He is steadfast with Israel. He has made promises to them, which he intends on keeping. He is constant. He pursues them beautifully, yet they return to the filth of idol worship. So in this time of pursuit and prostitution, God says, 

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope."

mmm beautiful. (side note: I say mmm a lot. It's my best expression of that feeling where you take your first sip of coffee at 6am and although everything around you is hazy, everything in that moment is right.)

So, the Valley of Achor is a term in the Bible used to mean trouble- Valley of trouble. Life sucks sometimes- Can I say that? But it's true, our world is broken and messed up. Our lives are broken and messed up. But the beautiful fact is that God comes into our Valley of trouble, allures us into the wilderness, speaks tenderly to us, and turns our trouble into a door of hope. That's what I desire to show through this blog. I want to be real. I want to show brokenness. But I also want to show the realness that is the Gospel. The realness that turns my Valley of Achor into a door of Hope.

Needless to say, blogs are not my thing. I think I'm more scared of them than anything. I'm scared that everyone will know everything about me- that people will look at that and say, "Wow, she's dumb- I can't believe she is sharing that with the entire world." Well, here I am. Here is my life: the good points, the bad points, the messy points, the pondering points...everything." I guess this is more for me than anything. I want to see how the Lord is good. I want to feel that- so I'm going to show myself through my own life. I don't really care if anyone reads this, but the idea that someone is, peaks my curiosity. We all go through Valleys of Achor, so perhaps mine will match up with yours and we can share that together. Or perhaps mine will show you your door of hope.


P.S. Gomer means completion in Hebrew. Let that marinate for awhile :)