Arise My Love

"Arise my love, my beautiful one, and come away. For behold the winter is passed; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, and the time of singing has come."

The Lord has blessed me immensely. He has provided me a wonderful job at Fovitec, so now I get to do studio photography and graphic design. It is a new and wonderful thing, and I have a lot to learn about it.

He has also been adding to my support for Japan. Financially, I am a little over 50% supported now! This is already more support than I imagined I would ever have. Christ's love displayed through people continues to be one of the biggest and most precious blessings in my life, and he has taught me much about it's importance.

It has certainly been a season for repentance, which I am thankful for. As brutal as it was, there was a huge amount of growth. And, although it was painful, I will count it all as joy because I am more convinced now of God's goodness and lordship than I was before. The revelations of God's character are too precious and valuable for me to want to change anything.

Some seasons are filled with the Lord giving encouragement and destroying unbelief with the glorious truth of his victory, filling our hearts with the truth about who we are in Christ. But there are other seasons where the Lord reveals wrong motives and roots of sin, which can often feel like a different process. But this is also a time of overcoming unbelief. The two work together.

It is a weird thing to see in words or say out loud, but I often do not repent because I "know I will fail again." I don't want my repentance to come with more failure. I think to myself, What is the point of taking a shower of I will just go roll around in the mud some more? Might as well skip the cleansing until I am ready to not be dirty. So what I'm really doing is depending on my own righteousness yet again, and I am disguising it as self-discipline.

If God raised Christ from the dead, and created all things from nothing, then why would I not let him move the mountains of sinful nature in my heart? It is because I don't actually believe he can move them. It is an issue of unbelief. I do believe he can re-arrange my situations, but I do not believe he can change my motives or make me want different things. That is something I must do in my own strength. So I pull back and start striving.

This is me withholding my heart from him.

Why must I try to do the thing that he died for by myself, occasionally asking for him to give me the strength to overcome? He has already overcome, and all of my victory is through him. He is absolutely powerful enough to change my heart, if I will be obedient in asking him to do so. I ought to believe what he said: That I should come boldly to the throne of grace, that he is faithful and just to forgive my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness, and that I am indeed dead to sin and alive unto Christ.

It all began in his strength, and it will end there. No man will boast except in his own weakness. The Lord's graciousness is beyond explanation, and a great mystery.

His power cannot be described. He has changed everything. We give up so little and he returns so much. Our God is a generous and he is looking for partnership. He is looking for a bride. So my desire is to allow my weakness to become his strength. For when I am weak, then I am strong. "Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance.

Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away. O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.”