Daydream

Like a young lady picking off the petals of a flower, says, "He loves me, he loves me not", I tenderly proclaim, "He loves me".

"He loves me" I whisper as I smile at the ground.

"He loves me" I sing to myself as I drift to sleep.

I find myself having what some could call a "crush". A crush on Him. 

I dream about Him at night. I think about Him during the day. I want Him to notice me, to turn His attention toward me. I crave His affection. I secretly hope He scoots a little closer. I want Him to touch me in a way that give me goosebumps and makes me fuzzy warm inside. I want to make eye contact. I want to hold His gaze. 

I like Him.

I like Him a lot.

"He loves me". I pick off a petal. 

"He loves me". I pick off another.

I continue this task and suddenly realize; there could not be enough petals on earth, past, present, or future, to show me the depth of the reality of his affection towards me.

It is a reality. 

Worship is Effortless

I had a really interesting experience last night. I was in a dead sleep, dreaming about something. But I suddenly woke myself. 

I woke myself up worshipping.

It was the middle of the night and I opened my eyes and my hands were held up in worship. I've never ever experienced anything like that.

My hands were partially picked up off the bed and in my spirit I was singing the song 'Wonder' from Bethel's album 'Brave'. The lyrics are:

May we never lose our wonder. 

May we never lose our wonder. 

Wide eyed and mystified, 

May we be just like a child, 

Staring at the beauty of our King."

Then I drifted back to sleep. 

I haven't listened to that song in a while, so it wasn't stuck in my head. It was actually something my spirit was proclaiming without me even being fully conscious of it.

This makes me so excited. So so so so excited. I've been asking The Lord to make me extremely aware of him and of His thoughts of me, so that all I do is worship. 

Everything is about the love connection. Loving Him when you're at work, and loving Him when you're at home. Loving Him when you're awake, and apparently loving Him when you're asleep too. 

Moral of the story:

Worship is effortless. Loving Him is effortless. 

I literally did it in my sleep.

It's not an act, it's a heart position. And the only way to love Him is to be consumed with His love for you. You can't give what you don't have, but you can give what you are overflowing with. 

His love is unquenchable. 

If worship is a room, I'm never leaving it. 

Michael Sullivan & Bob Hartley recently spoke at my school. Something they said hit me...

"Adore is to a door". 

Adoration from God and for God is what leads us to our destinies. 

They also said, 

"With every chamber we enter into with Him, we see another one of His faces". 

My interpretation: His chambers are the secret, intimate, loving places with Him. His faces are His characteristics. The person He is, revealed through intimate love encounters.

Living in this intimate relationship with Him is the only way to live fully. If my soul is a garden, it's sunlight is His love and it's water is His touch. It only prospers when I'm letting Him love me, and letting myself love Him in return. Without it, I may exist, but I'm not living. 

Song of Solomon 4:9-13 (TPT)

[The Bridegroom King]

For you reach into My heart.

With one flash of your eyes

I am undone by your love,

My beloved one, My equal, My bride.

You leave me breathless -

I am overcome

By merely a glance

From your worshipping eyes

And you have stolen my heart.

I'm held hostage by your love

And by the graces of righteousness upon you!

How satisfying to Me,

My equal, My bride.

Your love is My finest wine,

Intoxicating and thrilling -

And your sweet praise-perfume

So exotic, so pleasing.

Your loving words 

Are like honey to Me,

Drenched with worship.

Your tongue releases milk and honey,

For I find the Promised Land 

Flowing within you.

The fragrance of your worshipping love

Surrounds you with

Scented robes of white.

My darling bride, My private paradise

Fastened to My heart.

A secret spring you are

That no one else can have - 

My bubbling fountain

Hidden from public view.

What a perfect partner to Me,

Now that I have you!

Your inward life is now sprouting,

Bringing forth fruit.

What a beautiful paradise

Unfolds within you!

When I'm near you 

I smell aromas if the finest spice

I find many clusters 

Of my exquisite fruit growing within your inner garden.

Raw Masculinity

I am being moved by a different aspect of Jesus that I've never considered before. His love, compassion, tenderness, and goodness are usually what come to mind when people consider his characteristics. 

But what about his masculinity? 

Masculinity is much deeper than muscles and bones. Masculinity is an inner call to be a brave leader and a deep lover. A man can have well defined muscles but not be truly masculine. It's something that exudes from the inside. 

According to dictionary.com masculinity is defined as: Having qualities traditionally ascribed to men, as strength and boldness.

KJV Dictionary Definition: Bold. a. 1. Daring; courageous; brave; intrepid; fearless; applied to men or other animals; as, bold as a lion.

Have you seen the Chronicles of Narnia? Have you seen Aslan? Let me put it like this. 

Aslan is masculine. 

He is brave. 

He is bold. 

He goes where others wouldn't dare. 

He looks death in the face and does not flinch. He accepts it willingly because he knows it's the only way. He loves deeply and protects fiercely. When He loves, it is not a small thing. When he loves, he does it with passion, with ferocity. 

He is majestic.

I would venture to say that Aslan is a portrait so we can better see the masculinity of Jesus. 

Jesus is brave. He accepted death for me without knowing that I would acknowledge it.

Every moment of every second... Every minute of every hour... Every hour of everyday, he is unafraid to love me deeply without any promise of it being returned. 

(It's scary to invest love into someone or something that may not reciprocate. Isn't it?)

I'm very passionate about Jesus being revealed. Yes, Jesus is kind. Yes, Jesus is compassionate. Yes, Jesus is love. But can we take a moment to ask Him to show us what he is like in His fullness? He is a man. He is the man. He is the single most attractive man I have ever encountered in my life.

He is not a rose trampled on the ground. Not even close.

He is a lion. He is a warrior. A warrior who accepted torture, to save his nation. To protect his bride. 

Can you imagine the gladiator being expressed as a rose trampled on the ground? Never. He is fierce and bold.

What about William Wallace? "Every man will die but not every man will live". 

What passion. What raw masculinity. It wasn't just his muscles. It was his honor, his bravery, his integrity, that made him the man he was. 

When William Wallace was literally having his insides taken out of him, just before he died, with all his strength he declared with bold intent, "Freedom!"

When Jesus was hanging by the nails in his hands, after having the skin ripped off his back, he declared "It is finished!" 

   It is or freedom that Christ has set us free. Galatians 5:1

Thinking about the masculinity of Jesus takes my heart and shakes it around. It takes my affection and stirs it up. It takes my admiration, bottles it up, and pours it at his feet. How can my love for him not bubble up when I am aware of the true manliness he exemplified? 

Jesus's fierceness, love, strength, compassion, tenderness, and boldness all should work together to show us how beautiful he is. Like I mentioned in my last post, beauty is something that brings pleasure to our senses. He brings pleasure to my all my senses. His manliness ravishes me.

I am so in love. 

For the record, being a carpenter was a physical job. He was constantly lifting heavy timber. They didn't have machinery so he relied on his muscles to shave it, carve it, design it, build it... Jesus was most likely very strong.

MEN:

You have been given permission to admire his masculinity. You have been given permission to be masculine. Jesus was not timid and he was not a sissy. Likewise, you are not. You have freedom to be a true man from the outermost parts of your body to the innermost parts of your soul. You are made in his image. 

WOMEN:

You do not need to feel insecure. If you struggle with needing attention from men, here is your solution. Jesus, the King. Jesus, the lion. Jesus, the fierce lover. He is passionately consumed with admiration and love for you. He is never not thinking of you. Picture his love as a fragrant oil. He is taking this oil and he is pouring it all over you. It is surrounding you, consuming you. You are drowning in it, you can never escape it. 

Jesus is raw masculinity. 

Beauty Revealed

I'm relearning what surrender is. I'm learning that through my love for Him & my growing understanding of his character, all I want is for Him to have access to every cell in my body. Every atom is under His influence. Every aspect of my emotions, desires, physicality is a complete gift to Him. I want no more control over it. And through that I've learned to surrender one of the seemingly most unimportant things to Him. My beauty. 

Beauty defined: the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.

I told Jesus, "Even my beauty is in your hands. I give you full control of my beauty. It's not mine anymore to determine." 

Women try to control how beautiful they are. But in surrendering it, you no longer have permission to worry about it. 

Beauty is not skin deep. Beauty is something that is found as pleasurable to all of your senses. And most often, you actually have very little control over it.

Since I've given Him full reign and control over how my beauty resonates, cultivates, grows, and shines, He has made a point to make me aware of how beautiful I am. A day after I said those words, I was driving in the car and I just heard Him say, out of the blue, "Your transparency is beautiful." He admonishes me. 

He sees every part of you, whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual. He sees it and he finds it ravishing. I'm under the impression that he has always found me stunning, but in my surrender I was suddenly able to hear His opinion.

Think of the sun, the moon, the stars. Think of the depth of the sea and the creatures it holds. Think of the wheat fields. Think of a blade of grass, the petals in a flower. Think of the smell of food, the melody of music. The kind of magnificence that inhabits creation is a small expression of the kind of significant beauty The Lord has bestowed upon you.

The more you fall in love with Jesus, the more he teaches you to fall in love with yourself. He made you for such extraordinary signifance just by being who you are. Don't be blind to your own beauty. 

If you find it hard to see your own beauty, fall in love with Him. If you have a hard time doing that, stay tuned. My next post is going to be all about that. 

Humility

There is a huge difference between being humble and being insecure. Insecurity derives from not being aware of the significance you carry. It is a lack of confidence.

Humility is when you know you're the baddest in town, but you are rested in it. When you are in a state of true confidence, you don't have to show it off.  True confidence breeds humility. 

Confidence is not loud.  Insecurity is.