The Wilderness

I am in the midst of a new Bible study. I am amazed at how this study in aligning with my life. I know that that is by no accident. We serve a God who cares so deeply for us.

I have asked God with arms wide open to change my life and the lives of my family. I want to see Him. I want to see my husband and children loving God in ways they couldn't imagine. He is living and breathing a truly cares about every detail of our lives. I have put my God in a box. That's what I have learned. That he could only work in the confines of these rules. These rules that we as "men" have placed on ourselves. I want to have such a relationship with God that I see him in my every day life. I want God to reveal himself to me in ways that I couldn't even imagine.

I say this with trepidation. Not because of anything I have done, but because I have seen God.....well... hear......I have seen God hear my cry today. You see this morning before I opened my Bible, I prayed that I would hear from Him today.  And did my study and it was great. I enjoyed it and I took away different aspects of what I was being taught.

But when I got to Bible study......I don't know if I have ever experienced such a flow of God's love as I did today. I was late getting to my small group. (I had spilled coffee all over my bag. And after cleaning up spilled coffee from my bible, and notebook, purse and phone.....well....it would have been easier to go home at that point!! ) But I stayed and sat down. And one of the 1st questions that was asked just brought me to tears. I had no intention of sharing my heart and soul, but I did. I was overwhelmed. I am not the kind of person to open up to strangers, but I know that today it was God pouring out his love to me in a small group of other believers. No answers were given, no problems solved, but a weight was lifted.

And God answered me and I heard him tell me that I was loved. Not because I had earned it, or because I did anything great. But because He is good. Because he is who he says he is and does what he says he will do. I was told on Sunday by my Mom to rest in his promises. His promises that all things do work together for our good, that even though we can't see the outcome that He already knows. To rest in what I know to be true of God.

God used a simple video session in Bible study to speak further to me. Its like He was talking straight to me and gave me these verses today and they have blown me away. Such beautiful verses that talked right into the very depths of my soul.

Hosea 2: 14-23

Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master'. I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the Lord. In that day I will respond, declares the Lord - I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth; and the earth will respond to the grain, and the new wine and the olive oil, and they will respond to Jezreel. I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.' I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God.'

I so strongly feel that God is moving me from the Land of Egypt in many different areas of my life. I am trying with God's help to lay down strongholds in my life. I feel very much like I am walking through a wilderness right now. I used to always associate "wilderness" times in my life as bad things. But not anymore. This time.... while hard, and emotional, and frustrating has brought me to tears many times. But I know that God is doing something in my life. I don't know what he is doing and I don't know where it is leading.  I know that I am on an uphill journey to know him more. As I walk uphill and stretch those muscles that I didn't quite know I had I am also hoping that I don't miss the lessons that God is showing me during this time. The wilderness is not the dessert. There is life in the wilderness.

God is leading me through the wilderness and he is speaking kindly to me. He has allured me with greater knowledge of his love and kindness for me.

Today, I will acknowledge the Lord and say............. " You are my God!!!"