Giving Thanks

Giving thanks, not taking thanks.

It's not Thanksgiving or even close to it, but it doesn't have to be - it shouldn't have to be in order to really stop, breathe, and give thanks to God.

I feel like I've been given this assignment - as a gift for graduating this past May, I was given the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It's literally rocking my world. I'm on assignment to understand and see grace in everything, to live fully...and I'm slowly learning how.

The other day I was watching The Hunchback of Norte Damn (really you probably say?) For no particular reason I was spurred to watch a classic I had fully forgotten. Soon after pressing play I realized I was watching a sermon, many years before it's time. There's one part in the story where Esmerelda is stuck in the sanctuary to escape Lord Frollo. There she witnesses many people dressed in fine cloth, wearing gold jewelry, unscathed, fully abled - but that's not enough for them. There they are crying out of God for "wealth...fame...love...possessions" Then something profound happens, Esmerelda sees them asking for things and instead of crying out for a way out of jail or trouble, or even the harsh life of a gypsy...she says "I ask for anything, I can get by, but I know so many less lucky than I." It's the song about the outcasts. Now I'm not writing this to tell you to stop praying for things in your life. I was just sincerely convicted to realize that when I pray, I pray with blind eyes. Eyes blind to the things God has already put in front of me where I don't even see the people "less luck than I."

This is what spurred my assignment to learn how to be grateful, how to be thankful - knowing what I actually don't want is fame, wealth, or things...but a full life an abundant life.

Ask anyone of my closest friends and they will tell you, I can talk about something I'm internally processing around and around and still end up at the same conclusion - it's all a process of forgetting, remembering, learning and implementing. Some how I miss the implementation part and skip right to the forgetting all over again. Always.
In these common but important times I usually feel a certain conviction about a passion, desire or promise of mine that the Lord has given me (ie. picking a college to attend, choosing a major, what to do with my life, leaning on dreams He has birthed within me without receiving immediate revelation). It's a hard place to be in because your the only one who feels it. Only you feel the conviction deep inside, the place where the Holy Spirit manifests to create life - the in between time where you're not exactly sure what that even looks like or how it will happen.

Been there. Done that. Still doing that...

But I received amazing advise from one of the wisest people I've ever known: My mom.
She called to give hope to my dreams. Sometimes you just need people to breathe life into your sails because you've hit rock bottom and there's no gust of wind or passion that's igniting the process of movement. She breathed - telling me that I'm the only one who can feel this conviction, but that doesn't mean I'm in the wrong. It just means sometimes you've got to do the crazy, believe in the ridiculous - because Jesus did.

"The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that you might have life, & have it to the full."

John 10:10

I love the message version and how it goes into more detail about the "full life":

"A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of."

than you ever dreamed of.

So then, if I am in Jesus and He is in me, I want the full life! But God is a gentlemen...

He asks what we want! what do I want? 

To see Him fully. To be in a place of seeing God fully everyday, in every way, in every circumstance.

Because I know that when He is all I can see, I see no lack, no need...I only see beauty.

The whole earth is full of His glory and I want to see it because I have seen it many times and then forgotten...and so here we are again. Literally seeing God is what I a famished for. It's my heart's one desire - because beauty is all that is glory; because God is beauty and there is no beauty that does not reflect Him. Ann Voskamp's words have radically inspired me to see that when I run and chase after God, I run to experience something -  to see. 

I begin to starve spiritually when I can no longer see beauty in anything around me. Ann describes it as "being soul nourished." The wonderful thing about beauty is that we don't need to be taught what is beautiful - the media distorts it, but deep down when we see beauty, "we know it, in the marrow, even if we have no words for it." God himself, is beauty, He completes us.

This assignment has a hidden paradox however; if I am not seeking beauty through God, I will find "filler" beauty in something else, because I am created for worship (Rev 4:11, Is 43:7) and if I don't see God, I'll bow down to something...some thing. 

"We pay tribute to God by paying attention." So it's in the seeing/seeking in the looking for beauty that we find it. When we find it, gratitude is the language we should speak...and if we don't, pray that we have eyes to see God and not something else.

When we see beauty, we automatically become hooked to see more. Our appetite grows - not for more "things" but for more of God's glory!!

When we are looking for God we are actually loving Him, because in the looking is the evidence of believing. Not feeling. I have learned this the hard way. That our feelings cannot dictate our reality or tell us what's true - our faith in believing in what we don't feel and it makes all the difference. Ann describes ingratitude as being a poison curse - but that the remedy is in what we behold.

"How we behold determines if we hold joy. Behold glory and be held by God! How we look determines how we live or if we live." This is serious. This is life and death - of the soul. 

When we are beholding through our spirit, through the right inner looking, we give way to the right outer life. Which is ultimately giving glory back to our Maker. Worshiping. A saved full life.

"Faith is the gaze of our soul." Just let that seep in a bit - to permeate your soul entirely. 

Seeing is the spiritual life...the looking, the waiting, the gazing for beauty and more of God is not just a one-then-done process...it's always seeing - seeking God in E V E R Y T H I N G.

Now I'm definitely preaching to myself...but I'm lovingly preaching to the choir, the church, the mentor and mentees who are never satisfied in the right way. Because the truly saved, "have eyes of faith and lips of thanks."

"Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you." 

Psalm 63:3

I want to see God manifested in the world around me, in every situation, but the only way to see is with the eyes of Christ, within. Seeing through the Holy Spirit. If you've experienced beauty in life you know there is a transcendent joy that gives way to pain knowing the moment(s) are fleeting. I believe that joy comes with pain sometimes because God is stretching us to make room for more of Him...

Since I am His creation, what fills me (joy) also fills my Father - when I see truly from within I see Him and that fills Him. "God is beauty overflowing."

Joy is God's life! No wonder it's our strength!! (Nehemiah 8:10) But how my eyes see, the perspective of my seeking, is the key to entering into life, to entering into His gates - through thanksgiving alone. Because when I am in His gates, I am in the presence and in His presence is fullness of joy! But only in the looking do I see the way in.

Ann writes that, "the art of deep seeing makes gratitude possible."

Seeing. Believing. Faith. Beholding. Thanksgiving.

I. We. Are most alive when beholding God. I have an endless desire to see God which is fulfilled by and endless God. Hallelujah because I want to see God endlessly. 

I am, "longing to gaze upon the Beauty of the Lord & to seek Him, the place where all the joy spills from...Beauty is what sparks the romance & we are the Bride being pursued for oneness."

I long to see God. To enter into God. To be one with God. this is what He longs for us to find.

Ann has a great line that I am still chewing on: 

"Praying with eyes wide open is the only way to pray without ceasing." Because faith with inner prospective, is looking for Beauty - looking for Oneness.

When our eyes are wide open, everything we see will burn with glory, beauty, and Him!

Manifested glory which sows joy - seeing God, living fully. 

Don't be afraid of the convictions, desires or passions you hold deep inside you, because when you inwardly see the beauty around you (like Esmerelda) then you behold God. In my case my dreams and convictions haven't come to pass, but reading this book has helped me see that when I inwardly look, seeking through the eyes of the Spirit, my life is full whether or not they come to pass! Fullness = me being held by God - that gives me joy. That is a full life regardless if my circumstances seem full, because: faith is the gaze of our soul.

I choose to have faith today. Praise be to God who that is All Beauty, All Loving, All Eyes. 

Also I highly recommend this book! :)

Never Stop Dreaming

Since my time at Destiny House, I have seen almost everyone around me be launched into their dreams.

I wish I could write about how I have seen many people grow and learn from the Lord about the incredible destiny He has for them - but they're not my stories to tell...just yet.

I titled this post never stop dreaming because I have to remind myself of that very same thing everyday. It can be discouraging to feel like you've never actually stepped into your potential, calling or destiny. In my case I feel as though I am caught in some really thick and tough mud, but it's not too late since I have many more years to live & learn. I can see my destination at afar through a thick fog. But at least I know it's there...and that's the hope I have anchored in His promises for me (more about that in my previous post).

It's funny. When I was attending APU I took a class titled, Calling, Career, & Major Exploration because I had no idea what I wanted to study in order to accomplish my dreams. It actually took me from Applied Health to Business Admin & Graphic Design. A strange shift I am sure Jesus will make sense of later...

However, at this present moment I wish there was a class I could take about my destiny and the Lord's design for my life. Why is it that I must always know what He has planned for me?...it's like I am forever on this journey of learning how to truly trust...fully surrender.

Since changing my major and even more recently graduating APU, I've never taken my graphic design skills seriously. But the Lord is bigger than my limitations and caused me to be involved with graphic design in a new way every year of college. Whether it was a class, working for Christian Equippers International (CEI), designing Young Life/Rez Life flyers, or eventually working at the university print studio Evoke, what I thought was just a skill to refine my creativity turned into one of my greatest working assets.

"Of course He would."

I've caught myself saying this phrase quite often out of pure shock of the limitations I set on myself which have only ever held me back from stepping into my destiny and being great at something.

So what have you put a limitation on in your life that you've never let yourself succeed in? What is the  lie that keeps you frozen to go above & beyond - to soar in your calling?

I am reminded of a sermon I heard from Bill Johnson, yet again, about living from Heaven to earth. Out of the many things he said in this sermon he also talked about the art of waiting. He didn't say wait in laziness...waiting for God to move so you can just piggyback off of Him. Instead he described it as, being in movement, being in ambush of the Lord. Literally if you want something, position yourself in God's way so that He cannot refuse but to partner with you. He also talked about how draining waiting can seem, but that hope is a necessary heart posture to secure our identity in Father God during this time. He defined hope as the joyful anticipation of that which is good, and that any area that does not have that joyful anticipation is under a lie. Woah.

Scripturally speaking Romans 8:25 says:

"But if we look forward to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently."

It takes a great measure of faith and trust to wait patiently and confidently. Truly we have this hope in the Lord because of his faithfulness, but I am reminded of a tangible example through King David's words in Psalm 25:3:

"No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame, but shame will come on those who are treacherous without cause."

Because our God is a God who fulfills promises, we can be confident in our faith in Him because we will never be put to shame if we truly trust in Him. Again in Hebrews 11:1 it is written:

"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see."

To "land this plane" I would like to share about how God has begun to use me through a skill which I never thought anyone would take seriously. Since being at Destiny House, I have begun to revamp, redesign and organize the website, newsletters, stationary, and social media among other things. At first I was scared to step out with my ideas and alterations but I challenged Him. I declared that if I was given the freedom to tackle the graphic design for Destiny House that He would provide me with the skill-set to do so. So far he's met me right where I am at...

A few days ago, I was also approached to create a book cover for someone (out of the blue). And not long before I even made Redding my new home I volunteered my skills for my friends wedding invitation design....what!? 

Oh yeah. Of course He would.

Then I took an even greater leap of faith and applied for a job, a web designer job to be specific. I am definitely under-qualified with hardly any experience. I just did it because the opportunity presented itself. Instead of getting largely rejected because of my designs or lack of experience, it just wasn't the right timing - and I'm okay with that. Shortly after finding that out, I was reviewing a prophesy someone spoke over me recently. It started off with a resounding, "You have what it takes!" There it is again. Whether I choose to believe it everyday or not it does not change...I do have what it takes. I have what it takes to be a phenomenal graphic designer, and even more than enough to step into the fullness of my destiny. I lack nothing. I lack nothing in Him.

After realizing this, you and I have no excuse to believe differently. However, I am currently practicing what it looks like to be, waiting patiently with hope in ambush of the Lord to receive the fullness of my destiny...and I challenge you to do the same. Mine looked like physically moving to Redding, what will yours be?

Dont give up on God, never stop dreaming. 

Glorious Hallelujah!

I feel my life has been just thrown into a detour...

I am a recent graduate from Azusa Pacific University with a BA in Business Administration, and what do I have to show for it? A little less then a month after I graduated I had a panic attack - I didn't know where I was going to live, and had no leads towards any job offers....I had nothing to show for the past four years of stress, sweat, and tears.

Back story: Probably a month before I graduated I felt the need to apply to a ministry school based out of a church in Redding, CA called Bethel. Despite what you may have heard about it, the grace of God was on my application to attend their School of Supernatural Ministry. Don't let the "supernatural" get you mixed up. I like to describe it as a personal training season to equip me to go into any field I feel the Lord is calling me into. It's like the parable of the 10 virgins (Matt. 25), I'm preparing myself to always have oil in my lamp, in and out of season to be ready for anything coming my way.

However, this school of ministry was definitely not on my list of things I thought I would do after graduating. For some, it was hard to explain, especially to those who don't know the Lord. To others it looked like I was taking a step back. After awhile, I started to doubt that I was being lead to do the school of ministry because nothing was working out. I couldn't find a place to live, and if I continued through the year in the school of ministry, I wouldn't be able to find a job that catered to my recent degree.

I was brought to a super humbling experience where I realized, I was going to a new community where no one would know my name, they wouldn't know how hard I worked through school. They didn't get to see me work through my previous leadership experiences. I wasn't going to be known by anyone - and I didn't know how to start that up again after having the same, safe community after 4 years. I felt that I had just accomplished everything, just to receive nothing. It was a weird feeling, I didn't know why I would give all that up for something I couldn't visualize, and then it hit me. Our lives not our own...when I gave my whole heart to Christ (in previous blog) I signed up for whatever He wanted, like in Matthew 10:39, "Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it."

Right. It's an everyday surrender to remember I live my life for the King of Kings, not for my own promotion. So by the grace of His endless mercies I applied for an awesome community house. I could tell the minute I read about the Destiny House at silvertogold.com that there was something ridiculously epic about it - I just had to live there. If you ask Jen (the leader of the house) now, she would tell you that she was putting me to the "test", but honestly during my interview it seemed like it wasn't going to work out for me to live there. Through a lot of prayer, I received a confirmation email to be apart of this awesome community house. Praise. The. Lord.

Little did I know it would be all that I wanted and more. I told the Lord since He wanted me at Bethel, (through a series of events I will later discuss), He was going to provide my way. I wanted to live in a place with a supernatural covering. My explanation of a "covering" is like having someone older than you, who you trust in and trusts you to the point where you have given them space to speak into your life, like a mentor, but they take you under their wing and protect you intentionally. Like a spiritual parent. So I gave this fleece (Judges 6:37) to the Lord, that since He had made a way for me to live under a covering, in a worshipping community of passionate Christ lovers - that He would have to provide a way for me to pay for rent. And if He didn't provide by the end of July then I would know that I'm not suppose to work this whole year.

I can't tell you how exhausting and humbling it is to apply at over 25 different part time positions and not be qualified. I had finally hit a wall and was pretty desperate. I applied to over 10 positions one day, one of which was Chipotle. After getting past the first two interviews...I was offered the job at Chipotle! That was a glorious hallelujah - a representation of a hymn & The Father's love for us. I was overwhelmed with God's provision and could care less about what the job actually was. However, that night I had a dream, not just another crazy dream where you wake up and you feel like you just had a crazy adventure but cant remember it...I remembered every detail of this dream. In such a case, I believe the Lord preserves these dreams for you to interpret (my own opinion). So I prayed about it and let it stew for awhile. The Divine interpreter basically told me that I got the job, so I had to say yes - but to still look out for a better job. What?

I just got a job that I've been praying about since I graduated in May. I'm still in a thankful shock stage where I can't imagine anything else....why would I ask for a better job? Why push my luck and not be thankful for what I already have? It didn't really sit well with me. I just processed with God for awhile (I Thess. 5:21, "...but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good"). Then I finally just thought, "what the heck, God's way is always better then mine anyway, I'm sure He knows what He's doing." So I prayed just to let God be in-control, to take my life and align it this His desired Destiny for me.

The great thing about the Lord (at least one of the many) is that He loves us so much that He gives us choices. He gave us free will, and sometimes Him loving us looks like letting us choosing what we want to do next (which is how I got to Redding in the first place). That is also a glorious hallelujah.
It's unfathomable to think that He would give me a job, then tell me to ask for an even better one at that, and then let me choose the better and not settle.

Back to present day: What have I learned?

I have learned more then a few things since I moved to Redding, one of which has been to continually worship the Lord in all circumstances. No matter what. No matter if I have no idea how I will pay for rent or groceries - even if I have a promise for a better job but don't see it anywhere tangibly yet. Praising the Lord in all circumstances is surrendering yourself over everyday - because your life is not your own, and His kingdom is upside-down...something that doesn't make sense to and earthly mindset!

Praising the Lord because He provided me with a job, praising the Lord because there is another "better" job out there for me. It's like He promised me with a better job - say yes, but know that there is something more I am going to give you, too. When you realize that you are already seated in Heavenly places with Abba Father you see these promises, which look different in all of our lives, as your protection against unbelief, doubt, and a poverty mindset (Ps 91).

Each promise is a revelation, and to quote Bill Johnson, "Revelation reveals what faith must explore."
So I must explore the idea, the promise, that I could even ask for a better job even if I don't feel the need or feel qualified enough to do so.

What I call the biggest "detour" in my life was caused by exploring through faith. Because it's not actually a detour. And having the freedom to believe in a better job in the midst of his prefect provision isn't ungratefulness. It's the tangible exploration of my faith being protected by His promise to provide.

I feel my life was just thrown into detour...or so I thought. More like, the promise of a King to His Beloved Princess, will always endure when I choose to worship Him in all circumstances.




So what has The Lord revealed to you which you haven't explored?