Finding Rest

Hello, friends!

These past few weeks have been full a ton of changes in my life, and God is always so loving and faithful, and through it all I have grown and learned so much, just continuing to fully tune into God's heart and learn to rest and abide in Him. :)

Well, the big news is that I found out almost three weeks ago I was accepted to Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry! I can't even fully explain how excited I am as I have felt this in my heart for about a year to go there. 

Basically for the past few weeks, I have been searching for a job, figuring out housing stuff in Redding next year, and thus, really realizing how much I need God to be my Provider and not just other people's Provider. It is great to hear the testimonies of other people, but I want to know, can I be a testimony of God's provision? The answer is of course: YES! 

But I'm getting a head of myself....:)

God's been speaking these words over me like crazy these past few weeks: "Rest, peace, abide, Shalom." It's really wonderful God speaks exactly what we need to hear. But He is also teaching me how to partner with His voice, to speak those words to my situations in life, like how Jesus spoke "peace" and literally calmed the storm. 

When Jesus calmed the storm, He wasn't laboring to do it. He was abiding in His Father's heart and in a heavenly atmosphere. Abiding is the opposite of striving. Jesus said, "Abide in me, and I in you."

Not to use the cheesy dictionary tactic, but you got to admit it's helpful!

The word "abide" means: to remain; continue; stay, dwell; reside, to continue in a particular condition, attitude, relationship; to wait, to remain steadfast and faithful

Selah (could mediate on those words for a good while...)

The word "strive" means: To exert much effort or energy; endeavor; to struggle or fight forcefully; contend with, to exert oneself vigorously; try hard

(yuck)

Abiding in Jesus is the only way to have what He has, which is all the fullness of God. Good news! He says this in John 15:

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

 ⁵"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he ^(E)bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

So basically, I need to abide in Jesus in order to do anything. He's lives in me, I live in Him, and He lives in God! What a supernatural relationship! But... what about when I get that feeling that I need to "work" for something in my life or relationship with God (not talking about perseverance, I'm mean like working "for" God instead of with Him). This is really what God's been showing me and it's really changing the way I think.

We work when we do not know...
God is for us and on our side, (the opposite is we approach Him with doubt He wants to help us)
We are royalty, (the opposite iswe act like beggars)
He enjoys our presence, (the opposite is we make our conversations with Him short, to the point, uncertain)
God LOVES US, (the opposite is work to gain love... the love He has already lavished on us! 1 John 3:1)

In essence, we work and we strive for things in life when we don't know God loves us and has made us, from the beginning of creation, His Son's and Daughters who don't have to beg and borrow from their Daddy, but have totally full access to everything He has through Jesus. It makes Him really happy when we let him get this into our hearts and heads!
We also end up in "striving mode" when we don't full realize that when we receive Jesus, believe in what He accomplished through his death and resurrection, we are righteousness (in a perfectly right relationship with God) through grace and not by a checklist. That is such good news! God is soooooo goooood! It's all by grace! That should put us at total rest, that God has already done everything we need to live a life in the fullness of Him. (Check out Col. 2:9 NLT, Eph. 3:14-21; Ephesians 2:9) :)

These thoughts may sound a little scrambled -- they went a different direction than I thought. I hope this was encouraging to all who read it! :)
Love, Lauren

Being Me

Hey there! This is blog #3!

Once again I begin with the phrase "I have been thinking a lot lately..." And the cool thing about thinking is that it works (most of the time). But it sure doesn't NEARLY suffice for talking with my Daddy. So God's been talking to me ...about me, what it means to be who I am, and to find myself in Him.
I just realized something: open the Bible and almost anywhere someone is talking about their identity in God. It's just a hunch but I think God's trying to tell us all something... we are special to Him. And not just "we" as a cooperate thing. But we as a individuals. He delights in the little things. He delights in who we are, who he made us. He sees what we don't see at first. Cool thing we can get His eyes to see.
He's been telling me every day, "Lauren... BE YOU! I don't want anyone else. I just want you." I think of the Billy Joel song, "Don't go changing to try and please me... you never let me down before... ooooooo..."  haha :) But really... God told me this,

"Open wide
I'm on your side
Drink in all I have for you today

Why have you been
Trying so hard
To make me love you
When I already do?

Just open wide
I'm on your side
Drink in all I have for you today..."

The biggest part of learning how to be me - the person I am and the personality I have - is looking straight into Jesus' liquid love eyes and seeing myself. Using Jake Hamilton lyrics..."I wanna see what you can see in the mirror of your eyes."

Jealousy can't stick around when we know God's love for us. We can't get jealous when we know who we are. Jealousy is a form of poverty. It's that "pauper mindset" that my Daddy gave the best to the other one, or there won't be enough for me. Those are lies; there is always enough. It's just a matter, now, of choosing to live like that. It's not a mind over matter thing. It's about fallin' so deeply in love with Jesus. When we know who Jesus is, He'll tell us and empower us to be who we are. Only He knows who we really are. We get to discover ourselves inside His heart.


Hope this was encouraging! Love, Lauren

What Does Love Look Like

I am learning more and more how life is all about love. There are days when I am so tired and I feel like I have to "think about it" to be loving and patient and joyful. But I don't want it to live that way because it wasn't meant to be. Jesus made me to be overflowing all the time with his love. Just knowing Jesus, love just flows from Him. He IS love. He can't help but love. So, the more I hang around Jesus, catch His fragrance, just experience how amazing He is, the more I naturally, quickly, easily love people because I want to be like the one I love. I want those days when I have to "think" about being loving become so few and then completely disappear in my life. Every day, living a life of passionate love Jesus.
What does it look like to give everything to Jesus? What does fully surrendered look like? What do laid down lovers look like? Jesus is the only one who truly satisfies. The more of Him I get, the less I want of anything else.
I have also been thinking about how when we call out the gold in people and treat them like royalty, it raises the standard of how they should treat themselves, and how others treat them. If someone has been treated poorly their whole life, so THEY treat them self poorly, so OTHERS have sympathy and apathy towards them and treat them poorly, it totally messes everyone up when someone says, "Hey beautiful, how are you? I care about you. Come, be my friend. I like you. I want you. I think you're amazing. No, I'm not just saying that. Here, let's hang out sometime. I just want to love you. I just want to show you that you are important and you matter, that you have a special purpose and Jesus loves you." I'm telling you, THAT is how to rock someone's world. That is how to make a difference, to tell someone who they really are: loved, adored, beautiful, special, wanted, longed for, a princess, a prince, a son, a daughter, someone just loved by their Daddy in Heaven.

It's about letting Jesus be love through me. But even better, in the context of his and my relationship. It's like, the key to His heart is mine, and visa versa. That exchange is what releases love onto people in a powerful way. And it's all intentional. It's a mission, it's a purpose, it's what I have died to live for.

Thoughts for now....

God's Heart

First post! Hey guys!!

Tomorrow I leave for Jesus Culture in Redding, CA. I AM SO EXCITED!!!! Yet.. this year it's a different kind of excitement than last year. It's this awesome anticipation that I am feeling for Jesus to do something really big in me, and my family, and the 7 friends who are coming with me. So much has happened since last February, when Jesus took my world and turned it upside down, and captured my heart with His love and beauty, that it's almost like this conference is a marker in my journey... just like how people remember things according to years, dates, ages, etc. ... this is one of those things.

It's also funny because I just so happened to have some thoughts tonight and I thought, "I should blog this!" I haven't used this blog yet, so I guess I better just get it a going!

I was taking a walk tonight... around 5:00ish and as I walk down my road, a hill, I come into the view of the sunset. Now this sunset was AMAZING. If you know me at all, you know that I love sunsets. (I don't see who couldn't love sunsets!) I just love them.

Well this sunset was like a rainbow without the green. It had every color.. all wrapped up in this one little spot in the huge sky. I started running down the hill and then down the other street towards the elementary school so I could get a better view of it. By the time i got there, it wasn't as vibrant as before, so I was a little bummed. Still, I pulled out my phone and tried to take a picture, but it blinked "low battery" so I couldn't. Oh well, I thought. So i picked a tree to sit under, straight infront of the sunset, and just sat... ready to soak in God's presence.

I thought I had missed the best part of the sunset. But it kept turning.. and turning... till the whole thing was this glorious bright fiery orange color. It was beautiful. It looked like the sun had just spit out some of it's beams and laid them across the sky. Orange is my favorite color, too. It was even more beautiful for me.
So I sat there.. enjoying this beautiful sunset. I started talking to God about all these things that "need" to happen in my life. I was kind of giving myself and Him a big "to-do" list. (I don't know if anyone has done the same thing.. but I realize now this is what Jesus says not to do when "dude, don't worry about tomorrow.")... So I was asking God all of these "WHAT'S and HOW and WHY" questions, and that's when he began to speak to me...

God started to showing me that it's not about what to do, it's WHO He is. I know I have known this before, but He put it in 72pt font and then highlighted it, haha. He only does what he does because of Who He IS. I can go the rest of my life having God do nothing for me and still be  amazing by and thankful for who He is. Also, often times when I am tired or when I am frustrated about something, I go into His presence to merely remember who He has been in my life or who I know Him to be at that point. I only ask for Him to please maintain what I already have. But it's so much better when I go into His presence, no matter what I am feeling, and expect to actually grow and be awakened by Jesus. It's all because of Who He is, kind, loving, gentle, gracious.

If I go and spend time with Jesus and come out the same, I am not really focusing on Jesus. I am only thinking about me and what is going on in my life. . But when I focus on who Jesus is, all the He is, was, and will be, when I take time to marvel at that and let Him ravish my heart, I can't help but become a happier being. I can't help but feel more peace, feel more joy, feel more love for Jesus. When I begin to stop sipping and start drinking in His love, everything else just kind of fades away because I was actually made for His love. In His heart, I fit perfectly. When I abide inside of his heart, I am aware of his heartbeat. His heart is beating for me. Love is everything to Jesus. When I live inside of his heart, I am being exposed to the most radical love.

I wanna live my life lost inside of God's heart. Because that's what I was made for... it's where I belong!
I hope this was encouraging to all who read! Thanks guys. Now time to go pack up for Jesus Culture... so stoked!
Love, Lauren