Always Enough

Our youth group is coming home from Santa Cruz today, and this weekend I have been thinking about how God was speaking to my heart last year during the trip. It had been a really hard summer for me. I pulled out my booklet from the weekend to re-read the thoughts I had journaled, and I remember as I was sitting on the beach writing the first entry I had a Casting Crowns song running through my mind that says:

Your love is peace to the broken
Faith for the widow, hope for the orphan, strength for the weak
Your love is the anthem of nations, rings out through the ages
And You're always enough for me

I've decided that just like "Waiting On The Lord" is a lesson we never really finish learning in this life, so is "God Is Always Enough." Both these lessons just take different shapes in different seasons of our lives, but they are recurring themes that we never quite master. I was really wrestling with "God Is Always Enough" last year while we were in Santa Cruz. It's been good to be reminded of how He was working in my heart through that time...


8/12/10
So often lately I have just been met with the feeling of being so lost... [H]onestly sometimes my heart just feels so confused and unsure of anything. The basics are solid. You, God, are there. You are good. You are working things according to Your plan and You will be glorified. Maybe in trying to figure out where my longings play into all this is where I've gotten lost. Because ultimately, it doesn't matter. You give us desires and You bless us, sometimes by fulfilling those desires, but what happens when You choose to bring Yourself glory by allowing our desires to go unmet and instead displaying that You are enough... Are You enough, Lord? I honestly don't know if I can say yes to that. I know it's true but I'm not sure if I believe it... Help me to believe it, Lord. Please let me come away from this weekend with that belief, or at least the beginnings of it.

Do I see You as... just something to bring me momentary comfort while I wait for what I really want? Just something to make me feel better while I pass the time when the one I really want to be with is preoccupied? God, I don't want You to be my back-up plan. I want You to be my priority, with or without the other things I want. Help me come to love and appreciate and enjoy You -- of Your own accord... I don't want to just bide my time with You. I want to embrace it with joy and find fulfillment in it -- not just for now, but for always. Maybe THIS is the heart of my problem, and till now I've just been treating the symptoms instead of the source... Give me surgery, God, not a bandaid...

8/14/10
Father God, it is so strange to be sitting here on this same coast [as] a year ago... Soooo much has happened since then... And yet I see the waves crashing and the sun setting; I feel the breeze blowing; I hear the ocean roaring... This has not changed at all. In this moment, it reminds me that You are constant and reliable through whatever changes and trials I face. Being back here and having made it through almost the whole weekend feels like healing. Not total healing, but a definite step in that direction. I know challenges still lie ahead of me, but I pray I can look back on this moment and remember Your faithfulness -- that some things -- or, rather, that ONE thing -- will never change no matter how crazy or out of control life seems to get. Thank You for bringing me back here, Lord. Please God, help me continue to move forward finding my joy and happiness in YOU -- in the ONE who always is happy to be with me -- far above any other person or situation. Please help me to see You as the love of my life.

8/15/10
The Lord sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time.
You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
The Lord is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds.
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.
He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He will also hear their cry and will save them.
The Lord keeps all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy.
My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,
And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever.
Psalm 145:14-21

Amen. Thank You...