Fix Your Eyes Upon Jesus

I love prayer meetings. At least in theory.

I love the idea of the "core of the church" getting together on a regular basis to pray. I have been to lots of prayer meetings, I've stayed silent in most of them, and slept through a couple.

In every prayer gathering I've been to I have always felt a sense of, "If you're new, no worries! You don't have to pray out loud." I have wholeheartedly accepted this and avoided praying out loud like the plague, my only fear was that at some point, I would not be new anymore, and then I would have no excuse.

(Let me just clarify that I know praying, whether aloud or silently, is just talking to God. I have a strange aversion to small groups though, even more so than large ones. I am not nervous to speak publicly, or pray publicly, in front of 200 people. I am VERY afraid to speak publicly, or pray publicly, in front of 5.)

There were always a few comfortable weeks, until my conscience (or maybe just self-consciousness) would start nagging, and I couldn't feel right until I attempted some sort of audible prayer, however uncomfortable about it I felt.

I acknowledged that it was good for me, so I continued to love prayer meetings. (In theory.) In reality I was scared stiff every time I went, and felt anxious about praying until I had prayed, which was usually near the end of the night. So I wasted most of the time worrying, and then I would waste the rest of the time feeling bad about how short, or how stupid, or how vague, or how seemingly pretentious my prayer had been.

This is where my little story begins. For the past while I have been going to a new prayer meeting, which I love, but it has been slowly creeping into my consciousness that at some point I would have to drag myself up to the microphone and pray. At least with a microphone that scared me half to death, my prayer (or plea) was sure to be sincere.

Last night, we were reading in 2 Corinthians 4, and something stood out to me.

...But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (2 Corinthians 4:2-4)

The part of this that stuck out to me was verse 3, "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost."

I had just been reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and he had just been addressing humility, and how truly humble people do not look down on themselves, they don't look at themselves at all, they look at God.

As I read it, the thought came to me that those who look on God reflect what this passage calls "the glorious gospel of Christ," to those around them. In fact it is such an automatic reaction that if people don't see the image of God and the gospel in them, it is only because the devil has specifically blinded them to it.

Now obviously God can remove blinders, and we can pray for removal of those blinders, but when people are not seeing the gospel in us, is it the blinders that are hindering people from seeing the reflection, or is it that we are not looking on God?

I loved this insight, and a passing thought came through my mind, "This is actually something I could share if I wanted to."

But my "passing thought," didn't pass. Suddenly the terrifying thought that God might actually be telling me to share it came to my mind. Oh no.

My sister Rachel got up and went to the microphone, she shared something which actually tied in really well to what I had on my heart. I remembered that a few months ago God was showing me that unity of the body was so important because the way He speaks to the body is by speaking in patterns to individuals. If those individuals never shared what He was saying, the body would never understand the full picture. If I didn't share what I had, they wouldn't hear it from someone else.

I tried every escape route I could think of. I tried getting into the worship, the song said "Show me how to love like You have loved me."

Jesus' ministry, aside from dying for us, was about coming and revealing the Father, showing the real image of God. If this wasn't an act of love, what is? Show me how to love like that, we sang.

It was as if Jesus said to me, "Like that? Like I did when I looked only at my Father, and His image was shown to the world? Like I just told you about, where you look only at Me and the truth automatically is shown to those around? Like you could be doing right now with what I just showed you?"

I tried the reasoning that I was too weak. My subconscious told me that if God was calling me even though I was too weak, He would remind me of a bible character who did it despite being unqualified, but nope. He took me again to the revelation He had just given me, that those who look ONLY at God, the gospel will show through. In declaring myself too weak, I was not only not looking at God, but I was "walking in craftiness," and "handling the word of God deceitfully."

I tried running out of time. "God," I prayed, if you are calling me, please provide me with a clear opening to speak." Just then, the leader of the meeting God up to speak. I breathed a sigh of relief, and felt a slight pang of guilt, the meeting was ending.

Psych! He prayed and sat back down. The music continued. There was an opening.

"Okay," I thought, "Clearly I have to do this. But I don't even know what I'm talking about!" Everything had stressed me out so much that I couldn't even figure out how I had arrived at my conclusions. I had 1 Corinthians 4:2-4, but that didn't really speak to the "looking at God" thing. I couldn't remember any scriptures to support it in my muddle-headedness, I had only Mere Christianity to lean on, and I've always opposed theology backed only by extra-biblical books.

I looked up, and 2 Corinthians 3:18 sat before me.

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

I had more than enough evidence that God was calling me to the front of the room, but I still couldn't bring myself to go. I looked again at my bible and kept reading in 2 Corinthians 4.

We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak; Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not: but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:13-18)

I will make the note that I have emboldened the parts which speak most strongly to what I was thinking, but all of it fit. Everything in those verses spoke to my struggle, every single word told me to get up off of my chair and proclaim what the Lord had told me.

So I did, like a skittish, shaking little...something, I slipped up to the front, fumbled with the microphone, almost cried, my mouth dried up, and I daresay I didn't communicate well at all, but I obeyed.

For about 1/4 of a second a voice in my head told me that it wouldn't have been worth it if people didn't understand or weren't affected by what I had said, but the louder voice quickly snuffed it out saying, "I was affected. I understood, and I obeyed. If no one else grew spiritually, I did. If no one else learned to look more fully on the face of God, I DID."

I have a few reasons for writing this for you to read. First, I hope that others, when they read about how stupidly I reacted to the situation, can take comfort that God will use who He will, no matter how ridiculous they are.

Secondly, I wanted to share my original insight with you, because I think it is awesome and will benefit all Christians to think about. Again, if I, as a part of the body, do not share it, the rest of the body doesn't get to know.

Thirdly, I did do a poor job of communicating last night, so while I don't doubt God's ability to speak whatever the others needed to hear through me, I know I will not feel full closure until I have put it out the way I understood it.

And lastly, because I love it when God speaks to me, (however much I didn't love it at that moment) and when, in the future, I have moments of doubt, I want a record for myself that I can look back on and know that God is faithful and true.

For we commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf, that ye may have somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance, and not in heart. For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. (2 Corinthians 5:12-13)

Day 28: Learning About Faith

Hello friends!

I haven't written in a long time, but I wanted to tell you about a new way I've been learning about faith.

A few months ago I was listening for God to speak to me, and I felt like He showed me something that I hadn't really realized about myself before.

I have been praying for God to make me holy, to "bring to completion the work He started in me," and strengthen my faith and my love for Him. As much as I've been praying this, I realized that day that I didn't actually believe He would. I don't know why, I certainly believed Him capable of it, but for some reason or another, as much as I longed to grow in righteousness, I never expected myself to move beyond where I am right now.

That was the first piece of faith that He showed me I thought I understood, but really didn't.

The second piece came really recently, after I experienced two setbacks in my dance training.

First I had a stretching restriction. I don't know if it was an injury, so I'll call it a restriction, but I could stretch in certain ways for a long time, setting back my progress substantially. Second, I injured my back, in the middle of a challenge I had set for myself, called "28 Days of Choreography."

I pushed through the pain most of the time, I didn't believe it to be a serious injury, but near the end of this month it became apparent that it was a bigger deal than I thought, and I really shouldn't keep dancing.

In my last three days of the challenge, I had to stop dancing. That was so disappointing.

Pausing for a moment here, I have to explain what else I was learning at the same time, and I'll get back to how those fit together.

I was listening to a sermon recently, when something that was said reminded me that underneath my desire to dance, is a desire to serve and glorify God. He is the reason I dance, and the reason I train. But recently I had gotten so caught up in trying to train and become a better dancer faster, that I had been sacrificing time spent with Him, and He used that moment to let me know that was not okay with Him.

My first reaction was, "Okay Lord, I need to spend more time with you, I'll just get up earlier."

His response was, (not in these exact words) "No you won't. What if you sleep in and you only have time for one, Me or dance?"

I inwardly groaned, this is a problem I come across sometimes. "The thing is," I argued back, "I am losing time because I'm getting older. I can spend time with You any time."

Just then He brought back to my memory something I had written in my journal a few years ago, that who I am today shapes who I am tomorrow. My dream is to be a dancer, but I want to be a mentor and a dancer at the same time. I realized in that moment that every time I sacrifice my "spiritual training" for physical training, I am shaping myself to be a strong dancer and weak disciple in the future.

I had to ask the question, which would I rather be, a strong dancer and weak Christian, or a weak dancer and strong Christian?

Before I could even argue, God answered my next objection, with, "You know I can do miracles. 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and ALL THESE THINGS will be added unto you."

He was asking me to put practical faith into action. To, if it came down to it, sacrifice what I feel like I can't in order to spend time with Him.

The next thing in this learning process was a few verses I decided to memorize, Hebrews 12:1-4.

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.”

The first day since that realization, I was already battling temptation to put off quiet time with the Lord til "later," and the one line came to mind, "Let us lay aside every weight."

"Weight," over the past few days, has come to mean a great many things to me, and it's amazing how many weights need to daily be laid aside, especially, as the verse points out, since I am surrounded by witnesses every day. God not only calls me to surrender my life, but to be an example to everyone else who looks on.

“Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” I Timothy‬ ‭4:12‬ 

When I was told I couldn't dance until we figured out what was wrong with my back, I had to bring it back to Jesus, "Why do I keep getting injured, Lord?"

As I mentioned earlier, this isn't the first injury I've had which kept me from dancing, but I've never even had one FROM dancing, they're all just lame injuries from simple things. Is there a reason? Is God trying to teach me something? Is it just coincidence?

I always want answers on a broad scale. I know that God works through my whole life, so I want Him to show me some grand pattern He's been working on through my life, and how that is laying the ground work for my future. But often He just shows me one thing at a time, just as much as I need and not more.

"Lay aside every weight."
"Seek first the kingdom."
"Set an example."

So...I don't know how long I won't be dancing, hopefully not too long, but this is time I think God wants me to intentionally invest in relationship with Him. And if God doesn't consider it wasted time, neither should I.



As long as my back heals in time, I am still planning to go to Ballet Magnificat's Summer Dance Intensive in Mississippi this summer, so if you would like to support me, it would be SO much appreciated! My GoFundMe link is HERE.

Character Building Bread (Not With Pictures, Because There's No Such Thing as Instagram in Character Development)

Hello friends! If you're anything like me, you'll understand the feeling of euphoria when you wake up to the smell of freshly baked banana bread, wafting through the house.

There's nothing quite like warm, moist banana bread, especially with chocolate chips, because you and I both know, chocolate makes everything better.

Because I love to bake, and I love Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, and I love blogging, I thought I would share my recipe with you all, so you can enjoy the same treat I am going to in about 40 minutes. (Yay!)

Here's what you'll need.

-All purpose flour
-Baking soda
-Baking powder
-Salt
-Sugar
-1 egg
-Milk
-Unsalted Butter softened
-3 Mashed bananas
-Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips

To start off, take your 5 bananas, (this particular recipe calls for 3, so let's do 5 so that you can't quite double the recipe, you just have to test your math skills.) and mash them.

Next, combine all of your dry ingredients in a bowl, and go shopping. The original recipe tells you to leave the sugar out so you can combine it with the butter later, but those rules are really only guidelines to make things easier, so you don't really need to follow them. Do things the hard way, it's good for you.

When you get back from shopping and you have a very limited time to whip this all together before you have to leave for the evening, it's time to soften the butter. The recipe says unsalted, but are you about to allow a recipe to control your life? No. Just use salted.

Microwaves are no good, DO NOT USE THE MICROWAVE. Instead, use the toaster oven, which will soften the outside of the butter very quickly causing it to run all over, but leave the centre just has firm as before. This is good because it not only strengthens your ability to handle stress under a time crunch, it also improves your arm muscles. If you break a couple utensils in the process, don't worry about it. It's part of life.

While waiting for the butter in the toaster oven, lightly whisk the eggs in a bowl. This doesn't really matter, because in a moment you are going to beat them to death trying to get the butter to mix, but you should try to stick to some rules, so stick to that one.

If your butter WILL NOT mix, feel free to stick it back into the toaster oven, but make sure you watch it like a hawk so the egg doesn't cook overtop of the butter.

When that comes out, you can now add your dry ingredients! Yay, we're getting somewhere!

Feel free to forget about the milk. Again, it builds both character and muscle trying to beat your super thick doughy batter into submission, so use this chance to better yourself. You will need to add it at some point though, and when you do, you may as well toss the spoon aside because only your bare hands will be able to conquer the mass that sits before you. Zero all of your attention on it at this point, flour, egg, and butter on every surface of your kitchen don't matter that much, and you are running out of time.

Spoon the nearly solid batter with little butter chunks throughout into two silicone pans, and put them in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

And finally, pray. Character building is all about pushing yourself to your limits, and submitting to the fact that only God can strengthen your spirit and make your banana bread edible.

In the end, it should look like this, and no one will be any the wiser. Except you, because wisdom is one of those things that comes with good character.

Let me know how this recipe worked for you!

If you have any negative feedback, feel free to email pleasekeepittoyourself@buildscharacter.com

Because We Look Like God

Hello all y'alls!

I had a thought a while ago which I have never actually heard anyone else talk about, so I feel slightly hesitant to bring it up, except that I'm pretty sure I'm right, and if I am, this is a new perspective that I think is really valuable.

So firstly, one thing I have heard people talk about a LOT in the past couple of years, is identity. The gist of all the identity talks can, I think, be broken down into three categories.

1. Your Identity is Not What You Think It Is
2. Your Identity is Under Attack
3. Understanding Your Identity is SUPER Important

Let's talk about these.

1. Your Identity is Not What You Think It Is

I love to dance. I want dancing to be what I do with my life, no matter how hard it is. In fact, I love how hard it is. Discipline and the feeling of achievement is one of my favourite things about the art form, and for a really long time, I couldn't wait til I could take on the title, "Dancer."
"Ballerina," I felt was even further from my reach, and I refused to call myself either one of those titles for a long time because I felt that I needed to earn it first. I couldn't wait to earn it. I couldn't wait to be able to call myself "A dancer."

But I realized one day, through hearing another dancer's story, that I wanted to call myself something because until I had achieved something great, I didn't feel like I had any value to give. As soon as I had done it, then my existence would be worth it. Then I would have value. But God challenged me on that and called back to my attention the fact that He could totally take away my ability to dance, and what would I do then? My potential identity would be gone. How would I live without knowing that someday I would be valuable?

Saying it in such blatant words makes it obvious what the problem there was. Of course it didn't sound like that in my head. I had wrapped my identity up in what I was able to achieve, I had told myself that until I got there, just being a beloved child of God wasn't good enough.

The truth of the matter is that your identity is not found it what you do, how you think, what you believe, your identity is simply you. It's who God created you to be. It's the pure core of who you are that God made, loved, and died for. He thought you, without any other credentials, were worth dying for.

2. Your Identity is Under Attack

The kind of scenario I mentioned above is SUPER common. For some reason it's like most humans are not content with who they are, they have to find their identity in something other than God's love, whether that is their work, their family, their achievements, etc.
It's almost like someone is selling us that lie.
Speaking of lies, you know what else "someone" tries to sell us? That in order to fix ourselves, we should hurt ourselves.
A couple examples are, throughout history every time pagan worship has been allowed to progress, it always turns to some sort of self-harm. In idol worship people would often cut themselves as they tried to appease or appeal to whichever god, and even further, it would often lead to child sacrifice, so not only would they hurt themselves, but they would hurt their children.
Not only pagan worship, but things most of us North Americans in 2018 can relate to more, like cutting. Eating disorders. If I may make a parallel to going a step further, pagan worshippers sacrificed their children to the gods, we have abortions.
Why would demonic forces work so hard to make us find identity in wrong places and hurt ourselves? Because if we believe and rest in who we are in Christ, we don't need anything else to be satisfied. We don't need to play any of the devil's games, we're happy right where we are, completely protected by our Saviour, and that is the last place Satan wants us to be.

3. Understanding Your Identity is SUPER Important

I sort of touched in this already, but the reason it's so important to understand your true identity, is because the more you are under Christ's protection, the less you are in dangerous enemy territory.
If you are looking for identity in your job, this opens you up to potentially making an idol of your job, but it also shows that you think you need more than God.
If you completely understood how much God loves you and were perfectly at peace with that, what could convince you to hurt yourself? It would seem like utter foolishness to you.
If we as a nation understood people's identity as "Made in God's Image," would we kill our children?
There are just so many things that would be changed if we only knew who we were in Christ. We wouldn't hate ourselves, we wouldn't hurt ourselves, we wouldn't be always longing for something to make us valuable.

I know that was a long winded prologue, but if you hadn't thought through all of that before, it's better that you do before I say my new perspective on this.

The thought suddenly came to me one day. "Why does Satan have a bone to pick with us?"

Seriously. Think about it.

He was jealous of God, organized a rebellion, and got kicked out of heaven, before we were ever created. That had nothing to do with us.

He has supernatural power. Obviously not as great as God's, but if we didn't have God's protection, imagine a fight between me and the devil. It would be like:

Me: Take this! (Starts running forward with a sword and a battlecry)
Satan: Yeah, that's enough.
I'm dead. The end.

So seriously, why does he care about harassing us? We are no threat to him, we had nothing to do with his fallout with God, even if he did manage to win all of us to his side, he's not creating an army, we're just all going to hell, which, by the way, was God's invention, not his.

The answer, I believe, is simple. We are just tools in his fight with God.

It's true, God kicked him out of heaven. God will always be stronger, and always win every fight they have, but Satan is a schemer. What better insult would there be than to hurt what God loves?

Imagine an analogy, let's say you have a nemesis, but you're basically Superman and can't be beaten. Your nemesis can't kill you, but he can kill your sister. Your spouse. Your child. You and I both know that would hurt as bad or worse as if he had just killed you.

So that's exactly what he does. He does everything he can to fracture the relationship between God and His church, everything he can to get the one God loves to turn away after other things, and everything he can to make those who bear the very image of God, mar it. Because if he can't hurt God, he can make us hurt that which most closely resembles Him. Another analogy: If someone burns a picture of someone else, you imagine they probably hate them.

One more thing! When God made Himself vulnerable and came to earth in the form of a man, Satan tempted Him in the wilderness by challenging WHO HE WAS. His identity. "If you really are the Son of God..."

In summary, Satan has a bone to pick with us only because God loves us, and because we look like God.

So friends, this inner struggle we have all the time as Christians, what the bible calls "the race," and "the good fight of faith," it's not just a battle we have to win for ourselves. It's a battle we have to win because Jesus gave us the power to do it, and if we don't, we aren't the ones who end up the most hurt, He is.

A Verse For 365 Days

Happy New Year!

It's a tradition in my family to sit down together on the 1st of January, and learn from my father, who is very wise, and has taught us from very young ages how to plan for our lives.

We have kind of a running joke in my house about three year old and younger kids sitting on the floor, staring blankly at my dad who is explaining assets/liabilities, having zoned out twenty minutes ago. But the truth is, the joke is completely true, that's exactly what happened. Over the years, we learned to sit still, to listen, and to learn.

I have come to really appreciate these family meetings, as I think most if not all of my siblings have.

Rewind to January 1st 2016. I was sitting on the couch during our meeting, and for some unclear reason, I turned to Proverbs.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.

I understood just then, that God was giving me this verse for the year, for all of 2016.

That year, it was AMAZING how close to that theme my life stuck. Constantly I went back to it, it corrected me, encouraged me, and comforted me.

On January 1st 2017, I was again sitting on the couch, and I asked God, "Please give me a verse for this year as well."

I turned in my bible, and ended up in Isaiah.

Behold, I will do a new thing. Shall you not know it? I will even make roads in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

To be quite honest, I thought it was a little bit lame at first. It reminded me of those "teenage Christian girl" verses which you would usually see with an Instagram photo, like Jeremiah 29:11.

But I felt convicted about that, so I asked for forgiveness and accepted it. I forgot about it for a while, until my life took a VERY unexpected turn, which made me extremely upset, and all I could see on the horizon was fog. I had no idea where I was going from there. I picked up my notebook one day, read what I had written, and began to understand.

The situation actually changed a number of times, each time I went back to that verse, understanding that God was doing a new thing, and I would know it.

In the end, it changed in such a way that made me...SO happy. But it wasn't finished. It was like God showed me how He was opening the door for a new thing, but He didn't really get it started, or if He did, it certainly wasn't anywhere near finished.

The "roads in the wilderness and rivers in the desert" part, I didn't really understand.

I was praying about it on January 1st 2018, and God pointed out to me that a road is a means to an end. Yes, He said "I will do a new thing," but what does He say the new thing is, at least in metaphor? "ROADS in the wilderness, and RIVERS in the desert."

A road is a way to get somewhere. It is a thing, it's a good thing, but you don't walk on a road for the sake of the road, you walk on a road to get somewhere.

A river is a body of water, but it's not self sufficient. A river comes from somewhere, if you follow it, it will lead you to a much bigger body of water where it came from.

It took me an entire year to understand what God was trying to say through that verse, but I think I get it now. I still don't know what's at the end of the road, or what's at the beginning of that river, but I know that God gave me a road this year, and I will WALK it. I will walk it until God tells me to stop, because He said "Shall you not know it?" And I KNOW that He gave me a road.

So here's what I'm going to say to finish this. Bible verses for the year are SO awesome. If you'd like to, I encourage you to pray for one, and if you have a cool story about it, I'd love to hear it!
It's not always going to be that clear. I have two written down for 2018, maybe God gave me one, or both, or neither, but if I'm totally wrong, anything that causes me to seek the Lord and His purpose for my year more is going to be helpful.

May 2018 hold more knowledge and experience of Jesus for you!



Side note: Guess what? I am going to Mississippi, (God willing) in July 2018! There is a company called Ballet Magnificat which is based there, and they run a dance intensive every year in the summer, which I am planning to go to, but I need some help. My goal is to raise $3,015 by April, so if you would like to help support my trip, you can donate as little or as much as you like HERE.
Thank you!

Provoked to Jealousy and Birth

Last year I decided to read through the bible front to back, a decision I have made many times in the past and always ended up going back to my comfy place, the Psalms and/or Epistles.

But this time I have really stuck with it, a huge part of the reason has been that I didn't limit myself to one chapter a day. It's amazing how doing less can actually steal your motivation faster. It seems easier, but trust me, it's not.

Anyway, so I've gotten up to Ezekiel. While I was having fun trotting through all the symbolism in Ezekiel 8 this morning, I made a connection which I thought was pretty cool.

The chapter starts off with a being (angel, Holy Spirit, not really sure) appearing to Ezekiel and leading him through the temple. They start off at the door of the north gate of the inner court, it says, "where the seat of the image of jealousy was, which provokes to jealousy."

“Then He said to me, “Son of man, lift your eyes now toward the north.” So I lifted my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, was this image of jealousy in the entrance. Furthermore He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here, to make Me go far away from My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater abominations.” So He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, there was a hole in the wall. Then He said to me, “Son of man, dig into the wall”; and when I dug into the wall, there was a door. And He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there.” So I went in and saw, and there—every sort of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed all around on the walls. And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’ ” And He said to me, “Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.” So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the LORD’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz."

I'll just interrupt here to explain that Tammuz was a "god of fertility," who had supposedly been banished to the underworld. I don't know if at this point in history they actually experienced a problem with childbearing, but the idea was that the fertility god was gone and no longer able to help them.

"Then He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, you will see greater abominations than these.” So He brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house; and there, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east. And He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose. Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity;and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.” (Ezekiel‬ ‭8:1-18‬)

It seemed like there should be some significance in the order of the abominations shown to Ezekiel, since they started at the gate of the court, dug through the wall to find a door which they went into, and then went further still into the inner court of the Lord's house.

So naturally, I thought about lists which might match the "list" being built in this chapter. My first

thought was Egypt, Tammuz reminded me of their various fertility gods, and the sun worship reminded me of Ra. With the ten plagues, God attacked their gods by directly attacking that which their gods supposedly protected. (Ex: the darkness which covered the land, and the death of all the firstborn children)

After the plagues, God led His people out of Israel and gave them the Ten Commandments, which is where I looked.

What I found was that the list of the Ten Commandments did not match up with the four abominations Ezekiel saw, but interestingly, everything seemed to be covered in "the first and greatest commandment."

"And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Exodus‬ ‭20:1-6‬)

"You shall have no other gods before Me." Like the idols they were burning incense to in the temple.

"Any likeness of anything that is in heaven above..." Like the sun they were worshipping with their
backs to the temple.

"...or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to 
them nor serve them." Like the animals they were also burning incense to.

"For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God..." Reminds me of the seat of jealousy which provokes to jealousy.

"...visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me..." Was Tammuz banished, or was God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon their children?



I don't know if this really has any intended significance, but here are some ideas I've been thinking about.

When God revealed the Ten Commandments, He had just led His people out of oppression, they were ready and willing to follow Him, they had a good future ahead. But God knew already then, that by Ezekiel's time, they would be doing the exact things He told them not to do. Yet the promise He offered was the same.

The way the two passages align is very similar, but the way they end is very different.

"Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they cry in 
My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”

"but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

It sort of looks like the "Old Testament God" vs "New Testament God," but the great thing to realize is that the mercy one was written first. In foresight of all that would happen, "Old Testament God" promised that He would always punish evil, like He did in Ezekiel's time, and would always show mercy to those who broke the pattern of curse and chose to love Him.

Ezekiel and the Ten Commandments seems like a weird discussion at Christmas, but I actually think it ties in perfectly with this celebration.
We have provoked God to jealousy, we have broken His covenant and turned to other sources for what He promised to give us. He led us out of (figurative) Egypt and we turned right back to Egypt's chains.

His solution for us was to come and be born humbly in every possible respect, be raised among the children of the people who had exchanged Him for gods of wood and stone, and die the death of a criminal, amongst criminals, by the hands of criminals.

But He was not the sort of God that could be banished to the underworld, He rose again, proving to us that if death itself could not keep His love from us, who were we to think we could?

Merry Christmas friends. :)



Also...

Guess what? I'm going to Mississippi! The plan is to go to a summer dance intensive by one of my favorite companies, Ballet Magnificat, in July of 2018. To do that, I will need to raise some money, so if you would like to support my trip, you can check out my GoFundMe campaign HERE. Thanks in advance!

~Keturah

Life in Crystal Beach and Old Promises

Hello people!

I did it again, where I didn't write for a really long time and now I'm not sure where to start.

Well, I guess I'll give kind of an overview of what I've been up to/thinking about for the past little while.

As some of you know, I moved in with my sister and my second cousin, (who doubles as my dance teacher) in Crystal Beach, so I could take ballet classes back in September/October. I transferred work to a McDonalds in Fort Erie, and I stayed here for a month, and then went back home for October-November.

I came back near the end of November, and I'm here until the end of January, although I am going home in a couple days for Christmas and New Years. (So pumped!!)

That's a rough synopsis of what I've been doing, but as always, I much prefer writing about Jesus.

Oh....where to start....okay. Have you ever felt like you aren't in a bad place spiritually, you wouldn't really call it a dry season or a phase of darkness, but you just haven't felt the presence of God in a really long time? I've been realizing recently that my ability to quickly and confidently cast away doubts has gone down significantly, and I think it's because what I used to know so strongly is more of a memory for me now than a daily reality. So I've been praying and asking the Lord to send His presence to be with me in a way that I can't doubt anymore, and just waiting on Him to do it.

(Just to be clear, when I say I have been absent from His presence, I don't mean that either of us have forsaken or turned away from the other. Like I said, I'm not in a "dry" or "dark" place, but I have been missing feeling Him. I know I don't need to feel Him, truth is not based on feelings, but it is nice.)

Well a few days ago, He showed me something that encouraged me so much, and I am sharing it with you in hopes that it will encourage you too.

I read Psalm 121, and the whole thing was just really nice and comforting. You should read it, cause I'm only going to mention the last verse. (Seriously read it, it's short.)

“The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in From this time forth, and even forevermore.” (Psalms‬ ‭121:8‬)

Verse 8 struck me because I realized that this promise is not starting now. "From this time forth," does not mean starting now and never ending, that verse was a promise to me when I first was born again into the family of God.

Five years ago, this promise was for me, and for five years it has never failed, and for the rest of my life it never will.

The other thing that stood out to me about the verse were the words "going out and coming in." Of where?

I have been feeling absent from the presence of God for a while now. I have been missing it. I miss just sitting with Him and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is with me, but this verse spoke so strongly to that feeling. If I would paraphrase the verse, I would say it like this.

"He will preserve your going out of His presence and your coming into His presence, from the moment you first entered and even forevermore."

So here's my last thought to close this up. If you are a long time Christian, you don't need a new promise. This one is for you, and God is so true to His promises, He doesn't need to give them again. Hold onto that. Know that He has never forgotten this promise since He gave it.

If you are not a Christian, this promise is being offered to you. You know what you need, you don't need me to tell you, but let God tell you He will give it to you.
The beginning of that chapter says, "I will look to the hills, from whence comes my help, my help comes from the Lord." So look. Look to Him, He is offering help, offering protection, offering love. All you have to do is take it.


Another Update:

After a loooong wait, I finally got my technical difficulties sorted out! So if you haven't heard, I'm planning on going to a summer dance intensive in Mississippi in July 2018! As you may imagine, it is quite expensive, so if you would like to help me out financially, I would appreciate it SO much. I have a GoFundMe page to make things real simple, so if you're interested, click HERE to check it out. :)
Thanks in advance!