Day 1

God is doing something.
I know He is doing something because I'm being stretched and challenged.
I have started a 40 day fast today.
It is going to be good and yet hard. I have given up some things that I have felt a bond to, that I run to for comfort and feel will satisfy me. In reality, they don't. So I have made a decision to get rid of them for 40 days. Running and clinging to the Lord to replace those things when I hunger and thirst for them and crave them...it will be a sweet reminder to pray. To ask God to come and fill me, satisfy me, comfort me, LOVE me! Also, to lift up the people I care about in my life.
This is nothing to boast about. This is something between God and I, but wanted to document what I have been learning or how God has touched me. As I'm learning and being moved by the Spirit I would love to encourage you too.
I want to post as much as I can during these 40 days. These 40 days that lead up to a sweet and beautiful day. The day my Savior was born!
Today I was encouraged by a song. I was reminded that music does something to me that renews me and gets me fired up!
Today the song was Shadowfeet by Brooke Fraser. (see previous post of videos by Brooke)

Walking, stumbling on these shadowfeet toward home, a land I've never seen.
I am changing less and less asleep made of different stuff than when I began
And I have sensed it all along fast approaching is the day

When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you still standing
When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you

There is distraction buzzing in my head saying in the shadows it's easier to stay
But I've heard rumors of true reality whispers of a well-lit way

You make all things new
You make all things new

I was reminded in this song about that no matter what...because I have given my life to Jesus and I'm no longer my own...but I'm Jesus' and I am found IN HIM and this place is only temporary. There is a much better place awaiting my arrival. In this waiting, as I am found in Jesus, He is creating in me something that is preparing me for that day, He has made me new and has taken away the old! He will use the old things for the new. He is the one that satisfies. I'm choosing to believe this even when I don't "feel" it. He is faithful and WILL satisfy.

Isaiah 58:11-12 MSG "I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places-firm muscles, strong bones. You'll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. "

I was encouraging a friend with this quote from a poem by Amena Brown and God used it to encourage me also...

Every time I take a breath I discover YOU. That the same breath I'm breathing first originated inside of YOU. So I breathe YOU in because YOU take me in. Jesus in YOUR pure light I have come out of the shadows of darkness YOU ALONE SATISFY

Lord Jesus-
You alone satisfy. ONLY You. Nothing that this world has...no food no drink no person no thing can ever complete me, ever satisfy me, ever comfort me, ever LOVE me, the way YOU do. I confess that I haven't been "feeling" it. You know how I'm created, You know the design that You have placed on my life, I'm a feeler. But Lord, as I humble myself at Your feet, I choose to BELIEVE You and Your word. I'm choosing to run hard after You, I'm choosing to fill myself with You and not with the world, I'm choosing to fill myself with Your grace Your forgiveness Your love, I'm choosing to walk the well-lit path that You have lit with Your Spirit, I'm choosing to throw up my hands and proclaim that I can't do this, I can't live this life, I can't love how You love, I can't be...without You...without me being found in You. Jesus, You have given me new life. Because You were nailed to a cross, willingly, out of love for the WORLD...somehow that included me. Because You took on the sin of the world, sin in its entirety, You took it off of me and gave me a new life. New clothes. New heart. The old has gone! The new has come! Thank you. I thank You that you are reminding me of Your love for me. As I sit at Your feet, talking to You. As I open up Your word and get to know You, I'm falling back in love with You. You are my love. Thank You for loving me with a love that cannot be comprehended this side of heaven.
May YOU get glory Jesus. It's for YOU, my LOVE!