a steadfast spirit.

This is a bit of a strange first post of the new year, but it is a glimpse into the fact that this year, at its core, is really the same kind of year as last year and next year, too--it's simply another framework of time and minutes, season and moments, gathered together by the God who wants to do something new in me and in you. 

Below is just a few pages of my prayer journal, copied verbatim and shared with you. There may be a lot between the lines that is unclear (comments and/or emails are always welcome), but overall, I hope that it is an encouragement.

Friend, you can bring anything to God. Open your heart wide and He will fill it to the brim with His words. And then, just maybe, He'll ask you to share your words as well. Here's a few of mine, which He has asked me to share. And as HB says, this is:

// “a prayer you can steal” //

Father, tonight, as I meditate on psalm 15, I’m struck by this idea of steadfastness. The one who will sojourn with you and dwell with you, the one who will come and stay with you, both has a steadfast character and is granted a steadfast, unshakeable position to stay with you. 

I’m struck tonight by how light I feel, how unsteady, uncoordinated, unsure I feel, specifically about the future, where my fear-tempted heart has spent some time today. But you, unchanging, unmoving, steadfast Lord of my life—you have spoken clearly even to that very fear, calling me instead to have faith—and not just to have faith, but to step out in faith, believing for all things to be made new, trusting you to keep calling and keep moving these things forward. To keep shifting me forward, while also making me steadfast, focusing me in on this one dream that you are carving out for me in this season: to write, and to go back to school to write.

What makes me feel unsteady tonight, I think, is all that this singular dream is asking me (in a sense) to give up. A 7-year-long calling, a potential job, a place—a comfortable, known place—to land when I get home.

At the root of each of these “sacrifices”?

Security. Just like Abraham, that’s what you’re asking me to get behind me—the temptation to remain safe and secure in anything, no matter how holy or healthy or good it seems—so that you may be my refuge and may provide for me better than I could ever provide for myself. 

But I reread the end of verse 4—

“He swears to his own hurt and does not change” (ESV)

“Keep your word even when it costs you” (MSG)—

and I feel you sowing this steadfast spirit into my soul, searing “He is my security” onto my heart, the law of my life that will keep me unmoved even when all my life—all I’ve desired and lived for for almost 10 years—all I’ve felt called to do until very recently, newly—is uprooted. 

I will be uprooted. 

And so you say my planting is in you—and you in me, the seed of the Kingdom kneaded into me, my life no matter where it goes or what you have my hands doing. All I know is that it is you who moves my hands across the journal, along the keys. Be that in preparation to teach BT or a text/email to a friend, even in a simple debriefing at the end of the day—you’re doing it, and you’re asking me to in faith—living, breathing, active, real, abundant faith—to follow you.

To follow you to the land you’ll show me, be it another sojourn or a come to call my own on earth, I’m following. I’m going. But above all else—I’m yours. 

Thank you, Jesus. I am yours.