2015, A Year of His Presence

I always like to look back at the end of a year and try to sum it up somehow, so that I can remember. I'll journal about the highlights of the year, things that were important that happened, things that weren't so great that happened, etc. This year, I'm not going to journal about the things that happened or the things that I want to remember. I mainly want to remember one thing about this year. It was a year where I experienced the presence of the Lord like never before. It was a year of big changes, challenges, emotional struggles and quite frankly I wouldn't want to do most of it all over again. But it was a year of His Presence. It was a year of His faithfulness. And for those things, I wouldn't trade it for the world.
I was reading back to a journal entry that I wrote in May of this year. I was having a rough morning and God brought to mind the story of the woman that touched the hem of Jesus' garment and was healed. The particular thing that stuck out to me that morning in that story wasn't the healing. It was the pushing through the crowd part. That woman was desperate for a touch from the Lord. She fought through a crowd to just get a glimpse of him. She knew if she could just touch the hem of his robe, she would be changed.
I wrote in my journal this:
When we push through circumstances, we experience breakthrough. But: the breakthrough isn't the reward. His presence is. Pushing through those circumstances takes a lot of effort. You want to give up. I know I have. But it's worth the effort. The reward is priceless. It's incomparable. It's precious. His presence is ALWAYS the BEST REWARD. The healing isn't the reward. The provision isn't the reward. The answer to prayer isn't the reward. His presence is.

I've pushed through this year. There have been tears. There have been moments when I wanted to give up. There were private pains that were only shared with the Lord. There were moments of intense power struggles. Oh but his presence was my reward.

Following the Sun

I haven’t blogged in ages. But this morning, I feel like the Lord revealed something to me that was too good not to share. I’ve been hearing the Lord telling me to “turn my affections” towards him. I’ve heard that phrase used in teachings that I’ve been listening to and I just wasn’t sure what it meant. It made sense in my head sort of but I wanted it to make sense in my heart. I believe that true intimacy with the Lord is found in this statement of “turning our affections towards him”.
I was meditating on this on the way to work this morning, and asking God to teach me what it meant to turn my affections towards Him. Immediately God gave me a picture in my mind, a vision, of what this means. I love when he speaks in pictures to me because I’m such a visual person.
In this vision, I was seeing a sunflower. Have you ever seen a sunflower and how it reacts with the sun? We have a sunflower growing in our yard and I’ve gotten to watch it and how it responds to the sun. It actually follows the sun with its face. When I take the dog out in the morning as the sun is just beginning to rise, the sunflower is sort of droopy and facing the ground, but as the sun rises, the sunflower lifts its face and it follows the direct of the sun. It is truly a miraculous thing to watch. It can’t help but be drawn to what the sun has to give it.
Here is a link to a very dramatic look at a time lapse of sunflowers

I think turning our affections towards the Lord looks just like that. We are starting in a position of looking at our problems, our situations, and our focus is on ourselves. But as the sun (the Lord, in all his glory) makes himself evident, how can we keep from looking at him? When we turn our affections towards the Lord, we are choosing to turn off our mind to what’s going on in our lives and choosing to turn our attention on him. When we do that, we are able to just soak in his presence without distraction. We are able to find a new realm of intimacy with Him. I believe that in this act, we will be able to reach new depths in our relationship with Him.

Hebrews 12:2 “Fixing our eyes on Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”

Only by fixing the eyes of our hearts on Jesus can He begin to perfect us through intimacy of knowing Him.