A Semi-Coherent Summary

I've been processing all of the information I've been emersed in this weekend, and I'm still not sure that I can summarize the chaos in my mind.  But I'm going to do my best to try!!

This weekend, as many of you know, I attended the Beth Moore simulcast based on her latest amazing book "So Long, Insecurity."  I've written about some of the lessons I've been learning as I've read through her insights, but this weekend something more got through to me.  Something that bugs me to no end is that I get so bogged down with my busy life that I tend to forget these moments of truth that I experience.  It frustrates me so much!!  I'm hoping that this blog will keep me from my forgetful nature.   :-)

Beth based her message this weekend on Ephesians 4 - a passage I've heard many times --- take off your old self and put on your new self.  Blah. Blah. Blah.  What I failed to realize until this weekend is that I haven't actually done that.  I still live in my old self.  I live in bondage to my fears and doubts. 

I've heard so many times that happiness is a choice.  You can choose to be happy or you can choose to be a grump.  What the Lord has been teaching me through Beth is that security - my NEW self in Christ - is also a choice.  I can choose to live in this garment of fear or I can choose to put on a garment of righteousness and truth.  Beth said on Saturday that insecurity is not a weakness.  It is unbelief.  Before this past November, I would never in a million years consider myself someone who struggles with unbelief.  But I do struggle.  I have never truly gotten rid my old self of fear and unbelief .  I've put her in the closet where she's easy to find.  Sometimes I try to bury her waaayyy back in the back of the closet....but she's never very far away. 

I have some new professional challenges ahead of me.  Tough decisions to make.  But I'm choosing to put my old self of fear and unbelief away for good.  And to put on the garment of truth and belief.  I believe Him to order my days and to guide my path.  I am still holding onto the fact that I am not one day behind in His glorious plan.  (Although right now I'm still preferring the plan I had concocted for my life, I'm choosing to trust that His is in reality more glorious than mine.)  He has given me a spirit of power and love -- not a spirit of fear. 

Saturday during the WONDERFUL WONDERFUL praise and worship time we had, we sang "In Christ Alone."  I absolutely adore how Christ uses songs that I have sung a bazillion times before to speak a new truth to my heart.  My hope shouldn't be in anything in this world.  And I know that my fears are based 100% on temporary things.  Lord Jesus, how I praise you for the gift of music and how you use it to speak to my heart!



In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.