Change and Such

For the last week or so I've been feeling this weird uncomfortable sort of pull on my heart. God has been revealing to be exactly how temporary my comfort zone is, and that freaks me out. He's just been teaching me exactly what it is I'm giving up in committing my life to Him: my right to be comfortable. I've known for a while now that committing my life to Jesus is going to take me far outside of anything I've ever known, but God has just been preparing me and giving me a glimpse of exactly how hard and uncomfortable it's going to be. This really freaked me out for a few days, but I've been praying that God will give me the courage to walk boldly into the life He has prepared for me, because I know that He will be with me through it all and that no matter what happens it will be beautiful.

I've been reading more of The Sacred Romance (read it!!!) and the chapter I just finished really revealed a lot to me about God's heart. It shows God as a lover, but not just as one who loves us immensely and unrelentingly, but as one who is sensitive and whose feelings can actually be hurt by our betrayals. This new perspective adds a whole new dimension of intimacy to a relationship with God, and I am loving it!

Here are a few passages from that book that I wanted to share:

"So long as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about; He is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high rebellion against him. And He knows that and has taken it into account. He has followed us into our own darkness; there were we thought finally to escape him, we run straight into his arms. So we do not have to erect a false piety for ourselves, to give us the hope of salvation. Our hope is in his determination to save us, and he will not give in."
Isn't that beautiful? : )

This one's my favorite:
"the Spirit has come to empower us to continue the invasion of the kingdom, which is about freeing the hearts of others to live in the love of God."
I LOVE the diction here. I love the idea of the kingdom of God like an invasion, like it's something that can't be stopped and will push relentlessly until it finds is way in and takes over. It will happen.