Song for the Lost

Yes, I love you with all of my heart.

No, I do not wish to shove my beliefs down your throat.

No, the reasoning behind my faith is not one of instability, irrational thought, and delusion.

I don’t represent hatefulness, as God is love;

But I am bound to represent justice.

God wishes to send no one to hell; not you, or me

But sin exists. If it does not, then what are laws?

What are ethics? Wrongdoing? Consequence?

I know you feel a gnawing void

I saw it every day in your eyes for weeks on end

I saw it in the way you spoke through your beautiful art,

Humanity in unadulterated form.

Man is corrupt – you know this.

You see the way man has taken regulations in an attempt to contain God’s righteousness

To contain Him in a single box – it cannot be done.

Only to corrupt it in every possible manner, in legalistic pursuit of their own intuition of

“Good” and “bad” and “heaven” and “hell” and “right” and “wrong”

Do you not see? This void will never end

Hopeless as that may seem, there is a solution.

But you won’t believe me. Even if I tell you that

I have the ointment, the bandage, the elixir for your wound

You will deny me and cover it with your self-formulated, butchered truth

Your spiritual emollient will lead to infection, beloved.

Infection to spreading, spreading to amputation, amputation to death

We’re all going to die, you know.

But spiritually, you don’t have to.

Open your eyes to the truth that is glistening before them

Inviting you into the Arms of the Peace you seek

Peace that surpasses all understanding

You will deny Him.

You hunger and refuse food.

You thirst and deny water.

You long and are left unsatisfied.

You are naked and refuse clothing.

I entreat you! Hear the beckoning voice of eternity as it presses upon your heart

Abandon your humanity and seek Christ

He loves you! He loves you. He loves you.

You! The wretched man you are

have admitted the shortcoming of your own soul

Will you do nothing for it?

I love you with all of my heart.

Eternity is in store for you and me and His children.

Let us partake in His holiness together.

Before it is too late, beloved.

God is BIGGER

God is BIGGER. 

What does that mean to you? 

He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. That is the biggest of the big. Only God possesses such sovereignty! What a wonderful thing that a God of such dimensions could love us, adore us, and die for us as He does.

Life is a constant battlefield. There's always that one love interest on your mind, a breakup you're trying to recover from, anxiety or depression, an eating disorder, a haunting past, physical detriment, family problems, friend problems...and the list goes on. What is on your heart? More importantly, where is your heart? God knows, more than anyone! For it is the heart He created.

Whatever we are going through, God is bigger. He is allowing you to experience it for a reason! God cares more about our reformation than He does about our happiness. We must allow Him to reform us, shape us, and break us to be more and more like Him. Only in His perfect will can we find true happiness, not in what we think we deserve.

Jesus! You are so beautiful. All that You have guarded me from...all that You have given me! I am overcome by the stresses of daily life but it is nothing when faced to You. 

Lord, You are wonderful! I cannot help but sing about Your goodness! You have shown me so much. I am overwhelmed by Your righteousness. Fill me, Lord - there is none other but You! 

Not anxiety, not depression, not a love interest, not an eating disorder...You are above all. It's not about me. Each day that toils...a day is a thousand years and a thousand years is a day in Your eyes.

Help me to have Your eyes, Lord. Please grant me wisdom, that I may use it in Your kingdom! Help me to focus on YOU and others. Not myself. Naomi is dead! There's only Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. 

Purity

Lord, teach me the value of purity. The value of separating oneself from the world for a sweet hour of prayer. The imperfection of human sin has tainted everything - not humans alone. It has tainted the beauty that God has intended for this earth. 

When constantly surrounded by the world, we must look to Jesus for cleansing. I feel surrounded by worldliness on a daily basis - and at times, it has taken a toll on me. It has led me to look to things other than God for fulfillment, which is terribly wrong. Everything we do needs to be for God's glory; is that not our purpose on this earth?

May He forgive us for loving anything more than we loved Him! We have played the harlot, like Israel in the Old Testament prophet book of Hosea; we have mocked His grace, raped His mercy, beaten His love; and 

still He loves us. 

Is this not the greatest miracle ever known to mankind? That such Perfection could look down upon imperfection in love? The same eyes that see our sin look upon us in grace in mercy, in the truth that the Son of God has given Himself for us. 

As this week starts....make the first commandments (of both the Old and New testament) your prayer. 

1. "You shall have no other Gods before Me." 

He is to be the one we worship! No other person or thing is worthy. We are not even worthy to worship Him, and yet he bestows the privilege upon us. What are common idols in the world today?

-Social Networking

-Friends

-Boyfriend/Girlfriend

-Husband/Spouse

-Children

-TV/Movies

-Videogames

-Music

-Schoolwork 

-Family

-Food

-Drugs/Alcohol (substance abuse)

And the list goes on. None of these things belong on a higher pedestal than our Father. None! He commands it. 

2. "Love the Lord God will all your heart, mind, soul and strength."

If you are anything like me, you may be thinking, "What an impossible request!" 

And you're right - apart from God's strength it is impossible. 

But Jesus tells us that all things are possible with God. It is a promise from God - claim it in order to fulfill the command He has given you.

Make Him Lord of every thought and action that you think and do. Make Him Lord of every area of your life - family life, love life, work life, financial life, church life....anything that pertains to you, pertains to Him. If you have accepted Him as your Heavenly Father, you have entered into an everlasting, holy covenant. 

It is a difficult to do these things. I, for one, have struggled with it immensely. Only by God's grace am I here today. He has claimed me! I am His princess. My relationship with Him is a larger part of my identity than my very name. He has all of me! Heart, mind, soul, body. 

 

 

Comparison

Comparison is the thief of joy. I feel pressed to write about this issue as it has weighed heavily upon my heart for my entire life. Comparison has always been my thief, a thief that I have allowed to steal from me again and again and again. I was too busy focusing on self to realize that comparison steals. It breaks hearts, ruins friendships, provokes adultery, and causing eating disorders and low self esteem.

How often, even and especially in the church, have we compared ourselves to someone else? Especially as women! We compare our intellect, appearance, academics, profession, husband/boyfriend, home, car, and everything. Our vanity compels us to remove our focus from God and surpass others, feeding our own ego.

Her husband makes her pancakes on saturday morning. Mine just sits in bed waiting to be served. What a loser!

She has the perfect body. Exactly the type of body my boyfriend would want. Why can't I be like that?

She works in the high-end office at the end of Main Street. Her position easily makes 70k a year, and here I am, a frumpy housewife. Why did I not finish school!

We all do it. It is with great sorrow that I admit how much comparing myself to others has hurt me. In fact, comparison has caused me to have two eating disorders, Anorexia and Binge Eating Disorder (BED). My self esteem grew increasingly low as my weight plummeted sky-high n 2011. I couldn't bear to look at myself, and when my "lover" always compared my body to my friends' bodies, it killed me. He would say, "Your face is 10/10, and you're beautiful....but your face is the most beautiful part of you." I wasn't good enough or hot enough to please this man. Little did he know my insecurities, that each comment crushed my self-esteem. Was it his intention? I'll never know. But I compared myself to all other women, rotting in my desire to be someone else, anyone else. I measured myself on a scale that I could never live up to.

Comparison broke my spirit and sent me into sin and addictions. I am tearful as I write this, realizing the gigantic part that it has played in my life, a part which has haunted me ever since it began. Today, in communion, I prayed to God in our quiet time. I will share the most intimate prayer that I have prayed in the entire month:

Lord, forgive me for loving anything more than I have loved You. Forgive me for putting my own selfish desires above Your will. 

My sin has forced me to face daily consequences. Every day is a battle, crucified flesh against risen saint. Every day I am forced to fight the inferiorities that have haunted me for all my life and especially the last three years, which have been the most pivotal years of my existence. Fighting comparison is a never ending battle.

A truth that we must remember is this:

You are YOU. You are no one else. You are God's, and He created you for a specific purpose. There's a reason you are not her, there's a reason you don't have the very thing that you want. God is growing you, making beauty from your ashes. He will use this sin of yours to refine you into Christlikeness. You are His beautiful daughter, and your battle has already been fought and won. You must live for His glory, never taking your eyes off of His beautiful person. He died for you! When can He have you, ALL of you?

Choose Him, for He has long chosen you.

Nature and Philosophy

Emerson's Nature

"Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. . . .

Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no significance but what we consciously give them, when we employ them as emblems of our thoughts? The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind. The laws of moral nature answer to those of matter as face to face in a glass. "The visible world and the relation of its parts, is the dial plate of the invisible." The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics. 

But the philosopher, not less than the poet, postpones the apparent order and relations of things to the empire of thought. "The problem of philosophy," according to Plato, "is, for all that exists conditionally, to find a ground unconditioned and absolute." It proceeds on the faith that a law determines all phenomena, which being known, the phenomena can be predicted. That law, when in the mind, is an idea. Its beauty is infinite. The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both. . . ."

The Beauty of Law

The concepts of Gravity and Buoyancy are very well known physics concepts. In fact, they are phenomena that affect us every day! The fact that you are not floating in the air as you read this is because there is a gravitational pull drawing you to the earth. It is a negative pull - it pulls downward.

Buoyancy is the near opposite of gravitation. It allows things to defy gravity. It is the substance that allows helium to raise a latex balloon. A deflated balloon, on its own, would not be able to defy gravity - only when it is filled with helium can it do so, because it is under a different scientific law. It is no longer under the law of gravity, it is under the law of buoyancy, and it's reaction to surroundings thus changes.

I know what you are probably thinking. "What does gravitation and buoyancy have to do with anything regarding Impetus?" The answer is, everything!

Think of gravitation as our sinful nature. In our sinful nature, we cannot raise ourselves up. Try as we might, it is impossible for us to attain holiness. Our humanity does not, and cannot, allow us to do so, because sinfulness is inherent of it. Like gravity, then, it pulls us down because we are under the law of sin (The Old Testament law, which was created to show us how needful we are of a Savior). In our gravitational sin, we are under the law of sin and unrighteousness.

In contrast, the Holy Spirit is like the helium in the balloon. Upon our asking of forgiveness and repentance, He raises us up to holiness. Like a helium balloon, when we bounce down, we bounce back up, because we are now under a different law - the law of grace, which allows us to defy the previous law.

Nerdy as it may seem, I find it to be a wonderful and tangible analogy that I have been able to effectively apply to every area of my life! I am no longer in bondage of my sin, because I have found something greater and infinitely powerful - Jesus' salvation, grace, and eternal life!

The Beginning of an Impetus

Impetus: A moving force; impulse; stimulus: the momentum of a moving body.

I started this blog with the intent of becoming exactly what is mentioned above: an impetus to a culture. A steadfast force that knows its place in this world but is also seeking it out diligently. A beautiful balance of femininity, knowing when to acquiesce to authority, while simultaneously remaining steadfast and immovable as a light to the world.

I am a young, ambitious college student. I have always adored writing and especially when my writing is a part of my soul. I have a passion for godliness, even though I do not always follow it. I am constantly driven by pleasure and rewards. My favorite thing in the world is to meet new people and to get to know them! I am, by nature, a very feminine and girly person, but I strive to keep my feet on the ground when I'm not dancing. :) I love green tea ice cream, 19th century novels, high heels, soft blankets, and rain. I am forever smitten with [sometimes insatiable] wanderlust. That's all you need to know about me for now. :)

As aforementioned, however, pieces of me are hidden in every entry I write. Right in between the lines. But greater than that is my desire to be an impetus. And ever greater is my desire to please my Savior by doing so! 

Oh, and one last thing. I tend to be, at times, obnoxiously fiery. My ardor for certain issues sometimes pushes me to be very blunt! But I desire to make a difference while striving for a gentle spirit. :) 

I'm so new to this whole blogging thing, but I did it because I believe that writing, among many other things, is a way to express oneself. But I do not only want to express myself; I pray that, as undeserving as I am to be God's witness, I can show the world my love for Jesus. And even if only one person reads this, I want my words to make a difference, even if it is ever so slight!

If you're reading this, I love you! Thank you for putting up with me. :) Here's to many more nonsensical entries.

Always,

Naomi