Take It As It Comes

God has been working on my heart about a lot lately. I feel as though I need to go through each day and each situation and just "ponder things in my heart" as Mary did in Luke 2:19. I have tried to get in the habit lately of taking each day as it comes. As a creative and a girl, this is difficult. It's so easy to over think things or plan out exactly how my day will go, but so hard to just rest in the assurance that God holds me. Why is this? The One who created the stars is intimately involved in my day to day life, yet I cannot trust Him with the plans He has for me? It just doesn't make sense. I want to stop living like I am in control. I have really made a point to do that lately. Can I just say, it's an incredible feeling to simply let go? That doesn't mean not caring about the day or situation, but just resting in the peace that He really does work all things together for the good of those who love Him.

I have had a situation that keeps taking me by surprise lately. I really never know what to expect or how to act. I would cry to God and whine about it consistently and even store up anger and hurt in my heart. I finally said, "I have had enough. I can no longer carry this!" That's when I feel like God stepped in gave much needed perspective and peace.

It's hard to be where our feet are when we have dreams and desires. We automatically make elaborate plans and solutions. This does not leave room for God. How can we live in His will if we plan for Him? I for one am done planning. Not to say I'm going to go through life aimlessly, but that I always want to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and know that while things do not make sense sometimes, God sees the big perspective and knows what He is doing.

The way God works is so much greater than our ways, how precious are His thoughts! God gave me a beautiful picture of the way He loves tonight at church: We entered a time of prayer towards the end of the service and the daddy of a girl I know is on the leadership team, so he went up to pray for people. In a moment, the girl went up to her daddy and wanted him to pray for her. She put her hands up on his big strong shoulders and he looked at her with pure love. He swept the hair out of her face with his hand and leaned down to listen to her whisper in his ear. I felt like God said to me, "Emily, this is Who I Am to you. I love you like that." I was overwhelmed with emotion and the beauty of the way He loves.

He really does care for you. He really does walk beside you every day and wait for you to look up to Him and whisper in His ear. He really does listen when you talk to Him. He really does work all things together for your good because you are called according to His purpose.

^" For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

My Own Personal Nineveh

The book of a Jonah is a book that can relate beautifully to pretty much any Christ-follower’s walk. God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell them of His coming judgment, but Jonah disobeyed, ran the other way and took a ship to Tarshish. His disobedience caused a horrible storm, so he told the other men on the boat to throw him overboard and the storm would stop. The storm came to an end and God sent a huge fish to swallow Jonah whole. He stayed in the belly of the whale for 3 days until the fish spit him out after Jonah cried out to God. Jonah finally went to Nineveh and told the people to repent. The people reacted by repenting and fasting, and God spared them from destruction. Jonah sat on a mountaintop and complained to God. He was very angry that God had spared them, but The Lord responded by showing Jonah that He had the power and authority to condemn or show mercy. The choice was His.

            The reason I said I thought the book of Jonah can relate to pretty much any person who is on a journey following Christ, is because there will always come a time when God will ask us to do something or go somewhere and we try to run in the opposite direction. For me, that time was about a year and a half ago when I felt like God was calling me to do this internship. It was the last thing I wanted to do; my own personal “Nineveh”. I already had a perfect little plan in mind and started running the other way to “Tarshish”. But God kept drawing me back to Himself and His plan. Finally, after fighting God and crying out in prayer, I arrived at Nineveh. I jumped in the deep end head first, but God didn’t leave me alone. He moved and did big things. But like Jonah, I felt like God had told me what He was going to do. I had a picture in my mind of what it was I had to look forward to, of what was going to happen. I’m now sitting on a mountain top overlooking the whole situation, overlooking my Nineveh, and complaining and saying to God, “When are You going to move? Why aren’t You doing the things You said You would do? What about the things You told me and the promises You made?” My answer came in God’s answer to Jonah: “Because I am God and you are not. Do I not have the power to choose?”  I feel like this is the ultimate message of Jonah; that whatever we think we are in control of, we are wrong. God has a plan for everything and is in control of every situation. The difficult part is trusting that He holds it all and knows what is best. Which is funny, because looking at Who He Is and His character, how could we not trust Him? But there is good news! God knows us intimately and knows that we struggle. He delights when we make even baby steps towards Him. Just as He had compassion on Nineveh when they turned towards Him, He shows compassion and understanding in our own lives. All we have to do is look to Him, trust Him and pray like we’re in the belly of a whale.

“For You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me…But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to You; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” Jonah 2:3&9

Joy>Happiness & Perspective>Vision

Since coming back from helping with the New York Dreamcenter, I have had so much on my mind. Processesing everything that God has been putting on my heart is difficult, but I’ll try to blog about one topic at a time. Forgive me for any bunny trails. J 

One thing I want to write about is something that God has kept reminding me of over and over for the past year or so. It comes up in my conversations, I hear it in sermons and it’ll randomly come up in different ways. This is something that’s been brewing in my heart for quite some time now. I’m talking about staying faithful and being joyful with where God has us, and soaking in everything we can get from the seasons we go through.

Can I just say, this is so difficult! A lot of times, God gives us a dream or bits and pieces of a vision for our lives, and if we’re not careful, it can consume our thoughts! This past Sunday, Pastor Brad of the NY Dreamcenter, gave an awesome message titled “Uncertainty-The Interpretation of the Dream.” One of the things he said really stood out to me: “The path to your destiny is not always a straight line.” What does that mean? God puts us through different seasons in life to develop something in us or prepare us for what’s to come. And most of the time, these seasons are very unpleasant and we can’t see or feel the change or reasons for them. But what do we do in the meantime!?

Something I feel God has been showing me is that I need to just learn to enjoy the journey. There is so much freedom in just giving God my future. Not just saying it, but laying it in front of Him and leaving it! Wow. Once I truly stopped worrying about what my future will look like, God has completely restored the joy that this world had stolen from me. I was reading a devotional a while back, (Jesus Calling. I highly recommend it!) and it was saying to take each day gently, being fully aware of God’s presence that is always with us. I love that! Just take today as it comes and be joyful for where God has us. How do we stay joyful in every season? A little perspective goes a long way. I pray that God starts to give me an aerial view of what’s happening. I pray for God-perspective, to see that it’s so much bigger than what I can see and my little world. I’ve started asking myself these questions: What is God doing in my life? What is He showing me in all this? What can I learn?

When that fails, I remind myself that right now, I only see in part. I may not think that the season I’m going through has anything to do with where I want to be, but one day I will see the purpose of it and praise God! He works all things together for my good. Plus, who am I to question my God? ²⁰ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”^{[h] 21} Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? (Romans 9:20-21)

But most of all, I find the most joy when I spend time in His presence and become aware of Him throughout my day. He speaks to us all the time, we just have to learn to listen. I crave that alone time with Him so much! It’s like a secret place that only me and my Savior know. There is an incredible joy in just living in complete surrender to Him and being content in the season He has put me in! But I’ll be honest, I have a hard time disciplining myself to set aside that personal time with Him. This is something I’m working on. I can always tell when I’m overdue for some Jesus time. My whole disposition is different.

I apologize for the lengthiness of this blog. I could go on and on about it! I hope that we, as Christ followers start to live in the joy of His presence and see things with new eyes.

¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain. Psalm 139:1-6

Unquenchable Love

This is one of those days when it's really hard to get my thoughts together, so bear with me through this. Something that's been big on my heart lately but especially this last week has been love and marriage.

Now, before I go on, I understand that a lot of people (maybe even you) tune out when you hear or see those words. I believe such a negative view has been put on marriage by this world; by the way we live today, by the families that have been torn apart. But I'm not talking about that “I'll love you ‘til I get tired of you and move on” type love that is so prominent in movies and media, but the way God Himself says that we should love. 

I look at verses like 1 Cor. 13, Eph 5:22-33 and read Song of Songs and I realize something. This love has guts. The love the Bible talks about has nothing weak or wimpy about it! It's passionate and moving. Wow. How beautiful God meant for it to be! Especially with husband and wife. A reflection of Christ and the church right here on earth... echoes of Eden. It blows my mind to think about it. To worship God, serve others, have adventures, do life with and grow old with my best friend. Someone God made just for me. What a privilege! To think, the love that my Savior has for me, His pursuit and jealousy of me is meant to be reflected in marriage. (I could go on and on about this forever, but instead, I'll just encourage you to read Captivating or Wild at Heart by John and Stasi Eldridge!)

My prayer for this season of my life, this season of waiting, is that God molds me and shapes me into all that my future husband deserves. Because I know he's going to be incredible. He's got to be... God knows me better than I know myself, so Who better to know the perfect person perfect for me? I also pray that God gives me wisdom and His perspective on things. (Perspective is something else big on my heart, but that's for another time.) I need to pray for my future spouse even though I don’t know who he is. As Jimmy Evans said, "A man is a reflection of the god they choose to serve; a woman is a reflection of the man they choose." I want God to choose my spouse for me and I want to be sensitive to what He tells me, because I want to reflect my Jesus. I don't know who my future husband is, but I know this: I love him, and He is madly in love with Jesus, like me.

But above all, I need to always be seeking God on deeper and deeper levels. He is the epitome of love. What would I be but nothing without Him? He is everything. As I grow closer and closer to Him, and rest in the fact that He holds my future, He's going to work all things together for the good. I want to just enjoy the journey, every aspect of life. With Jesus as the lover of my soul, He will give me strength to wait through loneliness and strength to grow in character.

 Place me like a seal over your heart,
   like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
   its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
   like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
   rivers cannot sweep it away.
--Song of Songs 8:6-7

Make haste, my beloved...

Worry Wart

It’s difficult when God shows you something He wants to improve in you, to stretch in you. It may be something that you feel you have under control, or have a pretty good grasp on, but then you have a 'God moment' and figure out that you don't.

For me, it's how much I think about myself and my own interests and desires. I'll just go ahead and say it: Hello, my name is Emily Creech, and I'm a worrier. It's funny how we can be really selfish without even realizing it. (I think when we're in that position, we're exactly where the enemy wants us.) A lot of times, (I'll just be honest, most times,) when something doesn't go my way I let my emotions take over. It's so easy to act out in what we're feeling in the moment. Whether it be pain, anger or sadness. God has shown me lately how many people see that. I hardly ever think about the people who are watching me, to see how I react to something that bothers me. It's a humbling thing to realize that when I'm having a pity party or worrying, there's someone who is hurting really bad in the same room as me who just needs a conversation or a smile to get through the day. How can I see that when all I'm looking at is my situation? How can God use me to be 'Jesus with skin on' if I'm worrying about things in my life that I have no control over; that I don't need to have control over?

Jesus commands us in His word not to worry. In Mat. 6:33-34 He says, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

Can I just say Amen to that? Goodness, so much of what we worry about is so meaningless. And then, sometimes it's not, but its things that we need to give completely to God. He's got it under control. If He can clothe flowers and feed wild birds, why do I worry about my life? He says I'm much more valuable than birds.

A big thing God has been working in me this past year or so is trusting Him with everything. It's comical how easy it is to say that and how difficult it is to live out. But I have to say, I've learned that a perspective change goes a LONG way. It's easy to see what's in front of us, but sometimes it takes trying to see from a God-perspective to be at peace.

I'm learning that to get fresh perspective, all I have to do is ask for it. The importance of getting in the Word and spending time with Jesus cannot be over-emphasized. I’m not talking about doing a little devo and saying a little prayer. Sometimes that's powerful, but I'm talking about falling on your face before God and crying out to Him. Worship in the storm and confusion, pray even though no words are coming. Your spirit needs it.

This is just something God is showing me the importance of lately; giving everything to Him, disciplining myself to have that one-on-one time of just being in His presence. As He starts to change my perspective and fills me with more of Himself, then I can be outward focused and get my eyes off myself. I want to stop being down and worrying. Nowhere in the Bible do I see Jesus being a Debbie Downer. Instead, I want my life to scream hope and love.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." Romans 15:13

And so it begins....

Well, I thought I'd try this whole blog thing out. Sometimes it helps just to write down (or type) things that have been on my heart. And who knows? Maybe it could be encouraging for someone else as well. It's pretty cool; lately I've found that if God has laid something on my heart, chances are, He's been doing the same thing in close friends of  mine and those around me. I can't help but feel that something big is about to happen in the church, in this next generation.

I titled this blog "Emily in Progress" because that's what I am. God is constantly working on me and showing me areas where I need to grow and where I'm weak. I love that I have a Savior Who puts up with all my junk. These posts will just be random things I feel like God is showing me, conversations with friends, or just randomness in general.

Hope to start posting more soon! :D