Broken Hearts, Broken Ties

I started a new bible study. "A woman's heart, God's Dwelling Place." By Beth Moore. My prayer when I started this new study was that God would open my mind, heart, and eyes to what he wants to teach me through this new study and that my walk with him would strengthen and deepen.

Today's study, titled, Broken Hearts, Broken Ties. Just reading the title I knew right away as I prayed and dug into the word that the Lord was going to definitely speak to me on this one. I feel like this title could almost correlate to a whole chapter in my life of a Broken heart and broken ties. In the introduction to this study, we read in Genesis where God asks Adam and Eve, "Where are you?" I pondered this question. Where am I? But no matter the answer to that question to know that God is pursuing me, he wants to be with me. That's Exciting no matter how many times he reminds me that he is seeking me out.

Today was centered around Exodus 25:1-2,8-9.

The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from each man whose heart prompts him to give.

8 "Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. 9 Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.

God's desire is to dwell among us mortals. What an awesome thought. In this passage he instructs Moses to build this tabernacle so that such a holy and awesome God could dwell among the Israelites and meet with them. I don't know about you but wow! I wish I could have been there. I love knowing that God wants to dwell with me, hang out, spend time with me. God has a glorious, incomprehensible desire to meet with us! This tabernacle they were to build was a symbol of a ministry of reconciliation and let's be honest, we live in a world where we are in a huge need of reconciliation. Oh how I know I've been in need of that myself. How awesome that God knew this and was making this happen.

I continued to think where was my tabernacle where I can dwell with the Lord and spend time with him. For me it's church and my bedroom. My bedroom is a very personal space that no one but me goes into. It's a space that I have created to be relaxing, rejuvenating. It's where I spend time with the Lord, where I spend on my knees, a room filled with Joy and tears and some of my deepest moments are spent here. This is where I invite the Lord to come in and dwell with me as I study the word and worship his holy name. I'm so thankful that we have this option to be able to do this in our country.

Beth Moore says, "I believe God appoints our journeys through his Word to correspond with our current life seasons." I couldn't agree more with this statement. A very wise Godly woman had suggested this study for me and it was a great choice.

Just Like Adam and Eve, We sin. We have thorns and this is something I have dealt a lot with the past year. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-9, Paul talks about his thorns. Sometimes our thorns remain so that we can start to comprehend the sufficiency of God's incredible grace. God just wants to cover us with his garmet of Grace though and I think it's so important that we accept that grace. Oh how sufficient God's grace is and it has got me through some incredibly hard seasons in my life

One of my favorite Worship leaders, Jason Upton has a song called Faith. Here are some of the lyrics and I listen to this song almost every day and it speaks to me every time.

I say NO to the discouragement that keeps me down
I say NO to the things that keep me back from You
And this broken heart inside of me
Broken in so many pieces
By so many circumstances
I say NO to just letting it stay that way
Because I?m learning to trust that it?s not You that hurt me
I'm learning to believe that it?s not You that deserted me
I'm believing that You still love me
Brokenness and all
I'm believing that You?ve got a plan for me
I'm believing that You will restore me
I believe that You will awaken my soul
And let, let faith arise again, I believe
I believe like a little child again