One Voice

The times in my life that I've lived the most healthy and the most whole are the times in my life when I was the least concerned with what anyone but Jesus thought of me.

Because, it was at those times that I didn't care what anybody else in my life thought about my choices and my decisions and I spent the majority of my time thinking about what Jesus wanted for my life rather than spending countless hours worrying about what this person or that person must be thinking about my lifestyle. 

That's not to say that I didn't seek godly counsel and advice and prayed for humility to see where I was wrong and correct course... but that was always out of a heart to follow Jesus and not out of a desire to please people. And that's a huge difference.

Because the times in my life when I've lost sight of those eyes, the eyes of the only one who truly matters in this whole thing called existence... those are the times I've felt torn and frazzled and "pulled a thousand different directions". Because my heart wasn't purified by wholehearted commitment to just ONE voice. I was committed to trying to please a thousand little voices and we all know from experience how incredibly impossible that is.

I've been living that way a lot recently - scattered and tattered and unfocused on any one direction. And I just realized that it's because I've let fear of man creep back into my life. I've surrendered a part of my heart to the desire to please people and in the process I've divided my internal world into a battle ground... One side is fighting for approval of created beings just like me, and the other side is fighting to remember who I am and who I was made for in the first place.

I surrendered my life years ago on the altar of love and I'm not going to turn back now. I won't be afraid of looking like a fool for the one I love. He is far more worthy of my attention and my affections than anyone on earth or in heaven above. Not even satan and all his dark evil forces deserve one bit of my attention (only long enough to put the cross hairs on him and pull the trigger as Bill Johnson says lol). 

I've got to Refocus. Reconnect. Return to my Love once again...

Because that's the reason this blog is even called "Beloved" in the first place. Because I started it years ago as a senior in high school who was learning for the first time that God didn't just want me to be his little servant girl - running this way and that way trying to make sure He was happy with me - but He actually wanted me to be His Beloved... His most loved one. 

I said yes to Him then and I'm saying yes to Him again. 

I will do what You want me to do. I will live how You teach me to live. I won't look around like a scared, frantic child at all the different callings and lifestyles and strategies of man... I will look to You and only You, Jesus. 

Because in the end You said that Your yoke is easy and Your burden is light... And when I live only for You, I am actually putting myself fully under Your protection and provision and allowing all the other voices and burdens from other people to fall off my shoulders in deep freedom and peace. 

I rebuke the fear of man and I say that it no longer has a place in my heart. I refuse to allow a hook from satan into my heart. I refuse to allow him to use anyone or anything to pull me in any direction at all. I will live untouchable by the opinions of others - not because I'm better than anyone or have all the answers, but because I know the voice of the One that really knows the direction my feet need to take and listening to Him is all I ever need to do to get to where I need to go. 

Hasn't the divided life taken too much of our time already? Being pulled this way and that by a thousand different opinions and voices (most of which haven't given a second thought to God and His ways)? Haven't we had enough already? 

I know I have... I'm ready to be pure in heart so that I can see God (Matthew 5:8).

You know what that really means? It means that the desires of my heart have been purified to the point that all the excess desires have been burned off and only the desire to know Christ and to love Him is left... The ones whose hearts are pure from the desires and sways of this world will see God. 

Not that we have to be perfect because on our own we never will be... Only in Christ are we made pure.

But, even in our weaknesses, and when we stumble and fall again and again, we always keep getting back up and saying, "I may have left the path, but today I'm returning to You, Jesus!" 

There's so much practicality in this too... Because once I've let go of all the expectations and judgments of the people around me (that may or may not even exist...), I am free to live well in each season of life - only doing the things that Jesus has laid on my heart to do and no one else. 

Because He made us with a finite number of days, each one lasting only 24 hours and a third of them are spent resting (a profound story in and of itself...). And so He knows better than any of us that we just can't handle all the stress and pressures from all kinds of people and things that we've been trying to carry on our own. He wants to make our burdens light and show us that so many of the things we things are so important aren't really that important at all and it's really only a small handful of things He really wants us to focus on doing well each season of our lives.

And if we can learn to do that, we will walk like kings and queens on this earth.