today

days like this, i am humbled and readily acknowledge my weakness, selfishness, pride, insecurity, sinfulness and brokenness. i attribute it to the mighty work of the Holy Spirit - it's the Holy Spirit that opens my eyes to my own wretchedness and the overwhelming grace of God. we all need the Holy Spirit to allow us to see our need for God.. even in moments when i see the ugliness of my sinful nature, greater still is the God who is at work in me, transforming me into the likeness of Christ. God, forgive me for my sins and help me to walk in righteousness. i want to walk in righteousness.

Reoccurring thoughts: I want to be a lover of the Word.

because faith isn't simply emotions

so, a couple of my friends and i drove down to kansas city to check out International House of Prayer (IHOP) this fall break. i got back today at three in the morning and am still trying to process the past 24 hours or so. I'm pretty thankful for the time that i got to spend in the car with derek and john as well as the time in the prayer room. this trip was pretty spontaneous and i decided only a couple of days prior to fall break that i was going to tag along and go with them down to Kansas City. when i prayed to God about it, I felt like he was opening this door and giving me the option of choosing to check out IHOP. and i went, and was blessed and refreshed by the time of prayer and worship . At the same time, however, i felt like God gave me discernment and was teaching me some things, mainly the tendency of a lot of Christians to anchor their faith on emotions and spiritual/emotional highs. now, i'm a pretty emotional person and during this entire time, i was reminded of freshman year in college, a time that was really a point in my life where i was falling more and more in love with Christ. A lot of my growth and new awareness of Christ was hinged on IHOPy emotional highs - it was all so new for me and even though Christ was growing me, I realize that it wasn't the healthiest spiritual state. Because a faith that is hinged on emotions is bound to crash at some point. So anyways, these were some of the thoughts i had while i was visiting IHOP. 

A lot of the time, I feel like i'm barely skimming the surface in my relationship with Christ. God tells me that there is so so so much more and I know that I have yet to hit the part of the iceberg beneath the surface in my walk with him. And yet, I don't want to go deeper in my emotions. I want to find God in the Bible and have himself reveal himself to me. There is more, only i don't want to lose myself in emotions and make the emotional highs an idol. i want my relationship with God to be a balance where i'm loving God both inside and outside my emotions. Does that make sense? Nevertheless, I'm glad that I went and got to grow my friendships with Derek and John. God is so good, and I feel like he's constantly teaching me something new and allowing me to discern what is of His will and what isn't. Jesuuuuuuus - you're the best.