Keep Us, Above All Things, From Stasis

Today is the 365th straight day of writing this Leaky Vessel blog. 

I have to let that sit in my mind for just a second, because even though I've done things with regularity before, and even pressed through, by discipline, to accomplish some pretty awesome things, this thing has changed my life.

Not the blog itself, not the prayer team I'm a part of that had a hand in originating the blog -- but the power of the Holy Spirit "for such a time as this," the deep calling of the Lord where He communed with me in ways that I had never before experienced. This year, He rocked me to my core. He answered my heart-felt petitions that He be the all-surpassing power evident in this leaky, cracked vessel, and that through Him, I could point to Christ by my very weakness, my flaws, and my fragility.

I pray He continues -- and increases -- this work in my life, and through me, increases His work in the lives of any readers or listeners.

I've kind of looked at this year of daily blogging as a sort of greenhouse. Here is where He has nurtured me, grown me, cut off various shoots into dubious paths of distraction, rooted me more firmly in the places where He would have me grow. He's produced fruit. Harvest time came, and new seeds were planted. Very few destructive elements came to test my fledgling plants, though I could see the wind and rain lashing outside the window panes. 

There comes a time, though, in a greenhouse, when the plants are ready to leave the safe spaces where they've been nurtured and try to survive in the outside environment. So the buyers come and purchase a hardy-looking plant, and that plant heads to a new home, where it finds new soil and sends out roots into new earth. Here, it may face a harsher environment, because it's missing the filtered and controlled place where it had begun its life, but this is the cool thing...

It is strong. It's hardy. It has some gumption to withstand the elements because of its beginnings.

I've talked about my name before. It wasn't until I was older that I really loved it. I was always embarrassed when teachers would look up name meanings for their students, and mine would come around, and the teacher would read it: "Palm tree." Oh. Well. Nobody would say anything, we'd move on to the next name, and I was embarrassed. Other people got cool name meanings: "Princess" (Sarah), or "Eternal Ruler" (Eric) or "High, Noble" (Brian). I got "Palm Tree." 

And I've talked before about the day I discovered how cool a palm tree was, how it was supple and flexible and would bend in the high winds and storms (rather than break), and how, despite its bending and perhaps partially because of it, it's the last tree to fall in a hurricane.

It's strong and hardy. It's exactly the name meaning I want, because it's a lot to live up to.

You know the other name I've got? Not Tamara. I'm talking about the name given to me by my Savior.

Isaiah 43:1-2 says: "But now, this is what the Lord says -- He who created you, oh Jacob, He who formed you, oh Israel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." 

In Isaiah, the Lord is speaking to a nation, but as He does so wonderfully, He reaches through the Scriptures and speaks directly to my heart as well. Here are my other -- and better -- names.

Redeemed.
Summoned.
Named.
His.
Conqueror of the Waters.
Walker through the Waters.
Passer through the Rivers.
Withstander of the Currents.
Fire-Walker.
Withstander of Flames.

Why?

Because He. is. with. Me. 

I. am. His.

His chosen, His child, His beloved, His bride, His, His, His.

Those who see me here and there on Facebook, you may have noticed over the last few days the pictures I've been posting of a paint-by-number that I got this past Christmas and finally cleared time to be able to complete.

My oldest daughter wandered into the room the other day and stared at my half-completed work, which was a network of mostly various shades of brown, black, and the occasional olive green. It looked like hunting camouflage, really, if you looked at it from a distance. 

She looked dubious. "Why do they make you use ugly colors?" my daughter asked. "I would only use the pretty ones."

Me being me, I immediately grabbed at the metaphor. "You know how -- in your life, you've had a lot of good things happen? Exciting things? Birthdays, Christmases, times with family, times with cousins and grandparents and people you love? Awards and vacations and exciting things that you really enjoy? Things that help you grow, things that make you joyful? Those are the pretty colors, the things in your life that are beautiful. 

"Sometimes, though, sad things happen, like when our cat killed that baby bird the other week. Or when you didn't get to go on a vacation that you thought you would get to go on. Or when someone said something to you that was hard, or mean, or made you sad. Those are the dark colors, the ones that are, as you say, 'ugly.'

"But here's the deal, that picture won't be complete until all the colors -- both beautiful and, as you say, 'ugly' -- are present and accounted for. Parts of the whole picture will be missing if I leave them out."

She'd been watching me sort of with a side-eye, a look that said, oh boy, here she goes again. ;) But she got the point.

Because we are His, He makes our life a rich masterpiece, one that includes both joy and sorrow. And how much more beautiful is the painting when all the colors are present? How much more beautiful the sunset when the pink outlines the dark clouds? 

I grew this past year of blogging, and it wasn't all sunshine and roses, picnicking and fluffy puppies. There were days when I had to prop open my eyelids. There were mornings when I just. didn't. feel like it today. There were times when the push-back from readers hurt. There were times when I looked at the grand total of two page-views that day, and thought: Why am I even dedicating myself to this?

Here's why: I abhor stasis. I abhor simple existence. I want to grow! 

2 Thessalonians 1:3 says: "We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing." 

WE ARE NOT MEANT FOR STASIS. He calls us out of darkness into His light (1 Peter 2:9), which implies... movement!

So let this passage from Philippians 3 ring in your head and in your heart today: "Whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish (trash, refuse, junk), that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ -- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

Y'all, listen! "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

NOT... NOT that I have already obtained all this, or already been made perfect, but y'all... listen! I press on... outside of that greenhouse, in the elements, I press on... not in a static state, not in a non-growing, existent state... I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead -- y'all, growth takes effort. Fruit is not going to fall in my lap -- I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

Whew! Heavenward! That means... we are not bound to this earth. We have a trajectory. Heavenward means toward heaven. If we are aimed for earth, to earth we will be bound, but when I press on toward Christ, our trajectory is aimed toward heaven, and...

Stasis. Is. Not. An. Option.

Grow!

I'll leave you with that. 

I do intend to continue posting to this blog, sharpening and honing whatever writing and prophetic gifts the Holy Spirit has seen to give me, but I will not be doing a daily posting anymore. I will post... as the Spirit leads. And when I do, I'll post on Facebook and Mewe and the various other places I've been posting, and you can find me there. :)

I am not giving up my power-packed mornings with my Savior. That discipline I am keeping until death-do-me-part from this earth, and then I'll be in the presence of Jesus for all eternity. Wheeehaw! But the Lord is leading me into a different phase. 

Out of the greenhouse, you might say.