The Goodness of the Lord

Last night I was brought to tears for about the 500th time this year in response to the goodness of the Lord. I was at Expressions Night, a worship event at the seminary, and God led me to Psalm 27. Everything thing in this psalm spoke exactly to what I have been struggling with. I read it over and over again and each time was struck with how faithful my God is. I will share with you verses 7-14, the ones that really stood out to me.

Hear my voice when I call, O LORD;
be merciful to me and answer me.
My heart says of you, "Seek his face!"
Your face, LORD, I will seek.
Do not hide your face from me,
do not turn your servant away in anger;
you have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me,
O God my Savior.
Though my father and mother forsake me,
The LORD will recieve me.
Teach me your way, O LORD;
lead me in a straight path
beacause of my oppressors.
Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
for false witnesses rise up agains me,
breathing out violence.
I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

These are such powerful and beautiful words. I was struck by the line "I will see the goodness of the LORD." Those words especially brought me to tears because I HAVE seen the goodness of the Lord and yet I constantly forget that He is good.

Basically the whole night and all these verses came down to one word I heard from the Lord: TRUST. I will trust in Him. He will never abandon me.

Worship

I do not understand the ways of God. I am not supposed to. His ways are higher than my ways and his thoughts higher than my thoughts. He always seems to catch me off guard. I was caught off guard several times this week.

I started a new semester of seminary on Monday. I knew it would be hard, but good as well. I didn't expect for God to move in such a strong way within the first 4 days though. I was in chapel on Tuesday and I broke down crying in the middle of worship. I was just struck by how marvelous and holy God is. I really can't describe how it felt. I was stuck by his majesty and then I was struck by how I've ignored it for so long. I was weeping because this past summer I put so many other things before God. I was weeping because I hadn't truly worshiped God in a really long time. I was weeping because despite all of that, He still loves me.

This morning I went for a run down by the river. I stopped at one point to go and sit down on some rocks in the river. I just wanted to sit and think. I had my ipod with me so I started listening to some worship music. Again, God moved....and again, I cried. I was listening to "How Deep the Father's Love for us" and I just felt so unworthy of his unconditional love. I was crying because I know I don't deserve his love, yet he chooses to give it anyway. I've chased after so many other things, and somehow I always end up back at the feet of Jesus.

For so many years now I've been dependent on people rather than God. I've put people where God should be. When I want to be comforted I usually go to a friend before I go to God. There are many reasons why I do this, and I won't get into that now. The main point is that I've been looking for security in people rather than in God. That is a really good way to end up getting hurt. I've known this about myself for sometime now, but I am just now ready to start dealing with it.

I would love to know what it feels like to be dependent on nobody but God. I want to get to the point where if everyone in my life abandoned me, I would be ok because I have placed my heart and life in God's hands and nobody else's. I'm not there right now. I'm working on it though. I pray that God will help me and guide me on this journey to be dependent on nobody but him.