My days here in Madrid since I finished my thesis have been indescribable. I have been spending almost all of my free time diving into God's presence and it has been so rewarding. He never disappoints.
I've been spending the mornings that I don't have class in the prayer room. I love being there--God's presence is so strong because people go there expecting to meet Him and He comes. I love just worshiping Him, contemplating who He is, and adoring Him. I feel like the story of my life is becoming like Luke 10, where Mary sits at Jesus's feet, listening to His words and teachings.
God has been reminding me of various times throughout my life, and showing me how He was there and that He worked everything in my past together to form who I am today. Seeing how God has taken every event in my life and used it for the purpose of creating me into who He wants me to be is so comforting. I truly am clay in the Potter's hands. It also proves His faithfulness to me in such a way that I have no other choice than to trust Him completely with my future. He is such a good teacher. He knows everything about me and He knows how to teach and lead me in the perfect way for me to learn and follow. He has always been so gentle and patient with me when I resisted Him and took my time learning how to trust Him. But the years of walking with Him and learning His lessons have been so precious. I am thrilled to continue on this journey through life with Him into eternity. :)
A few months ago I prayed that God would help me understand the person of Jesus better. I am beginning to see how He is answering that prayer. I read Andrew Murray's book Humility, and it blew my mind. It presents Jesus's humility as His single most important characteristic and the reason for our salvation. It was His humility, complete submission and obedience to God, that lead Him to the cross: death to self so that others may have life (Philippians 2:3-11). And it challenges us to fight off pride, the root of all sin, and embrace humility, the source of all grace and blessing. With my eyes being opened to this whole new aspect of Jesus's beauty, I am starting to understand so much more about His personality and all of His ways.
Now I am reading Mourning for the Bridegroom by Dana Chandler (thank you Heather!) and it is flipping my world upside down. The book is based on Matthew 9:15 where Jesus says "How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? They time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast." The author encourages us to view Jesus as our bridegroom (we, the church, are His bride) and if a bride is separated from her groom, shouldn't she be distressed that He is away from her and long for His return? As I read I can feel my desire for Jesus growing deeper and deeper. Which leads me to the best part of this blog post.
Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a long time. I went to the prayer room in the morning after the kids left for school. While I was there I was praying that Jesus would reveal Himself to me in a greater measure. I spent a couple hours there until it closed at noon, then I headed over to Casa del Campo, one of Madrid's largest parks that I have been wanting to check out. As I walked down the dirt paths through the trees, I could feel Jesus so near to me. He was closer than if He had been walking right next to me, because He's living within me! :) He kept putting songs on my heart and telling me how much He loves me. I walked along the paths just listening to Him and singing the praises to Him with the songs that He put on my heart. Mainly In the Garden, The More I Seek You, and Perfume a tus pies. Then I sat down on a bench and listened to my Ipod. The Marcos Barrientos songs that played were all about seeking His face, wanting to see Jesus's beauty, and God promising to manifest Himself to those who seek Him.
I'm beginning to see how the hunger for God is such a gift. Hungering for more of Him will compel you to seek Him, and be satisfied with nothing less than the fullness of Christ. I think that there is nothing more important than a hunger for God, a desire to know Him better. The reason being if you are really hungry for Him, then you will spend your time seeking Him, doing whatever it takes to get closer to Him. I am so grateful for this season of hungering for Him because it is causing me to passionately seek Him and I know that I will find Him. He says over and over again throughout the Bible that those who seek Him will find Him and I know He is faithful to keep His word.
Jeremiah 29:13 - "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart"
Matthew 7:8 and Luke 11:10 - "For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds"
Matthew 5:6 - "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled"
John 14:21 - "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him"
Something amazing happened when I went back to the prayer room when it opened at 4. When I got there three women were in there praying in the spirit with power. I sat down on the edge of the room and began praying with them. When they finished, each one came over and gave me a huge hug, accompanied by a loving smile and whispers of bendiciones (blessings). One of the ladies, after hugging me, looked at me and said "?Tu estabas aqui esta manana, verdad?" (You were here this morning, right?) I said I was and she smiled and said "El que busca halla" (He who seeks finds). I love when God tells people things to tell me! If I had to sum up my day (and this season of my life) it would be that exact sentence. There's prophetic confirmation for you. I am going to keep seeking Him until I find Him and then I'm going to seek knowing Him even deeper. Like Paul says,
Philippians 3:7-14 - "But 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, 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. 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 that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but 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, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
I want to encourage everyone I know to ask God to give them a hunger for more of Him. There is no greater gift and He loves to give it. He wants His children to long for Him and seek Him, so He loves filling them with hunger when they ask. Life is meant to be an adventure of traveling down the road to Jesus's heart, each day going deeper into the knowledge of God. We were created to know this Love that culminates in Jesus's sacrifice on the cross so that we, sinners, could be with our Holy and perfect God. Hunger is what compels us to take each step down this road.
I'm going to leave you links to a couple songs God has been putting on my heart over and over again these days. (I've been listening to/singing them all in English and Spanish, but I couldn't find any of the songs in both languages).
The More I Seek You (I listened to this one over and over again while writing this post).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI_1YliutzA
Como un perfume a tus pies (like a perfume at your feet)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap4f2N8B_JY
Marcos Barrientos songs. They all flowed together during a live concert, and I have the CD from the concert. These are the ones I was listening to on my Ipod in the park yesterday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCralj9ADFI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT4W0Ut0-So
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgGs-8CHySc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jcpgJtt4Ms&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGI9FcO14gk&feature=related *** (Seeking and finding) ***
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhyvoPr3us0&feature=related
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