I've had many, many moments in my life where my ambition precedes listening to the voice of God. Whenever this happens, I find myself unsettled in my heart after awhile and I run to the presence of God asking Him what's going on.

Recently, after running to His presence and spending some time with Him, I had a moment where I felt God ask me to not do something I was planning to do. What He was asking didn't make sense to me. All the sudden this emotion welled up inside of me and I cried out to God, tears streaming down my face, "Is this really you? Or do I just think this is You like I've experienced time and time again, suffering unnecessarily thinking I'm being obedient? I don't want to be teased. I want to know this is You. You know that if You ask, I will do it. My heart is to live fully for You, holding nothing back. Show me it's really You!"

Shortly after, He led me to Romans 12. He began walking me through the chapter and reminding my heart about the things that really matter, the things that I'm made for. I'm a member of the body of Christ--I'm not just an independent unit that is called to enjoy this life in the ways I feel I want to until I die. Certainly, I believe that Christ has a plan that includes so much joy and fulfillment in front of me, but I am not the author of what that plan looks like.

It's tempting to fill your life with a lot of good things. It's tempting to seek after accomplishments and accolades, it's tempting to build a life off of a talent you think belongs to you. 1 Corinthians 4:7 says,
             "For who regards you as superior or what sets you apart as special? What do you have      
              that you did not receive [from another]? And if in fact you received it [from God
              or someone else], why do you boast as if you had not received it [but had gained it by
              yourself]?"
My life isn't for me. My life isn't from me. My life is for Jesus and it came from God Himself. True life is found in the Father, eternal life. He is the one who knows the plans He has for me (Jeremiah 29:11), He is the one who is the author of hope, He is the one who wrote about my life and every single part of it before any part of it ever came into existence (Psalm 139:16). So as I cried, I surrendered and gave God my "yes".

There's a lot of ambitious people out there. Ambition isn't inherently evil, but passion apart from your eternal destiny can wreak havoc on your soul and detach you from your eternal destiny in Christ. Sometimes, doing the things that don't make sense are some of the greatest experiences you'll have because they're attached to God.

All He wants is us. Total surrender. And today, I'm giving Him that because hearing Him and risking with Him is way better than what any ambition of my own could ever get me.

I had a dream the other night. It was short and simple, yet quite powerful. In the dream I was drawing a diagram of the tribes of Israel and how they set up their camp as they were traveling through the wilderness to the Promised Land. I was teaching students in a classroom setting and I was focusing on the tribe that surrounded the Ark of the Covenant--the Levitical tribe. I was there along with one of my Pastors and after I was done explaining, her and I began dancing in worship to God. And that was it!

As I was pondering this dream a couple days ago while sitting in church, I began getting a download of what it means and why I had it. In those days, each tribe was determined based off of blood line and lineage. Which ever tribe you were born into determined the assignments you had in relation to how you served God and how you served your family. Some had a much more "up close and personal" role that involved attending to things like atonement of sins and sacrificing animals on behalf of the other tribes, as well as facilitating worship to God. The tribe trusted with such responsibilities were the Levites. The priesthood itself was established through the tribe of Levi.

Why does this matter and how is it relevant to us? Well, as I began meditating on this dream I kept seeing the diagram I was teaching from over and over again. I saw the circle that represented the tribe of Levi surrounding the Ark and then I saw each layer of every tribe coming after it, and all of the tribes were centered around one thing--the Ark of the Covenant. In those days, the presence of God and the worship of God was mostly centered around this Ark. This Ark was sacred and carried with it the power and fear of the Lord. Only those who God Himself chose could come near it and only those who consecrated themselves through washing and blood sacrifice would be able to come close. 

Though we act like it, the presence of God is not any different today. Sadly, the normal for the American church has become quite casual about "the presence of God" and I believe most of those who are so casual about Him have never actually been close enough to the real presence of God to understand the intensity and realness of it. Which is where my dream comes into play.

I believe something that God was revealing to me through this dream is that there is nothing stopping anyone from being a Levite (since the New Covenant was established through the blood of Jesus). God is inviting all of us to come that close and we either choose closeness or we choose distance. It's no longer up to blood line and it isn't up to lineage to determine which tribe we settle in. Now, it's about our decision. Will we get close enough to see? Will we consecrate ourselves to be able to see Him? Will we not settle for anything less than experiencing and encountering His living presence?

He began showing me the difference between those who are camped around the Ark and those who are camped on the outskirts of camp. Those who choose to camp close can see God and their every decision and physical reaction is impacted by being so close to God's presence. The more they see God, the more exuberant their reaction is to Him, the more they have to change because being next Him is the most compelling thing they've experienced, the more they move their lives around to follow the One Thing that is giving them life and breath and everything they need. 

But the further away a person camps, the less they see God. They don't know what He's doing, they can't hear what's going on or what He's saying. They miss out on being with Him and knowing Him in the more detailed and specific ways He moves. They only get a glimpse of what's happening around the center of His glory and they are closer to everything else that is happening away from His presence--the wars, the danger, other nations.

See, in HIS presence is the fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11). Because of Jesus, how close we get to Him is determined by how much we want Him. And however close we are determines how much of the glory we see. As human beings, we respond to glory! The closer we are, the more we see, the more we're able to genuinely respond. If we're far away, why would we respond to something we can't see? 

God is longing for many, many Levites who dare come close enough to see the glory. When we see it, there's just a natural response to His beauty and presence. It's not about different people having "special" places or positions or who gets to be in what tribe... it's about who dares come close enough to see. Who dares to walk in a level of purity that welcomes them into a place where they're set apart and can see Him? Who dares lay their flesh clothes down and come into His presence to be clothed with glory? 

We choose our closeness. He made a way for all of us to be the Levitical priesthood. We choose if we would rather see from a distance or get up close and personal. Don't be surprised if, when you come close, you see Him--you might just dance at the excitement of experiencing His glory. Believe it or not, we are made for His glory and when we truly experience it, we can't help but contain ourselves!

Lately I've been realizing I've been afraid to post out of fear of getting it wrong. What if I post something and it's incorrect? I've had a lot of opinions over the years--some that I've been quite obstinate about that I later come back and realize how wrong I was.

But what if I spend the rest of my life choosing to not express my thoughts out of this same fear? The reality is that we are all in a process. I might want my thoughts to appear refined and profound. But what's the fun in that? A value of mine that I've always held so dear is authenticity and rawness. What a joy it is to have this website to log my thoughts and express myself externally yet in a semi-private manner. Only those who really want to hear the inner thoughts of Janelle will read these. Or it will be a fun "journal" of sorts for me to look back on.

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So, what's with the title? Today I met with a friend and we chatted about some pretty serious and deep stuff. Stuff I will leave to my personal journal. But I had a thought stem from my time with her. 

As human beings, we all experience pain from our childhood. Sometimes we get really good at hiding it or blocking it out, but the truth still remains--we have issues. Whether relational, sexual, emotional, personal. And maybe you've never heard there's a connection between your upbringing and the things you have a hard time with in life. See, we all have a worldview. And our worldview is shaped by the way we were taught to see the world. (crazy, huh? lol) But everyone's experience with that is different. And this is where we can run into issues in our relationships with other human beings.

To try to make this short, I'll get to the point. Many of us have experienced hardships, rejection, abandonment, anger, abuse even, in our upbringing. As some of us grow older and choose to face some of these pains from our childhood, we are presented with the opportunity to forgive those who have wronged us. This path of forgiveness frees us to view life and people from a perspective that brings freedom and peace.

So here's my thought for the night. Do you ever wonder "why me?" I think as we mature in the Lord we ask this question less and less and we begin trusting that everything that happens to us is for our good, but tonight I had a whole new thought.

What if every terrible thing that has happened to you is an opportunity that's being given to you to knock out evil that has tried to plague your family line for decades? Think about it. What if you are the one who has been trusted to handle this pain and sin, submit it to God, and write a new story for your kids and the generations to come after them? What if you succeed? What if you take out the enemy and his plans to ruin you and your kids? What if you are the one who presses in to God and destroys the ability for satan to impact your kids and their kids to come after? How cool would that be?

So, someone's got to take the fall. Someone has to stand up and say 'enough is enough'. Why not you? It's the exact same scenario as Esther being in the palace 'for such a time as this' to save the Jews. What if what your parents did to you, through their pain and their parents failures is an opportunity given to you 'for such a time as this' to deliver your entire family line from the plans the enemy has to steal, kill, and destroy from the generations to come?

Seeing it this way frees you to have grace on those who have hurt you. In fact, it makes you hurt for them and feel bad for them. They were the ones who had to take the fall, they were the one's who fell susceptible to the sin in your previous generations--it could have been you! But instead, you have been given the opportunity to forgive them and usher in the power and blood of Jesus to write a whole new story for you and your family.

Don't let those who have hurt you, abandoned you, or rejected you continue the persistent path of pain in your family line through repeating history--be the one who forgives and follows Jesus into a new path of opportunity and hope for your kids that changes your family line to come forever!

There's a difference between discipline and religion. It's important to discern the difference. Being someone who is disciplined and who chooses what's best for them, rather than what they are feeling or wanting, is important and doesn't make you religious. However, discipline can turn into ritual. You can be disciplined to want to be closer to Jesus or you can be disciplined to want to look like you're closer to Jesus. There's a huge difference between the two. God is looking for those who simply desire to be closer to Him.