Revelations of the Love of Jesus

Sometimes I look at my blog, and I want to write something but I don't know what to write. Sometimes I want to have a theme or a topic and write about my thoughts on a specific issue. Or I want to explode everyone's brains with some crazy insight I have that may or may not be unique. Or sometimes I just want to talk about how I'm feeling or what I've gone through. Right now I'm looking at this and thinking I should write, because I know Layne wants me to write more blogs. :]

Sometimes its so easy to get caught up in the big question for college kids-- WHATS NEXT? It's almost like we're constantly under the pressure to be where we're not, or to be aspiring to be at a better place than where we are. I know I've consumed SO MUCH of my time this week thinking about what I should do now. Sometimes the answer is simple, and I overthink it and get confused, or sometimes circumstances change so I have to be flexible and work around them.

Lately, I've been at a place where I've gone back and forth between peace and confusion, and I was letting my perception of other people's expectations of me hinder me from making a decision. I wanted to please others and do what seemed to be the logical thing to do to make everyone happy. I was caught up in it all. I wanted to seek God but my confusion was causing me to forget how to even hear God's voice. I was almost panicking, because coming back from such a mountain top experience (aka. DTS) I was expecting to be some sort of prophet from another land that just could constantly determine the Lord's will. Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but I had an expectation of myself to be at a place that I didn't feel like I was.

A good friend suggested I look over my DTS notes and remember the things I was taught during lecture phase, I did so and all the sudden I felt like my confusion came crashing down. I realized I hadn't actually been seeking God. I wasn't waiting on the Lord. I was riding on my DTS experience with God and just expecting Him to answer me. I wasn't being active. I prayed, but more in passing than anything else. I got my Bible out and I just really sought the Lord. I had a few good talks with people and I got my priorities straight and I've just felt so at peace, knowing I don't have to make a decision right now...The pressure I imposed on myself isn't really there. I can choose to be at peace at a time when I have questions.

Tonight, I went to the MVMNT Thursday night service and God really spoke to me. MAN. Matt was giving the exhortation and he talked about Jesus dying on the cross and looking out and seeing each one of us. Jesus from the cross looked at MY life. He called out Rachel Olson. And all he asked me to do was love him back. Thats it! Yeah, missions and ministry is great. I know God wants me to do that...but all it comes down to is the unfathomable, unchanging, motivating, unrelenting love of Jesus Christ. And the fact that all this love is directed towards me as an individual. I don't have to do anything. It makes me think of the attention of a person. How when someone treats you like you're valuable, like you're the funniest, most exciting and interesting person they've ever met...and they're just so captivated with you. And how Jesus looks at me and He's just like "wow, Rachel, you're fascinating to me. I want to know you more. I want to spend time with you. I want you to spend forever with me. I want you to know the depths of how much I care for you. I want you to feel like you are worth everything that you are. I love a you." Literally...that just gets my heart pumping in my chest. How the God of the universe could come in the form of a human, with a human will and emotion and yet choose to fall in love with ME. It sounds so simple. It sounds like the typical revelation you get when you go to church...but I will never grow tired of having a new revelation of how much Jesus loves me. I just LOVE Jesus. He makes me giddy! I get to a place where I'm just blown away, totally in love and thinking...I'm the luckiest girl in the whole world. And its crazy because I know that God loves everyone to the same capacity...and that doesn't make his love less valuable that its so freely given. God's love isn't cheap. Its costly. His love died a horrific death WILLINGLY just so we could know He loves us and He wanted to save us. He did it for us. He didn't do it for himself...He did it for me. WOW.

I get so caught up in the song that goes "I want to look at the face of the one that I love, want to stay in You presence, its where I belong." I feel like that is the song of my heart. I love singing for the Lord. I haven't written anything worthwhile for a long time...kind of breaks my heart. I think its because I sing when I drive...and I don't have a car anymore and I didn't drive in YWAM...but I just think of all the millions of love songs written out there about sex and emotion and heartbreak and pain...and I just think how love between people is only supposed to be a reflection of the love of the Father for us. How twisted the view of love is. Love is a promise to always look for the good other other person. Always. Not a "hope I someday get to be with you" or a "i like you" Its a commitment and a guarantee. I take the words "I love you." SO seriously. I could write a whole blog just on that...and maybe some day I will.

But right now I'm looking at life thinking... Man Jesus LOVES me. Why worry about tomorrow when THIS is what its all about?
MAN!
COME ON SOMEBODY! ;]

<3Rachel