This Is Our God

The Lord has really been stirring my heart this week, and I have been struggling with how to get it all down in writing. Not because it is something bad or even something difficult, but because what He has been revealing to me is so important, and I am afraid that if I try to write it down I will mess it up or not do Him justice (like I really could anyway...). But my mind has been going ninety miles an hour with all of this, so I am at least going to give it a whirl and ask for your grace as I try to stumble through this.

To begin, I need to back it up a little. As you probably know, there have been some rough times over the last several weeks with timelines extending, rushing for last minute paperwork and the like. A few weeks ago, right around the time we got the news about the timeline, I was feeling really bogged down and pretty much just at the end of myself. I am so ready to be a mom, and at that point I really felt like motherhood just kept moving farther and farther away. So I reached out to some friends of ours for help and asked to have a meeting with a sister in Christ in our faith family who has walked a path with her husband very similar to what Adam and I are going through right now. We ended up meeting this past Sunday before church, and it was an incredible hour. I was able to really share my heart with her and voice some struggles (deep ones) that I have not really been able to talk about with many people. And the best part? She understood exactly what I was saying. I cannot begin to explain how grateful I am to the Lord for allowing me to talk with this precious new friend, for prompting her heart to meet with me on a very personal matter when she did not even know who I was. As I was sharing with her, she reassured me that what I am feeling is OK, that she had struggled through the same things and reminding me that were are truly just in a season of waiting and that this season will not last forever. The power of hearing those things from the mouth of someone who has lived it...well...words fail me here. I left our time together feeling as though a weight had been lifted from me and with a very fresh reminder of Who our God really is.

I met up with Adam right away and we went to the 11 o'clock service at our church. Our pastor is currently teaching on the Book of Revelation. Heavy stuff. This Sunday, we covered chapters 4-5. And God is so sovereign here (everywhere really, but especially here). Those chapters are a picture of what Heaven will look like when we all get there. God at the center, cloaked in glory, surrounded by the saints and angels and everyone, at all times, falling down and praising His name, giving Him the glory that He is due. And then Jesus arrives on the scene. The Slain Lamb of God and the Risen Lion. The only One who can take away the sins of the world. And He did. He does.

I am not super familiar with Revelation, and this picture of God the Father and God the Son on the throne surrounded by all of creation worshipping Them together has really stuck with me. I cannot get it out of my head. I think it is because this scene shows us the Lord as He is meant to be seen. A lot of times (I know this is true for me at least), it is easy to forget Who God really and truly is. It is easy to take Him almost casually. My friend LC put it really well: "Sometimes I think we feel like we are praying to the corner of the room instead of the God of universe." I think she hit it on the head. I do forget Who God is when I pray or when I sing to Him. And that is dangerous. And I think that is what God has been placing so firmly in my heart since Sunday. That He is God. He is Who He says He is. God has allowed this truth to just wash over me this week. There is no other way for me to describe it. You know what I mean. When you are in the ocean and the waves keep coming and coming and just covering you. That is what God is doing. He is covering me with this realization, this revelation that when I pray, I am praying to the One on the throne. The One who gave me the ability to speak, the One who sustains my life. And this same One, He loves me. And this One on the throne is the One who holds my very life, including our adoption, in His hands. Oh. My. Gracious. That is such an incredible, awe-inspiring, humbling truth. When I see God like this, when I look at Him like this, the way He is supposed to be seen, I see that I have nothing to fear. No reason whatsoever to be afraid. In fact, I have great reason to rejoice. The King and Lord of all is sovereign over our life and the lives of our children.

I see the saints and the angels and all of creation in Revelation 4-5 surrounding God and praising His name, and I want to be there! I want that to be my job! I mean, seriously. I think about that day, and I am overcome with such joy. But then I realized something. I don't have to wait for that day. Yes, I have to wait to see God face to face, but I do not have to wait to worship Him and proclaim His holiness. I can do that now. And so this week, I have been listening (virtually nonstop) to one of the songs we sang in church this week. I put it on a CD and play it on my way to and from work and to meet Adam at the park to run. I have been listening to it so much that when I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I am singing it in my head as soon as I am conscious. That is serious. I want to always have God's holiness on my mind and in my heart. I want to see Him in my life. The song is called "Holy" and it is by Matt Redman (listen to it here). Listen to it and pay close attention to the lyrics, especially compared with the text from Revelation. Let it wash over you. I know it is hard to give up pretense and churchy routine, but God is so much bigger than that. He is the Most High and the Most Worthy, and He deserves all of our praise for all of our lives and all of eternity. This is what we will be singing at the tops of our lungs forever and ever. And I cannot wait.

So I hope that made sense. Sorry if it did not, but the Lord has just been revealing Himself to me in an incredible way this week. I feel like my eyes have been opened, and if this is any indication of what He is going to do while we wait to bring our little one home, then I am ready for the upcoming months.

"Day and night they never stop saying 'Holy, holy holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.' Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say, 'You are worthy, our Lord God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things and by your will they were created and have their being.'" Revelation 4:8-11

"Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them saying, 'To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever.'" Revelation 5:13

Love,
Baylor