Being With Jesus

   Being With Jesus

“And that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, I pray that you, being firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17

Jesus is more interested in my inner life. The life I was made to have with him is the Holy Spirit in me learning what that means to follow his direction. It doesn’t matter what direction my job is to follow. 

If you know me I am directionally challenged. A Kentucky girl moved to Ohio more than twenty years ago still struggles to find her way around without my GPS. And sometimes still listening to that voice and seeing that direction I will find myself missing the turn to have to turn around. My life has been rerouted in a way that I don’t do the same thing I did and I am not even with the same people yet God still directs me the different ways I am to go. The changes He has made have opened more doors for Jesus to work within my life. In that process I am growing more dependent on the Lord and learning what it means to be filled with the fullness of God. 

Even greater something else is happening. Being with Jesus is teaching me to move out of the way so he can move into unfamiliar places that only he could have access to. To strangers that now have become people I am getting to know and praying for daily. To still doing something I love but just doing it in a different way that causes me to stand back and watch, listen, wait, and hear where He desires for me to stay. So close to him and knowing he will lead me. 

He just wants us to BE with Him. 

That is something He has been teaching me lately. Not striving instead trusting. Striving is me getting in the way and trusting allowing him to lead. I felt the Lord say that, “Angela I don’t need you to think that you are needed there.” As much as things are good sometimes He has been teaching me that limits are necessary and they give opportunities to open different doors. I was recently asked the question. “How has MS affected you?” And as crazy as this writing and sharing has been, that question was asked from an article editor from Crossroads Church that is publishing an article I wrote that I didn’t even remember sharing. I took that question and the enemy wanted me focusing on things that feel  discouraging and hard so many times. But as I sat with that question for a while I felt the Lord asking, “How has MS affected you?” And even in the middle of the night I knew that answer. He has taught me he is always with me. It has affected me in the way of letting go of things and creating new limitations within my life but in that God has given me new opportunities and opened new doors in the middle of the diagnosis. I am spiritually healed in the way of knowing that whatever happens Jesus is always with me and meets me in the struggles and challenges all along the way.  It has given me joy knowing that His goodness and love never leave my side no matter what. In return my story has been used to encourage so many others seeing the faithfulness of God in what happens through anything we go through in our lives. 

He is always with us. Recall those times in your life. The ones that don’t make sense. The ones that didn’t seem like there could be a way out. Thank Him. 

We are His story of His faithfulness. Go tell His story.