Coffee with Jesus Time for total transparency. My walk with God has turned into a hard one. I kept hammering myself with the word obedience. My time with God was scattered and based off of a sense of obligation. I was feeling frustrated, angry, and hurt and placing those feelings on other things or people in my life. I was trying to give those feelings an identity and play the blame game. I began verbally complaining about how my feelings were someone else’s fault. Sounds like a mess, doesn’t it? You know what God does with messes? He cleans them. He makes something beautiful through restoration. He pulls a lesson from them, He gives Hope through them and by His grace and Jesus’ sacrifice, He gives yet another second chance to reset and begin again. In my mess, I was able to feel the love of God (I mean REALLY feel it) for the first time. A love that came without conditions, a love that flowed freely, and a love that accepted ALL of me, even in this moment of ugly disaster. It was a beautiful moment. What did I do with that moment? I fell off the boat even more. I used it as an excuse to stop trying and to give in to my anger, my hurt, my resentment and overwhelming anxiety. For about a week I fell apart. But then, I got up today, not out of obligation, not out of a begrudging obedience, but out of love for my God, to have coffee with Jesus. It is time for a reset. It is time to slow down and follow Jesus out of MY LOVE for Him. It is time to stop placing my own conditions on the love God has for me and just fully accept His unconditional and free-flowing love, and it is out of that love that comes obedience. It is not meant to be a weight or a ball-and-chain that makes me sink down to the bottom of a dark, murky ocean. Now, walking alongside Jesus is not meant to always be easy, it will be hard and challenging at times, but when seeking God out of the love, obeying out of love, I will be set free. You will be set free. We will be lifted up despite the valleys we walk! Spending time with the Lord out of weight-filled obligation leaves us empty and depleted. But, spending time with the Lord out of LOVE and DESIRE for Him replenishes and refills. Are you feeling empty or weighted down? If so, how are you seeking Him? Don’t work to make God happy, Jesus has already done that work. It is finished. We are already loved unconditionally and to the fullest. We are already accepted. I am enough friends. You are enough.
With love,
Ashley B.
unapologeticallyhis.com 