This year, I got everything I wanted.
My parents are getting remarried to each other, I got a new car, I got a new job,  I am living on my own for the first time. A glance on my social media page would suggest “Yeah, Marlie got her life together. She’s doing great.” Confession, I am!  I am so thankful. But, another confession? None of this stuff filled the void in my heart. My circumstances changing, having a new car to drive around, a new job to work, etc. all great things, all things to celebrate and to enjoy.  But. none of it completely filled the void in my heart because our hearts were not made by this world but by God.

I still go to sleep wondering what other trinkets or experiences could come in my life to make me ‘feel satisfied.’ I wake up in the morning and my thoughts are consumed with myself, my reality, my expectations for the day.  My heart no more full than it was the day before even though I “got everything I wanted.”

I am prone to wander from my Shepherd, prone to wonder if God really is all I need, prone to worry about life and all the intriciate details. I long for comfort, for approval, for ease, and for things to go relatively my way. When they don’t, I get antsy. I get doubtful. I get scared, honestly. What if none of this is real? What if I am one of those brain-washed Christians? But then, I remember. That morning at my desk, a bible and a pen, warm tears dripping down as I read about my Savior. That void gone and suddenly this was exactly where I wanted to be and frankly it’s where I need to be. Sitting at the feet of Jesus. Rembering my role in the story is not the Lead like I so desperately desire, but as an extra in a .4 second scene of the grand story of God redeeming His people.  How humbling that is. Studying the Word is like sititng right under a mountain, I am reminded how small I am and how big God is (Psalm 103:14-18)

I remember sharing my story and the gospel with teenagers in Albania and hearing one of the girls say “When you talk about God, I hear a knocking on my heart.”  Knowing God was knocking on her heart brought me so much joy. This joy i felt was indescribable and surpassed any cruise, vacation or rollercoaster I’ve been on.

I remember the long drives in my car, praying, crying, worshipping. Again, sitting in the presence of God, at His feet, all the longing of my heart fell before Him and He began to change the desires of my heart. All the while a wave of peace crashed over me.

In February 2018, I got a study bible and for the first time in my Christian walk started doing a daily quiet time. The transformation in my heart has been unreal. As I read and study God’s word, He has mended, pruned and reedemed a lot of mess in my heart and life.

This year I can look back and see the good, the bad and truly say it all fails to compare with knowing Christ. Paul’s words in Philippians 3:7-9 have been such a theme in my journey the last few months.

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in^[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

Christians, I urge you to dig deep into the Word  daily and watch God transform you. I challenge you to write down your desires, wants and dreams and pray that God would change those desires to match His will. Don’t listen to the lie of the enemy that anything under the sun can fulfill your heart.

Some verses to reflect on:
Psalm 90:14
Psalm 16:11
Psalm 28:7-8
Zephaniah 3:17
Psalm 118:14

Today, I was reading through Psalm 139. And verse 17 “His thoughts towards us are as countless as the sand on the shore” (my paraphrase) really struck me. I’ve heard the verse before, many times, but decided to sit with this verse for a bit.

My first thought was “why?? Why does God think about us so much?”
And almost immediately after I asked myself that, I heard in my head,
“Well, why so you think about your cat so much??”

“Because i love her.”

Bingo.

God thinks about you because He loves you.
Simple But so hard to wrap our heads and hearts around.

Psalm 139

Today, my friend and I went to Whole Foods to get dinner. There was this huge section of the store where you could grab a container and fill it with all kinds of food. I was very hungry, and very excited about all the food choices. I probably grabbed a little bit of everything, and then I saw something: 9.99 per pound. CRAP. I held my container and guessed how much it weighed, surely not over 1lb or 2. Surely, I didn’t grab THAT MUCH food. This strange sense of shame and guilt flooded my heart. I knew it was too much. I wish I could have put some of the food back. I wish I had had more self control. Yet, there I was standing in line to buy this meal. I didn’t want to see how much it had cost. I knew I could guess all day long but the scale would ultimately have the final say. I actually asked the cashier not to tell me what I cost haha. I paid for the meal and walked out.
My friends, many of us are holding our life in our hands estimating how good or bad we are. Some days our good actions outweigh the bad and we think “wow I’m great.” But other days we see our mistakes right in front of us, we can’t put our choices back, and guilt and shame flood us. All of us have sin (Romans 3:23), are sinners, we all put food in the bowl and there’s one scale that decided the cost: God, perfect and Holy.
The cost? An eternity spent paying for our sins. (Romans 6:23)
But God being Rich in mercy, sent His Son Jesus to earth. HE lived the perfect life, and died the death we deserved. All of our sin. All of God’s wrath was put on Jesus. He died and resurrected from the grave which proved that He was who he said he was, the Son of God. He did this because He loves us! (John 3:16)

The scale says “sinner” but the receipt says Paid in Full. If someone had paid for my meal, and I went to cashier and said “I want to pay for it.” She’d say “you can’t, it’s already paid for.” I spent a majority of my life trying to earn my salvation by being a good person. I tried to tip the scales in my favor, now I trust God’s provision for my sins and Jesus death and resurrection on the cross. #nomorestriving #nomorewholefoodsbuffetslol

Today, a 3 year old girl I was nannying for was riding her tricycle. Something strange happened. She stopped and said “I have to go pick up my rocks.” She got off her bike and went and grabbed 4 or 5 big rocks one at a time and put them on the back of her bike. Then, I watched as she struggled to ride while keeping her rocks on her bike. She would turn her head around, looking back at the rocks, which meant she wasn’t looking where she was going. She would ride into the grass, lose a rock and beg me fo help. She didn’t go far and she got really frustrated. “Look ahead!!” I kept saying. I even offered to take the rocks but she said “no they are mine!” It was all pretty silly to watch, but I also wondered how often i act just like her. Collecting past hurts, carting them around, eyes glued behind me, not looking ahead. Letting these rocks decide where I go and what I’m worth. You’re not the sum of how everyone treats you. You are worthy because God said you are.

What are you looking back at today? Your past? What rocks did you pick up this morning? Are you looking ahead or crashing into the grass cause your eyes are glued to the rocks?

Take some time to choose to forgive, to let go, to leave the rocks on the ground. God is close to you and wants to help.
Psalm 23, Psalm 46. Psalm 139, Psalm 121

Full confession, I have not been writing lately because I don’t have my life together. No one does, really. But,  I found myself slowly creeping away from sharing stuff on Facebook and blogging because change is coming and I don’t know what the future holds. Job changes, potential opportunity to serve overseas, none of it in my control, but so desperately I want to control it all.  As a writer, I like to be able to sit down and write out what is going on in my life and have it all make sense, or at least just write the big updates down.  That’s what Facebook is for right, “Hey guys I’m having a baby!” or “Hey guys, i’m totes engaged to this guy #weddinghashtag #lefthandringfinger” Or “I got my dream job!! #myliferules #humblebrag #blessed” All the big life updates. Seeing how most of my big life updates recently have been a process, I don’t like sharing it unless I know that it’s going to happen. I think that’s wise. I don’t have to tell everyone everything all the time.  It is a process. And that is okay.

I like to have stuff figured out, to have a plan (and I’m type B), and to have an answer when people ask “What’s going on in your life, Marlie?” Usually, I’ll just ramble and always end it with “i’ll keep you posted.” Gosh, if I had a $1 for everytime I’ve said that the last 2 months.  I’ve had my mind and heart focused the last 3 months on this future opportunity to serve. I heard a pastor say, “Many people tell me they want to do great things for God. Not many come and tell me ‘I want to be faithful today.'” Pretty sure I needed to hear that the most out of anyone in that room.

Being faithful today.

That my friends is the real challenge. I spent 90% of my mental space thinking about the future, wondering about the future, and always usually worrying about the future. For the last 3 months, present-Marlie turned into a zombie, cause she checked out of the hotel and is living in “future land.” Checking out of the present in a sense is like I’m telling God: Where you have me doesn’t matter, the people around me don’t matter, the job I have doesn’t matter. Because all my headspace and energy is spent looking towards the future. Because that’s when I’ll serve, or share the gospel or love people around me.

Being Faithful today and taking life 24 hours at a time has been a game-changer for me.

Friends, there is freedom and peace in taking each day as it comes. I can’t control what opportunities come my way, but I can control how I take advantage of today. Where ever you are,  there are opportunities to make a difference. I don’t think the Enemy is out to get us all to be murderers or rapists, I think he is okay with letting us be slaves to worry, prone to apathy and feeling like our life does not matter right now because we’re not where we want to be (discontentment and doubt.)

The Enemy’s firsts words to Adam and Eve introduced doubt into their ears and sunk deep into their hearts:

did God really say….

Today, I still hear that whisper of doubt and it can be crippling.

Did God really say He has a plan for your life?
Did God really say He cares about you?
Did God really say He is for you and not against you?

The answer to those questions are a resounding YES. and Amen.
Open your Bible and start reading. Drown out the lies with truth from Scripture.

Ephesians is a great place to start.  This is Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus, but perhaps God preserved this text for thousands of years because it’s his prayer for us as well.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:16-19

In all the mess, I know God is in control, faithful and at work,

Marlie.

the god of Expectations.
The daily prayer:
god of expectations, hear my cry,
things have to go my way, or i’ll die
I have a plan for my life and how it will go,
if any of this is thwarted, then I will let you know
that I’ll try to take the reigns of control back
because this life is mine and I want it on my track
—————————————————————

I have found nothing but disappointment, anxiety and embarrassing attempts to control situations when I am holding tight to expectations of my life, myself or others.  I look back at all the times I was disappointed in myself and its due to me not meeting an expectation I had of myself: I wasn’t funny enough, outgoing, deep. I wasn’t patient enough, or kind enough, or listening with my full attention. Then, when I didn’t meet my expectation, shame came rushing in.

I do this for others too. As an idealist, I hold people to this unfair standard that they will never get mad, lose their patience, lie, or disappoint me. I view them as God and that’s not fair. All the times I’ve been disappointed in others is the times I’ve held them to an unfair expectation and they being human, failed.

I also have expectations for my life and the way I think it should go. I don’t write a step-by-step plan for my life on paper, I’m way too Type B for that, but I do have a really nice expectation for my future. (Marriage, kids, 2 cats, white picket fence.) So let’s have a chat about what I wanted for my life at this point and how it’s not worked out:
1st grade, I wanted to marry this boy because he was sitting next to me and we both liked the color blue.  (Thank you God for not answering this prayer)

College, I had the expectation of finding my husband.  (I graduated college single and have spent the last 3 years at church in Dallas finding healing, recovery from past trauma in my life. Not to mention, a new thriving relationship with Christ)

After college, I was sure I’d jump into a successful writing career (because i knew so much at 22 😉 )  and start traveling around the country speaking and doing conferences (Um, see previous parenthesis.)

The last 3 years a lot of different things could have happened; could have gotten married, had kids, started a career, moved out of the house. These were all expectations I had. And now as I wait, and wait, and wait, to hear back about this next big step in my life. I look back and see how faithful God has been. And as it’s so tempting to clench my fists tight on what I want for my life, I look back and see God’s faithfulness and see that He has done great things and He will not stop now.  When I wake up, I pray this prayer. When I feel myself getting anxious, i pray this prayer. When I feel myself trying to control a situation to make it go more the way I want it to, I pray this prayer.

God, please help me stop putting my trust and hope in my expectations for my life. Instead, help me put my trust in You and You alone.
I surrender my expectations for my life, of others and myself.