The High Places...

This morning as I'm sitting here having my chai tea…my favourite kind with a spoonful of honey I was pulling up the tea bag and dipping it again and again and I was thinking how it needed to be immersed in that boiling hot water to let out all of the flavours.  

And so I was thinking about my life, about my relationship with God and what He wants from me and what He wants for me.  He wants all the flavour of who He has created me to be to flow out of me…He wants that from me and He wants that for me.

It's like I saw myself as that tea bag in that boiling hot water…the pressures of life…the tough places…the uncomfortable places…the painful places…immersed in them all in order to bring me to fullness of who He has created me to be…a reflection of Christ and yet me Tina.

Of course it's still a choice as to what I do in those tough and challenging places and I know I still often times grab my coat of protection that seals my heart deep inside but it's not what I want.  I so much want to give all to God and want to be able to accept also what He wants for me.  That even if it hurts, even if it threatens my sense of comfort, even if I have to let go of things I hold dear will I live with my hands open ready to give and ready to take whatever He would give and whatever He would take…will I fully trust Him...

A life so closely lived with the Father…trusting Him no matter what even when I don't understand…especially when I don't understand…knowing that His love is secure and trustworthy no matter where this journey of life takes me.  This life it is but a vapour…a vapour…short lived…and will I have been all that He wanted and had for me to be…

In the into of the book Hinds' Feet on High Places Hannah Hurnard writes…"As Christians we know, in theory at least, that in the life of a child of God there are no second causes, that even the most unjust and cruel things, as well as all seemingly pointless and undeserved sufferings, have been permitted by God as a glorious opportunity for us to react to them in such a way that our Lord and Saviour is able to produce in us, little by little, his own lovely character.  He has made us for himself, and our hearts can never know rest and perfect satisfaction until they find it in him.  The High Places of victory and union with Christ cannot be reached by any mental reckoning of self to be dead to sin, or by seeking to devise some way or discipline by which the will can be crucified.  The only way is by learning to accept, day by day, the actual conditions and tests permitted by God, by a continually repeated laying down of our own will and acceptance of his as it is presented to us in the form of the people with whom we have to live and work, and in the things which happen to us.  Every acceptance of his will becomes an altar of sacrifice, and every such surrender and abandonment of ourselves to his will is a means of furthering us on the way to the High Places to which he desires to bring every child of his while they are still living on earth."   

I love that passage from Hannah's book and I take it to heart but I also know that when I come to those tough places, those testing places I often fail and so the character of my Saviour is not seen in my actions or reactions and my heart then does not know that rest that is only found in Him.  

And so just as most every day I will have that cup of chai tea and dip and re-dip that tea bag in the hot water to get all the flavour so my God will continue to allow situations that come my way that test me and give opportunity to live with the attitude of Christ.  "Him who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!" Philippians 2 : 5 - 8

And so in order to get to the High Places we first must bend low...low at the foot of the cross and live as Christ...Him who left the glories of heaven and entered our world of brokenness, sin and shame and conquered it all on the cross...