Blog is moving

Here is the new blog address

www.davidagraves.wordpress.com

I hope you will continue to read the blog and keep me in your prayers.

Choices I make today

This morning, I woke up at four a.m. and couldn’t get this imagery out of my mind. Most people including myself have given something worn down or almost broken to the church because we were replacing it with something new. As I was wrestling with why we give the church leftovers in the name of benevolence, God immediately spoke to my heart that I do this any time I am not seeking His will through Bible Study, prayer, and meditation.

The subtle lies attack me from the moment I wake up: what do I need to do today, what is for breakfast, I need to make a list of things for the grocery store, let me check facebook before breakfast, or I will see what on the news this morning. One things rolls into another and before I realize what lies I am buying into, I have forsaken time alone with my Heavenly Father. I miss out on Him singing over me. I am not still in His presence. I do not take my cares, fears, and desperation to him placing my day, life, and surrendered will into a proper perspective of His glory.

I then go about my day passing out “used” mercy, grace, hope, and encouragement to myself, to those I come in contact with, and most painfully to those I love. Doesn’t your soul need the freshness of God’s word daily? Doesn’t your spouse deserve the new of your heart refreshed in the Lord ready to serve them for His glory? Doesn’t your local body of believers deserve a renewed passion from time spent on your face communing with a Holy God? Don’t be surprised in your frustration of life when you are operating your life around one hour this past Sunday to be your “new” all week. Give and receive the new instead of the used today.



Lamentations 3:22-23

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

My heart in worship

I have heard people with good intentions attempt to encourage someone in a storm by saying, “hold on, one day when we get to heaven, we will get all the answers.” I recognize another subtle lie that I have bought into with my wayward and wicked heart. I have based my worship and belief of God on what he can do, has done, or possibly will do. I have based my worship on my perspective of how I feel or want to feel. I have elevated gifts above the giver. I have worshiped him as healer, sustainer, calmer of the storm, provider, protector, and deliverer. These are all important and God is due each of these ascribed to him but these are about what he has done.
When I worship God for who He is without answers, my heart is seeking him and not his gifts. I am being drawn to Him and He is drawing near to me. He is the gift. God is faithful. God is Holy. God is righteous. God is always the same. God is Merciful. God is Sovereign. God is just.
When I leave this fallen broken world and enter into his presence, every answer is revealed to me. It is revealed when I see Jesus face to face. He is the answer. He does not have to provide answers. As I worship him today in my time of prayer and how I treat others, I will ask myself “am I worshiping God for what he does or who He is?”

Beauty for Ashes

I hear this quote of Isaiah 63 from others who intend to encourage me during my deep storm. God impressed on my heart that I must embrace the grotesque and wretched state of my past, my sin, and my sin nature in order to embrace the beauty of Jesus Christ redemptive work on the cross for me.
It is a painful process to allow God to tear down every lie, manipulation, and deceit that I have built. The sin I commit today and my very existence clothed in sin nature are drops in the ocean of God’s wrath that were poured out on His Son. Isaiah 53:10 “Yet it God’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer.” Am I humbled and drawn to the beauty of Christ realizing that God stored up creations wrath and held it at bay so He could pour it on his Son?
There are 6 billion people on the planet now. It is estimated that over 106 billion people have lived since the beginning of creation. Imagine each life represents one drop of God’s wrath and that each sin is another drop. Can you begin to imagine what was poured out on Jesus? Can your heart ponder Holy God holding back his wrath until the moment His only Son was handing over? Can you feel the heartache as God unleashes every bit of that Holy wrath on the perfect Lamb and Jesus taking every bit of it?
I am woven into the leather of that whip that tore flesh from his side. My life is in the fist of the soldier who struck my Redeemer in the face. I am in the spit that ran down his face. I was not a bystander in the crowd chanting. I was part of the nail. I am a splinter in the cross that was soaked with the Blood that brought me before God to be presented spotless and free of accusation. Colossians 1:22 “now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”
Many people are uncomfortable with these thoughts and reject them as sensationalism. It will be considered irreverent to paint such a picture. This flies in the face of strolling in church late, or passing a note during the sermon about lunch plans, or just going through the motions like Christianity is just a bumper sticker. Jesus was beyond recognition as he hung on the cross. Isaiah 53:3 “Like one from whom men hide their faces.” My heart breaks pondering the thought of what he endured for me. John 1:29 “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” I must embrace the ashes and crushing of Christ so I can embrace the beauty of God’s love for me.

Move that Bus!

You know the show. It comes on Sunday nights. This phrase with fifteen minutes left in the show causes me to cry EVERY week. I cry every time I watch it. It can be a rerun. I will cry. I don’t have to watch the episode and know what desperate plight the family is in because I am drawn to that moment.
The first thing that always pierces my heart is when the bus rolls away and the emotion that overtakes the individuals. I have watched grown men fall to their knees speechless and weep. I have seen kids so excited that all they can do is scream “Oh my gosh” while jumping up and down hugging anyone and everyone who is close by. My heart pauses as a struggling mother just stands there taking in what is before her. Their reaction for the rest of the show is how I picture grace. When I realize the depravity of my human heart, the lives I have personally wounded, my sins that have caused distance between a Holy God and his beloved, and the unfathomable measures God took to provide a sacrifice for me because he loved me so much then this moment should be my reaction time and time again. The host begins to show off the house to the family explaining how the home is customized to meet their needs. The family continues to verbalize the grace being poured over them and their thankfulness is evident. God has done the same for me. He loves me with an everlasting love. God knows that my heart is a desert that longs for encouraging words and affirmation. I kneel humble before Him when I open his word and walk through what he says about me; loved with an everlasting love, that I belong to Him, nothing can separate me from his hand, his compassion never ends, his faithfulness extends to all generation, he is faithful when I am faithless, his strength is made perfect in my weakness, that He is with me always, he has a place prepared for me after this life, and that He will return to claim what belongs to Him. When I ponder and treasure all these things in my heart, I am filled with gratitude of the Holy God who has opened the heavens over me to show his love for me.
As I am realizing the depth of God’s grace that he has poured on me, it should affect how I live and treat others. Later today, a golfer will take to the world stage through the media and offer some statement about his sin that was made public. Many stories, theories, and he should have said will be offered for public consumption after he speaks. Most people are ready and willing to give their opinion or insight on the sins of others.
I don’t have to have an opinion about what he should say or do, God has already done that in his word. James 5:17 “confess YOUR sin to one another so that YOU may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” Anytime I am tempted to dwell on the sins of others, how they should have to pay for those sins, and how others should treat them as a result of their sin, I can immediately recognize that this is a lie and smooth temptation of a wayward heart to feel better about my own life. When he speaks today, I picture myself having to confess everything: lies, manipulation, attempts of controlling others, and theft. I can place myself in his shoes because the sins I commit today caused Holy God to unleash and pour out His wrath towards sin on His Son, Jesus Christ.
We are the people of the second chance. We each have stood behind that bus and had grace revealed to us. We each sin daily. The world will know Him by our love for one another. Watch the show this week and I hope when you hear them say “move that bus” that you will allow God to do that in your heart.

Come out Come Out Wherever You Are

My secret sins and God revealed in my life

Genesis 3:9-13 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

I often think of my childhood and things that I wish would have been different. I grew up in a very abusive home; physically, verbally, and emotionally abused by a father who was a Marine and strong disciplinarian and verbally and emotionally abused by my mother who was bipolar and manically depressed. Our home life was very chaotic and I can still recall most of the kinetic stress that my body stored from the many events. One of my greatest strengths and weaknesses is that I am able to adapt very quickly to most situations due to my survival skills from an early age. I often felt unlovable and unworthy of any respect. My first memory was washing out my own cloth diaper in the toilet. I can still recall the feeling of shame, emptiness, and the stinch of the toilet.

I recognized that God was inviting me into a relationship at the age of fourteen and I did not hesitate to respond. I said yes. However, my most dangerous weakness kicked in immediately following and I began to attempt to assess God and how He would fit into my plan. I was the most dangerous type of believer in a negative way. I learned Scripture and the right things to say. I could spout theology and the plan of salvation all along living a chaotic, manipulating, lying life that was void of any depth in my relationship with Christ. I used God as my excuse instead of my source. I would scoop up all the accolades and compliments that came my way, refusing him His glory for using me. I replayed the role of Satan before he was cast down. I boasted in my abilities and talents and stood between a Holy God and praise that was due only him.

I would just as soon lie if I thought I could get away with it. I would exaggerate about something I had done, tell less than the whole truth to make me look better, and simply lie with a made up story that would make me out to be the hero or inspirational. One example; I would tell this story. I used to climb on top of our trailer when I was a kid. My father warned me the first time he caught me not to do it that it was dangerous and I could get hurt. I would tell the story that my father caught me the second time and ordered me to come back to where I climbed onto the roof using the window air conditioner we had except he was standing there wanting me to jump in his arms. When he caught me he said, “and this is how God is, when we do wrong, he is there to correct us and catch us.” That was and is to this day a lie. The story is true but the ending is not. I took a beating for what I did. I WANTED the ending to be different so I told it the way I wanted it to end. I have wasted so much time and energy in my life doing mental gymnastics on how I wanted things to happen or on things that never happened. I have built a cocoon where I am the prisoner enslaved to my own agenda of the world according to what I think it should be for my benefit.

I am learning through my current storm that my fear has been a learned repeated behavior that has built a stronghold in my life. I have said yes to how I feel or how I wanted to feel about relationships, life, and God’s calling on my life to determine what I would do. This was and is foolishness to the highest degree. In the serenity prayer, “trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will” was and is the deepest struggle for me. I am still in my current storm but God invites me in every thought, motive, and action to say yes to the truth of His word instead of my feelings or how I want to feel. I remember the first time I truly spoke my heart to God in this storm. I was laying face down in the carpet. I called him cruel. I told him that I felt like road kill on the side of the road that people passed by with no regard for my pain, my obvious wounds, my humiliation, and my lowly state. When I finished praying, I felt no better but I know that God is good. I often wake up now and confess sin out loud that He helps me recall. With God’s help through the power of his word and an authentic group of me in Tray, Tal, Greg, JT, Kelly, People of the Second Chance and my step study brothers I am battling moment by moment to say yes to God and no to my pattern of lies. God is actively redeeming me. He is walking with me each step as I revisit the ugliness of many things I went through in my life. He not only wants my yes for his will in my life but He wants my yes in acknowledging every lie, manipulation, and wayward act of a disobedient heart. I have no preconceived notion for how God will use me but I am saying yes today.

The old game of hide and seek is the vivid picture for me. God invites me in each moment to come out, come out, wherever you are. He wants me to hide under his wing. He wants me to stop trying to impress others with my perseverance and endurance through the struggles of childhood abuse, parents divorce, girl I dated being killed in a wreck, death of a best friend as a child, my manipulation, my own divorce, my agenda, and my lies. I am weak. I have nothing apart from Christ. Through this storm I have lost my car, my job, and some friends but there is this deep drumbeat that resonates my soul…. “come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Secret sin will come out at the most inopportune time in the most uncomfortable way. I do not get to control the consequences of my sin but I can control where I place my faith. God is good. His mercy is everlasting. Lamentations 3:22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. I hurt and this process of undoing is painful yet beautiful. God is not disciplining me to get me back out of revenge but to win me back through his love. I am saying yes.

What sin do you feel paralyzed in? Have you bought into the lie that you have to figure it out or make it right on your own? Do you have someone you can bear your deepest hurts and pain with? There are authentic people that are trustworthy and willing to walk with you, those who have not forgotten their own scares and grace redemption from a loving and pursuant God.