dripping in love and favor...

Today has been vastly different than yesterday. God has used different people and experiences to minister to me in my particular point of pain and it's been incredible.

First, last night after I posted about becoming hippies together, I had about 3-4 people come up for no reason and hug me tightly. And then one of the guys who visits campus regularly chased me around outside, picked me up, threw me up over his shoulder, and dropped me in a very deep snowbank. I know it might seem ridiculously childish to you but to me it was a buffet of love.

Then today in Foundations of Faith we were talking about God's will and Scott, the prof, posed the question Does God have specifically designed wills for everyone? And then gave an illustration. He drew on the whiteboard a ride he used to ride as a kid at an amusement park. It's the one where you get in the car and you go around the track and there's the little "curb" in the middle of the road that runs between the tires to keep you on the track. Scott asked if that was a picture of life within God's will. One girl said that it was and I said that it wasn't. "If God has this specific will for each of us and we're driving around that track then we never venture from God's will. We never sin. We never know suffering and therefore, we never know joy because to know joy is to know suffering. God gave us his moral will that he's laid out for us and then free will in other areas of life. We can love God and do what we want." I went on to say that God called us to life and to have it more abundantly and that abundance doesn't mean all joy all the time. It means that God will allow things to happen to us to bring us to a point of brokenness and come before him. He will allow times of suffering so that we may find our joy in him alone. The world can't provide that for us. Life more abundant means giving God the opportunity to have his strength made perfect in our weaknesses like I talked about last week. It was a great discussion.

Then in Youth Ministry class this afternoon Curtis, the prof, gave an illustration. First he wrote on the board this statement: "I think I can't." and said that so many youth today live by this motto and give up on themselves. It's a picture of hopelessness and despair. We read Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." And then we read the 23rd Psalm. It was the last part of this Psalm that we focused on. Verse 5: "You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows." He had a large mixing bowl and a large pitcher of water available. Curtis told us to imagine the water is the purest olive oil. He took the bowl and bent over it and had one of the students pour the "oil" over his head. All of it. He stood up and the water dripped from his hair and his face. He explained that when we are anointed today with oil, it's a very different picture from how it was in David's day. Back then they wouldn't have been bent over a bowl. Someone would have poured oil on their heads and it would soak their head, dripping down all over them from their hair and face, covering them completely in oil. Curtis then said, "This is God's favor for you. He wants to drip you in it and cover you completely in his delight for you." I cried again. They were powerful words for me. "When you stand in God's favor, this statement has no power in your life," he pointed at the whiteboard. I cried some more and felt God anoint me as his love and favor washed over me. I remember distinctly hearing these words: This is the measure of my love for you, Christina. Soak in it. Absorb it. Over the weekend and yesterday I had been living by the motto "I think I can't." I can't hear God. I can't feel God. I can't be loved. I can't be accepted... But today I am dripping in his favor and I can't has no power in my life. I imagine myself trying to catch his love and favor in my hands, the "overflow," so that I may store it up.