The Depth of You

I’m standing next to you

as you talk to our friend

 

listening to your sweet voice

watching your expressions

 

gazing at your lovely profile

 

and I feel depth

and hear a Bible verse in my mind

at the same time

 

“You knit me together

in my mother’s womb…”

 

And in the standing

and the socializing

and the regular life

 

I gasp inside

anew

at the miracle that is you

 

You

were knit together by God

inside of me

 

You

this lovely young woman

were designed purposefully

 

lovingly

 

and I was the vessel

gratefully used to bring you here

 

You have no idea

I’m thinking any of these thoughts

 

that I am reflecting in wonder

at who you are

 

profoundly impacted

by truth once again

 

that you

are a part of me

 

and we are created

by Him

 

– Susie Stewart

 

For You created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from You
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in Your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are Your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with You.

– Psalm 139:13-18 (NIV)

 

Photo by Gracie Oertli

I Am Yours

Whomever You have created,

God,

has had a choice

 

To Follow You

or to turn away from You

 

Even the angels

 

For Lucifer

a beautiful angel in Your courts

 

Chose to despise You

instead of love You

 

And he took with him

others of beauty who made the choice

 

And all is death

and downhill

without You

 

I, God,

choose You

 

I will forever

be Yours

 

Your created

loves her Creator

 

and I’m so glad

for the choice

 

I

choose

You

 

I am Yours

 

– Susie Stewart

 

Today I have given you a choice between life and death, success and disaster.

– Deuteronomy 30:15 (ERV)

 

But maybe you don’t want to serve the Lord. You must choose for yourselves today. Today you must decide who you will serve. Will you serve the gods that your ancestors worshiped when they lived on the other side of the Euphrates River? Or will you serve the gods of the Amorites who lived in this land? You must choose for yourselves. But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.

-Joshua 24:15 (ERV)

 

I have decided to take the path of faith; I have focused my eyes on Your regulations.

– Psalm 119:30 (VOICE)

 

 

I love those who love Me, and those who look for Me will find Me.

-Proverbs 8:17 (ERV)

 

Photo by Kitty Keefer

 

Love Is Not Proud

Love is not proud…

– 1 Corinthians 13:4 (NIV)

 

 

Godly love acts in humility,

but with confidence.

 

This confidence is not in self,

not a prideful confidence,

but a confidence in your position in Christ

and who He created you to be.

 

He created you for this – to Love God, love people, and bring Him glory.

– Susie Stewart

 

A proud man then is a kind of glutton upon himself; for he is never satisfied with loving and admiring himself; whilst nothing else, with him, is worthy either of love or care.

– William Penn

 

In pride we become the objects of our own love; in humility we learn to love others.

– S. Michael Houdmann

 

Pride will create contempt, arguments, misunderstandings, resentment, loss of community, and indifference…We need to seek others first and their well being, not our arrogance and egocentric mentality. Love lifts up God, not us.

– Richard Krejcir

 

Photo by Susie Stewart

Created

So many of us are marveled by His majestic power via His nature; the nature that He created and called “good”, but we so often fail to have that same sense of awe with each other…. He created all of us and called us “VERY GOOD”.  The best of all that He created!  Besides His Spirit that He gave us, WE, ALL HUMANS (no matter race, socioeconomic boundaries, culture, religion, or anything that we have done nor will do), are the closest thing we have to experiencing God Himself. That’s a priority changer huh?  Yes, it’s wonderful and perfectly rigtheous to glorify God by marveling at His nature, but there is so much beauty we are missing in our neighbors, people we pass by every day, and we even miss it in our spouses, family, and best friends.  Convicting huh?  I do it all the time, and if you’re honest with yourself, you do to.  We are made in the VERY LIKENESS OF GOD, let’s start treating each other that way (even if they aren’t perfect like He is).  Yes, I know a tree doesn’t talk back to you, drive slow on the freeway, or act selfishly, but a tree also doesn’t have the capability of deep meaningful conversations, loving you, building you up when you’re down, or making you cheesecake either. People are more AWEsome than we give each other credit for.  Be marveled at someone today because God has already said they are VERY GOOD, and afterall, we ARE made in His image.

– Taylor Bodin

 

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

– Job 33:4 (NIV)

 

Then God said, “Let Us make human beings in Our image, to be like Us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”

So God created human beings in His own image.
In the image of God He created them;
male and female He created them.
Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

Genesis 1:26-28 (NLT)

 

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

– Psalm 139:13-16 (NLT)

 

Photo taken by Susie Stewart

 

Good

This morning I read the words aloud.

For God to hear.

For the angels to hear.

For the dark ones to hear.

“In the beginning God created  the heavens and the earth…”

What a sentence!  It is amazingly understated, but as I read it aloud, the profundity of it quickened my spirit.  Deep called to deep.

“…and God saw that it was good.”

My eyes, my heart, my spirit, everything that bears His image in me, knows that

IT IS GOOD.

All of His glorious creation.  It is good.

We gaze at a brilliant sunset, and our spirits say “It is good”.

We see a precious baby born, and our spirits say “It is good”.

We feel love for a person so deeply that it seems we might burst from the depth of it, and our spirits say “It is good”.

We stand on the edge of a great and awesome cliff overlooking a scene we can hardly comprehend, and our spirits say “It is good”.

We take time to focus on Creator God, we are filled up, and our Spirits say “It is good”.

“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him…”

What a treasure we have in these jars of clay bodies that we can live and breathe and experience “good”,

the understated awesome.

Lord, I will speak Your Name forever.  Out loud.

– Susie Stewart