Desire

Women Getting Real Weekly Class

/ Lyschel / Leave a comment

This  is a great place to go deeper into relationship with Jesus and  other  women. Both seem scary we know. But this is a place where we talk  about  real life topics and look for God to show up in the middle of  our lives.

The class is for all ages and does not require perfect attendance. Or homework.

Join us in person at Fellowship Church on Middlebrook Pike,  Knoxville,TN every Tuesday night from 7:00pm – 9:00pm (childcare is  provided for those who register).

For specific details around the class please feel free to email us at info@womengettingreal.com.

We meet three weeks on and one week off. Dates of class are listed below. We are planning to Livestream at least once month. So stay tuned for those details. Be sure to sign up for RSS or Facebook alerts so you don’t miss out on “Monday Snack Time with Jana”, its a weekly vlog.

Class Dates for Spring Semester 2011: April 5, 19, 26; May 3, 17, 24, 31
(new class location coming soon, stay tuned for details)

To hear audio from classes up until now check out our archived classes

Open, Eager, or Desperate?

/ Jana / 1 Comment

Are you ready? Here we go.

To be “open” to something is to acknowledge that your mind is considering new ways and options of thinking. We often use the phrase “open minded.”  We consider such a person to be a broad thinker and willing to be tolerant of opposing or unknown areas.  A think-er is not always a do-er.

Open-ness is not necessarily eager-ness.  With eager comes a kind of desire that pushes you into action. Not just an open-handed consideration, but an eager desire that needs to be acted on.

Now compare being eager to being desperate. Desperation is a driving force that must be  completed, satisfied, answered.  Acts of desperation are done without regard to personal cost.

Now then. Which are you— open, eager, desperate— when asking for God’s gifts, His spiritual gifts?

1 Corinthians 14:1 talks about following the way of love and eagerly, jealously, ardently desiring the works of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Paul said many times that we are to want all the gifts that God has for us, and to do that in a desperate, driven, longing for fulfillment kind of way.

So, how much of God do you want?

He’s So Funny

/ Jana / Leave a comment

Guess what I’ve been working on this morning? New songs for the new worship CD:  Real.Life.

And I wanted to share a funny God moment. I have iTunes playing randomly in the background, different songs, different artists. As I was refining the lyrics, I hear a familiar hiss telling me my songs are garbage. “Why bother?” he sneered.

I was writing on a song about trusting the Lord so I just kept plugging along despite the lie that was like an incessant dripping in my head. And lo and behold, guess what songs came on next?  The songs from my last CD!

“Oh yeah? He thought those would never work either!”  I heard my singing God say. I rejoiced in my spirit. Liar, liar devil on fire!!

Press in to the dreams and the goals of your heart. As Graham Cooke says, “You can’t have a desire that is not mirrored and matched by His desire. Because that where it started.”

Seek to be where He is first and foremost. He is our life.

Longings Fulfilled

/ Jana / Leave a comment

So what is the opposite of “her desire will be for her husband”?

Her desire will be for and BE MET in her God. Do you see how much more this resembles the garden? Her longing is so deep only her Lover, the Lord can fill it. When she is fully defined and satisfied in Him, when she embraces all she is in Him, then and only then is she free to release her womanhood, her True God Expression of a Woman in a relationship with a man. Her glory is restored. Or should I say, God’s Glory in her is released.

Desire. This is how Jesus feels about me and about you. This intense longing. Talk about glory.

When you understand that Jesus loves us this intently, this relentlessly, then you begin to see why marriage is so important. There is nothing more powerful than when two people released in the Spirit of God come together in marriage. Talk about fireworks!

Why? Because when a man and a woman know who they are in Jesus, faults and all, they come together in God’s strength, for His glory, out of His overflow—it is truly breath-taking. It has little to do with the couple, it has everything to do with the picture. A lovestruck bridegroom, an eager and willing bride.

And to think His desire is for me… this kind of desire is for me, for you…

Glorious.

But what if you are not married?

Then all the more —to discover who we are as women, rather than thinking we will only be complete with a man. I know so many women who live in this kind of “lacking” state because there either 1) don’t have a man, or 2) they don’t have a man who meets their needs.

You have a man. A Royal Husband. His name is King Jesus. Have you met Him? If you are looking for a man, trying turning to the one who is looking for you. As my college friends say, He is the bomb.

His love truly satisfies.

Sisters, whether married or not, it was never the human man’s job to meet all our needs. Nor our job to meet all of his needs. It is, however, Jesus’s desire to meet our longings. He longs to release and restore us, to enliven us. Then out of this overflow we pour into others whether that is in our relationships, marriages, families, or communities.

Ephesians 1:23 says that Jesus fills everything in every way.

So what do we do with that? Sigh and say “oh well.” Or do we scratch our heads and think it must be something we’re doing wrong? Do we think “Ah ha! I need to change men”? Or “Ah ha! I need to change my man”?

Or do we stop and listen? Really listen, and hear that cry from somewhere deep within, the hunger that aches in our bellies and instead of going to the mall or the spa or the gym, go to the only source that can answer the call and satisfy the hunger.

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 43

Let’s Get Real Here:

Where do you go when you ache with longing? Do you think Jesus can meet your every need? Even your need for romance and physical intimacy? Do you believe He wants to fulfill your desires? Do you give yourself permission to voice your desires?

True Desire

/ Jana / Leave a comment

A friend of mine came to visit after a disturbing message at her church. She said the pastor used the Genesis curse to say that “your desire will be for your husband” meant that women would want to control and manipulate men. This really bothered her. And me too.

As I was researching the meaning of word desire the Lord revealed a whole other truth about His love for us. Look at the cross reference verse used to describe this desire, this aching.

“I am my beloved’s and his desire is toward me” (Song of Songs 7:10)

This is the same “desire” from Genesis. It struck me as so bizarre. Of all the interpretations frequently used to describe the curse of the woman’s desire, with most of them saying it means that she fights for power, I have never heard this Scripture cited.

Do you know what women want more than anything?

(Control! the men shout. Nope.)

She longs for adoration. For pure desire. Being enthralled with her and only her. To be the One of ones. To be fully realized and known and appreciated. Why would that be part of the curse?

Because that’s how it was before the fall. Before the fall she was full of the knowledge of God, full of the companionship with man, fully complete. Dare I say it, could it be that on this side of the cross, Adam and Eve had no need. They were full.

And now the woman is craving, empty, longing, aching. Remember the haunting from the first chapters? You could thank our mother Eve for that legacy.

But on the other hand, stop and consider what this could possibly mean—God has this kind of strong desire kind for me.

For you.

“I am my beloved’s and his desire is toward me” (Song of Songs 7:10)

Have you ever considered that God aches for you, the way you ache for a man?

This is why being freed from the curse is so critical to our hearts. We were made for desire. Because we were made in the image of a God of desire.

And He longs to fill our desire.

Men and women place all this need and weight on each other when they live out of the curse. Her desire is for him, his desire is to rule. They both fail because neither were created to meet this “need” in the other.

No wonder this is a sick relational cycle.

Before you get too depressed let me tell you the good news. Contrary to popular opinions, we no longer live under the curse. Even in the garden there was hope.

Jesus came to restore the blessing. He came to destroy the efforts of the devil and break the yoke of the curse.

There is a much, much more to us than scraping for the man’s attention. Much more to marriage than bickering about who is the boss. There is more of Jesus in us than we can possibly bear.

Let’s Get Real Here:

What are your desires that you’ve never even dared to hope Jesus could fill?