unhindered

Longings Fulfilled

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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?

Tired of Being a Duck Yet?

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When you choose to live on the “How am I doing?” spectrum you live somewhere between the Trophy Woman and the Invisible Woman. But you are still living out of a lie. The whole spectrum is a lie, from one end to the other.

So it doesn’t matter at what point you fall, it’s still a point on spectrum based on a lie.

God has a better way. It’s called freedom. It’s not that you are not aware of yourself. But you are aware of the Truth about you. Position rather than condition. There is a way to live and move with Jesus so that you are more concerned and focused on His opinion than anyone else’s.

And do you know what His opinion of you is?

I didn’t think so.

That is why we are always on the hunt. We don’t know, or believe, what the God of the universe has to say about us. We don’t know who we are, because we don’t know whose we are.

There is a childhood story about an ugly duckling. The plight of this duckling is that it did not look like the other ducks and so she was shamed and discarded and abused by the other ducklings in her flock. She tried very hard to be like the other ducks. But alas, she suffered terrible heartache because she was so ugly, or unlike, the others.

I think God would have us look more closely at the story as we look at His love. The problem of the story is not that the duckling was ugly.

The problem is that the duckling wasn’t a duckling at all.

It was something altogether MORE. So are you.

 The duckling failed to know, or believe the truth, because her only point of reference was the other ducks. She kept trying live up to their definitions. But she simply could not cut it as a duck.

There was a cure.

When the duckling saw what she really was, the truth of her definition, she no longer tried to be a duck. She could care less about the ducks. The glorious swan got a glimpse of what she really was, and what she was really becoming.

To be born in a duck’s nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan’s egg.

We don’t need to worry about being “ugly” ducklings. We are not ducklings at all.

Christ in you the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)

It doesn’t say the hope of being like everyone else. It doesn’t even say being puffed up about your glory. It declares, proclaims, announces:

Christ.

In you.

The Hope.

 Of Glory.

The Lord started telling me I wasn’t a duck. And over time I believed Him.

What is God telling you? Are you tired of trying to be a duck yet?

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 42

Let’s Get Real Here:

What is God telling you? Are you tired of trying to be a duck yet? What are the implications of being a swan? What would it take for you to believe God’s truth about you?

The Invisible Woman

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The other side of the False Woman is the notion of being the ugly one.

I call this non-sexualizing yourself. If you can hold up a sign that says, women are not for decoration, you have taken yourself out of the game. Okay forget the sign. But you see women like this everyday. They go to school or work. Some marry. Have children. Go to church. They are great people. It’s just that something is missing. If they only had half a face, it would make sense of how you feel in their presence. That deformity would explain why you feel there is another whole dimension to them as women that is missing. There is a part of them that they have tried to, or have been forced to, shut off. Their internal logic is: if I don’t look like a woman, I won’t have to feel like a woman, then you can’t reject me as a woman.

We all say we don’t care about all that beauty stuff, at one time or another. I think we try to convince ourselves that we don’t care. But the truth is we do care, only we feel we can never win the beauty game. So we quit, and try to become invisible.

 The Invisible Woman has a way of disregarding herself. Or maybe the word is dismissing. She believes she doesn’t count. She feels overlooked or ignored. Even absent.

We all go through seasons of feeling a little beat up with the ugly stick … but this is different. This is a way of life. The Invisible Woman has come to believe she has no womanly attributes of value. She believes this so deeply that she tries to accentuate or make up for her “lacking.”

My friend “Sally” is a perfect example. She told us her story once and said without blinking an eye, “I knew I wasn’t pretty but I was smart. So I learned that if I could make people laugh, they would like me anyway.”

I wanted to hold her and tell her what God thinks:

You are altogether beautiful, my darling,

And there is no blemish in you.

You have made my heart beat faster, my sister, my bride

You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes.

Song of Solomon 4: 7, 9

 I am not sure she would dare to believe it. Do you?

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 42

Let’s Get RealHere:

What do you believe about your womanly attributes, your value? What do you think of the Song of Solomon passage? Do you believe it’s for you?

So Here’s The Rub

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So here is the rub. If God made us and thinks we are beautiful, why are we not to make our lives about being beautiful?

 As with everything in the journey with Jesus, it is about our heart motive. We have one of two choices. To worship the created or the Creator. We can be led astray by the enticements around us which lead us to hypersexuality, idolatry, and despair.

Or we can follow the path of Jesus.

He said,  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)

Never forget that God looks at the heart. When there is an understanding of who we are, because of whose we are, the game is over. I take care of myself because it is a way of worship, a way of saying thank you to my maker. It doesn’t increase my worth. It just polishes the shine of a diamond. Of course you are beautiful. Of course I am beautiful. And, no I don’t need your eyes all over my body to confirm that. I don’t need your knowing smile of appreciation to make me tingle.

I knew the walls were falling one day when I pulled up to a gas station and saw the pack of males. In the past, I would have either made eye contact and smiled to draw their attention (Trophy Woman) or I would have ducked my head in shame knowing they would not notice me (Invisible Woman).

But that day, I got out of my car looked to the sky and smiled. “He delights in me,” I said out loud. I nearly skipped into the store to pay for gas. I was overwhelmed by love of the One True Beholder.

And the guys… I have no idea what they did. I totally didn’t care.

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 41

Let’s Get Real Here:

What do you think and feel when you read that God is your One True Beholder?

The False Woman

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Let me give you an couple of illustrations of the False Woman.

There was a photo I got by email. It The photo captures one lone woman, pale and plain, holding a sign that said, “Women are not decorations.” She is glaring at the short-short clad women in Hooters® tank tops standing right beside her. They are bronzed, dyed and pushed up. They look at her with mocking smiles, and pity.

The only caption was “Think she is jealous?

I looked a long, long time at that photo.

My first reaction was, no actually I am not jealous. I am sick. I am sick for both groups of women who have totally missed the point of being a woman. God’s woman.

The False Woman has two faces, or two ends of the spectrum. Most of us live somewhere on the spectrum. One face, or end of the spectrum, is like the Hooters® girl. I call this obsessive desire for beauty the Trophy Woman. The other face, or spectrum end I call the Invisible Woman.

The Hooters® girl has determined that it is only what’s on the outside that counts. She has to look “just so” to be considered a “Worthy Woman.” Her success is measured by her bust size, her waist size and how many heads she turns. So much so, she is paid to turn heads. Not only does she live for that look, she is prostituting her beauty, and gets paid to let guys look down her shirt.

Let’s revisit the email photo. The homely protesting woman has determined that it is only what’s on the inside that counts. She has bought hook, line and sinker that it is only about “Inner Beauty.” She’s decided all that fluff and primp effort is vanity. Somewhere she has believed that she can’t win at the beauty game, so she has quit the game altogether. Can you see her complete lack of effort is just an extreme opposite of the Trophy Woman’s obsessive effort? I have found when you dig a little with the Invisible Woman, just like in the Trophy Woman, there is almost always a gaping wound.

The Invisible Woman wears a mantle of heartache. Her face, her countenance, her posture, screams out unloved, unattractive, uninvolved, unaware of God’s original design of a woman. To somehow separate herself from the Trophy Woman lie, she goes to the opposite extreme.

When I talk about beauty God- style, it is not about denying it, but about embracing it.

 In this photo you can see the pain in the protestor’s eyes. Somebody somewhere told this woman that she was not lovely. And she believed that lie. When you see a woman who is un-tended to, I don’t mean no make-up, I mean un-invested in, un-cared for, you know who I am talking about, she is living out of a definition other than her maker’s.

Whether Trophy or Invisible, both women represent the same problem from the opposite ends of the spectrum called the False Woman. If we don’t live in God’s definition then we settle for the Hollywood cultural definitions of womanhood, we let ourselves be put in assigned boxes:

Got it,

Might get it,

Used to have it,

Never had it.

We have been put in these boxes, like it or not. So when we look around the room and see all the other boxes, we have to do something to make our assigned box seem like home. So we rationalize our health, our body structure, our genes, eating patterns, our drama and trauma stories, whatever it takes, to justify the box we have been assigned to. But guess what? All of these boxes are lies.

All of them. Lies.

Exerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 41

Let’s Get Real Here:

Where do you fall on the False Woman spectrum? Can you name the lies and wounds that hold you there? What do you think of beauty God-style?

What Did Jesus Do?

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Dr. Hagar wrote As Jesus Cared for Women and through that book he really flushed out some lies in my belief system. It was so refreshing to read the heart of a man who saw that Jesus didn’t look down on women. He loved them, restored them, elevated them, honored them, listened to them. Jesus didn’t try to put them in boxes. Jesus wanted them to be free.

He didn’t die so that they might be discounted and discredited as the weaker sex. He died to release them from the curse, from spending all their energy running after a man or from being ruled by one. He died so His women would be free to love Him, fully.

Have you ever considered how Jesus radically rocked the world in His treatment of women?

–The adulteress He forgave. But He looked down at the ground, instead of cruising her.

–The Samaritan woman He asked for water. He asked of her. That in itself was a gift, to interact with her as a capable equal rather than someone to be shunned. He offered her abundance instead of judgment.

–To the sinner who washed His feet with her hair, He defended her devotion in public and declared that what she had done for Him would be told for all eternity.

– To Martha, He first revealed that He was the Resurrection

–To Mary, He first appeared as the Risen Lord.

Is it possible that Jesus forgot that women were property? Forgot that the weaker sex was to stay behind a man?

Or did Jesus purposely turn the male order on its ear? Did Jesus clearly become the only man she was to stand behind? Her one true spiritual leader.

We have a Spiritual Leader. His name is Jesus. And He is really great at His job.

Of all the things a man can and should be, and all the things a woman can and should be, why put on labels and pressures that we were never meant to carry?

Perhaps this side of the cross, the woman and the man are to again co-rule as co-heirs. They are to stand side by side, arm in arm, under the banner, authority and love of Jesus Christ. Just as He said that the “two became one flesh and to let no man tear it apart,” this hope of oneness lies in the power of Christ working through each face of His image.  This union is about a God-created intimacy where both bring all they have to the table, male and female, and as one under Christ they live life and serve and further God’s kingdom.

Do you see that when we as man and woman both live in our original intent, with our definition and desire met in our maker, then there is a supernatural harmony in relationship? Instead of bossing or clawing, we are both restored to walk together in our journeys with God.

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 40

Let’s Get Real Here:

What would change in your life if Jesus was your spiritual leader?  Does it change the way you think of yourself to see how Jesus valued women?

True Desire

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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?

Whole Heart

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You know as well as I do that it was not the book, but the prayer.  You know also, it could have happened in a moment. Instead the Lord chose to take me back to the places where I lost it. Rejection, denial, anger, jealousy. Any of those bus stops sound familiar?

The Lord used this journey, the “scenic” route I had traveled, to birth a whole new understanding of what a woman is and is not, who she is and is not, because of who He is and is not.

Go read Psalm 139 again.

It is astounding to think that God thinks of us more often than there are grains of sand in the ocean. Do we really get that He knit us together? He made us. He loves us.

He made you. He loves you. Completely. Right now.

I have heard it said that when we lose sight of God we lose sight of the value of life. We then lose sight of the wonder of creation, and thus lose sight of the majesty of the Creator. The more we try to conform to each other and try to be the same, the more we miss out on the beauty of our God. The more we miss out on the beauty of our God, the more we miss out on our beauty as an expression of Him.

It works the other way around as well. The more I read my Bible, the bigger God gets. The more I see what He wants to do with and through His children, the more I see how He wants relationship rather than duty. Freedom more than boxes.

The more I understood freedom from God’s perspective, the easier it was to push out of the boxes that had enclosed me. Instead of walls, there was His glory as my glory. Beauty for ashes.

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 39.

Let’s Get Real Here:

What do you really think God thinks about you?  How would it feel to revisit some of those bus stops in the light of His truth?

What’s the Point?

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With our eyes set on glory, let’s take a look at God’s original design.

I had a haunting question about the point of male and female. I really wanted to know the purpose of a female. Was the purpose of a woman just to help the man? This is what I was taught, implicitly or explicitly. We are to have his kids, give him sex, clean his house, be his “helper.” And if that was really the sum total of God’s design then why did it feel like there was an untapped region in my heart? If God is for me, then why would God’s design hurt so much?

I wanted to know what was the original intent of the designer. What was God up to when He made the sexes?

How it is that the church never seemed to read Gal 3:28-29  which says:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

 Heirs? What promise? The cross reference of verse 29 takes you to Romans 8:

 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co‑heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

 What on earth does it mean to be co-heirs with Christ? To share in His glory?

As they say, inquiring minds want to know. And I needed to know desperately.

I inquired of the Lord. I begged Him to teach me, show me, reveal to me, help me figure out what He was up to. What was the original intent of the designer?

Please, tell me who I am. What were you thinking, when you thought of me?

What was I to do? All through the Scriptures the Lord tells us to seek Him, search for wisdom, ask for wisdom, look for understanding as if looking for treasure. Jesus said, “knock and it shall be opened to you, ask and it shall be given to you.” (Matthew 7:7-8) So it was no surprise that the Lord began speaking, in lots of places.

It began with the Silence of Adam by Larry Crabb. Then John Eldrige gave beautiful insight in his book Wild at Heart. The Lord used both of these books as pieces of my own puzzle. Eldrige ventured to say that there was more to us than we dared believe. It was water to my parched soul.

Then the Lord brought writings from Watchman Nee . They stirred up a spiritual hornet’s nest, buzzing around all that I had believed about myself and God.

In Romans 3:23 we read ”All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

God’s purpose for man was glory, but sin thwarted that purpose by causing man to miss God’s glory.

When we think of sin, we instinctively think of the judgment it brings; we invariably associate it with condemnation and hell.

Man’s thought is always of the punishment that will come to him if he sins,

But God’s thought is always of the Glory man will miss if he sins.

The result of sin is that we forfeit God’s glory.

The result of redemption is that we are qualified again for glory.

God’s purpose in redemption is

Glory.

Glory.

Glory.

Watchman Nee The Normal Christian Life page 104

Me? Glory? Are you kidding?

The Lord kept bringing truth to my soul. From the Word, from books, from leaders. Then came a pure gift of love. I read Waking the Dead by John Eldridge and prayed a simple prayer.

 God I want my heart back, my whole heart.

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 38.

Let’s Get Real Here:

How’s your heart?  Do you want it back?

Glory on the Horizon

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Dear Bog Family,

While the team and I are in Zimbabwe, I want to invite you to start asking the Lord about Glory.  His glory. Your glory. The glory that we pray will break out in Zimbabwe and cover us at home. 

We have a some fun postings set up for you and we’re  inviting you to dialog with each other on the site while I’m away.
Wonder what the Lord will stir up….?

For His glory,
 Jana

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.

Ezekiel 36:25-28

Take this heart of stone and make it yours. It really was that simple. And that hard. To take something as hard as a stone, my heart, and turn it into a heart of flesh — beauty for ashes, as it were.

Dwell on that a minute. Ashes. Burned beyond recognition. Substance and form reduced to charred, grey dust. Now think of something beautiful coming out of an ash heap. Something wonderful, breath-taking, confounding— out of a pile of ashes.

Who can do that?

God can.

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19 

Nothing thwarts the plans of God.

And what is His plan for us?

Beauty for ashes.

God uses many experiences, or tools, in life to persuade us to turn to Him. But often these “tools” look different from our expectations. We want blessing and favor. We want to be comfortable and safe. We want guarantees of success and privilege.

However.  This God is not concerned about comfort zones. He is zealous for glory, for righteousness, for holiness, for His image to be seen in His creations. (Isaiah 9: 6-7)

In our weaknesses, the grace of God blazes and His glory shines the brightest. Why?

Because any measure of self-sufficiency, self-worth and self-esteem has been burned up. Ashes. It leaves only His beauty to be adored.

What we call hard times, God calls release. Release from all that hinders us from being what He has created us to be. Christ in you the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)

It is the hope of God’s glory which fuels change. And this hope is based on the very great promises fulfilled in Christ. Christ is IN us. His glory IS IN us. Not by our doing but by God’s doing. There is an unveiling happening here. There is a transformation underway. There is an unleashing of glory on the horizon.

Unhindered.

Excerpts taken from Unhindered, Chapter 37

Let’s Get Real Here:

So as we explore glory, we look to the Creator to be our source, our motivation, our hope. And above all things, we look to Jesus to be the only one to define us. So who am I now and who are you? The Lord says we are beloved, crowned with glory and honor, sons and daughters of glory—His delight. Who do you say you are?