I am he who will sustain you.

"He delights to do the will of God- and that is true missionary motivation" (Hay, Isaiah and the Great Commission, pg 23)

Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. Isaiah 12:2

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. -Isaiah 46:4

he says:It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation   to the ends of the earth. -Isaiah 49:7

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. -Isaiah 55:8

And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant- these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. -Isaiah 56:6-7

My life goal is simply to make God smile. I have learned a lot about myself these last few weeks. One of my worse fears in life is letting people down. I will pretty much do anything to please others and I'm really hard on myself when I have done less than I could have. Along with letting people down, I also struggle with boundaries, and knowing when to say no. I don't mean physically boundaries (even though I am not a "rule-follower, by the book type person), I mean more with people, with my time, and with opportunities. 

When I was back in North Carolina at SIMStart, one of the meetings that we had was with a psychologist to go over 4 psychological exams that I had taken previously, submitted and now was getting the results. 4 tests all revealed that I can sometimes over trust people, I tend to avoid conflict by pleasing people and hide my struggles and hurt feelings hoping they will simply go away. It is really hard to admit my struggles, because deep down, I just want to please God. But what I'm realizing is by admitting my struggles, i'm one step closer to working through them and being more confident in doing what seems impossible now. 

So I definitely have some things to work on, but I know that as I reach out for help, place myself in situations that aren't always easy, I can grow. I can think of myself as a seed at the moment. In order for the seed to grow, it must be watered. And once it is watered, the seed makes roots, roots form a shoot which builds strength until it finally pushes through the soil. Once the shoot has grown above the soil, leaves begin to form and soon enough flowers or fruits are produced. I have a long way to go before I'm a flower, but then again this life is journey. Strength must be built with each new step that is taken and I look forward to seeing Jesus work in my life to produce a flower unlike any other. 

When I look at flowers, I see God's beauty. I smile at Jesus because of His creation and know that my constant acknowledgement of Him makes Him smile. There are a few versus at the beginning of this post from the book of Isaiah. I began a new book, probably will finish it very soon, it's pretty short, called Isaiah and the Great Commission: An Old Testament Study of New Testament Missions by Ian M. Hay. I am so in awe of who God is as I read through these versus and realize that I cannot even begin to imagine how big He is, how powerful He is, how holy He is, and on and on. My prayer is that as you read this, that you will stop and just sit in awe of who God is for as long as you can....keep going... :) Really, each verse in scripture is written through the power of the Holy Spirit, we hold in our hands the Word of God. God, this big, mighty, powerful being wrote a book so that we can know Him in our minuet ability, to be in relationship with Him, and provide a way for us to spend Eternity with Him. God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus all work together all the time and yet in their own unique way to bring sinners back to Him. I'm in awe, and just smiling at God for He is so uncomprehending. 

I cling to these promises in Isaiah tonight. That my God is my salvation, that He does carry me, that He desires to use me to spread His name to the end of the earth, and that as I walk this journey with Him, I must continue to remember His ways are not my ways and that He has a calling for me to go. Whatever that calling is, He will make it clear in His timing.