It's no secret that Sundays are my favorite. They are a beautiful pause for me, a time to savor the Sabbath that God took, ordained, and continues to bless. There's something about Sundays that make my time in the word and in my life that much sweeter. Also, this is going to be long. Please, if you have the time, read it all. I'm so excited about everything I'm about to share with you!
10/11 8am power w/Caitlyn
Mercy. This morning, I knew my intention well before I ever made it to the studio. I read Nehemiah, and chapter 9 really struck a chord with me. It's a telling of Israel's history with God - how they wander, He retrieves them, and they thank Him with rebellion as He remains faithful. But He never gives up on them.
They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, "This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt" and had committed great blasphemies, you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for your thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. Nehemiah 9:17-21
The people demonstrated a lack of faith by failing to trust God as God. But their faithlessness did not diminish God's mercy towards them. Verses 30-31 say, Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prohpets. Yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God. I don't know about you, but I've definitely pursued things that literally could have killed me, not to mention the spiritual deaths I've flirted with. And I pursued them not in ignorance, but with the knowledge that Jesus came to save sinners! But God because He is rich in mercy has chosen to pass over my former sins and look only at the righteousness of Christ. I am aware of the death I deserved and didn't get. Practicing yoga helps me experience the great mercy God shows in giving me physical life to live every day, and points toward the eternal life I have in Christ forever.
Eternity is not for later. Emily Freeman, Simply Tuesday
10/11 5:15 power w/Josh
I know I already prefaced the entire post as being long, but if you've made it this far, I have something to tell you: this half is even longer. Sorry! But it's important to me and my heart.
Bone of my bones. I was so moved by today's Sunday sermon, Genesis 2. The emphasis was on imago dei: human beings made to image their Creator God. Do you know how the first man was made? God breathed life into dirt. Isn't that the most wonderfully crazy thing you've ever heard? You are here because God breathed, and it was so. But even more striking to me, perhaps because I am a woman, is the crafting of Eve's body, soul and life. God could have made Eve anyway He wanted - He made Adam out of air and dirt, after all! He's God, He can do anything! But God, desiring to show His glory in the complimentary nature of man and woman, took a rib from Adam's side, and used it to create Eve.
When Adam woke, He recognized her as his ideal companion: another person, yet a different kind of person, perfectly designed to compliment him. He was so taken with her that he responded to the sight of her in poem:
This at last is bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called woman,
because she was taken out of man.
Genesis 2: 23
Bone in the Hebrew has a special connotation deeper than the physical entity. It's about the Spirit, and the soul. The work of the God of the universe is alive in your very bones! How do you not rejoice in that?! When I think of Adam responding to Eve, his wife to be, I see how God specially crafted women for intimacy, for wonder, for beauty. And the man compliments her nature with his own. Intense, genius, glorious beauty.
What does this have to do with my practice tonight, you ask? We all bring thoughts and feelings and experiences with us to the mat, and tonight, all this was my inspiration. As I moved and breathed, I imagined God breathing life into His first image-bearer. I stretched and felt life in my bones, living the connection with that first woman, hand-fashioned out of a rib. In yoga, we have the opportunity to create art with our bodies, flesh of our flesh. And as we continue to press in to the wonder, to the beauty, to the art of it all, we might find ourselves expressing something deeper, the glory of God all the way through our bones, our very souls.
Here's some of the art I created tonight: I haven't really worked this one in awhile, but the last time I did, I couldn't quite get into it. So I haven't been here since August. Tonight, inspired by breath and bones and flesh and ribs and life by God and live in God, I found it again.
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The first thing we know about God is he made art. What is the first thing we know about people? We were made in the image of God. Emily Freeman, A Million Little Ways
The art you and I were born to make is released out of the core of who we truly are, where our spirit is joined in union with the Spirit of God. Any movement coming from that place reflects the glory of God. This is our highest purpose, and ultimately our greatest joy. Freeman
You were designed to reflect the glory of God, and when you released the fullness of who you most deeply are, we will see God because we're finally seeing you. Uncovering your art is about waking up. Freeman
Listen to that ^^ while reading these:
Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
"This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man"
Therefore a man shall leave leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Genesis 2:18-24
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered, "O Lord God, you know." Then he said to me, "Prophecy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord." Ezekiel 37:1-6
And now, if you've made it this far, congratulations, and thank you. This is the stuff that makes me happy and full and perfectly content in my heart of hearts.
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