serve and trust
march 1, 2012. four months after november 1, 2011, the day i flew to quebec for three weeks. i love making note of specific dates. it’s not something i do consciously… “i must not forget when ____ happened on _____” – but those details stay with me. i like looking back & comparing to the present & thinking about the future. keeping exact dates in my mind mark that progress. i remember the jitters i felt flying out that day & i remember the excitement of landing at sunset.
three weeks: the longest i have ever been away from home. staying with three different people in three different homes over the twenty days. i was going to be alone, in montreal and quebec city, all day, everyday. the funny part was i didn’t even know “why” i was going. i just wanted to. i smile when i reflect back on those weeks. i am thankful for every day. i am thankful for every afternoon eating a lunch of dark chocolate, drinking coffee, reading through my bible, copying scripture into my journal. i am thankful for the incredible weather i experienced [cold and brisk and sunny!] i am thankful for the puffy black coat with fur-lined hood i wore each morning.
most of all, i am thankful God had a bigger purpose for those weeks than i ever imagined. there was one quiet evening [well, every night was a quiet evening but this one stands out as note-worthy] before my flight home. in quebec city, God spoke two specific, simple things to me: “Serve me and trust me.”
Serve me with your whole heart.
Trust me with your whole heart;
with your heart’s desires,
with your business,
with your relationships,
with your questions,
with your dreams.
Serve. Trust.
sounds easy enough. i love when i think i have God’s plans figured out. oh! this is awesome! three weeks to prepare for the wonderful winter you have for me. i am prepared, i am ready, i am excited. ya! i’ll serve you! ya! i’ll trust you. but my winter was not what i expected. it was a hard season. some days were dumb. i didn’t understand. some weeks were really painful. i was frustrated. the single most impacting piece of scripture throughout my Quebec trip was Psalm 37. i kept coming back to it again and again and i LOVED seeing how it lined up with this theme of “serving and trusting.” it has been my strength.
Psalm 37:3-7
Trust in the Lord, and do good; [SERVE!]
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. [STAY THERE! KEEP SERVING.]
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart. [TRUST HIM]
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act. [TRUUUUUST]
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday. [HE SAYS HE WILL. TRUST!]
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. [WAIT FOR HIM. TRUST!]
what i love about the promises of God is that they never fail. never. day after day the words “serve me & trust me” have echoed around my brain. okay. yes, serve. yes, trust. yes, i can do that this morning. and this afternoon? yes, i can do that this afternoon. and let me testify that He has been faaaaaaaaaithful. He has ways that are high above my ways and thoughts that are high above my thoughts. every day of my life continues to be the most incredible journey of faith.
i love living my life with God in every season. every low point is walked [or cried, hahah!] through with His love & every high point is enjoyed with His blessing. i would not have traded the last four months since november 1 for anything. they have been some of the most stretching and most rewarding as God has used them to continually shape me into the woman i’m called to be. i am happy. i am blessed. but better yet, i am joyful — because i have learned to trust Him more.
I’m thankful for those moments to, the ones that are quite and God talks to you unexpectedly!
Wow, Jamie, this is beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing what God’s been teaching you. It’s such an encouragement to me. I heard a man say yesterday, that God may not change our circumstances, but He has a plan and purpose with the circumstances we’re in. A plan. It’s a plan to glorify Him, and that’s the best part. :)
:)
Jamie! I love when you right about Jesus! Before I starting reading your blog entries, I thought it would be the best “business” decision to separate my life (with Jesus) and my photography business. For some reason, I thought that I would just represent Jesus in the way I interacted with clients and conducted my business, but when it came to writing about my faith on my site and blog, I wanted to leave that out. And that’s so silly!! The more and more I read about the way you see and experience life, I get wonderfully excited to live a life with Jesus in the center of all of it! (picture a bunch of watercolors seeping into one, beautiful, bright color!) All the parts of my life can overflow with each other! Thanks so much for your faith and your words! (your pictures are awesome too! HA!) And the best part is that I don’t even have to end this note with a “God Bless You” because you already experience His Blessing daily! PTL! In you, I’m reminded of Paul’s note to the Colossians!
Col 1
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant,[c] who is a faithful minister of Christ on our[d] behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,[e] 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you[f] to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
I couldn’t have said it better than post by Scott above ^^ Thanks for sharing your heart and inspiring me to run a Christ-centered business!
your beautiful heart and words encourage me so much! keep on speaking truth, lady! x
truth. truth truth truth. and just what I needed to read. :)
Yup Yup – You are great, He is awesome! Love you!
Jamie, thank you so much for writing this blog post. Everything you talked about here were things ican identify with. What an encouragement. Thank you!!
I am so glad to have stumbled upon this blog! Love your faith in Jesus and your photography!
Beautifully said. “Serve|Trust” is through my head now.
You have such a beautiful heart my friend. I love love LOVE this post and the many ways God has been encouraging and teaching you. Beautifully written.