Contradicting Love

So this past week has been good.. just like every single day.
I went on the DLA retreat with all of DLA to Breckenridge, Colorado.. what whatt??
It was really good. Really good worship and just fellowship and being in the Lords precense.
There was testimony time! Which was really intense.. basically getting vulnerable and telling people our stories, and our sin! It was amazing and freeing and like.. awesome basically. Because Jesus has redeemed all things!
You have no idea the depth and just how the enemy has dragged some people down. People have amazing stories of restoration, how God has redeemed and the magnitude of his love is so evident through lives displayed! It is amazing!

Jesus fights for each and every one of us so personally. When you get in a big group and we can all compare how broken we were before Jesus saved us.. to think of the amount of suffering there was to complete victory through the blood and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ is amazing.
Jesus fights for us individually and cares for each one of us so intimately and beyond understanding it is basically.. baffling? I don't have words to describe the amount of love that is displayed through his character.

I believe that some of us are not in the place that we would be without Jesus grace and mercy and the fight and battle that he is going through with us and the enemy.

I know that statement is one of the duh ones, but I really understand the POWER of our testimonies this weekend. "by the blood of the lamb and the word of our TESTIMONY we will overcome."
Yes! Yes! Overcome the enemy! Look satan, what you tried to throw at us and defeat us with but the LORD has already defeated it.. Jesus Christ died for all of our sin before we commited it.

We are pure and righteous and victorious through the blood of Jesus that never fails.

There is more about the power of testimony I could go into but if you have questions just ask me haha and I will go into further detail of the .. complexity of the love that God shows us. I really don't have words to describe anything just to sit here in awe of him. WOOOOO (its like that skit you know where like sin is pulling someone and then Jesus is on the other side pulling just as hard and then ends up protecting them. that is the power of our testimonies that we conquer all things through him who gives us strength.)

Okay so second point. The last morning of the retreat our leaders washed our feet. (If you haven't been a part of a foot washing ceremony do it, it is legit.) I had had my feet washed by leaders once before that was at CCU when the sophomores washed the freshmens feet! Which was so amazing and that they wanted to be our servants. It was humbling and just awesome. You are vulnerable when your feet are washed. We don't like feet really in our culture.. we are embarrassed of feet for some reason; however, that is why a foot washing ceremony is so powerful.
Someone is doing something for you that you wouldnt really want to do for others.

Alright so aside from my peers and core leaders washing my feet this weekend it really made me visualize Jesus washing his disciples feet.

Okay so this is where it starts to get crazy. I do NOT understand God at all. He is too perfect. I believe God's love contradicts itself.

Caught you, I mean contradict in the best way possible, in the way that I will never understand. Jesus is a servant and master. He is humble and strong. He is the beginning and the end. What else.. Lion and the Lamb.. uhmm let me get out my journals and see if i have anything else in there.
I wrote this the other day..

I understand the meaning of what paul was saying to "know this love that surpasses knowledge." in Ephesians. It is because God's love is uncomprehendable (I looked this up and realized uncomprehendable isn't a real word but its okay because it is uncomprehendable ;) Why would He send Jesus for us, why would He love the unrighteous.. when we turned away from Him, denied God in everything that we do, in sin turn away from us, He still sent Jesus to save us. He is the ultimate example and perfection of Love. It is perfect, it is pure. It is holy and extravagant, yet humble. God's love is contradictory or He is in a perfect balance of everthing. Master and servant.. it just doesn't make sense to us.

I can't understand how perfect and how God is everything.
I was talking with one of my friends Milbia.. and she told me she was just meditating on the Great I Am.
What does that mean. Yes!
"I am" is so general yet specific! It is anything and everything He is the beginning and the End and EVERYTHING in between. He is the GREAT I AM. I am glad the God we serve is BEAST.
Like and that God LONGS to spend time with us. He could go be like creating other planets and he just wants us to sit and dwell in his precense!

oh oh here we go. this is bomb. haha Ecclesiates.
EEEE!!! (again i drank coffee before this.. so the combo of caffeine and holy spirit is dangerous.)

Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from the beginning to end."
WE do not get it. We will not understand. I will never ever understand his love fully. This is the pursuit.
The pursuit of it. The pursuit of my Husband. To long for the face of the lord and dwell in the house of the lord all the days of my life!

Now we must spend time with Jesus alone. It is the base of our relationship, going to church in groups is great but you must have a solid foundation.

Ecclesiastes 8:3 "Do not be in a hurry to leave the king's presence."
just sit there. All we have to do to encounter God is shut up and listen. Just sit there and find the "peace in pure abandonment" and let that peace consume your mind and spirit. Just sit there the God of the universe is hovering all around you.

So, yesterday I fasted all day, because we are supposed to fast during the week.
I have been really really excessively hungry lately.. idk if that is because i am working out more often again or what.. but basically i really wanted to eat. But because I was fasting I was pressing into everything I had for strength through God.)

Okay and also.. so obviously I miss people from home and it has been hard to adjust to being away. And it is hard to not be talking to my best friend for a while. (I am talking about Blase, oh and if you are reading this by the way haha I miss you and you rule.. but anyway) So like I would miss him and think about him AT least once a day.. more like 10 seriously I feel like my memories are made up of things to do with him..
Like little stuff haha I see honey and I am like oh blase liked honey.. and the bees, and bread, and like haha being in breckenridge was hard. It is serioulsy a ton of stuff that hurts when I would think about it.

I had been praying for healing and to be satisfied with God. I can't do it on my own. So basically the point of all this is that I didn't think about Blase once yesterday! haha In a good way!
The reason why though is because I was so consumed with God. In everything it was basically focused on God yesterday.
And this is just an example that I understand again what it is to have FREEDOM through the Lord.

If you press in hard enough Jesus is right there. He has been there all this time just saying. Look, why aren't you looking I am calling you! would you quit longing for everything else because everything you need is in me. I am your husband you are my bride. I will love you for eternity, and past.

Anyway sorry if anyone felt uncomfortable reading this .. but my point is.. is that again..
Jesus breaks the chains of the captive and provides freedom.
Jesus is freedom. I didn't understand freedom.. we take it for granted in america. Jesus frees us from anything and everything.

So if there is anything that any of you may be struggling with today I suggest you seek God and Jesus with everything you have. Just press in intimately with Him. If all your focus is on Him you have no other time to think of anything else. He will meet you where you are.. have that child like faith that Jesus is holding you in his arms just waiting for you to turn to him! He is yelling out your name longing for you.. just like in the skit.

His love has no bounds. He loves you forever and ever, from beginning to the end, the first and the last days.
to accept that you will not ever understand his love because it surpasses knowledge. But to have that passion and hunger to find the lord.

Tonight I am going to be hearing from a couple who has been living in Mexico and is not allowed to be there for risk of losing their lives. They have witnessed limbs grow back and people being raised from the dead.

Call me radical. And crazy, but that is what we are throught Jesus Christ. Everything that is impossible suddenly becomes possible. Again ..
"to know this love that surpasses knowledge."
anway.. i am ecstatic for the Lord to reveal himself to me this year.
I love you all.. send me your prayer requests.
thats all.
-Mali