God Speaks

Post #2 on a series on God’s will. You can find post #1 by clicking here: “Love God and Do Whatever”

I guess for some people, it might be difficult to know how to just do whatever when you want to know exactly what God would have to say for your life. How can you just “trust God” and “have faith” if you’re not even sure if you’re doing this “loving God” thing right? STOP THINKING SO MUCH. As my mom told me a few days ago, “don’t use your brain too much it’s gonna cramp.” Okay, how about this. Think all your thoughts for God, like think about the cross/His love=His being/how amazing He is but stop thinking so much about what tomorrow holds because you forget to live in this very breath. This moment. Be alive in THIS moment! So when you just think about Him all the time, you’ll discover that you’re falling deeper and deeper in love with God and it’ll be awesome!

I highly recommending trying the not thinking so much thing, but seriously, people ask me a lot about how I hear God’s voice after I tell Him what He’s doing in my life or what He’s told me about my future. They wonder I guess from the way that I talk about Him…. why are you talking about God like He’s a friend that you just chat to or text frequently? How do you know that’s Him? Is that what intimacy looks like? Why don’t I hear His voice? Do I hear His voice? Am I doing something wrong? AHHHH

Yeah please don’t freak out. Sophomore year, one of my staff introduced to me this idea of intimacy. That He’s not just my Bestie, but my Lover. Whoa there. That must mean I should really know the guy well with all this intimacy! Well, it’s true. After that, I really dove into this fully committed, vulnerable, passionate relationship with the King, the Bridegroom. So naturally, I talk to Him a lot. From the outside, I am an absolutely CRAZY person who talks to herself while walking around, showering, eating, going to sleep, all of those everyday activities. A crazy person who believes that she is talking to some transcendent being who lives inside of her and makes her happy all the time. Yeah. It sounds crazy. But it’s real. I have never known anything so tangibly real and powerful in my existence. Now…He IS my existence. He’s my breath. He’s my heartbeat. He’s my everything and it’s crazily beautiful.

I don’t hear a big booming voice coming from the heavens telling me, “Dearest Anisha, why are you doing that? You must follow my commandments and be a good steward of the good gifts I have bestowed upon you!” Like seriously, I don’t know that guy. That does not sound like a fun friend or Dad to have. I hear my cool friend Jesus say “Anisha. What are you doing. You know that I wouldn’t have told you to do that if it wasn’t for your good! Why do you think I gave you the gift to love if I didn’t trust you? You got this!” I don’t hear a special voice that distinguishes my “Anisha talking to herself” voice and God. It’s just…a voice in my head that I know isn’t me anymore. It’s a voice that says stuff I would never say to myself. It’s a voice that is kind, gentle, loving, and patient. He’s like me and I’m like Him. So I’m not going to hear a voice that makes me uncomfortable….His voice to Anisha is going to be special and specific to me. Hey, the way He talks to you might be completely different and that’s COMPLETELY OKAY. That’s the point of intimacy. Maybe He’s sassier to you! It’s different for you and for me in the way it looks in the details, but overall, it’s just a beautiful intimate friendship. Like lately, Jesus has been trolling me a lot. If you don’t know what that means, He basically is annoying me for my good. “God trolls for the good of those who love Him” is my interpretation of that verse right now. When I see what He’s doing, sometimes all I can do is laugh because I see how ridiculously awesome God just set it up and accept it the best I can for the moment. It’s usually a good sign when you think you’re crazy for thinking that….that’s usually God.

When your best friend or mom or someone who you know really well calls you on the phone and if you didn’t have caller ID, you’d know who it was immediately right? You would just know who it was because of all the time you’ve spent with them, hearing their voice, knowing how they talk, etc. It’s the same with God! The more time you spend with Him, the more you recognize and know His voice. Reading the Word also helps because you learn how He speaks there. This is so important because there’s also a liar who plants and speaks lies to you that he hopes you will believe if you’re not grounded in Truth. If you don’t know who you are as a child of God, satan can easily trick you that you should feel shameful or angry or whatever so that you turn away from the Good Shepherd who you should be running to! Ah! Don’t let that happen! Check out John 10: 1-18. It’s good. See, the sheep know the Shepherd’s voice. They recognize the stranger’s voice but choose NOT to follow it. Just because you know God doesn’t disqualify you from satan’s whispering lies. Last year when I got depressed because of sex trafficking, I was listening to the enemy’s lies because I hadn’t learned how to recognize and not listen to it. He was telling me to stay depressed and that there was no hope ever. False. Now I recognize him very quickly because his voice is very demanding, chilling, annoying in a BAD not playful way, unloving. Don’t get scared (perfect love casts out fear)! Just learn to recognize the kind, gentle, and loving voice of your Father.

Don’t think you’ve ever heard from God? This is simply false. You would not even have faith in Jesus if you had never heard it first! If you had never had the open ears to hear about this free gift of faith and grace, you would not even care about how to hear His voice. YOU DO. You have heard Him. I promise. Just be still and know He is God. Yes, it can be challenging to just sit and soak in His love. Try though! Have you thought about how maybe if you shut up sometimes with all your complaints and requests maybe you’d hear what God had to say for once? Sorry if that’s harsh, but seriously. Give Him space to talk! If you had a coffee date with your friend, it’d be kinda selfish for you to say, “hey let’s catch up!” and you just blabber the whole time telling him/her about all your problems, worries, thoughts, ponderings and after you finish you just peace out. That’s kinda what you’re doing in prayer if you don’t let God have a chance. That’s where this whole relationship part comes in. Sometimes I just ask God, “how are you?” and He’s like “I’m good, how are you?” and we go from there.

So if something sounded difficult here, I promise, it’s not. When people ask me how I hear God’s voice or how I know it’s Him, I struggle to answer because that’s like asking me how do I know my mom is really my mom. Like…I just know. She’s my mom. How do I know it’s God? Because He’s just my Daddy. Is there really any more need for explanation? He rocks me to sleep and strokes my hair and holds my hand and skips in green pastures and spoons with me before I sleep and and and all the great things the Bestest Daddy would do. So just let Him. When you want to know Him, which I am assuming you want to if you’re reading this (and frankly, that is everyone in the world whether they realize God is the one they want), He reveals Himself. He revealed Himself fully in Jesus, so this is all very easy. It’s already done, just receive the gift and enjoy it! He wantssss you to get to know Him better and wantssss to whisper in your ear about how much He loves you, so just let Him! When you do that, then you’ll know His voice, and then you’ll better understand what His will is for your life and how He’s super chill about it

Okay. I feel like I was more unhelpful and made it sound “easier than it actually is.” Maybe that’s exactly what you’re thinking now as this post ends. Well. I am gonna trust Jesus spoke and that my future posts will further illuminate this for you after you’ve tried for yourself what all this could mean for YOU and Jesus. Not trying to apply what Anisha and Jesus have specifically, but just being YOU with Jesus and seeing what fun you have. So go forth and be merry! WEE!

Something Jesus wanted me to add to my blog is a new feature where you guys can submit questions you have for me if anything I say confuses you, provokes you, etc. that you don’t want to ask publicly via the comments. You can ask me about God, life, more details of a story, whatever! I will do my best to email you back promptly. You can email anishastands@gmail.com.

Recognize the Truth that lives inside of you! You’ll hear Him, I promise.

Love God and Do Whatever

Post #1 at tackling God’s will.

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a few months. God’s timing I guess is now so here goes!

I hope you all know that I love you all soooo much because when I say “I love you” it’s actually not my love but rather Jesus living in me. The love I have is an overflow of Jesus! Whatever I say here, you should chill with God and see what He says for you! This is my understanding and it has worked for me. I do say the stuff below though because I love you guys.

St. Augustine said, “Love God and do whatever.” This is how I essentially understand God’s will.

Oh yes, it is important for us to have a vision for our future with God’s leading. However, I think the emphasis on discerning God’s will is long overshot. Why do I hear people talking about figuring out what God’s will is for their life more than I actually hear them talking about God Himself and the amazing things He has done on the cross? Okay, I don’t know everyone’s hearts. I wonder though, what if we really trusted God and had a healthy wondering about the future instead of distressing whether we should go this way or that? If that were the case, I think the way people talked about discerning the will of God would not annoy me so much (sorry but it’s true at times).

I heard a sermon on the will of God that I partially agreed with. It sparked a lot of these thoughts but it didn’t really emphasize how I have the mind of Christ now. (1 Cor 2:16) That yes, I definitely do not understand all of God but that’s what eternity is for. To get to know Him better every day. So yeah, I do hear His voice and think His thoughts for me and the thoughts He has for others because I have the mind of Christ. There are mysteries about God, but ultimately, the mystery was revealed in Christ.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ -Ephesians 1:7-8

Oh. That says the mystery of His will was revealed in Christ. So…. if I love Jesus….I’m in His will right? I think then I can know God’s will as revealed through Christ. I’m not saying I will matter-of-fact always know what God’s will is for everything ever, but I do think that is what we should reach eventually as we discover the privilege we have through Jesus, the ultimate mystery revealed.

That sermon I referred to earlier did say how we shouldn’t distress over decisions at times when God just wants us to step forward in faith. Just go! The example was something like, “God! Should I wear the blue shirt or the red shirt?” God replies “whatever you want. both are great.” “But God! I need to know what your will is!” Yeah that shouldn’t happen. That’s silly. I forget where I read this example now but when a 5-year-old asks his dad if he can go outside to play, he should truly trust in his dad’s decision because dad probably knows better for the kid’s safety and well-being. But if a 20-year-old on a college campus calls dad if he could go outside to play frisbee with his friends, the dad this time is going to ask the son if he got hit in the head for calling about such a silly decision. “Son. You know how much work you have on your plate and whether you have time to play frisbee. I raised you to have the wisdom to make those decisions for yourself.” Insert Papa God for dad in the above scenario. Get the picture?

Let’s be childlike. Not childish. Let’s laugh. Play. Have fun with Daddy/Papa God/Best Friend/Everything You Could Ever Want in a Person. While we have fun, you still need to make a decision and just step forward in faith (a faith that is actually a gift from God). This journey/adventure with God is a free gift for freedom. It’s awesome!!!!!! Just fly!!!!!

So. Love God and do WHATEVER. God ISSSS LOVE. So Love LOVE.

“We are never out of His will if we are in love with Love” -Anisha surprising herself in a texting conversation

Maybe it’s like we are on a highway. God wants us in a certain lane that is like the car pool lane, straight and narrow, quick to the destination. Sounds good! We don’t want to be in the lane with too much traffic, or take an exit too early, or wander off into the ditch, or hit a guardrail. But guys. God is a tender, compassionate, loving Father who won’t let us waver in the storm if we are founded on the solid Rock that is Jesus. Whatever happens, you’re going to feel like you’re in cruise control because He’s there. He NEVER leaves. The world is telling you that you should be worried and confused and wondering why all this bad stuff is happening to you, but you won’t care. Why? You are ON A ROCK. HOW CAN YOU BE SHAKEN? Your identity is as a child of God. Daddy’s got you safe and secure. On that highway, you’re gonna get to the destination somehow. Even if you do take an exit too early or hit traffic, you somehow arrive don’t you? As long as your car is working, you’ve got enough gas, and you have a goal in mind?

So what if our goal is simply to love God? Let’s just enjoy the ride. Instead of fixating upon which lane to get in, when to change lanes, calculating every tenth of a mile left in the drive, let’s chill. Let’s look at the clouds. Let’s observe the people in the surrounding cars (without causing an accident hehe) and love on them. Maybe that looks like leading the way for a bit then happily watching them find their own wings. Maybe that’s not getting angry when they cut you off because you love them to such a ridiculous amount.  Let’s enjoy the company of the people in the car with us. Look at the trees, the mountains, the colors of the signs on the highway. ENJOY THE RIDE.

[aside: wow this is fun writing this. Always playing with Daddy because He lives inside of me! Well I've already hit 1000 words so I'm going to start wrapping up now....other posts about this will definitely come!]

So maybe we shouldn’t be worrying so much about God’s plan for our lives! What if the way you are asking God about your career path or your relationship status has been about knowing God’s plan but what if it’s really just about God’s preferences? But He makes it all work for the good of those who love Him, right? Simply, I think God’s plan for our lives is to BE LOVED by Him. Let Him love you. When you do that, you can’t help but love Him back. Then you just do whatever! okay? okay

Life with God shouldn’t be such a burdensome day by day wondering of where God’s gonna take you. It should be a joyous breath by breath living and breathing for the One who gave it ALL!

[God's will posts to come: how this has looked in my own life, how I hear the voice of God, how the enemy might try to mess up the 'plan']

I LOVE YOU GUYZEZ

For once I don’t know what song to put so I’m just gonna put one that makes me very giggly and happy and I usually end up cuddling or spooning with Jesus when I hear this

Simple

Oh dear I haven’t written a proper blog post in a long time and there’s so much I want to write about. Ah. Mongolia feels like it happened 3 years ago. Maybe even 4 now that school has started. Power and Love conference was such deep revelation and truth that I finally know I am completely free to be who I want to be. Tufts University is getting ROCKED by LOVE (God) and it is so much awesomeness. I am perpetually excited inside and the Holy Spirit is helping me know when to let it out and when to just let it sizzle like a fire ready to burst into flames.

I asked God what I should write about, but then He just asked me the same question right back. So I’ll start with that. It’s called relationship. A personal and deeply intimate relationship with God, the Creator of the Universe who thought of and loved me before the foundation of the world. BOOM. Mind blown every time I think about it. Please get this. The intimacy I have with God is not something that only Anisha can experience, YOU CAN TOO because He values you so much. The stories I’ve been telling on my testimonies page are not just for ‘anointed people’ or ‘people God chose to do that stuff’ or whatever. We are all chosen for these purposes. To glorify God through loving people as we love ourselves because ultimately, GOD LOVES US! WEEEEEE! If you haven’t surrendered your life to Jesus, that’s okay! He loves you! His love never flinches when He thinks about you. Even if you’re not sure about Him, He is sure about you. He believes in you and can’t help but think about you and gaze upon your beautiful face. You have probably heard that the cross just reminds you of how sinful you are. You were born into a sinful state of complete self-consumption and pride. After eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve lost their focus on God’s goodness and love and immediately thought of themselves. I think sin really comes down to selfishness. Jesus said to deny YOURSELF. So we must get in the way a lot. God asked Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” even though He knew. He desires you to be vulnerable with Him in a relationship. He wasn’t upset at Adam but rather tried to shift their focus off of themselves by helping them clothe themselves and reminding them of who they were. Isn’t that beautiful? He sent His son to restore us to our original nature of just purity in relationship with God. Doesn’t mean we don’t get tempted by our human nature. However, that nature dies when you surrender to Jesus. He died so that we could be free. WHOM THE SON SETS FREE IS FREE INDEEDY! He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross. That is not completely a revelation of how much he hates sin. It’s a revelation of our value as lost sons and daughters. He hates what that sin does to His children.

As I talked about in the first posts of 2012, I knew that Jesus had proved His faithfulness to me when He didn’t have to during my past few years at Tufts. My response? 2012′s resolution was to be obedient. If I trust God’s faithfulness, it made sense that I would naturally just obey. I’ve been reminded of this resolution I made recently. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” -Luke 18: 16-17. This verse has made me wonder about whether I am like a child. Do I have child-like faith? During the last part of the summer, God told me that He loves how I am like a child when I am with Him lately. Once I had a vision of just frolicking in a field with Jesus, as a child. You know when you are laying down on your back, put your feet on a small child’s chest and pick them up on your legs and pretend to fly them on an airplane? If that made no sense, I’m sorry if that sounds slightly torturous. I promise that some kids love it. Well, I saw Jesus taking me on an airplane ride. In my small mind, I was like…. I’m heavy… how is this possible…. hahaha. That’s when I realized it was like my spirit, my child-like spirit, was what he was lifting. As I type this, it feels strange… but yeah, I think I understand a little more about what it means to receive God’s love like a child. Like a daughter sitting in her Daddy’s lap and just letting Him cuddle her, letting Him kiss her head, and letting Him just gaze upon my face and never look away. I will try to describe something else…. imagine a person laying on their belly with their palms under their chin and fingers wrapping around their cheeks. The kind of thing you imagine when someone might be gazing at something in the distance or something. Well, that’s how I see Jesus every time I close my eyes lately. I just see Him in that position, just gazing upon my face and smiling. Never looking away. Always with me.

So now that I’ve explained that, I didn’t anticipate this child-like faith to lead to child-like, simple obedience. I’ve had two instances recently which are both exciting decisions that normally would have been complicated decisions. Ones requiring me to weigh the options and carefully consider it. Well I guess I have a new normal.  It’s SO MUCH EASIER to just obey. John 10 is a parable that came to life for me this summer which is for a later post, but man, hearing God’s voice is a powerful thing. Everyone hears Him, it’s just whether you realize it’s Him. Man, John 10 is so beautiful. I’ll write about it soon I hope. I am Jesus’s sheep, so I recognize His voice and follow it obediently. Not because I have to, but because I trust that He has the best intentions for me so that I will thrive. He loves me and knows me. Doesn’t mean that the stranger (the enemy/the devil) doesn’t try to lead me elsewhere, but I choose to run away from it back into the arms of my Good Shepherd. Oh this is so beautiful.

1. This summer, my dad had been asking me to have a serious talk with him about post-grad plans but I was totally not prepared for that because I hadn’t chatted to God about it yet. I wasn’t worried (incapable of worry/stress for a while now) or really active about figuring it out with God. I wanted to remain in Boston to finish up my pre-med classes before going to medical school, but my dad wanted me to go back home to Alabama to do those classes. At Summit (pre-semester conference with my fellowship), I was just chilling with God. I wasn’t asking about it, but…

God: You’re going to go home after graduation.

Me: oh. okay, why?

God: It’s your dad’s time.

Me: !!!! of course I’ll go! and what do you mean by that?!

God: Your father cannot see how much you are being transformed by Me by only having random 2-minute conversations every once in a while, He needs to see you live it out.

Me: !!!! well… what about my friends?

God: you have your Best Friend with you all the time don’t you?

Me: hahaha, I know. you’re right.

WAAAAA!!!! SO EXCITING. Many people have been praying for my dad (who’s Muslim) ever since we met Jesus that he would surrender his life to Jesus as well, so this is absolutely tremendously super duper exciting. I called my dad shortly after returning to campus and he was surprised because he didn’t anticipate me budging so easily. I hadn’t told my mom yet about this (which is unusual) so when my dad told her she started defending my position to remain in Boston. Haha! Then when I told her it was God, she just told me how proud she was that I obey God without hesitation and how blessed she felt to have a daughter like me. Man, I am blessed to have a mom like her. So. I’M EXCITED TO BE A LIGHT TO MY HOUSEHOLD! Especially since this will probably be the last time I’m at home for an extended period with med school and hopefully marriage in my near future, I am excited to see what God has in store for this next season.

2. In terms of serving my fellowship, I remember saying last semester that I didn’t want to serve officially my senior year. I was excited about that and these first two weeks have been quite freeing to just be a member of TCF without the usual responsibilities. Then I started to realize I kept envisioning myself in certain situations where I was hanging out with freshmen, or wanting to tell freshmen things about my walk with God, or wanting to tell freshmen that I didn’t want to be a distant, scary senior who didn’t want to walk with them. So I asked God if this was more than just being a senior friend to the freshmen. He said yes, so I joined the freshmen ministry core team. God didn’t stop putting these thoughts in my head about formal leadership though, so I asked a few questions of my sister who is leading freshmen ministry. I determined to spend Saturday afternoon talking to God about this, so I allotted a bit of time for this. I sat down, became still before God, and told Him that I was ready to hear what He had to say. Within literally two seconds:

God: you need to be a leader.

Me: okay.

SIMPLE OBEDIENCE HUH. I surprised myself even. Simple. Came out of my love for Jesus and my trust in His plan for me and this fellowship. I knew that was His voice, so why spend more time questioning it when it’s just EASIER to just go when He says go. So that night I was officially invited and realized how FUNNY God is. I was so not expecting official leadership for this year, but here I am! Being an answer to my sister’s prayer without realizing it. See. Obedience has many more implications than just for your own life. Very excited to serve and get to know these beautiful freshmen. To love on them and be a light there with an awesome leadership team. The next day was the first time I actually tried to figure out what exactly I had on my plate and how my schedule would look. To no surprise, everything’s perfect. It’s a joy to do this and I’ll be able to handle it because GOD KNOWS what He is doing!

It’s really all quite simple. LOVE. Let God love on you. Then when you slowly realize the magnitude of his love, you will learn to love God with your entire being. You will see yourself as He sees you and you’ll love yourself like crazy. When you know how He sees you, then you’ll realize He loves everyone that same way. THAT enables you to see others as God sees them and love THEM as God loves them because GOD IS IN YOU. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

A great song.