Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.

Luke 12:32

The kind of life I want is a kingdom kind of life.

I want to live free of fussing and worry and angst and tense shoulders. To so trust the Father that every day is new and fresh. I want to wake up every morning with a smile of delight on my face because I know He has good things planned for my day.

I want to live free of fear, not because there’s nothing to be afraid of, but because I know His pleasure in me. I want to know with a knowing that permeates my being that His thoughts towards me are generous and grace-filled, that He sees the truest part of me.

I want to please Him and therefore be able to take both the threat and the reality of displeasing other people in stride. To know that it is only His favor that matters, and that if I do that, He can handle everyone else.

 I want to live, not as a perfectionist-performer people-pleaser, but as a worshipper-listener-delight-filled God-pleaser.

I want to have a plan to order my projects, but to be free to step away from the plan when the Father taps me on the shoulder and says, “I need you to do something different today- to be My hands and feet and presence to one who needs Me.”

I want to live free of all the should’s that bind me tight, and relish, instead, a life of get-too’s.

I want to be sent out by Jesus like the seventy He told about in Luke 10, and return as they did: “with joy” and in awe of what God can and will and does do when we set out on the assignments given us by God.

 I want to dream big dreams that are all about Jesus and not at all about me.

I want to so thoroughly grasp kingdom truth that I do no measure my success by accolades and bank accounts, but by the uncanny reality that the God of the universe is with me every moment of every day. And that He actually, really, truly… adores me.

Selah.

I want to see and know and feel that every day is a gift, that my hours belong to Him, that there is a great crowd of people who are counting the days until I slip from this earth and into the presence of the One I live for. That they’re excited for me to get there because they love me and like me and want me to experience what they already know and I still barely grasp.

 I want time.

Time to work and time to rest and time to interrupt it all to enter into my people’s joys and sorrows. Time to write poetry, to craft stories, to spill words from my life. I want time to sing and bake cookies and plant a garden and go on long walks.

 And I want my story to count, because it’s God’s story.

I long for people to know…

what He does even when we don’t deserve it,

how He cares even when we can’t quite bring ourselves to believe it,

how He speaks even when we can’t or don’t or won’t hear.

It is this kingdom kind of life my deepest soul and truest self longs for, and it is this kingdom kind of life my Father is pleased to let me live.

 May you, dear ones, enter in to this kingdom— this place of indescribable beauty, unshakeable peace, and unending delight.

 May this place be your home.

From my heart,

Diane

P.S. My book, He Speaks In The Silence is now available for pre-order.  This is where I tell my whole story, more than I'd ever thought I would.