THIS WEEK I am starting my second year of college, getting ready to dive into the four new classes that start in a couple days. I just came home from an awesome Christian dance party with the best friends I have ever had, and my feet hurt. I feel blessed.
This past week I was at a Spirit-filled retreat with other students from all over Florida. We were there to be trained and taught about evangelism, discipleship, and just loving people. We became such close friends so fast. It's beautiful how people can be unified when we are parts of the body of Christ. And it's exactly the same with us at school. We are all celebrating the same God together.
So far this year, God has repeatedly replaced my plans and given me opportunities to grow closer to Him and to the people He has put in my life. Time after time, there was something I wanted to do with Him that He would switch out for something else I hadn't considered. The result is that I have grown and seen more this year so far than I ever have before.
It reminds me of Jeremiah 33:3, one of my life verses: "Call to Me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known."
For example, I planned to go to the huge Campus Harvest convention in North Carolina that I went to last year. I love the passionate worship and the prayer and fellowship. Speakers come and give glorious testimonies to God's power to save, and we all leave wanting to give God our all. But it was too expensive for me this year, and it conflicted with other things. So God opened up the opportunity to go to the CRU Women's Retreat instead. He is so infinitely wise. He knew that it would be exactly what I needed to see an area where I was falling short. I didn't understand the depth of his love, and so I was feeling lonely. Now when I think about Him, I think of the ocean and how He wraps us up in more love than we know what to do with. He softened my heart in a way that made me rely on Him more completely than I think Campus Harvest could have.
Then summer came, and I didn't get to go back to Peru on a mission trip like last year, to see the people I met there and go witness to students. I was very disappointed. It just wasn't feasible for me at the same time as the school year was ending. Instead I found myself on a different team, leading a team of children in a Vacation Bible School first at my home church and then in Miami. The testimonies from Peru blew me away. A blind boy received sight, and God saved a lot of souls. But I got to meet Adam, a six year old who could understand that he and Jesus were separated, and who was so overjoyed to learn how that separation could be fixed. I got to talk to little souls and see how precious they are, and understand how God sees us, and my faith became more like a child's - persistent and dependent. He takes care of us.
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declared the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
It kept happening. I wanted to get a job or an internship for the summer, but I couldn't get a hold of one. So I went to volunteer in my neighborhood one day and ran into one of the women in charge, who asked about my major. When I said that I study architecture, she connected me to a volunteer position with the neighborhood preservation group, which effectively became like an intership for me. I got to see old files on buildings in my own area, most close to a century old. It's something I can put on a resume, not to mention a terrific learning experience.
Now, instead of being able to make it to CRU's Leadership training days this week, which I would have loved to be a part of, I got trained in discipleship at a different retreat, got prephesied over, and by God's grace leapt over the walls that have kept me from carrying this message to people more actively. I finally see that God is not waiting for me to be "able" but "available," as one of the pastors explained. And again, instead of living where I planned with three friends from my life group, which would have been awesome if there had been room for us, I have "accidentally" ended up directly across the hall from my new friend who just became a Christian during the Spring! Time after time, my ideas are good, but God's are better. And I end up being blessed much more by things not working out my way.
Now I'm back at school with a great sense of expectation. But of what exactly, I'm not sure. You see, I know God is going to keep doing these things - setting up divine appointments, changing my plans, straining beauty out of frustrating circumstances. I know He is going to save people and keep training us in how to reach our friends with the Gospel. But I know that the way He is going to do it is much better than any picture I have in my head of what it looks like for salvation to sweep over the campus. Our job is to deepen our relationships with people to the point that we are not completely comfortable, make sure they know they are loved, tell them the story of the way the Savior saved us. He asks us to jump on board, because He is already at work on something new and surprising.
Romans 8:28 "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose."
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
The Finish
THIS WEEK was the second week of the Olympics, which I think is a great accomplishment on the part of the world. There's a lot of evil and conflict in the world, and it's beautiful to me that every few years we can put wars and racism aside and be united in healthy competition. It's something the whole earth can enjoy together. I often found myself rooting for other countries' heroes because they were doing great things and breaking records not only for their nations, but for humanity. Things no human has ever done quite so well. Things we can all celebrate.
The foot races were among my favorite events, and I learned a lot from what I saw. They represent the one of most ancient Olympic events, the ones the Greeks competed in thousands of years ago.
Paul used this kind of race as a symbol for how to live the Christian life. If we are honest with ourselves and with Jesus, it isn't an easy and worry-free thing to be a Christian. It is a constant effort whose success lies in each step we take, relying completely on our Lord. Jesus didn't come to make life easy, but so that we would have life and have it to the full. Persecution is involved. We are challenged to face the neediness that we are so deeply disinclined to accept.
One of the most amazing things I saw in this Olympics was a 4 x 400 relay in which a Manteo Mitchell actually snapped a bone at the beginning of his leg of the race, yet continued running despite the pain as if nothing were wrong. He ran and passed his baton to the next runner, and the American team finished very well. He did have to be replaced for the races afterward, but he did not let his team down. He did what he was sent to do.
2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
As family in Christ, we rely on each other to each do what we have been called. God's will is done whether we cooperate or not, but He has given us a job to do. It is a blessing to get to run in this race and strive to live the life He has called us to. Because absolutely anything is possible in Him, but if we aren't obedient, we will not see the great consequences of the great things that would be possible through Him.
I am very impressed with this runner for finishing, even when his whole body told him he had to stop, even when the pain was almost too much. For Christians it's like when doubt arises, or pain comes and we don't know why God didn't prevent it, or when persecution or pressure from others becomes overwhelming. Maybe we want to stop following Christ because it would be easier not to be so different. We just can't be like everybody else once his grace has redeemed us. More often, and perhaps more dangerously, we just don't want to go after him as hard, and we look away from the supreme value of the prize of knowing Him in favor of the comfort of being loved. A lot of the time I'm guilty of that.
I know some people who were trained to be Christians when we were younger, and when I hear from them now I find that they have been persuaded that Jesus really isn't that important. They say there are many ways to God, or that there really isn't a God, and I wish I could show them every wonderful thing God shows me to let me know He is who He says He is. Many of us don't finish the race, and when I see them falling around me I pray I will be as faithful as I like to think I am.
I remember Peter, who promised that he would never deny Jesus, who said he would be arrested and die with Him if he had to. But he didn't. Instead he did exactly what Jesus predicted, and he denied him three times before morning while He was being interrogated. Jesus took Him back. But I never want to be guilty of denying Him in the first place.
Hebrews 12:1 "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."
In another race, a racer came who had tripped and fallen in her last Olympics. This time, she did it again. She hit the ground, got on her knees, and you could practically hear her spirit break. A broken spirit is harder to run with than a broken leg. She was still in a good position to stand and catch up. Then she would have at least finished. But it was over before she was down.
I wish she would have got up and finished. And I hope a Christian who screws up and fails will accept God's mercy and grace and come back stronger. That's the way grace is designed. Our failures could break us and cast us out entirely, or they could reveal our neediness and bring us closer to our loving God.
To have a big "DNF" above your head is worse than last place. We are all going to fall at some point. Every great name in the Bible - except Jesus - comes with some great mistake. But the heroes of faith, those whose lives really show the glory of God, are the ones who run and finish.
The foot races were among my favorite events, and I learned a lot from what I saw. They represent the one of most ancient Olympic events, the ones the Greeks competed in thousands of years ago.
Paul used this kind of race as a symbol for how to live the Christian life. If we are honest with ourselves and with Jesus, it isn't an easy and worry-free thing to be a Christian. It is a constant effort whose success lies in each step we take, relying completely on our Lord. Jesus didn't come to make life easy, but so that we would have life and have it to the full. Persecution is involved. We are challenged to face the neediness that we are so deeply disinclined to accept.
One of the most amazing things I saw in this Olympics was a 4 x 400 relay in which a Manteo Mitchell actually snapped a bone at the beginning of his leg of the race, yet continued running despite the pain as if nothing were wrong. He ran and passed his baton to the next runner, and the American team finished very well. He did have to be replaced for the races afterward, but he did not let his team down. He did what he was sent to do.
2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
As family in Christ, we rely on each other to each do what we have been called. God's will is done whether we cooperate or not, but He has given us a job to do. It is a blessing to get to run in this race and strive to live the life He has called us to. Because absolutely anything is possible in Him, but if we aren't obedient, we will not see the great consequences of the great things that would be possible through Him.
I am very impressed with this runner for finishing, even when his whole body told him he had to stop, even when the pain was almost too much. For Christians it's like when doubt arises, or pain comes and we don't know why God didn't prevent it, or when persecution or pressure from others becomes overwhelming. Maybe we want to stop following Christ because it would be easier not to be so different. We just can't be like everybody else once his grace has redeemed us. More often, and perhaps more dangerously, we just don't want to go after him as hard, and we look away from the supreme value of the prize of knowing Him in favor of the comfort of being loved. A lot of the time I'm guilty of that.
I know some people who were trained to be Christians when we were younger, and when I hear from them now I find that they have been persuaded that Jesus really isn't that important. They say there are many ways to God, or that there really isn't a God, and I wish I could show them every wonderful thing God shows me to let me know He is who He says He is. Many of us don't finish the race, and when I see them falling around me I pray I will be as faithful as I like to think I am.
I remember Peter, who promised that he would never deny Jesus, who said he would be arrested and die with Him if he had to. But he didn't. Instead he did exactly what Jesus predicted, and he denied him three times before morning while He was being interrogated. Jesus took Him back. But I never want to be guilty of denying Him in the first place.
Hebrews 12:1 "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."
In another race, a racer came who had tripped and fallen in her last Olympics. This time, she did it again. She hit the ground, got on her knees, and you could practically hear her spirit break. A broken spirit is harder to run with than a broken leg. She was still in a good position to stand and catch up. Then she would have at least finished. But it was over before she was down.
I wish she would have got up and finished. And I hope a Christian who screws up and fails will accept God's mercy and grace and come back stronger. That's the way grace is designed. Our failures could break us and cast us out entirely, or they could reveal our neediness and bring us closer to our loving God.
To have a big "DNF" above your head is worse than last place. We are all going to fall at some point. Every great name in the Bible - except Jesus - comes with some great mistake. But the heroes of faith, those whose lives really show the glory of God, are the ones who run and finish.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Known by Name
THIS WEEK my family went on a short vacation to the beautiful city of Charleston, SC. I love it because it's very old and historic, like walking through the past and the present at once. They're still giving horse and buggy rides, and on every street there are plaques describing the important histories of repurposed building that used to be homes or banks. So much of it is very well preserved and still used, and it's such a safe and peaceful place to walk through.
I got to visit the glorious old churches where the colored light casts itself down from the stained glass windows, and rows of pews wait to greet worshipers. I got to wander around old churchyards where the famous and the common were within feet of each other, and those resting since the 1700s lie close to a few who have been there for only ten years.
One of my favorite things we did, besides eating the South Carolinian food, was taking a Ghost Tour with my family. It was actually after dark, in the rain, so the atmosphere was perfect. Our tour was less theatrical and more historical than the other Ghost Tours available. We walked around old Charleston to several old buildings, many of them churches, and heard legends about ghosts wandering in churchyards or appearing in homes, a couple of them having appeared as oddly human phenomena in rare photographs, or completely unexpected to people who don't believe in ghosts. Most of them seemed to have unfinished business and unanswered questions, and they hung around the places they died or were buried. I know none of it holds much water, but I had a lot of fun and it was a really interesting tour.
Well I still don't believe in ghosts, although I don't know how to explain some of the stories and pictures from the tour. I do believe in angels, and that God sends them to earth sometimes for good reasons. But more than anything, this tour reminded me that God is sovereign. Just like He doesn't let souls wander around the earth aimlessly, He doesn't let one person or one member of His Creation out of His sight. It's good to know that we are important to Him, and that He is the pursuer of our souls.
Luke 15:4-5 "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninetey-nine in the winderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing."
I read A Wind in the Door, a novel by Madeleine L'Engle, my favorite author, in two days this week. I really swallowed it up. It wasn't a religious book, I mean, it's not exactly about God. It's actually a young adults' fiction novel. But you can see the Holy Spirit all over it. You can read it for yourself, but it's all about the importance of each Created thing, from the super microscopic to stars and galaxies, being known by name and having its integrity as part of a glorious Creation, and the danger that hate and rebellion bring to that integrity.
Psalm 147:3-5 "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite."
Whether we live or die, or whatever we do, we live forever to the living God of the living. Every time I look at a bird flying in the sky, I remember that I am precious to God, and that we each are precious to Him. God, who knows the nature of every soul, the makeup of each atom, the frame of the universe, the pace of time, and is above all He has made, sees us and knows us.
Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
It's really beautiful that our Shepherd doesn't forget about His sheep and let us roam through eternity's wilderness like nobody owns us. I had a great time in Charleston and I loved the tour, but don't think too hard about the ghost stories. When my days run out, I know I won't be wandering the streets of Jacksonville trying to find someone, or roaming my house like I think nothing has changed. And I definitely won't be creeping people out in cemetery photographs. I'll be busy gazing at Jesus forever. How do you go anywhere when you're looking at that smile?
I got to visit the glorious old churches where the colored light casts itself down from the stained glass windows, and rows of pews wait to greet worshipers. I got to wander around old churchyards where the famous and the common were within feet of each other, and those resting since the 1700s lie close to a few who have been there for only ten years.
One of my favorite things we did, besides eating the South Carolinian food, was taking a Ghost Tour with my family. It was actually after dark, in the rain, so the atmosphere was perfect. Our tour was less theatrical and more historical than the other Ghost Tours available. We walked around old Charleston to several old buildings, many of them churches, and heard legends about ghosts wandering in churchyards or appearing in homes, a couple of them having appeared as oddly human phenomena in rare photographs, or completely unexpected to people who don't believe in ghosts. Most of them seemed to have unfinished business and unanswered questions, and they hung around the places they died or were buried. I know none of it holds much water, but I had a lot of fun and it was a really interesting tour.
Well I still don't believe in ghosts, although I don't know how to explain some of the stories and pictures from the tour. I do believe in angels, and that God sends them to earth sometimes for good reasons. But more than anything, this tour reminded me that God is sovereign. Just like He doesn't let souls wander around the earth aimlessly, He doesn't let one person or one member of His Creation out of His sight. It's good to know that we are important to Him, and that He is the pursuer of our souls.
Luke 15:4-5 "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninetey-nine in the winderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing."
I read A Wind in the Door, a novel by Madeleine L'Engle, my favorite author, in two days this week. I really swallowed it up. It wasn't a religious book, I mean, it's not exactly about God. It's actually a young adults' fiction novel. But you can see the Holy Spirit all over it. You can read it for yourself, but it's all about the importance of each Created thing, from the super microscopic to stars and galaxies, being known by name and having its integrity as part of a glorious Creation, and the danger that hate and rebellion bring to that integrity.
Psalm 147:3-5 "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite."
Whether we live or die, or whatever we do, we live forever to the living God of the living. Every time I look at a bird flying in the sky, I remember that I am precious to God, and that we each are precious to Him. God, who knows the nature of every soul, the makeup of each atom, the frame of the universe, the pace of time, and is above all He has made, sees us and knows us.
Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
It's really beautiful that our Shepherd doesn't forget about His sheep and let us roam through eternity's wilderness like nobody owns us. I had a great time in Charleston and I loved the tour, but don't think too hard about the ghost stories. When my days run out, I know I won't be wandering the streets of Jacksonville trying to find someone, or roaming my house like I think nothing has changed. And I definitely won't be creeping people out in cemetery photographs. I'll be busy gazing at Jesus forever. How do you go anywhere when you're looking at that smile?
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Sleep Cycles
THIS WEEK, I realized I had a bad habit that I had to change. I had fallen into a cycle that was depriving me of sleep. Every day I read a Bible passage and journal about it, and during the school year I got pretty good about doing it early in the day. When I do that, my whole day goes better. I have the word in my heart all day long, and I get to put God first and spend some time just enjoying Him before I go to classes and do schoolwork.
But this summer I've been doing it before I go to bed. Not bad. But when it's late, I'm sleepy. It takes me longer to focus on the word, and from time to time I even fall asleep face down next to my open Bible. When I do it this way, I still get to draw near to God, but it's not as full. It becomes something I kind of have to do before I get to go to sleep. And then to make up for staying up later, I get up later too, and then it's too late to do it earlier the next day. It's a frustrating, sleepless cycle.
A couple days ago I did that, and I was exhausted all day long the next day. I didn't feel like doing anything really useful. That night, I told my mom about it, and she challenged me to get up just a little earlier and do it the next morning. So that's what I decided I would do. But first I had to do my reading for tonight.
I'm in the middle of a Bible in a Year program that tells me what to read every day, so I can read the whole thing. Following this program, this is the first thing I read.
Psalm 127: 1-2 "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep."
Now I know this isn't literally written as advice for how to get good sleep, but I thought it was really beautiful that God put this in my way right when I'd just gotten done telling Him how weary I was making myself. I understood that our physical and spiritual rest are important to God. He wants us to seek Him in His word, and sometimes we do need to do uncomfortable things, like fasting, to draw near to Him. But He doesn't want us to hurt ourselves.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."
Whatever we do or don't do, we belong to God and we have to take care of our bodies. I needed to make a change. The whole point of those verses from Psalm 127 is that God doesn't want us to become weary relying on ourselves, because following Him means learning to lean on Him completely. When I save seeking Him in His word for last, it hinders me both physically and spiritually because I lose sleep and I haven't had the word as much on my mind through everything that happens in the day.
Now I'm doing my best to seek Him as early as I can, and this helps me to make sure I keep my heart and mind chasing after Him all day long. I've been taking time to sit and pray every day that my family and I will get our "daily bread," that God will provide for what we need physically and make us grateful, but even more that we will be hungry for His word.
Matthew 4:3-4 "And the tempter came and said to Him, 'If You are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.' But He answered, 'It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.' ' "
I'm really glad God talked to me about this, because it's so much easier to enjoy His presence when I'm not struggling to keep my eyes open.
I want my time in the word to be like I want my life to be, which is less like a late night study session and more like this: Psalm 63:1 "O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water." A little weariness is good in longing for God, to bring us closer to Him. But He doesn't want us to wear ourselves down. Our health and our joy is important to Him. It's why He instituted the Sabbath for the Jews - if God saw a need to take a rest after creating everything, they could take a day off to just dwell on Him and enjoy His holiness. God doesn't see rest as an optional thing, either for our bodies or for our souls.
God is sovereign, and there is no end to the wonderful depth of His glory. He wants us to want to get to know Him. He asks us to take some time to be still and just see who He is. Now that this isn't going to be so much of a chore for me, I can enjoy getting to know God and what His dreams are, and all day long I can be working with Him in what He is doing to make those big dreams come true.
Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"
But this summer I've been doing it before I go to bed. Not bad. But when it's late, I'm sleepy. It takes me longer to focus on the word, and from time to time I even fall asleep face down next to my open Bible. When I do it this way, I still get to draw near to God, but it's not as full. It becomes something I kind of have to do before I get to go to sleep. And then to make up for staying up later, I get up later too, and then it's too late to do it earlier the next day. It's a frustrating, sleepless cycle.
A couple days ago I did that, and I was exhausted all day long the next day. I didn't feel like doing anything really useful. That night, I told my mom about it, and she challenged me to get up just a little earlier and do it the next morning. So that's what I decided I would do. But first I had to do my reading for tonight.
I'm in the middle of a Bible in a Year program that tells me what to read every day, so I can read the whole thing. Following this program, this is the first thing I read.
Psalm 127: 1-2 "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep."
Now I know this isn't literally written as advice for how to get good sleep, but I thought it was really beautiful that God put this in my way right when I'd just gotten done telling Him how weary I was making myself. I understood that our physical and spiritual rest are important to God. He wants us to seek Him in His word, and sometimes we do need to do uncomfortable things, like fasting, to draw near to Him. But He doesn't want us to hurt ourselves.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."
Whatever we do or don't do, we belong to God and we have to take care of our bodies. I needed to make a change. The whole point of those verses from Psalm 127 is that God doesn't want us to become weary relying on ourselves, because following Him means learning to lean on Him completely. When I save seeking Him in His word for last, it hinders me both physically and spiritually because I lose sleep and I haven't had the word as much on my mind through everything that happens in the day.
Now I'm doing my best to seek Him as early as I can, and this helps me to make sure I keep my heart and mind chasing after Him all day long. I've been taking time to sit and pray every day that my family and I will get our "daily bread," that God will provide for what we need physically and make us grateful, but even more that we will be hungry for His word.
Matthew 4:3-4 "And the tempter came and said to Him, 'If You are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.' But He answered, 'It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.' ' "
I'm really glad God talked to me about this, because it's so much easier to enjoy His presence when I'm not struggling to keep my eyes open.
I want my time in the word to be like I want my life to be, which is less like a late night study session and more like this: Psalm 63:1 "O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water." A little weariness is good in longing for God, to bring us closer to Him. But He doesn't want us to wear ourselves down. Our health and our joy is important to Him. It's why He instituted the Sabbath for the Jews - if God saw a need to take a rest after creating everything, they could take a day off to just dwell on Him and enjoy His holiness. God doesn't see rest as an optional thing, either for our bodies or for our souls.
God is sovereign, and there is no end to the wonderful depth of His glory. He wants us to want to get to know Him. He asks us to take some time to be still and just see who He is. Now that this isn't going to be so much of a chore for me, I can enjoy getting to know God and what His dreams are, and all day long I can be working with Him in what He is doing to make those big dreams come true.
Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Killer
THIS WEEK we were reminded how evil people can be. You probably heard about the shooting at the Batman movie premier three days ago. 71 people shot, 12 people killed. Those killed were between 6 years old and 60. I don't get it. Totally random but strategically planned. And the shooter didn't even run. He just went out to his car and got arrested. He's obviously insane but very brilliant. It seems like he just killed people to kill people.
It really makes me worried about the world, and it reminds me just how much we need grace. We can't go living in fear that we'll be shot in movie theaters. Jesus is the antidote to all evil, and God is love. Our world is dying to have Him, and He is not far away.
1 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
Watching the news last night, I heard about the people who had died and everything they left behind. The young and the old, and the three young men who all died protecting their girlfriends. Then I saw the face of the man who killed them, and the smug grin in his mugshot, and I realized that I hated him. It's weird, I don't think I remember the last time I hated somebody. But I looked at him and thought that that's a man who really doesn't deserve to keep sucking air. He shouldn't keep living. There's no excuse. Nothing that could make what he did okay.
There's no doubt the shooter is guilty and deserves to die. God is definitely furious about it, because He hates murder. It's a personal insult to His workmanship, to the humanity that bears His image, and to the breath of life He puts into every person.
I read this verse last night. Psalm 97:10 "You who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked." Everything in God is opposed to what this man has done. But His grace means that our guilt doesn't have to rest on us if we'll let Him take it on Himself.
This has taught me something about God's grace. Lately I'm really learning how deeply dependent we are on Christ, and how limitless the possibilities are for change through Him. I remembered Barabbas, who was everything Jesus was not.
Mark 15:7 "And there was one named Barabbas, who was chained with his fellow rebels; they had committed murder in the rebellion."
The crowd had him released instead of Jesus. They decided the sinless Son of God was more deserving to die than a murderer and a robber. The fact that he went free while Jesus dies is a picture of what grace is to us. He dies for those who deserve to die, and He rises to give us new life. If God is completely holy, then sin is sin, whether it's a lie or a murder, we don't deserve Him. He's life - it's just who He is. And we don't deserve to live, to be with Him - it's who we are.
I remembered Paul, who thought he was righteous because he devoted his life to killing Christians, until Jesus convicted him and changed his heart. Grace was able to reach him so completely that he became the greatest missionary in history, wrote half the New Testament, and died for Christ like a hero.
I think about the Bible, which is full of rejects whom God chose and redeemed with His undeserved grace, and I realize that all humanity belongs on our knees. We're the killers, but He's the One who died like one.
God can save evil people who deserve to die. It's just that our definition of that isn't quite the same as His. I hope that killer gets the death penalty, but I hope we don't all get it. How glorious is God, that His grace can completely redeem people who are as vicious and guilty as that killer? And how desperately do we need His grace, if our souls are found in the same position as his? Nothing can overrule what He's done.
Psalm 40:17 "But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God."
God is very good. Knowing that His grace covers me is the greatest blessing in my life. And walking with Him constantly reveals to me the depth of my need and the height of His love.
It really makes me worried about the world, and it reminds me just how much we need grace. We can't go living in fear that we'll be shot in movie theaters. Jesus is the antidote to all evil, and God is love. Our world is dying to have Him, and He is not far away.
1 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
Watching the news last night, I heard about the people who had died and everything they left behind. The young and the old, and the three young men who all died protecting their girlfriends. Then I saw the face of the man who killed them, and the smug grin in his mugshot, and I realized that I hated him. It's weird, I don't think I remember the last time I hated somebody. But I looked at him and thought that that's a man who really doesn't deserve to keep sucking air. He shouldn't keep living. There's no excuse. Nothing that could make what he did okay.
There's no doubt the shooter is guilty and deserves to die. God is definitely furious about it, because He hates murder. It's a personal insult to His workmanship, to the humanity that bears His image, and to the breath of life He puts into every person.
I read this verse last night. Psalm 97:10 "You who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked." Everything in God is opposed to what this man has done. But His grace means that our guilt doesn't have to rest on us if we'll let Him take it on Himself.
This has taught me something about God's grace. Lately I'm really learning how deeply dependent we are on Christ, and how limitless the possibilities are for change through Him. I remembered Barabbas, who was everything Jesus was not.
Mark 15:7 "And there was one named Barabbas, who was chained with his fellow rebels; they had committed murder in the rebellion."
The crowd had him released instead of Jesus. They decided the sinless Son of God was more deserving to die than a murderer and a robber. The fact that he went free while Jesus dies is a picture of what grace is to us. He dies for those who deserve to die, and He rises to give us new life. If God is completely holy, then sin is sin, whether it's a lie or a murder, we don't deserve Him. He's life - it's just who He is. And we don't deserve to live, to be with Him - it's who we are.
I remembered Paul, who thought he was righteous because he devoted his life to killing Christians, until Jesus convicted him and changed his heart. Grace was able to reach him so completely that he became the greatest missionary in history, wrote half the New Testament, and died for Christ like a hero.
I think about the Bible, which is full of rejects whom God chose and redeemed with His undeserved grace, and I realize that all humanity belongs on our knees. We're the killers, but He's the One who died like one.
God can save evil people who deserve to die. It's just that our definition of that isn't quite the same as His. I hope that killer gets the death penalty, but I hope we don't all get it. How glorious is God, that His grace can completely redeem people who are as vicious and guilty as that killer? And how desperately do we need His grace, if our souls are found in the same position as his? Nothing can overrule what He's done.
Psalm 40:17 "But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God."
God is very good. Knowing that His grace covers me is the greatest blessing in my life. And walking with Him constantly reveals to me the depth of my need and the height of His love.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Weeding
THIS WEEK I worked in the garden with my mom, pulling weeds. Weeds are awful because they are not only bad for the plants that you want, but they're also very hard to get rid of completely. They're tricky, because once you get rid of the big ones you see there are all these smaller ones that popped up while you were blinking, and when they are gone there are all these little seedlings, and you just know there is no earthly way you will keep these weeds from growing back.
Once you've taken care of them, your garden looks beautiful and healthy. It looks like the person it belongs to has really spent time caring for it. But if we take its beauty for granted, the weeds whose roots are inevitably just below the surface will just spring up again.
I realized that sin is the same way. Just when we think we've taken care of our bad habits and nagging guilts, something pops up that shows us that we just aren't as righteous as we'd love to think we are. We find out we are proud, or that we are weak to some temptation, or that there's something we do that isn't done for the glory of God. This reminds us of our need for God to continually clean us up.
I think the most assuring think there is to know is that God does not change. His love does not change. If He was here yesterday, and He was trying to grow us up into everything He envisions for us in Christ, that guess what He is doing today? He's still here, still working on us, still loving us. I don't understand how He does that, how He just keeps loving. This week I'm starting to better understand that nothing we can do can make God love us any less or any more.
In Luke 17:3-4 Jesus gives us a challenge and a promise. "Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him."
He says that if we forgive, He will forgive us. So in challenging us to forgive the sins of others no matter how many times they say sorry, He is telling us that this is how He acts toward us. How does a person get her mind around that, that the same God who made us loves us enough to forgive us every time we come and repent? That's such an encouraging challenge to grow, and to strive to be more like Him.
This week I read about David's big mistake with Bathsheba. He was a shining example in practically every area of his life. God called him a man after His own heart. But he slept with his friend's wife, got her pregnant, got his friend killed in battle and tried to cover it all up. Needless to say, God was angry with him, and through the prophet Nathan He told him the punishment that was coming.
2 Samuel 12:13 "David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord.' And Nathan said to David, 'The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.'"
David really messed up. What he did was really evil, and God wasn't about to overlook it. But because God is love, and because He doesn't change, David's stupid mistake couldn't change His love. He repented, and before the verse was over, he was forgiven. God took away his son, but He soon provided another whom He nicknamed Jedidiah, which means "beloved of the Lord." I'm amazed at how completely God forgives.
But even when we are doing fine, in an easy season of life, when we aren't struggling too badly, what can we say God thinks of us? I'd say it's in those parts of life that it's easy to start thinking we are good, and demoting other people. There's a weed. But the only sense in which we are good is that when God made us He called us "good," exactly how He planned, made for His glory. It doesn't mean we're perfect.
Luke 12:9-10 "Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have done only what was our duty.'"
God's love is better than a love that remains when we do wrong and increases when we do well. God's love is one that sees us for what we are and covers us with His own righteousness. He's a gardener who will help us weed our gardens when we acknowledge the weeds are there and we need His help. But He's also one who remembers that the roots of the weeds are still in there, and He will keep tending it. The way for us to be beautiful is to always remember how much we need Him.
Once you've taken care of them, your garden looks beautiful and healthy. It looks like the person it belongs to has really spent time caring for it. But if we take its beauty for granted, the weeds whose roots are inevitably just below the surface will just spring up again.
I realized that sin is the same way. Just when we think we've taken care of our bad habits and nagging guilts, something pops up that shows us that we just aren't as righteous as we'd love to think we are. We find out we are proud, or that we are weak to some temptation, or that there's something we do that isn't done for the glory of God. This reminds us of our need for God to continually clean us up.
I think the most assuring think there is to know is that God does not change. His love does not change. If He was here yesterday, and He was trying to grow us up into everything He envisions for us in Christ, that guess what He is doing today? He's still here, still working on us, still loving us. I don't understand how He does that, how He just keeps loving. This week I'm starting to better understand that nothing we can do can make God love us any less or any more.
In Luke 17:3-4 Jesus gives us a challenge and a promise. "Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him."
He says that if we forgive, He will forgive us. So in challenging us to forgive the sins of others no matter how many times they say sorry, He is telling us that this is how He acts toward us. How does a person get her mind around that, that the same God who made us loves us enough to forgive us every time we come and repent? That's such an encouraging challenge to grow, and to strive to be more like Him.
This week I read about David's big mistake with Bathsheba. He was a shining example in practically every area of his life. God called him a man after His own heart. But he slept with his friend's wife, got her pregnant, got his friend killed in battle and tried to cover it all up. Needless to say, God was angry with him, and through the prophet Nathan He told him the punishment that was coming.
2 Samuel 12:13 "David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord.' And Nathan said to David, 'The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.'"
David really messed up. What he did was really evil, and God wasn't about to overlook it. But because God is love, and because He doesn't change, David's stupid mistake couldn't change His love. He repented, and before the verse was over, he was forgiven. God took away his son, but He soon provided another whom He nicknamed Jedidiah, which means "beloved of the Lord." I'm amazed at how completely God forgives.
But even when we are doing fine, in an easy season of life, when we aren't struggling too badly, what can we say God thinks of us? I'd say it's in those parts of life that it's easy to start thinking we are good, and demoting other people. There's a weed. But the only sense in which we are good is that when God made us He called us "good," exactly how He planned, made for His glory. It doesn't mean we're perfect.
Luke 12:9-10 "Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have done only what was our duty.'"
God's love is better than a love that remains when we do wrong and increases when we do well. God's love is one that sees us for what we are and covers us with His own righteousness. He's a gardener who will help us weed our gardens when we acknowledge the weeds are there and we need His help. But He's also one who remembers that the roots of the weeds are still in there, and He will keep tending it. The way for us to be beautiful is to always remember how much we need Him.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Out to Sea
THIS WEEK my great-grandmother turned ninety-two. She came to town for her birthday, and we celebrated on the fourth of July with fireworks and watermelon. It was a blessing and an inspiration to talk to her, and to be in one room with family stretching from one year old to ninety-two. God has really blessed my family.
Granny hadn't seen most of us in a while, and she seemed to really enjoy how big all the children are getting. My brother is so much taller and thinner and musclier than he was last time she saw him. Molly is walking and talking and swimming. And she couldn't believe it when I told her I am about to turn nineteen.
It was so good to just sit and talk to her about life and school and people. I will never forget what she told me: "Nothing happens without God." He has really blessed my family. And there's something so powerful about hearing those words from somebody with so many years. I hear many people my age confidently claiming God has nothing to do with anything, or that He isn't good, or that He isn't even real. But Granny is ninety-two. She's seen good things and terrible things, life and death, sickness and health. She knows what this world is like, and she concludes that nothing happens without God. I'm eighteen, and I know that. But when somebody so old knows it, the young should sit up and listen, and look around to see what He is doing now.
God is very, very good. He has made us for a very specific kind of supernatural joy. We are made for His glory and to worship Him. Everybody worships, but when we come to the point where we are worshiping the only One who deserves our worship, our souls fall into place and we find joy. When He is our only God, and when worship is the way we live, and when praise is the same as breathing, we have the greatest joy because it's what we are made for.
King David was able to see that nothing happens without God, and he got his joy from worshiping Him. He made a fool of himself jumping around and singing to God when the ark of the covenant entered Jerusalem. He understood that God was the strength of Israel. The ark, the dwelling place of His presence on earth for Israel, was coming. I can't imagine how excited he must have been. He worshiped so hard that one of his wives scolded him.
2 Samuel 6:16 "Now as the ark of the Lord came into the City of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart."
She thought a king should be more dignified than that, especially while the young women of his house were watching. Well, David wasn't his own king.
v. 22 "And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor."
Worship is perfected by people who believe that nothing happens without God, and that anything is possible with Him. People who seek to humble themselves before Him in order to draw near to Him. Sometimes worship is undignified and silly, but it's not about us.
Yesterday I was walking on the beach with my family, and God added to a lesson he taught me a few months ago. At a retreat, He told me that His love is like an ocean that goes on forever, so we have no lack of love. Now as I got my feet wet and looked for shells, He told me that seeking Him is like swimming out to sea. I often find myself focused on smaller things, looking for shells, good things that come from God but they aren't God. He wasn't speaking literally, but He told me to swim out far and recklessly, into His love. Not to be afraid to experience the vastness of His love, because He will keep me afloat. To be submerged in Him instead of fixating on swirly shells like the ones I collected and put in my purse.
It's when life is lived for God's glory and by trusting Him that we find out what's possible with Him. Suddenly wonderful things are within reach. We find our faith to be well-placed. It's when worship is our life, a silly and exuberant dance of praise, a swim out to the heart of the sea, that we can clearly see that nothing happens without Him.
Granny hadn't seen most of us in a while, and she seemed to really enjoy how big all the children are getting. My brother is so much taller and thinner and musclier than he was last time she saw him. Molly is walking and talking and swimming. And she couldn't believe it when I told her I am about to turn nineteen.
It was so good to just sit and talk to her about life and school and people. I will never forget what she told me: "Nothing happens without God." He has really blessed my family. And there's something so powerful about hearing those words from somebody with so many years. I hear many people my age confidently claiming God has nothing to do with anything, or that He isn't good, or that He isn't even real. But Granny is ninety-two. She's seen good things and terrible things, life and death, sickness and health. She knows what this world is like, and she concludes that nothing happens without God. I'm eighteen, and I know that. But when somebody so old knows it, the young should sit up and listen, and look around to see what He is doing now.
God is very, very good. He has made us for a very specific kind of supernatural joy. We are made for His glory and to worship Him. Everybody worships, but when we come to the point where we are worshiping the only One who deserves our worship, our souls fall into place and we find joy. When He is our only God, and when worship is the way we live, and when praise is the same as breathing, we have the greatest joy because it's what we are made for.
King David was able to see that nothing happens without God, and he got his joy from worshiping Him. He made a fool of himself jumping around and singing to God when the ark of the covenant entered Jerusalem. He understood that God was the strength of Israel. The ark, the dwelling place of His presence on earth for Israel, was coming. I can't imagine how excited he must have been. He worshiped so hard that one of his wives scolded him.
2 Samuel 6:16 "Now as the ark of the Lord came into the City of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart."
She thought a king should be more dignified than that, especially while the young women of his house were watching. Well, David wasn't his own king.
v. 22 "And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor."
Worship is perfected by people who believe that nothing happens without God, and that anything is possible with Him. People who seek to humble themselves before Him in order to draw near to Him. Sometimes worship is undignified and silly, but it's not about us.
Yesterday I was walking on the beach with my family, and God added to a lesson he taught me a few months ago. At a retreat, He told me that His love is like an ocean that goes on forever, so we have no lack of love. Now as I got my feet wet and looked for shells, He told me that seeking Him is like swimming out to sea. I often find myself focused on smaller things, looking for shells, good things that come from God but they aren't God. He wasn't speaking literally, but He told me to swim out far and recklessly, into His love. Not to be afraid to experience the vastness of His love, because He will keep me afloat. To be submerged in Him instead of fixating on swirly shells like the ones I collected and put in my purse.
It's when life is lived for God's glory and by trusting Him that we find out what's possible with Him. Suddenly wonderful things are within reach. We find our faith to be well-placed. It's when worship is our life, a silly and exuberant dance of praise, a swim out to the heart of the sea, that we can clearly see that nothing happens without Him.
Monday, July 2, 2012
"Jesus Misses Us!"
THIS WEEK I went to Miami with my team to do a Vacational Bible School with Bridge Church, which has very recently been planted there. The pastor, Fikri Youssef, told us his opinion that mission trips are one of the fastest tracks you can take to growth. I absolutely relate to that, because I have come back home very different. Where before this week I was just trying to make sure each day that I didn't waste my summer. Now I am so overwhelmed by the goodness of God that I hardly know what to do with myself.
God gave my team such powerful unity. We ranged in age from 9 to 50, and we all quickly became best friends. We had a running list of all the funny things people said, and we encouraged and prayed for each other all the time. I can see ways God put us together as a team so we'd have everybody we needed - for songs, for hugs, for wisdom, for laughter, for tricking Miss Kim into thinking we'd all run away from Miss Karen at MacDonald's.
For two days after VBS we would go pass out fliers to get more kids to come. One afternoon we were doing this in the park, and the Pastor's daughter, Amira, fell off a play set and hit her head. Her nose was bleeding and her eyes told us she wasn't doing well. Fearing she might have a concussion, we prayed for her together, and right then her nosebleed stopped, her eyes lit up, and she stood up happy and ready for dinner. The next day she told me she only had a little bump. God answered us.
John 14:13 "Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
The first night, a ten-year old girl on my team, Natalie, stood up from our table at a restaurant while we waited for our food. She wouldn't let the wait time be wasted. She took a stack of VBS fliers and started passing them out to the tables around us, in the hopes that even one more kid would come and hear about the love of God, that one more family would get connected with this new church and get to know Him.
All week I was asking God to make me brave like that, because rushing around to share good news with strangers has always made me nervous. But then, so had singing, and now God had taken that fear away so completely that I could help lead worship on this team. I didn't want this to be scary to me anymore. So God answered me. I'm getting a lot better at this. The second day, I felt more prepared to go up to strangers like that in the park and at the mall, so much that I almost gave away my room key giving a Bridge Church card to one couple.
I ran around that mall feeling so happy, because I knew this was what I was supposed to do, an effective way to glorify God, and it was getting less scary for me. Barriers of all kinds came down for every member of my team.
Kids did come. We had about 40, and my team, the Yellow Team, was made up of nine kids. The first day was fun, but I felt overwhelmed. I asked God to help me really love those kids like He helped me love my first team. You should see my pictures of them on my phone. Jasmine with a cotton ball on her nose, Teja and Dre hugging each other and smiling, Allison and Izabella dancing together. I love them so much, I can't stop showing people my pictures. He gave us His love for them.
We danced with them and sang about God's love and trustworthiness, and we had a room where we talked about Bible stories like the resurrection of Lazarus and the Crucifixion. Miss Kim asked the kids in this room if there was anything they were wanting to say or to pray about, and a little guy on my team, Adam, had something to say. "Jesus misses us!" he declared. He kept saying it the next day. I believe God was talking to his six-year old heart.
Romans 5:10 "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life."
Nevertheless I wasn't sure my kids were really getting the gospel. They didn't seem too interested in letting Jesus be their "best friend and their boss" like we were explaining. I thought they might be more into the crackers we gave them and the games we played, and I didn't want it to end there. So I was praying I'd see something by the end, and that they would be saved.
We were all encouraged at the end of the second-to-last day when Pastor Fikri gave a message urging us to preach the gospel because it's everybody's job. He prophesied over each of us, and that was the first time that had happened to me. Paul said it was the best gift of the Spirit, and I see why - it's hard to beat the encouragement somebody can give by sharing the words God gave him about you. So God thinks I'm strong, and sweet, and He doesn't want me to be held back or afraid I can't preach the word because I'll come off as rude. I'm jumping out of my shoes excited about all the boldness and love God's pouring into my soul.
The next day while we were coloring, Adam said to me, "I miss Jesus!" Adam, who was so often impatient to watch a cartoon or have a snack, who never seemed fully engaged in what we were doing, seemed to understand the separation between us and Jesus, the gap that we needed Him to fill. It showed me that Jesus isn't using us because He needs us, but because He just wants to include us. He can get to our hearts all by Himself.
Isaiah 59:1-2 "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.
Romans 8:38 "For I am sure that neither death nor life, mor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all Creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is Christ Jesus our Lord."
I talked to Adam about letting Jesus be his best friend and his boss, and letting Him live in his little heart and never go away. I love how simple God has made the gospel. What was separated can now be put back together. He wanted that, and so I helped him pray, and then I helped him spell his prayer on the paper: "Jesus I want you to be my boss. From: Adam." He was so excited he even wanted to take it home. But it was a big paper for the whole group, so I wrote it on his tag for him. Then I ran around the edges of the paper to have this same conversation with a few other kids. Five out of my nine kids were saved in that coloring room. That's the first time I've prayed with people in this way, and suddenly, like passing out fliers and singing in front of crowds, it's not scary. It's joyful.
And if it only takes God a week to do all this, I can't wait to see what He'll do in our changed lives here at home for this summer, and then during this school year, if it only takes Him a week to do all this.
God gave my team such powerful unity. We ranged in age from 9 to 50, and we all quickly became best friends. We had a running list of all the funny things people said, and we encouraged and prayed for each other all the time. I can see ways God put us together as a team so we'd have everybody we needed - for songs, for hugs, for wisdom, for laughter, for tricking Miss Kim into thinking we'd all run away from Miss Karen at MacDonald's.
For two days after VBS we would go pass out fliers to get more kids to come. One afternoon we were doing this in the park, and the Pastor's daughter, Amira, fell off a play set and hit her head. Her nose was bleeding and her eyes told us she wasn't doing well. Fearing she might have a concussion, we prayed for her together, and right then her nosebleed stopped, her eyes lit up, and she stood up happy and ready for dinner. The next day she told me she only had a little bump. God answered us.
John 14:13 "Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
The first night, a ten-year old girl on my team, Natalie, stood up from our table at a restaurant while we waited for our food. She wouldn't let the wait time be wasted. She took a stack of VBS fliers and started passing them out to the tables around us, in the hopes that even one more kid would come and hear about the love of God, that one more family would get connected with this new church and get to know Him.
All week I was asking God to make me brave like that, because rushing around to share good news with strangers has always made me nervous. But then, so had singing, and now God had taken that fear away so completely that I could help lead worship on this team. I didn't want this to be scary to me anymore. So God answered me. I'm getting a lot better at this. The second day, I felt more prepared to go up to strangers like that in the park and at the mall, so much that I almost gave away my room key giving a Bridge Church card to one couple.
I ran around that mall feeling so happy, because I knew this was what I was supposed to do, an effective way to glorify God, and it was getting less scary for me. Barriers of all kinds came down for every member of my team.
Kids did come. We had about 40, and my team, the Yellow Team, was made up of nine kids. The first day was fun, but I felt overwhelmed. I asked God to help me really love those kids like He helped me love my first team. You should see my pictures of them on my phone. Jasmine with a cotton ball on her nose, Teja and Dre hugging each other and smiling, Allison and Izabella dancing together. I love them so much, I can't stop showing people my pictures. He gave us His love for them.
We danced with them and sang about God's love and trustworthiness, and we had a room where we talked about Bible stories like the resurrection of Lazarus and the Crucifixion. Miss Kim asked the kids in this room if there was anything they were wanting to say or to pray about, and a little guy on my team, Adam, had something to say. "Jesus misses us!" he declared. He kept saying it the next day. I believe God was talking to his six-year old heart.
Romans 5:10 "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life."
Nevertheless I wasn't sure my kids were really getting the gospel. They didn't seem too interested in letting Jesus be their "best friend and their boss" like we were explaining. I thought they might be more into the crackers we gave them and the games we played, and I didn't want it to end there. So I was praying I'd see something by the end, and that they would be saved.
We were all encouraged at the end of the second-to-last day when Pastor Fikri gave a message urging us to preach the gospel because it's everybody's job. He prophesied over each of us, and that was the first time that had happened to me. Paul said it was the best gift of the Spirit, and I see why - it's hard to beat the encouragement somebody can give by sharing the words God gave him about you. So God thinks I'm strong, and sweet, and He doesn't want me to be held back or afraid I can't preach the word because I'll come off as rude. I'm jumping out of my shoes excited about all the boldness and love God's pouring into my soul.
The next day while we were coloring, Adam said to me, "I miss Jesus!" Adam, who was so often impatient to watch a cartoon or have a snack, who never seemed fully engaged in what we were doing, seemed to understand the separation between us and Jesus, the gap that we needed Him to fill. It showed me that Jesus isn't using us because He needs us, but because He just wants to include us. He can get to our hearts all by Himself.
Isaiah 59:1-2 "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.
Romans 8:38 "For I am sure that neither death nor life, mor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all Creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is Christ Jesus our Lord."
I talked to Adam about letting Jesus be his best friend and his boss, and letting Him live in his little heart and never go away. I love how simple God has made the gospel. What was separated can now be put back together. He wanted that, and so I helped him pray, and then I helped him spell his prayer on the paper: "Jesus I want you to be my boss. From: Adam." He was so excited he even wanted to take it home. But it was a big paper for the whole group, so I wrote it on his tag for him. Then I ran around the edges of the paper to have this same conversation with a few other kids. Five out of my nine kids were saved in that coloring room. That's the first time I've prayed with people in this way, and suddenly, like passing out fliers and singing in front of crowds, it's not scary. It's joyful.
And if it only takes God a week to do all this, I can't wait to see what He'll do in our changed lives here at home for this summer, and then during this school year, if it only takes Him a week to do all this.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Loud, Childlike Faith
THIS WEEK I'm in Miami after a long day of traveling and preparation for the VBS we're about to do with Bridge Church of Miami. I'm very excited about this. I feel the Holy Spirit moving and uniting my team, and I know God is about to use this event to make an eternal difference in these kids' lives. We already have a motto that we keep praying: "We aren't coming to bring a program; we're coming to bring His Presence!"
This week for me is going to be about children. I get to watch over them and teach them. Our very important theme is quite simply "Trust God!" We have them say it with us many times every day, so that by the time they leave they'll know God is someone they can trust and who loves them. But I learn from these kids too. On the way down here I was reading the first few chapters of Paul E. Miller's A Praying Life, which discussed the way Jesus encouraged His own disciples to be like children.
Matthew 18:2-4 "And calling to Him a child, He put him in the midst of them and said, 'Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven.'"
It stood out to me that the point isn't to be childish, but to trust God like a child trusts his father. It's the unashamed acknowledgement of dependency on Him. For a lot of people, when we're small we think our dads can do anything. He's a man with no limits. The difference with God is that He is actually limitless, and we don't always look up to Him like that's the case.
I don't think I'll ever forget how Liana, the littlest girl on my first VBS team, related to her daddy. One day when he left her with me, she was desperate in tears because she just loves him so much, and she was scared to be away from him. Another day, when she saw him as he came to pick her up, she started jumping up and down in pure, sunny joy, shouting "Daddy!" over and over.
There's something about children that God finds very precious and admirable. They have something that we're in danger of losing as we get older and wiser. It was easy to see the first time we did this VBS. They have joy in the presence of their parents who love them. They have a certain loud, persistent faith that lets them keep asking until they gets what they need. A little girl named Rebeccah, who was on my team two weeks ago, often needed to go to the restroom. I'd usually tell her at first to wait a minute, because we were busy and I had so many kids to watch. We were in the middle of learning. But she would keep asking until she got to go. She doesn't know she has a secret to prayer: she trusted me as the person who was looking after her, and as a result she knew I was going to do my best to give her what she needed as soon as possible.
The funny thing is that when everybody else saw that she got what she asked, they wanted to go too. Everybody seemed to share a bladder. It showed me that when we openly ask until we receive, other people's faith in the Provider will be strengthened.
Children don't make long, flowery statements and beat around the bush. And they don't easily doubt. They see where their help comes from, and they aren't shy about saying what they need. And when they don't understand what's happening, they say so. Miller pointed out that Peter was always quick to say what he thought, to make declarations of loyalty or doubt or shame, to put the microphone to the bottom of his heart. A little boy on the team named Coran was that vocal. He wanted the extra bracelts on my arm. He wanted to be my extra special helper. He wanted the chance to do anything, to be in front, and to be a part of the game.
Children are meant to grow up and gain some sort of tact. But what God wants us to take from the loud, thoughtful voices of children is the ability to be straightforward with Him, to call Him Daddy, to say "I don't get it!" and "Why can't I have it now?!" but also to say "You're my Daddy! This is what I need, and I know you will take care of me, and I love you so much!" And more than anything, to jump up and down ecstatically when we see that He is near, because whatever He's up to, it's for our good.
I read this one day this week: Psalm 8:2, "Out of the mouths of babies and infants You have established strength because of Your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger." He makes His praise come even from people with little understanding and experience, even from loud and trusting young ones, so all His enemies will be speechless.
That's what it looked like when a little hero named Natalie on my team got up from dinner tonight and started passing out VBS fliers to people at other tables. Faith combined with action make change.
This week we'll be promising a new group of kids that they can trust God, and training them to take their natural faith and run to Him with it. But I think every time we shout "Trust God!" it will be as much for me as for them, to tell me to look around and gain the same childlike gleam of trust that I see in the eyes of these kids who are discovering a faithful God. To remind me that His children are never grown up and independent of Him, and He always wants to hear us crying out to Him.
This week for me is going to be about children. I get to watch over them and teach them. Our very important theme is quite simply "Trust God!" We have them say it with us many times every day, so that by the time they leave they'll know God is someone they can trust and who loves them. But I learn from these kids too. On the way down here I was reading the first few chapters of Paul E. Miller's A Praying Life, which discussed the way Jesus encouraged His own disciples to be like children.
Matthew 18:2-4 "And calling to Him a child, He put him in the midst of them and said, 'Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven.'"
It stood out to me that the point isn't to be childish, but to trust God like a child trusts his father. It's the unashamed acknowledgement of dependency on Him. For a lot of people, when we're small we think our dads can do anything. He's a man with no limits. The difference with God is that He is actually limitless, and we don't always look up to Him like that's the case.
I don't think I'll ever forget how Liana, the littlest girl on my first VBS team, related to her daddy. One day when he left her with me, she was desperate in tears because she just loves him so much, and she was scared to be away from him. Another day, when she saw him as he came to pick her up, she started jumping up and down in pure, sunny joy, shouting "Daddy!" over and over.
There's something about children that God finds very precious and admirable. They have something that we're in danger of losing as we get older and wiser. It was easy to see the first time we did this VBS. They have joy in the presence of their parents who love them. They have a certain loud, persistent faith that lets them keep asking until they gets what they need. A little girl named Rebeccah, who was on my team two weeks ago, often needed to go to the restroom. I'd usually tell her at first to wait a minute, because we were busy and I had so many kids to watch. We were in the middle of learning. But she would keep asking until she got to go. She doesn't know she has a secret to prayer: she trusted me as the person who was looking after her, and as a result she knew I was going to do my best to give her what she needed as soon as possible.
The funny thing is that when everybody else saw that she got what she asked, they wanted to go too. Everybody seemed to share a bladder. It showed me that when we openly ask until we receive, other people's faith in the Provider will be strengthened.
Children don't make long, flowery statements and beat around the bush. And they don't easily doubt. They see where their help comes from, and they aren't shy about saying what they need. And when they don't understand what's happening, they say so. Miller pointed out that Peter was always quick to say what he thought, to make declarations of loyalty or doubt or shame, to put the microphone to the bottom of his heart. A little boy on the team named Coran was that vocal. He wanted the extra bracelts on my arm. He wanted to be my extra special helper. He wanted the chance to do anything, to be in front, and to be a part of the game.
Children are meant to grow up and gain some sort of tact. But what God wants us to take from the loud, thoughtful voices of children is the ability to be straightforward with Him, to call Him Daddy, to say "I don't get it!" and "Why can't I have it now?!" but also to say "You're my Daddy! This is what I need, and I know you will take care of me, and I love you so much!" And more than anything, to jump up and down ecstatically when we see that He is near, because whatever He's up to, it's for our good.
I read this one day this week: Psalm 8:2, "Out of the mouths of babies and infants You have established strength because of Your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger." He makes His praise come even from people with little understanding and experience, even from loud and trusting young ones, so all His enemies will be speechless.
That's what it looked like when a little hero named Natalie on my team got up from dinner tonight and started passing out VBS fliers to people at other tables. Faith combined with action make change.
This week we'll be promising a new group of kids that they can trust God, and training them to take their natural faith and run to Him with it. But I think every time we shout "Trust God!" it will be as much for me as for them, to tell me to look around and gain the same childlike gleam of trust that I see in the eyes of these kids who are discovering a faithful God. To remind me that His children are never grown up and independent of Him, and He always wants to hear us crying out to Him.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Fatherhood
THIS WEEK it's Father's Day, and we're celebrating dads. It's a day that elevates the men above the boys. A day when we remember what it takes to go beyond being the male parent of a child, and be a man who stands tall. Not everybody, especially in America, has a good man for a dad. I've been blessed to have a great one.
A great man and dad is one whose life glorifies his Heavenly Father. Nobody else can teach him how to do the job right. A great man reflects the way God is a Father to us. His undying faithfulness to keep His promise, His unchanging love and constant mercy, His firm discipline, His concern for His children's wants and needs.
I've been reading about David, whom God called a man after His own heart, who would do all His will. Because he sincerely loved and revered Him, He wanted him to become king in place of Saul, who had repeatedly disobeyed Him. Saul wanted to kill him, and David had more than one chance to take him out. But he didn't, solely out of respect for God.
1 Samuel 24:10 "Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, 'I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord's annointed."
David, the anscestor of Jesus, was a great man because he thought it was more important to honor God than to take an opportunity that would give him an advantage. He was brave but respectful. God chose him to be king because he wasn't looking to be a king, but to glorify his King.
Not every boy grows up into a man. Many boys grow up into bigger boys, who want to be kings. They run away, or tell lies, or let people down, because nothing is ever quite as important as himself. Men are getting rare. Men know when to be on their faces praying, and when to stand up and turn faith into action. They honor their King above themselves.
Any grown-up boy can have a kid, but not every one is man enough to be a father. God is a Father who loves forever and doesn't go away.
In John 10:29-30 Jesus says, "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able tosnatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
And in John 14:18 He promises, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."
God is the model Father, and a great dad like mine tries to be like Him so that when his children see him, they will know what God is like and what it means to honor Him. In faith, love, charity, finances, discipline, every responsibility he has, he strives to be like the Father, and he raises up Christlike children.
He puts what we need above what we want, balances fun and discipline, work and home. He puts on a tie and works all day, then homes home and straight away puts on his pajama pants to just be with us. He makes sure we have a good school and a great church. This week he got a tooth pulled, and the very next day he was driving around the city with my Mom helping her with a cake delivery, and today he went shopping for groceries. He does his all of his jobs, and he doesn't let people down. He shows me what God is like, and what kind of man I'll want for myself one day.
I'm thankful to the Heavenly Father for giving me a dad like that, who can help me see what He is like.
Monday, June 11, 2012
A Pain in the Neck
THIS WEEK I have a story of praise to tell. God is so good! It's yet another testimony to how faithfully He answers prayer.
On Tuesday night after the sermon at my church's college ministry, we prayed for everybody who needed healing of any kind. They lined up in front for the speaker and others to lay hands on them. All kinds of pain and anxiety and injury were healed in Jesus' name. This is what the Body of Christ is supposed to do. Insomniacs walked away freed of their anxiousness. Broken hearts received the healing love of God. Particularly cool to me were the physical healings: improvements for a girl's painful lower back and increased mobility for a man with complications of a broken arm. My favorite was the healing of a girl with a bad knee - and the other wasn't great either - and who was having trouble standing straight. She walked away with zero pain.
Praise God! We prayed over these people in Jesus' name. The name of the One who bore our sicknesses and lifted our burdens. We claimed His promise that He will answer, and that we'll have what we ask in His name. It works.
When I left the church, I was inspired. I feel like I want the rest of my life to be full of that kind of Spirit action. I just love seeing the movement of the Holy Spirit in response to our faith.
My mom had come to pick me up from church. For almost two weeks she had been suffering from intolerable pain in her neck, back, and right shoulder blade. She has a pinched nerve from a car accident she had a long time ago. Her fingers were going numb, although her thumb is usually a little numb to begin with. And this hard working lady just kept about her every day business and did what she had to despite the pain, taking medicine and holding bags of frozen vegetables behind her neck.
Amazed by what I'd seen that night, during my personal Bible Study I wrote down my prayer for her. Something dared me to go ahead and write it down. I asked God that when my mom would wake up in the morning, she would be healed. All better. No pain.
Everybody had begun to pray for her, because her pain had been going on and on and not getting any better. She was getting worse. My mom and I are very close, and when one of us is in any kind of pain, so is the other. We need each other's happiness.
Jesus asks us to trust Him with these things. He demonstrated, many more times than the gospel writers could record, that He is the Healer and that He will move in response to our faith.
Isaiah 53:4-5 famously prophesies that Jesus would bear our burdens for our freedom.
"Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed."
Jesus Himself promised that His name is power in our prayers.
John 14:12-13 "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it."
So I asked! The next day my mom came home at 11:30. She was supposed to be at her chiropractor appointment, which she'd broken down and set up the day before when she wasn't getting any better. I asked her why she was home, and she said she felt better. I was so amazed and happy that I brought her my journal to show her what I wrote.
God answered my prayers and our friends' prayers for her. She was back to normal. She felt how she'd wished every morning she would feel waking up. She said she felt "like a new person." Her thumb's still a little numb like usual, and I'm still praying she won't get worse again. But no bag of frozen vegetables has been on her neck since. God answered my prayer when I asked in Jesus's powerful name.
I am so grateful and excited about this, and I hope and pray I'll always be seeing God do things like this.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Mighty Man of Valor
THIS WEEK has been different. No, I'm different. You see, God talked to me in a funny way last week that has given me a lot of joy and peace. I mean, I had joy and peace before, but I feel that "blessed assurance" that we sing about. And on top of it, I read a story that I really connected to.
I read the story of Gideon, who was the nobody of nobodies in Israel when it was being harassed by the Midianites. He was a humble, timid guy. But God called him to drive out the Midianites.
Judges 6:15-16 "So he said to Him, 'O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.' And the Lord said to him, 'Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.'"
What I notice about Gideon is that with every step to his calling, he acted in obedience but with fear. He was terrified. He made a sacrifice to God when He visited him, and when He revealed His glory he thought he was going to die. God told him to break down the neighborhood idols, and he had to do it in the dead of night for fear of his neighbors.
But God knew this about Gideon. Nevertheless His first words to him when He visited were "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!"
I wonder why this statement was not enough to make Gideon see himself as a mighty man of valor. Whatever the reason, God knew that before he went to the hill of Moreh to face the Midianites, he needed something more to encourage him.
Gideon had 32,000 men, but God said that was too many.
Judges 7:2 "And the Lord said to Gideon, 'The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, 'My own hand has saved me.'"
So the number went down to ten thousand. That was still too many, so the number went down again to 300. Plus Gideon. Also, they were going to war each armed with a trumpet, a torch, and a pitcher. God knew His servant was scared.
So He told him to grab his servant Purah and go spy on the Midianites:
Judges 7:11 "'and you shall hear what they say; and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down agaist their camp.' Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp."
This is the part that I really love. It's where the fearful, self-doubting Gideon becomes the mighty man of valor that God called him from the start.
v. 13-15 "And when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He said, 'I have a had a dream: to my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian; it cam to a tent and struck it so that it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed.'
"Then his companion answered and said, 'This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel! Into his hand God has delivered the camp of Midian and the whole camp.'
"And so it was, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, that he worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel, and said, 'Arise, for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand.'"
Barley bread is a symbol of poverty, because barley was the most affordable grain for the poor to use for bread. He could have sent a bulldozer, but He sent a barley loaf. That's why it took so much to convince Gideon: why wouldn't God send a king? Why would He send an average guy hiding in the winepress from the Midianites? The same reason He sent away most of his men: the victory would be for the glory of God alone.
It's amazing what assurance can come from a few revealed words from God. What can make a man braver than hearing that God has revealed him as victorious, even to his enemies? I don't know why it is, but He knows that sometimes we need to hear it from more than one source.
That's why I relate to Gideon this week. The blessed assurance I mentioned comes from a few words spoken by my new friends on my mission team. We asked God to give us each a word or a picture that would help encourage each member of the team. God used this occasion to give these people, most of whom I'd never met before that day, words that really touched my heart.
All of the words they shared were personally relevant, but especially the phrase "light in a dark place." I needed God to tell me this, because just the night before I'd been confessing that I didn't know whether I was doing any good in leading my friends to Him. My school was the dark place. This told me that even if we cannot see it, God is doing more with His people than we can imagine. It gave me hope that I will indeed "see His goodness in the land of the living." I can begin to understand the assurance Gideon must have felt when he heard how his enemies were already trembling.
The next day, the 300 men surrounded the camp and blew their trumpets, and they won.
v. 21 "And every man stood in his place all around the camp; and the whole army cried out and fled." Comrades killing each other, fleeing from the valley. Gideon called other Israelites to track them down, and they won.
After that moment when God revealed his plan through a stranger, we never see Gideon afraid again. He acted in boldness, as the "mighty man of valor" God called him to be.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Get Your Feet Wet
THIS WEEK I finished the last of the first five books of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy. The end of the old Jewish Law. Spoiler alert: God chose for Moses to die before Israel crossed over the Jordan into the Promised Land, and about the beginning of the next book his successor and the title character, Joshua, led the people through the river.
Not around. Not over. They walked through it. This is really neat to me - just as God parted the Red Sea for Israel to escape from Egypt and begin their journey, He parted the Jordan River to end their journey and bring them to the land they would conquer for their settlement.
Joshua 3:5 "And Joshua said to the people, 'Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.'"
The way God did this tells me something about us today. He told the people to let the priests carrying the ark of the covenant - the symbol of His Presence and His promise to Israel - approach the river first. Everybody stand back. The Lord is going to be the one to retrain the water while they walk through.
What God didn't do is draw the water back slowly, as they got closer, so that when they got there it would already be parted for them. He didn't even do it when they stood right on the edge of the river. He said He would part the water for them to cross once the priests had gotten their feet wet.
One step into the water, and the water will stop in a "heap," He told them, and flood the banks of the river upstream.
v. 14-16 "So it was, when the people stepped out fom their camp to cross over the Jordan, with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest), that the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap very far away at Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan. So the waters that went down to the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, failed, and were cut off; and the people crossed over opposite Jericho."
It seems that God was telling His people two things: first, that He is able to make the way for them despite any obstacle; and second, that to see Him make a way, sometimes they will have to step out in expectation that He will do as He said He would do.
The word says that this was the time of year when the Jordan was overflowing its banks. Can you imagine approaching this river, already deep and wide, insurmountable, at the time when it has deepened and widened to its maximum? Approaching with many thousands of individuals and families behind you, who are waiting for the Promised Land they've waited for? What does a heap of water even look like? I can't picture that. They just had to know that He had done it before to set their fathers free, and He was able to do it again to complete their journey. All He asked of them was to get their feet wet.
Get their feet wet, and proclaim that their faith was in the Lord their God, whose Presence went along with the ark they carried. Get their feet wet, and declare that the Lord's power is with the obedient as they look down and watch the water drain out from between their toes. See the river shrink and feel the dry soil and they continued marching with restrained water beside them. Stand in the middle of a live river bed while the Lord holds open the way for thousands of the children of Israel to walk around them to the other side in victory.
To see His glory, sometimes God asks us to get our feet wet and see if He won't hold back the river.
Sometimes that can be the simple but bold act of asking. It means putting our hope in God and His goodness. Jesus has been impressing on me the impact of simply asking. These words of His kept showing up for me this week:
Luke 11:9-10 "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."
If we want to see him move, sometimes He wants us to just have enough faith to ask. Or sometimes He just wants us to go, and let Him supply to place and the people once we have set our hearts to follow his command. Sometimes it will be to speak or to pray or to preach, something that takes a little faith, because He will always honor the one whose faith turns to obedient action, and whose expectation turns to movement.
We act on faith, and He moves mountains: isn't that something we see a lot? It's even how our salvation is designed. Have faith in the Son of God, and He will trade His stainless record for our ruined condition. He will make the way for us to come to the Father. He'll hold the water back.
The people couldn't cross over until their priests had made that declaration by a single footstep - Your people trust You. The men of Israel took twelve stones with them as they crossed the river and piled them up on the other side, as a memorial to the way God moved for them that day.
As a result, all the people on that side of the Jordan were terrified of Israel, because the Lord was with them. The enemy doesn't know what to do when there is a people approaching that lives by faith in the one true God. That's a people who has victory.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Thunder
THIS WEEK thunderstorms emptied themselves over the city for days, and God showed Himself through them.
My dog, Sugar, is a little shi tzu who comes up to my knees. She's about ten years old, and as she gets older she is beginning to hate thunder more and more. When it rains, she gets very nervous. When the thunder roars, she begins to tremble uncontrollably. As the storm goes on, she looks for someone she trusts to protect her.
You see, there are things my dog doesn't understand about the weather. She doesn't know that thunder does not mean the world is ending. It's the same with fireworks at New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July. For a little dog, it seems like the sky is exploding, or like some monster has come to strip the house away from the earth. She has super doggy ears but she can't understand what she's hearing. So all she can do is run to one of us, her family, who don't seem to be worried about the calamity that is surely iminent.
It's gotten so bad lately that we had to get her a bottle of calming pills with camomile to help her relax. But she doesn't want to take them, and even when she will swallow it, it doesn't calm her shivering. All she wants is to be with her family. She's still scared, but when we are near her she has hope that she will see tomorrow.
Getting to be the one Sugar runs to showed me something about God. He loves to be there when we need Him, and He loves when He is the One we run to.
It's the same thing a shepherd does with his sheep. He makes himself present and takes care of every need for each sheep. God calls us His sheep repeatedly through the Bible, to tells us that we both need Him and have Him.
Jesus makes it very clear in John 10:27-28 when He says, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand."
Holding on to little Sugar and trying to make her feel safe made me think of how God takes care of us. It reminded me that while receiving grace is a free gift, it's also a covenant. Jesus' blood made a new covenant for us that's beautiful and eternal: believe grace, receive grace; seek Him first, be provided for; let Him be your treasure, and have no lack. This way God will be glorified, and we will be blessed.
This is really what I needed Him to remind me this week. I'm thankful for the storms, even if they did give Sugar a terrible week. And I'm thankful for the night when one of my life verses came up on my phone unexpectedly. It felt like God really wanted to remind me of it, even though I've turned to it a hundred times:
Matthew 6:33 "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."
If we will seek God faithfully and wholeheartedly, He will provide faithfully too.
Sugar doesn't understand the weather or thunder or rain, so she runs to somebody who loves her. I know about thunder, and I understand that she doesn't have any reason to be afraid. I know she's going to be okay. But as long as she is scared, I'll help her.
God knows about thunder. He fills the food dish. The lightning doesn't scare Him, and He knows that when it's all over we will still be safe with Him. What He wants is to be the One we run to when the rain starts falling.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Blessed is She Who Believed
THIS WEEK we are celebrating mothers. For most of us a mom represents a special relationship, better than a friendship, that launches us into life and gives us instruction in how to live it. A mom isn't just somebody who has given birth to somebody. That's not an easy thing to do, but the bigger challenge is to raise that person up in Christ by being an example of what it means to live by faith. That's what I got, and keep getting, from my mom. And I think that relationship is one of the greatest things God has put in this world.
Earlier this week I read about a couple of moms you've probably heard of - Elizabeth and Mary. My pastor actually talked about them this morning too. They were ordinary people whom God chose to exalt because of their faithfulness to following Him.
Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, doesn't get talked about as much as Mary, the mother of Jesus, and for obvious reasons. Mary's Son is more important than Elizabeths, as even Elizabeth could confess. But I like her a lot, and it's been a blessing to me to have her story on my mind this week. She and her husband Zacharias were something like Sarah and Abraham - really old, childless, but serving God faithfully into their old age.
Luke 1:6-7 "And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in age."
They wanted children. It's to be expected. But they didn't have any, and they didn't have a reason to think they would ever have any at this point. What stands out to me is that Elizabeth had quite clearly done nothing wrong to deserve this problem. This wasn't her fault. Her great achievement, which God honored, was that she and her husband served faithfully even though they weren't getting what they must have hoped and prayed for all their lives. But Elizabeth's heart was receptive to a miracle.
God let this happen so that all the world would see His hand in their situation: that the son of their old age would become an important part of His plan, someone to prepare the way of the Lord. He made it a miracle.
Do you know what Elizabeth said about that?
She said, in Luke 1:25, "Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people."
Her reproach was that she'd had no children. It was a flaw. A downfall. But God saw her faithfulness as His servant and as a wife, and He chose to honor the one whom others rejected. We don't get a lot of information about this lady, but we get a clear and timeless message about what it means to be a godly woman. She follows the Lord with all her heart, rain or shine, hurt or fine. She seeks Him relentlessly and glorifies Him with what He has given, and she doesn't give up when she doesn't know whether He hears. He does, and she and everyone around her will see Him honor her for her faithfulness. Her children will look at her and see what means to live by Proverbs 3:5, which says to "trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding."
Mary was different from Elizabeth because she was young and engaged, not full of experience and years. She was probably in her early teen years. She probably couldn't read or write. But her heart, like Elizabeth's, was receptive to a miracle. Her great achievement was that even though she didn't fully understand what was going to happen, she knew that God is able to do what He has said He will do. If He decided,so that the world would see His grace and power, that a virgin should bear his Son, she didn't have to understand it to know He was going to do it.
God knows that's hard for us to swallow. I can't imagine what it must be like to have an angel come to your house and tell you that you're suddenly going to be pregnant, and your baby is going to be God's Savior for the world. I don't know what that feels like. The look on her face must have been something to see. But God gave Gabriel some words to encourage her. (v. 37) "For with God nothing will be impossible."
A godly woman looks at that big statement and owns it. She lives by the belief that God is bigger than our lack of understanding, and the impossible is something fun for Him to step right over like an ant hill. She talks like Mary talks.
v. 38 "Now Mary said, 'Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.' And the angel departed from her."
It's cool to me to notice what happened when Elizabeth's husband Zacharias heard the news about John, from the same angel. He didn't believe it. He had an angel standing in front of him, and he asked how he could be sure. So he was mute until the child was born, and God made him eat his words. Mary was blessed among women because she took God at His word.
When Elizabeth saw Mary when she visited, the Holy Spirit filled her, and she told Mary (v.45) "Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord."
My mom, and a lot of the moms in my family and my life, trust God like these ladies did. God isn't looking for perfect people with perfect lives. He wants people whose devotion to Him does not depend on their circumstances or on their ability to understand. I know that's hard for me, but I sure have a good place to look to get better at it.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Crazy
THIS WEEK I've been learning more about the wisdom of God than I did last week. It would seem that His wisdom can be seen, more than anywhere else, in the things that seem absolutely crazy to us.
While going through my Bible in a Year program I came across a funny story that I had heard is in the Bible somewhere. It's in Numbers 22. I never thought the book of Numbers would prove itself so interesting! It's a story about a talking donkey, which proves two things: First, that God is furiously protective of His people; and second, that He has a great sense of humor.
To stop a man named Balaam from pronouncing a curse over Israel as a favor to his friend Balak, God appeared in his path. Balaam didn't notice Him there, but his loving donkey did. Three times along the road she objected to aproaching where the Angel of the Lord stood with His sword drawn, but Balaam repremanded her.
v.28-31 "Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, 'What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?' And Balaam said to the donkey, 'Because you have abused me. I wish there were a sword in my hand, for now I would kill you!' So the donkey said to Balaam, 'Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden, ever since I became yours, to this day? Was I ever disposed to do this to you?' And he said, 'No.' Then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand; and he bowed his head and fell flat on his face."
God didn't want him to turn back home and forget his friend Balak. He used the talking donkey to make sure that once he got to Balak he would pronounce a blessing instead of a curse.
v.35 "Then the Angel of the Lord said to Balaam, 'Go with the men, but only the word that I speak to you, that you shall speak.' So Balaam went with the princes of Balak."
If He hadn't spoken through the donkey, Israel would have been cursed and made subject to Balak, and Father God could not let that happen to His children. He had blessed them, so He could not allow them to be cursed. That was the people the Savior would be coming to. So in a funny way, God used a donkey in part of His big, beautiful salvation plan. He also proved, to put it plainly, that people can often be dumber than an ass!
For me it also means that God has always been doing this. He often chooses what is not our first choice to show us that He knows best. He chose the make a tiny town, Bethlehem, at a plain place, a stable, as the birthplace of the Savior of the world. He would grow up in the backwoods part of Israel, Galilee, as a carpenter with little education.
He doesn't choose to save only the rich and visible. He can make glory grow up out of the cracks in the sidewalk. He will speak through children and fools and donkeys to show us that nothing can hinder Him, and that His wisdom transcends ours completely.
1 Corinthians 3:18-19 "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness.'"
That assurance comes with a challenge to be satisfied in what His wisdom says is good for us. It's assuring and easy to say that God is wise until He asks us to depend on Him alone for life. Will we let His wisdom be an assurance to us when He asks us not to follow our own wisdom?
A few chapters before the episode with the donkey, the children of Israel are wandering around the wilderness following God and have begun to complain. In Numbers 11, here they are, actually wishing God had never worked all His wonders and taken them out of their enslavement in Egypt. They aren't satisfied with the food He has given them, and they want Him to give them meat. Their words really amaze me:
v.6 "But now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!"
Oh, what a shame! To have only perfect bread from heaven, as much as each person needs. They must have been wasting away! That bread was a symbol of what Jesus is for us. The One God the Father sent to give nourishment to our souls, to make us depend on Him alone for life. "Manna" means "What?" because they didn't know what it was but that it was a good thing God had given. Because they were not satisfied with what His wisdom said was good, God gave them meat with a plague.
It's frightening to me to think what it must be like to look up from your donkey and see God with His sword drawn against you. What could be more terrifying than getting what I want from the God who already gave me what you need, when I told Him it wasn't enough for me?
Believing God is wise involves us trusting His judgement, even though it seems crazy to us. It means following Him by faith, not by understanding, because He is the One with understanding and He won't always explain it to us. He does not call us to wrap our heads around him, but to cast our cares on Him and be satisfied in Him. He will honor our faith with His faithfulness.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Higher Wisdom
THIS WEEK was the last week of my first year of college. I have enjoyed typing to you about what God has done week by week through it, and I'm excited for what's going to happen next. Looking back on the way God has mapped everything out and kept it all together shows me something about His wisdom. It's beautiful the way He showed up every day, not so that everything would happen my way but so that I could see how much better His way is.
In this midst of difficulties, big or small, we can see the way God orchestrates things. This week, I got stung in the foot by some sort of insect. I hadn't had the chance to just sit and be alone with God that day. That thing hurt like heck and made me cry, but in that moment there were two friends close by who came to help me. God blessed me with help from my sisters in Christ right then, and with some encouragement right after. I sat by a wall for over an hour waiting for it to stop hurting so much, but it was a good moment to study 2 Timothy 1. That day wasn't my favorite day ever, but at least I got to hear God talk to me out of a bad mood and a hurting foot.
2 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
It's not the biggest problem, but God made it so that I wouldn't have to be alone in it. It assures me that His will is not for us to be discouraged and immobilized, but to get encouragement from Him and from each other in Him.
My family has also been blessed in the precise way my mom's parents have both gotten sick this year. Because Grandma needed Grandpa to be strong for her every day that she was going through her cancer treatments, and the same week that she was better the doctors found Grandpa's kidney problems just in time. His first surgery was this week, and it went really well.
God is wise. For a person to be wise is for him to understand that God alone is truly wise, and for him to humble himself before Him. A wise person doesn't trust in himself, and that much takes strong faith that God is going to honor. God understands that that's hard for us. We won't always know the answer or even know His will, but if we trust that He is good and strong and wise, regardless of our circumstances, our strength will come from Him and not from ourselves.
Proverbs 3:5-8 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones."
This morning my pastor referred to Abraham and said that real faith comes from trusting and obeying God, even when we don't understand what He is doing. Even when we don't have all the details. The trust that He is wise, and that He has a way in store to turn the same thing that baffles us into the thing that shows us His glory. Like when Jesus told Peter to fish in the other side of the boat, after he had been fishing in vain for hours: it didn't make any sense, but when he obeyed his nets came close to breaking. Our expectations and preferences aren't necessarily wrong, but it takes faith to act on the knowledge that God's wisdom is higher than our own.
My room mate Sarah is about to plunge into the depths of Panama to help establish a sustainable community there. The way God has made the opportunity possible for her despite all odds shows her His hand in it, and she is excited to become a part of it and to get her world shaken by an encounter with true need. Why Panama? Why for two and a half months? What does He have to teach her from having to live without all the comforts of home? It's a hard committment to make, and it's much easier to try to change a smaller, closer piece of the world at home. It wouldn't be bad to volunteer downtown all summer, but God is telling her to go to Panama and she is going. We will pray for her and be thankful for what she is doing every day that she is gone. Her nets are going to be close to breaking.
God's wisdom is higher than ours, and I think He delights in showing us both His patience and His trustworthiness. We don't always trust, but He will always show us that we can trust Him. He likes to let us know that He knows best, and that we don't have to understand everything because He already does. That's a relief for me, for sure. His power and His dreams are bigger than we know, so let's trust Him with how He wants to make it all happen.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Together Forever
THIS WEEK I want to praise God for one blessing in particular, the blessing of fellowship.
All summer before this first year of college life, I prayed to have the right Christian group and friends surrounding me once I got here. Now, with one short week left before another summer, I see that God has done more than answer this prayer. He has put me in the midst of an amazing thing He is doing on my campus and surrounded me with the best friends I've ever had.
There is something about being with other believers and talking to them that edifies your soul. When even just a couple of us get together, it's like a little shard of heaven, because heaven is about fellowship. A fellowship of believers together as a body, a body in fellowship with God forever.
It's beautiful the way God gives us things to help each other when we least expect it. This isn't heaven, and things go wrong, and we often need other people who have Jesus living in them to bring us some light in the dark. If the Lord lives in us, then He unites us as His as shows Himself to us through each other. Just this week I've been blessed with a few one-on-one conversations with other believers that have really lifted me up. My discipler, Debbie, has become a great source of encouragement and guidance for me as I try to show Jesus to my classmates. And between me, my roommate Sarah, and our lovely friend Quinn, every one of us always seems to have something to say that another needs to hear right now. I see Christ in my friends all the time.
Matthew 18:20 "For where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there in the midst of them."
Even when a few of us meet up to get frozen yogurt, or to learn how to swing dance, or to invent unusual foods at a party - all of which happened to me in the last few days - I start to think about heaven, and how much fun that's going to be. I wonder if we'll look back on moments like this that we had on earth, moments when we wondered what it would be like to all be together forever once the battle is over, together in the presence of the God we all love.
John 13:34-35 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
We are here to glorify God and to bless each other. We are here to rejoice together and mourn together. We are here to do the will of God together, whatever it may be, because we can't do this alone.
Proverbs 18:1 "A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgement."
Yesterday I got such an amazing picture of how God moves through the body of Christ when I went to a CRU leadership meeting. Leaders of all levels and in all areas of the Christian organization came together. First we all shared the things God has done this year that we are thankful for. He has been moving in more ways on just our campus than I could say. He has saved people and given us the strength to overcome challenges in His name. I said that I am thankful that He has answered my prayer to have other Christians around me, and that through them He has shown me His love more than ever before.
It was beautiful to be there, because I could see that I have a place in something big and glorious God is doing. He is leading CRU and using its members as He makes His dreams come true on our campus. He has people doing all different jobs, from prayer to using technology at events, all working together to bring glory to His name. I'm happy to be a part of it and to get to see His work.
1 Corinthians 12:12-13 "For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free - and have all been made to drink into one Spirit."
Those moments are highlights for me, when we are all worshipping God together or praying together for one another. Things like that bless me so much, because I know that however God calls each of us to serve with our lives down here, we will all end up together forever with God.
John 17:22-23 "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."
Monday, April 16, 2012
A Source of Strength
THIS WEEK I feel weak. I'm feeling weaker and weaker lately. And I'm very glad about it, because I'm learning that it's a good thing.
It's probably a problem every follower of Christ faces. We start to despair at the things we cannot change or the questions we cannot answer. Our hearts break for the lost around us. We can be discouraged when our own sins come to light one after the other.
Especially since last week, when I watched the Passion of the Christ and I realized that God's love is much greater than I can understand, I do feel weak. When I look at a God who is totally glorious and holy and righteous and yet visits the earth with kindness and humility, to the point of death, I see what that makes me. It makes me someone in need of His grace. It makes me really small and pretty powerless next to a God like that. And it even makes me a little frustrated sometimes that I make so many mistakes, and I have so much more growing and learning left to do, just when I think I'm starting to figure it out. Who is this God, this Servant King? And who am I that He cares so much about me?
I'm starting to see that weakness is at the heart of receiving grace. The whole idea of grace is really humbling once you realize who is giving it to us, and how much we need it. You can't receive grace without realizing our weakness, and if you live in grace you're going to see just how big our weakness is, the more you see how big God's grace is.
I feel like I'm weak because there are a lot of things I want to see and do, but I don't know how because I can't do it by myself. Things like leading my friends to Christ, or participating in faith healings, or knowing the answers to all the questions I still have, things I don't understand about God. But the more I see how little I can do, the more I realize how much God can do.
Psalm 27:1 "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"
I read about this God who took an enslaved people out of a mighty nation by cutting a sea in half for them to walk through. A God who sent His words to prophets and chose to do great things through lowly people. A God who became a Man and romantically pursues the souls of the world, having died to crush death and rose to breath new life into us.
And I see a God who answers prayers that I forgot I prayed. A God who makes His presence known more to His people when things go wrong than at any other time, so we'll know He never leaves. A God who manifests His strength through our weakness, so we'll know that He alone can save.
I sometimes get discouraged because I can't do everything, and I often can't do anything. But I know someone who can.
I know I use this verse a lot, but it is a source of strength to me. Sarah has written it on the whiteboard that's behind me right now.
2 Corinthians 12:9 "And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
One thing God wants to do in order to make us holy - set apart from the world - is to teach us how much we need Him to make us holy. He uses this to make us different. He shows us that the way to salvation and wisdom and truth is not in ourselves, but in Him. The way to solve life's problems, to have strength and purpose, is in Him. He has big dreams and He will include us in making them come true. Grace overflows from the life of someone who realizes that God does not need his help saving the world, but He has a job for him to do before he comes home.
Seeing more of my weakness, all the things I can't do, and don't know, and won't accept, is helping me rely on God's strength. I'm seeing Him bring people close to His heart and reveal Himself to us unmistakeably. He makes life good.
Getting to follow Him and abide with Him, now and forever, is a blessing and a joy. He knows He isn't saving angels. He's saving fallen creatures that actually need saving. Our weakness is not a failure, and our inability is actually an advantage. When we see our weakness, we will see God's strength. Because of this we will watch Him come through in our lives and our friends' lives - for health, security, faith, fulfillment, everything we need according to His wisdom, because He is a good God, and He is strong.
John 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing."
Sunday, April 8, 2012
See the Savior
THIS WEEK I think I love Jesus more than I ever have before, and that's saying something. If you read what I wrote last week, you know that at Women's Retreat I came to realize that God's love is so boundless that we have no lack. But God hasn't stopped there.
The more you know how much God loves us, the more you love Him - and the more you can love other people! Here's one way to look at God's love: I don't know much about the universe, but I know that if it does have limits then it isn't big enough for God's love for us. Because God is not limited in any way! Doesn't that just blow you away? The more you know Him, the more you realize you don't know, and the more you fall in love.
Today is Easter, one of the those days in the year that can be an amazing reminder of how God loves us. The way we celebrate in America, it can also be a serious distraction from Him. I mean, I love chocolate. I love chocolate that is shaped like a bunny. I look forward to any day when I can expect to be given a whole lot of chocolate. But what about that Savior - let's not take our eyes off that Savior who died, physically and spiritually, and rose so we can live. He didn't die on a cross made of gold - or of chocolate, for that matter.
I watched the Passion of the Christ on Good Friday. That was hard. It left me wondering what kind of God we belong to - how do you speak to a God who takes one look at the sin of the world and says, "Okay, here's My Son. Surely My own life will be enough to bring you back to Me"?
I've been going through Exodus and I've seen that God has been painting pictures of what our salvation would be since ancient times. Look at the Passover lamb of Exodus 12. As a part of fighting for the freedom of His people Israel from their enslavement in Egypt, He was about to kill all the firstborn in the land. But the way His people would be set apart was that their children and livestock would be saved when they mark their doors with the blood of a perfect lamb. He told them not to break any of its bones, and not to let any of it remain. In the same way, we are saved from death when we are marked by the blood of the Lamb of God who stands in our place to redeem us. None of His bones were broken, and His sacrifice is not wasted. We are set apart not because of who we are, but because of who He is.
Later, in Exodus 16, God sent bread from heaven called Manna to feed the redeemed people in the wilderness. The food was perfectly satisfying and there was always enough. Jesus calls Himself the true bread from heaven, sent so that we will never be hungry.
I've been asking God to help me see more of what His love is like. As a result, He has just blown me away. A problem I tend to have is that when I read about Jesus' death and resurrection in the Bible, I tend to forget how it all really looked and felt. I can see what the events are and what the Lord said, but I often forget to think about His pain. I think it's because realizing what He had to go through makes me think about how much I need it, and it isn't fun to think about how much I need a perfect Savior to lay down His life. It's stressful to remember how hard that was for Jesus. It's more pleasant, less challenging, not humbling at all, to think of Jesus like He is represented in a lot of artwork. He isn't covered in blood and lacerations with exposed muscles. He isn't crying for His Father, misshapen and disjointed. He looks like He is sleeping.
How about this? Psalm 22:14 "I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it has melted within Me."
I think the reason I have grown to love Jesus more than ever is that I have seen more of His love than I have before.
Isaiah 53:5 "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed."
Yeah, Jesus was scared, but He did it for two reasons - to fulfill the will of God, and out of love for us to save us.
John 10: 17-18 "Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father."
Enjoy the chocolate, but may your love for the Savior just grow and expand so much that you can't fit it all inside. I find that when you see Jesus, I want to be more like Him. I want other people to see him too. I'm falling in love with Him, and I always want to love Him more than I already do. I see my weakness and I'm excited to see the ways He will manifest His strength in my life. How much must He love us, if He loves us even though we put the holes in His hands? Celebrate, because He is risen and so are we. And we get to spend forever in the arms of the God of unending love.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Grace Like An Ocean
THIS WEEK I went to the annual CRU Women's Retreat. It was a getaway for girls in Daytona Beach, where we stayed at an oceanside hotel and learned about God's love and grace. I just got back a couple hours ago. God did more than I can begin to talk about, because He moved in each of our lives in a singular and special way.
I love weekends like this, when a bunch of people that Jesus saved can meet up and eat together, learn and study together, dance, pray, sing, and spend time together. It makes me really grateful for the girls He has put in my life. I started today by going out with them behind the hotel and watching the sun come up over the ocean, and just being in awe over the God who can make things like that. I think it's God's will for the redeemed to gather together and talk about how great it will be in heaven to look back on the things we are saying and doing together now, writing in the sand and looking out over the sea.
The theme for the weekend was "Grace like an Ocean." There was a particular focus on idolatry, but we apprached it in a way I never thought about before. We turn to idols because of good desires that we try to satisfy in the wrong ways, and that happens when we don't really believe something about God. It might be His love, His trustworthiness, His goodness, or any other thing about Him that He says is true.
The funny thing to me is that not very long ago at all both CRU and my church were covering the topic of idolatry, and I didn't particularly identify much of it in my life. This time I realized something that I wasn't getting right. I knew that God loves each of us overwhelmingly, but I didn't fully grasp that His love is truly boundless. I probably knew it, but it wasn't sinking in. As a result my love for the lost was limited, and the power of the cross wasn't taking on as full a form as it might have in my life. I felt like I needed more love than I had. I had begun to worship a wish.
So I went outside and dunked myself in the ocean. I let the swells sweep me off my feet and surround me. God took my eyes off the horizon - a place infinitely far away - and showed me the enormous volume it embraces. If His grace is like an ocean, what sin is not concealed? If His love is like an ocean, what more do I need?
This weekend we talked about Isaiah 44, which is about what it looks like to God when we make idols for ourselves. It's like using part of a hunk of wood to warm yourself and cook your food, and part of it as a god you can turn to for deliverance.
v. 20 "He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliever himself or say, 'Is there not a lie in my right hand?'"
But God wants us to worship only Him so He can bless us. He wants to prove that He is more than enough.
v. 22 "I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to Me, for I have redeemed you."
Zephaniah 3:17 was also a major verse to us this weekend: "The Lord your God is in your midst, a Mighty One who will save; He will rejoice over your with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing."
Do you wonder what it sounds like when God sings? What is it like for Him to celebrate from the bottom of His beautiful heart over us, His people? This isn't heaven yet, but we will know someday. He reminded me this weekend that we are our Savior's bride. He saved us because of love. We are His treasure. Our understanding of our sin increases with understanding His holiness. The result should be condemnation, but it's grace instead. The more we recognize the depth of his love, the less we long for it in other places and the more we can love other people. He pours His love into usso that we overflow.
But when I think about it, God's love and grace aren't exactly like an ocean. In my head I know that oceans actually do have limits. When I look at the horizon, I know that somewhere out there are the borders of islands and eventually other continents. In the very first chapter of the Bible He separated land from sea. Both have boundaries. But His love and His grace don't, because God is not a limited person in any respect.
I was blessed by this weekend, and as I realize the boundlessness of our Lord's love I am already feeling my capacity for love, and my ability to pour it back out, beginning to expand. Wrapped up in the arms of a God who is love, we lack nothing.
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