Looking Back with Joy

Hello to my poor forgotten blog. Truth be told, I only missed you a little. Blogging seems like such an odd concept to me at times, basically an online journal. It can be dangerous when anyone has access to a public mental outlet. There are some weirds in the world. But hopefully there are enough great blogs out there adding to the good of the world instead of taking away from it.

Being an extreme external, verbal processor myself, you’d think a blog would be ideal for me! If I could just remember to blog, maybe it would be :) I suppose I sometimes worry about sharing too much, as is often the case with me. If too much sharing easily overwhelms you, I apologize, because tonight I’m feeling wordy.

I’ve been dwelling a lot lately on all the changes in the past year. All the things God has brought me through, taken me out of, healed in me, and worked on getting out of me. What a crazy journey this year has been. I moved last summer from living in Lynchburg, VA, attending Liberty University to Blacksburg, VA, to finish up school through LU online.

Transition: Residential Student to Online Student.

Ouch. This one was harder than I was expecting. Result: I learned to study harder and my GPA dropped quite a bit. Most of my life I’ve gotten away with soaking up class discussion and my professors’ lectures while only half paying attention. That was how I studied. And I got good grades. Yep, I was one of those people. No longer. With these online classes, it’s all on me now. What a blessing in disguise. I put in twice the effort to actually learn something nowadays. This transition has seriously changed my time management and self-discipline habits. It’s not a very pretty ride.

Transition: Living on my own, to living in my parent’s basement.

So great. Mostly. Who’da thunk? I love living with my parents. I save a ton of money and still get my own space. I couldn’t ask for better parents. It’s been great being so close. That doesn’t mean I’m not ready to be on my own again :) Just not as far away this time.

Transition: Living without church community to being part of a church family.

The best transition of the year. I spent the two years prior (my Texas year, and my Lynchburg year) in an awkward state of severely lonely. Surrounded by people but not connected to any of them. Attending a church on Sundays but not getting to know anyone. That is just SO NOT the way God intended church to work. I’ve been learning that. I absolutely love my church family. I love that they know what is happening in my life. I love that they can share their lives with me, too. I love that we can help each other out when there’s a need. I love that we can be crazytown and fun and still discuss deep theology. There are so many good things about being plugged in to a church family. People to do life with. God knew we all would need that.

Transition: Part-time minimum wage office job to part time server at the Olive Garden

Geez. Totally opposite work worlds. Sitting at a computer for hours at a time vs. walking around with heavy trays of heavy Italian food for hours at a time. Dealing with people through email vs. dealing with hungry people. People are cranky when they’re hungry. Just sayin. If you want a crash course on how to deal nicely with people you don’t like, become a server.

There are so many more things I could go on about.

The way God has healed so many past hurts with His love. Even (and especially) hurts I thought were long gone. Filling up those wounded places with Himself and teaching me how to serve people (not just their food), whether I know them or not. Whether I like them or not.

Or the way God is showing me how to be free from the intense pressures of legalism I was immensely and deeply trapped in. Some awesome old theologian once said being a Christian is like trying to keep a drunk on a horse—you fall of on one side into legalism; you fall of on the other side into pride. Generally I can balance in the middle for about two seconds before falling on one side or the other. But I’m learning to accept God’s beautiful grace given to me through Jesus Christ. If any of you knew me a year ago, you’ll understand how huge that is for me.

So many wonderful things come to mind when I think about the changes this past year has brought. The most recent surrounds my future plans. I thought I had it all figured out. I was going to graduate in December 2012, raise support and move to Germany to be a Resident Advisor for a high school girl’s dorm at Black Forest Academy—an American boarding school for missionary kids. But when are my plans ever God’s plans? Haha! God is teaching me to slow down. To spend more time in one place than the very short amount of time I’m accustomed to. He’s teaching me to soak up the concept of HOME. For the first time in a very, very long time, I feel like this wonderful, crazy place really is my home. So, current major lesson #1 for me: slow down.

Current major lesson #2: Don’t try to manipulate circumstances. Geez. I’m so bad about this. I start comparing myself to others. I decide I want what they have—what God has decided is not the right time for me to have—and I do what I can to try to get it. I’m such a child, haha. I had a wonderful revelation at church a few weeks ago: My circumstances are not keeping me from having things I think I want. Let me explain. God is sovereign over my circumstances. I have seen that time and time and time again. So many things have happened that I know can only be explained by the fact that it was God orchestrating circumstances. That being said, wouldn’t it also be true that certain things, which have not happened in my life, are also a result of God orchestrating circumstances? I think yes. Therefore, I have been attempting to trust God in the fact that, when the time is right, HE will be the one to “manipulate” my circumstances according to His plan. Because, after all, He is the one who gives me what is best. The best for me and the best for His wonderful glory. I can’t ask for more than that, although my wicked flesh often does. I am reminded of the beautiful, cherished words of Elisabeth Eliot (what an awesome lady):

“God never witholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God's refusals are always merciful -- "severe mercies" at times but mercies all the same. God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better.” 

God is showing me the truth of this at the deepest heart level. And I am so thankful for his patience with me. In everything.

A Prayer.

I should be sleeping. But like any easily distracted 21 year old girl, I am scouring facebook. So useless. But tonight, God gave me a gift through it. I encountered an old prayer. I wrote this a long time ago, and its truth is still as powerful as the day God gave it to me. And I just thought....maybe there's someone out there who needs te be encouraged by it.

"I'm not really a note writer. But God gave me this prayer. And he put it on my heart to share it. They are just words, but put together they are powerful. I believe this to be the highest truth there is. I want to share it with you, because I love you. I pray that for all of you, it will be encouraging. I pray that it would cause you to give praise to the only One who deserves it. That it would give you a desire to enter into God's presence, just to be with Him. To give Him glory, and let Him love on you. Because He wants you to let Him pour His love all over you. Into your soul and coming out through your pores. Take it for what it is: just a small glimpse into my heart, and hopefully, a huge picture of how enormous and great our God is...and echo this prayer in your heart with me. 

Lord, You are good. Even in the things I don’t understand and don’t know. You are good. You are sovereign over all things. You have the power and the control. You are righteous and You are just. It would be just for you to condemn the whole population of the earth. That is what we, as people deserve, according to Your righteousness and holiness. There was absolutely no reason for You to send your son to save us—nothing in us that was worth saving. 

Except that we are Your creation. We are made in Your wonderful image, God. We are your poetry, your craftsmanship, your art. The only reason You saved us is because of Your love, and now, because of that love, we are restored to what you originally made us to be! You didn’t have to do that, Lord! You could’ve wiped us out and started over. 

But you are a loving God. 

You are a merciful God. 

We are insignificant—worse than insignificant compared to You, yet for some reason, we are significant to You. You are so aware of each one of your creations. Down to the detail—the very hidden, intimate things of the heart. 

The fears, the insecurities, the worries. 

The hateful thoughts, our deepest desires. 

You know them all backwards and forwards, inside and out. 

We are wicked. We are sinful. 

We take credit where there is none; we want bad things for others and good things for ourselves. 

Our very nature goes against everything You are, God. You created this world, and you created it in a certain way. With a certain order, a system for the way everything works. 

We have messed up the order, messed up the system, disgraced what you have made beautiful, trampled on what you made precious, laughed at the sacred. There is nothing good in us. We were born sinful. 

It is a condition of the heart, not merely actions and behaviors of the will, but those actions and behaviors of our will come out of the sinfulness of our hearts. 

But You, O Lord, in your strength, your beauty, your sovereignty, your huge, incredible love, sent your son. 

Jesus, you took each sinful thought, word and action upon yourself. You chose to be punished for the wickedness of our hearts. You took our guilt, and took our punishment and gave us your righteousness.

The Holy Son of the Most High God. 

Jesus, you are everything good, everything lovely. You conquered our sinful natures and in your power, rose from the death that was the punishment for my sin. You conquered it, so I no longer have to endure its consequences. 

Who would willingly do that? The God of love. 

God we are a selfish, blind, stubborn and wicked people! After all that, after you suffered the most gruesome death in history on our behalf, we still spit in your face. In our arrogance, we still don’t accept you as Lord. How tragic. 

Lord, awaken our hearts to Your truth! Open our eyes to your love and glory! Let us see ourselves through Your eyes; let us see our wickedness in contrast to your holiness. God you are gracious to a wicked people. You show mercy to those who only see themselves. You are so good. 

Lord, be the Lord of my every day. Be the Lord over my choices, my actions, my thoughts, and my words. Make this truth known! Rip the blinders off the eyes of those who refuse to see you! In Your mercy, God, convict them of sin and reveal your truth to them, that they will be changed and give the glory to You alone. Not to us, Lord, but to Your name be all the glory forever and ever and ever. 

Do with my life whatever You say is best. Whatever You have for me to do. I want to do it. Reveal it to me, Lord, that I might serve you better and give glory to Your name."

The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes.

"A time for joy, a time for laughter;
The night hours are but a blink in time.
The morning is breaking; a time for peace.
All of creation is still in anticipation.
The rose-colored sky smiles to show off its most honored treasure.
The sun peeks over the top of the trees and the birds sing louder.
God is here. All mighty, all knowing, all powerful, all good.
A time for glory. A time when the world sleeps.
A time for all of nature to use the voice given by the Holy One Himself.
He is here. It's all for Him.
The beauty of the created lives to show off the beauty of its creator.
He holds all things together.
The sun blazing its brightest with it's warm colored home behind it.
All for Him. He is here."



Psalm 19
The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
      The skies display his craftsmanship.
 Day after day they continue to speak;
      night after night they make him known.
 They speak without a sound or word;
      There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
 Yet their message has gone throughout the earth,
      and their words to all the world.
   God has made a home in the heavens for the sun.
 It bursts forth like a radiant bridegroom after his wedding.
      It rejoices like a great athlete eager to run the race.
 The sun rises at one end of the heavens
      and follows its course to the other end.
      Nothing can hide from its heat.

Decisions, Decisions

Whether we are aware of it or not, every single thing we do is determined by our beliefs. Our worldview, if you will. I think often times, we have this knowledge in our heads of what we believe. We would stand up for it, fight against ideas which oppose it, and claim that we live by it. But is that how we are actually living? Are we blinded by lies festering in our minds that have come from the media, music, books, even our friends? Do our decisions come from what we claim to believe, or are they based on faulty thinking that we aren't even aware of?

Norman Geisler's book, Chosen But Free deals with the issue of God's sovereignty vs. free will. An age old debate which has not, and i believe will not be resolved until our life on earth is over. How much influence do I have over my decisions? Has God "pre-programmed" everything I'll ever do? Did I chose to believe in Jesus Christ and accept salvation? Or did God choose me? These are questions that are well worth researching and deciding what you believe. Because, as I mentioned, your beliefs will determine your actions.

In the first chapter of his book, Geisler discusses this concept. It’s the thought that all our ideas have consequences—both good consequences and bad consequences. He gives a few different examples of this, both generally and in history. He says “The Red Cross, hospitals, schools, representative government, and aid for the poor and oppressed are all examples of good ideas that led to good actions” (p. 12). However, Geisler also gives an example of how faulty ideas can have extremely horrific consequences. Adolf Hitler believed in the Darwinian theory of “survival of the fittest” or social evolution. He said in his book, Mein Kampf that nature clearly does not one weaker individuals to mate with stronger ones, or superior races to mate with inferior ones, because all the evolutionary progress of the past x number of years would be undone. (Paraphrase mine, p. 239-40). Because of his train of thought, millions of people were murdered.

I think everyone will agree that our decisions begin with a thought. A single thought turns into a trail of thoughts leading you straight to a decision to act. I then must ask the question: Where do our thoughts come from? What are we feeding our minds? It has long been said that negative behavior is easier to imitate than positive behavior. Are you surrounded by negativity? Are you quick to criticize and critique? Do you focus on the bad? Do you put people down?

Our minds can be very scary places. I had a professor who used to say “The smallest decision can change the trajectory of your life.” If this is true, and I do believe it is, I think it is vitally important that we evaluate the sources that we allow to influence our minds. There is only one source which to me is the highest standard to base my decisions on and that is the Bible; the very Word of God.

Philippians 4:8 says “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” If we do this, we can trust that our thoughts will be what they should be in order to make the right decisions.

Richer than a Win

Worship through song in the church today is a very controversial issue. Each individual church conducts worship through song in a unique way. Whether it is with the traditional hymns accompanied by only an organ, or with a huge choir accompanied by a full orchestra, the styles are innumerable. But, that is what they are – styles. The heart of worship is so much deeper and greater than they type of song song, the instruments used, or the person (or people) leading.

                God calls us to worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). He doesn’t just want us to sing to Him. The song is the means by which we let our guard down and come face to face with the reality that God is God, and I am not, and praise Him for it. It is the means by which we tell Him how grateful we are that He is so much greater than we will ever understand and the eternal results of our lives do not ultimately depend on us. The song is the means by which I draw nearer to my Savior, the creator and lover of my soul.

The way a person prefers to do that is unbelievably diverse. A person’s church should be the place where they come to celebrate, with other believers, who God is. His attributes, His character, His immense love for us. Yet the fight among us is alive and well—HOW do we do this? WHAT type of instruments, songs and leading will allow the congregation to draw near to the Lord and offer Him our praise and thanks? The answers to these questions are undoubtedly not going to satisfy everyone within any given church. There will be those who wish things were more traditional. There will be who think the traditional worship style is boring and stuffy. There will be those who don’t like either, but can’t figure out what it is they do like.

This fight is exhausting. It is tricky, it is never ending, and it is ultimately over secondary things. C.S. Lewis said “You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.” I believe this is such an important truth. The “first thing” in the fight over worship is the condition of your heart. What is your motive in fighting for your preference? Are you incapable of drawing near to God through a style of worship different than your own? If you do get your way, what was the cost? You can “worship” in your preferred style, but is your heart still right with the Lord? That kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

I would say, check your heart. Ask the Lord “search [your] heart…see if there is any offensive way in [you]” (Psalm 139:23-24). If you can ask the Lord to help you set aside your preference and draw near to Him in worship through song in a style different than your own, I think you have gained something richer than winning your battle.

What else do I need?

I was born into a family that believes in God, and I grew up going to church with my family. When I was three years old, my sister told me that I had to believe that Jesus was God’s son and choose to live like he wanted me to or after I died I would go to “a really bad place.” I told her I believed it, and I prayed and told God. I continued going to church and learning about all of the stories in the Bible. When I was about nine or ten, I decided I wanted to tell the world that I had become a Christian. 

As I grew older I learned that it wasn’t up to me to be perfect. God knew I couldn’t live perfectly, so he sent Jesus on my behalf. Jesus lived a perfect life, and then he sacrificed himself—to pay the price for my imperfection. But because he’s God’s son and has power, he overcame death and rose back to life. All I had to do was believe that was true, and God would forgive my imperfection, and allow me to have a relationship with him. 

My relationship with Him makes life worth living. When my world fell apart, God held me in one piece. He is everything I need to stay in one piece. Life is often incredibly painful and disappointing; my relationship with God brings ultimate healing and fulfillment that last forever. What else do I need?

Thank you, Lord, for wise old women!

         I'm reading a book for class called "Teacher: The Henrietta Mears Story." by Marcus Brotherton. Let me just tell you, it's fantastic. This woman loved the Lord. She knew Him, she was confident in her identity in Him, and she let Him have His wonderful way with her life.

         I read this today, and it just splashed over me like the cool refreshing water I didn't know I was longing for. It's  a beautiful answer to questions my heart has been pouring over and wrestling with.

"Here is our certainty. God is in us, and He is going to work in us to do His will and pleasure; this is the promise. And through what vehicle will He work to reveal His will except through our minds? We do not have to go chasing a will-o'-the-wisp, or strain after something outside ourselves. God is in us, working out His will and we will be transformed by the renewing of our minds that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God...

       The Lord does most of the waiting, waiting for us to get up and get going. How can the Lord stop you if you haven't started? And how can He change your direction if you aren't moving but are just standing still? You can't steer a car that is standing at the curb. Even if you move the steering wheel, nothing happens. Ask any frustrated little boy who is trying to steer his daddy's parked car! Before you can guide a car, it has to be moving. So only when we're moving can the Lord direct us. He can stop us, or let us go on, or change the course.
        The psalmist says, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet," which means that the Lord will light one step at a time. When you take a flashlight out into the night, you certainly don't say, "I can't see all the way, so I'm not going to start!" Of course not! You take the step that the flashlight reveals, then you have light enough for the next step; you take that step, and the flashlight gives enough light for one more, and one more, and so you get to your [destination].
        When I leave my home and start out for church on Sunday morning, I don't stop and pray on every street corner to see whether I should cross the street or not, or whether I should continue or turn back. I go happily and at peace, knowing that it is the Lord's will for me to go to church. When I come to a stoplight, I don't fret and scream and beat my head and wonder what's wrong; I just stop and wait for the light to turn green and on I go. Even as a preacher once said, "The stops of a good man are ordered of the Lord" instead of "The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord"; if we yield our wills and commit our way unto the Lord, we can have this confidence that the Lord is directing our paths."

        I hope this is as encouraging to you as it has been to me. It's Mission Emphasis Week here at Liberty, and Steve Saint brought a wonderful message to us on Monday. He was recording his mom telling her life story one more time before she died...and her cry to the Lord before she was sent overseas, before her husband was brutally killed was "Your will...in my life...no matter the cost." What an incredible testimony to the Lord, that at the end of her life, she stood by her early prayer and said that even if she had to do it all over again, she would still say "Your will...in my life...no matter the cost."


Lord, Your will...in my life...no matter the cost.