Do I WANT to Believe the Truth???

Here are some great little snippets from Galatians 5:
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." - 5:1

"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." - 5:6

"You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you." - 5:7

I love that last one. Maybe because it deals with a race, and currently I am trying to make it my summer goal to run a 10k. Or maybe because sometimes I feel like this verse. I feel like I am on the "right" path. That I am making good choices, I have a great attitude, I haven't sinned in 4.5 days, I have taken all my vitamins and then BAM! Something happens and I feel the bitterness, the injustice, the unfairness, the unequality of life seep into my soul and I start to resent, to doubt, to scramble around for a filler for the emptiness.

I was running a good race! I was feeling great! My time was awesome and the day was sunny but cooling. Who in the WORLD cut in on me??? Who just sped up, dropped right in front of me and started a slow crawl?? The audacity. Now I have to circle around. Now I have to work extra hard. Now I have to find a different path. NOT COMFORTABLE! NOT OK!

Or maybe I was running this great race and the water stand not only had water, but had other goodies as well. And the helper that was passing them out was very convincing that I should just not finish this race. There would be other races. There would be another opportunity. There would be another moment where I could shine. Why rush NOW? Why not just do it halfway like I have done in the past? Why not just take a break from the race? I can pick it back up later right? That kind of persuasion did not come from the ONE who had set me on the course in the first place. That kind of persuasion is a lie. That kind of persuasion is not the truth.

I know those last two statements are not necessary. Clearly if something is a lie then it is not the truth. But do we really know that? Do we really see that for what it is? Sometimes I don't. Slowly I am starting to understand that there is a difference and I am starting to make sure I am aware of it. I start to run the race and I feel good and then I get persuaded that I should stop and make other things my priority. But it is a LIE. Who cut in on me? Sometimes it is work, sometimes a friend, sometimes the overriding desire to be in a relationship, sometimes it is me. I want to start surrounding myself with TRUTH.

Lie: I need someone to be with because I am alone.
Truth: My God will never leave me nor forsake me. He knows the desires of my heart.

Lie: I can't accomplish anything.
Truth: When I am weak, His strength is shown. He will give me what I need to accomplish His will.

Lie: I need things in this world and people's approval.
Truth: My God is sufficient. He supplies all my needs.

The list goes on. Time and time again something or someone tries to persuade me. And time and time again God reminds me of His truth. I just have to believe it. And I do.

Prayer Requests:
my mom searching for a job
Real Life Church
Darrell and Robyn selling the house
my summer plans
Josh in Cambodia
Overhills Middle staff and students

Running Alterations

I love running. I am not a fantastic runner. In fact, I am horrible at it. My running is a mixture of slogging (slow jog), spurts of energy, sweat and lots of heavy breathing. I started running this past summer. I have always really wanted to be healthier, to be more fit, to lose, oh I don't know, half my body size. Sometime this summer I started to feel really unsettled. I process hurt and pain horribly and when I found out my father would need heart surgery I came a little undone. I started stressing about things that were out of my control. Relationships, my father, work, etc. In any normal situation I would eat my stress away, but for some unknown reason I decided to run. I became obsessed with it. Especially in the beginning of the school year. I had discovered this AMAZING secret. Running takes all of my physical and emotional energy. It has the power to allow me to FEEL NOTHING. It was wonderful. Anytime I started to worry, or hurt, or wanted to cry, or started to feel any emotion that was discomforting I would just run until I felt nothing. It was liberating. It was almost like a drug.
I remember feeling what was almost like a panic attack at school on bad days and all I could think was that I just needed to get home to change to run. I couldn't drive home fast enough, change quick enough, before I was bolting out the door without so much as a hello to my family. I ran sometimes twice a day, early in the morning and as soon as I got home. I would run in the rain, in the cold, in the heat. I would run until I was soaked with my own sweat, until I thought I would pass out or puke. It was great. I loved feeling nothing.
Slowly though my life returned to some sort of normal. I began to dig deeper in God's Amazing Word. I began to focus more on others instead on my self. I became busy with work and other aspects of life and no longer felt the need to run. I still ran but not as much. I started to just run for pleasure. I did several 5K's and felt awesome afterward. Completely drained... but awesome. I realized that running had started out as an outlet but had become a pleasure. I stopped listening to music and used my running time as an opportunity to talk to God and just rest in His presence.
I went running today and it made me think of all this. I ran for fun, for exercise, for time with God alone. He gave me such a peace. I was moved to tears as I saw landscape that was so green and sky so blue. I appreciated the different shades and hues. How these gorgeous trees have lighter colored under leaves and how the wind blows them to create this awesome image that no artist will ever truly capture. I yearned for a mountainside. For tall rock and just stretches of God's handiwork for miles. I yearned for more of Him. And I realized that while I was dealing with my emotions the best way I knew how, He was softly chipping away the pieces of me that were in the way of His glory. The edges and sometimes deep parts that needed to be torn off, cut away so that light could shine through. It is definitely nothing I imagined. But His plans are far beyond my imagination. His comfort is far more sustaining than I could hope for. His palette is far more deeper and richer than any other artist. His healing and restoring is stronger than any plan I can compose for myself.
I am excited about this next section of my life. What will it bring? My goal is to not try to understand but simply to listen and follow. It won't always be easy. I know I will doubt. I know I will still choose the wrong idea or action at my weakest moments. But as I begin to understand more of God I begin to understand the person He has created me to be. And that is exciting.

Prayer requests:
safety and funds for the Philippines (YEAH, IM GOING!!!)
my parents
my school and it's teachers
Real Life

I am a Daughter of a King

Wow. Have you ever read a piece of scripture more than once and you still continue to get something out of it??? It is amazing. One of my favorite verses is John 21:25 where it says,
"Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

That is so flippin neat! I mean, it is amazing that there was SO MUCH MORE that Jesus did that we don't have written down. PLUS!!!! We already continue to read what IS written down and we can continue to gain new insight from THAT scripture!

With all this said, I was reading John 13 the other day. I wanted to use the scripture where Jesus washes His disciples feet because I wanted to wash the feet of our church's praise team. (VERY COOL EXPERIENCE) I was reading the scripture and just had to stop and smile at a new discovery. Now you probably already were aware of this significance but let's look again!

"The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that HE HAD COME FROM GOD AND WAS RETURNING TO GOD; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist." John 13:2-4

Okay, so Jesus is getting ready to wash the disciples' feet. But look at what I capitalized in the scripture. Jesus knew who He was. He wasn't washing the feet to gain favor. He wasn't washing the feet to sway their opinions. He wasn't washing the feet to be popular or gain more friends or look good or make himself feel better or raise his status. HE KNEW WHO HE WAS.

I think sometimes, and I am totally guilty of this, we do things not just because they are the right thing to do, or because scripture says to, or because it is helpful, or because it will brighten someone's day; but we do things to gain approval, to gain popularity, to sway opinions, to make ourselves feel better. I'm not saying we all need a little boost once in a while but when we serve, WHERE IS OUR HEART?

I have sought out desperately over the past years a place in this world. A definition for who I am. I have struggled with acceptance, value of myself and I have spent years trying to be ok with me. In essence I have wasted time I could have spent serving and witnessing to self help myself. More and more I am coming to the understanding that I do not do things for this world or for myself. I do what I do because I am a daughter of a King. I am designed with a purpose to know Him and make Him known. He deserves my service and my praise. He created me to worship Him. I know that I have come from God and one day I will return to Him.

WOW. That alone is sooooo freeing! No more trying to gain favor with others. Because my identity is not with them. No more fretting about if my actions make me look less in people's eyes. Because in God's eyes I am simply His. No more clamoring for attention. Because all my attention belongs to my Heavenly Father. Lord I pray that my heart will continue to be tuned to You and Your desires.

Prayer Requests:
trip to the Philippines (go or no go?)
staff and students at OMS
Darrell and Robyn
Real Life Church

Rend Your Hearts

Wow. It has been a phenomenal Spring Break! I had much needed rest, saw great sights, enjoyed loved ones and just got a chance to recharge for the last 43 days of school left. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten to finish up the awesome take on Philip and the Eunuch, but I just wanted to take some time to just praise God.
Our community Easter worship service was great. The drama team did a presentation to "Why" by Nicole Nordeman. If you haven't heard the song, you should check it out. Very moving and powerful. They did such a great job, especially Ally (Robyn and Darrell's little girl, the family I live with). After church I was all packed and ready to head down to the beach to my "original" family. I was taking Kaylynn with me and we had a lot of fun! I was a tourist for once and more than ever I appreciate my hometown where I used to take it for granted.
I came back to Fayetteville and got to spend some much needed time with Ashlie and just relax for a few days. I've decided that I want to try to plant a garden at the place I will be staying this summer and I am really excited about finding out how all that works.
Saturday I traveled with some friends to Chapel Hill for the Blue/White spring football game which was a lot of fun. It was nice just to spend the day there walking around and talking with friends. I also ran into some college friends and got to hang out with my cousin and her boyfriend. The campus there is SOOOO beautiful!
Sunday was my final day for Spring Break and it was really refreshing. Church was amazing as always. Darrell had a great message. He is talking about "unplugged". Just simply getting back to the basics: God, family, loved ones. Such an awesome message. It was pretty cool because I am reading a book by Francis Chan and he was talking about that same thing and then my reading in scripture this morning was in Joel 2 and it is talking about people returning to God. In Joel he tells the people to 'rend their hearts' to God. I take it as a personal challenge that I gladly accept to just rend or break by heart in pieces for my Lord. I pray that I break so He can put me back together stronger and more useful Him. I seriously need to rend my heart and repent of my way of thinking on a lot of things. I listened to Jimmy Needham's song "Rend Your Heart". It is phenomenal. I had listened to it repeatedly this past fall when I was going through some heartbreak and it held a different meaning for me. Now I listen to it and I am so excited to throw away the varnish I keep trying to re-apply and to rend my heart for God.
I hope everyone has a great week! Rend your heart to God. Let Him direct your path!
Prayer Requests:
* my school and the teachers and students
*Real Life Church
*my anger, that God will give me the strength to forgive
*whether or not I should go to the Philippines this summer

Our Perception is a Little Skewed...

There is this awesome passage in the Bible in Acts about Philip. There is this Ethiopian eunuch that is riding in a carriage on his way to worship. So God tells Philip to go over to the carriage. Philip goes over to the carriage and overhears the eunuch reading a passage from Isaiah. Philip then asks him if he understands what he is reading and the eunuch replys, "How can I understand what I am reading unless someone explains it to me?" (Acts 8:31).

Now, this isn't even the whole story and already there is some amazing things to consider and take away from this scripture. For instance, the fact that the eunuch was on his way to worship. That is so cool. See, we as a "Christian" society still assume that if you go to church, you have a pretty good idea about who God is. Let alone, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I feel like this simple sentence alone has so much signifigance in our world today. We see people in church all the time and we don't take the time to find out more. They are at church, so obviously they have their stuff together, right? Not always. Or we see people worshipping and we assume they know it all. Clearly, if they love God enough to worship Him then they have it all together. If that same person were to ask a question about scripture or God's design for them, we might be a bit taken aback. Even though we talk about continuous growth or the fact that people will never obtain a level of perfection, in the back of most of our minds we are still waiting for that moment when we have it all together, when we know all that we need to. In fact, some of us refuse to do things until we obtain all the knowledge we need. How many times have you heard the following:

We can't date/get engaged/ get married/ have children/ buy a house/ ect. word vomit/ until we are stable financially/spiritually/ mentally/ etc. word vomit.

I can't serve God in the mission field/ in my work/ with my friends/ in my home/ etc. word vomit until I have read all there is to read of Christ/ prayed until my mind explodes/ received a certificate detailing my knowledge of Christ/ gone through 25 courses, had 6 laying of the hands and 5 blessings from licensed priests/ etc. word vomit.

The Bible says that the eunuch was on his way to worship! He wasn't aware of a clear picture of who Christ was. He may not have understood all that God had designed for him, but he knew there was more out there. He was on his way to worship and searching within the scripture of Isaiah for more. He was thirsty for Living Water. He wasn't waiting for someone to tell him how to worship or what verse to read. He was waiting for his mind to be prepared for what lie in store. He wasn't postponing his life for steps that happen when YOU START LIVING. He just was simply starting.

AHHHHH!!! So this is just the first part of all the awesomeness. I mean, we haven't even gotten to the part where Philip speaks up because he chose to obey God and be in the place where God placed him (which, by the way, was a wilderness road in the middle of the heat of the day. Can we say UNCOMFORTABLE and maybe NOT OUR IDEA OF A PLACE TO SERVE?????) But I want to really chew on this story for a while and get all that I can from the scripture so I'm saving the rest for the rest of the week. What I want to focus on right now is how our perception of how things should be done might be a little off.

Maybe, just maybe, when God said to love Me and then love your neighbor: HE MEANT JUST THAT. Not love Me, but before you do, make sure you have read up on Me and know My ins and outs. Not love your neighbor, but before you do, make sure you have your own heart completely perfect, your likes and preferences are similiar to your neighbor and you take a shower first (although the shower would be some common sense and courtesy people!). Just to simply love Me and love your neighbor. As in right now. As in, you don't need a refresher course or your finances in order or your ten point life plan at point number 7. JUST DO IT.

I look at the eunuch and I am in awe. He didn't understand all that scripture had to say. But he knew that there was a powerful God that deserved worship. And so that is what he was going to do. Despite the fact the world told him he wasn't ready yet. Whether he converted to Judaism a while back or was just getting started, he jumped in.

How many times have I held back because I thought I wasn't ready or didn't have it all together? And how many times have I not gone and worshipped and denied something my Savior DERSEVES because I thought I didn't understand the scripture or I couldn't keep up with the music????

Your Love Never Fails

There are always things that are constant in our lives. For example, I know that as soon as my classes switch I will ALWAYS have the three MINIMUM students that will approach me where I stand, lean in, say my name over and over and ask me what we are doing today in class. It never fails. NEVER EVER. No matter how many times I remind the class that our outline is always on the board. Or how I explain how the next hour will go. Or the fact that they have practically the same routine since August. IT NEVER FAILS. It is a constant I wish would go away.

Then there is the constant that life will let you down. A Debbie Downer, I know. I don't say this to be mean or pessimistic I promise. But it always ends up that myself or someone else is will have a bad day, try to retrace what went wrong and get frustrated that life doesn't understand our need for fulfillment or efficiency. Somehow life didn't get the memo that we already have this great plan for ourselves. We have this idea of how others should behave toward us. We know exactly how traffic could be solved if everyone would drive as we do. Does the lady in Walmart not CHECK her 50 photo frames to make sure there are proper working barcodes? And does she NOT realize that I am running late and really just need a role of masking tape for a lesson I just made up in my head when I woke up that morning??? Does the house not understand that today was NOT THE DAY to have plumbing issues, AC malfunctions or sticky locks? Life letting us down never fails. Unfortunately.

So what then? Darrell preached an amazing sermon this past Sunday from Philemon. This is prolly my FAVORITE series so far that he has done. Which is saying a lot I think since all of his series have been mind-blowing and God-filled. And the fact that this 3 part series comes from a single chapter. He preached about several things but one thing he pointed out was how we can get so caught up in focusing on the negative. It's everywhere! How our thoughts can be consumed with negative aspects of our lives. But God says to take all of our thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ. Which can be soooooo hard! The idea of how many thoughts that are NOT obedient to Christ that run through my mind on an hourly basis is shameful. The verse on ceaseless prayer really comes to mind as I ask myself how to keep my thoughts in line and ask the Holy Spirit to redirect me. Whew. Good grief.

Fortunately for me there is the greatest constant of all. God. SO CONSTANT in His faithful love to me. How undeserving I am of His love that is lavished upon me. How unappreciative I am of His constant whispers and interceding devotion. How forgetful I am of His ability to know far better than I ever will. To make all things work together for my good. To allow me to enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart and His courts with praise. To let me serve something that is higher and greater than myself. God thank You for the opportunity and privilege. Thank you for the constant goodness in my life. I pray that I become more aware of that than of the negative.

"You stay the same through the ages, Your love never changes, there might be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning! And when the oceans rage, I don't have to be afraid because I know that You love me, and Your love never fails." - Jesus Culture

How Far?

How far should we go? How much should we help? Lately I have been thinking about how we help people in need. People we know that are hurting. People that we have never met that have substantial needs that we can meet and choose not to.

I gave a bellringer to my class. The question was "What can you do to help Haiti?" I had one student raise his hand and ask, "what if you don't think we should help Haiti?" I told him to explain why he thought that. His answer was that we shouldn't help them because they have never done anything for us. I told him he was entitled to his opinion, but it bothered me. It bothered me that myself and a rising generation tends to look for what we can gain from helping others. It is always a give-take. Or at least an IOU situation. I will help you, but you better remember that I did. What does God say?

It's awesome how He is showing my things that tie in to my life and how I live it out. I finished Hosea a couple days ago and decided to read Amos. I have never read Amos and considered it one of those books that can be noted in the bible but not really high up on the list. It starts out with Amos basically calling people out on their sin. He talks about how everyone is not really doing what they should especially God's people who actually know better. How true is THAT statement???

In chapter 5 it talks about forgetting and oppressing the poor for our personal gain.
"You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine. For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. You oppress the rightgeous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts." Amos 5:11-12

So what kind of excuse do we use to not meet other's needs? They don't deserve it? Do we deserve the grace that God has given us? Do we deserve salvation? Or how about the fear that any money I give or time I spent will be wasted or won't make a difference? Well the money I spent on the five times I ate out in the last week sure didn't go toward a better cause. Maybe a larger waistline. The time I spent watching tv or playing Mario Brothers didn't release a burden for someone who was hurting. So anything I offer will be a difference from what I am doing now. What about "they got into poverty, they can get themselves out"? Really??? What about the times that I constantly get myself into sin? And God freely forgives me?

As more and more of the pieces come together for what God has in store I am becoming more aware of what my life should reflect. Will it be a perfect of example of who God is? I hope so. I say all this with conviction and then I find myself stumbling again. I get back up. I pray the damage I do is minimized by the reconstruction. How far should we go? I am preparing my heart for more than I think it can take. I am asking the Holy Spirit to break me down and show me a way that involves intense sacrifice on my part to meet the needs of others who are so lost. I pray for God's love and strength when I feel like I can't go on and I can't stand under the weight. I pray for opportunities to speak and be silent and to simply go where He goes, say what He says and pray what He prays. As far as it takes.

Where You Go I'll Go - Jesus Culture - This is an amazing song. Listen to it and simply make it a prayer of worship and promise.