Why do birds sing? April 28, 2009

Last week, while letting my dog, Lexie, out once more for the night,  I heard a bird singing loudly. It was the only sound other than the sound of the wind blowing lightly through the trees and it was disconcerting. Disconcerting not only because it was late at night, not only because it was the only bird I could hear but because it was an eerie, desperate cry of sorts. I don’t know, maybe I was just being too imaginative for my own good, but it just seemed out of place in general to hear a song bird singing in the darkness rather than the light of day. The sound and the feelings surrounding it have stuck with me in the back of my mind for the week since.

Today in my quiet time I began thinking about it again. So, like every other distracting thought that comes into my head, I jotted it down on the notebook beside me to research later. The question “why would a bird sing at night?”, was repeating in my head over and over. To me, birds are creatures of praise. That is what I think of when I hear them. They just exist and worship, that’s it. Okay, back to my thoughts… birds usually are silent at night…sleeping or whatnot. So I googled the topic and began to read these threads about it. Here are the most common streams of thought.

1. A hungry cat has recently moved into the neighborhood causing the raucous

2. There is too much light in the area

3. Too much noise during the day so they sing at night. (mating calls, communicative singing)

So, here is what I felt drop in my spirit. We as believers are quick to sing our praises during the day, when we can see the light but when the darkness comes, we are often silenced out of fear of the hungry cat (roaring lion, enemy of our souls) or we are so busy during the day that the voice of God is drowned out by the noisiness around us. I know that I tend to withdraw my praises, not intentionally, but it just seems that when life gets really hard and I feel alone, I get quiet in my worship and prayers. It just dwindles until I am left cold, empty and fearful. I want to be like that bird. I want my song to be heard by God and the enemy even in the darkest moments of my life. I want to lift my voice loudly in prayer and praise when I hear the enemy coming. Lord, give me a song in the night, a word of praise during fear. Give me ears to hear in the midst of the storms around me. Help me to stay focused on you!! You are my deliverer, my refuge and my salvation!

Revive Us! April 24, 2009

2 Kings 4:1-7 A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.” So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.” Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not gather just a few. And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels, and set aside the full ones.” So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out. Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another vessel.” So the oil ceased. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest.”

How do you raise a generation who fears God and seeks holiness? How do you teach that humility precedes holiness to a people of such independence and pride? How do you seek to have broken vessels filled with the spirit of God. The task is daunting and at times seems unattainable. I know this, it cannot be done by the ideas of man. It will not happen because we have some cool new way of presenting God. It will not happen by implementing some new program. When the widow went to Elisha, she had nothing to stop the creditors from taking her sons into slavery but some olive oil. I can tell you this, if someone told me that the mortgage company was coming to take my little one, olive oil would not be a comforting thought. I would probably panic, had a prophet given me those instructions! However, as a youth worker, I see the enemy taking our kids onto slavery on a weekly basis. As ministers, parents, leaders, we having nothing in and of ourselves that could snatch them back from becoming slaves to the enemy of our souls. However, we do have the oil of the Spirit of God. I am praying and asking The holy spirit to be released in a powerful way among the teens that I work with. I am asking for deliverance from bondage, freedom from fears and a group of teens who can say that they have seen God. I am not interested in a youth group full of kids who can play church, talking the talk and faking holiness, I want to see the fire of God resonating from them as they seek His face. Messy? Yes, but nothing worth having comes easily or without cost! What about you, have you come to the place where you have exhausted your man made efforts to see change in a situation? It’s time to seek the face of God…not just his hand and what He can do for us, but His face! That is my heart right now! I pray that you too will begin to come to the end of human resources so that all you can do it seek Him.

Other side of the ocean October 8, 2008

I feel like I am being awakened from a society induced coma. It’s as if my eyes are being forced open to the state of the world. Global poverty, the slave industry and the AIDS/HIV epidemic are rampant. There is a group of missionary/musicians whose only reason for using their music is to make money for foreign missions…they are called Unnamed Servant. ALL of the money from their cd sales goes to missions. They and their families give their lives to foreign mission fields. I got the opportunity to meet them this month and was blown away by what I saw in them. Here are lyric from two of their songs from their latest album called Anthem.

On the other side of the ocean, people forgotten in commotion forged under blood red skies.
You’ve seen this world in pictures fly covered, starving children left to believe this is life.
The trash they live in eating the scraps their given, still not enough to survive
Disease and malnutrition false hope in the west’ religion, this is enough to make God cry.
From a distance, you can’t feel it, you can choose just to close your eyes
When you’re in it, you can taste it, you’ve got no choice but to give your life.
You’re home bound, can you imagine, sister raped, how can this happen, now there’s talk of genocide.
Society is all in a panic Mother cries from images too graphic and you thank God it’s not your life.
Go ahead change the channel watch a show where weight loss is a battle, so sad they had too many calories. Send your check to support a child, you did your part now you can smile and get back to your American dream.
Oh say can you see a world with out poverty, where the widow can eat, and the orphan can dream
Where the slave is set free, the oppressed find liberty, and avoid military and the farmer rewrites history?
From a distance you can’t feel it, you can choose just to close your eyes.
When your in to, you can taste it, you’ve got no choice but to give your life!

Your attendance twice aweek, your tithes and your offerings its vanity
Its not for me the worship you’re leading the sermons your preaching, it’s just noise to me

You can keep your cds the building your making, the money your saving in my name causes me so much shame, none of it matters, it just doesn’t matter.. People starving, dying,  and I’m the bread of life

Recognize, the face of God in slanted eyes, darker skin and foreign smiles. Recognize value of human life even when it’s not white. Recognize.

This cd is extremely controversial for most of us in the west. I have found that the young people who hear it, love it, it stirs them to a passionate desire to be the hands and feet of Christ. I have also found that a lot of the “adults” who hear it, tend to be less excited about it…saying it’s not practical..it’s too extreme…it’s too radical.

I will admit, that it was my first thought too…but my next thought was, but God, if I am wrong, please change my heart. Guess what?? My heart is breaking… I cry everytime I hear the songs…I cry when i see the hell that is reality for millions of people across our beautiful ocean! I believe that Jesus was pretty radical, extreme and impractical at times! I am beginning to see that in the American church we have made Jesus into this blonde haired, blue eyed gentle passivist who never got his hands dirty. How much further can we get from the truth??

What about you? After reading these few lyrics, what thoughts come to mind? Is it convicting?

Love and the fear of drowning September 10, 2008

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
I john 4:17

There are many times in my life that I find it hard to believe that God takes pleasure in me. He takes pleasure from those who desire Him in the depths of their heart. Those He calls His own, he delights in us. He is in love with us…. A broken and weak people. We are His betrothed. He is lovesick for us.
I was listening to a teaching this week while traveling, that made this statement:

“God is so in love with his church that if we just lean in His direction, He will run ten steps closer.”

That is a beautiful thought to me. I struggle so much with this mindset of making myself worthy of His love, that at times I forget that it is less about what I do and more about my heart. I cannot bring more value to myself than He bestowed upon me when He send His Son to die for me. That is the value of my life, the life of the Son of God. That is your value too. Why is it so difficult to believe that sometimes?

We have all heard the verse that says ‘perfect Love cast out all fear’ which by the way is the directly following the one at the top of this page, but to understand the depth of that statement, I think that verse 17 is important. Love has been perfected among us….because as HE is, so are WE IN THIS WORLD. This is not talking about our character being perfect, but our position to God through Christ. It is saying that in the eyes of God, the judge of the world, we are in the same position as Jesus. Do you grasp that?? I mean it is blowing my mind the more I chew on this. I have talked to many believers over the years who live in fear of God’s judgment, disapproval and punishment so much that they are paralyzed. When you cannot see the truth of this verse, and the work that God already did to bring us into relationship with Him, you live in fear and bondage. God is so much in love with us, a broken, needy people, that He did the work to make it possible to be with Him. He already accomplished it. There is nothing left for us to do, but lean into Him.

Have you ever seen a movie or television show, an individual who cannot swim, thrown into a pool or river that they think is deep water? They struggle, panic, flail about only to realize that they are in only a few feet of water? All they had to do was stand up? Sometimes I feel like as Christians we do the same thing. We get into this life called Christianity all bound with fears of failing and judgment and instead of standing up in the position that Christ has given us, we flail around, striving and working to earn that position. We do not have to cower in shame nor do we have to grovel for mercy, He has already given the greatest gift of mercy available! We can stop striving and trying to keep our head above water so to speak, we are not going to drown. We cannot be ripped from the hand of the God who holds us. Our beautiful, all powerful, sovereign and lovesick bride groom sees us with eyes burning with the flame of love. Stand up and take your position in Him. Accept that there is no fear in Love. We have to believe that the debt has been paid IN FULL. We own nothing and are free to reciprocate the love He has given us. Hallelujah!!

It’s like wearing glasses August 29, 2008

Intercession is different than prayer.  When I pray, a lot of times, it is things that I think about, worry about, care about and just talking to Jesus.  For me, intercession takes place when Jesus communicates His heart for a  situation and causes me to identify with Him. Intercession is praying the heart of God,  it is praying in agreement with Him. I am an intercessor. That is something that God has called me to be. However there are times when the nature, problems, sins and losses of those I am called to intercede on behalf of can cause me to be discouraged. As a result of this, I have two choices, I can hide deeper in Jesus, or I can put on blinders and  hide away from it.  When I find myself depending on my own nature and strength to “pray” I quickly burnout!!  When I get so involved in people’s pain that I lose sight of God’s heart for that situation, I will burnout too.

See, it’s like wearing glasses. I was laying on my bed this afternoon, praying and I took off my glasses because my eyes just got tired of focusing on things. Sounds silly, I know, but I just wanted to gaze at the blur of my ceiling instead of the patterns formed by the double knock down ceiling. I was sort of thinking all this while praying and I felt God stop me. He helped me to see that there are times that I get tired of  focusing my spiritual eyes on the effects of this fallen world so I take off my “spiritual glasses” in order to get a break. I stop seeking the heart of the father, because the closer I am to His heart, the more I will begin to feel my heart breaking with His. So if I back away, I don’t have to “see it”. I can rest.  I become near sighted again.

There is an effect on my own life as well when I am pulling away from Jesus, I can become self centered, impatient, sullen, and withdrawn in my disillusionment. Sounds a lot like II Peter 1:5-10 to me. It says:

“5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall…”

How do you come to possess these things? By being intimate with Christ. It is a fact that those we are in closest relationship with, we begin to imitate…it’s just human nature. This applies to our relationship with Jesus too.
II Corinthians 3:17-18 says: “17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

I love the imagery of beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord.  That just sounds so intimate to me. To have an unveiled face, to be laid bare before Him,  and to reflect back the image of Christ! That is so beautiful to me. I don’t want to be nearsighted when I gaze upon Him. I want to see clearly who He is, so that I can reflect accurately His heart for His people. I want to be laid bare before the lover of my soul!

So often I put myself in bondage to performance again, when I lose sight of the relationship and try to do the job myself. My prayers become fleshly…based on my own thoughts, feelings and beliefs… which are so discouraging!  Intercession works only when it is born of a right relationship with Christ…it cannot be duplicated!

How about you, do you find your self trying to do your “calling” out of your own strength? Does it lead you to burn out?

For your information July 25, 2008

Since, It’s been about a year since I began blogging and I have a lot more readers now… (though not many commenters..hint hint ) I thought I would post my life story in cliff note version. So you can know a little about me!

I was born in 1978 to my parents, the first-born child of two. My brother was born 2 ½ years later. My parents were both Christians and were involved in church. My father worked shift work at a mill about 45 minutes away.  My mom worked too, but only when we were asleep or at school. She was around a lot. She was sort of the June Cleaver type, cooking, cleaning and generally involved in our lives.
Most of the memories of my family are of being super involved in church. Our lives were always wrapped around it. They are mostly good memories now.   At one time most of them brought the sting of rejection.  I never felt that I could measure up to what I was supposed to be. Some unattainable and lofty Godliness that I now know is impossible to achieve.  I knew what a mature Christian looked like and I could talk the talk really well. I thought I was one.  I was running frantically trying to look like I had it figured out. At school, I performed too. I was a good student and  a cheerleader.  I made sure everyone knew I was a Christian. I was so judgmental and  hypocritical. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Jesus to the best of my ability (or so I thought)  and I did genuinely want others to know Him.  I just did it out of fear and  did not know what it was like to have  love relationship with the One who created me.  I now know that I did not have the steps in the middle filled in.  What do I mean? Well I did not have a relationship with Christ. I just had empty rituals and jargon. I had the appearance of Godliness but not the power of God. I had a distant, performance-based relationship with Him. I felt that He was constantly disappointed in me. I could never do enough to make Him proud of me…. It took some time to realize this was not the first time I had felt like this.  I had felt like this all my life growing up. I never felt that I could please my parents. I felt that nothing was ever good enough. I had to be the best at everything I did or I was a failure.  I put up a good facade of being a happy, well-adjusted, Christian girl but on the inside, I was miserable. I hated my life and wished I were dead.
I was 11 the first time I thought about suicide.  The thought came to my mind dozens of times a day. Every time I felt angry, hurt or like a failure, I would think about ending my life. I was too afraid of actually killing my self so I began to cut.  I would run razors over my skin until I felt some sort of relief from the emotional pain. Anything to relieve the pressure in my life. I wrote out so many suicide notes that I lost count.  I never told anyone this until later on in life. It was my secret shame, one more area I could not live up to the standard. Who was I to feel this way? I had a good family, I was not the neglected child of divorced parents!!  How could I help others if I could not help myself? I had nothing to give. I was empty and broken.  I tried to bring worth to myself by  performing and looking like I had it all together,  all in the hope that my pain would be healed.  I began thinking that if I got married.  I thought that a husband who loved me unconditionally would heal my pain. I began dating Jon in 1995, The summer before Senior year.  We dated exclusively until we got married in 1998. Within six months of marriage, I began to have suicidal ideas again. I was devastated. I really thought that marriage was going to bring me relief. I came to realize that there was no human who could fill the emptiness in my soul. I had to face the fact that it was not my circumstances that were causing my so much pain. The pain was in me. The problem was me. I joined a seekers group through Living Well Ministries in September 1998.  That small group of women  helped lead me out of the darkness I was living in. I know that God ordained this step in my life and  I am so grateful to my Father in Heaven that He spared my life. Not only did He spare it, He has redeemed it and brought meaning and joy into it. He sent me on a journey to discover why I felt the way I did and taught me how to Love myself and others from the abundance of my heart instead of the emptiness. I now know that Love is a choice. I don’t have to look for love to fill my brokenness, I now love because I know what love is…it has a name and that name is Jesus Christ!
I love my life now. I am even at peace with my past. I am very glad that I lived through the pain I did  because through it I saw the kind of God I serve. Suicide is no longer a thought for me. I am happily married and I love who God created me to be. He has transformed me. I now gladly serve Him because He brought me out of darkness into the light of His love.  I love Him more than anything in this world! I now see a constant thread throughout my life that was Him. He wove together the ugly, dark of my past with the light and beauty of  His love and made a beautiful tapestry!

Knowing Denzel July 20, 2008

i have been thinking about what it takes for us to know God. I grew up in a Christian home and my family was very involved in the church we attended. My dad was one of those few dads who spent a lot of time, teaching us about the word of God. He would read bible stories to us and ask us tons of questions meant to help us to understand the word. I was raised to live certain biblical principles such as tithing and guarding my heart at a very early age. Later as a teenager, I was extremely involved in my youth group, ministry teams, and worship team. Where I learned about the responsibilities of being in a leadership position. I knew a lot about maintaining a life that was above reproach, I could pray a “powerful” sounding prayer, I could preach a sermon, I could give my testimony in front of a crowd in churches or in a town square of a third world country. I had cast out demons in His name. (does this remind anyone of the verse that says “lord Lord, I cast out demons in your name!??) I knew a lot about God. I did not know God though. I mean I thought I did… I had prayed the sinners prayer. I do know that I was a Christian, but I knew nothing of the joy of a relationship with this Saviour I lived for. It was not until later in my life, when I grew tired of the performing that I had grown accustomed to, that I hit bottom and realized that while I knew much about God, and his word, i did not have a heart to heart relationship with Jesus. I focused more on looking the part, preaching about Him and making sure that my life was an example of what it looks like to be a follower of Christ than actually loving Him and allowing Him to love on me. Knowing about someone is very different than knowing them. I can read and study all about Denzel Washington, but if I don’t have a real relationship with him it would be stupid to call my self his best friend.

The bottom that I hit was on many levels, but the level that most changed my perspective on God’s personal love was when I had grown so tired and disillusioned with my faith that I no longer had it in me to perform. Like so many before me, I in mock defiance quit all of my strivings. I stopped all ministry, I stopped doing my ritualistic quiet times, I stopped going to church and stopped listening to any Christian music. All of these things had become like superstitions to me, like somehow by doing all these things, God owed it to me to bless me. It was never about relationship. I never did those things out of love but out of desperate fear of what God would think of me if I did not do them.

I never stopped praying. Although, they were not prayers for anyone but me. Selfish? Maybe, but I had come to realize that if God did not break through my preconceived ideas of Him, I did not want to live. I was tired of feeling like God was perpetually angry, disappointed and sick of me and my screw ups. I knew that none of these things were scriptural, but my feelings were very powerful force in my life at the time. If we are honest, a lot of us live our lives with our feelings in the driver’s seat instead of the truth! My prayers were constantly begging God to change me. Change my heart, my feelings, my beliefs, my fears, my weaknesses, but most of all, my view of Him.
I am grateful to Jesus, that He has answered my prayers and continues to clarify my thoughts of Him. I can honestly say that God has redeemed my life, my fears and my misconceptions of Him.

I pray that you, whoever you are, whatever your struggles, would begin to ask God to remove the things that distort your view of God. For me, it was a lot of things, but one of those things was my own “information” about Him. I knew too much about Him without a relationship with Him which prevented me from see Him clearly. All of the things I knew about Him allowed me to keep Him in a box that I could control. I no longer serve a God that I have all figured out! Praise God.

The Shack July 12, 2008

Have you read it? I read it this past week and it totally rocked me. I have been rethinking some of my beliefs about the relational aspect of God. I can’t explain it, but I cried all the way through the book, not because it was scary or sad, although to some it will be, but because I was seeing the heart of God in a totally different light. I saw Jesus in a new light too.

Now, I will admit, there is a part that I will not ruin if you have not read it, but I almost put the book away when I got to it. I actually did put the book down and asked my husband if he was crazy for recommending the book to me!  After some persuasion, I picked it back up and now understand the authors intent!

So, if you have read it, what did you think? If you have not read it, go read it!!

soul wounds May 21, 2008

lately I have had several folks say things to me like, “if you see me doing anything Codependent, tell me so I can stop” or ” just tell me what verses to memorize to make me better” or “what’s the quick answer to this problem?” We are so quick to look for the easy remedy to a deep problem. We are more concerned with all of the outward appearance of the deep rooted dysfunction then  we are of the real heart issue. We want to make sure we don’t appear controlling instead of dealing with the fact that we are afraid that if we don’t control other people or circumstances, then our own junk will spin out of control. We are afraid of the pain that we will inevitably feel if we really allow the Holy Spirit to expose our soul wounds. To top all of it off, we are impatient and terrified that if we don’t fix it quickly, we will appear unspiritual, crazy or unstable, so we look for a quick fix.
This reminds me of the following verse:

Matthew 23:26-27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.

The Pharisees were all about the outward appearance but full of all kinds of soulish junk. By soulish, I am referring to the mind, will and emotions. Jesus called them blind, hypocrites, and compared them to stone tombs which housed decaying corpses.

I don’t want to be like the pharisees! The church is full of them. What will it take for us to get real about our own junk? What will it take for use to get honest about our own humanity? Just because we are Christians, does not mean that we are instantly made into a perfect resemblance of Christ! The world surely can (and does) look at the church and see that we have problems, pain and woundedness, why can’t we admit it?

I am sure I sound like I am ranting, and maybe I am a bit, but i get really irritated when I see the fruit of the lie that says “as a Christian, we can’t make human mistakes.” It’s just not true. I am not talking about a life of willful disobedience, i am merely talking about the sinful behaviors that are natural byproducts of a wounded soul. We will only be as spiritually healthy as we are emotionally healthy. We will see everything in life including God and ourself through the lens of our pain, until we deal with it! Don’t be afraid to do what you have to do to get healing in your emotions!

ok, I am done! Comments?

My child is cool May 2, 2008

Yes, I have a cool child. She has no idea that she is so cool either. Today on the way to school, she and her dad talked about standing up for what you believe in regardless of other’s response to you. She asks tons of questions all the time about God, Jesus and faith among others. Its cool to watch her as she wraps her brain around the ins and outs of Christianity. She is only eight but she is very smart. Anyway, when she got off the bus this afternoon, she was so excited to tell about what God had done for her that morning. Here is the story.

In her creative writing class, they were given a “free write” day. That means she can write an essay about whatever she chooses. My daughter says she had no ideas about what to write, so she prayed and asked God what He wanted her to write about. She says that immediately she knew that He wanted her to write about the work He did on the cross. In her words, “I told Jesus that I was really scared to write about that because the class may laugh at me, but I knew that Jesus would be with me.” So, she wrote all about Jesus’ love for the world and that he died for us even in our sin…THEN she had to read her essay to the class. She was amazed that noone laughed at her. More importantly, she says that she knows that God was with her and she got to know him little bit more.

So, I just wanted to brag on my baby!

Maturity April 18, 2008

Often times as Christians, I feel that we focus on “saving souls” and not on Christian maturity. Jesus told us to go and make disciples of all men. A disciple was one who was chosen by a rabbi to follow them around and learn as much as they could from that rabbi about his yoke, or his interpretation of the scriptures. Rob Bell talks about this in his book Velvet Elvis… He says that a disciple was one who followed his rabbi so closely that the dust from the rabbi’s feet would cover the face and body of the disciple. That’s really close… I mean, I have issues with people being in my personal space and the feeling of someone walking right on my heals bugs the snot out of me but what if being a true disciple means being that close to the Lord? What if those people that God has placed in my life to be discipled to the best of my ability, means that my life has to be one that is worthy of being so closely inspected? What if every word that comes from my mouth is truly speaking life or death? That’s what the word says…the power of life and death is in the tongue. It also says that we will be judged for every idle word that we speak. That is a powerful statement to me. I am very opinionated and tend to be vocal at times about my opinions so this thought came to me this week… what if I speak my opinion about a situation and it is opposed to what God intends for that same situation? UGh… I am running circles in my head. I know that I am rambling a lot, this is a totally spontaneous blog…just wanted to get some of these thoughts out on “paper”… so this is my brain, jumbled and thinking.

SO back to what I was thinking. What if every action of mine, is catalyst in someones life for either help or harm? Obviously I am not God, I am not perfect, but I am called to be holy, for He is HOLY. I believe it was Paul who said***, it would be better to tie a millstone around my neck and jump in the ocean than to make a little one stumble. and by little one, that means a young, immature Christian. Oh, wow, how many times should I have just jumped into the ocean??

What are your thoughts out there in blog land?? Is any of this making sense to you?? what have you learned in your life about this??

CORRECTION-

*** It was not Paul it was Jesus who made this statement!

Nothing….My filthy rags. April 9, 2008

There is nothing inside of me that is good. Nothing. All of my best efforts come to nothing. That is where I am at this moment. Now before you think that I am all depressed and down on myself, I will tell you straight up, I am not being a victim. I am however becoming aware of my weakness. I am becoming aware that even my strengths become liabilities when they cause me to trust them instead of God.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I began to feel that familiar numbness coming back to my spiritual life. Like my spiritual senses were becoming dull. All desire for the things of God was gone. I mean I could not even pretend to want to read my bible…or spend any significant time in prayer. I did not even want to listen to worship music at all. (if you know me, that’s a big deal.) So, I added some old school R&B to my ipod and embraced my spiritual apathy, whole heartedly. Another thing you have to understand about me, I don’t do anything halfway! I am fully in or I am fully out. I had depleted all of my own natural resources. I had nothing left to give anyone.

Last night, the small group (12th grade girls) that I lead came over to the house to discuss the book we are doing. … (experiencing God). I laugh even now at the irony. I am supposed to lead these girls to experience this God, who felt so distant even to me. We had not met together during the last two weeks…(the weeks of my apathy) but were getting caught up last night.

Here is what God did. Our conversations were about recognizing when God is speaking, or doing something, how to not feel so dead spiritually and how to want God. Crazy! Here are these beautiful girls, asking me how to do the very things that I have been avoiding. God spoke through me to them, and in turn reminded me that It’s true, I can’t do anything without Him. I can’t even want Him unless He first plants that desire in me. Even when I am feeling so deadened and disconnected from Him, He is at work, wooing me. I can’t do it. Do you get that?? It’s such a foreign concept in our world, there is no formula, there is NOTHING I can DO to make me want the things of God.

To go a little deeper here, It was my fault that I became disconnected in the first place. See, I tend to get cocky when I am doing “good” spiritually. I tend to coast through life relying on my own wisdom and my own abilities. I know beyond a shadow of doubt that my Father in heaven allowed me to wander far enough away from Him that I felt my need for Him. It reminds me of a time when my own daughter was three years old. She had a problem with wandering off in the grocery store, the mall or wherever we happened to be. Well, one day my husband and I decided she needed to learn that it was not a good idea. So we were in a store and when she wandered off to look at a toy display, we hid from her view. We could see her, but she could not see us. It took a few minutes for it to dawn on her that she was alone. I could see the emotions flickering across her face. When it finally registered that she had walked too far this time,her chin began to quiver and her eyes began to tear up. We came out from our hiding places, which were within two feet from her, and she was both angry and relieved. It may sound like a horrid thing to do, but she never wandered off again after that. I believe that God does the same with me. When I venture off of the path He is on, He just stops and waits for me to realize that I am doing it alone again. He never leaves me, but He just sort of hides Himself. Well, I am obviously a much more stubborn child than my own daughter, I don’t learn so easily. I wander off to look at my own version of toys, which I will plainly call idols. I whore myself out to all sorts of other lovers, self, people pleasing, recognition, pride, television…the list is long.

The good news though, even though I had nothing to give to that small group last night, God showed up. He helped us all to see that even the fact that I was discontent with my lack of desire for God, was the hand of God moving my heart. He showed me this verse this morning:

Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord;
no deeds can compare with yours.

All the nations you have made
will come and worship before you, O Lord;
they will bring glory to your name.

For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God.

Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.

I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.

For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.

Among all the gods, there is none like you… among all the idols that I erect in my life, there is none who can compare to Him! None of my “toys” will be able to come close to filling my emptiness. I want an undivided heart, to love Him. I want all the other lovers to fade away in the presence of God Almighty.

Great is HIS LOVE TOWARD ME. not my love toward Him. Even if I were a junkie, in an alley somewhere, His love for me would be the same. It is His faithfulness that will see me through to the end. It’s His loving kindness that will woo me to Him. Thank God, it is not reliant on my desires or lack thereof!

tired. February 27, 2008

I am really fighting this month against an adversary who has many faces. Beautiful and alluring faces. What temptation or vice am I struggling with, you ask?  Busyness. Over commitment. I don’t know, it just seems that all of a sudden, I am being allured by all of these great opportunities to do wonderful things. Things that I would be great at, things that would be good for me, things that could be very good ministry opportunities…yet, it just seems they would pull me in too many directions to be really useful at any of them.   I read somewhere recently that with all of our technological advances that were supposed to decrease our work load, we have somehow added another days worth of work. Did you catch that? We somehow have an eight day work week now. We are SO busy.  We are getting up early and due to electricity, we are able to stay up into the wee hours to finish work that our ancestors would have waited until the next day to complete. I am getting WAY off point there…just a little soapbox rant! J

I have been thinking about my life’s mission statement a lot this week.  I have been wondering, if God is changing my mission statement to include something more, or if I am just trying to fill my life with something other than what He has called me to do. This led me to think about reasons we do “too much”.
There are times when life just demands more of us.  Jobs for instance can take a lot of our time and attention. We may have bosses who require more from us for a while. It’s called work for a reason. I get that.  I don’t have a regular job though. I am a stay at home mom. I do the normal housekeeping stuff, bills, homework etc. I also work in ministry with my husband, who is a full time youth minister. We are busy. Very Very busy! The demands of a job in ministry can be overwhelming because the lines are easily blurred between work, home and family. Boundaries have become a life saver for my family. But boundaries can also make you the bad guys at times!

For me, it all comes down to what I find my worth in. If my  worth comes from what I do, then by all means I should do as much as I can as well as I can…right? HOWEVER, my worth comes not from what I do, but whose I am. I am the daughter of the King of Kings. I have worth because He created me in His image, put HIS breath in my frame…and if that’s not enough, He also loved me and valued me enough  to DIE to cover my  frailty. He knew that I was at my very best, nothing more than dust without Him. So I have value because the price on my head was the death of the son of God.

There are so many good things out there for me to do but just because the need is there, does not mean that I am the one called to that task. So, once again I need to simplify my schedule. It’s time to decide where I am supposed to be and stop trying to do it all! This is such an easy thing to say, but not so easy to do. I am praying for wisdom, clarity and direction. I have to remind myself that if I am not connected to my source, I will burn out.  I am like a lamp, if I am unplugged, I have no light of my own to share. I must be plugged in to the source of my light. It is Christ in me.

I know i rambled a lot tonight, I am tired, I am overwhelmed and just wanted to put some of my thoughts down while I was able. If you think about me this week, please pray for me. Wisdom, clarity and strength to get through the rest of this week!  Thanks!

Good ‘nuf! January 31, 2008

John 1:10-16 (emphasis added mine)
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own,  and His own   did not receive Him.  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:  who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’”  And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace  For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

When you think about God, what comes to mind? Maybe you think he loves people, but he is often disappointed in you. Maybe he is like a morality cop, waiting for you to screw up. Maybe you think that God is a delusion that people created as a crutch.  For me, I  used to get this picture of an old man in white, with a long flowing beard, sitting on a huge marble throne. He was surrounded by clouds, so much so that I could never get a clear picture in my mind of His face. In this picture, I was often, bowing (cowering) at His feet in a nervous way. Oh, I was in awe of Him too, but still had this nagging suspicion that I was not in His favors. I never felt that I could measure up to the standard that I felt He had set for me. I was always “messing up”

There are many things that can shape our perspective of the Father God. Maybe we had an abusive father, maybe he worked all the time or was altogether absent. Maybe you had a great dad, but other men in your life were poor examples of what God is like.  Maybe you were in  a church that was legalistic. It took me a long time to sift and separate the many perceptions I had of God. Some were true but many were distorted.  One of the sources of my  distorted perceptions was the fact that I was raised in a very legalistic church. I came to believe that God was that policeman in the sky, watching for me to mess up so he could strike me down. Maybe not by a literal bolt of lightning, but in some sort of punishment He would surely get me back.    If I was not living up to par, then He would not bless me, he would not use me and would give me the silent treatment so to speak.

I have often struggled with the fear that I would never measure up to what  a “good Christian” should look like.  I am just too blunt,  too sad, too happy, too angry, to relaxed,   too poor, too rich, I don’t read the bible enough, I don’t understand the bible enough, I don‘t pray enough…. etc….   See I was placing all these rules and expectations on myself in order to avoid punishment from God. I was in essence trying to take the place of Jesus in my own life. I was determined (not knowingly) to be my own savior.  There is a scripture that Paul says basically, that if you are trying to earn your salvation by works, you are telling Jesus that His work is not enough.  That is so hard to swallow if you tend to be a performance based, people pleaser, like I have been. That is one of those verses that we glance over quickly moving on to something like, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” only to interpret that through the lens of earning our keep!

I have now come to believe that God does not view me through the same “glasses” that I view my self. He sees me through the blood of Jesus. The one pure spotless lamb.  vs. 16 in the NKJV says it this way:
And of HIS fullness we have all received and grace for grace.  That word fullness translates as full measure, copiousness (present in large quantity), that which has been completed. It describes a ship with full cargo and crew.  Guys, we are complete in Christ.  Not because we are good enough, (because God knew we could never be “good enough”) but because Christ took our place. He is there interceding on our behalf to God the Father.
He is our portion, our fullness and our covering. His grace is enough. Enough to cover every imperfection. All we have to do is accept it, freely. That is harder at times than working for it. Especially to prideful people such as myself. I am always fighting to remain humble, not self sufficient. He never called me to be self sufficient. He called me to be God-dependent. I am not saying that we never have to do anything…I am saying that nothing we DO can make us any better in the eyes of God.

So, don’t get wrapped up in being “Good enough” Just abide in Him. Commune with Him. You are fully loved, totally forgiven, whole and complete in Christ. You have value, HUGE value because Christ the pure spotless one, loved you enough to die a painful, shameful death so that we could be free! Free from shame, guilt and Fear! Praise God!

New Friend October 18, 2007

Hi all! I want to introduce a new blogging Friend. Please go check her out and show some blog love! She is a cool chick who loves Jesus and is transparent about what God is doing in her life! Oh and she has a great sense of humor too!
just another day

Cultural relativity? October 12, 2007

My heart is heavy right now. My daughter is in the third grade. Up to this year she was in a Christian private school but now she is in public school. She is loving the change. She has had a few questions like ” why are their no bibles or books about Jesus in the library?” Why don’t we say the pledge to the Christian flag?”  “Why don’t we have chapel in the mornings?”

I know this sounds a little crazy to some, but it was something we took for granted in a Christian school.  Both my husband and myself attended the same private school for the majority if not all of our school years.  Anyway, my daughter got in the car today after chorus looking very sad.  After a few minutes of winding down from the day, she came out with it. “Mom, I am sad today. They gave us a new song to sing and Mrs Jennings said that we had to change the phrase light of God to Light of the world.”   My daughter and her spirit sensitive heart were broken and angry that anyone would try to stifle or hide the light of the World. She kept saying, “don’t they know that there is no light in the world except for the light of the World, JESUS!”

You know, I actually cried with her. It breaks my heart. I am not a religious fanatic. I am however a lover of God. He is my friend, my healer, my redeemer. He is the air I breathe, the light in the darkness of my life. He is my hope, my lover and father. I feel a very real sense of anger and indignation, that anyone would try to hide Him. That anyone would try to silence my daughter from singing about Him.  That the enemy of our souls would speak his lies against the knowledge of God….the very God that the founders of this country built upon.  We call it cultural relativity, but I say what could be more relative to a culture so lost in the dark, than the light of a Holy God?

So there is my rant for the day…sorry for grammatical mistakes… this is merely a vent.

Holiness and Compromise October 4, 2007

Here is my promised blog. I have been working the details in my head and in my life. This is the hard copy of the talk I gave to our youth group tonight.

Hope it encourages and challenges you as much as it did me when I was studying for it!

Holiness that hurts the eyes. Holiness in the inward parts, is the fragrance of Christ on our very being. The life of Christ being exhibited in our everyday lives. In this day and age, it is often considered an outdated way of life, not politically correct or maybe intolerant but this is the way we who call ourselves Christians are called to live. We are called to be above reproach. Yes, we are under grace, but that is not an excuse to sin. The grace is there to cover the mistakes that we will make because we are not Jesus. We are mere humans but we are filled with the Holy Spirit of God who lives through us, giving us the ability to live up the challenge!

The first thing that I think we need to look at is pride and humility so that we can get a grasp on an accurate view of both! True humility is seeing yourself as God sees you. Pride obviously is the opposite. It is seeing yourself as either better OR WORSE that God sees you. Low self-esteem, is just pride in drag. Basically it is like saying that you know better than God what worth you really have. You absolutely cannot be a good leader if you are prideful. Pride will lead to ruin every time.

You may be extremely gifted but if you do not have character to match, it’s not of much use to the kingdom of God. Character is who you are when no one else sees. It is your thoughts, motives, attitudes, desires, habits and behaviors. It’s really easy to say all the right things in front of “church friends” but have a heart that is far from God. It’s called hypocrisy.

I want to clarify something. We are not SAVED by works. We are saved by GRACE! However, the bible says that a Christian is known by their love and their fruit! It also says that there will be many people who come before him and say Lord, Lord, I have done many great works in your name, and God will look at them and say depart from me, I never knew you! So it is about being in relationship with Him. Being immersed in Him. Are we so immersed in Christ that it changes the way we live and think?? Someone has to draw a line in the sand and say, even if culture tells me this is how I should live, I must live according to god. So, being saved by grace, does you life look like you are saved by grace??? Do you have godly fruit?

I peter 1:14-18 (the message)
14 So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. 15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”
17 And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as “foreigners in the land.” 18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver.

God is Holy. In Isaiah 6, when Isaiah saw the glory of God, he fell to the ground and cried out, Woe is me, I am unclean man with unclean lips, I live among unclean people. He was immediately aware of His own sinfulness in the presence of God. Exodus 33:18 Moses asks God to show him His glory. God tells him to hide his face because no man could live if they saw his glory. In the old testament only the high priest entered the Holy place and then only once a year on the day of atonement. Before he entered, a rope was tied around his leg and bells were sown into his clothing. So that if he suddenly died the bells would stop ringing and they other priests could pull him out without violating the law. NO ONE dared approach the Holy Living presence of God with out perfectly fulfilling the law. They would not even write his name. It was too holy. Then when Jesus came in the New testament and fulfilled the law. He became the sacrifice. So the apostles who KNEW the holiness of God‘s law and also knew the grace of the lamb of God.
Now because He already fulfilled the law we can come BOLDLY before him in the holy of holies!!

Let’s look at Pharisees for a minute. Most of the time we think of them as the bad guys, right? Actually they were the conservative, intellectual church leaders who defended the faith as they knew it. All they knew was the law and they had that down pat. The thing that Jesus despised was the pride and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. We must truly understand that UNTIL WE ARE AWARE OF HOW DEPRAVED AND SINFUL WE REALLY ARE AT OUR CORE WE WILL BE NOTHING BUT A CHRISTIAN PHARISEE. HYPOCRITICAL AND SELF-RIGHTEOUS. Purity begins with our determined refusal to hide from the condition of our heart. From this awareness, will come humility and true holiness. A hypocrite is someone who sees their own private sin and makes excuses for it instead being honest with themselves, God and another safe Christian brother or sister and then allowing God to remove it. Our first step in this process of sanctification is seeing and admitting that we are not as holy as we like to think.

To see accurately how we measure up as a Christian, we must put our life up to the life of Jesus. Do we look like him? Do we live a fully unselfish, Never sinning, always intimately connected to God life?? Do I walk in utter humility? Do I live in complete honesty with myself and others at all times? Do I walk in total forgiveness or do I harbor anger or offense against someone?

We are called to holiness. Holiness means totally devoted or dedicated to God, set aside for his special use and set apart from sin and its influence. The bible teaches that our actions flow from what we have going on in our hearts. Outward sin always begins in our heart. That is why as Christians, we must begin to make a habit of searching our heart. (Read: II Cor. 14:5, Psalms 4:4, Psalms 139:23) Ask God to shine the light of His truth on any darkness in our hearts such as wrong motives, pride, anger, un-forgiveness, jealousy, greed, disobedience, or rebellion gossip, criticism. Remember that ears that listen to gossip and criticism are just as guilty as the one who spoke it. You ears are holy, don’t let them come into agreement with the accuser of the brethren, the father of lies! What are you listening to on tv, radio, conversations? Your eyes are Holy too, what are you putting before them? The bible says that our eyes are the lamp to the rest of the body. What are you looking at when you are on your computer late at night? This is not about condemnation, it is about holiness. We are called to be holy. A holy God lives within us, are we aware of that? The bible says that we will reap what we sow, the things we look at the things we listen to, the things we say will plant seeds in our hearts and out of that we will reap. Are you sowing to the flesh, or the spirit? You are doing one or the other at all times! There is no in between! If you are not feeding on Jesus then you are feeding your flesh! What is our flesh? Your flesh is EVERYTHING you think and feel that is not a result of the will of God and His word in you. Holiness is not what you DO it is a product of What you are BEHOLDING. Holiness is abstaining from Idolatry which is putting anything above Christ.. Even if it is a ministry, or a style of worship or what you feel that God has called you to do.

God calls us to be holy because He is holy. Out of respect, out of gratefulness because he saved us. In the old testament he told his people to be holy, to come out from among them and be separate, because he is the lord their God who brought them out of Egypt. Egypt was a place of bondage due to the disobedience of the Israelites. They refused to destroy their idols and God in his love for them allowed them to go into slavery so they could recognize their need for a deliverer! Today, Egypt can be a picture of whatever holds us In bondage. Sin, lust, greed, pride, busyness, partying, drinking, music, hobbies, tv, our cell-phones, our friends, video games, computers, anything that takes precedence over our relationship with God. What dominates our time, what we feel we cannot live without. Maybe it is friendships, or what people think about us that we worry about.

We must remember that it is not about performing good deeds to earn the favor and grace of God! The good works will naturally come from your life when you are in constant relationship with Christ because you will be exhibiting the life of Christ in you!

AACC World Conference September 19, 2007

For those who are curious, the conference was amazing. I am still exhausted and overwhelmed by all that I learned. I have information and statistics coming out of my ears!! I saw Joyce Meyers, Tim Clinton, Larry Crabb, Natalie Grant, Avalon, Michael O’brien, John Ortburg and many many more.

I think the thing that sticks out the most, was this: the World does not need a church full of wounded healers. God wants to heal his bride so that they have something to give. This is my heart. I was walking around bleeding all over the people I was “ministering” to before I began my own healing journey. I am grateful that God placed people in my life to help me to grow into who He wants me to be! I believe He is doing a new thing in the church, he seems to be merging emotional healing programs into the church body! I love it!!

Anyway, i am still processing, and probably will still be for a while! : ) Oh, I did purchase the next course for my Diploma of Biblical counseling…It is called Caring for Teens God’s way. I am very excited about that!

Here is the website of the ministry that I was a part of for my own healing.  It is called living Well Ministries

Grace and Holiness August 15, 2007

For many years I have struggled to reconcile the ideas of Grace and holiness. I am by nature a black and white personality. I see everything through this lens including the issue of grace and holiness. For many years I had no concept whatsoever of what grace looks like and how to accept it. I lived as if it was up me and my ability to earn the favor and grace of God. Like I owed it to him to be the best I could be. I also believed that I was to look like the perfect Christian in order to somehow protect God’s reputation. I am to be a “light in the dark” after all, right? So how do we reconcile these seemingly opposing ideas?

 

Well, for me it began with who I believed God to be. See, I was very much unaware of the fact that I believed he was an angry , punishing God who was waiting for me to prove my unworthiness as one of his followers. I believed unknowingly that I was responsible for not only my own salvation but the salvation of those who were around me. I lived in constant fear of losing my salvation due to my own inability to live a perfect, sinless life. Now, I am sure that reading that statement you are thinking, well duh! Only Jesus was able to do that right?? Well, I bet that if you really thought about it, there are areas in your own life that you are trying to live up to an unreasonable standard that you have placed on yourself… am I right? I bet you are you own worse critic. Well, I know of a lot of people who live as if they are expected to be perfect. What I am coming to realize though is that Yes, God is holy and we are called to be holy as he is, however, He calls us to be holy because he is our loving groom who wants nothing to hinder us from loving Him with out shame and guilt. See, if we can wrap our minds around the fact that He is holy and that because of this, no unholy thing can survive His presence… and He longs for us to be in His presence, because we are in love with him, not because we want to earn his love. We already have all of His love. He knew us all while we were or are at our worst and still sent His son to die in our place so that we could be with Him. Before we ever did a single “good” thing, He already loved us. That is so powerful. Can you wrap your mind around this concept? The Bible says that His burden is easy , his yoke is light. In comparison, the Pharisees imposed a man made burden of legalism or works based thinking. To quote from one of my favorite books, “Purifying the prophetic” by R. Loren Sanford.:

 

“It is time to lay it all down. The Striving. The human effort. The legalism. Freely we have received. Now let us freely give. Let us recover the Gospel, received by grace in the wonderful river of the Father’s love and then selflessly shared. It is all there in the cross and the blood! We need only to plumb the depths of it.”

 

Now about holiness. We are called to be holy if we are Christians. We are to be set apart. However what many people fail to realize is the fact that it is a process. It is called sanctification which is essentially being made into the image of Christ. We are not saved and then immediately we are sin-free. If fact, the closer I am to Jesus, the more keenly I am aware of my own lack of holiness. He is a Holy God. When I am looking at myself in the light of who He is, I will fall short…very short! However, gold is still gold even if mixed up with other alloys. I am still loved and still accepted by Him, because of Jesus. He is my righteousness. This goes back to gazing on who He is. We must know who he really is and who we are in Him. We must meditate on this truth, to become like Him. I have spent a lot of time and hard work, trying to learn the truth of who He is. He is not like my father, or my mother. He is not like any person that I know. He is perfect. He loves me despite my inadequacies. He is making me more like Him every day.

 

Because I tend to be an either or person, I have to constantly remind myself that it is not by my own strength that I can live a holy life. My responsibility is to “remain in Him” , to gaze upon His holiness so that He can transform me. I will never be perfect on this side of Heaven, but I can and should be constantly changing to be more like him. By gazing at Him, I will become more holy. My heart will change. It will become more like His heart. Then my “actions” will come out of the overflow of my love for Him instead of a feeling of fear of punishment or some striving to earn his love.

 

There is a song which I love by Misty Edwards called “Come break the Chains” that says this:

 

“Come break the Chains, that hinder love, all that remains of yesteryear, come break the chains that pull me down, Come break the chains and draw me near. Let your fire burn, consuming me, come let your jealous flame come take away everything, let your fire burn, consuming me, let your jealous flame come and write your name on my heart till all that remains is the light of your countenance and I will be satisfied when I awaken as a lover of You.”

 

This is my prayer, and I hope that you will make it your own in your journey to find balance in this area!