The Refiner’s Fire

{I just wrote this in my journal this morning, but felt I should share it here too. It’s all by His grace. Without Him, I am nothing.}

It’s been a month now since Jill fell and broke her arm. And it has been a hard, hard month. Of course there have been good moments and times when I have felt God’s blessings….but most of the time I have been stressed and/or frustrated.

I know that’s not the right response. I know I’ve got to trust GOD to work all things for Good and to {help me} live each moment righteously through Him….but my flesh so so so easily takes charge, I try to do it on my own, and I usually end up so angry that I’m nearly shaking {when things go wrong, when things happen that are outside of my control}.

Abba Father! I come to You because there is nowhere else to go. Abba, if there’s one thing I’m being confronted with every day here, it is that I am not in control. Father, I confess that my hunger for control is sin. It’s pride. It’s evidence of a failure to trust You.

God, I spent months {last year} asking You to break me, to strip away everything from my life that was not of You. I can feel the heat of the fire, Refiner of my soul. I can feel it and I want so badly to run away, to escape it.

Abba Father! Please don’t let me go! Please don’t let me pull away from Your sanctifying grasp. Abba, I beg You, please keep me – no, please make me to be humble and soft before You, my Master and my King of Glory.

For God, You are Good! And Father, I am thankful. Even though my flesh quivers as I write that….I am thankful to You. I thank You and praise You for Your grace, Your patience with my frail stumblings.

Jesus, You are the Christ. You alone have eternal life. And so, no matter what, help me soul to trust in You.

There is nowhere else—no one else to whom—I would rather turn.

Satisfy me in every moment with Your love, Your peace, Your grace. May Your indestructible Joy be my only strength.

For Your glory alone.

                Amen.

{As I finish typing this in and prepare to get ready for the day, I don’t want to leave this moment, this place of my soul. Because I know that there will be trials and temptations in this day, probably before I even reach the office and get this posted before starting work. And I forget so easily! But those next steps of physical life must be taken, and it’s an opportunity to trust God and to put my faith into practice. That’s how our Creator made life work. But He is also always there to turn to in prayer each moment. Live through me, Abba.}

A Reminder to Hold Loosely

I like my stuff.

I sit here, in this room that has been “mine” for nearly 11 years. My closet is filled with clothes (more are in a tub under my bed) and with storage drawers stuffed with my college apartment kitchen items.

Two bookshelves hold rows and rows of books, as well as knick knacks. My windowsill holds more of the latter, as does another tub under my bed.

So much stuff.

And sometimes I can feel it weighing me down. But the thought of getting rid of it all feels too big and hard. Besides, I like it. And I may want/need it sometime.

Spending five months in Uganda and my plans to go back in September serve as a constant reminder that all this stuff can’t go with me everywhere. Especially at the end of time, when much of it and what it represents will simply burn (1 Cor. 3:10-15).

This morning I decided to work on a project that is fairly mindless: Making “refrigerator” birthday cards for my teacher-boss to use for her new students. I decided I may as well listen to an audio book while I did, so I finally opened a folder I had put on my desktop back in November—Packing Light: Thoughts on Living Life with Less Baggage. 

I’m not sure what I was expecting…..but I guess I wasn’t expecting what I got: what felt like a personalized message just for me. I identify with a lot of what the author, Allison Vesterfelt, talks about. I’ve only listened to about a third of the book, but I can tell it will join the {long} list of influential/favorite books in my life.

What happens when a 20-something gets urged by a friend to drop her outwardly good/perfect life and embark on a road trip journey to all 50 states?  I don’t want to spoil the book for you (because you should read it!), so I won’t tell you much of the answer to that. Hey, you can even get the audio book for free if you subscribe to Moody Collective’s email list! Go do it here, I’ll wait J

I will share with you a little bit about how, in light of the tension between my stuff and my plans for the next year and a half, God’s using this book in my life today.

Early on in her book, Vesterfelt offers up an interesting take on the parable of the rich young ruler that I found applicable and compelling in my current situation. As I listened, I remembered wrestling with a similar feeling last fall as I contemplated giving up/putting on hold my desire to get settled down into what American culture seems to advertise as the good life of working a regular, salaried job. {You can read my posts about thinking through that here and here.}

Vesterfelt suggests that perhaps the rich young ruler wasn’t just looking for self-affirmation. Maybe he came to Jesus asking what he needed to inherit eternal life because he felt the emptiness of the life he was living. Maybe he felt like something was missing, even in the midst of keeping the commandments Jesus listed off for him.

Perhaps, even though he was doing everything he knew to do—even though he had material blessings—perhaps his life still felt lacking. Maybe he wanted to know why, maybe he wanted to change that.

Jesus basically told him to give up his hold on his possessions, to come join Christ in His ministry, to be willing to travel light except for the weight of a cross (Mark 10:21). But the young man couldn’t bring himself to commit to that. The thought of the sacrifice was too great.

I don’t know if Vesterfelt’s interpretation of this parable is any more or less correct than the more traditional picture of an arrogant young man with a moral that can tend toward “don’t be rich.” But when I quit working and listening to go make lunch, a question kept weighing on the back of my mind:

Esther, are you willing to pack light? Are you willing to leave baggage—both material and emotional—behind? Are you willing to be soft clay? To continue being stretched and kneaded and molded?

And, at the root of it all, are you willing to trust Me with and for everything?

These questions aren’t just for the next 18 months. They’re not just about this next step of going back to Uganda. These are questions that must be answered and decisions to trust that must be made every moment of every day for the rest of my earthly life.

Because, as much as I wish it were otherwise, life simply doesn’t automatically fall into a super dependable, easy pattern just because I graduated from college. And yes, I see now just how silly that assumption was. But somehow that’s what I wanted and expected a year ago.

I could have made choices that would have been more likely to get me on that route. But I felt God calling me to a different adventure. I felt a tug on my heart to places I didn’t expect and things I don’t feel equipped for. I don’t have the answers of where my life’s ship is sailing. The end harbor that I desire most of all…that I know God will bring me to…is to become like Him, to bring Him glory through His work in my life—to know, to love, and to serve Him and His people.

What route will that take me on? What will be the midpoint destinations between here and there? I don’t feel like I have a clue.

And my soul can feel the fearfulness of that lack of the ability to control my destiny on my own. But as I stood in the kitchen, stirring tuna, noodles, and sauce…I knew there was only one answer. That despite the fear of what sacrifice that choice would ask, there was only one thing I desired with my deepest being.

Yes Lord. Take me and make me Thine. There is nothing else I truly want more. Thine be the glory.

The Journey to Trusting a Little More

{This is the backstory of the puzzle pieces God brought together this month and that I published a LONG blog post about the other day. Written at the end of March.}

It started a year ago. In the spring semester of 2013 (my last before graduation), the JBU campus experienced a tragedy which impacted most of our small community, at least to some extent. A little less than two weeks later, I experienced a personal tragedy. Nothing in comparison, but it impacted me. That same day, I had to turn in the application to intern with Samaritan’s Purse.

Needless to say—and for even more factors than listed above—it was an emotional semester. On March 3, with the above three happenings swirling in my head, I went on a labyrinth walk as part of a class I was taking. For a bit more about the class, see this post. That day in the labyrinth, seeking God’s peace and wisdom, He brought me to an important realization from Micah 6:8. To quote from the response paper I wrote for the class:

Thinking that I deserve to know why things happen the way they do—or wanting so badly to know what will happen ahead of time—is a sign of pride. God calls us to walk humbly before Him – that includes trusting Him and surrendering our “right” to know why and our ideal plans and dreams.

{You can read the rest of the response here on my other blog.}

There were still a lot of ups and downs in the two months leading to my college graduation…but I hope that truth stuck with me through at least a few of those days. May 4 came, closing out my time of being a student at JBU. At that point, I knew I would be going to N.Ireland with a JBU mission team for the month of June, then interning with SP {yep, they had accepted me!} for July and August. I kind of assumed that I would like SP and would want to get a job there, but I knew that was not for sure.

I also expected to cry at graduation, or at some point during the following week that I stayed in Siloam Springs, but no tears came even as I said goodbye to the place that had been home for four years and to some of my best friends…not knowing if/when I would see them again. The tears started instead on an observation platform in the beautiful N.Ireland (almost exactly nine months ago) as the truth came home that I wouldn’t be back with the team and the rest of my JBU friends in the fall.

And the tears continued raining down as the next two months turned out more confusing than I expected; as I still ended up applying for a job opening (that I had been basically filling) but then was not chosen; as I found myself back home with no easy “real” job leads; as I felt led to offer myself as a teacher (though without any traditional qualifications) to fill a need expressed by a new missionary family; as God provided abundantly and got me here three months later; as I have faced the daily challenges of living in the African bush (plus sickness/a couple injuries); and as I made mistakes and things here have not gone as well as I wish they had.

I feel sorry for my mom and my roommate here (and my pillow, haha), who have faced most of my crying episodes. {And I must not be looking to them (or any people) as my sole source of comfort and satisfaction!} But I am so thankful for the love and encouragement they have consistently provided, pointing me toward the Truth.

On the mountain where I lived in North Carolina during July and August, the question (“Do you trust Me?”) which had been a recurring theme became a command in my heart and mind. Going back and reading those two posts is so convicting, because it’s a lesson I still haven’t finished learning.

Which was a post in and of itself – about how I thought I’d reach a spiritual graduation of sorts concurrent with my college graduation. Even just now, reading the two-part post I wrote in September, it feels like I’m just going around and around, coming back to the same things over and over. But I hope and pray that each time the lesson goes a little deeper—peels back another onion-like layer of my selfishly-inclined heart.

Because even through these past nine months, full of frustration and emotion, God has proved Himself faithful. When I didn’t want to be “stuck” in Dallas without knowing what was coming next, He provided a part-time job and He used that time at home to continue bringing deeper healing to decade-old wounds. When He called me to come to Uganda – even when I was reluctant and distrustful – He poured out His blessings.

When I’ve been tempted to question His goodness, He has brought peace. When things have not gone my way, He has called me to surrender and trust. When I’ve been trying to do things in my own strength, He has convicted me of my natural patterns that are not fully in line with Truth and His best. Because He is a God full of grace and never-ending second chances….if my heart is seeking Him and crying out for His humility. And it’s all for the sake of His great name…so that we may know that He is God. For His glory alone.

Reminded of Blessing, Reoriented to Grace

It’s so easy to forget. It’s so easy to slip back into old habits, into old ruts. Over and over and over, God told the Israelites to REMEMBER. To remember the wonders He had done in setting them free. To remember His provision for them again and again.

It is the same today—it is the same in my life. God has proven His faithfulness so many times, in so many ways, and yet so often I find myself sliding back into the mentality that I have to take care of myself. Fretting about the future. Worried that God won’t come through.

But the amazing thing is that God has ALREADY filled my MOST ULTIMATE need. OUR deepest need! Because, obviously, this isn’t just about me. From eternity past, God worked each piece of His plan, leading up to the pinnacle moment of earthly history: the coming of God’s Son in flesh, His sacrificial death, His victorious resurrection. It is all for His glory—and yet amazingly it is simultaneously for our blessing, that we may be redeemed.

SO THAT we may then live our lives to the glory of our King, serving for His sake, and that one day we may enjoy Him fully FOREVER. Because HE IS AWESOME.

It is so amazing, so beautiful, SO PERFECT!

I know many of you who are likely to read this share this great knowledge with me. And yet, as I said earlier, we so easily forget. We rush from here to there, lost in the hustle and the bustle—gazing so hard at the flurry of the snow globe that we miss the bigger picture. The better, the more beautiful picture.

It happened to me yesterday morning. As I got up and started getting ready for church, I was consumed with worry, fretting over the financial needs and deadlines looming. I needed $2,000 by Dec. 1 to pay for my plane ticket, and my NHU account had less than $500. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what I could do to make it work. And yes, I tried to pray and remind myself to trust God for this too—after all, He’s the one who has called me to Uganda, so He will provide—but my mind still went around and around trying to logically figure it out.

I get to church, and within 30 minutes the amount of donations I had received tripled. I was overwhelmed. But I’m sad to admit to you that it was only after that happened that I woke up to how I had been acting. Our worship service focused even more than usual on Christ’s redeeming work, and I found myself ashamed of my morning behavior. I had been so focused on how things didn’t seem to be working out on my timeline. And I had failed to remember how undeservingly blessed I am simply to be a member of God’s family.

I’m thankful that God’s call through the worship service reoriented me back to what matters most. I’m also grateful for His faithful and generous servants who are coming forward to partner with me. But most of all, I am hopeful that I will remember the lesson of that Sunday morning. I pray that I’ll be focused on the truth of God’s provision, rather than on what I don’t have. And I am so blessed by my Savior’s love. Amen.

The Lure of Success

This post is one of those that has been rolling around in my head for a while. I think it will have two parts, but we’ll see how it actually ends up.

SUCCESS. What is it really? How does one achieve it? What is one’s purpose in life?

I guess it’s not too surprising that I’ve been thinking about this recently. I graduated from college five months ago, and as a result I’m greeted by my perception of all these expectations which the people I care about and the culture have of me. To get a great job in my career field. To make good on everything that got poured into me the past four years. To make my degree, with its $100,000+ sticker price, “worth it.” To hopefully get married and have a wonderful family life. Etc, etc.

And a good part of me would like nothing better than to land that job and to know where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing for a good long while. To feed my hunger to be able to identify myself by what I do—to be able to support myself and to be “in control” of my present. It would be so seemingly easy if God would just get on board and go along with my plan. Or, I would be well on the way to being married by now, and would have reached my view of “success” that way.

But it seems as though just as soon as I create a vision of what I think I want and what would work out well, something doesn’t go my way and I wind up back at square one all over again. Because ever since I graduated, nothing has truly gone the way I expected it too. That hunger I have to “succeed,” to somehow meet people’s (including my own) high expectations of me—it feels like I have failed at it.

As I have spent the past two months waiting to hear back from SP, then trying to figure my life out after that door closed……..I’ve been thinking about what I see as “success” for my life. And I begin to see the trap I’ve fallen into. I yearn for the apparent stability of either my own “real” job that I can identify myself by, or of a family of my own that I can pour myself into. But thus far, neither has worked out. Instead, I’m still “bumming” off my parents, five months after graduation. I definitely didn’t think it would come to this. I didn’t want it to.

At any rate, I had this picture of success in which my identity was bound up in WHAT I did. Thinking about what success is, I’ve been reminded it goes much deeper than that. My next post will look at what I’m relearning about that. But it is so much harder than the “easy” way that our American culture seems to tantalize me with, settling down into a good career and staying there for forever (though I know that’s becoming less common anyway).

Ever since high school, though, I’ve said I don’t really want to have a career like that. I had my reasons for that, but I’m beginning to see something different. Last month—even before I heard back from SP—I had a sense that God was asking me to lay down my desire for certainty about where I’m going to be and what I’m going to be doing five years from now – or two, or one. For a long time—as I’ve written about before—He’s been calling me to trust Him and to give up my hunger for control. But it is hard—because for me, at least, the lure of success is strong.

Giving up CONTROL pt. 2

A week ago, I was in Siloam Springs visiting my college friends for a long weekend. I decided to go ahead and go to the Gathering, although I ended up coming in a little late. I “just happened” to find an empty seat right in front of Laura, one of my dearest JBU friends. God knew I needed to be there, and He made sure she was right there.

The student speaker talked about serving God, as a kick-off message for the JBU service groups. And honestly, it made me really frustrated. Not because of what he was saying, but because of what I was feeling.

Back in July and August, I felt like God was leading me toward something that was much much bigger than me. I had an idea of how I was going to serve God, and I really wanted it to work out in my timing. I knew it would be hard – really hard in many ways. But I also knew that if God opened those doors, He would provide the resources and the strength for me to carry it out.

I thought I was willing to make that sacrifice, to take that step of faith. Instead, the door closed—at least for now—just as the door to applying for the job I had been filling during my internship opened up. That was a huge process in and of itself! But by the time I sat in chapel last Sunday, it seemed obvious that God was leading me toward SP and not toward the other opportunity. Which is why the chapel talk annoyed me. Here I had been willing to put myself through a lot to go and serve God. And He had shut the door! What was up with that? We’re supposed to serve God and all that, so why did He close it down??

Yes, that feeling really is as immature and selfish as it sounds. I think part of it is that I wanted to serve God on my terms, in a way that would draw attention and praise to myself. I wasn’t consciously thinking that….but it probably played a subliminal role.

God had been clear though – that chance was a definite “not now.” So I had applied and interviewed for the job before I left my internship, two weeks before my visit to JBU. And in my mind, it was obvious what ought to happen next. God had clearly led me to the internship, and He had finally brought me to a place where I felt good about staying on there and looked forward to returning to the roots I had started putting down for the past two months.

When the speaker finished, the band came up and played “Oceans” by Hillsong. I had never heard the song before, but man it sure hit me right between the eyes. As I’ve said before, for quite a while God has been teaching me about trusting Him and surrendering my plans to His. And this song really summed it up. And I didn’t know whether or not I could sing it. I knew in the back of my head that I may or may not actually get the job from SP. And here God was, asking me to surrender my plans and expectations to Him, to come to a place “where my trust is without borders.” I didn’t want to say it, because I didn’t want to mean it.

I like knowing what’s going on and what I’m doing. I don’t like change, I despise the unknown. I want to be in control of my own future, partly as a defense mechanism from 10-year old baggage that I know is not healthy and that I’m trying to let go of. And this summer, God has been working in mighty ways to show me that I cling so hard to the control because I don’t trust Him to take care of me and protect me. I don’t trust Him to have my best at heart because of how He’s let things hurt me before. And that’s hard for me to admit out loud.

So I sat there as most everyone else stood and sang. I sat and I wrestled and I cried. Because I was not willing to give up my {albeit false} sense of control. I didn’t want to go “wherever You call me” – I wanted to go back to SP where I had finally become comfortable after two long, hard months.

But He kept asking—gently and yet insistently—for me to lay it down. And I was scared. Scared that if I did, He would just slam the SP door shut in my face too. But deeper down inside, I knew that His plan would be better—even if it wouldn’t be to my ideal liking.

As I wrestled, my mind flashed back to the previous night. I had gone to the Swing Dance Society’s first swing dance evening of the semester. I don’t really know how to dance – I don’t think of myself as a very well-coordinated dancer. But the several guys who had asked me to dance with them had all been patient teachers. They put me through the paces pretty quick, trying to teach me several of the basic moves. And I had to trust them. I didn’t know what I was doing, or where I was going when they initiated a step. I just had to pay close attention to their explanations and/or the signals they made by gently tugging on one arm or the other. A lot of times, I made mistakes. Many times, I also made assumptions about what their next moves were going to be, and sometimes that got me in trouble.

As those thoughts flashed through my mind, I could see the relation between the two—trying to learn swing dance and deciding to trust Christ’s plan for my life. Pardon the analogy, but it’s as though God was holding out His hand, asking me if I would like to dance. Would I trust Him enough to place my hands in His and listen to His leading and guiding? Or would I jump to conclusions and try to do things my way, which typically ends up in me being at the wrong place in the step?

In the end, I had to give in. God thankfully has a tight enough hold on my heart that I could not truly refuse His request, even though my fleshly desires didn’t want to let go of my supposed control. The second song we sang was “Rise,” also by Hillsong. It focuses on praising God. I didn’t want to stand up and sing that song either. I wanted to stay “stuck” in a place of pitying myself for what I had to lay down.

And that too was very selfish. Who do I think I am??? Even Jesus had to submit His desires to God. And even He didn’t think it was an easy or flippant thing (see the Garden of Gethsemane!). But even He—God’s own Son—humbled Himself and submitted to one of the hardest and cruelest forms of death man has ever created (see Phil. 2). And we’re right back to the same perspective thing I was talking about in my previous post.

It’s God’s glory that matters. And thanks be to His grace and patience – He’s not going to give up on me until He has stripped me down of my selfish ambitions and pride. And no, it’s not a fun process. But He is worth so very much more. And in the good moments, I can remember what truly matters. And it’s not what I’m going to be doing at any point in the future.

Laura was wonderful and sat with me for a while afterward – we talked about letting go of the past. She came up with several good analogies that helped explain how I was feeling J She’s the best J

And you know what? I was right. God did end up shutting the SP door too. I got the call Thursday that they picked someone else. Last Sunday night helped me be prepared for that, but it’s still been hard. Friday especially I was really frustrated with God for not coming through on this and doing things my way. There were definitely lots of tears and some internal yelling going on. And I don’t confess that lightly. I forget His lessons soooo easily……

But He is still faithful, and His plan remains unchanged—His plan to bring Himself glory and to conform me to the image of His Son. To the praise of His glorious name.

Giving up CONTROL

Just read over my posts on here from the last couple months. And am reminded again of the truths God has been teaching me.

And this time, I’m going to start this in the right place: Focused on HIM.

GOD’S GLORY. That’s what is number one, that’s what is MOST important. But this morning I have had to confess to Him, once again, that my focus is often consumed with myself and what I am doing.

God’s plan is so vast and so huge, and it is centered around one thing: His Person and His work of bringing Himself glory, and of redeeming the world. It sounds so prideful and selfish of Him – but that’s the big difference. God OUGHT to be “prideful” and “selfish,” because He is the ONE who is worthy of being at the center of ALL THINGS.

It’s hard for us humans (or at least for this human….) to not be so very self-focused. I think that my life and what I am doing with it is so very important – and it’s just not. Certainly not in comparison with all of human history. I’m one teensy tiny piece of the much bigger puzzle. But I blow that little piece way way out of proportion.

But isn’t that the earliest human sin? To want to be like God, to have the freedom to choose whatever we want. To do things OUR WAY, rather than surrendering to God’s plan and trusting in what He has commanded us. This may be reading a little bit into Genesis 3, but I definitely think that selfishness is the most basic human sin. Selfishness and independence. Because when Adam and Eve chose to eat the fruit, they were making the choice to not trust what God had chosen. They wanted to know for themselves. They wanted to be independent operators, to have the right to be like God.

And that foundational sin still plagues us. We lose perspective on the big picture of GOD’S holiness and worth and awesomeness, and we become consumed with our little insignificant lives. Because it’s annoying that He can be focused on His own glory, but all the rest of us are supposed to be serving Him. And yes, that attitude is a very very dangerous sin. But if I look at my own life carefully, that’s what I’m doing so much of the time…though not necessarily with an outright rebellious attitude, but that’s what is at the core of it.

It’s scary to recognize that in myself, and I have to get down on my knees and confess that to God.

But in that moment, I am reminded that in some ways this is all a big circle. Christ Jesus came to the world and died for all sinners. The payment has been made, the sin has been atoned for. Christ has won the victory. I cannot fight in my own strength and overcome the core sin in my life—but I don’t need to: because Jesus already did. And so the choice which stands before me is to trust in His completed work, to place Him on the throne of my heart, and to bare my soul to His redemption and sanctification. A big part of which is daily dying to myself and making the decision to live for HIM.

God is good. God is faithful. God alone is worthy. I am called to “simple” surrender and trust, faith and obedience. And I can rest in Christ, knowing that He has triumphed. For the sake of His own glory! J

"Whatever You're Doing...."

I’m tired of travelling. I want to arrive already. To be mature. To know. To get to the peak.

And I know that’s not going to happen. I know that my life will continue to be a journey, that I will always always have more to learn and more areas to grow. But it’s hard to let go of that expectation that someday, finally, I’ll have arrived and not have to worry about learning and being willing to accept more changes.

If you’ve been following my life at all this summer, you know I’ve had a roller coaster time of it. Graduating. N.Ireland. Fast transition to North Carolina and SP internship. And now the rest of my life stands before me. I think that so far this calendar year I’ve literally been home in Dallas for less than a month. Well, maybe it’s been as much as six weeks. But especially since May, I’ve been constantly on the go. Four places I’ve come to call home, even for a short time. It’s a lot for someone who doesn’t much like change. And it’s definitely wearing on me.

And yes, this feeling is aggravated by the fact that I am currently sitting in an airport where I ended up with a three-hour wait time for my flight back to Dallas. And that there’s still so much I don’t know about the future. I’ve applied for a job with SP that I really hope to get (man was that ever a journey in itself!!!), but it will probably be several weeks before I find out if they decide to offer me the job or give it to someone else.

It’s been a hard summer in a lot of ways. Just crazy, really. And I can’t tell you how much I have appreciated the friends who have been there to listen to me trying to process through everything that’s been going on. It’s been a yo-yo time a lot, and I know that the prayers of many people are what helped bring me through.

God has been so incredibly, amazingly faithful. And I can recognize that. He has been at work in my life in mighty ways. But it hasn’t been easy. Last weekend I bought a decorative sign that says “FAITH makes things possible… not easy.” Boy, isn’t that the truth. And so I guess I’m writing all this for a couple reasons. One, to admit to the world what is obvious: That I don’t have a handle on life—that I’m still learning and growing, that I still have a long ways to go. Two, to remind myself of God’s faithfulness and how He has proved Himself over and over; that HE will continue to refine me through each step He brings. Three, to see how far God has brought me, and to give myself room for improvement and to have patience with the continuance of the process.

For months, I had been praying that God would break me, would refine me into who He wants me to be. I knew it was a “dangerous” prayer. But I knew it is what I was called to as a Christ-follower, and it really is the deepest, truest wish I have. I knew the process would be hard. And it has been. God has definitely been answering that prayer. I think maybe I expected to “graduate” from that lesson a lot quicker. And I’m realizing the only graduation that will ever come is when I truly get to go home, promoted to glory, to see God face to face.

Yesterday at work as I tried to process through all the last-day emotions which crowded my mind, one line of a song popped into my head: “Whatever You’re doing, fulfill it in me” is how I remembered it. I knew it was from a Christian song, that I must have heard a time or two on the radio or something. This afternoon sitting here in the airport, I looked it up to read the lyrics and then listened to it. And it so completely fits what I’m feeling right now.

Over the past year, and even yesterday afternoon, God has brought me to a place where He has shown me the areas in my life where I am still afraid to trust Him, because of a whole variety of factors, including some past baggage that I’d been stuffing for a long, long time. And it’s still hard to let go of that sense that I need to stay in control, that only I can bring about the “safety” I desire and the goals that I want to reach.

Yes, the attitude I subconsciously had about trusting God for a long time was not healthy. In fact, it is sin. And yesterday, thinking about the fact that when I left work for the last time at the end of my internship I didn’t know if I would come back….I had to admit to myself and to God that I did not want to trust His plan in that. There’s a plan that seems so right and perfect to me, but I cannot make that happen on my own.** It has to be God’s will in order for it to go forward. And I am not enjoying the waiting or the trusting that is, by necessity, involved in that process.

But you know what? God is good. And whatever He has, wherever He takes me, I know that will be good. Probably not easy, and not necessarily my first choice. But good. And I am thankful to Him that He has brought me to a place of at least recognizing my distrust as sin and reminding me again and again that in each moment, each situation, He calls for trust and surrender.

Because He is worthy. And that’s another piece of this that He has been bringing to my attention again and again in this season: The sin and selfishness of my natural tendency to focus on myself and what I will be doing rather than to be focused on Who God is, and the importance of focusing on His Person and Glory. I’m “lucky” (blessed) simply to be a tool, a channel. I’m not the source, I’m not the end goal. He is both.

To Him be the glory.

**sound vaguely familiar? Check out Prov 16:9, 25.

What Hath God Wrought? Postscript

Guess what? God’s still at work :D

On Tuesday when I posted the second half of what I had written Monday night, I already knew it was, in a sense, “out of date.” God’s timing is so perfect…even when I think He should hurry up more.

Tuesday morning, the day after I had felt at peace with where I was for the first time in nearly seven weeks, I was called in to talk to the boss of communications and my supervisors. They officially informed me of what I had already heard hints of…that there was an open job position that I had basically been filling during my internship. And they asked me if I was interested in applying, saying that I had done good work so far. They also told me there are other people who are interested.

Because of what GOD had done the day before, I was able to tell them that yes, I did want to apply. At that point, I still was unsure about how I would respond if/when a job offer came, but unlike the week before I was open to pursuing the opportunity. And so, after weeks of uncertainty, one of the doors I was staring down opened up a bit wider.

God wasn’t done yet (He still isn’t, haha…as much as I dislike it, I’ll always be a work in progress….). The next morning, on Wednesday, nearly the whole staff had a mini retreat to hear Anne Graham Lotz speak. She taught us about the series of questions she uses to study the Bible, and then she gave us a message on the same passage she had used to present the method: Isaiah 6:1-8.

It was really good to hear, and it felt especially so for me right now. She started off by talking about how sometimes in our lives we only see the dark storm clouds or the ugly brown packages of hard time. But storm clouds bring rain (a frequent symbol of blessing in the Bible), and packages can have precious treasures in them. I’m not going to summarize her whole talk…I wouldn’t nearly do it justice. But it was really great!

Her application focused in on being willing to recognize and confess our sins so that then we can be available to God’s purposes, which I found to be quite a “coincidence,” since I had just felt convicted about that from a completely different angle a few days before.

So yes – God continues to work, and I am continuing to have an increasing sense of peace about applying for the job, and maybe—and I can finally say hopefully!—staying on here. But I am being reminded that it is all in God’s hands, and the call is still and always will be to trust Him and His timing! And saying yes to one thing does mean saying no to others…..I was just reminded tonight that I’m not really emotionally ready to do that. So I am thankful I do not have to make a decision right now.

Praying for His continued peace as I ask what He has for me and wait for the doors to open or close. As a good friend of mine reminded me last night, God’s got me. He’s got a plan, and it’s going to be good because He is a good God. Probably not easy, but good.

What Hath God Wrought? Pt. 2

This summer, the idea of trust has become even more important, if possible, because it is even more real/pressing—and yet also harder for me mentally and emotionally. I’ve got these options in front of me, as I talked about in a previous post. I just looked back at it and realized that in some ways, I’m just rewriting that same post here. But it’s another step in the journey. Anyway, back on July 11 I went up the mountain and journaled for quite a while, laying out my three options and trying to sort through it all rationally. Then I went up higher on the mountain, half expecting God to have some definite answer for me. I climbed up on top of a rock, kind of waiting for the writing in the clouds. I know, it sounds silly. And it was, as well as demanding.

What I felt in my soul was not at all the answer I was looking for. The only thing I heard in my heart was “Trust Me.” And honestly, I was annoyed and disappointed. It took me a little while to realize that this time, for the first time that I remember, it had been a directive/command rather than a question. It’s kind of like God has proved His faithfulness over and over, and that He’s now asking me to keep stepping forward in faith, even when I don’t have the definite answers I want.

Through God’s Grace and the continuing working of the Holy Spirit in me, this sunk deeply into my soul. Because of that, when last Monday was so hard, I was able to eventually stop, back up, refocus my perspective on Him, and say “God, I don’t get what You’re doing, but I want to choose to trust You anyway.” And that was the fruit of His Spirit, because that’s not what I was feeling like doing at all.

So yeah – I left on my trip to New York. And as I was driving down to Charlotte that Wednesday, I heard a program on the radio and one of the things the speaker talked about was how heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people—how God’s primary goal in our lives is to conform us to the image of His Son. That really resonated with me. The Holy Spirit used that to show me, once again, that my perspective for the past few months has been really off. I’ve been so focused on what I am going to do with MY life, when what I should be focused on is the greater picture of what God is doing throughout the world, including—in a minuscule part—in and through me.

On Sunday, that reminder returned. From my reading through a really great devotional on 1 Corinthians 13 before church, God called me to take some time to really search my heart before Him and to intentionally confess recurrent sin patterns in my life. That’s something I really haven’t done much before, except rather superficially. That afternoon, I climbed up the mountain and found a place to do just that. I wasn’t excited about doing it, because of the whole having to admit my failures thing—even though I know God knows them, and even though I know they have already been forgiven and that He is not sitting over me in an attitude of judgment.

After a little while of doing that and praying through some things, I felt a sense of release—that God had shown me what He wanted to for that day. I know it will be an ongoing process. As I leaned back against a rock, I experienced a greater sense of peace and a better outlook on everything that had happened this summer. And for the first time, I was able to practice thanksgiving—for the ups and the downs. I tweeted my “Lesson of the Day” from that – “I choose to trust Him because I DO know what He's doing—conforming me to His Son's image—even if I don't understand/like His methods.” Because the process still doesn’t FEEL easy or fun! It’s still hard.

So Sunday evening I was really thankful for God’s continued faithfulness in my life, and reminded of how much broader of a perspective I am called to have. I was encouraged, but I was also really apprehensive about how the next day would go at the office. The last time I came back to the office after a trip out to the field, I had a really tough day. Lots of discontentment. So Monday morning during our staff devotions, I felt that nauseated feeling again, wondering how the day would go.

I went to my cubicle and started plugging away. I had lots to do – two hours of interview recordings from NY to transcribe so that I could write a story, plus sending some emails to try to gather more information to write an article about work one of our field offices is doing. I don’t remember whether it was mid-morning or mid-afternoon…but at one point I was walking back to my desk from refilling my water bottle, and I suddenly realized that I was completely at peace and had been ever since I started my work for the day.

It helped a lot that I knew exactly what to work on and didn’t have to wonder what to do….but I firmly believe the peace that I experienced yesterday went much deeper than that. I definitely believe it was an answer to the prayers of so many people who have been encouraging me throughout this process. On Saturday evening, as I was praying/reflecting, I asked God in prayer—really for the first time—“What is it that You would have me to do?” Sure, I’d been fretting about it all, and I’d been talking about waiting to see what God had for me, but I don’t think I had honestly just asked Him what He wanted.

And yes, it is a choice that He may leave up to me. But right now, I can’t make that choice because there are no doors that are definitely opened. And yesterday, there was no new information about where I’ll be headed 14 days from now. While my mind is still definitely keeping close tabs on the fact that I do feel a lot of pressure because of that, God is bringing me to a place where I am beginning to learn to be ok with that and to truly wait patiently for His timing in opening or closing doors.

I know there will still be ups and downs. That’s inevitable. But I write all this as an Ebenezer, a reminder of what God has done in my life and the journey He has brought me through. On Monday at work, “Hold On” played on my Pandora. And it pretty much summed up how I was feeling. Like I said at the beginning of this, it’s been a stormy seven weeks. But God has proved so very faithful, often despite my attitude. And I hope—and seek to trust His timing even in the midst of that hope—that the sun is beginning to break through J

I certainly appreciate your continued prayers!!!!! Primarily that my focus would be on God’s glory rather than being so wrapped up in my circumstantial worries. God gave me an object lesson on that too, on August 4 when I was out hiking with my parents. We were on a rough trail (the part I took a picture of was super smooth compared to most of what we went on, but we had finished the rough part when I thought of the analogy), and I found myself with my eyes constantly focused downward. And that’s what staring at and trying to figure out all the details of life does. It detracts from looking around at the beauty of what God is doing, or even more importantly, from looking up to glory and delight in WHO HE IS! So that is my prayer going forward. May I remember HIM first and foremost.

What Hath God Wrought? Pt. 1

{This was originally going to be a short Facebook status update, but the more I thought about it the more I realized it wouldn't be. So instead it became a blog post...and the words just kept coming, and it became a two-part post. The second installment will get posted tomorrow evening! J}

I am so very thankful to God for the work which He has been doing in my life this summer—and all the glory and honor and praise for that certainly goes to HIM and not to me, not at all. The last seven weeks have been hard – probably one of the hardest times of my life. And I haven’t always wanted to listen to God’s still small voice or to be willing to give Him thanks for what He was teaching me through the process.

Last week, I asked a bunch of friends to pray for me…I was at a low point with my internship, and finally realized that I needed to be willing to ask for help and not just try to keep pushing through and doing it all on my own. As I talked about in my last post, it hasn’t always been easy for me to admit my struggles to other people.

But today stands as a testimony to the fact that God honors the prayers of His people. J

Last Monday ended with me breaking down and crying at work. It came from a whole variety of reasons, primarily the emotional roller coaster I’ve been on this year (especially since graduation) and the adjustments I’ve had to make at work. I didn’t realize I had strong expectations coming into this internship, but I definitely did. And the reality has been a lot different than what I expected. Not in a bad way, it’s just a big transition.

I’ve also had the stress hanging over my head, especially since I got back from N.Ireland, about what I’m doing after August 23. I’ve got options, but they all have pros and cons, and none of them is a solid offer—at least not yet. I’m a planner, and it has been super hard to literally not be able to plan and to have no clue where I’ll be headed next (well, that is an exaggeration since I do have ideas…). Over the past couple weeks, I’ve had a few physical “attacks,” in a sense, of deep-seated nausea that I think is from my fretting about not knowing. As I thought about it, I remembered that happened a lot during my senior year of high school too.

There have been lots of people who have been very supportive of me throughout the process, both here at work (even during/after my crying fit) and friends in other places who are so willing to lend a listening ear. That has meant so very much to me!!! So Tuesday was a better day, and then Wednesday I headed out for a work trip to New York. I got back Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday God really did some important work on my soul/spirit, in His timing and His way. J Let me back up a bit before I get into that though.

Ever since the April of my junior year at JBU, trust has been a huge lesson for me. People tell me it always will be—and I believe it! But for me, it really started about 18 months ago. I got senioritis bad my junior year, and part of me was tired of being in school. Another part of me felt like God was asking me if I would be willing to drop out of school if He asked me to. And while I did want to be done with it, I also wanted to finish. I would feel too much like a failure otherwise. I went around and around in circles for months that spring.

In early April, things came to a head. I was just in turmoil. That Good Friday we didn’t have classes – so I took off on my bike and rode for an hour to get to a beautiful state park across the border in Oklahoma. I hiked and enjoyed being outdoors, and I sat and prayed and journaled. And God brought me to a place of showing me that what He wanted was my surrender and trust. The college thing was simply a method to show me that I was still trying to hold onto control, that I had too much fear to truly trust Him. I wrote a post that month with more of an explanation of that day.

For months and months after that, all the way up until last month, the question from that day would often re-echo in my head: “Do you trust Me?” God was so very patient throughout that process. For a while, I would say “yes” reflexively, because that was the “right” answer. Finally, due in part to what I wrote about in my post last week, He brought me to a point where I was more honest with myself and Him and would have to say “no.” Often, my heart’s cry would be Mark 9:24 – “Immediately the father of the [demon-possessed] child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’”

{So that's where I'll end tonight's post...it's the best breaking point there is in this thought process....}

The Winding Road

I just spent two and a half hours reading back through a lot of my old posts on here. It’s so very amazing to look back and see God’s faithfulness on display in that. The last five years of my life have had a lot of ups and downs, so very many lessons learned, so many weaknesses realized. And through every bit of it, I can see the evidences of God’s love and grace. I am so very thankful to Him, and He certainly deserves all the glory J

Reviewing my spiritual journey this morning made me realize again just how little life really works as a checklist. Which is so very annoying to type-A people like me! But the things God has been teaching me about and refining in me have primarily remained the same throughout the last several years – just revisited over and over, maybe from a different angle or to a different depth.

In a lot of ways, I expected that after graduating from college, I would have reached some pinnacle. That my spiritual learning and growing would have reached completion, just as my academic learning has ended. That’s laughable, really. I hadn’t realized that I was expecting to hit some plateau……but I’m pretty sure I was. The almost three months since graduation have proved very obviously that my spiritual journey is nowhere near the end, and won’t end in this life. I will always need God’s gentle—or sometimes not so gentle—reminders to be focused on Him and trust in Him.

As a college senior and now as a recent graduate, the obvious question I get asked a lot is “what’s next?” Through a couple of ways (Ireland and SP internship), I’ve managed to procrastinate on actually coming to a solid answer on that, pushing my “deadline” further into the future by nearly four months. But that hasn’t been overly helpful. Instead, I find myself rather less certain about what I want than I did back in April and May. But that is a good thing—even if it is rather uncomfortable—because it’s been God’s leading and guiding that has been throwing a monkey wrench into what I thought was a pretty perfect plan. Things have not gone as I expected, but He is still in charge of that.

In that process, God has been reminding/teaching me a lot about living out surrender and practicing trust in Him day by day. This month has been a tough lesson in that. I currently have three options before me of what I am interested in doing next. Each one is something that God has laid on my heart in different ways, but I can’t do all three—at least not at the same time. One is more rational. One is more comfortable. One is something only God could bring about. I catch myself planning as if each one is what I’ll be doing in September. But right now I really don’t know which way the compass is actually pointing.

A couple weeks ago, I posted about that on Facebook. When I got on the next day, several of my mentors and close friends had posted comments on the status. Most of them were reminding me that God gives us free will, and that this may be an area where He would be leaving the choice up to me. That was a really good reminder for me, because honestly I’d been wanting and waiting for God to write some big message up in the sky of what I was supposed to do with my life.

TIME OUT. I should add here that something else God reminded me of the past couple of weeks is that He doesn’t “need” me anywhere. I need to have a proper perspective about this all and remember that it’s not like I am some required resource, without which God can’t do His work. Whichever choice I make, God will continue His plan in all three places. I think part of the reason I’m so tempted to stress out about where I’m going to end up comes from trying to carry WAY too much responsibility about it. As if God’s work in other people’s lives depends on me being there. And it just plain doesn’t! Sure, He may choose to use me – but I am not a required tool that will make or break any situation.

So back to what I was saying – God may leave the choice of my next step up to me. I hadn’t been thinking about that side of the equation at all, and it’s true. I may get to a point where I have three wide open doors, and I have to make a decision on which one to walk through. Right now that’s not the case…right now I’m still knocking on a couple of the doors, waiting to see if they’re actually going to open. But there may come a point when it’s all up to me.

And yet even in that moment, if/when it comes, I don’t want to make a choice based on what would be most rational or most comfortable or what I “ought” to do. God has been teaching me so much about trust and surrender over the last couple of years. And while those will both always be part of my life, it seems especially applicable now. He’s brought me to this place in my life and been teaching me these things up to this moment for a reason. My desire is to be available for Him to use however He pleases.

Four years ago, I would never have pictured myself standing where I am. The things I’m looking at really weren’t on my radar. It is amazing to look back and see how He has been leading and guiding, placing various things in my life. After the Facebook post I mentioned, one of my mentors posted a link to the next morning’s “Our Daily Bread” reading on my wall. It was called “The Winding Road,” and I obviously stole the title for this blog post. It was a really perfect reminder, and just what I needed to hear.

And so I end with the prayer that concluded that reading.

Dear Lord, sometimes life seems to be full of perilous and winding roads. Thank You for giving us the assurance that You have our course plotted and are watching over our every step.

Troubles are unknown; God's providence is certain.

What I Learned in Ireland

It’s amazing how much impact one month can have. Just four weeks – but for me it really was the capstone (thus far) of almost 2.5 years of deep heart work that God has been doing. Writing the title of this post, I knew there’s no way I can truly do justice in trying to put down everything I learned….especially because a lot of it is just the fruit of a much longer process.

So what did I gain from my time in the “emerald isle”?

First off, the overarching theme through all of this is God's incredible faithfulness. Obviously, none of this could have happened without His working - and I am so immensely thankful to Him for that!

~~I learned again my own fallenness – in my own strength, I can do nothing. In my flesh, I am a me-focused, selfish, prideful person. Even writing this out and sharing it could be done in a way seeking self-gratification – but my desire here is to share what God’s GRACE has been at work doing in my life, often in spite of me.

~~For about a year, the idea of dying daily has been rolling around in my head. Songs such as “Lead Me to the Cross” and “King of My Life” have kept coming up in my mind. And I’ve been praying that Christ would bring me to a point of consistently crucifying my old man. In Ireland, I came to understand more how truly difficult and painful that can be – but so very worth it. The seed of this was planted way back in 2008, and created the foundation for the name of this blog.

~~Related to that is the concept of control and ownership. I’m a control freak, and very dependent on MY ownership of MY stuff. But during the past year and a half plus, surrender has been an important concept that God keeps bringing back to the forefront of my mind. This has come to be signified in my mind by the phrase “I am Thine,” a reminder that the God who redeemed me by shedding His Son’s blood is the only one who has any real claim on my life.

~~Another closely connected theme is that of TRUST. This is something else God’s been working on in my life for about 15 months. Part of surrender is choosing to trust God’s plan rather than trying to make my own work. The day I left Dallas for Boone, the teacher at my church in Dallas preached a message hitting this nail right on the head. I would encourage you to listen to it here.

~~Freedom – when I do come to a point of surrendering my own will and placing my trust in God, it does bring relief. Because suddenly, it’s His work that He will accomplish in His time and His way. In some ways, that takes all of the pressure off of me! Of course, it’s not an easy process at all to trust Him so completely (though I certainly wish it were – because He’s worthy of that). But I’m no longer the one who has to make something of myself. Instead, I simply have to make myself available to Him.

~~God’s GRACE and PATIENCE are truly boundless. I was reminded by this over and over again in Ireland. All those moments when I would be focused on my ideas and on myself, and His Spirit would catch me on it, pointing my perspective back to Him. He always stood by, waiting patiently for me to let go of myself and cling to Him. No matter how many times I stumbled, He was always right there.

~~Reality of fear. This is naturally related to trust…..for quite a while, God has asked me—often at the most inconvenient of moments—“Do you trust Me?” And oftentimes, if I’m being honest, I have to say no. Last semester I realized for the first time that my willingness to trust had been deeply injured by stuff that had happened…and I feared voluntarily relinquishing my sense of control because of that. It’s a long story…one I’ve been contemplating blogging about but haven’t yet.

~~The blessing of healing: I’ve been a very introverted person for a long time – and I still am. But this year God has finally brought me to a place where I am confident enough in who I am that I am willing to open up and share with others about what I struggle with. I’m finally beginning to learn to accept my flaws and imperfections—not as in allowing them to remain in my life, but as in being willing to honestly share about the challenges God has brought me through and the ways He is continuing to sanctify me.

~~The depths of love. Two summers ago, God taught me a lot about being willing to love unconditionally, from 1 John 4. Before we ever left for Ireland, I prayed—and asked people to pray for me—that God would fill me with His love for the kids of Killyleagh. And He did – so very much. Even though I was often annoyed at their apparent lack of listening abilities, and often discouraged by the feeling that I wasn’t getting through to them, I love them. I often wished I could just find ways to show them each just how much God cares for them.

~~Lessons for me…..  I learned on the very first day of ministry in Killyleagh that I needed to learn and be reminded of the importance of the characteristics of God that we were teaching just as much as the kids did. Compassion: meeting someone’s needs, not just shushing them to do your own thing. Humility: caring about others and putting their needs above your own. And so many others!

~~God answers prayer. I’ve already alluded to this a couple of times. Another “dangerous” prayer I’ve been praying for a while is that God would break me and strip me of myself. And there were definitely times in the past month where I have felt so very broken before Him. But He doesn’t leave me there. He brings cleansing and healing, building me up into a tool for His use, for His glory.

Coming back stateside has been a whole process in and of itself. The first couple of days I was honestly an emotional wreck. So many feelings and experiences I was trying to process, plus being tired from travelling. Over the weekend I just felt full – like I’d taken in everything I possibly could, like I couldn’t hold another drop. And now I’m in a whole new place with whole new lessons to learn, and it would be so easy to stay focused on the past. But the sanctification process doesn’t stop – God just keeps on refining. And honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

At dinner the evening before we left Ireland, Becci asked several of us what were three words we would use to describe our time in Ireland. It wasn’t too hard for me to answer that: WRESTLING. BEAUTY. CRAZINESS. This whole post is an attempted explanation, a try at unwinding all three of those, but especially the first one. And that’s why, if you ask me how my trip to Ireland was, I’ll respond that it was wonderful and fantastic – really hard in some ways, but so very good. And if I seem reluctant to go into details, it’s because all of this whole post—or at least parts of it—are running through my mind. And I just don’t know how much you really want to know. But now you have the rest of the story. And yet even this is merely a scratch on the surface of the work God’s been doing in me. All praise goes to Him J

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

(Phil. 3:12-14)

More of Your Grace, Dear Lord

Grace.

It’s such a simple word, and yet it is so very deep. I started realizing its vast importance less than two years ago, and yet it is beginning to define my life.

Grace: God riches at Christ’s expense, God giving us what we do not deserve – statements that try to explain an immeasurable divine attribute in an understandable way. And yet until Jan. 25, 2011, I knew the right answers but not the trueness of God’s Grace in my life.

I’ve written about this a couple of other times earlier this semester (here and here). But I’m writing about it again because it’s still a lesson God is teaching me.

This morning, the sermon at my church in Dallas came from Romans 8:1-13, one of my favorite passages of Scripture. The teaching focused on the fact that we *can* have victory in the battles of our lives, reflective of the victory that Christ has *already won* in the war. Our victory is already AND not yet. And we can choose whether to live and walk according to the flesh or according to the Spirit.

Mr. Wright focused in on the fact that positionally, our fate as children of God is sealed: We are declared righteous in God’s sight through justification. But in our daily lives, we have a choice to make: Practically, we can choose to be slaves of God, sold out to Him, being sanctified – or we can choose to continue trying to live in this world on our own.

God’s Grace does not change one iota either way. And yet my decision of which man (old, fleshly man or new, spiritual man) to feed and encourage makes a huge difference in my outlook on life. Learning to let go of my attempts to improve myself and of the belief that I had to meet God’s expectations of me before He would continue loving me has been, in some ways, a slow process. God’s faithfulness throughout this time has been a huge testimony to His continued Grace.

A couple of other comments Mr. Wright made that stood out to me…

• Christ *has already* fulfilled the requirements of the law. I do deserve condemnation under the law – but He has fully removed that.
• The Holy Spirit comes to indwell us so that we may more fully reflect God’s character, NOT so that we can then fulfill the law.
• The newness of our spiritual life is to be defined by Spirit-walking, not Law-keeping.
• Our walk and our mindset are closely connected. What is it that I focus on? That heavily impacts how I will act.

Thanks for reading this rambly rant. I hope and pray that you too may learn to experience the Grace of God, even in your moments of personal failure and weakness. Seek to grow and to make choices that are pleasing to God, YES. But never forget that there is nothing you can ever ever do to earn God’s love. Through His Grace, His Love is constant – regardless of how you feel about yourself.

God is Good - I'm still broken

God is good. I believe this with all of my mind. He is still teaching me to trust in that truth with all of my heart. My Savior is beautiful, and He loves me – regardless of anything. Because this was never about me. It’s about Him and His glorious, amazing character.

If you haven’t read my post about brokenness from this summer, you should go read it before you keep reading this…

I was in a dark place this evening…darker than any I’ve been in before. I’ve been in dark places before, but not for a while. This one caught me off guard and dragged me under deeper than I expected. And I felt stuck.

I was praying, I was begging God for His mercy and His grace. My head knew nothing had changed in Him – but my heart refused to accept it.

God knew I was getting a big head I guess. I felt as though I’d come a long way from high school, that I knew the truth and that the truth had freed me. But I was and am still holding on to that idea that I can make myself good, that I can make my life look like I expect it to. And when I fail, I still hesitate to accept His grace.

I can’t dig myself out. I can’t make my life “work.” He calls me to let go, to lose myself in Him.

Sarah pointed me toward this song, and it fit my situation perfectly. And since this post is still focusing way too much on me, we’re just going to end it here.

Lord God, You are grace. You are peace. Father, You see me. You know me more deeply than I will ever do. Break my selfishness, my self-sufficiency. God, You alone have the words – You alone are the way.

He gave me the rest of the post!

My Lord God is victorious. He has already overcome ALL THINGS. There is nothing I or anyone can do that has not already been dealt with and answered to by the sacrifice of Christ.

Tonight at the scholarship dinner, one of the speakers mentioned three things. I don’t remember quite the exact context…but she said that God looks at us and says three things about us:
1. I created you.
2. I love you.
3. I died for you, so that someday you shall live with Me.

And that someday isn’t now. It isn’t yet. “In this world you will have tribulation – but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world” (John 16:33)

We are not left here to earn our way. We’re not left until we deserve anything. We are left to learn trust, to learn grace.

Grace: I can’t even begin to define it. God is gracious. He has overwhelmed us with His grace, freeing us from our earthly guilt. He knows. He sees. And yet He loves just the same. Because of Grace. Because His sufferings wipe us clean. Because when He looks at us, He sees the beautiful end result of His plan – not the just-begun reconstruction.

Grace. Contentment. Trust. Giving up the control I think I have.

Love – undeserved, unearned, a free gift.

Who's in Control? Pt. 7: Earning vs. Grace

I’ve written about this issue a couple of times in a couple of places….. One was last November as I started looking back over the personal revival which God had been working in my life over the past 11 months. The other is a post  I wrote last month (posted a couple days ago) for Thrive80, a website by Moody Publishing targeted at Millenials. In both of those posts, I focused on what happened on the day God revolutionized my perspective. In this post, however, I want to step back and look more at the big picture. So check those out for the snapshot version/resolution of this issue  J

I’ve always been a perfectionist. Partly as a result of this, I also grew up focused on feeling the need to earn people’s love/acceptance/approval/whatever. Yes, I knew my parents and other people loved me no matter what. But I still put pressure on myself to behave in a way that would impress them and ensure that I kept their love. I still worry far too much about people’s opinions of me. This approach to my human relationships affected how I approached God as well.

Sure, I knew I was saved by grace and not by what I did. But that didn’t keep me from thinking that I needed to make sure I was behaving myself properly so that He would keep on loving me and approving of me. Looking back now it seems so simple and rather silly – but it was the trap I was stuck in.

In Galatians 3:3, Paul asks “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” And in Titus 3:4-5 he writes “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.” I knew these verses. I had heard the latter one quoted often during a season of Bible Quizzing.

But somehow, the truth of the former verse did not make its way from my head to my heart. I tried to have a relationship with God in which I earned His pleasure. I failed to recognize that Grace extends beyond salvation, that it is at work in every moment of my life.

I knew I was a miserable failure at keeping myself “good enough.” What I guess I didn’t realize or want to accept was that even in those moments when I have messed up, God’s Grace covers that. No, this is not a license to sin (Rom. 6:1ff). I know that very well. I want to live a life of holiness, to seek to become more Christlike. My problem is that I often base my self-acceptance and my idea of whether God is accepting me on my actions alone. I tried to live by Rom. 6:1, but I forgot about Rom. 8:1.

Yes, there is a delicate balance here. It is easy to go to either the extreme of pietistic legalism, as I tend to, or to go to the other extreme of flippant licentiousness. God calls us to neither. We do not earn His favor by what we do, but we are to constantly seek to draw closer to His will for our lives.

This summer at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (see my first summer post for more about the church) they had a mini-series from Galatians 3. It seemed as though every week after that there was some mention about how we don’t earn God’s favor by our good deeds. Maybe it’s that I was finally at a place where I believed that, but I don’t remember hearing that truth emphasized in church very much ever before, if at all.

I’m thankful God spoke that truth over me 21 months ago. I wish I had learned it sooner…I wish I had been able to hear it from my church. That would have saved me some heart ache in high school. At the same time, I know God knows what He is doing. If I had learned it without struggles, I wouldn’t have the same testimony of God’s work in my life. It was the struggles I lived through that made the lesson so real and applicable.

It’s the clouds that make the sunset beautiful J

Who's in Control? Pt. 6

Well…..that was over a month ago now…but I am finally enough into the swing of my semester that I am going to take some time off from school work and try to finish this up.

On our way back from D.C., my parents and I visited a church in Virginia. We literally went to the town’s visitor center and asked the lady there where a church was located. You can’t get much more random than that, right?? But guess what? The God who created the Universe can orchestrate even seemingly chance happenings. And the church we visited “just happened” to be doing a sermon that relates to this same topic which has been the theme of my summer.

The pastor used Matthew 6:24 as his jumping off point. His sermon centered around the question of “Who is Your Master?” which tied in well with both this summer’s main idea and the Spiritual Emphasis speaker from last year (this post talks some about that).

Now, I have naturally heard about the whole idea of not being able to serve two masters before. But God knows I can always use a reminder! This pastor made a point of saying that there is no middle ground. “You are not free,” he said. “You are owned by someone—either God OR Satan/Sin/Self.” The question is not whether I will be a slave, but rather who I will be a slave for.

Christ redeemed us from our enslavement to the world, the flesh and the devil. The word redemption, he said, refers to purchasing a slave out of the market. God is not an evil Master. He redeems so that we can have a relationship with Him, not only so that He can benefit from our slave labor.

At the same time, the natural reaction of someone purchased out of slavery to an evil master is to want to serve the giver of freedom, the pastor said. We should be eager and willing to serve God because of everything which He has done for us!

When we do not choose to put Christ first and above all else, that means that there is something else to which we are giving that priority. He pointed to Deut. 6:4-5 as a call that we cannot simply coast through life. The choice to serve God must be an active choice throughout our days, months, years.

He did also make a point of saying that what we receive from Christ (salvation plus!) is many times more valuable than anything we can ever bring to Him. This ties into another topic (the focus of my next post) which has been an issue for me and which I have finally heard this summer explicitly stated from a church pulpit for the first time that I can remember.

Who's in Control? Pt. 5

It’s a good thing I put at the end of my last post where I was intending to take this series, because as you can see my month got away from me! Now I am in the car in the middle if hilly Tennessee as my dad drives us back to Dallas, through a rainstorm at the moment.

As I stated previously, this post will cover the sermon I heard my first Sunday in the DC/Maryland area, which was June 10. The pastor was finishing a series about Samson, and his focus was on Strength and Weakness – the fact that our Failure can lead to Opportunities. Anyone who knows the story of Samson knows he messed up plenty. (Sounds familiar to my life!) As the pastor pointed out, Samson broke every part of the Nazarite vow that he was supposed to live by.

Rather than conquering the Philistines, he ended up as their slave. Rather than being a moral leader for the Israelites, he engaged in almost every type of detrimental behavior possible. I can’t imagine how disappointed and confused his parents were about all of this. Samson was a failure because he did what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it rather than following God’s leadership.

And so as a consequence of his failures and his focus on himself, Samson found himself at the bottom, in a position of forced humility and servitude. Samson had chosen not to submit to God, and as a result he became enslaved and in a position of submission to the morally depraved Philistines.* They naturally saw their sudden victory over him as a sign that their god was more powerful than Yahweh.

BUT God was not done with Samson. Even though he had decided to depend on himself (and to some extent on his hair perhaps?), God did not write him off as useless. Yes, Samson’s actions had serious consequences, which God did not save him from. He lost his eyes – he lost the freedom he thought he had. During those long days circling around and around grinding the Philistines’ corn, Samson evidently came to a clearer understanding of how he should relate to God.

What happened next was proof that God doesn’t force us to be defined by our failures. Yes, failure impacts our relationship with God and with other people – but it doesn’t confine us to fail forever. Instead, God provides forgiveness and grace for those times when we depend on ourselves and as a result fail. As the pastor said, “We cannot undo the bad things we have done, but we can choose to be faithful from this point on” – though I would add that choice cannot be something that we drum up based only on our own strength.

The whole point of this sermon was that depending on ourselves leads only to disappointment. But at the end of the day, it is still so very easy to look at ourselves as the solution! In reality, only God’s strength and indwelling Paraclete Holy Spirit can save us from the failure into which we so easily stumble. But that does take action on our part: We must recognize our deep need of God and actively choose to submit – as contradictory as that sounds sometimes.

At the end of Samson’s story, God got the glory. As the pastor pointed out, Samson’s self-sacrificial choice to bring down the temple on himself and the Philistines was a heavy blow to that nation. The Philistines are not mentioned another single time in Judges. Through Samson, God brought an end of an era to a people who had turned their backs on Him. Out of Samson’s initial failure came an opportunity for God to be glorified. When Samson chose to give up his faith in himself, God used him to bring about His plans and purposes.

God can do the same for every one of us, and for anyone who surrenders.

*This ties in perfectly to the sermon I heard today, which is what I will talk about next!