Why Do I Love & Worship?

Happy Resurrection Sunday to all my brothers and sisters! :-)

Today, God has been working something in my heart and mind that I want to share in case it can also encourage/convict others.

Pop Quiz about your knowledge of Bible stories: Which of the two thieves who died on either side of Christ asked to be saved?

Thought about your answer yet? Ok, I’ll wait a minute ;-)

If you’re having trouble remembering, check out Luke 23:39-43 (emphasis mine):

Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying "If you are the Christ, save Yourself and us." But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, "Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong." Then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

As you can see, it was the first thief—the blasphemous one—who asked to be saved. I don’t know about you – but that’s not what I would have thought the answer was to that question. If I were some Bible scholar, I would maybe have a better understanding of what was implied by the second thief’s request for Christ to “remember” him. But I’m not…so I don’t.

But this realization in church this morning followed on the heels of a conviction this morning in my ‘prayer closet’ which was along similar themes.

Let me first back up a bit. On Good Friday, I spent a couple hours out under a tree at our Enterprise Farm journaling about something….. something that came up about a year ago from my young childhood. I felt last year that I needed to work through it more, but had delayed and delayed. God used a couple different things to bring it up again last week, and a day off work provided a good opportunity to prayerfully write about it.

As I sat down to write, I wanted to do it from the right perspective and foundation. I didn’t want to write about it out of self-pity or a ‘victim’ mentality. I wanted to write about it in a way to open my heart to Christ’s healing and redemption, which He accomplished on the Cross 2,000 years ago. And so even though I didn’t plan it that way, Good Friday helped me think about it in that framework.

Then yesterday morning I was reading Psalm 67 in my devotional time. I couldn’t help but notice, while I read, that the Psalm talks about urging all nations to praise God…..but it begins and ends with the expectation that God will bless us. So was the admonition to praise God based in selfish motives, just wanting the blessings from Him? My mind noticed it, but then I went on with my day. And when a friend later asked me what Jesus was speaking to me that day, I couldn’t think of anything – I just said I wasn’t listening well enough to hear.

Back to this morning’s conviction. I had been thinking of my friend’s question off and on. And as I was there in my ‘prayer closet,’ Paraclete revealed a piece of my heart. On Friday I felt close to God in a way I haven’t as much recently, because I was bringing to Him something that was weighing on me. I recognized that I needed healing in an area, and I was asking Him to do that in me.

In other words, my motivation was partly/primarily selfish.

So this morning, the question that came to my heart and mind was “Have I been ‘loving’ and ‘worshipping’ God for who He is? Or for what I receive from Him?” In other words, haven’t I been doing the same thing the author of Psalm 67 appears to have been doing?

It’s such an easy trap to fall into. We do need God, desperately. And because He is a loving God, He does enjoy lavishing His children with gifts of His grace (Eph. 1:7-8). But our love for and worship of God should be so much more than that….shouldn’t it?

Because the God we serve is indescribably glorious. Enthroned in Majesty. The Creator and Sustainer of all things – in ways we can’t even imagine. He is the definition of Awesome.

But our eyes are so very easily fixated on our own lives, our own problems – the things we want God to fix in us or the material things we want Him to bless us with.

Is that not asking God to save us for our own selfish reasons, as the thief on the cross did? Is that not following Jesus for what we can get out of Him, as Judas ended up doing (John 12:4-8)?

Shouldn’t we instead recognize Christ for who He is—the one who “has done nothing wrong” and who has a Kingdom where He rules—as the second thief did? Shouldn’t we pour out our most valuable and precious things simply for the sake of anointing Christ, as Mary did (John 12:1-3)?

This morning, Uncle Jonnes pointed out that the two thieves on the crosses show the two types of responses to Jesus, paralleling the contrasting responses of Mary and Judas in John 12. But which category do I really fall into? As a not-yet-fully-sanctified human, I need to be continually examining my own heart and listening for the input of the Holy Spirit in this matter.

Because this morning, there in my prayer closet, the question came to mind: “If you got NOTHING from God, would you still worship Him?” And my selfish heart had to answer a quiet “no.”

All day today, when my thoughts have gone back to these points, there’s a simple line from a song that keeps coming back to mind: “I will worship You for who You are.” And that has been the cry of my heart today. To worship both our Savior and our Father for who He is as God. Not only for what I receive as a result.

To quote my college president, “May it ever be true of us.”

Trusting God in Unwanted Circumstances

I’ve been reading through the Psalms recently. Yesterday morning, one of the ones I read was Psalm 53.

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity,
There is none who does good.

God looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
Every one of them has turned aside;
They have together become corrupt;
There is none who does good, no not one. 

Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge,
Who eat up my people as they eat bread,
And do not call upon God?
There they are in great fear where no fear was,
For God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you;
You have put them to shame,
Because God has despised them. 

Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!
When God brings back the captivity of His people,
Let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad.

At the first read through, this Psalm kind of seemed disjointed. I didn’t initially see the thread of connection and flow through it all. But after looking at it for a bit, I could see it. Basically, the summary of this Psalm could be “Foolish men no match against God’s salvation.”

It made me smile as I saw it, and I thought about how encouraging that is. So often, we get focused on the rascals who seem to be able to do whatever they want. And yes, sometimes God allows evil men to have sway for a while. But in the end, they will be filled with great fear, “For God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you.”

Not long after reading that, as I was walking to work, one of my fellow staff members stopped me. He asked me what other names I go by…..and I thought I knew where this was headed. When I told him my Luganda name, he told me that he had met a stranger on our campus – that spot being only a one minute walk from my house – who was looking for me by that name.

The stranger who talked to me once in the nearby town.

The creeper who has been stalking me.

He had been onsite, and not far from my place.

That was evidently a couple weeks ago. I think before he got my number and called me, and I told him “Do NOT call me again.”

On Wednesday, my fellow staff member had been in the nearby town, and three people had walked up to him and blamed him for keeping their friend (the creeper) from seeing “his friend” at New Hope (me – though I would NOT call someone “my friend” after one brief encounter).

My fellow staff member made the comment “I didn’t know I had any enemies in [the nearby town], but now I guess I do.” I explained the situation to him, and told him I was sorry he had gotten involved in it. And I did (and do) feel somehow guilty for it. The number of times my mind has tried to go back through that initial interaction, to see why this creeper thinks he can be so persistent….

But I have to keep reminding myself that I am not to blame for his unwarranted actions. My mom always says “you can’t ‘should have’ anything” – but I think it’s just human for us to think that way.

I feel like my privacy has been violated by this creeper. And now at least two of my staff members have been a bit hassled by the local people because of it. And yes, it is so tempting to be afraid.

It wasn’t until I lay down to go to sleep last night that my mind suddenly put two and two together. All day, the worry would try to come pressing back in. All day, I was waiting to talk to the church elder who has been walking through this situation with me. All day, I had been trying to remind myself not to let fear control me. But all day, I had forgotten the Truth that I read that morning:

“For God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you”

And so last night, I finally prayed a Bible-based prayer about it – for the first time in all the weeks this has been going on. I prayed that God would scatter these outside ‘enemies’ who seem to be bent on getting me and this creeper together. That God would place a hedge of protection around my friends and around me. That God would place a fear of HIM into the heart of this creeper. I have no idea where he stands spiritually – and I do pray that God would work in his heart….not only to cause fear, but even to cause repentance.

So often, I fail to connect what I read in the Bible to real life. But this morning, as I read a couple more Psalms, the Spirit gave me the eyes to see it. And so I begin a new day, choosing to rest and trust in the God of my salvation. The One who can and will hear my prayers; the One who can grant me deliverance. Selah.

God's Love for Us

Yesterday was, I am afraid, another one of "those days."

Jill is back in the office with me starting Tuesday, which is wonderful! And I'm going home two weeks from today, which is also wonderful!! But yesterday, thanks to a few other things as well, the emotions started snowballing quickly and early.

I'm so thankful that God reminded me to lean on Him in that moment, because if He hadn't, I am not sure if I would have made it through the day. Without Him, I am so weak!

But I did make it through, all by His Grace.

When we got to our weekly staff fellowship in the evening, one of our staff members came to share with us what she had recently learned at a conference about how to counsel people. But instead of jumping in to a list of things we should do, she went back to the beginning: reminding us that love is the goal of counseling others, and that "We cannot do that unless we are receiving God's love into our hearts regularly."

So instead of talking at us about how to help others, she gave us verses to meditate on as we opened up our hearts to God's love for us. Afterwards, this is what I wrote:

I am a child of God--Beloved and Precious. The child of a Prodigal God,* One who will spare NO expense in redeeming His people. He did it at the time of the Exodus (Deut. 7:7-8), He pursued His people through generations (Jer. 31:3), and He did it again through Jesus (Rom. 5:8).

God spared no expense. He poured out the most precious thing in the entire Universe: the blood of His Son (John 3;16). Because He loved us, because He loved me. Not because of any righteousness I had done or could ever do---my father's father's father's father for generations existed only in God's foreknowledge when Christ chose & pledged to make that ultimate sacrifice (Eph. 2:4-5). It is ALL by grace, all by His lavished love (1 John 3:1).

Lord, open the floodgates of my soul to Your love. Saturate me with You--mind, heart, body & soul--so that when life squeezes me and jostles me, it is Your love which overflows.

*This idea comes from Tim Keller's book of the same name, in which he points out that the real meaning of "prodigal" is extravagant, although the "parable of the prodigal son" often makes us think of it in terms of wandering from home. In that book, Tim Keller shows how the parable is really about the Prodigal Father (God) who rejoices so much in us.

Of Mango Juice & Broom Trees

Today was one of “those days” – days when one feels overloaded & overwhelmed.

I travelled back on Tuesday from a week of vacationing out at Musana Camps, NHU’s beautiful property on the shores of Lake Victoria. But by this afternoon, any rest during that week seemed hardly worth the piles of work I came back to.

So many things to do, chiefly reading & processing 300ish letters from our primary & senior students to their sponsors. But so many other things too, pressing things that I just can’t seem to make time for. Budgets & emails & new sponsorships, and a pile of Christmas packages for kids just waiting to be opened & checked.

I was tired and frustrated and on edge this afternoon. One of my friends had stopped by several times to do various things at the admin offices. So we had greeted & chatted a bit, and she could see I was tired.

Trying to get some of the letters read, I could just feel my frustration building. A class where the teacher had written a letter and just had all the students copy it (true, it’s a young class, but they should still be able to answer simple questions for themselves). Other things that hadn’t gone quite like I expected.

I was about ready to throw in the towel and go for a run to vent my pent up feelings, even though it was 3 p.m. and I was nearly sweating just sitting still in my office.

Then my friend showed up again. She handed me a manila envelope, strangely shaped. Inside was a box of cold mango juice she had bought for me.

Such a seemingly small thing – but to me it was not a small thing: it was a big thing.

Because as she turned and left before I had even finished opening it and thanking her, my mind flew back to Tuesday night.

That night, we women here at Kasana had started a video-based Bible study: “Walking with God in the Desert,” by Ray Vander Laan. He’s a Bible teacher who takes people out to the Holy Land and creates studies about Christian history & heritage and lessons to be learned from that.

There have definitely been times in the past year and in the past months when I have felt the blasting heat of a metaphorical desert wind. Moving & living half way around the world from everything familiar isn’t easy. Carrying a lot of responsibility for months can be a draining challenge.

But, as Ray reminded us, it’s in the desert we often are reminded that it is God who is faithful and sufficient, and it is in the desert times that we can learn to fall in love with Him all over again.

In the second video lesson we watched, Ray talked about the concept in the Bible of God being the shade at our right hand. He said the Hebrew word refers to what we call a broom tree. It’s more like a shrub or a bush: something which can give relief from the heat, but not like an oak tree that more completely blocks out the burning sunlight.

God doesn’t promise us that He will magically make all of our problems disappear! But He does promise us that He will give us the shade and relief at all times when we need Him. And His grace is sufficient for us to take the next step, to make it through the next challenge. What’s more, God often uses the community of His people to bring that shade to one another.

This afternoon, God used my friend to remind me about what I had already so quickly forgotten. That box of mango juice was my broom tree for the afternoon. I thank God for my friends here, including this one who’s “small” act of kindness honestly turned around my whole frame of mind.

The only way to explain it is God. A box of mango juice doesn’t really turn me from someone who’s frustrated and fed up into someone who can take the next step and the next step and make progress in reading letters. It was just a practical object lesson & reminder that God is enough and He will provide the strength I need. I had written those same words just a couple hours before, because I knew with my head they were true. But God in His grace sent my friend with a box of mango juice because He knew I needed to remember and feel it with my heart this afternoon.

Because of what my friend did for me, I was also able to reach out to other friends and hopefully be a bit of God’s shade for them too. That’s how God’s grace works. It’s not just something I take and keep for myself. It’s something that I receive in order to pass it on to others – for the glory of our loving Father.

So as you go about your day, maybe think about how you can be God’s broom tree for others in their struggles. And don’t forget that God is always there for you in your desert, no farther away than you can reach your right hand.

Thanksgiving

I know this is a few months early for my fellow Americans….. But here at New Hope Uganda, tomorrow we will be having our annual Thanksgiving Sunday service. And so in that spirit, I wanted to share some of the things I am so very thankful for in this season of my life.

First of all, I am incredibly thankful for our Abba, Father – the fact that He is present and active in the lives of His children is an incomprehensible gift!

I am thankful for our Savior, for His patience and undying love for us. Words utterly fail to describe what He has done and continues to do for the glory of God, of which we are beneficiaries!

“This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”  2 Timothy 2:11-13

I’m also thankful for Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who lives within God’s beloved sons & daughters and continues working and interceding for our sanctification.

I’m so thankful that I am never alone, for this is the Triune God who is ever-present with us.

I’m thankful for my biological family, especially my parents. Their constant love and care and prayers and support mean more to me than I can ever say.

I am also thankful for my massive spiritual family – literally located around the globe. So many names I could mention here – names of prayer supporters and encouragers, names of friends. Many of whom I have not seen in recent months, but who I know care nonetheless.

I’m thankful for my New Hope family too – again, so many names I could pull out of people who have invested in me in ways small and large. People who have opened their hearts and homes to me; people I have been able to stand with and work alongside. People who, while not perfect, seek to serve God through loving His “least of these.”

I am thankful for the gift of fellowshipping for a week in person with a friend & apartment-mate from college days. Her presence was such a gift and she is part of the reason I am writing this right now!

I’m thankful for the beauty of God’s creation! For the birds, the flowers, the stars my friend and I enjoyed during a dark night power out. This world is so amazing in its variety and ingenious design.

This list could go on and on…..

When I choose gratitude and thankfulness as my glasses, I see so much that is good and blessing in my life. Yes, there are hardships and challenges. But I – we! – are called to give thanks in all things. And so this evening, I praise God for the many gifts He has given me…..above them all, Himself in relationship.

To God be the Glory, great things He has done!

Boasting in My Weakness

I’ve got to say, it’s not easy for me to think about writing this post. Even simply typing the title made me pause.

I’m the kind of person who likes to be right—who needs to be right (or at least I think I do). I want to be the one who’s dependable and got it all together.

But, truth is, I’m not – and I don’t.

God is at work in my heart and life. Often I wish He would hurry up and finish so that I would just be good to go. But then I wouldn’t need Him as desperately, would I?

In the past weeks and months, I’ve been wrestling with apathy. Well, actually, a more accurate description would be that I’ve been giving in to apathy without putting up a lot of fight.

I’ve been battling discouragement, hypocrisy, etc. You name one of those inner struggles that’s so easy to put a mask over, I’ve probably been dealing with it to some extent.

But God – He sees right through my masks. Jesus Christ sees my heart with His eyes of blazing fire that our teacher talked about this morning in church (from Revelations 2:18). And yet this same God doesn’t only see in me what I so often focus on, the sin & failures, the guilt. God the Father sees in me the righteousness of His Son, our Savior.

That’s what He reminded me of this afternoon as I knelt on my bed, crying for shame & guilt of my shortcomings. And to my heart, three simple words, yet so profound that it will take eternity to understand: He loves me.

Yes, in myself I am weak – so very prone to give into the temptation of the easy, selfish path. But in my weakness is the opportunity for His strength to be displayed, for His glory.

Because if living the Christian life—a life that pleases God—is something that I could work up to do in my own strength, there would have been no need for Christ to come.

I need Him, He who has fought the war and won the victory; He who has defeated the enemies of sin and Satan and death. The balance is there: The war has been won, and yet I am called to fight the daily battles by the power of the Victor flowing in and through me.

Yesterday as I worked on laundry, some of these same thoughts which have been common these past weeks were already circling in my mind. I shut off the podcast I was listening to, and prayed seeking to listen to my God instead. And in that, I was reminded of the need to put to death my old man, my fleshly desires, each day. But I can’t even crucify my own flesh – that can only be done through the Spirit who brings life in the place of death (Romans 8:13).

Thanks be to God, it is not that I must struggle against my flesh in order to win God’s acceptance and approval. On the contrary, He has adopted me as His daughter through Christ’s death – thereby giving the only reason I have hope of choosing life over the sin and death which form our natural, fallen state (Romans 8:12-17).

And yesterday, as He called me to the beginning of this memory, my mind flew back to a little something I had started in March and finished in June:

I say I started it in March. That’s not strictly true. March is when I pulled some images of crosses from the Internet and selected a font, all of which I began to combine and trace to make this image. But the story of this picture started almost four years ago, on my 21^st birthday at JBU’s Sunday night chapel service. It was there that the words “I am Thine” (referring to myself in relationship to my heavenly Lord, obviously) became emblazoned on my mind. They’ve been there ever since, and often my heart has repeated that cry.

The cross was added to the mental image later, in Northern Ireland. That’s a story of its own, perhaps for another day. But over these past two years since that trip, I’ve been wanting to draw this. Last month, the image was finally completed. And yesterday, it suddenly took on even deeper significance. Not only is the cross the symbol of Christ’s redemption of our souls, it is also the symbol of what we are called to: To take up our cross each day – not to earn our salvation, but because we have it (Luke 9:23-25, Philippians 3:7-11).

These words, this symbol – they are far beyond anything I can accomplish in and of myself. It is all Christ. Therefore, I will gladly boast in my weakness, that through me the strength of His grace may be seen (2 Corinthians 12:9). For His glory alone.

Fresh Love

{I’ve stolen/borrowed this title, as you’ll see later – so I can’t take credit for it!}

This past Thursday evening, I hit a slump of discouragement. There are several probable factors that created it, but in the end God used it to once again remind me how constantly and desperately I need Him. He is all-sufficient, if only I would have the faith to trust and rely on Him rather than myself.

Since then, I have spent some time reading Nehemiah 8 and 9. Those two chapters focus on the reading of the law to the Jews who had returned after exile, and of their response to it. The people were grieved when the law was read and explained by the Levites – and though they were encouraged to not grieve because “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Neh. 8:10), they later returned to pour their hearts out in confession before God.

During this gathering, the Levites stood up before the people and recounted the history of Israel poetically – but what I found most interesting as I read it this morning is that they started off by blessing God and worshipping Him. The tale they told was one of Israelite rebellion and unfaithfulness, but it was framed and laced throughout with the mercy of God and His worthiness to be obeyed and praised.

As I closed my Bible and prepared to get ready for church, a thought flitted through my mind; something about feeling as though I was just slogging through, trying to do what I knew I should, but often without my heart fully into it. Little did I know then how that very thought would tie into church.

I arrived at church a little early. While sitting there listening to the choir finishing their practice for the service, I watched as a couple of our church leaders brought out the elements for communion. Somehow, that simple sight awakened emotion in me, and a tear had to be wiped from my cheek.

A little later in the service, the Scripture passage for the day’s sermon was read, Revelations 2:1-7. The meat of those verses hit me right between the eyes. Christ, speaking to the church in Ephesus, says:

“I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: have forsaken the love you had at first” (Rev. 2:2-4).

Yes, I thought. Yes, that’s exactly it. That could nearly just as well be speaking about me.

My mind flashed back to a recent group discussion in which I was simultaneously frustrated and prideful. I found myself unduly frustrated with others for not having a working understanding of theological principles which I’ve had something of a grasp on for almost as long as I can remember. And thus the pride came into play as well.

I try to work hard and perform well, often for the sake of giving glory to Christ. I make an effort to hold fast to Scripture, making it my foundation, learning so that I may I understand truth and discern the lie. I do my best to press through times of discouragement.

But where is the love in my heart?

Do I do all these things merely because I am supposed to? Or because my heart is on fire with a love and passion for God and His glory?

While I desire the latter, the former is often more accurate. Just trying to slog through life, to get through one more day.

I don’t want to live like that.

I want to return to the first love of Christ. The love that came, not because of anything I had done but because of what He did. The fresh love, as the preacher put it, that flows from Him through me—of which I am merely a channel, not a creator.

During the sermon, the pastor for the day clarified and reechoed many of these thoughts which had recently been swirling, half-formed, in my mind. In his conclusion, he read 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a. Reminding us that without love, we are nothing. Reminding us of just what kind of love Christ has for us.

As we took communion, our worship leader played a song that had really struck me in church a couple weeks ago. I munched my small square of bread and drank my small cup of juice, remembering what Christ has done for me; remembering that all is by grace.

And so a new day continues, a new hour lies before me. May it be filled with a fresh love for Christ and for others, by His grace.