So...this post, aah! this post...
This post, I've been putting off writing for awhile, but today, buoyed by 4 shots of espresso, a too cold for me outside, and no one at home to distract me, I will brave my way through this post.
I don't actually know the outcome of this post. Funny that, and possibly the reason I've been putting it off.
When I first came home in April, everyone wanted to know what my next steps were, how long I was going to be "home" for, what my goals and plans were.
I gave safe answers. I was going to be in La Crete until Christmas. I was looking at going to Asia in the New Year. Et cetera, et cetera... The answers satisfied people for the time being.
The Christmas season is fully upon us, only a short 4 weeks away, and the questions have started again. How long are you planning on working? What are you thinking of doing? Do you know where God wants you? What are your plans?
The questions are sincere, out of the goodness of people's hearts. And I have no hard feelings to the questions.
I've just run out of safe answers to give in reply.
My heart is more for missions than it ever has been. The ache to have people know God is as hard-pressed as it was as a teenager when I felt God calling me to a life of missions.
So, my conclusion, for those of you wondering, is...I still don't know what God is calling me into for next year.
I am hoping to work less and have more time to be with people. I am also heading back to the Cook Islands for a few weeks in February-March. (YAY!!!)
My prayer is to head into frontier missions, heading into places that have never heard the gospel. But I'm not sure which people group, or if that's my ultimate and God wants me to head somewhere else first, in preparation for frontiers.
At the moment, if you see me, or chat with me, feel free to ask what my plans are and how I'm doing, but be prepared for the possibility of vague answers. My life is literally day-to-day, step by step, walking and breathing by faith.
I would appreciate prayers for continued direction, if you think of me.
But at the moment, if you're wondering. I'm content. I'm happy (strangely enough) at being in La Crete, knowing that for this moment, this is where God wants me. I'm not necessarily satisfied, it was never my intention to move back to La Crete for an extended period of time, but I am content.
And I know without a shadow of a doubt, that God has plans for me. So I surrender life into His control :)
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Monday, November 17, 2014
Love and Grace
Grace, grace, God's grace...
The lines of the chorus to that hymn are playing over and over again in my head this morning.
Grace greater than all our sin
Grace greater than ALL our sin. The Wednesday night Bible study that I attend, is going through Philip Yancey's book What's So Amazing About Grace? For me, the theme of unconditional love, keeps popping up in day to day life: conversations with friends, experiences at work, podcasts, sermons, Sunday School, Bible readings.
I have 2 thoughts running through my head this morning.
First: the act of grace is a result of the love one has for another.
Second: God commands us to love as He loves, and His love is completely unconditional.
Let's start with the second thought. It hit me yesterday during the church service, God's love is completely unconditional. Romans 5:8 says, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (NKJV)
We are loved by God whether we have accepted His gift of salvation or not. We are loved by God if we are murderers, thieves, rapists, addicted to child pornography, liars, rebellious, lazy, addicted to food or drugs or sex. We are loved by God even after we have rejected Him. We are loved by God if we've accepted His gift of salvation and then chosen to walk away from Him. We are loved by God, even if we've never heard His name. God's love, in itself, is unconditional, non-performance based. There is nothing we can do, or not do, that can cause God to love us more or less. And that is true for every individual that has ever, and will ever, live and breathe on this earth.
(Please note, I am not saying every individual has received salvation, totally different topic...just God's love is completely unconditional. Read Romans 8).
God, in His love for us, chose to extend a gift of life to us, the gift of grace, something that is really to wonderful for us to fully comprehend. Grace covers all our sin. There is nothing to horrible for grace to cover. There is nothing left exposed, it washes clean a lifetime of impurity and naked, awful sin.
I'm not defining grace, just speaking of its action.
It is grace that says, you have hurt me incredibly, but I choose to forgive. It is grace that says, yes, you've messed up, and will probably mess up again, but I allow you back in my life. It is grace that says, we can move past this, this relationship can be stronger.
Those are vague interpretations of real, messy life situations, where hurt cuts deeps, and life doesn't seem as if it will ever be put together again. But the choice to love and to extend grace, no matter what the other person has done, that is the mark of a Spirit-filled believer.
I want to close with this Scripture from 1 John 4:7-16,
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved GOd, ut that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God t any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected un us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
There is so much more to be said of grace and of love, and what the outworking of the two should look like in our lives.
These 2 topics have been major themes of my life this year, and there will probably be many more posts on these topics in the weeks and months to come, but for now, something to think about, for me and you...
Can others tell I follow Christ by the love and grace I show in my relationships with others?
The lines of the chorus to that hymn are playing over and over again in my head this morning.
Grace greater than all our sin
Grace greater than ALL our sin. The Wednesday night Bible study that I attend, is going through Philip Yancey's book What's So Amazing About Grace? For me, the theme of unconditional love, keeps popping up in day to day life: conversations with friends, experiences at work, podcasts, sermons, Sunday School, Bible readings.
I have 2 thoughts running through my head this morning.
First: the act of grace is a result of the love one has for another.
Second: God commands us to love as He loves, and His love is completely unconditional.
Let's start with the second thought. It hit me yesterday during the church service, God's love is completely unconditional. Romans 5:8 says, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (NKJV)
We are loved by God whether we have accepted His gift of salvation or not. We are loved by God if we are murderers, thieves, rapists, addicted to child pornography, liars, rebellious, lazy, addicted to food or drugs or sex. We are loved by God even after we have rejected Him. We are loved by God if we've accepted His gift of salvation and then chosen to walk away from Him. We are loved by God, even if we've never heard His name. God's love, in itself, is unconditional, non-performance based. There is nothing we can do, or not do, that can cause God to love us more or less. And that is true for every individual that has ever, and will ever, live and breathe on this earth.
(Please note, I am not saying every individual has received salvation, totally different topic...just God's love is completely unconditional. Read Romans 8).
God, in His love for us, chose to extend a gift of life to us, the gift of grace, something that is really to wonderful for us to fully comprehend. Grace covers all our sin. There is nothing to horrible for grace to cover. There is nothing left exposed, it washes clean a lifetime of impurity and naked, awful sin.
I'm not defining grace, just speaking of its action.
It is grace that says, you have hurt me incredibly, but I choose to forgive. It is grace that says, yes, you've messed up, and will probably mess up again, but I allow you back in my life. It is grace that says, we can move past this, this relationship can be stronger.
Those are vague interpretations of real, messy life situations, where hurt cuts deeps, and life doesn't seem as if it will ever be put together again. But the choice to love and to extend grace, no matter what the other person has done, that is the mark of a Spirit-filled believer.
I want to close with this Scripture from 1 John 4:7-16,
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved GOd, ut that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God t any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected un us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
There is so much more to be said of grace and of love, and what the outworking of the two should look like in our lives.
These 2 topics have been major themes of my life this year, and there will probably be many more posts on these topics in the weeks and months to come, but for now, something to think about, for me and you...
Can others tell I follow Christ by the love and grace I show in my relationships with others?
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Silence
I won't talk about the dozens of posts that have been started and left over the past, what is it now, months? They're not really worth mentioning. Some of them may be refined and finished one day, but for now, they can stay forgotten, silent.
Today I want to thank God for the community we find in people, in believers, in those who choose to walk beside.
I have been silent lately. My brain has been unable to finish posts. There have been few facebook messages, even fewer emails. Texting has been bare minimum, phone calls still rarer. I converse with people as I see them, but not deeply, not vulnerably. I haven't spoken about things on my mind; there have been vague answers to questions such as: how are you doing? what are you planning?
I'm struggling at investing into people beyond my own family, the only people that I know without a shadow of a doubt will be in my life forever, tied together with the same breath and blood.
My time with God has also been silent. Quiet. Still. Not the good kind of still, but the kind of still that just ends in silence, an old couple in the room with air thick with all the words never spoken, things never forgiven, acts never praised.
For me, this is odd. I who love communication, have been able to find no way to truly communicate on any level.
Yesterday evening, the dam began to burst. I cried. I went to sleep. I woke up. Went to church. Had an awesome time with my family. Left for home. Ran out of gas on the side of the road. Got home. Cried some. Let the silence settle over me again.
Believe me when I say, I had no intention of lifting the silence. The silence is comfortable. It's not hard. It's an endless, mindless, nothing has to hurt, or be processed, or be ugly or even beautiful. In the silence, I don't have to figure anything out; I don't have to try; I can just exist--float, even.
But it's not really beneficial, or healthy, and God knows this.
So, I stomped over to a friend's place this evening. Someone I feel free to laugh with, cry with, yell with; someone who's as close to being in the same shoes as I'm in at this stage in my life.
And she let me rant. And I let her rant. And we were honest.
We talked about where we're really at with God, and how we're really frustrated, and how, life can be disappointing, both of us planning on being overseas, and both of us here, a place where we never thought we'd live again, and both of us just unsure, and going through various phases of reverse culture shock.
And God moved. Somehow, unknown to us, and the silence that's been hanging for weeks, lifted. We laughed, we cried, we laughed, we talked, we cried, we prayed. We laughed, we talked, we committed to holding each other accountable.
I walked home. She went to bed. Tomorrow might be equally as hard. Tomorrow might be a failure. Tomorrow might be brushing off everything that happens, and just existing, mindlessly. But tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll message her, she'll message me, and then we'll try again the next tomorrow.
Because the silence has been broken. The secret's out. The devil has no more power over the assumption of words left unspoken, and in our honesty, there is freedom, there is liberty, there is room for God to act.
He will act. He will grow us. He will send us out, again, to places never reached, to people who've never heard. He will deepen our relationships to Him; He will never stop drawing us to Himself.
The silence doesn't have to be. The cloud doesn't have to always hang.
God put us in community for a reason. If you're struggling reach out today, pray with someone. Be brave. Break the silence and walk forward in freedom.
Today I want to thank God for the community we find in people, in believers, in those who choose to walk beside.
I have been silent lately. My brain has been unable to finish posts. There have been few facebook messages, even fewer emails. Texting has been bare minimum, phone calls still rarer. I converse with people as I see them, but not deeply, not vulnerably. I haven't spoken about things on my mind; there have been vague answers to questions such as: how are you doing? what are you planning?
I'm struggling at investing into people beyond my own family, the only people that I know without a shadow of a doubt will be in my life forever, tied together with the same breath and blood.
My time with God has also been silent. Quiet. Still. Not the good kind of still, but the kind of still that just ends in silence, an old couple in the room with air thick with all the words never spoken, things never forgiven, acts never praised.
For me, this is odd. I who love communication, have been able to find no way to truly communicate on any level.
Yesterday evening, the dam began to burst. I cried. I went to sleep. I woke up. Went to church. Had an awesome time with my family. Left for home. Ran out of gas on the side of the road. Got home. Cried some. Let the silence settle over me again.
Believe me when I say, I had no intention of lifting the silence. The silence is comfortable. It's not hard. It's an endless, mindless, nothing has to hurt, or be processed, or be ugly or even beautiful. In the silence, I don't have to figure anything out; I don't have to try; I can just exist--float, even.
But it's not really beneficial, or healthy, and God knows this.
So, I stomped over to a friend's place this evening. Someone I feel free to laugh with, cry with, yell with; someone who's as close to being in the same shoes as I'm in at this stage in my life.
And she let me rant. And I let her rant. And we were honest.
We talked about where we're really at with God, and how we're really frustrated, and how, life can be disappointing, both of us planning on being overseas, and both of us here, a place where we never thought we'd live again, and both of us just unsure, and going through various phases of reverse culture shock.
And God moved. Somehow, unknown to us, and the silence that's been hanging for weeks, lifted. We laughed, we cried, we laughed, we talked, we cried, we prayed. We laughed, we talked, we committed to holding each other accountable.
I walked home. She went to bed. Tomorrow might be equally as hard. Tomorrow might be a failure. Tomorrow might be brushing off everything that happens, and just existing, mindlessly. But tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll message her, she'll message me, and then we'll try again the next tomorrow.
Because the silence has been broken. The secret's out. The devil has no more power over the assumption of words left unspoken, and in our honesty, there is freedom, there is liberty, there is room for God to act.
He will act. He will grow us. He will send us out, again, to places never reached, to people who've never heard. He will deepen our relationships to Him; He will never stop drawing us to Himself.
The silence doesn't have to be. The cloud doesn't have to always hang.
God put us in community for a reason. If you're struggling reach out today, pray with someone. Be brave. Break the silence and walk forward in freedom.
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