Sanctuary

Tonight, I am thankful beyond words that despite all the stress I've felt this week because of finals, I am able to restore peace to my soul simply by stealing away for a few sweet moments with my Lord.

". . . let us press on to know the LORD;

his going out is sure as the dawn;

he will come to us as the showers,

as the spring rains that water the earth."

-Hosea 6:3

Amen.

His love is extravagant.

Drawn Again...

The past week of my life hasn't been the best ever, for a few reasons.

Most of you probably know about my grandfather passing away on Saturday.  I guess there's no need to explain why that has been difficult.

Then, on a much less severe note, I've been preparing for finals for the past three days, and have eight more days of intense studying ahead of me before Christmas break.

There are probably a couple other factors that have made this week difficult, but those alone are really enough to explain the funk I've been in.

Anyway, it all got to me tonight I guess, and I had just about run out of gas, when I decided to play worship music on Pandora until my spirits lifted.  Well, it took about ten or fifteen songs, but finally I could feel God speaking to my heart, lifting the darkness from me, restoring my joy.

I then opened the Word and read Psalms 9:9-10, which says:

The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.

Tonight, I am thankful that the Lord inclines His ear to my weak prayer for renewed hope.  I'm thankful that my Savior draws me to His voice again and again.  I'm thankful that when I feel utterly worn down, He can build me up once more.

O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear...
(Psalm 10:17)

I'm thankful that He strengthens my feeble heart when I'm afflicted.  I'm thankful that, truly, all I need is Him.  Even when my world falls apart, I can endure it if my stronghold is the Lord.

My holy Father loves me, and I'm thankful.



**I'm sorry if this post seems less than eloquent.  I have been studying and writing papers pretty much nonstop for three days.  I'm pretty mentally exhausted.**

Face Like a Flint

One thing I've observed: God calls me things I'm not.

An example: This past year at the Honor Academy, my core (small group) name was Undivided.  It referred to having an undivided heart before the Lord, solely focused on Him, etc.  Let's be serious, though; undivided is the last word that describes the state of my heart.  It's almost laughable.

But God calls me these things, I believe, because He is speaking them over me; He's calling me into the person He says I am.

This year, He calls me a warrior.  See, I am "adopted" into my dear friend Kara's core from the HA, and that's her core name.

This year, I am not a warrior.
I give up, compromise standards, and turn away.
I sin like nobody's business.
I barely fight at all.
I'm discouraged, defeated, and lonely.
I skip quiet times more often than not.
I barely remember the taste of that sweet passion for Jesus.
Yet, this year, God calls me a warrior.

So tonight I was praying, and a phrase from a Bible verse came to my mind.  I prayed it, but all I could remember were the words "face set like flint." But thank the Lord for Google; I was soon thumbing through the pages of my Bible till I reached Isaiah 50, and read:

"4 The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught,
that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.
Morning by morning he awakens;
he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
5 The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious;
I turned not backward.
6 I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
7 But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who is my adversary?
Let him come near to me.
9 Behold, the Lord God helps me;
who will declare me guilty?
Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment;
the moth will eat them up."
--Isaiah 50: 4-9

I don't feel like these verses describe me at all, and I usually don't act like they do either.  But if God tells me that I am a warrior, then I'm gonna claim it.  I'm going to be who He calls me to be, by His grace.

The Lord helps me...therefore I have set my face like a flint.



PS: If you Google "flint," you'll learn that it's some pretty awesome stuff.

"Let the Weak Say..."

Let me just tell you.

God is faithful.

In case you didn't know, I have my nose pierced. (Cool blog topic, huh?)  Yep, got it pierced when I was seventeen, I guess about two years ago now.

I took it out tonight.  Permanently.

I was standing in my room getting ready for bed, and it hit me.  The nose ring thing isn't me anymore.

See, when I got my nose pierced, I was experiencing the most difficult, earth-shattering time of my life.  Some of you know that.  Others may not.  Well, if I were to be honest, I'd have to say that getting that piercing had a whole lot to do with what I was going through at the time.  It was a symbol of my pain, in a way.  Sure, I thought it was cute, and I still do.  (My face looks kinda bare to me without it.)  But the fact remains that the piercing was more than just a fashion statement; it was a sign of my brokenness.

Today, I don't bear that brokenness any longer, thank the Lord.  About a year ago, during the first two or three months of my year at the Honor Academy, God set me free from so many chains that had bound me for what had seemed like an eternity.  I took hold of that precious freedom, and I proclaimed victory over my life.  Sure, I was weak, but with God I was strong.  I didn't have to sit back and let the Enemy beat me down over and over and over, relentlessly.  I could resist, and he would have to flee.

So I realized tonight how my nose ring symbolized those chains now long gone.  And like I said, I took it out.  I then began journaling my thoughts, and toward the end of my writing, I penned, "...God has healed me. I am risen. I'm undivided. I'm undaunted, and I'm a warrior."

After writing a couple more sentences, I took out my Bible and flipped it open to a random page, expecting to read an equally random passage.  But I tell ya, God is faithful. As my eyes focused on the paper, I read a single phrase:

"Let the weak say, 'I am a warrior.'" {Joel 3:10b}

Amen.

I am a warrior.

Note to Self

Let's talk about sin.

No, this post actually probably won't make you feel awful about yourself. :)  Maybe I should say "repentance" instead of "sin." That's closer to where I'm going with this.

I figure almost everyone who reads my blog is also Facebook friends with me.  And if you are, then you probably notice that a lot of my status updates are lyrics, quotes, and thoughts like,

"Some people worry about others becoming 'too devoted' to Christ. But I know how unfaithful I am. I know that no matter how devoted I become, it will NEVER be more than Christ deserves." 

"Long to look on the face of the One that I love; long to stay in Your presence, it's where I belong." 

"I don't wanna be just dry bones."

Don't those make me sound like such a great Christian? Haha.

Well, I'm not.  (And those of you who know me pretty well already know that, unfortunately.)  When I post things like that, it's usually after I do something stupid and realize how stupid it was.  It's usually me repenting.

If y'all are like me, then you usually wait a while to repent after you've screwed up.  If you're like me, then after you sin a little bit, you say, "Oh, what's the point? I've already failed.  I might as well just keep living like this for a while."  And you wait until you're completely disgusted with yourself, till you've sunken so low that you crawl back to God and lament, 

"I just can't do this anymore. Please, will you take me back?"

Now, here's the thing.  We could never live lives of holiness on our own.  I know I can't.  ANY good deed, good thought, good intention that comes out of me is from God.  We know this to be true.

So the thing to do is to REPENT IMMEDIATELY.  Yeah, I think that deserves Caps Lock.  As soon as we begin to feel ourselves compromising -- in any way -- we need to turn back to God right then.

No more feelings of failure driving us further from our King.

We need to accept His free gift of grace and move forward into holiness.

I think the following passage fits perfectly with my point.  It brings some conviction, but it also brings grace and hope.  The entire passage is absolutely key, but the parts I made bold are my focus right now:

⁴You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? ⁶But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

--James 4:4-10, ESV

I think that says it all.

Musing

The thing

about going to new places 

and meeting new people 

is that 

you always leave them. 

And when you leave, 

you don't get to take your entire heart with you.  

Traveling is always heartbreaking, 

if you do it right.

Everything Autumn

I can't quite put my finger on it.

Maybe it's the way the sunlight hits the earth, or the way the air just feels different somehow.  Maybe it's just me thinking back to all the fond memories from years past, or unpacking sweaters and boots and hanging them in my closet again.  I'm not sure what it is, but something about fall just makes me absolutely ecstatic.  I try to read for class, and I have to read the same paragraph four times before I comprehend it, all because of my wandering mind.

I can't seem to stop thinking about everything that I love about it.  In fact, I can't really think of anything that I don't love about fall.

I'm just gonna list a few of my absolute favorite things about this spectacular season; maybe then I'll be able to focus on the whole studying thing.

1. The weather.  It takes a while for the really good fall weather to come here in AL, but when it does come, it's the best weather all year.  Chilly breezes mingling with the still-warm sunshine.  It's the perfect time to wear...
2. The clothes.  Boots, sweaters, leggings, scarves.  Ahh.  I just love them all.
3. The fun.  Pumpkin patches, corn mazes, Halloween (call me pagan; I like it), playing in leaves...
4. Oh yeah, leaves! I lovelovelove the woods in the fall.  Red, yellow, orange, green, brown; gorgeous.
5. Warm drinks.  Fancy coffee, hot chocolate, apple cider.  Mmmm.

Okay, I'm just going to stop.  I could go on for a really long time about friends and music and campfires and so much more, but it's 10:27 PM, and I need to do my math homework.

I hope you share my excitement for this season. :) 

(I don't understand how you could not.)

How Far?

Consecrated.  

That's the word that seems to be at the front of my mind since I graduated from the Honor Academy almost a month ago.  That's the word that I want to describe me.

During the last month or two at the HA, we had to decide what our personal standards for our lives would be upon our graduation -- and with good reason.  For an entire year, we were given rules like no dating, no R-rated movies, no secular music, no drinking, no smoking, no immodest clothing, etc. We didn't have to decide a whole lot as far as our limits went; we just had to have integrity and follow the rules that were already set in place for us.

A lot of the rules were standards that I already lived by, so I didn't really need to think about those.  But for some, like listening to secular music, I only had vague ideas of my standards.  "I will listen to some secular music if I want to, but I won't listen to anything with lyrics that compromise my heart or mind," I decided.  So I tried going with that idea. 

But then I remembered a phrase spoken by a leader at the HA, something along the lines of, "How far, God, will you let me go? How abandoned will you let me be?" Those words were spoken during a sermon that was essentially about total consecration.  It goes along with 1 Corinthians 10:23, which says:

“'All things are lawful,' but not all things are helpful. 'All things are lawful,' but not all things build up."

So, sure.  Maybe listening to a few harmless, clean secular songs every now and then wouldn't hurt me.  It might not draw me further from the Lord.  But would it help me?  Would it draw me closer to the Lord? Probably not.

I don't want to just avoid the "big" sins.  I want to hate every little sin that I ever commit.  Every impatient sigh, every cutting remark, every carelessly casual sin. 

Leviticus 20:7 says, "Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God."

I want total intimacy with God, no matter the cost.  

I want to go through His refining fire.

I want to be consecrated.

Love Abandoned

There's a passage in the book of Revelation that seems to be following me around lately.  It's in chapter two, and God has been showing me its truth as it relates to my life.


"I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.  I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary.  But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.  Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first..." -- Revelation 2:2-5


Wow.  How perfectly these verses align with my life right now.  Here at the Honor Academy, I am always busy fulfilling requirements.  I wake up, get ready, go to class, go to work, read my Bible Reading Plan, do homework, and so on.  And all of my requirements are good things.  In class, I'm learning how to walk out my faith.  At work, I'm doing ministry and making sure that kids are able to go on their mission trips and change their lives as well as the lives of others.  My Bible Reading Plan is great; it's helping me read through the entire Bible, which I've never done before.  My homework is beneficial, too; I learn good things from it.  But with this fast-paced, always-doing-something lifestyle comes a risk -- the risk of losing sight of why I even signed up for all this in the first place.


I remember when I first fell in love with God.  It was the summer of 2006, and I was head over heels.  That summer, I realized what Christianity was meant to be.  That summer, I decided to give absolutely everything to God.  And I did.  I started having a quiet time daily, I started digging in to every Christian book, CD, and church service I could get my hands on.  I looked into Christian colleges and began hanging out with Christian friends.  I signed up for a mission trip and learned what worship was all about.  I was learning like crazy, and I was loving like crazy.


I came here to the HA to grow in my relationship with God, and I have.  I've grown, but I have also gotten distracted.  In the words of a Teen Mania staff member who spoke to us at a service we had on Monday night, "Somewhere along the way, the ministry became my relationship with God."  And I'm not saying that I've just totally left God; that would by no means be true.  Not at all.  But He hasn't had my whole heart.  It's easy to be doing the work of the Lord without Him having my whole heart.  He has a lot of it; He even has most of it.  But He doesn't have all of it.  I have never stopped loving God, but I have loved Him less.


It's time for me to remember that God cares more about my heart than about what I'm called to do.  He wants my heart before my hands.  This is not to say that I shouldn't do that to which I'm called, but that I must do it out of love for Him.  Otherwise, my work is meaningless.  


I want that fervor back.  That reckless abandon that makes me look like a fool.  I want the love that I had at first.  I remember from where I have fallen, and I repent. Lord, I want to love You with my life.

Roller Coaster

I have been flooded with so many emotions the past couple days.  It's really pretty ridiculous.  

Sunday - Utterly overwhelmed with joy and thankfulness and awe.  I was driving down the road, completely alone, absolutely beaming.  I had this epiphany of how great God's love is, and how faithful He is.  Throughout the past couple years, I've been submerged in some really dark days.  I've been totally without hope, seeing no reason at all to continue living.  But God refused to let me go.  I could go on for quite a while getting into specifics of how He saved me (physically, that is) so many times in so many ways.  But I won't do that right now.  Just trust me; He did save me from death.

Monday - Defeated, annoyed, and inadequate.  I got back to campus after a 10-hour drive super late on Sunday, so I didn't get that much sleep that night.  So on Monday night, I went to bed at like 7:30 p.m, in hopes that I could recover from my exhaustion before today.  Well, I lay in bed for about 45 minutes with no sleep anywhere in sight.  It was really hot in my room, and I was miserable.  So I got out a book for class and began reading.  I read two chapters and decided to try to sleep again.  Then two of my roommates came in and started talking.  Loudly.  I had headphones in my ears with my iPod playing to drown out the noise, but I could hear them over it.  I tried to ignore it and go to sleep, but I couldn't.  So I finally asked them to try and be a little quieter.  They said they would, then proceeded to talk at the exact same level as before.  At this point, I was literally about to cry from frustration and exhaustion.  I climbed down from my bunk, grabbed my notebook and pen, and went to sit in the stairwell and write down my thoughts to God.  It was really more of me just yelling at Him on paper.  I don't get it, I fumed.  You've called me to this ridiculous, unattainable level of holiness- this way of life that I simply cannot live! Why would You call me to what I cannot do?  I keep screwing up, and it's not going to stop.  I vented to Him about this and various other thoughts in my mind, then eventually went back to bed and managed to fall asleep.

Tuesday - I've got so many emotions rolling around that I can't even begin to explain them all.

I'm telling you.  My mind and emotions are a roller coaster right now.  It's so frustrating.  I'll stop now, though, because I'm sure you won't want to continue listening to me babble on about all this.  I just wanted to write it all down in a blog, since I'm unable to do so in a poem (my preferred outlet.)  I do, however, want to insert this poem of mine from a couple years ago that I stumbled upon today.  I feel like it pretty perfectly describes my current dilemma with ineffability.  Here it is:


Sometimes,
My heart spills out poems,
Not written with a pen.
Poems that no one but God can read.
Not even me.

Sometimes,
These poems are emotions.
Flashing anger, glinting in the eye, a bolt of fire.
Peace, lulling my soul, which gives out a contented sigh.
Joy, dancing and laughing a laugh
That comes deep, deep from the bottom of the belly.

Sometimes,
My heart crafts poems that turn out to be pictures.
Pictures of driving down some straight, sunny road,
Windows down, music up.
Pictures of going away in the quiet, cool darkness,
To some far away midnight dream.
Pictures of nothing at all.

Sometimes,
My poems are tastes.
Bitter. Like coffee too strong, blacker than onyx.
Sweet. A favorite dessert, a sleepy sunrise.
Salty. Right on top of a fresh cut. Burning, burning.
Sour. Faces puckered, silly laughs.


Sometimes,
They're textures.
Rough. A wagon ride on a trail calloused by time.
Or crunchy, like the first bite of an apple,
Like the bite of the wind on a shivery fall day.

Sometimes,
They pour out like milk from a pitcher.
Smooth and steady.

These poems of mine,
They stay always in my mind and in my heart,
Whirring around, bumping into each other,
Moving slow and fast,
Down then up.

I cannot capture them with a pen or a net.
But they are poems.
My poems.
Written for me, and for God.

Unreached People Group LTE

Here at the Honor Academy, we have several events throughout the year called "Life Transforming Events", or LTE's for short. Our most recent LTE was the Unreached People Group LTE. Basically, all of us interns were divided into groups of about 5 to 10 people, and each group made up either a "tribe" or a missionary group. Each tribe had its own unique culture and religion, and none of them had been exposed to the Gospel at all. Each missionary group had one tribe that they had to minister/preach the Gospel to. Of course, it was all role-play; in reality, we were all Christians. The experience still impacted me tremendously, though, so I thought I'd share with you what I learned from it. :)

[FYI - I was in a missionary group, not a tribe.]

The Unreached People Group LTE was one of my favorite LTE’s so far this year. The experience was different than I expected it to be in a lot of ways; the whole thing affected me mentally and emotionally much more than I anticipated it would. I learned much about the importance of missionaries relating directly to the people and their beliefs, and the tribe people’s hearts pricked my own and reminded me of why I love missions so much.

One of the central lessons that I learned from UPG is that in order to effectively preach the Gospel to any people group, the missionaries must take into consideration the people’s culture and beliefs. We cannot use the same method to witness to Hindus as Muslims, or Muslims as atheists, or atheists as animists. We must speak in terms to which the people can relate. Our tribe, the Nhangs, worshipped a god named Mooshoo, who was supposedly loving, just like our own God. That was the trouble; Mooshoo was very similar to the true God, so it was difficult to explain why our God is better. We eventually picked up on several key differences, though. Mooshoo only ever “spoke” to Mau, their tribal chief. I was able to point out the beautiful truth that Yahweh, our God, speaks to all believers, male and female alike. Any god who chooses favorites cannot truly be loving. The Nhangs also held a key belief that Mooshoo held them in his hands and protected them, as long as they consistently prayed to him. “Mooshoo handinka Nhang,” Mau explained to us. We used this belief of theirs to explain that Yahweh holds us in His hands always, even if we don’t pray for a while.

In order to convey just how deeply my heart was impacted by this mock missions experience, I must explain some of my emotions from the past several months. Since I arrived here at the Honor Academy in Garden Valley, Texas, I have learned to appreciate Scottsboro, Alabama more than I ever thought that I would. I miss my home, my family, my friends, my church, my dog, my town, and my state as a whole. I can relate so directly to the lyrics of “Sweet Home Alabama.” So many days and nights here, I have wanted nothing more than to be back at home. This desire replaced an old one that I had, a desire to pack my bags and leave as soon as possible, to live forever in some faraway land, preaching the Gospel and loving the people. It’s true that I could just change my plans to be a missionary and choose to live at home in Alabama for the rest of my life, but there’s one problem with that decision. I am called to a career in foreign missions; to choose anything else would be direct disobedience of God and His will for my life. Because of that, I was extremely upset and confused that God had “allowed” for my desire for missions to be taken from me. “Why would He call me to something that I’d detest?” I wondered. I cried out to God over my confusion again and again, and He answered.

On Saturday, early in the afternoon, our tribe turned away from Mooshoo and turned to Yahweh. After many long discussions about each deity, they realized that ours was the only true God, the only Savior. Mau prayed first, and his prayer brought me deep joy. He shouted with all his might, “YAHWEH, HANDINKA NHANG?” I realize that the entire weekend was fake, but his prayer brought tears to my eyes. It was unconventional, but it was so very sincere.

The Unreached People Group LTE taught me and touched me more than I ever thought that it would. In His unfailing faithfulness, God spoke to me through that weekend, and I once again have my desire to reach the nations, even at the cost of leaving my beloved home. UPG was just what I needed; it truly was Life Transforming Event.

[Disclaimer: During our ministry, we used the name "Yahweh" instead of simply saying God, because if we said "God", our tribe assumed we were talking about their god, Mooshoo.   We needed to personalize our Savior.]

Here I Am. Send Me.

Lately my mind has been constantly occupied with thoughts and worries about my future.  What to do? Where to go?  How to get there?  I believe that I am called to a career in foreign missions, but it has become so difficult lately to embrace that calling.  I am afraid.  I was talking to God in my journal about all of this, and I wanted to post it on here.  It really just explains what's been on my mind and in my heart these past couple of months. 

Following Your plan is the hardest decision I have ever had to make. I am finally realizing what is at stake, and it is frightening.  No longer am I a fire-filled high school student who has little to lose, little to choose.  Now, I can do whatever I want.  I can choose Your path, or I can choose the American Dream.  I can choose jumping off a cliff, blindfolded, into Your arms, or I can choose quietly retreating into mediocrity, seeking completion in a safe, quaint home with a flower garden out front by the porch swing.  Now, I can gain or lose it all.  The question is, What is 'it all' to me?  What do I value the most?

Am I willing to count everything as loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing You, Jesus?  Or do I value my own comfort more than You and Your Gospel?  The stakes are higher now than I ever realized they'd be.  The siren song of suburbia whispers in my ear, "Come, come to me.  You can have all you ever wanted in me.  Come, you can still be a good Christian here.  Just join a local church; be an active member.  Teach VBS.  Join the choir.  Lead a Sunday school class.  Those are good things, right?  Come on, you don't want to raise your children in some dangerous, foreign country.  You want them to have a nice home, a nice school district, nice toys.  No one will blame you. Come."  

 I keep plugging my ears, though, Jesus. 

"No," I respond, "No! I want Christ and His cross more than anything else! Yes, I want the cross!  I want to preach the Gospel of hope to the hopeless, of peace to the peaceless, of joy to the joyless!  I want to proclaim truth to those who seek it day and night!  I want Jesus!  For what do I have if gain the whole world, but lose my soul?"

Oh, God, I count the costs of each decision I could make and I remember the words of Mordecai spoken to Esther:

"Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.  For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish.  And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14)

God, I believe that You have called me to this life, born me into this family for such a time as this.  I must follow You.  The cost of going will be high, but the cost of staying would be infinitely higher.

I think back to the passage in Isaiah 6:5-8 in which Isaiah receives atonement for his sin.  He was healed, and though it hurt, it was glorious!  Then God called out for someone to go for Him.  Others needed to hear His message.  Others needed healing.  I feel that this is similar to my own situation.

The coal burned my lips, Lord.  It hurt.  But I am forgiven; my guilt is taken away, and it is glorious!  Therefore I must kneel before Your throne and answer Your call.  Here I am.  Send me.