Of little brothers and such

At times God brings people into your life that hold a special place in your heart.  I love when a friendship is created that is just a little different.

Brady is one of those friends.  At 16 (almost 17!), he is basically the little brother I never had.  I had the privilege of interning alongside him for a month in Costa Rica.  From the moment I met him, I knew there was never going to be a dull moment with him around. 
For four weeks we ate, worked, worshiped, prayed, played, talked, laughed, and lived life in the same place.  Countless hours spent in conversation, both in English and Spanish!
I remember the evening we were sitting on our intern director's couch...fighting. Fighting the way siblings fight.  I said something, he shoved me with his foot, I spilled my coffee, I yelled, he yelled.... all while laughing.  Or the many times he ate my food... because he was always eating.  Or walking to Wal-Mart and then back in the rain. 
But there were serious times too... the time I helped him brainstorm for his devotional, or talks about his girlfriend and the future, or even theology.
Brady is crazy.  There is simply no way around that fact.  But, amongst the joking, laughing, and odd comments, he is pretty cool.  He has a sensitive heart and is always eager to learn.  He dreams big, loves big, and lives big.  You are guaranteed to be laughing and smiling within five minutes of being around him.
I am so very grateful that God allowed our paths to cross.  I love the brother-sister (and at times mother-son) relationship we have.  I am blessed by his energy, encouragement, and endless amounts of jokes.  Thanks to him I now love country music.  And thanks to him I now say really weird things at times.
I miss spending time with this goof, I miss laughing till I cry, I miss getting frustrated at what he thinks sometimes, and I miss talking about God.
Brady, I am excited for what God has for your future and how He is going to minister to people through you.  Keep your eyes focused on running this "race" of life to glorify Jesus.  So excited to hang out on the 30th!
Ciao mae!

Faithfulness in the midst of doubt

God's faithfulness is something so big, so perfect, so contrary to this world, and so beautiful that often I am blown away by it.  Humbled by it.  Encouraged by it. 

I am ashamed at how often I doubt, only to be undeservingly swept away with countless reminders that God is indeed there and is still radically working despite my sin and skewed motives.  Sometimes I get so frustrated at my lack of trust.  Somehow I think I need to do something about my situation, and so I go about frantically trying to "make things right", or at least attempting to make things right.  Ah!  Why can't I just strive to live my life for Jesus and do things to please Him all while simply trusting.  Easier said than done isn't it!

God's faithfulness....
Webster's defines faithful as "steadfast in affection or allegiance".  It is pretty amazing that even though we constantly sin and make poor choices God remains the same in His love, forgivness, strength, and peace.  Unconditionally loving, protecting, forgiving, chastising.  Its beautiful.

My worry about finances, relationships, school, and life is unbelief and a lack of trust.  I am so thankful though that God is constantly reminding me that He is always faithful.


"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (Matthew 6:30-33 ESV)

Standing Alone with Jesus

There are times when I envision myself... small, tired, wounded and bleeding, scared... standing on a mountain top... alone.  There is a battle down below in the valley that I have just come from and ferocious animals hungrily roam the forest only inches from my feet.  The smells and sounds are horrid yet at times alluring in their mystery.  The darkness seems to almost penetrate my inmost being.  The weight of the darkness and my own fears press in, suffocating me... screaming for me to run.  Its cold.  My body aches in weariness.  I seem helpless, weaponless, completely and utterly spent.  Tears spill from my eyes as the pain of loneliness enters my soul.


Yet... there is a presence far bigger than the mountain, than the battle, than the intense darkness, than my deepest fears.  Jesus is with me. His presence calms the noises, practically blocking them out.  The darkness recedes back into the forest as a soft glow spreads... making my head lift with renewed energy.  Calmness, peace, joy and boldness come back.  The pain dissipates and my bloodied body parts become clean.  My loneliness vanishes.  My hand goes to my forgotten sword... as if remembering the battle at hand.
 

I look at my Jesus... He nods...this is a nod of "keep going, I am with you, this is My plan, do not doubt My perfection, fight the good fight, know that I will be right by your side at all times, and remember that My grace is sufficient for you".  Love radiates out from His eyes.  An adoring smile graces His beautiful face.  With gentle but firm hands He places me back on the path... back to the battle... back to pain, hurt, trials, and unknown challenges.  He is right there... I sense His presence surrounding me... and I am reminded that this is not the first time He has had to remind me.  Nor will it be the last.  I shake my head, ashamed that I had once again run in fear, once again felt alone, once again doubted.  I must have stopped moving as I thought about all this because I again feel a gentle tap on my shoulder.  I look up into the eyes of my Savior.  He shakes His head and points ahead... graciously letting me know that I am once again forgiven.  Instead of fearing the animals and hidden enemies, I bound back to the scene of the battle... knowing that my God is big enough, strong enough, and perfect enough to place all my trust in.  My life is His.
To God be all the glory.

God's Testimony - my story of God

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” Philippians 3:8-9

My life? Perfection, a checklist, everything lined up just so. But that was only on the outside. On the inside I was miserable, scared, a searching wreck who was…lost.

This is not my story, rather it is God’s story and how He has worked and is working in me.

I grew up in a Christian home with Christian parents, surrounded by Christian friends, and attended a solid Christian church. I went to Sunday school and knew all the Sunday school answers, took notes on the sermons in church, read Christian biographies, went on missions trips, went to a missionary kids school for year, and my life lined up according to the perfect checklist I had made of what a Christian should look like. I had “religion” down perfectly. I prayed “the prayer” when I was 3 and that was it. It had to be it. I had to be saved. But I was a living and breathing façade of what a Christian truly is. I desired to live in my sin and look saved more than I desired to be in a relationship with Jesus. My heart was dirty and I only desired to live for myself. The reality was, I was going to hell and I knew it.

For years, every night as I would fall asleep I would ask God to “save me” just in case I wasn’t saved, that way if I died in my sleep I wouldn’t go to hell. God was my ticket out of hell and misery… and my way of looking good so that everyone around me thought I was great. As the years wore on, the panic every night only increased as I continued to live a lie.

Finally, one night right before my 13th birthday I could bear the misery no more. God had brought me to my knees and completely turned my world upside down. It was a night of intense spiritual battling. For hours I cried with my mom and lamented that I wasn’t saved, yet I really couldn’t fully admit that because it hurt my pride to say I had lived a fake 10 year relationship with God. My pride was holding me back, but Jesus was and is stronger than pride.

Morning was fast approaching when Jesus broke through my disgusting walls of pride and self-love and I surrendered my life, will, future, and being to His lordship. Crazy peace washed over me. Joy entered my life. I was now a child of God and I wanted to do His will. I feared death no longer and life had purpose!

This is not the end of God’s story in my life, because He is always moving, growing, loving, and rebuking. He saved me at age 13 and called me His child and gave me eternal life, but my world continued to be rocked in many ways….

The next year I entered high school and my new obsession became grades. I had never done any real sports, so I decided to counter that with school, and so my grades became my identity. I lived, breathed and dreamed school. Pathetic? Yes! A couple years later I started Running Start at Whatcom, continuing on with an identity being found in my GPA. After a year of a one-track mindset I received my first “bad” grade. Sadly, it devastated me. Although my identity was shattered, God’s hand was in all of this though and His plan was truly perfect as He began breaking me of my sinful and purposeless identities.

I graduated high school and prepared for Western and as I picked up the pieces of my life a new identity rose to the surface. At the time, I liked this one boy and from what I could see, he liked me. My life had started to evolve around him and doing things to please him and make him like me. He had become my idol and my new identity. Then one day he said he wanted to date me and that I was perfect, the next he told me he couldn’t because he didn’t like how I looked, and the third day he said he never want to date me. My life and identity crumbled once again. Who was I? Was I loved? Was God there? I began questioning God’s perfection and plan for my life. I dared to wonder if God had made a mistake. As Bill Clem says in his book Disciple, “The minute you try to manage God, juggling Him with anything else as a priority, you have ceased to recognize His weightiness and His excellence.” I had ceased to see how big my God was because my priorities had become twisted – putting man as most important and Jesus as less than. I had placed my identity in someone else, and they had failed me.

I started Western as a music student, and was once again surrounded by the world telling me who I was and who I had to be. My environment wanted me to think only of myself, to rise to the top, to compete and to win. God says: “live for Me, do all things for Me, tell other about Me, be humble, and be in the world and not of it”. Those two ways of life are complete opposites of one another and were vying for my life. Once again God wasn’t and isn’t finished with me.

During the past few years at Western I have had a constant struggle between placing my identity in Jesus and who I am because of the cross and salvation, and placing my identity in who I am as a musician, as a student and how much I can do and be involved in. I have struggled with living merely a religion versus living Jesus and His Gospel. Because I am a child of God, He does not love me more or less because of what I do. But because of this great and unimaginable love full of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and conviction of sin, I should be motivated to live a life that glorifies my Savior and that is a vibrant testimony of His greatness. God has gently (and not so gently at times) showed the many things or people that I want to place my identity in instead of Him. It has often taken failure, injury, great pain, and confusion for me to be reminded of this, the end result is always worth it though.

This past year, God has been teaching me to beauty of His Gospel and its power to change lives. He has shown me the importance of authentic Christian community and how fellow brother and sisters can encourage, comfort, and point out sin. He is giving me a greater desire for His Word and boldness to proclaim who He is to people around me. I have learned even more that being a Christian is only the result of God’s grace and His sacrifice for me on the cross. He died and paid the penalty of my sin, of your sin, of the whole world, so that that we could spend eternity with Him. Belonging to Him is so much more than eternal life: it means purpose because you live to bring Him glory, it means joy because you belong to Him, it means forgiveness because He forgave you, it means hatred of sin because He is perfect, it means love because He first loved us, it means boldness to tell others about Him because you cannot keep what He has done inside. I know He is not finished with me though and I look forward to what is to come. Just as gold is not purified until it has been through extreme heat, I also must go through trials and pain, happiness and joy so that I may constantly be reminded of who God is. Romans 7:18 says: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

The prayer for my life and for my fellow brothers and sisters is best summed up in Hebrews 12 and Acts 20: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.”, “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”

To God be the glory.