Rain will come

I'm listening to the rain and watching it fall effortlessly to the ground outside my window when this small thought floats by...which is...... there is something about water that has a forgiving quality about it. I have always found water to be cleansing, healing, rejuvenating, and forgiving. When you are dirty you wash with water. When you are thirsty you drink and rejuvenate with water. There is something about water that has that healing aspect which says, 'here take this, start over and become new.' Now, I know some of you will not understand this, but a new life in Christ is the same. The God who opens the skies and pours out rain is the same God who heals. This love is still and will always be unfathomable and incomprehensible to me but God is in the healing business. We are His people and like the rain we can start over no matter how twisted the past may be. Letting God heal you is an active choice that only comes from deciding to leave the drought your in...realizing that all the pain and time spent was just a season. Rain will come, but will you let it?

Heart Break

This thought has been floating through my head lately and I must get it out there because I think its important. So here it goes........King David in the Bible has been known for being a man after God's own heart. Now this has always intrigued me simply because how can a human actually know and fathom the intricate makings of a Holy God? But then I realized something that I had missed before. Why is that when we hear something on the news that we don't like we simply turn it to another channel? Why is it that when we see someone on the side of the street, we try to act like we don't see them? Why is it that when someone is gossiping and degrading another we walk away and decide to not get involved? I believe that in order to be a woman or man after God's heart, is to look these things and situations with open eyes. We need to stop living life with closed eyes because God sees these things and hurts. And part of learning and becoming someone after God's own heart, is not trying to act like they are not there. It is your heart hurting for people who think its in their best interest to strap a bomb to their chest for the glory of their god. Its to cry out for those who can't help, feed, or shelter themselves. Why are we closing our eyes to these things? Seeing them and having your heart break is part of learning how to follow after God's own heart. So I challenge you to stop protecting your heart...let it be open and willing to break for the world.

Encouragement from a stranger

Yesterday I was reminded what simple encouragement can bring in your life. I was sitting at my desk at work...bored, when a lady who I had never seen before or talked to came up and started talking to me. This is my mind talking, "Oh it's gonna be one of those stories, where you nod and smile and make them feel comfortable-But I haven't really seen anybody all day, all I've been doing is sitting here, thinking about talking to someone or doing something-So maybe this is good" At the time I was filling out my never ending paper work to try to get in the program to China, when she walked up. So I was not very receptive in the fact that I wanted to finish at least the 3rd step out of a bazillion. Having said all this, this woman who I do not know starts sharing with me from her own life about how her daughter really wanted to do a particular career out of college but had to take a different road in the meantime because of the economy. She starts pouring her heart out right there at my desk about how God will always provide, maybe not how you saw it to be, but He will always open a door. I started to explain that I really want to teach, and she interrupts me to say, "He opened the door to the Cliffs, you walked through, now you wait till that next door is opened." As if that wasn't enough she continues to say, "You will teach someday, Don't give up, but in the meantime soak up life and learn from everything." I almost wanted to cry, because here I was bored at work-filling out paper work to teach in China, unsure if I even should be-and some lady I don't know speaks these words that seem so full of truth when I was completely not expecting it. So....I share this story to encourage you. I may be a stranger to you but hope can be found anywhere. Don't let the every day dulls of life slip by you as if they are not important. Yes, you may be somewhere where you never pictured yourself, but don't stop living.  Learn, and never stop learning. Take encouragement even if it is from random people who don't know you. Take hope in the fact that Christ has it all planned, just let Him be King. From the encouragements from someone random to another, Christ has seen this day for you and He knows what it holds.

'Lostness'

I think its funny how when you have lost something that you think is valuable to you, that's all you think about. You try to remember where you last saw it, or where you last put it down. You get easily reminded of it throughout the day by the simplest things.

Lately, I have been kinda obsessed with this idea of true knowledge. I think its hard to live in the culture and time that we live in because of the image and things expectant of us. We are expected to know, rush, and hurry through life. We are expected to achieve and obtain all the answers. But this is what I think....We search and scavenge for the answers for our entire life. We search for the answer to the meaning of life. We search for the answer to how to enjoy life, but we are missing something. We have all the answers, its the questions we are missing. If we had the questions, all the meaningless facts we know would  have some type of purpose. We go through school, with people telling us what to think and what is right....when are we going to think for ourselves? We have all the answers, start asking questions. We have lost that desire and feeling of losing something. Christ never meant life to be dull and for lack of a better word, lifeless. Christ lived a life of constantly pushing buttons, and asking questions. He took the world as everyone knew it and turned it upside down. Everyone thought they knew all the answers....but when Christ asked questions, those meaningless facts had no home. We have lost the sense of 'lostness'...that feeling of only thinking about that one thing and having it consume your minds. Turn your meaningless facts of what you know about life..into questions that will point you straight to the cross.

I have some questions I would like to ask...

I have some questions I would like to ask the world.....What God of yours has abandoned everything He knew to enter everything that seemed so foreign? What kind of God would become nothing so that I could have an intimate, real, life changing relationship with Him? Who would give up their Son, for a people who would reject, hate, and despise Him? How could you pour out your heart with endless love to someone who would continually let you down? How could you cherish and adore someone that would receive the love of another as if you weren't enough? How could you continue to forgive someone who makes false promises to you? What kind of God shows mercy and judgment with perfect proportions? The answer......my God! My God knows you, cares, loves, and adores you! Let Him be all the things, He is already.  Let God be all the names, people, emotions, and fears, you try to create to fill your life. He created that void for Himself...let Him fill it. Stop running from the answer.....He always was, and will always be the answer. 

Burn

I have always been intrigued by analogies and sayings that seem so oxymoron to the core that you have to sit and think about the actual meaning. I have found from my simple not very hermeneutical study of Christ, that people viewed Christ in many different ways. Most people view Christ as this meek, kind hearted, not gonna cause trouble kind of guy, and He wasn't that at all. Look at all the paintings that we have of Christ, He is portrayed most of the time as someone weak and fragile. When in essence, He is the God that opens the skies for rain to fall, who tells the oceans where to stop on the shoreline. My God has been called many names but one that I find fascinating is the desciption of Him, as a Consuming Fire. My mom was burned very badly by a fire accident when I was in middle school, so I do not have fond memories of fire. So when I hear that my God is a consuming fire, it seems like one of those oxymorons that doesn't seem right. When I think of fire, I think of total consummation. I think of something that envelops something so fast, and makes such an impact that the object in which it was consuming will never be the same. If we view God, in this way, should our lives not be different? Should we not look completely and totally enveloped by God, that others can no longer see us? I'm so tired of religion and rules.... I want relationships to happen. For those Christ followers, fires never pick and choose what they will burn, its all or nothing. You can't decide what your going to surrender and keep. Surrender everything, because we serve a jealous God, who wants to consume you. Let God transform you into what He wants....Don't be afraid to burn.

Complete

As most of you know.....my wonderful man and myself were going to get married this past August, but called it off.  Through it all I have learned some amazing things that I would have never learned if we had not went with this decision. God has been gracious enough to bless me and Jacob tremendously by letting us realize that we were not ready. I promised myself that I would not talk about this....but I am overflowing with lessons that I have learned from all this.  There are many people who can marry young, and be completely happy.....and not to say that Jacob and myself would not have been happy, but there was a small yet very large concept that I was missing.  I think this concept is so large and so over looked and troubles a lot of couples today. And here it is.....A spouse was never intended to complete the other, they were meant to compliment the other. Now, this may seem like a pretty understandable concept, but if you think about it who actually lives like that. Most people today, including myself were constantly looking for that person to fill the void. I think we get this fantasizing idea from the culture we live in. Most chick flicks today portray this idea that as women we need that man to complete us. The woman who does not find it will become a miserable old maid. Being a romantic myself, it is hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that the other person should not complete me. This was never their job, and yet when they fail at it we get angry and mad. We start comparing our relationships to Hollywood and other people, and ask well why aren't we happy? What has happened to us? We are not happy because God is the only completer and fulfiller. That other person's role is to compliment. We should not hold them to the standard that the Almighty is supposed to fill.....they will always fail. We can fake happiness all day long, and paste that smile on our faces to not make things uncomfortable....but the truth is we are only complete in Christ.  True happiness lies there, and until we realize this small yet very big concept, every relationship, maybe not at first, but eventually will end with tears.

Follow What?

Follow your heart.....is an expression that confuses me immensely.  What does that even mean? We have been brought up to make sound logical decisions and yet they throw in this phrase...Follow your heart.  What happens when your head and your heart are saying completely different things? And then to throw in another knot, what happens when God is saying something else that is completely different? There is the romantic part of me that says, yeah, just follow the emotional side of it.  Do not look at anything logical, just act.  Then there is the realistic part of me that sees everything for how it is, and makes sure there is numbers, statistics, and reasoning when deciding on something.  There has to be a happy middle, where the two meet? And I think that happy middle is what has already been destined for you.  God wants great and huge things in your life, and that can only happen when we find that happy middle which is found in the shade of the Father.  Let your head believe that the Creator of Heaven and Earth does have a logical plan specific to your life, and let your heart be comforted that it will be a beautiful story. So you don't need to follow anything but the Father.