Rebel With a Cause

I’ve been absent from the blogging world for a good while, and while multiple people have come to me lately asking why, or when I’d write again, I struggled to sift through my laundry list of reasons and excuses to give a satisfying, even Godly rationale for where I’ve been.

It’s been the most incredible and incredibly challenging semester I’ve had in years. After a tumultuous 9 days in Africa, I was ill-prepared for everything that was about to happen to me back at home.

Somewhere throughout the years of friends graduating, getting married, getting real jobs in other cities, I didn’t realize nearly every close female friend I’d made throughout college was gone. Save a precious handful. I was in a new neighborhood, a new apartment, with a new roommate, a new job, a new group of girls to lead, a new Bible study, and a new church.

And because I’m an over-analytic girl studying to be even more analytical, I have my personality down to a tee. I’m an odd combination of an independent extrovert. I love large groups and absolutely cannot stand an empty apartment. I derive energy from others and am absolutely crippled from productivity when I’m by myself. At the same time, I rarely like to be bothered. I like my door shut. I like my mouth shut. For the most part I want to keep my thoughts to myself, I just like observing and listening. That invigorates me, trying to stir up conversation with new friends, or being in new environment drains me beyond belief, and culminates in near-daily tension migraines.

So, I’ve been busy adjusting.

Busy feeling like a failure.

Busy becoming aware of my glaring sin.

Busy trying to be more like Christ.

Busy trying to understand how to give myself, and those around me, grace.

And busy falling in love.

God is so good, and despite the trying semester of newness I’ve had, he granted me one constant to help me through every twist, turn, and dark alley. In the last 2.5 years my feelings for Tom are the only thing that never changed. He’s been the most incredible stronghold for me to lean on through every headache, literal or not. He’s shown me steadfast love and has supported me through every doubt and fear, and encouraged me to believe truth over all the enemy’s lies. He loves me just the way I am and too much to stay that way. He shows me grace, and yet he isn’t afraid to push me out of my comfort zone and introduce me to more new people, experiences, and feelings. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Tom can’t be put into words, and yet as I tried, I loved that the words I used to characterize Tom quickly reminded me of words in scripture used to characterize God.

“My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior.” 2 Samuel 22:33

“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” Psalm 118:1

I love Jesus, and Tom’s the closest man I’ve found to him. Hence therefore, I love Tom. :) He’s the perfect example of confident humility. Confident enough to lead, and humble enough to get mad at me for saying he’s anywhere close to Jesus.



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I could chalk up my lack of blogging to any one of those excuses about how busy I’ve been. They’re all true. But if I’m being completely honest, I’ve been far busier doing other things.

I was busy rebelling.

Busy performing.

Busy acting.

Busy brushing God aside and attempting to reach perfection and lead others to perfection all by myself.

Attempting to fix all the flaws in my own life takes an incredible amount of time, energy, shame, and guilt. Quite the price to pay for something that was already bought for me. But I’ve never been good at excepting gifts.

The funny thing is, most of my seemingly innate talents seemed to fly out the window once I showed God the door. A true sign all my talents are manifested from God and a gift from the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit wasn’t present, neither were they.

Instead of returning to Him, this caused me to fight harder and rebel further. Throughout the semester I’ve fallen in love with this chapter from Isaiah. I couldn’t understand why. I loved the way it sounded, but couldn’t figure out how Israel’s rebellion applied to my life. I gave up writing about God in blogs so I could write my own life. I was the rebel.

“For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord; who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path,let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.” Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling, and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift. A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”Isaiah 30:9-18

I’ve been aware that God has been showing me things and teaching me things all semester. But I didn’t want to see. I wasn’t ready to deal with everything. I wanted to continue to hear “smooth” things, or loosely translated, I wanted to continue to hear what I wanted to hear.

There was a day in my kitchen I remember halfheartedly wrestling with God in all the newness of the semester, I read this part of Isaiah 30 and knew it was significant, but became too busy putting away dishes to ask God what it all meant. I dried our large glass bowl and set it on the shelf, and before I knew what was happening, it had toppled over and shattered into literally hundreds of tiny shards.

I immediately thought of the verse and was awestruck that as shattered and broken as that bowl was, God says when we rebel we will be smashed so fiercely not a shard will be found.

We are sinful by nature. As comfortable as the old is, we must be made new. We’re all cracked pots who spend our lives attempting to fill ourselves up rather than choosing to drink from the living water that never runs dry. We are broken by nature, the difference is, God sets us free by breaking us the rest of the way, and he does it in a way that leaves no messy pieces. When the devil breaks us down, he leaves broken glass everywhere, sure to injure anyone who encounters us.

And even after this eye-opening episode I didn’t return and rest in quietness. I ran. I fled on horses. Yet the faster I ran, the faster my pursuers ran (Isaiah 30:16).

So I pitied myself and complained to all those around me who would listen. I felt attacked, and victimized and wondered why God had seemed to abandon me. I failed to see my own cause.

Then I stumbled upon this verse:


“You have seen the wrong done to me, judge my cause.” Lamentations 3:59

Praise God that He waits to be gracious to us! In all my impatient rants and expectations and planning over the semester, I imagine God sitting on His thrown with a wry, loving smile, waiting to be gracious to me. No matter how rebellious I’ve been, or for how long.

In my journey to imitate Christ I focused more on attaining perfection than seeking to be like He who is already perfect, and died on the cross to grant me undeserved grace, which covers my imperfection.

At least I did have one thing right. I rebelled. Jesus was a rebel, too, but without a cause.

Beautiful Disaster

Africa was not at all what I expected. As a result of a national election that was rumored to end in country-wide violence my month-long trek across the globe was cut into a brief 9-day stint. However, God being God, He accomplished everything I could have hoped for and more in my short time in Kenya. After over a week of living in near constant terror as the U.S. embassy continued to urge us to leave the country, it wasn’t until I landed safely home in Indiana that the trip went from incredibly frightening to just plain incredible.

I’ve read books, watched movies, and thought I did my leg-work, but I can now confidently say that you do not know or understand Africa or third-world countries until you’ve been to one. Still, I will do my best to give you just a glimpse of what’s out there.

After 27 hours of traveling I arrived at Nairobi International Airport with no luggage (it was lost en route), and was dropped off at 3am to a house guarded by armed men and a high gate wall lined with barbed wire fence, loudly yelling to me that I was not in Kansas anymore.

In my time in Africa I watched elephant orphans play soccer and feed themselves with the world’s largest baby bottles, was kissed by a giraffe, had monkeys scurry around my shoulders, held crocodiles, and touched ostrich eggs. I also saw fellow volunteers come home from a day in the slums with nothing after being mugged at gunpoint in broad daylight. I spent the first few nights getting little sleep and eating even less as I adjusted to the brutal altitude thickly laced with cheap diesel fumes. Another volunteer threw up gasoline after her first three days.

A few days in we were told we would not be able to go to our orphanage placements until further notice as a constitutional referendum was being voted on and was threatening to start Kenya’s first civil war. The last election, in 2007, led to two months of violence that took the lives of over 1,100 people. The country, and particularly the tourists, waited with bated breath expecting a similar outcome. Thank goodness no such thing happened this time. We scraped by with only one bombing, two riots, and enough murders to scare us American volunteers home, but not enough to make headlines. It became very clear here that death and violent killings are quite common here, and three conversations with grieving Kenyans later, I understood why God brought me and my future counseling license here to Nairobi.

Kenya is so different then America. It was heart-breaking to walk the streets filled with trash, feces, wild animals, and displaced people with nothing to do but walk. Nairobi was not easy on any of your senses.

I wanted to cry when I saw that my orphanage placement was nothing but sheet metal nailed together. These children had nothing. The orphanage was just sheet metal nailed together to make tiny 8x8 light-less shacks. The rooms had 2x4’s nailed together to make desks. For food, the boys milked goats they owned and made eggs from their pen of chickens. Every day, that was it. They didn’t have water some days, and had lunch less often. All they did all day was play soccer and do chores.

The children wore clothes more dirty and tattered than I ever could have imagined. They had holes in their shoes, and multiple adolescent boys wore women’s dresses or heels because it was all they had. Three-year-old's had rotting teeth from unclean water. Still, the orphans experienced more noticeable joy by holding our hands or being picked up and spun around by us than most Americans would experience if we were given a brand new car. We spent a few days repairing and painting desks for the children’s schools, and they thought I was magical when I mixed red and blue paint to make purple, something even the orphanage owner didn’t know was possible. When I gave the girls the simple and cheap gospel beads we hand out at Christmas Conference, they treated them like precious pearls and couldn’t believe I was willing to give away such gems.

The only place in Nairobi harder on my emotions than the orphanage was the world’s second largest slum, Kiber. Here, thousands of displaced people live on top of 10-20ft piles of trash. It looked like people literally set up camp on top of a landfill. Pigs and rats roamed around their little 4x4 shacks which held countless people dying of AIDS, cast out of the city like lepers.

I was struggling to survive my accommodations, and compared to most of the rest of the country, we lived like kings and queens. In my mind, I lived for nine long and miserable days fearing for my health and sometimes life, and my lot is nothing compared to these people. I complained about not having indoor plumbing and toilet paper, I couldn’t stand not showering, and I never got used to seeing cockroaches constantly roaming around our floor and walls.

Thankfully, while I missed every worldly comfort America has to offer; hot showers, clean water, cold drinks, good food, and friends, I had the Lord, and that was all that mattered. I asked to be pruned of everything I rely on before the Lord so that He was all I had… and boy did He deliver. Verses from Isaiah and near constant prayer were the only things that gave me peace and helped me to feel safe. That and my assurance of salvation gave me hope, knowing that if it was God’s time for me I knew where I was going.

And, because my thoughts and words are failing to adequately express what I want to, I’ll leave it to another’s words. Beth Moore’s daughter wrote this upon returning home from a week in Calcutta, India.

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“Oh, what a deep imprint [the children] have made on this heart of mine. And not just them, but all the people, so deeply loved by God, in Calcutta and India at large who must fight for their survival each and every day. I could never have prepared myself for all that I saw last week. For example, during one of my visits to a devastating slum, a half-clothed, poverty-stricken crippled man with his back hunched over at a ninety-degree angle limped slowly over to me. He had purchased a coconut for me with whatever small amount of money he did have and then proceeded to slice the top open for me to drink so that I could be protected from the heat. And mind you, I was the one going back to the air-conditioned hotel. Not him. What was I supposed to do with that? And that is just one of about several hundred stories I could tell.

Because we each had experiences like this and because I’m sure our eyes were about to glaze over, the leaders of our group called for a debriefing in lieu of a corporate lobotomy. During this debriefing they gave us a safe place to talk about what some of us were feeling and thinking. It was great, but we really needed another entire week to hash it all out. I’ll never forget the [question one leader posed] before we left the debriefing.

‘Now what will you do?’ He continued by saying, ‘You’ve spend your words lavishly on sharing your stories; now it’s time to spend your lives.’ Talk about messing me up. And so it was to this tune that our reentry began.

Have you ever seen The Return of the King? Do you remember the last scene when Frodo unexpectedly boards the ship to sail to the Grey Havens? Throughout their life-threatening journey to Mordor, Frodo and Sam kept dreaming about such things like the taste of the strawberries on the Shire, but when Frodo actually does get back to the Shire, for some reason, it is like he can’t fully enjoy the normal comforts that the Shire has to offer. I’ve always speculated about why exactly Frodo has to sail to the Grey Havens. I think that Frodo has just been through too much. His scars run too deep. After years of being back at the Shire they still haven’t healed. In the movie he asks the rhetorical questions: ‘How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back?’ And then he explains, ‘There are some things time cannot mend. Some hurts go too deep… that have taken hold.’

But I’m not a hobbit. And this is real life.

I don’t get to sail off and escape from the white shores into a far green country under a swift sunrise with Gandalf.

Ironically, my life just happens to be deep in the heart of excessive American culture. And I’d be lying to you if I said I don’t enjoy it. The honest truth is that I know myself. I know that normal life will quickly pick back up and the temptation will be to forget all I have seen. To move forward without any change. While others around me may wish for me to hurry up and acclimate to normal life again, my fear is that I will too quickly move ahead. That I will forget all I have seen, heard, touched, smelled, and felt.

I know myself. I’m just an all-American twenty-six-year-old girl, consumed with comfort, security, vanity, wealth, and materialism like the ‘best’ of them. In light of who I know I am, I feel compelled to ask that the Lord would perform a miracle on my behalf—that He would keep the emotional wounds that were carved during the past few weeks from healing. Now I know you may think I’m a bit morbid, eccentric, or even just plain weird. But that’s okay, because I’ve been called for worse, I’m sure of it. So this is my prayer today: that the time won’t have its typical way with me. That the sharp edge of the sting I feel deep in my soul won’t ever be dulled or alleviated.”

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And, scripture, because God says it better than both of us:

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

They you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. -Isaiah 58:6-11

Jambo!

Ever since I can remember I've dreamed of going to Africa. It's where my heart has always been. I love preaching the gospel through words and just the way I live my life, but there is perhaps no greater way I enjoy showing God's love than serving. I love getting my hands dirty, doing manual labor for those who need it.

In a little over a day, my dream comes true. Friday at 3:30pm I'll be boarding a plane (well, one of many) that will eventually take me to Nairobi, Kenya. There I will spend a little over three weeks working at an orphanage, loving on Africa's unlovable. We work at the orphanage Monday-Friday, 8-4, cooking and cleaning, but you can stay until 6 to spend quality time with the kids. Weekends are the volunteers time off to travel or do as they please, however you are able to come in Saturdays and do Bible studies in the slums.

A lot of people have asked if I'll visit Tanzania and see Mt. Kilimanjaro, or if I'll go on any safaris. It's not that these aren't great opportunities, but they're not why I'm going. My main ministry and focus is the children. If I can stay late and come in Saturdays to see them, I will. At the same time, I do have great opportunities with fellow volunteers and my host family. It is my prayer to call upon the Spirit and seek the Lord in how to wisely spend my short time overseas.

My heart for this particular trip can not be better described than anyone but my old brother James, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit the orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." 1:27

Can I get an amen!?

Most of the children I'll be working with (babies up through age 17) who have lost their parents as a result of AIDS. They are orphans by African standards, but they do have a loving Father I plan to tell them about daily.

When I was writing my first support letters I focused on only the beginning of this verse, completely over-looking what is now one of my favorite commands, "to keep oneself unstained from the world."

I am going to Africa to serve, but I have quickly realized that God may do more work in me than I do in the hearts and minds of the orphans I'll be spending time with.

I'm using this month in Africa as an incredible season to seek the Lord with as few worldly distractions as possible. Where I'm going there is no electricity and no running water. I could not be more excited! The best week of my life was spent without either.

Everything I have here that I choose to rely on before God I will not have there. So often I hide behind make-up, hair-care products, cute clothes, food, music, my cell phone, facebook, running, and yes, even ministry. I will have none of those things. While I'm excited to stand openly before the Lord, I know it will be difficult (to say the least). And, I would not be surprised if I find other things to still place before Him.

Beyond all of that, I'm also excited in how God will use this trip in preparing me to one day be a wife and mother. I was reading a book a few months back that had one of the best explanations for how to live as a single Christian I've ever read. In this author's view, singleness is not a time to sit and wallow and wait, feeling like a second-class citizen. Being single is the time you prepare for marriage. Why not work to get the sin issues in your life under control now? Why not learn to cook and clean and teach children? Or, as a man, why not spend that time learning how to be a Godly man, to lead others, to be financially independent? Being single is a time to prepare.

Which reminds me of Christ’s birth. It was the preparation of nerve endings for nails. It was the preparation of a brow for a crown of thorns. Jesus needed a broad back so the whip could tear His flesh. He needed feet so that there was a place for spikes. He needed a side so that there was a place for the spear. He needed a brain and a spinal column, so that the fullness of the pain could be fully felt. Preparation is a beautiful, necessary thing.

While it may be years and years in the future, I want to have prepared well for my future husband so when we do finally meet (God-willing), I can spend my time working with Him for the Kingdom, rather than scrambling to try and balance all of my new duties while still dealing with sins I could have confronted years before. Besides, marriage will bring out plenty more to encounter. I can almost see my time at the orphanage as a sort of short, intensive future wife/mother boot camp. So awesome!

That is my excitement for going, but there is also fear. I've never traveled alone overseas. Particularly to a relatively unstable central African nation. Nairobi is one of the most violent cities in the world, and the fact that I am both American and white make me an even larger target. Between that, infectious diseases, and over twenty hours of plane travel, I have moments of weakness and doubt. And for these doubts and worries I ask for your prayers.

Tutaonana. (so long).

Men Like Trees

My relationship with Christian brothers and how I see them, interact with them, and love them has changed drastically over the years.

I spent most of my life as the athletic tom-boy who is just "one of the guys." I would hang out with any guy, or group of guys, that asked, at any hour of the day or night. But things began to radically change the more I asked the Holy Spirit into my life.

For the most part, I believe my heart in re-defining and refining my male friendships was pure. But this spring I was challenged on that point.

I remember like it was last night, one of my beloved Bible study leaders stood outside with me after a study where I had shared an abundance about my past. She lovingly hugged me and affirmed that I'd been through a lot. I remember her telling me how some people are just called to suffer so many injustices and that it just never seemed to make sense. She encouraged me by pointing out that I took blame for my own sin in my story, never down-playing the consequences that were justified by my disobedience, but so much of the pain in my life was unjustified. So, she sat and prayed with me that I would experience greener pastures.

I over-analyze everything, so in pride I'm often shocked when someone points out something in my life I hadn't already thought about. So thank the Lord Deb is such a wise woman. She pointed out that my deepest wounds and pain all came from men, and out of loving concern she told me to be careful to not grow embittered towards men, as she'd seen it happen from other women with stories like mine.

I was dumb-founded by her observation. I had always loved being around men, it never occurred to me that I could grow to dislike or distrust even Godly men. Because of this I wanted to brush off what she said, but I so respect her wisdom that I spent the night chewing on what she said.

And boy, was she right. This last spring semester I had thrown myself head-first into ministry with the women I led in Bible study and discipled. I thought this was a great thing. It was their last semester here after leading them for years, so I convinced myself that I was making them a priority and justified my semester-long shunning of anything with a Y-chromosome.

Surrounding yourself with same-sex friends is one thing, a good thing. But getting angry when men are around is a whole other thing. For months I put absolutely no effort into sustaining my friendships with any of them. And I was in complete denial. I wasn't doing this for the benefit of their hearts or mine, I was acting in fear. Men to me represented pain, and if there were no men in my life, I couldn't get hurt.

I immediately took this realization to the Lord, repenting of my anger and mistrust of His sons, but not entirely ready to give it up.

But, boy did my ever-faithful Papa deliver. Within days He brought more amazing men into my life than I could ever ask for. Thankfully, these weren't romantic suitors either, as that wasn't what I needed, they were completely and 100% friends. They brought me cookies and cupcakes and polar pops after my car accident, they encouraged me to be a better woman of God, they trusted me and asked my counsel on things. They loved me in a way I'd never been loved by men and they did it through the context of completely and wonderfully pure friendships.

I fell in love with men this summer. Not romantically, but I spent the last two years loving women and female fellowship (which I still adore). But, this summer, God gave me a heart for men. He helped me to understand them, to love them in our differences, and most importantly, to respect them.

Then, as I so often do, I took an amazing gift from God and turned it into an idol. Today God used some scripture, and a few great words from Beth Moore to open my eyes and allow me to see men as He wants me to. As just that, men.

Now, this is a confusing verse, and I'm not sure Beth's interpretation is how most would take it, but it worked for me today. Which I suppose is one of the great mysteries of God's Word, that He reserves the right to retain His mystery. (And, if you have a different interpretation, please share! I love hearing others thoughts).

"Jesus came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything. And he looked up and said, "I see men like trees, walking." Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly." Mark 8:22-25

What struck Beth odd, and now strikes me odd as well, is that there was a partial healing here. In every other Gospel story, and really in almost all of scripture I'd argue, when there was a physical healing it was a full healing. The person, blind, paralytic, dead, demon-possessed, whatever the case, they came out from Jesus' healing hand completely restored.

Not here.

"I see men like trees, walking."

His sight wasn't fully restored, he could make out men, but not clearly. His vision wasn't fully healed.

"He put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly."

Now, I tend to believe Jesus could have healed this man the first time, which means God was showing us something else here.

Here's Beth's interpretation. This man's first view of the world is the way we can sometimes see the world. Our view is distorted, and as a result of our flesh and emotions, we "see men like trees, walking." They're not peers, not fellow humans. Our female eyes build tall pillars to place most men on top of. This is not to say that our brothers are not amazing men, who are fearfully and wonderfully made. Nor is it to say they don't deserve love or respect.

The problem comes when we as women stop seeing them as fellow sinners with imperfections. The problem is when we see them as infallible gods who can do no wrong, and then we place all our hopes and dreams on them instead of the Lord. When we do this, we kill our beloved brothers with unfair expectations, and we run to the Lord with broken hearts wondering why these men couldn't save us. Amazing men, who are already wrought with their own insecurities, self-doubts, weaknesses, and fears of failure, feel this weight even stronger when we see them as nothing more than strong, towering, mighty, muscular trees.

If women hang their hopes on women, or vice-versa, they're not seeing clearly.

I love what Beth's daughter says about her husband. "I am so blessed. He only gains my respect as time goes on. I've seen him grow like crazy, but it also occurs to me that the devil doesn't want to trip up any man on earth more than a man like him. He's a great guy, but he's just flesh and blood just like the rest of us. God has taught me not to put any confidence in the flesh." Here, she's not speaking ill of her husband, she sees him as a wonderful man, worthy of respect, but she refuses to see him as an invincible tree, walking.

Luckily, when our vision is blurry and we fail to see things through God's eyes, He fully restores us by having us look up.

Perhaps I am the blind man (woman) in Mark's gospel. "He asked [her] if [she] saw anything. And [she] looked up and said, 'I see men like trees, walking.' Then He put His hands on [her] eyes again and made [her] look up."

It is my prayer that when my vision is blurry and selfish, that I will not fight God's hand, gently lifting my chin heavenward, to gaze upon Him and His glory. I pray to see men as men, no longer like trees. I pray I will not minimize them, feminize them, or idolize them, but rather I will pray for them, walk next to them, respect them, and intercede for them as brothers who need the Lord as desperately as I do. I've seen men as both gods and devils, but now I pray I see them as men with God-given wisdom, and feet of clay. And I pray for restored vision, and that God will continue to prune me and remind me that, ironically, we see things more clearly when we're looking up.

The Hook and the Bait

A few days ago I went running on one of my favorite paths in Bloomington. I adore it. It's so close to another more well-known path that this little trail seems almost forgotten. I love forgotten things, and taking the road less traveled. I greatly enjoy trying to bring the dead back to life, and to create paths where there wasn't one before. The ground on this trail is exceedingly narrow, overgrown with plants, and devoid of runners to trample the path back into submission. There are also a few exceedingly old bridges (probably my favorite part) that seem to barely hold your weight as you trek across them. Aesthetically, the path is absolutely breath-taking.

The problem is, this path is dangerous. On my first run here I fell in love with this quaint trail. Less than a few hundred feet in I looked down and saw a snake literally slithering alongside my feet. Rather than jumping in fear, I was surprisingly mesmerized by the snake and found it rather incredible that I could be so think in the brush and backwoods of Bloomington that I could run with snakes. I immediately was sold in coming back here for future runs.

The second time I ran down this path, I can't even explain on this blog the sad sight my eyes stumbled upon. It was sketchy and disturbing, and still I went back.

The third time I ran there I was chased down and attacked by a ferocious dog. And I'm not referring to a barking dog just warning me away from his home. I'm talking about a wild beast biting at my legs and feet, as we both dead-sprinted for at least 200 meters before he retreated and I nearly fell over in exhaustion. It took a while to get over this fear, but in the end, I went back in stubborn disobedience, even when loved one's encouraged me not to.

A few days ago I ran down this path again and I was attacked before I even made it to the trails entrance. I was chased down by a duck. Yes, you read that right, a duck... Before you laugh too hard, they get a little scary when they flap their wings at you, squawk, bite at your legs. Still, I ran on, heart racing, nervously laughing at the absurdity of what had just happened.

As I ran down the trail to it's end and back I ran past more than one sketchy-looking men, just sauntering around back there. Why in the world these men (who were not in running clothes) were back here I have no idea, but it was enough to make a girl's heart jump through her chest, and cause her to check behind herself while running multiple times to confirm no one was following her.

Upon exiting the path and taking off on safer roads for home, I realized that as beautiful as this path was, it always left me wrought with fear. A fear that held me captive and had become so strong that it robbed the beauty of this path from it's formerly serene landscape. And I couldn't help but imagine how similarly sin poisons are lives.

Some of the sin we engage in does open our eyes to beautiful things, but sin is still dangerous and not without consequence or fear. Satan tempts us through beauty and reals us in by literally slithering at our feet, charming us with his own beauty and mystery. And the problem is, once we are deceived and experience sin we often find ourselves wanting more.

Despite all the tell-tale warning signs we run on. For a while we press on in in naive ignorance. Then, we're so drawn to sin that nothing can stop us. Not spiritual attacks, not Godly counsel. We become stubborn, self-sufficient, and disobedient. It takes a while before fear sets in, but eventually, it takes over.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." 1 John 4:18

The only fear we should have is fear of the Lord.

I have decided that I will never run down that path again. No matter how much I try to justify it. It's not worth the risk. I realized this last night as I sat with a dear friend for three hours talking over and crying through the sin in her life. Sometimes we have to take radical steps to avoid sin.

Pastor Mark Driscoll gave a sermon on this very idea that completely changed the way I look at temptation.

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"Most of you don’t believe this: escape is always possible. What happens is, for some of us, the hook has been there so long that it’s like, “I can’t ever get free of it. I used to eat all the bait. Now, I eat some of the bait. I used to eat the bait every week, now I only eat the bait once a month.”

Or, “I eat the bait, but it’s my dad’s fault, he ate the bait too and it’s a habitual family issue. My counselor says it’s a genetic issue. I come from a long line of people who are addicted to this particular bait. I can’t really stop.” So, I need to blame someone else, manage it, and hide it. “Oh, I’ll just go over here in the dark all by myself and I’ll eat my bait and I’ll put the hook in my mouth. But, if I do it privately, it won’t count.” God’s there too.

See, some of you would take the bait and you’ll put it, you’ll walk so close to it. Like, “Oh my goodness, look at that. That’s amazing. I would like to eat that, smoke that, drink that, get my hands on that, do that twice.” God would say, “Hey, there’s a door over here that’s open and you could walk out it and be free.” “I don’t see any door.” “Really? Well, there is one right over there.” “Yeah, this is so big and so real and so awesome and so close.” God would say, “Do you see the hook?” “No, I don’t see the hook. I see some pretty amazing bait.”

The truth is you have two choices: the hook or the door. You either bite the hook or run out the door. Those are your only options. I’ll give you a verse, so that I can win: 1 Corinthians 10:13–14, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.” Don’t worship anything or anyone other than God.

What he’s saying is this. When temptation comes, keep your senses. Look for the way out. There is a door of escape somewhere. There’s a way out of it. Some of you have said for so long, “Well, I’m already dating them. I’m already at the club. I’ve already logged onto the internet. I already started this conversation, you know. I’m already halfway there.” Run. Run out the door of opportunity that God gives.

You have two choices, friends, the hook or the door. You bite the hook or run out the door. Your whole life, it utterly depends on the decisions you make in those moments. There’s always a way out. You and I, we love to always be the victim. “I couldn’t help it. It was not my fault, my friends blank, my life blank, this blank, God that.” No way. The door was open and your eyes were closed. Repentance is believing that. Some of you need to go back over your life history and some of the major traumatic decisions you made and say, “Holy Spirit, show me where the door was open so that I can repent of having my eyes closed. And please help me to keep my eyes open. And please help me to keep my feet moving.”

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Sometimes we can't step foot inside a room because we'll lose sight of the door of escape God provides us. I now understand the weight of temptation and sin, and would rather avoid the path, then fearfully hope I'll make it out unscathed.

God has another path for me that is just as beautiful as the first path, but will be even more beautiful because I will run down it free from fear.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

More Like Falling in Love

"Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation... The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord!" Psalm 146:1-3, 10

I love that the first and last phrase of this psalm of David is the same. "Praise the Lord!" Great chapter to read!

If you're an avid reader of my blog (which may just be God), you know that this summer has been one of incredible fruit in my life. Never have I grown in this way, felt so blessed, and praised God so much. It feels like I'm falling in love. It's a summer of love for sure.

Anyway, despite my own growth, I've found perhaps deeper satisfaction in joy in seeing the women around me grow. God is working miracles in a few women close to me and it's been the greatest blessing ever to get to be one small instrument in God's plan for their lives.

This week in particular I've come home after a few conversations with various girls and I've literally walked into my room absolutely beaming, shut the door, and just tilted my head back, hands in the air, shouting, "Praise God! Praise God!"

The same thing, literally, happened tonight, for maybe the third time this week, when it hit me. Why am I saying, "Praise God" and not "praise You?" I'm all alone. I'm not talking to anyone else. I'm treating God as if He's an omniscient being that I can't talk to. I just have to talk about Him, in the third person.

The beautiful thing is that I have a relationship with the Lord and I can talk to Him. When I am literally overcome with praise I can personally offer that praise to the creator of the universe.

It's nothing big, just a simple conviction I had tonight that I've been up too late thinking about. Through an outreach this weekend I spent 2 hours sharing with one woman what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus, making parallels and answering questions about this concept and our relationships with people... and then I don't apply it to my own life.

Why talk about God to an empty room, when I can talk to God in His presence?

And, to share. This song has been on the radio lately and I just love it. It's a little cheesier than I usually like, but the message is good and reminds me of some of what I've been learning about lately in what a relationship with God really looks like. Enjoy.

The Least

I was at a wedding a couple weeks ago and have not been able to get the Maid of Honor's speech out of my head.

Unlike most single women, weddings don't make me sad or wish that I was married. Quite the opposite. Weddings are sobering to me, and seeing the love and commitment the two people are making before the world and before God reminds me just how far I am from that. I can't fathom that kind of love or commitment to any man but Jesus.

At this wedding (the 5th of 7 this summer), I decided to picture it all a little differently. I praise God for the union of Jenny and Brett, but I viewed the whole ceremony as a glimpse of Jesus and his Bride the church.

Here's the line in her speech that hit me. "I know this day is a romantic day full of your love for one another, and I can see that you're both beaming with it. But, it is my prayer that you look back on today as the day you loved each other the least."

Holy Cow! This is an amazing idea in a marriage. She was making the point that each day they'll come to know each other more, and even though the relationship will change and the passion will fade, thirty years from now, they will love each other in a richer, deeper way than they do on what they currently consider to be probably the happiest day of their lives.

I couldn't help but ask myself, was the day I accepted Jesus into my life the day I loved Him the least? I was ecstatic to know that was true in my life. I don't have the same naive passion and love for Jesus that I may have had even the first year or two, but goodness I love Him not only more, but better now.

Once you get past the honeymoon phase, inevitable hurts will happen. Joshua says it best, "No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you." (Joshua 1:5). The most loving, Godly couples will experience pain and God-willing will fight through that and their own sin. Regardless, when a couple has gone through a trial their relationship comes out stronger on the other side.

The prosperity gospel doesn't exist. Accepting Jesus as our Savior doesn't mean our life will not have pain. It means that through our suffering and our trials our perseverance and God's grace and love and mercy will strengthen and deepen our relationship with Him so that we can look back on our wedding day with Him and say, "That was the day I loved you the least."

Foot of the Cross

Foot of the Cross is a super sweet church that meets in the Pourhouse Cafe Sunday mornings. They have a great mission, amazing vision, and a pastor that just brings it. But, what I love even more than that is who the body is made up of. It's a small church with a few families and a few college students... and a few homeless people.

I remember thinking and praying a few months ago about how to reach the homeless. I love these people. I love seeing them as people and not just creatures. It's been my passion for years to reach them emotionally through counseling. Half the reason I got into my field of psychology is so I can offer free counseling. So often those who need it most are those who can't afford it.

So often we view the homeless as helpless, dirty, deranged people looking for a free handout. When we see them asking for money we consciously make a decision. Do we give money or food? We're worried they'll spend any money we do give them on alcohol or drugs. But don't you think they need more than food and money? What about company? I sometimes wonder how long it's been since these people have had a real conversation with anyone. I often wonder, when was the last time someone simply asked them their name?

We're relational creatures. God created us to want and need love and fellowship. We'd all go a little crazy without it. But what about church? Church should be a sanctuary. The one place any living breathing being can go when the rest of their world turns their back. Unfortunately, dressing up for God has prevented this.

Sunday mornings are a time most Christians put on their Sunday best, as a sign of reverence and love to their Father. It's not wrong, in fact it's almost romantic. But, I'd be willing to bet this makes many poor and homeless people think twice before walking into a church. Prostitutes and beggars probably wouldn't feel very welcomed there.

Paul's advice to the Corinthian church, who faced a similar problem, was to abstain from idol meat. Not because it was a sin to eat it, but because it was causing others to stumble (1 Cor 8:7-13, 11:33-34).

For a while now I've developed a desire to help plant a church. And as my ideas progressed, I decided if I planted a church, I wanted it to be in the heart of some thriving downtown metropolis... somewhere close to the homeless. They are no less deserving of Jesus, a church, and the body.

Pastor Matt beat me to it here in Bloomington. Maybe we're not a thriving metropolis, but the church is located in a great section of town to reach these new and old believers.

Now, on to Matt's sermon Sunday. Here goes.

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The book of Jonah begins with a call from God to go to Ninevah to share the good news (Jonah 1:1). For context, Ninevah would be about the equivalent of God calling you to walk over to a mosque in Iraq and share the gospel. Jonah, like so many of us, didn't trust that God could bring him through something like that, so he denied God.

Now, we disobey God all the time, but Jonah decided to not only not listen, he chose to run in the complete opposite direction. Ninevah was just barely to the north of Joppa, Jonah took off for Tarshish, which was thousands of miles to the west (1:3).

And that's not enough. Jonah is so beyond despair now that he asks to be thrown overboard. He would rather die than listen to God (1:12).

I love God's response. He doesn't get angry like I probably would and just let Jonah perish. He sends a fish to swallow him and carry him to back (1:17). It's stories like this that make many doubt God, but it just furthers my belief. Anyone writing an account of such a tale would have no reason to make this up. Who would believe them?

I digress. So God calls to Jonah a second time, "Go to Ninevah!" Finally, Jonah submits. He waltzes right into the city and simply says, "In forty days Ninevah will be overthrown." (3:4) That's all we know he said. Not a long, poetic, loving explanation of God, just "You're all so sinful that God's going to wipe you out."

Here's where it gets good (horrible grammar). The whole city turns to God!!! (3:5) And they didn't just turn to him, they believed in him and put on sackcloth and ashes as a sign of humility to everyone who could see them. And it doesn't stop there. The KING does this, too. He puts his faith in God and humbles himself before his nation by taking off his royal robes (this never happens) and wears sackcloth. Beyond that, he orders the rest of his kingdom to do the same.

If the story of Jonah isn't a demonstration of the fact that salvation is a result of God's doing, not ours, then I don't know what is.

These people from Ninevah get it! How many of us would turn our life over so quickly? And how many of us trust God can reach the unreachable? That he can use us (even doubting Thomas') to turn entire nations to God with one sentence? How incredible that the people from Ninevah turn to God so quickly, when Jonah had been sharing the good news with the religious in his home town and no one there was changing anything about their lives.

So, the question is, when God calls you, do you run the other direction or do you humble yourself for all to see? Are you living in Ninevah or Israel?

Stop Dating the Church

After months of church shopping, I finally found a church I can call home! Each Sunday morning I've been cascading through Bloomington searching for a new church. And today was that day. It was like stepping onto your future college campus for the first time, when you just KNOW that you're in the right place. As soon as I sat down I had that peaceful feeling in my heart that I had arrived. Through the people I met, the worship, the pastor, and the vision, I knew I was as close to home as I'm going to get here on earth. Before the sermon was over I caught myself already excited to come back next week. Praise God!

I came here planning to share the sermon and spread Pastor Matt's amazing wisdom and heart for his church, The Foot of the Cross, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Because as I've learned over the months, it's hard to find so much joy in finding a good church until you know what a good church is. So here goes:

Some time this winter I became very interested in Church. And not just going to church, I became interested in why we go to church. I love spending my Sunday mornings worshipping and learning, and spending time in my Father's house, but I discovered that even this was founded in selfishness. I liked it because of what it did for me. Yes it's great to praise God and learn about His character, but I never took the time to stop and ask why God created the church. I knew the Sunday school answers. For fellowship, for community, to form a body of believers to come together and worship God together, because it's the Sabbath, etc.

All those things are great and true, but I wanted to know more. I'd been unsatisfied at my home church and spent a good year church shopping when it dawned on me that I wasn't sure Biblically what I was shopping for.

I had so many questions. What is the role of church? What is church doctrine? Church discipline? How are para-churches different from churches? What is God's purpose for the church in our lives and in society? I could go on and on.

So I studied. I sought wise counsel, searched for verses and Bible stories for answers (Paul was very helpful), read some chapters in Systematic Theology, and finally ended my study with one of my new favorite books, "Stop Dating the Church."

Joshua Harris spends this short book explaining the problems with Christians and the church today. Too many people date the church and won't commit to it. Nobody wants to be a member anymore. As soon as something goes wrong; the pastor makes a comment you don't like, the worship leader changes, the Bible study topics aren't good one semester, and everyone leaves. We date churches, we don't commit to them and make them our bride like Christ did.

Joshua doesn't discount the importance of searching for a good home church, but he cautions people against searching for too long, or for being so willing to leave at the first sign of trouble. When it comes to church we're all a bunch of commitment-phobes.

He uses plenty of scripture to back up his points, which I sadly cannot re-iterate here as I've talked the book up so much to my friends that it's lent out and has a waiting list, but I remember one scripture reference that particularly struck me.

"And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." Hebrews 10:24-25

The author of Hebrews expresses concern for this church, reminding them to meet together so they can encourage one another, stirring each other up in love.

Joshua argues that many Christians today go to church to be fed. They want teaching for themselves. They want to be convicted. It's not that those are bad things, but if that's our only reason we're going to church, for ourselves, then we're missing the point in why God created the church. If that's what we're looking for, I could listen to a Mark Driscoll sermon each Sunday morning from the safety and comfort of my own home. Or worse, I could listen to it as a podcast while I run and say I went to church for the week. (I'm not saying listening to extra sermons is bad or wrong, I do it as much as I can, I'm simply saying that isn't church)

God didn't send His Son to lay down His life for a Podcast, He experienced torture at the hand of man for His bride, the church, so that we didn't have to be isolated and worship in secret anymore. His sacrifice was so we could meet together, in genuine fellowship and love. So we could come as one body and experience from each other a small glimpse of His heavenly affection for us.

But how many of us go to church selflessly, with the hope and aim of feeding and encouraging those in the seats next to us? I'd argue most of us keep to the people we came with and hardly exchange more than a pleasant smile or maybe a polite name-swap with our neighbors. We don't see the others around us as brothers, sisters, and allies.

Seriously, think of one person you met through your church that you have a relationship with today. You know there name, and you have real, genuine conversations with them. You've either met up with them outside of church, or you've prayed with them. Something. Anything...

I don't know about you, but I struggled to come up with a single name.

Now, fellowship isn't the only reason for church. Joshua explains a few other important aspects of church attendance, that's just the one that hit me. From there, he offers some helpful suggestions for what to look for in a church. He narrowed down the list to three main things to look for, what I call the "holy trinity" of churches. (I hope that wasn't super heretical...). Worship, Teaching, and Community.

Those three things don't have to carry equal weight. They should all be present, but by knowing how we relate to the Lord and how we best connect with Him it is up to us to determine which of these things are the most important to us, and to choose a church accordingly.

Take me for example. I began attending a church in December where I absolutely LOVED the teaching. It was incredible. I walked away each week with pages upon pages of notes, usually armed with new material I could interlace with my weekly Bible study. It was great. The problem was, after a few months, I stopped getting excited for church. I hadn't met a single person there, and could not get over their awkward worship music. I wanted to see past the mediocre singing. I should empathize with them, I'm as tone deaf as they come, but music is too important to my connection with God. I am normally a pretty quiet person who is happy just listening, but when it comes to praising my Father I want to shout at the top of my lungs. I couldn't do that there.

The truth is, in committing to a church like we commit to a real bride or groom. We will never find perfection. That is only in Christ. Churches are built by men's hands and upon man's ideas. Still, there are great Godly men out there pastoring incredibly Christ-centered churches. So find one and commit to it, and not just for yourself. Commit to it also for it's other members. You have gifts to offer them and the church.

Christ loves You so much that He died for you... but not just for you. He died for the person sitting next to you this morning, too.

Death by Chocolate

I love theologians. I love books, I love listening to sermons. I can read Charles Spurgeon, C.S. Lewis, St. Augustine, J.I. Packer, John Piper, or Carolyn Custis James 'til the cows come home. Matt Chandler and Mark Driscoll could win my ear for hours each day listening to their wisdom and passion for the gospel. But, eloquent as all these men and women are, none hold a candle to my main man David.

I truly believe that the psalms contain some of the most beautiful words in the English language; housed in a book devoted to songs and prayers in praise and exultation of the Lord.

But, perhaps my favorite verse I've found recently is Psalm 119:103, "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth."

It's a simple verse, but it blew my mind. Now, I don't like honey, so it took me some thinking to get past that part. But as I thought about it, I began to look into the context of David's words. Honey was probably the sweetest of all temporal things back then. Dessert and sugar in general were not as common as they are in American society. Honey was a sweet, sweet, delicacy.

Which got me thinking, the sweetest and richest of all foods to me is chocolate, and I am fairly certain that if chocolate existed back then the verse would say, "... sweeter than chocolate to my mouth."

Mind blown. Nothing is sweeter than chocolate to me, and yet David recognizes that God's word is!! Honey is David's chocolate. The greatest, sweetest, most amazing thing David can taste in his mouth is not so delicious God's word to his ear.

I got so excited by this revelation that I ran to tell a friend excitedly proclaiming to her that I hunger for God's word, I salivate for it, and it feeds my soul in a way nothing else can. Over and over I gleefully told her, "God's word is sweeter than chocolate!!" Seriously, this should be particularly striking if you're a woman, as we seem to have a special place in our hearts reserved for this dark, delicious treat.

My joy continued and I started reading commentaries on this particular verse, to which I believe Charles Spurgeon had the best response,

"How wise it will be on our part to keep the word on our palate by meditation and on our tongue by confession. It must be sweet to our taste when we think of it, or it will not be Sweet to our mouth when we talk of it."

He took a verse I loved and derived a totally different meaning from it, but I love his interpretation, too.


Lord, thank You for Your Word. For giving us something so rich and so sweet that it leaves us thirsting for only You and Your life-giving water. Thank You for using Your son David to remind me that even the most amazing earthly goods pale in comparison to You. How sweet it is to be loved by You.

Greener Pastures

This summer has been an interesting one. I’ll be around Bloomington for 12 weeks… amazingly, of those twelve weeks, I’ll only be here (in Bloomington) for one full weekend. It is a busy and crazy summer to say the least. Yet between all the work, all the grad classes, all the trips to Indy, Evansville, and California, the Bible studies, the coffee dates, and the friends, God has been by my side, graciously and lovingly revealing to me His majesty.

My words do not do His words, nor His works, justice. But I hope it will give you just a glimpse of the glory that is to come (Rom 8:18). Below are just a few instances of the thousands of little ways God has demonstrated His power in my life this summer.

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Tonight, I was sitting at the Bakehouse with one of my Bible study girls, heavy into a conversation about God, the men in our lives, and how to be Godly women for them, when a little 3-yr old boy Mee-shee joined our conversation. With little warning he left his mom and dad, wandered to our couch, and plopped himself between us. Introducing himself, and his monkey, Adichay, with hug after hug. He would joyfully jump from one of our laps to the other, falling into us, smiling at us, laughing with us, and just laying there in our arms. We were both shocked at how outgoing this little toddler was.

After playing with him for a while and a brief conversation with Mee-shee’s mom, we found out he was autistic. His mother was literally in awe that he felt so comfortable around us. She said because of his autism Mee-shee is terrified of strangers. She’d never seen Him trust anyone like that.

It may not seem like much of a story, but it left me with an incredible realization. The Holy Spirit is alive and well in a 3-year-old autistic boy. He could discern what was good and pure and be drawn to it. What child-like faith (Matthew 18:3). A poor boy prone to fear, and in the presence of God He was not just at peace, he was jovial and completely surrendered.


God reveals His majesty in adorable little boys. He also reveals His majesty in commanding storms.


For the last week or so Indiana has been wrought with severe summer storms. Dear friends dealt with the tragedy of having their own house struck by lightning and catch fire while they were still inside (praise God they made it out alright!). And the storms culminated into two mega storms on Monday and Tuesday night. Each night the city sat under severe storm, flash flood, and tornado warnings. Monday night winds reached over 45 miles per hour, closer to 60 in some locations. There were approximately 9,000 lightning strikes every half hour. Tuesday the storm rolled in so ferociously and rapidly that the mall was evacuated, and the IU emergency alert was activated urging all students on campus to seek immediate shelter.

I was downright giddy these couple days. I grew up in Texas watching tornadoes with my mom, so this devious weather was like home to me. It reminded me of home in Texas, but it also reminded me of home in my Father.

Who but the Lord can make the winds move with such might? Even the winds obey Him (Matthew 8:27, Luke 8:25). These storms were beyond powerful, some of the most forceful I’d ever seen and it just brought me over and over again to the feet of the Lord, in awe that He has the power to destroy this world.

It’s humbling to understand His power and wrath. It is perhaps more humbling to understand His grace.

When I woke up the next morning to run, the world was a completely different place. All around me on my run I saw the remnants of the storm. Branches, twigs, leaves, and mulch paved the sidewalks, violently plucked from their former homes. Countless trees had been uprooted, toppled over and completely blocking a few roads. Still, the sky was a brilliant blue and the sun was shining brightly through fluffy white clouds.

“Though sorrow may last through the night, His joy comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5.
Lush flowers and abundant greenery surrounded my run, possibly outnumbering the fallen wood. Even in death, God opens doors for life to enter.


His majesty is revealed in commanding storms, but it is also revealed in delicate flowers.


I’ve always been fond of flowers, plants, and the way God shows his love for us through nature. I can scarcely wait for the day I’ll have a garden of my own. Over and over I’m blown away by the countless metaphors God uses in comparing us to the plant world. Last summer I went on the most amazing run where I saw the beauty in this leafy green world and finally understood just what my Papa had been trying to teach me for so long. My trip to California reminded me of that great day.

I’m blown away by the different kinds of flowers and plant-life we have here in the Midwest, but California puts us to shame. Day after day I saw more exotic, vibrant, strange flowers than I knew existed. As soon as I got home from my trip I searched my old e-mails to find what I’d written about my run just one year before:

We (people) are so much like plants. God, in His infinite wisdom, knew this and wrote about it often in His book. I’d be willing to bet that at least half of the books in the Bible (and probably more) make some metaphor comparing us to seeds, plants, fruit, vines, or the harvest. This makes sense for the time as well. I’m sure farming was one of the most common career paths in antiquity, so God wisely used metaphors His beloved creatures could relate to. Because we are less directly connected to the land nowadays, I think we sometimes miss out on the beauty of the farming metaphors.

Plants are an incredible thing to me. They begin as this tiny little seed. Even colossal sycamore trees start this way. And you sow these seeds (which Jesus had something to say about) and when they’re sown well, it means the seed has landed in a place where it is surrounded and overwhelmed by good soil. So this little seed is then hidden from the world in its first stage of life. Not until it’s began to sprout does it peak out from the ground, showing the world it’s ready. This strong little bud has been nourished well in the dark, in the quiet, but from this point on, the sun (Son) and light (John 14:6) become crucial to its existence. So much so that without them, the plant would wither and die.

And so plants grow. Slowly. That may be my favorite part of the metaphor, how slowly we grow. You never see the change happening. You can’t watch a plant grow. You’ll never see the moment a flower bud opens, because there isn’t one moment. The entire growth of a plant is a process. A continual process that never ends. So long as there is sun, water, and nutrients, a plant never stops growing.

There are seasons when flowers are in bloom, and seasons where they shed their buds to allow for new growth the following season. And yet, the plants grow on; sometimes they grow on their own. Even the most beautiful branches can grow ugly and unruly when they are not pruned. This is a difficult process, because good, healthy branches are being cut back. It’s painful for the plant, and involves strong, violent instruments. It’s for their good, but that doesn’t change how much it hurts.

The other thing I love about plants is how different they all are. There are some that are made to provide sustenance, fruits and vegetables; there are some who bring beauty to the world, flowers; some who are meant to protect and defend, poison ivy, thorns; some give us rest with their shade, trees; and still others provide healing, aloe leaves. It’s unreal how many billions of different shapes and sizes plants come in, all with their own unique purpose. Still, no matter how different, all plants bear their makers lush, life-giving, green image. Unbelievable!

My final thought from this stream-of-consciousness run was the harvest. I think it’s interesting the tool used to harvest crops. In Jesus’ time the tool was the sickle, the creepy thing the Grim Reaper carries. How interesting that in our confused misrepresentation we have made death look so scary. That the tool God uses to cut us down and bring us home has become scary and violent looking.

“Consider the lilies of the field, see how they grow. They do not labor or spin.” They just grow. Lilies (and all plants really) have it right. They’re simple and unaffected. They are so incredibly fragile and vulnerable, having to rely solely on the Son to give them light, water, and to prune them when necessary. The lily has absolutely no say in its own life, it just grows. See now why I love considering the lilies? They’re a constant reminder of how I should be living my life.

I’m reading a book right now that describes flowers well; the narrator is explaining how crops don’t need us to grow, they just need sun and water. “[God] must have lacked faith in mankind’s follow-through capabilities, on the day He created flowers.” The same could be said of us. We have terrible follow-through. That’s why we’re dependent on the Lord and not ourselves.

God's majesty in children, storms, and plants. Only He could be found in such unique places all at once.

Praise be to God that He who knew no sin became sin, so that through grace we could experience the blessings and righteousness of God in everything! (2 Cor 5:21)

He is in everything, and He is my everything.

Dear Studly Men of God

It's been far too long since I've posted anything. Unfortunately, intensive five-week grad classes take up too much time for me to blog. I have a back-logged list of ideas, but until then, I plan on posting some old stuff I've written. For some reason God has led me back to my archives lately and I've learned a lot. I read some works and am shocked and impressed that I actually had some Godly wisdom back in the day. Other times I'm a little embarrassed how off base I was, but can rejoice in God's mercy that He's rescued me from so many false idols.

My senior year of college I led a group of junior women in Bible study, and spend some time with them studying what it meant to be a woman of God. To do so, I challenged many of my brothers to write us letters, encouraging us for what we do well but holding us accountable for things we could do better. This is Christian women in general... not just my girls. The response was incredible.

As a thank you, my girls and I brainstormed and responded with a letter for them. A letter addressed to our Christian brothers, encouraging them for what they do well, but challenging them in areas they could do better.

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Dear Studly Men of God :)

There is much to be said about the relationship between a brother and sister. Perhaps no men are as protective of the women in their lives as a “big bro” is to his “li’l sis.” Brothers have a kind of furious love for their sisters, wanting nothing but the best for them and going to the ends of the earth to make sure they are always protected and cared for.

The love between a Christian brother and sister is not so different. And we are so blessed to have so many big brothers, constantly looking out for us. You bless the women in your lives with your thoughtful and protective nature. In a world where women are constantly objectified, we all find refuge and shelter in men like you. Men who walk girls to their cars no matter how far away or what hour, men who give up their seats, who let women go before them in line, who hold open doors, and who walk on the side of traffic, just to be safe. Men who don’t whistle at girls, but instead offer simple but heartfelt compliments.

As women, we constantly feel that we are not enough or are too much, all at the same time. You are always there to not only accept us… but to point us to the only One who matters. You offer us all such unconditional, Christ-like affection, loving us just the way we are, but too much to let us stay that way.

Similarly, sisters see their brothers at their best and their worst, and love them anyway. A sister is her brother’s witness. She is his partner in crime, agent, biggest fan, teacher, defense attorney, and his shrink. Still, some days, a sister is the reason a brother wishes he was an only child.

And for those times, we not only apologize, but offer this letter to help you understand what Relient K refers to as, “the complex infrastructure known as the female mind.”

When Adam Met Eve (The Original Harry and Sally)

The question posed was what Christian men could do to better serve us, as Christian women. First and foremost, your answer is baked into the question. “Be a man of God.” Us women can, and will, regal you with all kinds of other guidelines and ideas about how to act towards us, how to love us well, etc. But to be honest, all of that comes second to you loving the Lord (Matthew 22:37-39).

God created us for you! And of course, to glorify God. But listen to his words in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” How amazing is that, that God created us as the perfect compliment to you? That where we are weak, you are strong, but that the opposite is true as well. Where you shine in strength and courage, we meet you with grace and compassion. And where we lack in hope you meet us with perseverance. That means that second to needing God, we need YOU!

We want to be your friends. You have such a different perspective on God and life than we do, and we need that. We sincerely want to hear about how you’re doing, we want to pray for you and with you. We want to engage in conversation with you that goes deeper than discussing the latest episode of The Office. However, anyone who has seen When Harry Met Sally knows how difficult it is for a man and a woman to be “real” friends. We do believe these relationships are possible, but they can be hard work, and are sometimes tricky.

Use caution with giving us too much attention or spending much one-on-one time with us, as we can (and will) probably take that the wrong way. That being said, don’t be afraid to invite us along when a group is planning on getting together. Solid, wonderful, God-glorifying friendships can grow between a guy and girl, but “the friend zone” is not a place you can get to overnight. If you try, we will probably mistake you “just being a good guy,” for you “being a cute boy that is totally into us.”

When You’re Just Not That Into Us

There is nothing so encouraging to us women as the unconditional way that men accept each other. That is not to say that you don’t have your differences, but you all rise above it in a manner most women only dream of. Perhaps without knowing it you all live and breathe Paul’s explanation that “love keeps no record of wrongs…”

If there is one thing Christian women are envious of men for, it is same-sex friendships. Most of you love manly bonding time. We, on the other hand, often respond to “girl’s nights” with shrill screams and complete and utter horror.

We are constantly battling pettiness, jealousy, gossip, and slanderous remarks that destroy female fellowship. It is an age-old story for a woman to spend most of her time surrounded by men because it is only among them that she feels she can truly be herself. Your example is a constant encouragement for us to work on our own same-sex friendships. As women, we could all take note of the inviting love you show nearly everyone you meet.

That being said, while it is important for both you and us to have time and fellowship apart from each other, Christian guys sometimes get so wrapped up in manly bonding that you not only rejoice at the thought of not having girls around, but often scoff when we come back into the picture. We are so glad that time with your brothers is so amazing, but be careful not to discourage your female friends while praising the males in your lives.

The Romance of Dance

The Bible doesn’t provide a one-size-fits-all program for us. Our lives are too different, our circumstances too unique, and our God too creative to have only one formula for romance. The same is true for dancing. There is the waltz, tango, foxtrot, rumba, and swing, to name a few. The dances often look nothing alike; coming from various cultures and consisting of vastly different steps. However all dances share a certain set of rules. Without these rules, the dance would be a devastating challenge.

The man starts on his left foot, and the woman starts on her right. The man always leads. He is supposed to lead her to the point that she is almost blindly following him. Now, let’s superimpose the idea of relationships into this image. When a man will not step up and lead in the dance, the woman is blinded as to where they are going. Don’t misunderstand us; while it is natural for women to be lead in the dance and in relationships, we are not saying it is up to you to do all the work. A woman must know her own steps or it doesn’t matter how well you lead. Likewise, there are times when women have to correct their dance partners for not leading or for leading the wrong way. Sometimes if the woman does not stand up and say something she would be lead astray.

One of the most common complaints of women is that the guys they are dancing with rarely hold them like they are supposed to. This means that you must be firm, but not hurt her. In leading the women that are in your lives, please be considerate of us and be gentle. Hold the women in your lives like you would something that is precious—tight enough that you won’t drop her, but loose enough that you will not break her.

Timidity is something often associated with guys when it comes to both dancing and relationships. It takes courage to be the one who leads. It makes you vulnerable to one of your greatest fears… failure. Being timid means to be insecure, afraid, to lack confidence. Timidity is present when one has not mastered their art.

Dancing is awkward when either party is out of step. It is awkward for the guy (we would imagine) when a girl is taking more initiative than him. And it’s awkward for the girl when she is having to lead. This is often the result of one, or both partners, attempting to dance before getting the proper lessons. And, since it is up to you gentlemen to do the asking, it would help us out a lot if you not ask us to dance until you are ready to do so (i.e. are no longer timid). We’re not asking you to be perfect, but if you have not taken the time to learn the way the Creator of the dance meant for it to look, thing start to get messy. And worse, painful.

Partners can bump heads and step on each other’s toes. Ask almost any girl and she will probably have more than one story about the bruises she’s received after being “dropped” mid-dance by a guy that asked her to dance before he was ready (or knew how) to catch her.

Now, that may have been hard to follow, so we’ll exit the dance floor now and explain further:
Where you all struggle with physical lust, we match you with emotional lust. We do certainly struggle in sins of the flesh, but our sin more often lies in giving our hearts away. And while it is our job to guard our hearts, we need your help.

Please, please, please do not ask to pursue us if you are not ready. That’s not to say that you need to be ready to propose on the first date, far from it. It does mean that if you are not ready to be in a relationship or aren’t sure of your feelings, then we ask you keep them to yourselves until you better know what you desire. When you act on these feelings without prayer or wise council, you are doing more harm than good to the girl you think is so-darn-cute. Take Solomon’s advice, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires”(Song of Songs 2:7).

Be cautious still, even if you are ready to date us. You may have sought the Lord in your decision, but if we’re struggling to guard our hearts before things are “official,” you can imagine how much harder it is when we are in a satisfying relationship. It is very easy for women to turn their significant other into an idol and hold him above God in their lives. We do love to be romanced, we like compliments and your affection. But please help us to see that our identity should be in the Lord, and it is His approval and love that matters.

For those of you who have not been scared away by this letter, and are still set on pursuing that wonderful lady... take a look at Jim Elliot's story of how he pursued his wife. He made romance raw, bold, and adventurous. Men should strive to be like that, on the dance floor and in the relationship. Men should pursue women like Christ pursued the church, vigorously and with all of their heart.

Our challenge is this: Brothers, lead like you would when you are dancing. Don’t lead us astray, running into items or other people that cause conflict. Rather, lead us in the way the dance of life was meant to be stepped. And of course… leave room for the Holy Spirit. :)

Love,
Your Sisters

“Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers,
and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” 1 Timothy 5:1-2

Growing Pains

Last night was an incredibly painful day for me, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually.

I went to a Bachelorette party for a close friend and experienced the bitter sting of a broken relationship. One of the other guests and I had a falling out years ago, and I was almost depressed to see that after so long, the sin among two sisters was alive and well. We couldn’t sit at the same table, we couldn’t say hello to one another, we couldn’t even make eye contact. In a room of 15 people, together for about 5 hours, we somehow managed to completely ignore each other and act as though the other girl didn’t exist.

It broke my heart that two believing, God-fearing sisters have not been able to reconcile. So I sat there in pain, all night, very well aware that we live in a fallen world. Desperately praying for God to take away my pain, to heal my broken heart.

We left the bachelorette party around 10pm, and decided to head back to the bride-to-be’s apartment to finish off the night with a movie and some wine. I had given a ride to two other girls, so I went to drop them off before heading back to the party. After I dropped off the last girl, I turned the corner and was t-boned on the driver-side by another vehicle.

As soon as my car stopped spinning I attempted to get out of the car to make sure everyone in the other car was alright, but I couldn’t get out. My door was completely smashed in, my legs stuck underneath the wheel. I began to weep, as I saw the shattered glass all around the street in front of me. I tried to remain faithful, but all I could muster was frustration towards God. I finally started to crawl out from financial difficulties, and two totaled cars later I felt my dreams of leaving for Africa in July fly out my broken front windshield. Spiritually, I was in pain.

After a few panicked minutes I realized if I could shimmy my legs out from under the wheel I could crawl out from the passenger side door. I made it out just as the police and ambulance arrived. Adrenaline pumping, they escorted me to the ambulance, completely unaware my ankles were swollen, burnt, and bleeding. The EMT bandaged me up and when I stubbornly declined a trip to the hospital to be checked out further, they let me out of the ambulance and I began trying to search for God in my car accident.

So I cried out to him, “What do you want me to learn from this God? What was this for? Those girls didn’t really need a ride, so clearly this was all a part of your sovereign plan, but why?”

And as the ambulance drove away I was left alone, sitting on a dark curb, tears streaming down my face, unbelief in my heart, desperately praying for God to take away my pain; to heal my broken spirit.

When I got home later that night, the physical pain finally set in. The adrenaline was gone and I became very aware that my body had just gone through something brutal. It hurt to walk up the stairs, it hurt to be hugged. Two beautiful women came over with ice packs, aloe for my burns, a heating pad for my aching back, and a bottle of ibuprofen. And as I lay there on my bedroom floor, in too much pain to move, I desperately prayed once more for God to take away my pain; to heal my broken body.

God is the god of all comfort (2 Cor 1:3-4), but that doesn’t mean he ends our suffering. It’s like counseling, people come into my office all the time because they want me to make their pain stop, but that’s not my job. My job is to empathize with them, to offer them support and comfort, and to help them understand how to be victorious in the midst of pain.

God is our counselor. So often we come to him with bruised egos, pierced hearts, damaged legs, and we ask Him to take away our pain, (and unlike me, God could if He wanted to), but more often than not, he does just what counselors do, He comforts us by sitting with us in the pain, not by taking it away.

So long as we inhabit this earth, there will always be more pain. Pain was brought into this world very early on. It’s easy to look at the creation story and see all good things; God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1), the sun and the moon (1:16), day and night (1:5), the sea (1:10). But after the fall, the curse of Adam and Eve brought a few uglier things into our world; sin and enmity between men and women (3:14-17), death (3:19), and of course, pain (3:17).

What I love, and what gives me hope, is that the end of days is the complete opposite to the beginning of days. When Christ comes again, the first heaven and earth will pass away (Revelation 21:1), there’ll be no sun or moon (21:23), no night (22:5), no sea (21:1), no sin/enmity (22:3), no more death (21:4), and my personal favorite… no more pain (21:4).

No matter how hard we fight, some relationships in our lives (even with other believers) will remain broken. Some of us, like Job, will lead a hard life with countless hardships, and we will struggle to hold steadfastly to the Lord. Some of us will experience chronic pain in our bones, or joints, or lungs. But rest assured, brothers and sisters, there will be a day…


“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

God in my Waking, God in my Sleeping

A new friend reminded me this afternoon the importance and brilliance of starting your day in prayer and communication with “the sweet guy up there.” I’m willing to bet he had no idea what he was igniting by choosing to share his thoughts with me today. What if all our relationships were marked by an un-filtered desire to share about Jesus?

Simple encouragements like this get my mind going for hours. Someone mentions something they’re learning, or how God’s working in their lives, and it just makes me want to dive head first into scripture and teach myself the same lesson.

So today I started thinking about the beauty and humility of beginning each day professing a need for God. When we wake up, our thoughts come back to life, and it is up to us to decide who will control our thoughts for the day. Are our thoughts from Satan, or are they from God? And more often than not, if our first thoughts of the day are not focused on God, we’ve already allowed Satan a foothold to control our mind the rest of the day.

We believe so many lies on a daily, even hourly basis. Isn’t it about time we stop listening to lies and start speaking truth to ourselves? Psychologically, thoughts are a HUGE part of who we are and they’re incredibly difficult to change. We can spend months treating a client with cognitive therapy, redefining the way they think. And while I am a therapist, I don’t believe we all need therapy, I just think we need to make war on our own minds. Our thoughts are deeply engrained, that’s why we should start fighting the moment we wake up.

But what about when we go to sleep? Lots of people have adopted the philosophy of starting one’s day with quiet time or in prayer, but is it any less important to glorify God at the end of the day?

Yes, in the morning we can start our day off on a good, positive, armed note, but the end of the day blesses us with an amazing opportunity to reflect and give glory to God for the grace we experienced.

And, at the end of the day we get to experience the gift of sleep! As college students, most of us constantly express a love for sleep, but I’d be willing to bet most of us don’t think about how to glorify God in it, or that He is with us, even in this catatonic state.

God created sleep, and that means sleep is good, and has a purpose.

We spend about one-third of our lives sleeping. One-third! That means if we live to be ninety, we’ll have slept for thirty years. It makes you think twice about your bed doesn’t it? Most of us love beds because that is where we may one day become one flesh with another person. We fail to recognize we’ll spend far more time engaging in the gift of God’s rest in our beds, than delighting in the gift of sexual intimacy (sorry boys).

God could have created us without a need for sleep, but in doing so, we’re reminded daily that we are not self-sufficient. God is the only one who “will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4).

So, the next time you’re tired (which happens to most of us daily), don’t curse God and life for exhausting you to the core, pray to God you can view tiredness as a reminder that we are just creatures, not the Creator. And thank God for such a humbling gift.

That being said, don’t take God’s gift of sleep for granted by abusing it, or by trying to do without it.

“Whether we eat or drink, do all things for the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 10:31

Most of us do all waking things for the glory of God, but consider sleep a whole separate category… we like to shirk responsibility for our unconscious thoughts. Our impure dreams are still our responsibility, which makes it all the more important for God to be on our hearts and minds before we drift off.

Like controlling our thoughts during the day, this isn’t an easy task. But it is possible. How crazy and amazing that we can glorify God in our sleep?! In the way we view sleep, and prepare for sleep.

It seems the older and more mature we get, the more we value sleep. I would argue the same should be true in our spiritual life. Except we’ll value sleep less for what it does for us, and more for what it does for our relationship with God.

If we don’t view sleep and the benefits of sleep differently than non-believers, something is wrong. Sleep is more than restoring us for a new day; sleep is an opportunity to be humbled. Our need for sleep is an amazing reminder that we need Christ every day, that we truly can’t do it on our own.

To an Athlete Dying Young

This spring I coached a group of girls for a running race called the Little 50. Teams of four runners compete in a 50-lap relay that mimics both the Indy 500 and the Little 500.

We’ve been getting together a couple days each week for the last few months, training to represent Campus Crusade for Christ, and more importantly Christ himself.

A few months back, I began to wonder what that meant. We want to glorify God with the talent He blessed us with to run. We want to be a witness to the campus through this race. I know the vision; I cast it over a year ago. But, this season, that vision didn’t seem quite right.

How does one share the gospel when you’re competing? You can’t talk during the race and everyone’s too focused to talk beforehand. As a cop out, I always thought that witnessing Christ’s character was enough. So long as we pray before and after, and show good, Christ-like sportsmanship on the track, that’s good, right?

Wrong! Christ’s character, while a great model for how we should live our lives, is not the essence of the gospel. After all, if following his character were enough, he wouldn’t have had to die.

The essence of the gospel is in the sacrifice. God gave up his Son, sent him down to die a painful, horrible, agonizing death in order to pay for our sins. This was a difficult job, and the pain for God began long before Jesus’ death. Like all good parents, God had to discipline His Son.

"It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:7-11

I’m sure this verse strikes a chord with most parents, but for me, it took coaching to understand the weight of what God went through.

I still remember the first sprint workout I put the girls through. I hated it! The girls were tired, and out of breath, and looked like they wanted to die, and I was there, watch in hand telling them to suck it up, they had four more repeats to go. I knew they needed to keep going. As part of their training, they needed this painful workout to be better runners, but I just wanted to give them all buckets of water and tell them to relax, go home, and take it easy.

The gospel takes sacrifice. Runners sacrifice sleep, junk food, carbonation. My girls sacrificed their social lives, and sometimes their muscles and knees to witness the gospel. I think that’s one of the reason’s running is so often used as a metaphor for the Christian life.

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I pummel my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7

And my personal favorite.

“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…” Hebrews 12:1

What I love about verses like this is how you must understand the culture in antiquity (and of running) to really feel this verse. In ancient times, runners ran completely naked when they were competing. It gives new meaning to the idea of casting aside every weight, and the sin that clings so closely. Clothing is extra weight, which clings, impeding a runner’s stride. That’s why you see competitive runners today in tight spandex singlets. Running naked is inappropriate; this is the closest we can get.

And that’s what it takes to run a race well for the glory of God. You must shed sin. It’s easy to get distracted out there on the track. When sin entangles us we fight for the perishable wreath, it’s only when we shed our sinful selfishness that we can run unhindered for the imperishable wreath.

So, my girls sacrificed even more than sleep, good food, and social lives, they sacrificed their very lives. Dying to themselves, pushing one another to be better runners, but more importantly, to be more Godly women.

My girls won third place at this year’s Little 50, and while I am proud of them for that finish, I am far more proud of them for starting another race, one that they’re already running well.

Queen of Thieves

One of my all-time favorite songs is "Times" by Tenth Avenue North. It's a beautiful dialogue between a sinner and the God of the universe. The lyrics speak to my very heart and soul.

The sinner (me) knows they need God but feels so far from Him, confessing unbelief in a real and vulnerable way. It's beautiful. Most of us doubt, but how many of us go to the Lord in our broken humility asking, "Are you done forgiving? Can you look past my pretending?"

I'm fairly certain most of us think so highly of ourselves that we don't even think to ask this second question. We truly believe we can pull a fast one on God, that we've got Him fooled.

But what I love even more than the sinner's cries in this song is God's response. He doesn't yell, he doesn't rebuke, he simply reminds his beloved son of the truth. He calls him out on the lies he's believed, and says, "No, that's not me. This is."

"I hear you say my love is over,
its underneath, its inside, its in between
the times you doubt me, when you can't feel
the times that you've questioned 'is this for real?'
the times you've broken, the times that you mend
the times you hate me and the times that you bend

Well my love is over, its underneath
its inside, its in between,
these times you're healing
and when your heart breaks
the times that you feel like you've fallen from grace
the times you're hurting
the times that you heal
the times you go hungry and are tempted to steal
in times of confusion and chaos and pain

I'm there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
I'm there through your heartache
I'm there in the storm
my love I will keep you by my power alone
I don't care where you've fallen, where you have been
I'll never forsake you
my love never ends, it never ends."

But perhaps my very favorite part of the whole song is one simple line, "The times you go hungry and are tempted to steal."

This line always brings me back to the ten commandments and gets my brain going. Some of the commandments seem like common sense to me. Stealing and murder aren't even on my radar of sins I need to worry about. I'm not going to knock over Best Buy anytime soon, and I feel guilt when I kill a spider... so I'm fairly certain I'll never kill my fellow man.

But this one line changed my thinking about God's commands, because it goes beyond the physical act itself and points to the sin of our hearts. God could care less about the material things in this world and who thinks they own them. He reminds us in Luke 6:30, "...from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back." It's a hard truth most of us don't like to think about. Our possessions were never really ours.

That's the problem with stealing. We're all thieves. Everything in this world is God's! And when we steal it doesn't matter that we're taking it out of the hands of a brother or sister, the problem is that we're taking it out of the hands of God.

And this goes so far beyond material things.

The line says, "the times that you're hungry and are tempted to steal." The heart issue is the motive behind stealing. We steal because we're hungry. For something... or someone.

Maybe you've never walked into a store and taken something, and maybe you've never borrowed something from a friend, and conveniently "forgot" to give it back, but have you ever been hungry for God's love and stolen a brother or sister's affection to satisfy that need?

We do this all the time. So many Christians (myself included) think that because we're not fooling around with people and stealing their purity, that we're on the right track. We take flirting way too lightly. When I flirt and seek to gain a guy's attention, I'm stealing! I am not satisfied by God alone. I want validation and love and affirmation from the greatest man in all the world, but rather than getting in the Word or falling on my knees in prayer to be reminded of God's love for me... I run to the nearest guy and accept his attention as a substitution.

And when I do that I am stealing his attention. I'm stealing his eyes from his future wife, I'm stealing his words of affirmation. I'm stealing all this goodness God put in my brother for my own temporary pleasure.

It's okay to be encouraged by a member of the opposite sex, it's okay to be complimented by them. In fact, I'd argue we don't do those two things enough. At least not with pure hearts. Are you loving on a brother or sister to point them towards Christ, or are you loving on them in a way that points solely to you? Are you stealing their gaze from God?

----

It's Little 5 weekend at IU, and for those of you who don't know what that means... it's said to be the greatest college party weekend in the nation. And by weekend, I mean week. And by greatest, I mean darkest.

We sleep when it's dark. And when we're deep in sleep and someone turns on a bright light we groan and seek to shield our eyes. It's almost painful, and we usually yell at whoever turned on the light to make it dark again so we can fall back into our unconscious, carefree state.

The same can be said of sin. When we're deep in sin and someone wakes us up and exposes what we're doing, it's painful, and we want to shield our eyes and go back to our satisfying, yet ephemeral, dreamworld. But God is already winning, and as much as we plead to go back to our sin, guilt and conviction make it so even if we fall back to sleep, but it's not the same carefree, catatonic state we were in.

This morning was a rough one for me. The darkness of this party week lulled me into a deep sleep and God painfully turned the lights on me this morning. Seeing my sin in the light evoked in me such powerful sadness I literally began to shake.

So I turned on some peaceful music in an attempt to calm myself down, when this song came on. "Times." I wanted to crumple under the weight of my sin, and I still do... but I have to hold fast to God's words. I am not past his forgiveness, and he does see past my pretending. He will never forsake me, and his love never ends.

Maybe you're like me, you're still sleeping and you think stealing and murder don't apply to you. But if you've ever stolen someone's affection or killed someone's spirit with bitter words, I pray God will turn the lights on and wake you, too.

"And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, 'So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you do not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Matthew 26:40-41