Totally Amazing

So this morning on my run, I was contemplating the indescribable awesomeness of the Lord.  My usual thoughts while running (what better way to pass the time!!) Anyway, the Lord put it simply in front of me to see just how amazing He is...and here it is.

Imagine having the responsibility of someone's life.  You know the absolute perfect plan for their life that will make them the happiest they can be and give them the most satisfying life.  You know every detail and situation they will go in and what choice will be the best one for them to take.

First off, that alone is absolutely crazy.  There is no way you can even be sure about your own life and figure out your own feelings that much, let alone know exactly what someone else is going through in order to put them in the best position.

Moving along.  Now imagine you have to guide them through day by day, step by step in order to push them in the right direction.  Imagine watching them mess up and figuring out another way to redeem their mistake and push them on towards a fulfilling life.  Imagine them failing time and time again and not giving up on them.  You are patient, understanding, and loving, even when they spit right in your face and turn around to walk away from you.  You care about them so much that you are completely selfless in your love and are forever extending them grace when they mess up and encouraging them in truth of the potential satisfying life ahead of them, if they want it.

Are you truly imagining this?  Are you picturing how hard that would be?  That is exactly how God works in our lives.  But, the astounding thing is...the Lord does this not just for me, or you, or one sole person, but for all of humanity!!!! He is all things awesome and wonderful enough to want the best for each and every one of us.  He has the ability to orchestrate every single one of our lives in order for them to be fulfilled and satisfied in His love.  Whew.  I know.  Incredible.

“Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” 

- Ephesians 1:3-4

God's Love Letter - Happy Valentine's Day :)

This is a love letter I composed written from God to myself, and His other daughters!  I love it because it is straight from His word and I never want to tire of His love so I thought it would be neat to try and grasp just How much He loves us by writing a letter from His perspective detailing how much He loves us.

Hey Beautiful Daughter,

"You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you." (Song of Solomon 4:7)  Do you know I brag about you saying, “She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her” (Proverbs 3:15) I take such delight in you and every time you glorify Me, I rejoice: “No, the Lord’s delight is in those who fear Him, those who put their hope in His unfailing love.” (Psalm 147:11)  If you also delight in me I promise I will guard your precious heart: “Take delight in the Lord and He will give you your hearts desires.” (Psalm 37:4)  You are so special to me that even in your most shameful and embarrassing acts of sin precious daughter, I have loved you: “but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)  I washed you in My blood to make you clean and new! “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)  I chose you specifically, crafted you in my image, and made you to preach the Gospel and be an ambassador of Christ: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)  My love for you is so strong that nothing can ever shake it or stop it: “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, now powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)  Precious daughter I just hope you never forget how much I love you: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Love,

Your Father

Red Velvet Cupcake

So the Lord has been laying food examples on my heart lately.  The other night when I was spending time with Him I thought of this one.

Okay, red velvet cupcakes.  You know how they have a hollowed out center, which is perfectly carved out for that amazing cream cheese filling?  That is exactly how God made us.  He carved out a place inside of us, He placed a void in our hearts that is perfectly carved our for Jesus, our cream cheese filling.  If you try and put relish, hot sauce, cottage cheese, any other kind of filling in a red velvet cupcake it will be horribly unsatisfying and you will keep searching for the perfect filling until you find it.  These fillings in life can be money, sex, material things, other relationships, personal accomplishments.  If you try and fill the void in your heart with anything other than Jesus, you will not be satisfied, because He made us in His image and likeness to be filled by Him.  Of course anything else you try and fill it with will taste awful, because Jesus is that cream cheese filling :)

"If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight were filling you with light." 

- Luke 11:36

"If you do this, you will live many years, and your life will be satisfying." 

- Proverbs 3:2

The Why?

I had a very humbling thought just now.  So many times in sport if things don't go our way we ask the big "why" question to God.  Why me?  Why did that have to happen?  Why can't I just perform in x, y or z manner?  I know I do that in the sport of track and field.  Why can't I just run that time?  Why does it feel like I'm the only one who can't get it together?  Why can't I perform well when I am trying so hard? 

How selfish are those thoughts.  The wants driven behind them are to look good to other people and to feel good for myself.  They make me cringe a bit.  Maybe it is time to trust the Lord has me in these positions for a reason.  I am not saying I will sit back and not try and be complacent with my opportunity on a college track team.  What I am saying maybe I should start turning my "why" questions into "what" and "how" questions.  Asking the Lord, "Okay God, I know You have this happening for a reason but what am I suppose to do?  What role do You have for me to play?  How can I turn this around to glorify You?" 

If you can relate to situations like this I challenge you to take a step back and try and look at things from His perspective.  He will reveal things to you: people who are struggling through same issues and you can reach out to help them, chances to shine the light of Christ even when your circumstances are stacked against you, people in your life you might not have met if things had just went as you wanted.  God knows what you want but gives you what you need.  Are you ready to ask God: "What do You have me here for Lord? How can I help?"

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you."

 - Psalm 32:8

Turkey Sandwich

A couple weeks ago my friend and I were driving back from the Passion 2012 Conference in Atlanta, GA.  We were processing and talking through all that happened and started talking about temptation.  This is when God put in my mind of relating temptation to a turkey sandwich. (Which if you know me at all is not surprising that I would relate something to food)

Temptation.  It is always going to be out there.  Different people struggle with different temptations.  To cheat on a test, to lust after someone, to drink to the point of drunkenness, to lie.  There are tons upon tons of temptations out in the world trying to throw us off track.  You know what the amazing thing about that is?  There is only one God, and He can help us overcome them all.  If we are filled up on the Lord's love then temptation will seem microscopic and unattractive.  Like John Piper's talk focused around at Passion, if our heart is big then our sin seems small and we can swallow it.

Say sin, or temptation, is a turkey sandwich and the Word is the Word.  If you are not fulfilling and satisfying your hunger in the Word than you are going to be starving, and rightly so.  You will be starving for direction and completion in life.  If you are starving, your perception is thrown off and you start to look towards anything in reach to satisfy your hunger and desires.  If you are not in the Word how long do you think you can resist that turkey sandwich?  If you are that hungry, anything will start to look good, especially temptation.  Your body needs nourishment but where are you going to get it?

"As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God." 

- Psalm 42:1

"God, You are my God; I eagerly seek You. I thirst for You; my body faints for You in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water."

 - Psalm 63:1 

My Dream: Salvation

Okay so I just had to blog about this dream I had! So totally cool.

I dreamt I was on this ship in the middle of the ocean. The waves were rough. I mean rocking me back and forth, tipping the ship on its side and the waves reaching way above the ship.  In my dream self I thought "I am definitely going down, there is just too much. No way can I stay above this."

Eventually, the waves completely overtook the ship and threw me off with it.  It wasn't until this moment in my dream that I realized other people were with me, people I love very much in my life, and they too were thrown off.  I was under the water in my dream but oddly calm (I am not the best swimmer).  I knew in my head I would come up. I would breathe. I would overcome this struggle with the ocean.  And I did. I popped right up.  That's when I started to look around for the other's who were with me, I wasn't as calm as I had been myself.  But, as soon as I had that thought, I looked over and saw them pop up as well.  I was at such a peace that I didn't even freak out that I was in the middle of the ocean.

The next day (back to real life), I was at the gym and was listening to my ipod and the song "Something Beautiful" by NeedToBreathe came on and all of a sudden it clicked. It was like God was whispering in my ear "Hey, remember that dream you had? This is what it meant"

The lyrics are:
"In your ocean I'm ankle deep,
I feel the waves crashing on my feet;
It's like I know where I need to be
but I can't figure out,
yeah I can't figure out
Just how much air I will need to breathe
When your tide washes over me,
There's only one way to figure out
Will you let me drown?
Will you let me drown?

Hey now, this is my desire:
Consume me like a fire
Cause I just want something beautiful to touch me -
I know that I'm in reach
'Cause I am down on my knees
Waiting for something beautiful.
Oh-oh...something beautiful.

And the water is rising quick,
and for years I was scared of it.
We can't be sure when it will subside
So I won't leave Your side,
No, I can't leave Your side."

In my dream, the ocean was representing life. It is not always easy and the devil is always trying to knock you off course. Without Jesus, you will surely drown in that ocean and loose your life to the pressures and evils of this world.  With Jesus, you can rise up out of the ocean and although you are still amongst those same pressures and temptations, you have a buoy and can overcome those waves with the peace and guidance from the Lord.  It occurred to me that rising up from the ocean in my dream symbolized salvation and that the people I was worrying about in my dream would be saved!

I had such a peace after I realized that while listening to that song. I had such a comfort in God's plan and His gift of salvation. Being a Christian doesn't mean you won't have a rough ride, but it does mean you will have peace.  Peace knowing you can overcome anything on earth with God's help and peace knowing you will eventually be with Him in heaven. God let me know not to worry and reminded me how silly it was for me to. For one, I don't have power over anything to make anything happen. Two, we have an Almighty, just, and divine Father looking out for us; planning our every step for our benefit.  A scripture my mom sent me fits perfectly for this entry...

"But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee"

 -Psalm 5:11

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  How often that is said throughout this time of year?  What are the thoughts and meaning behind those words?  This is me preaching straight to myself.  There is a sense of joy in my heart around this time and I want it to be for the right reason. The reason for this season in the first place. Jesus.  I love seeing my family and the social gatherings that are assosciated with Christmas are always nice to catch up with old and new friends.  There is still a sense of excitement of opening gifts and giving gifts as well.  The food and sweets around this time are also a treat, and if you know me at all, is definitely something I enjoy.  None of these things I enjoy around this special holiday would be possible to enjoy if it wasn't for Jesus Christ.  Everything on this Earth is by God's doing. So everything, especially the Christmas holiday, should have a focus on Jesus and a thanksgiving to the Lord for making it happen.

In Luke Chapter 1 Mary is filled with an overwhelming sense of awe for the Lord and all he has done when she says in verses 46-55:

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,

because He has looked on me with favor

on the humble condition of His slave.

Surely, from now on generations

will call me blessed,

because the Mighty One

has done great things for me,

and His name is holy.

His mercy is from generation to generation

on those who fear Him.

He has done a mighty deed with His arm;

He has scattered the proud

because of the thoughts of their hearts;

He has toppled the mighty from their thrones

and exalted the lowly.

He has satisfied the hungry with good things

and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped His servant Israel,

mindful of His mercy,

just as He spoke to our ancestors,

to Abraham and his descendants forever."

This is the kind of mindset I want around Christmas, and all through out the year.  God gave His one and only Son to die for our sins so we could live eternally in peace and happiness with Him.  I say that outshines any gift, cookie or tree anyday!