You Can't Fight It, Only Ride It

There comes a point in each person’s life when the topic of patience seems to be an issue. Sometimes we don’t have enough patience and demand our way, plan, agenda, and so forth to the point of really upsetting people. Then sometimes we are too patient and end up letting other people control our emotions, decision making, and thought processes because we don’t think we’re extending enough patience. Either way, we are not patient enough to the point of rushing people, or we are too patient to the point of being taken advantage of. I think I have heavily experienced both. Where is the middle ground?
At times it is really important to act quickly and be impatient. For example, if your house caught on fire in the middle of the night you probably wouldn’t dilly-dally around and try to sleep for a few more hours. If you tried that you would most likely die; a big consequence for not acting quickly enough. People would not be mad at you for trying to get them out of the house; they wouldn’t accuse you of being impatient.
Then at other times, it is really important to be patient and move slowly. Let’s say you were building a house, and someone was trying to get you to by-pass pouring the foundation because it would add an extra week onto the housing project. “Oh it doesn’t matter; no one will ever see the foundation anyways.” Wrong. You can’t build a solid house without a foundation, and this is something that should be done correctly. You can’t skip the steps and expect it to be complete. For completeness to occur or for a house to be correctly built for the purposes intended, there is patience involved; missing something as important as the foundation would cause the whole project to be useless. Thus, patience is important here.

So why is this applicable to our daily lives you might ask? Well, there are times when we need to be both patient and impatient. I am sure you know this. Discernment and faith are the keys to understanding when these times are. I think God takes us through certain situations and extends our patience or impatience for a reason; even if it was something that we didn’t necessarily “see” or intend for. The thing that you wait for or hope to receive at the end is something completely different than what you would have ever expected. As Carrie Underwood puts it, “Oh, some pages turned, Some bridges burned, But there were, Lessons learned.” There is a point and purpose to every situation and difficult season that you go through. And sometimes you need to be patient through those times in the desert to really understand, feel, and truly be able to directly pin-point the lessons God has wanted you to learn. You can’t speed this up or slow this down.

Without taking the time, the risk, and being faithful and obedient, you wouldn’t understand the depths of the lesson. Just because we do the right thing and feel like we are going exactly where God wants us to go, it doesn’t mean he won't break you or is going to automatically give you what you think. But, he will give you something that is much more eternal and everlasting than anything on this earth; more of Him. You can’t skip the tears, the heart-ache, the pain, or the intended purpose. You can’t by-pass the time it takes to get to this location; it would be like trying to drive to China from the US in 45 minutes give or take some traffic. It doesn’t happen.   Sometimes it even takes time to be released from feelings and plans and no other person can say or do anything to speed this up. Most likely, people won’t understand this and will expect you to get over things as fast as they did or to move on from certain situations because it’s logical. But you can’t move on or be released because God hasn’t given you that freedom yet. He still has more to teach you no matter what other people do or think.  You have to accept the process; it's not a bad thing.
The point of all of this is even if you look back and feel like you have wasted a lot of time on situations that didn’t necessarily pan out exactly how you would have wanted, you did get something out of it. You never waste time by loving people, stripping yourselves of the nasty habits and thought processes, and walking step by step with God in the midst of a dry season. At the end of that path however, it is not a promised thing that the destination will not cause you more pain or throw you for a loop. However, it is a promised thing that there is a new destination and a completely new uncharted path. The same things don’t work anymore, and you’re ready to leave the nest and start a new beginning. There is no point in having regret or wishing you would have done things better. What’s done is done and as Jesus says, “It is finished.”

No matter where you’re at or what you’re going through, Jesus is your constant. As a friend described to me recently, “walking with Jesus is like surfing.” The waves come and go, sometimes you ride them and sometimes you let them pass you by. No matter what, those waves still come and you make the choice as to what to do with them. Sometimes you can’t pass them by, and sometimes you don’t catch the ones that are promising. Sometimes the current snatches you for a bit and you almost drown, and sometimes you have the most epic ride of your life. Regardless, He is our ocean. For that reason, we can trust and feel confident that he has it under control. The ocean is a little bit stronger than our measly bodies. We can’t fight it, only ride it!
Carrie Underwood-"Lessons Learned"

Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

“He brought me to the poor to learn. The poor made me rich; in so many ways they were my mentors in the things of the Spirit”—Heidi Baker, Compelled by Love

I wish I was content. I wish I was satisfied. I wish I didn’t have to wait for things. I wish I could wake up every morning and be excited about the day. I wish I was filled with ridiculous amounts of joy every single moment of every single hour. This seems like such a foreign concept, and after almost two years of frustration after frustration, I am still not satisfied with this world. I get upset, I get irritated, I get tired…I get hopeful, I get crushed, I get confused. I have moments of happiness and joy, but nothing that surpasses all difficulty and truly makes me enjoy everything in my life. This is ridiculous though, I should be thanking God that I have food, shelter, wonderful friends and family, and everything that I could ever ask for. I have so much to be grateful for, why I am still not content?

Honestly, sometimes I wish I had absolutely nothing. I wish I had to survive each day waiting on God to provide. I wish I didn’t have so many options to fake satisfy myself….I get so distracted. It is said that is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven than a poor man. I completely believe it. The poor have nothing but God to rely on, they don’t have to sift through a variety of options, people, and things to know what is important and what truth is. Interestingly enough, my generation is called the “shopping cart generation.” We pick and choose; put back what we don’t want after testing it out. We are used to instant gratification, and we are used to throwing away the stuff that doesn’t please us or gratify us. The poor don’t have these options, in this way they are lucky.

Options are great until they begin to master you. They control your thoughts, and flood your decision making with confusion. They take hours, weeks, months, and even years out of precious time in your lives. But what happens when you have already exhausted all of your options? You are left empty or re-emptied. In this way, because the poor do not have as many options, they don’t have as many distractions in accepting the love of Christ. They don’t need to look at anything but their creator to satisfy, because they know they have nothing else. The rich go through the excruciating long process of realizing they have no options but Him, after going through many of the “fake options.”

I am by no means saying that the poor don’t have it rough; I don’t envy the diseased, orphaned, and dying of Africa in a physical sense. However, I do envy them on a spiritual level. They can say “Jesus I want more of you” and truly mean it to its fullest because they have nothing else. I want nothing else but Jesus, why has it taken me so long to get to this point? Nothing at all matters and I count everything at a loss in comparison to serving our Lord. I am poor in spirit and I need his fulfillment on a minutely basis. Although my troubles and questions have not disappeared, the Lord still stands and his greatness is still the same; yet it has been magnified in my eyes. Nothing I can do, nothing I can say, nothing I can even think will ever change him because he is unchangeable. He is so great that even though my circumstances rock my world, they don’t rock his. His very breath could discombobulate the limbs on my body or sink this continent in .00000000037830 seconds. How amazing is that?

Pretty much, I would like to live out of backpack and spend my days in the enjoyment of His creation and in the dependence of His portion. Literally, I am sick of stuff and things and temporary highs that lead to disappointment. I hate to say it, but I truly think like a radical person; radical in the sense that I want all or none of Jesus. “None” doesn’t seem to be the answer because He has had a beckoning call on my life since I was seven, and He always seems to draw me back. How do I not run or hide from His embrace? How do I avoid the distracting options? I think it would be easier if I had no other option.

Praise His name and Praise His greatness. He is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Amazingly enough, He is my very own Father.

Take it All

All the promises I've broken,
All the times I've let You down,
You forgot them, but still I hold on to the pain that makes me drown,
But now I'm ready to let it go, to give it away.

Take it all,
Cause I can't take it any longer,
All I have, I can't make it on my own,
Take the first, take the last,
Take the good and take the rest

Here I am, all I have,
Take it all.

And all the roads that lie before me,
All the struggles I go through,
Give me a?secondary? reminder that it all belongs to You,
Now I'm ready to let it go, to give it away.

Take it all,
Cause I can't take it any longer,
All I have, I can't make it on my own,
Take the first, take the last,
Take the good and take the rest
Here I am, all I have,
Take it all.

And ever since I died to myself,
You gave a better life to me,
I give You my finest moment,
I give You the last breath I breathe.

Take it all,
Cause I can't take it any longer,
All I have, I can't make it on my own,
Take the first, take the last,
Take the good and take the rest,

Take it all,
Cause I can'y take it any longer,
All I have, I can't take it on my own,
Take the first, take the last,
Take the good and take the rest,

Here I am, all I have,
Take it all.

Kutless--Everything I Need

Listen Now!

When every step is so hard to take
And all of my hope is fading away
When life is a mountain that I can not climb
You carry me, Jesus carry me.

You Are strength in my weakness
You are the refuge I seek
You are everything in me time of need
You are everything, You are everything I need

When every moment is more than I can take
And all of my strength is slipping away
When every breath gets harder me
You carry me, Jesus carry me

You Are strength in my weakness
You are the refuge I seek
You are everything in me time of need
You are everything, You are everything I need

I need You
You are everything I need
I love everything about You

You Are strength in my weakness
You are the refuge I seek
You are everything in me time of need
You are everything, You are everything I need

Purpose Fixation: How Not to Fail

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

--Hebrews 12:2--

Starting and finishing things can be fairly complicated at times. As a self proclaimed perfectionist in SOME things, I get upset at myself if I don’t finish what I start. I make myself feel guilty when I don’t work as hard as I can, or deep clean as much as I want to. I stress myself out about things that really don’t matter or change my life in a current, impactful way. I put BIG things off and procrastinate so I can do them properly….or not at all. Sometimes I have really great ideas, but I don’t get them going. This does not make me feel good. How can this be changed?!

This last October, I decided I was going to read through the entire Bible. I had set this goal in the past, and gotten about as far as the middle of Exodus. The Old Testament specifically can be torturing to get through if you are just reading for the sake of reading; Leviticus and Numbers are not the most thrilling. Anyways, before starting this little journey, I decided I wasn’t going to fail.

How do you not fail?

One. Not failing starts with making a commitment to not fail. That means, when you don’t feel like doing what you supposed to do, or want to sway back and forth about the option of starting and finishing something, you say “no.” You stick to your “visionary” plan and allow yourself to reach your goal, step by step and day by day. It is amazing how much of this we can control.

Two. Not failing means staying away from “self fulfilling prophecies” about failing. When you listen to yourself and your doubts about failure, they shape the future. We wonder why we make the same mistakes over and over again; probably because we are coaching ourselves to make the same mistakes. We aren’t changing anything about our approach. As Albert Einstein says, “Insanity: (is) doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Three. Not failing is accepting change. There are some days when I don’t have time to read my Bible, or feel like I should be reading something else. This is okay. Being religious makes you feel bad about this; being in relationship with God makes you feel loved despite how much you read your Bible. There is not just one method of completion.

Four. Not failing means having mercy on yourself and others. Being open to the spirits leading requires you to be open, love people, and change what you feel like doing. It doesn’t mean you are any farther away from the intended purpose; you are just walking along a different path which goes to the same destination. Don’t get mad at yourself or others for wanting to take a different path or go through a season a little differently. All things are working for the good of his purpose.

Five. Not failing emphasizes extreme FOCUS. When you keep your eye on the prize, you naturally begin to move towards the goal. The winner of the race is the one who stays fixed on the finish line, despite the physical pain and mental gymnastics. Have you ever noticed that the first mile of a run is the hardest? When you set a goal to run 5 miles and refuse to stop when you feel like stopping, after about a mile endorphins kick in and you can cruise. It feels great. But think about what happens when you focus on how little you have run during the first mile, and how much pain you’re in? If you stop you get discouraged; if you push through you are victorious.

Blah, blah, blah…This has to do with my Bible reading escapades because I’m not done reading yet. Right now I’m in 2nd Samuel, learning about David and how he was such a man after God’s own heart. It’s encouraging, and I love where I’m at right now. I may not be even close to finishing the entire Bible, but I have quite a BIG chunk out of the way, and after getting through the “drier” parts (which a majority talked about desert wanderings), I am really excited about what I am reading. And It’s only picking up pace. The New Testament will be a breeze.

The big message in this is if I would have stopped reading in the middle of Leviticus and given up during the endless explanations of how to build the tabernacle, I wouldn’t be as far in the Bible as I am. Someday I will go back and read those parts in more depth, but right now that wasn’t my goal. I wanted to read the stories and get an idea about the BIG PICTURE; not dive into the nook and crannies of how to properly sacrifice an unspotted lamb. To do this, I have had to trek on and continue reading where I left off, even it had been weeks since I read those parts. Amazingly enough, I’m about 270 pages in. I still have A LOT to go, but I’m in stride and through what most would say is the “first mile” of the Bible.

I’m going to finish, and finish strong. I don’t know when, but I know I will. And, I’m already seeing the fruits of my labor through the satisfaction of looking at the chunk I’m through; the dent I’ve made in such a large task. It feels good and I have more drive than I did in the beginning.  Now that is how to NOT FAIL.

Let’s do some work son!!!

--Scott Chopping Away at a VERY Large Tree--

--The Boys STILL Chopping--

--Totally Worth It...Injuries and All!--

Deceitful Division: Misss-Understanding the Black-White & Gray People

I had an interesting conversation today, one that really got me thinking about the meaning between black-white and the grayscale ways of thinking. Why is it that we are so often divided by silly differences in our thought processes, when our love and goal is the same? If we claim to be believers and followers of Christ, why do we let mis-understandings break our bonds and bring division to the Church?

I am definitely more of a black-white type person. I think logically and almost algebraically, as in 2+2=4 and by grace=we have been saved. That’s how I read, that’s how I develop processes, and how I think of things in terms of organization. When I am struggling with something, my solution is to completely remove it and provide a solution knowing the exact cause. I am not trained or built to think about the process, but to think about what I need to do to get the answer. This is who God made me.

Now when communicating with grayscale people, I can come across as aggressive and intimidating. Often grayscalers think about the process, and are comfortable without having the solution or exact schedule of what is going to happen, when it’s going to happen, and et cetera. They are more abstract, this is who God made them to be. This freaks me out, not knowing. This is uncomfortable for me. But for people who think in the gray, I make them uncomfortable. This is not a good division. There is no right “way” to think.

After years of trying to understand my faith and my role in loving Jesus, there is no clear cut answer. We have a final destination in terms of the Kingdom, but we also have a very unknown road to follow. We are given hints on how to love Jesus and people, but we aren’t given a formula for the exact right way to do it. We have to deal with the unknown process to get a result. There is room for both.

When it comes to being in relationship with people, Satan’s ultimate goal is to provide mis-understanding, mis-communication, and division. He wants to confuse the heck out of people, and ruin God given unity by getting us to focus on the wrong things. He uses an argument like smoking pot or having sex before you’re married to distract us from the root issues. People are easily deceived, and if he can show you or make you feel like someone doesn’t understand you because you “think” differently, he has accomplished his goal. He creates division through a vessel of good intentions. What if we learned to accept and embrace these differences in thinking, realizing we all have the ultimate goal of serving God? It’s his job to convict; it’s our job to serve. Now that is truth.

It is good to be surrounded and in community with people who think differently. Grayscaler’s level me, and I level them. It is a win win situation when you have this combination, because all parts of the body have a place to work together and flourish; but only if both sides refuse to be divided and work toward the common goal of loving God and loving people.

There are some things that can’t be compromised, but arguing between the process and the goal is useless at times. Both people need to be accepting and embracing both sides in order to be united. Think about how much division this has caused? Broken friendships, relationships, marriages; all because we don’t know how to communicate effectively and are stubborn and pridefully attached to “our” way or no way. It’s heartbreaking. We have a responsibility to accept people just as they are. We are no better just because we are different.

I am sorry if I have mis-communicated this to people in my life. That’s not who I am, even if it has appeared that way.

Spring: To proceed or originate from a specific source or cause

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, and hath not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one be warm alone? And if a man prevail against him that is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

--Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Do you ever notice that good and bad stuff seem to happen in clumps? That when you are having a bad day, your friend is often having a bad day? When some giant blessing smacks you in the face, other people usually have awesome stuff happen to them too? I think there is something bigger behind this. This is not to say that this is always the case, but I think it’s a trend. I think when God is working on an individual level; he is also working on a corporate level.  Season by season.

As a lot of people can testify, the last year has been kind of hard. A season full of change, disaster, death, and suffering…on several different levels. This year has been traumatic, there have been many “events or situations that have caused great distress and disruption,” whether good or bad. Graduating college, deciding where to live, not knowing where I belong, all normal stages in life, but no one ever said they would be this confusing. Also, so much death, I am about to go to my third funeral this year, which is the fourth one in my lifetime. Even Michael Jackson died, and every other week it seems like some other celebrity has passed away from something other than old age. I don’t understand this, but I do know that it’s not just me who has had a difficult year.

The cool thing is, I think hardships are put into our lives to increase our capacity for suffering, loving, and enduring. In this, we become better friends and family members; we empathize more and actually allow ourselves to feel on every level. I seriously cannot watch two minutes of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition without tearing up. Even listening to the radio station and hearing some kind of praise report hits something deep inside of me that was more immune or numb before. I like it, I like it a lot.

It’s funny, because the goal of my life this last year was to really learn to give and receive “love.” There was one person in my life that I really cared about and had really hurt because I was incapable of loving. Because of this, I really felt like I needed to face some deep rooted fears. I needed to purge all those nasty selfish attitudes that kept me from being vulnerable and being the woman God designed me to be. Amazingly enough, my heart has been changed for quite some time, and due to those changes, I have been able to face life’s difficulties with confidence and stability. Not that my emotions haven’t gotten a little out of hand at times, but overall I know my motives are genuine in loving now because I remember what it was like when they weren’t.

If I hadn’t gone through stages of being selfish and disliking the things I did to people, I would have never learned what truly loving someone felt like. I wouldn’t be able to empathize, accept, and just truly care about people the way God has wanted me to. If I hadn’t gone through the suffering to reconcile, restore, and accept the things I couldn’t change, I wouldn’t be where I am at today in terms of an encourager and supporter for the people I love. My struggles have become a blessing for myself and other people in some round-about way. And it’s the same for people who encourage me in my walk; their battles and deliverance have spoken volumes into my life.

God puts special people into your life during these seasons of “wandering in the desert” and suffering, even if everything doesn’t make sense yet. We are all in this together…and soon enough we will be reaping the rewards of a GIANT HARVEST of Blessings. Until that day, let’s love and enjoy each day as it comes. What else are we supposed to do? Day by day, clump by clump, there are people who have felt what you feel and know where you’re at. With all this death, a lot of new life is bound to spring up….and it’s finally the beginning of SPRING...