What If?

I have a few thoughts on my mind right now. But two stand out most of all. This first, and more important, being what if I could help people in my life realize their potential? Their potential to be the best friends they can be. Their potential to reach out and make someone's day, or even change someone's life for the better.
Their potential to make a difference.

What if I could help someone realize their potential to create?
To create better friendships, to create a better prayer life, to create a way to show the lost and lonely that there is hope and there is healing.
You see, creativity isn't just painting and music and dancing and sculpture and photography and writing. Creativity is much more than just the typical definitions of art, because anything you could do to impact someone, bring hope to their life, or make any sort of difference, big or small, takes creativity.
We were made in the image of a God who is ultimately creative. Therefore, I believe all of us, as human beings, can be creative in some way. That may come in the for of tradition (or not so traditional) art, but more often it comes in how we relate to the Creator and his creation (people and nature). It's how we speak to others, share our hopes, pursue our goals, and show our love. We are creative in our gift giving, in our encouraging or others, in our prayer life... Not just the art we hang on our walls or the songs we sing.
What if I could help someone realize that potential? What if I could help someone see something important to them and go after it? What if I could encourage someone to create the change they want to see in the world?

And secondly...
What if I could have a pet goat? That'd be pretty cool.
I like goats.

Behind the Scenes

Several weeks ago, my fiance and I entered into what we call "super save mode," meaning we don't buy anything we don't absolutely need. What pushed us into "super save mode" was simply life. With a wedding and honeymoon to pay for all our own, him still in school, and me about to start cosmetology school in a couple months, we knew we couldn't afford to throw our money on things we didn't need.

We were doing great with our new saving plans, and even found ways to do stuff with friends that wouldn't cost much, if anything. Then we were hit with some pretty rough news.

The VA was cutting John's funding early. That meant no monthly housing allowance that he had been using for rent, bills, and food for the last year and a half. It also meant that the last five weeks of his schooling would not be paid for. We were both very grateful that his school is allowing him to put off paying the remainder until he graduates, but with all the saving we already needed to do, that extra blow really hurt.

Knowing I would have to help with his rent and bills on top of my own. it was easy for my mind to jump straight to thoughts of desperation we all have when something big or scar is thrust into our laps unexpectedly. I'm sure you know the thoughts I'm talking about. They often come in the form of "why" questions.

Why is this happening to me?

Why me?

Why didn't God do something to stop this?

But as quickly as those questions crossed my mind, they blew away. Because I remembered ways God had provided in the past and I knew His nature hadn't changed since then. I knew He would provide again. So, following the advice of my mother (as moms always give the best advice), I began to pray. I didn't pray that He would provide, for I already was sure of this fact. Instead I began thanking Him for what I already knew He would do, but had not yet happened.

While I already had peace about the situation, something about putting my faith into action in this way seemed to solidify my surety that it would be taken care of even more so.

Then, as He often likes to do, God surprised me. The very evening the new hit, I came home to find a piece of mail sitting on the table, addressed to me, from my school. I opened it to find a response to a scholarship I had applied for--one I had been told was for $500. Upon reading the letter, I found that I had not been awarded 500, but $1000!

Already His provision was showing up.

While I may not know how the rest of this mess will be sorted out, my heart cannot help but rejoice in what I know He is doing behind the scenes.

In times like these, I often let the holy Spirit speak to me through music, as He is so good at doing. This time around, he keeps drawing my mind back to The Day That I Found God, off Switchfoot's new album, Where the Light Shines Through.

This noose ain't getting any looser.

I get so fearful about the future.

I feel the shame of my accuser,

But that ain't you.

The accuser, the father of lies, wants nothing more than to distract us from what the Lord is doing in our lives. Do not buy into the lies he throws your was in an attempt to blind you with shame over things you cannot help.

Where is Go out in the darkness?

'Cause the voices in my head ain't talking honest,

Saying maybe you made us then forgot us,

But that ain't you. That ain't you, no!

And all I know is that I still don't know a lot.

I don't know how it ends, I'm in the middle of this plot.

Yeah, I found grace for the man that I am not.

I found out the day I lost myself was the day that I found God. 

God didn't forget you. He is working right now, whether we can see it right now or not. We are still in the middle of this story, by the end it will all make sense and we will see all he's done for us along the way. One crisis doesn't mean it's over. For God likes to show up in the place where we've lost everything. Especially ourselves.

I hope that my experience may encourage you to have faith that whatever may be going on in your life or whatever is going on in the world that makes you wonder where God is or what He is doing, that He is working for you constantly, behind the scenes.

Praying With Humility

Earlier this week, my bible study found me in 1 Kings 3, the story in which King Solomon asks for wisdom. Many know this story in only that brief description, but reading it this time around, something stuck out to me that I hadn't noticed before. Verses 1-15 tell of how God came to Solomon in a dream, offering him to have anything he desires. Solomon, however, did not answer the way one might expect the twenty-year-old king to respond. He didn't ask for wealth or power or the most beautiful woman in the country. No, Solomon didn't ask for any of these things; instead he asked for discernment so that he might rule well. In return, God granted him not only the discernment he asked for, but also so much wisdom, that he will forever be known as the wisest man who ever lived.

This is the story that most of us know, but what stuck out to me was not what he asked, but how he asked it. Take a look with me at verses 7-9:

“Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give Your servant a discerning heart to govern Your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of Yours?”

It was common during biblical times in the Middle East to refer to yourself as “your servant” when addressing someone of higher political/social standing or someone who, at least in this moment, has the authority to accomplish something with which you are incapable of. So this sign of reverence and respect was not unique.

What is unique about Solomon's request was how he humbled himself further by calling himself a “little child” and recognizing that he is nothing more than a steward of what God has given him by referring to Israel as not his people, but the Lord's. In this way he removed himself from the place of control and put God in control of the situation instead. He basically said, “Look, You put me over these people, but they are not mine; they are Yours. Now guide me in what I must do so that I might lead these people in a way that is pleasing to You.”

Between moving to a new apartment, starting a new job, getting engaged, and adopting a puppy, I have spent a lot of time recently not only thanking God for what he has given me but also turning over my life circumstances into His hands. This is big part of the reason I noticed this frequently overlooked aspect of Solomon's request.

But just as with anything in the scriptures, noticing something like this isn't what is important; applying what you've learned to your life is what is important. Here, we should follow Solomon's lead and not only recognize ways God has acted in our lives in the past (having the opportunity to become king, in Solomon's case), but also putting our current circumstances in His hands with humility and reverence. Maybe that will be with your job, as it was for Solomon, or some other big responsibility or blessing such as school, or family, or an important relationship. Whatever it is, we must do as Solomon did and say, “Lord, I did not get here on my own, You had Your hand in it the whole time. I only have what I have because You allow me to be a steward of it for this time—it is not mine, only borrowed. Not my job, my home, my kids, my significant other, or even my life. All of it has been given to me. You are allowing me the opportunity to have influence with these people and in these areas, so please grant me the wisdom to act in each of them with grace so that I may bring glory to Your Name and bring others closer to You.”

(For more of a look into times I have turned over circumstances to God even though it was difficult, read Losing Control.)

The Frustrating Beauty of Relationships

If, like me, you've ever experienced what it's like to truly click with someone, you understand what I mean when I say it is both a beautiful and frustrating experience. To those who have never experienced this, what I just described makes absolutely no sense. So, for any who are not completely sure what I mean, allow me to explain.

There are these wonderfully rare moments in life where you meet someone with whom you can just connect. The connection is strong and seemingly illogical. Or at least, it looks that way in light of a society that tells us people must earn our trust and prove they are worth having in our life before we keep them around. But these sorts of friendships are different. They blossom out of seeming nothingness. They reach a level of mutual trust and depth that would normally take months or even years, depending on the person, to develop. Instead they form in only a fraction of the time. I'm talking a matter of days or weeks.
I find these sorts of friendships to be the purest sorts of friendships, for they form out of trust and understanding when, logically, there is no reason to offer either. But since when was love logical?

Isn't that, though, what makes friendship one of the most beautiful and mysterious things about human existence? For life is a journey, and when we form any sort of relationship with someone, we allow our life paths to coincide for a season, if not longer.
But just as you can't rush through any other part of your life journey--the ups and downs, the joys and struggles, the love and loss--you can't rush through a relationship. When we forget this simple truth is when the frustration I spoke of sets in.
There is actually a word for it, according to the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Its adronitis, which they describe as the "frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone."

I had been feeling this very frustration for several weeks before I discovered this definition in one of the many times I was wasting time on Facebook rather than doing something productive. And it got me thinking. Why does this frustration even exist?
Before I even had time to think in depth on the question, a thought popped in my head, "It's because you're so close."

And really, that's exactly it. Like I said, most friendships take a while to form depth, only very rarely do you meet someone you can have such a strong connection with instantly. We usually have to wait months to reach a point where we feel comfortable like that with someone, in that time we've lived life together and grown in the slow deliberate way that life paths frequently like to take. But when one of these rare friendships comes about, we forget that we've only known the other person for a short period of time, despite how comfortable we feel with them. We forget that just because we trust the other on this level that would normally take longer to reach, doesn't mean we have walked through the life with them we normally would have to walk through to reach that level of trust.
If you've ever heard someone say something along the lines of, "I feel like we've known each other forever, but also like it hasn't been that long at all," then they are probably talking about one of these beautifully frustrating friendships.

In my time thinking about these friendships, and just friendships in general, I began marveling at their beauty more than ever. For the very fact that each and every one of us longs for companionship shows our Maker's mark more than anything else I can think of. This desire to not only be loved, but to love others in return is one of the many beautiful ways our relational Creator made us in His image. After all, He made someone else for Adam, not because He wasn't enough for Adam, but because Adam needed a place to pour out all the love the Father was pouring into him.
And it is in these rare, unquestioning, deep friendships that pop up out of seemingly nowhere that I see God the most. For just like with those friends we're close to, but don't quite yet know fully, when we first delve into a relationship with He who made us, this trust  and understanding comes quickly, but full knowledge of His nature and character takes a life time to grasp.

Maybe we should learn a thing or two from this picture. Maybe this deep trust and slow learning was the way He intended it. Maybe we should learn to be more forgiving and nonjudgmental in our relationships, then patiently walk through life together.

Stuck In a Glass Maze World

About a year ago, I had the fun opportunity to spend a day with some friends at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Not only is the museum itself huge, with multiple levels (including some underground levels), containing art from various time periods, cultures, and places, but the grounds are also filled with many modern sculptures. During this particular trip to the Nelson, my friends and I decided to wander the grounds in search of the giant metal tree that we heard had been added earlier that year. On our search, we came across a curious addition I had never seen before. Standing just down hill from the monstrous and beautiful silver tree was a glass maze. While not very big, the maze was still easy to get turned around in. With the glass kept amazingly clean, it wasn't hard to miss a turn and accidentally run into the opposite wall or get turned around and pass a needed turn to reach the maze's center (especially if you didn't want to look like a fool by bumping into walls over and over again).


I think in much the same way, we let ourselves get trapped by what we're told and the lies we tell ourselves. Lies like: I'm not good enough. 
I'm not smart enough. 
I'm not attractive enough. 
I'm too young. 
I'm too old. 
I have nothing to say, nothing to offer, and no where to go. 
I'll. Never. Amount. To. Anything.
"ENOUGH! Enough with the lies!" I want to scream, but if you're alive and breathing in the twenty-first century, especially twenty-first century America with its image saturated culture, you know that thoughts like these, or at least thoughts very similar to these, pop up everywhere.
But these lies trap us in the same way the glass maze traps us. For we can see outside the maze, we can see life going on beyond the glass, we can even communicate with those on the outside, but we cannot hear them clearly through the glass. We can't really connect. Or at least not the way our hearts long to connect.
These lies keep us stuck behind this glass with no true connection, making us feel isolated, even when surrounded by those who love and care about us. And when we finally get fed up with feeling this way, we start to look for a way out. But just like with the glass maze, we are too embarrassed by our insecurities. We won't let ourselves bump into the walls, even if it will help us find the right path sooner, because we don't want those around us to know that we feel trapped. We don't want them to see it. In doing so, we hide even more, further trapping ourselves and maintaining that we never connect with anyone.

As usual, I want to take this even further. I want to look into why we believe these lies about ourselves in the first place. I've learned in recent months that these glass walls that keep me feeling isolated are created by lies I've come to believe about myself. Sadly, many never realize this, because our enemy is crafty. He has mastered the art of lies, spinning them until they look like truths we can't easily dismiss.
But why are these lies so appealing if they make us feel so horrible about ourselves? I think it all comes down to who we think we are and who we think God is.
The day I started to tear down these lies is the day I realized that if God is who I think He is, then my image of myself  did not align with what I believed. If God is loving, compassionate, creative, and all powerful, and he made me in His image, then shouldn't I, as a follower of Him, be more than capable to do great things?
I mean, this logic makes sense, doesn't it? Then how come this isn't the logic used by many of us? What I think it all roots back to is what we think of God. If you're like me and you believe Him to truly be the Lover of your soul, then this logic isn't hard to follow. But how many people really believe Him to be these things?

My mom recently told me about a children's storybook bible she heard about where the author, having to summarize things to make sense to little kids, summarized all the lies that the serpent told Eve in Genesis 3 with one doubt instilling question, "Does God really love you?"
Well? Does He?
If you aren't sure on that, then I can tell you from personal past experience that you aren't going to have an easy time breaking down those lies.

Life Is Like a Box Of... Dirt?

Exodus 36. This chapter isn't packed full of awesomeness by any means, but that doesn't mean God doesn't show us a bit of His heart through it.
In this chapter, we are told for the third time in the last fifteen chapters about how to construct the tabernacle. Each time is described in immense detail and with pretty much the same words each time. Almost as if the author used an ancient copy and paste for each description. By the third time reading through this description, my eyes were beginning to glaze over. I mean, let's be honest, I don't really care how they made their portable tabernacle. But as this thought crossed my mind, I realized something... God does. God cared so much about how they built His house that he told us about it not once, not twice, but three times.

Why?

I think there could be several reasons. The first that comes to mind is that He cares about attention to detail. God not only wants us to do His will and use our skill sets to His glory, but he wants to do the job well and spend time putting attention and meaning into the littlest details of the work.
But I also think there's more than that.
While this is true, I have seen time and time again that my God is not a God of the usual, conventional, or predictable. My God plays by His own rules. And these rules don't always make sense to us at first.

Of course He wants us to put meaning into the littlest details of our work, using the skills and abilities He's gifted us to use. That only makes sense. But what if it goes deeper than that?
What if this goes farther than just our work, hobbies, and talents? What if this goes into our everyday lives? The mundane. The boring. The routine.
What then?

I've come to say recently that the Old Testament can have some really epic parts, but all too frequently we stumble across chapters that are about as exciting as a box of dirt. Chapters like Exodus 36, for example. Now what do you do when you come across these boring "box of dirt" chapters? You can do what many do and decide, "You know, I'm not getting anything out of this chapter, book, or even the bible at all. Let's just give up!"
But that's not how I roll. I decided in March that I was going to read through the whole bible. All of it. And I would write something on each chapter I came to the day I found myself there.
So, planting myself firmly in that boring box of dirt, I waited. And while I waited, I tried to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit through the irritated complaints of the lazy adult in my mind begging the child God wants me to be, "Just get out of the sand box! You have a suitcase to pack, sleep to get, and yummy citrus tilapia to eat. There is nothing worthwhile here. IT'S JUST DIRT!"
"But I made a promise," I argue back. "There's gold here in this sandbox, I know it!"

Surely you remember being a child and being absolutely sure you had buried treasure in your back yard, or dinosaur bones, or that you could dig a tunnel to China, build a time machine, or be a world famous adventurer. Maybe you don't remember, but I do. I remember believing these things with such certainty that no one in the world could tell me otherwise.
Well, God wants us to be those children, hunting tirelessly for nuggets of His truth, beauty, and wisdom in every part of our lives. But sadly, we tend to listen to the other voice, the one telling us to leave this hunt for other things.
The thing the other voice doesn't realize is that life may not always be glamorous. In fact, it's usually as boring as a box of dirt, but that doesn't mean God isn't in it, with us through the mundane and boring.

Recently, I read an article titled, "15 Questions To Ask While Dating." The idea, was things you should think about before considering marrying someone.
One of the questions read: "Do we enjoy doing the mundane together?" Laundry, budgets, grocery shopping, chores, and all the other very not exciting parts of life that make up a lot of what marriage is.
But if marriage is supposed to be a picture of what our relationship with God should be like, shouldn't we be looking for Him in even the boring everyday? Shouldn't we look for ways to worship Him and give Him glory not only in awesome spiritual highs, but also in the dreadful lows and the boring boxes of dirt?

Pits and Valleys

So, it's been a little while since I've written anything. Usually when I have these bouts of not blogging, it is because I am so wrapped up in my novel, or simply because I haven't quite put together a thought on what God's been teaching me that's straight enough to blog about. Or at least not straight enough to blog about in my preferred style, complete with examples, analogies, and stories.
But these last few weeks that has not been the case.

The thing is, I haven't been putting a lot of effort into my novel recently or even my relationship with God. That's not to say I didn't have the desire to do either, because I did. I longed for my creative highs and my peaceful mornings spent in the word. But over the last few weeks, those "peaceful mornings" have been filled with depression, distraction, and stress. While the depression would leave me once I got myself out of bed and moving, the stress and distractions would always linger through much of the day, bringing my focus levels to an all time low. With the desire to move forward, but no attention span, my motivation quickly dwindled. Every morning I would ask God, "Please, show me something. Bring me closer to you this day. I want to know you more." And while each day I found some small rarity in a passage I would never have looked in to find out anything more about my wonderful Creator, that step forward was always accompanied by several tiny steps back. The pattern left me feeling stuck. Like I was making progress, but not enough to get any forward momentum. Like a conveyor belt was moving beneath me, but my feet were strapped with lead and I could do nothing more than shuffle along just fast enough to stay exactly where I was, all while longingly staring at what I most desperately wanted at the end of the belt.

I reached a point where I was getting angry. Somewhat with myself, somewhat with God, but mostly just with this feeling of being stuck that I couldn't seem to shake. This distracted mindset that kept me from doing what I know I must do. I found myself thinking things like, "What's the point? I'm not getting anything out of this," or, "I can help people. I have before, I want to again, but how can I do that when I can't even connect to the One who gave me my heart for others?" or even, "If writing is my calling and I can't get myself to write, what am I?"
But I continued to do what I've been doing since this spring. I continued praying (Or trying to. Apparently it's very hard to pray when your mind can't stay focused on one thing for more than twenty seconds. Who knew.) and continued reading my bible every day. Even when I got to boring chapters Exodus 25, which for those who don't know, is the first of several chapters just about how to build the tabernacle and the sacred objects within it. Even on those chapters, I tried to find something to underline, something to write about, something that showed me more of human nature or God's character. But despite my efforts to find something even in these chapters, I still felt stuck. I was still plodding against the conveyor belt endlessly with no end in sight.

Then, Wednesday evening, after a morning of maximum frustration and extremely low motivation levels that led to me laying on the floor for hours with no will to move, God began showing me things that He's apparently been trying to teach me these last few weeks, but I never noticed.
It started when I went out to dinner with a new friend. I had recently asked him where his faith was in a very silly manner, and he told me it hasn't been that great in a while, but that he thinks it's getting better now. During dinner, he decided to shed a little more light on the picture, and after telling me what caused his faith to plummet in the first place, he said something that surprised me. He told me that before he started to talk to me, his relationship with God and his desire to go to church was a giant shrug. He said that if anyone ever tried to talk to him about Jesus, he would just wave it off and be over all indifferent towards it. Having already noticed some of these patterns and knowing what I had just learned about his past, I was not surprised by this confession. What surprised me was when he said, "Talking to you, things are starting to sink in more. I actually want to try to have a relationship with God again. When you invited me to come to church, instead of my normal habit of making up an excuse for why I couldn't go, I wanted to figure out a way to make it work. I wanted to try again."
I was stunned. For literally most of the time I've known him, I have felt like I was shuffling endlessly on that belt, with no way to take the weights from my feet that were slowing me down and keeping me from sprinting to the end. But despite that, God had still used me to make an impact on his life.
I was stunned, I was happy, I almost didn't believe it, but the inflection in his voice showed that he meant every word he said. I didn't know what to do with the information at first.

It wasn't until later that night, after movie night with friends was over and I was laying alone in my bed did it really settle. God used me, to touch the heart of someone who had long since shrugged Him off. I didn't do anything. How could I have, after all? I was struggling in my pursuit of my dreams and my faith. But that doesn't make a difference in God's kingdom. For God isn't just there in my mountain top experiences, where I feel Him close and see Him everywhere, but he is also in my dark valleys, where I can't see Him beside me or even feel His hand guiding me. But just because I don't feel Him or don't see Him, doesn't mean He isn't there or isn't working.

I would like to take this one step further and remind you that God works in mysterious ways. He doesn't only use those who are trying to follow Him (even those in a spiritual funk, as I have been) to further His kingdom, but even those who either don't realize He's there or don't see Him working.
A good friend of mine has recently been learning what it looks like to love unconditionally. To love someone just for being a person, not because of how they perform, treat you, or meet up to expectations. She's been learning what it means to let go of hurt and act instead out of love, rather than holding onto that hurt and letting it effect the way she treats others.

The other day, she and I had a bit of a dispute about the friend mentioned in my previous story. In a nut shell, she thought I was being too nonjudgmental, while I thought she was being too judgmental. A very unneededly long story short, she texts me after movie night and shares several realizations about how God is with her not only as support in her hard times, but also in her good times. After sharing this epiphany, she says, "I did realize though, that he's a person God loves, and that I haven't been very loving."

We, as people, tend to do whatever we want, but that doesn't mean God can't use us or our circumstances wherever we are and whatever they happen to be to bring about something beautiful.
Hardship doesn't need to be just that. It can be more. God can use it in ways we wouldn't imagine. After all, He used my friend with the decade old, half abandoned faith to teach my bestie what it means to love. If God can use me in my spiritual blah, or him and all the things that went into his turning away from the faith to impact the lives of others, can't He also use the poor circumstances in your life for something bigger, something you never will see coming?

The Spirit's Whispers

Happiness is good, and there's days where I crave it,

But those days are usually dark and lonely 

Where I forget that the root word of happiness is happen 

And that happiness is connected to circumstance and what we can get out of life.
On those days I forget that joy is what I really need.
That joy is a seed planted in my heart by a loving Father,
That no matter how unhappy my circumstances may seem,
That seed of joy will grow into a tree with hope as its roots and peace as its branches.

And somewhere in that growth my heart will learn to love again
And see people despite the sin that plagues them. 

For it plagues me too.
Because aren't we all the same?
Stuck in this disease called humanity that grips our minds
And in time we stop seeing the truth.
Though it affects most things we do, it's not who we are,
For we are more than our actions and scars-- 

We are souls seeking refuge in a stormy sea, 

But despite what we're told and despite what we think, that refuge is never the boat
That teeters and rears and tries to stay afloat atop the waves.
While our bodies want the boat's "safety," our spirits long to be saved.
Through the cries of our flesh, the Spirit whispers underneath,

"Take hold of his reach. Cant you see? 

The creator of your soul has asked you to be not of the storm but above it,
Walking the waves as if it were pavement."

Blessings Amidst Trial

I once heard an analogy that went along the lines of this:

There once was a girl walking through the jungle. Suddenly a tiger jumped out and began chasing her. She ran until her path abruptly ended at a cliff. With nowhere else to go, she jumped and grabbed onto a vine on the way down. Temporarily out of harms way, she breathed a sigh of relief and looked down to see how far the cliff went. On a ledge below her stood a second tiger, snapping up at her feet while the one above stared down at her.
"At least the vine will hold," she thought before noticing two mice, one black and the other white, gnawing at the vine.
The tiger above represents the past. The one below, the future. The mice are day and night, the uncontrolled passage of time that brings us ever closer to our end. But this isn't the whole picture. For before the girl on the vine is a bush of strawberries growing out of the side of the mountain. She plucks one and eats it and how sweet it is.

"What's the point of this story?" you may be asking yourself.
The point is simple. Sometimes we are too caught up by the fear of our past and future, or the anxieties of the day to day life that we fail to notice the blessings placed right before us.
This is more common than you'd realize. In fact, there's a story in Genesis 21 that shows a similar sort of point.

The beginning of the chapter shows Isaac being born. As the chapter goes on, we see some tension between Abraham's family and his wife's maidservant, Hagar, and her son. Feeling like her son's inheritance might be in jeopardy, Sarah tells Abraham that she wants Hagar and Ishmael to be sent away. God promises Abraham that He will take care of Hagar and Ishmael, so Abraham does as Sarah wishes and sent them off into the desert with some water and food for their journey.
When the water runs out, Hagar and Ishmael begin to sob, knowing they would soon die in the harsh desert air if they couldn't find any water.
Verses 17-19 say this:

God heard the boy crying and the angel of God called out to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid, God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand for I will make him a great nation."
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

Just like in the tiger analogy, Hagar didn't notice a blessing right in front of her (the well), because she was too busy grieving over their apparent demise.

I think the key to noticing these blessings is praise.
Too often, our first response to poor circumstances is fear and despair. But in our fear, we forget who God is, what He has done for us in the past, and what He can do for us in the future.
But when we find ourselves afraid, the best thing we can do is bring our fear to God. Don't resist it, just say to your Father, "I am afraid," then remind yourself of who He is.

Someone who has seemed to have mastered the art of praising God through the trials is King David.

Countless times in his Psalms expresses his deep fear and anguish only to turn right around and start praising God despite his present circumstances.
But David isn't the only one who I've seen be able to do this on more than one occasion. Just recently, a good friend of mine released a book of poetry entitled Flowers In The Darkness where she does just what David did in his Psalms.
It's refreshing to read Davidic Psalm styled poetry about life, God, struggles, and beauty from a current and relevant voice. From someone living in my day and age, facing similar trials as I have.
We all could learn from David just as Denica McCall has.

My God is Limitless - How Big Is Your God? (Part 3)

In the second part of this three part post, I talked about how the wounds and scars from our past can prevent us from really seeing God. This time, I want to share a bit of my own story with emotional scars.
As I said in the last post, everyone has their scars, the lies they believe that prevent them from seeing the Truth. Because I am human, I have them too. One in particular plagued me for a long time. I believed that I wasn't important, that I didn't have anything to offer the world. This lie was more harmful than it seemed, like a poison that slowly eats away at self-esteem and plants not only seeds of self-doubt, but seeds of God doubt. It caused me to reach the point that I described in Doubting Your Doubts, where I couldn't even believe God intellectually any more, I just said and did things to keep up the show for people who I thought would reject me if they knew I didn't really believe what I said.
Thankfully, God is patient and persistent. He pursued me when I didn't even know he was. Then he grabbed my attention and spoke straight to my heart (for more of that story, check out my first post ever here). It was then I was able to start seeing the intellect in it all. But this lie, along with many others I believed then, and some I still believe today, created those deep scars I spoke of. Scars I didn't even know existed. Scars that I'm still discovering today.

I briefly mentioned in the last post that if you want to truly heal, you must identify the scars and the lies attached to them and bring them to God. But how do you do that?
The first thing to do is find the scars. How I've gone about doing that is just by paying attention to who I am and how I am. How do I react to things? What's something I don't like about myself, or something I'd like to fix? When you find a scar, ask yourself, "Why do I think this way?"
For example, I'm insecure. Sure everyone is insecure in someway, but I am specifically insecure about my creations. I have a very hard time expressing myself and my understanding of things, so I like to do it in the most creative way possible. I turn my frustrations into art. I draw, paint, write, sing, spin stories, etc. Some of these things I'm better at than others. But all of them are a deep expression of my thoughts and emotions that I am too scatter brained to articulate to another human being in the form of verbal communication.
It's my artist brain, and I love it, but for a long time I did not love it.
In fact, I hated it! I hated not being able to express myself. I hated the blank stares or confused misunderstandings I got from others when I tried. I hated feeling constantly judged and worthless.
So, I created nonstop. I created worlds, characters, stories, ideas, pictures. I even created masks to hide behind. And I was so, so insecure about my creations because they felt like part of me. Because, they really kind of were. They were the only way I knew how to express myself, but even then, I was scared to show my creations to others because I was scared they would say something less than positive about it and not realize that this wasn't just some little thing I made for fun, but this thing was me.

Those insecurities are the manifestations of a scar of a wound I received when I was young. A wound fed by the lie that I wasn't good enough, I wasn't lovable, I wasn't wanted.
But realizing that lie took time. First I had to identify the scar. I had to look at my insecurities and say, "I don't like you. You are not me, you are my chains. You don't define me, you just keep me tangled in fear." Then I had to search. I had to pay attention every time I felt insecure and ask myself, "What am I afraid of?" Through several months of asking that question, I discovered the lie I had come to believe.
The process isn't a fast one. It took me months to identify my scar, and more after that to identify my fear and the lie that fear was rooted in. But that was almost two years ago. It wasn't until this spring did I start to dispel the lie by finding out I was not alone. By meeting many other creatives who thought the same way I did and had the same doubts that God was using to do glorious and magnificent things! And not just things in other's lives, but some had even had impacts on my life before I ever met them.
But I almost didn't meet these people. My fear almost told me not to go to the Re:Write conference. "What if you don't get anything out of it? What if it's a waste of time and money? What if something bad happens on your long drive down there?" And many more what ifs that scared me. But I knew one thing.
I have a dream. A dream that I'm more scared to lose the opportunity to reach than I am scared or other's opinions of me or falling into crippling debt or even dying in a freak car accident. So, while all of the "what ifs" my fear whispered to me were very valid "ifs," I had one, single quiet "if" whispering to me, "But what if you can reach your dream?"
And that single, small, truthful whisper got me shaking with such anticipation that I no longer cared about the big, scary "ifs" my fear screamed to me.

I realize now that I am the way I am for a reason, although sometimes I forget that. It's still something I only understand in my mind, but don't quite know in my heart. Because of this, I try to do things on my own. Don't get me wrong, it's good to work towards your dream, but when you forget that your ultimate purpose is to bring glory to God's kingdom, you can shoot for the stars all you want and have a real hard time getting off the ground.
God has been challenging me with the question I shared in part 1: "Is there a limit to my power?"
I already know that God is bigger than my biggest fear. But I have a hard time learning that He is also bigger than my biggest dream.
So recently I have been circling this dream in prayer on many different levels. I'm circling that I'll be able to get the book I've already written out there where it can impact people in the unique way that only story can. I'm circling that He would guide me on my next novel, which is centered around escaping the lies of the devil to see God's Truth. And I've recently added a new prayer to the list of things I'm circling.
The book I'm working on now is set in the desert, yet I have never been to the desert. I, however, have a standing offer to get a chance to see the desert this summer with my Grandparents in New Mexico. All I must do is raise the money for plane tickets down there. The day I decided this was something I needed to do, I began circling New Mexico in prayer.With 10% of all I make going towards travel I knew I would only be able to make it there with God's provision.
In the three days since, I have made almost twice at much money as I usually do on these days.
Such an immediate answer to prayer is something I'm not used to. I was excited, stunned, grateful. But most of all, I was overwhelmed. After just a few hours, He had already provided, and it instantly brought to mind a song by Big Daddy Weave

So, how big is my God?
He is bigger than my biggest doubts, darkest fears, and most unattainable dreams.
Is there a limit to His power?
Never! He is limitless, and in Him we, too, can be limitless.



He is eternal. He is infinite. He will provide.
Do you trust Him?
I'm learning to.

Doubting Your Doubts - How Big Is Your God? (Part 1)

How big is your God?

This is a question that's very important to answer, a question that I don't think we can always answer. Mark Batterson reworded the question as one from God to man, "Is there a limit to my power?"
We can easily say God is infinite or that there's no limit to his power, but do we always mean it?
I think lots of times, even as believers, we say things like this just because we know it's the right answer and we can't put to words what our answer really is. What our doubts really are. Or, we know our doubts but we are scared of the implications. Will others judge me? Will I be misunderstood? Will God answer my prayer if I answer this question wrong?
So, we opt to avoid the real implications of the question by giving a safe answer.

At the beginning of the twentieth chapter of Luke, the writer tells of an interaction between the Sanhedrin (an order of high priests and teachers of the law) and Jesus. The men come to Jesus and ask Him where he got the authority to heal the sick and preach to the people. Jesus, knowing the men's hearts, knew they wouldn't accept the truthful answer, even if He gave it to them. So, instead, He asks a question in return, one that will require them to publicly accept or reject Him.
He asks, "John's baptism--was it from heaven, or from men?"
In other words, did the man sent to make the way for Jesus get his authority and understanding of these things from God, or men? Answering this question would require them to think about the one John proclaimed the way of, Jesus.
After discussing among themselves, they decided that they could not answer the question. For if they said, "From heaven," Jesus would ask them why they didn't believe, but if they said, "From man," they risk uprising, because the people believed John to be a prophet.
So they gave the very, very safe answer of, "We don't know."
Then, in verse eight, Jesus say, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."

When we give the safe answer to this all important question of how big our God is and if there's a limit to His power, we risk getting big fat "Nos" in our prayer life.

But the safe
path never brings us fulfillment. We never get the answer we desire or the miracle we need. We must learn to shake this feeling of needing to pray the right thing the right way to get God's attention. We already have His attention, infinitely so. We don't need the right amount of flowery words to appease His holy awesomeness. If we want answered prayers, we need to pray honestly. God already knows your doubts, so why cover them up?
Address them and lay them out before Him so He can begin miraculous healing and open your eyes and heart to His glory.

What if, just maybe, your doubts weren't even legit? What if you just required a slight shift in perspective to see things clearly? What if doubting your doubts could bring you closer to an answer and closer to God?
What if?

The Vicious Cycle Of Remembering and Forgetting

With Palm Sunday just past, and Easter on it's way, let's give a big "HELLO!" to Holy Week!

I don't know about you, but especially in past years, I've had trouble actually getting much out of these times of year. Times like Holy Week and Advent were created for remembrance of this great thing the Father has done for us through his Son, yet many of us in America don't remember. We know the stories by heart, but they've stopped affecting our hearts. We remember times in our lives where we were so on fire for Jesus, but we can't seem to feel that anymore. He feels distant, past, not present as He should.
Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?
I imagine many of you do, for it's all part of the human cycle of remembering and forgetting.
We remember we are children of an eternal King, chosen by a limitless Father, saved by His perfect Son, Jesus, who is also our Brother. We are pumped! We are excited! Everything in our lives has purpose. Everyone we know is this beautiful creation with God's very breath within them. Every conversation we have, thing we do, and dream we have seems to center around this indescribable understanding.

And then we forget.
We let the lies of the world creep in on us.The doubts from our past whisper in our ears, telling us we aren't good enough. "You aren't worth it," they say. "Who would ever choose you? You are nothing more than the scum of the earth with no talent, wisdom, or love to offer anyone." We completely forget who we just realized we were. We forget our purpose.
To love and be loved by our Creator.
But along with forgetting our identity, we forget His.
By doubting our worth, we choose to believe what our imperfect society and peers say about us, putting our worth in their opinions rather than God's. Through this, our behavior says, "God, you were wrong in sending your Son to save me. I'm not worth it."

Now, stop for a moment and let that soak in.
While you're letting that settle and wondering if this is something new to mankind since our society has gotten so loud and opinionated, or if this is how it's always been, let me tell you a story.

There was once a man named Jesus. Jesus had a lot of people who loved Him and would follow His words to their death. But within those who followed him, He had twelve friends, and within the twelve there were three who were closest to Him. Among the three was one man. His name was Peter. Peter loved Jesus very much, and Jesus even told him that he would be the rock on which He built His church.
When betrayal entered the group, all of Jesus' friends fled, terrified of what would happen to them if they stayed with their Friend and Lord. All except for Peter, who followed Jesus at a distance, determined to stay with him even through this. But while he was watching and waiting for his Lord, someone came up to him and said, "Hey, you're one of Jesus' friends, aren't you?"
"No," he said. "I haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about. That's not me. That's some other Peter, but most definitely not me."

Okay, maybe that's not exactly how it went, but you get the idea. Peter, along with the rest of the disciples, completely forgot who he was. He forgot he was chosen. He forgot that he's so much more than this earthly body, this costume. He let fear enter his camp.
We try to justify fear, saying it keeps us safe. But it doesn't. Fear only makes us forget that we are already loved by our Father and the storm holds no threat over us.
Fear does not save. Fear only makes you forget what you already have.

I bring this up, because I felt myself slipping into this familiar rut of forgetting over the weekend. I spent a month feeling on top of the world! I had God on my side, and nothing could touch me. Ever.
But discouragement began to creep in, and I started measuring my worth based off what I could do. Again.

It was during that month of remembering who I was that I learned about this cycle and truly started to see it in my life as well as the lives of those around me. Remember, forget. Remember, forget.
Ironically enough, though, when you start to slip into that stage of forget, not only do you forget who you are, but you forget that this is a cycle!
It's so easy when you start to let the world dictate your worth to resent yourself for not feeling as free as you once did. You wonder what you did wrong to bring you to this low. You forget, then, that this is just a cycle.
Like any cycle, it will continue. You will remember again.

Whenever fear and doubt threaten to make you forget, stomp it out. Stand your ground and face that fear, saying, "Satan, you hold no power over me, for I am loved, chosen, and valued by my Father. And nothing will ever change that! Ever."
Do not allow fear to overtake you, dear ones. It holds no power over you.You are not alone. You have God on your side, and countless others, including Peter, who have all gone through this cycle of remembering and forgetting.


Keep your focus on the Lord. Even when you feel yourself forgetting, continue to dive deep into his everlasting love.
You will remember. I promise.

Blessings, Faith, and Childlike Wonder

Recently, I've been noticing a lot of the little blessings God has been putting in my life. When I say recently, I don't mean that they've only been recently, rather He's been giving me them forever, and I just failed to notice until recently.
Jesus once said that we must become like little children to see the kingdom of God. But what does that mean?
To be a like a child is to embrace the wonder of the world around you, seeing more with your heart than with your intellect. For isn't it true that Jesus' words speak to our hearts while our minds are still mulling over the confusing logic?

More often than not, our minds tell us that something can't work before we ever try it out ourselves. It renounces the dreams and longings of our hearts and tell us to "be realistic" and "think like an adult."
But what if I don't want to be realistic? What if being realistic and ignoring my heart's calling leaves me feeling empty? What if thinking like an adult is holding me back?
Just like our minds, more often than not, tell us to ignore our hearts and be realistic, more often than not, following your heart can lead you to see all the little blessings all around you.

I call them "little blessings," but in reality, they're not so little after all. They come from small things, but they blessings brought can be enormous!

As you probably know, my dream is to be an author. But this longing of my heart is so much deeper than that. I, like most readers, have experienced the profound connection between reader and writer, storyteller and listener. You have moments where you feel like they know you, like they're speaking right to you, or where you feel like you know them. It's amazing how you can have such a connection with someone you've never met through the gift of words.
All of these things are "small things." Words are a small thing. Books are a small thing. Even connection is a small thing. All of it adding to the small act of reading. It's small because it's singular. It's not something you do as a group, but by yourself in quiet solitude, yet the impact can be immense.
So, what is my dream? The longing of my heart?
My dream is to create something that makes those little connections with others.
Will I ever know if I have reached this? Probably not. But what I do know is the stories that impacted me the most were God inspired. God spoke to a simple man's creative heart and told him to write, and he wrote. (For more about how such simple obedience has effected me, go here).

Recently I have been to the Re:Write conference (another little blessing with a glorious outcome), where we were encouraged to see through the eyes of our heart. The eyes of wonder. The eyes of a child. We were told that writer's block is a lie. That's all it is. Simply a fear based lie that we aren't good enough, that we'll never be writers, and that no one will ever want to hear what we have to say.
We were told the best way to overcome the lie of writer's block is to turn away from what we think we know to embrace what really is. We had to shut down our intellect and connect to God, heart to hear, soul to soul, realizing that our fear and other's opinions do not define us, but He.
And He thinks our art is beautiful.
Why? Because it came from our hearts, which he created.

This understanding, a small thing, though missed by many, has been another amazing blessing. It, however, is not something I understand with my mind, for it goes against the logic this world has instilled there. This understand is one deep within my being.
Along with this understanding of who I am and who God is, came the acceptance of a simple fact: I might not get published.
Tell me that a month ago, and I'd have fought you. I'd have told you that I will, I have to. I need to reach people. I need to reach my dream, or my dream is worthless!
Today I will agree with you. I might not get published. I might not have my books on shelves where countless people can read and have a connection that only happens between storyteller and listener. But that's okay. Because I know it's not my job to get this out there. I know it's not my job to make connections, or even write beautifully. My job is simply to write. Why else would God have planted this longing within my heart?

Over the past week I have been reading a book called A.D. 30, about a woman from Arabia who has a life changing encounter with Jesus. I read a conversation last night that helped pull the swirling thoughts that became this post together. I felt like I should share it.
The conversation takes place between a man named Judah, a Jew from a nomadic tribe in the desert who comes to Israel to find the king his elders told him about, and a Pharisee, who is later revealed to be Nicodemus (the man Jesus taught about being born again in John 3). Here is a snippet of their interaction:

   The Pharisee spoke barely above a whisper now, as though afraid his words might carry beyond the walls. "With Yeshua, God seems so be intimate, as though breath itself. The rabbi calls him even Abba. And we his children, to be born not of Abraham but of Spirit. Such things are not spoken elsewhere. And yet he asks us to follow."
   "But to follow where?" Judah demanded.
   "This too is a mystery." The Pharisee sighed. "You must understand...to have faith is to let go of knowledge as the means to salvation. To do so, one must embrace trust and mystery rather than man knowledge one's god... It is not where that matters so much as simply following. Faith, you see? Trust, like a child. It confounds the mind."

So I, like a child, follow Him down a path that's destination is unknown to me. But He tells me it will be beautiful, and I believe Him.
For isn't that what faith is? To follow with simple trust like a child?
I have chosen not only to follow like a child, but to view God's creation (and my creation) with childlike wonder!

Help! Bandits!

I ran through the foggy night. My lungs burned, my legs ached, but I kept running. I had to. They were after me.
Foot steps thundered behind me and I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder to see how far away they were. Nearly tripping over my feet, I turned my eyes forward again. It didn't matter how far they were, all that mattered was I couldn't last forever. The thugs goaded and taunted me when they saw me stumble, but I ignored them. Let them waste their breath shouting, that would actually be better for me anyway!
Weaving in and out of trees, I attempted to lose them. Or at least slow them up. Anything would be better than where I was now. But fate had a way of taunting me.
Just then, I was out in the open. The forest had spit me out into a wide glen. I was exposed, with no cover except going back in the trees where my death was charging me down. I had no choice but to plunge into the fog. I was beginning to lose hope of ever finding a way out of this situation when I saw something through the fog.
It was a light!
The light burned away the fog around it to reveal a small cottage, resting in the center of the glen. I was saved!
Finding a new energy, I ran full tilt for the little house. I prayed desperately that someone, anyone, would be home. I was going so fast that I was almost unable to slow down before reaching the door. I tried the knob, but it wouldn't budge. Locked.

PAUSE.

We all get into situations like this. Where life seems to be going any way but our own, where we feel trapped, endangered, anxious. It's just a part of life. But there's a right and a wrong way to respond in a situation like this.
My brother and I were talking the other day about where Jesus said, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
But specifically we were talking about when life puts us in situations that require us to ask, seek, or knock. Even more specifically, we were talking about a friend of ours. For her confidentiality, we will call her Sabrina.
We talked at length about how Sabrina's faith has been wavering recently and what brought her to that place. We talked about how she has decided to live life on her own, by her own power, proclaiming that God didn't want to help her or could help her. Upon learning of these new convictions Sabrina had, my brother and I were greatly grieved. The girl who was once so on fire for God and ready to worship and share him wherever she went was gone. In her place is but a shadow of who she once was.
Anger, fear, and anxiety have replaced the joy, strength, and peace she once radiated.
My brother, wise as he is, brought up this piece of Scripture, saying, "She thinks God has abandoned her, but he's just waiting for her to trust him to have it under control, instead of fighting for it to go her way."
After several minutes of discussion about the passage, the image of the chase popped into my head.
"It's like being chased by bandits," I said, "and there's a home, a safe haven of sorts in the distance. But you find the door to be locked, and instead of knocking and trusting in the unknown possibility that someone who cares might actually be there to save you, you turn back and try to face the bandits on your own."

Imagine if the character in our story, after finding the door locked, decided to do just that. Tired and sore, alone and scared, he turned back to faced the numerous thugs that assailed him, saying to himself, "I have strength! I can do this. Who says I need some God  to save me. I don't need anything but my own will power! And who's to say there's a God anyway? I mean, if there was, why would there be thugs after me? Obviously this house, this offer of peace and joy is just to taunt me! I mean, it's locked after all. Why would a loving God offer this way out, if anyone couldn't just enter? Obviously there either isn't a God, or He isn't loving, because look at that! There's bandits!"

As silly as this argument sounds, these sorts of questions are asked every day by millions of people. Now, obviously, if you were in this situation in real life, you would pound on the door until your fists fell off, which, for the sake of my metaphor, is the exact reaction you should, but don't always, have spiritually.
I can't answer all of the questions posed, but I will debunk one.
The bandits are human.
Did you see that?
They're human! Just like you and me and the old lady in the supermarket and the President of the United States. Human.
Are humans God?
No. Even though we really would like to believe so sometimes.
As humans, we have God granted free will to do whatever we please. Now you could get mad at God for "letting" the bandits come after you, but then, if he were to remove their free will, he would also have to remove yours. Why? God loves all of us equally. He wouldn't give one special favor over the other. This same free will is what gives you the choice to pound your little heart out on the cottage door, or try to face the adversity on your own.

Now, because the bandits are human and they have free will, they are chasing you.
This brings us back to the question, why would a loving God allow us to be chased by bandits? And my honest answer is I don't know.
But I do know two things:
1) By using our free will to choose our own way instead of God's way, we decide to pretend we're God. We say, "I know what's best for me better than any unseen God ever could." We take matters into our own hands, and some of the choices we make lead us to be bandits.
2) God does love us.

Now you may be asking, "But, Miss Blogger-Chick, how can you possibly say that with certainty when you have no absolute facts?"
Oh, but I do.
How do I know? He provides us with an escape. An escape from the bandits that plague our lives, and the decisions we make that make us, too, bandits.
"How does choosing to rely on ourselves and face the bandits make us bandits? I don't get it."
Oh, I'm so glad you asked that! That is a great question.
What do you suppose the person in the story is going to do when he faces the bandits? Is he going to sit down with them and chat over their differences over a nice cup of tea (or coffee, if you prefer)? No, the bandits have already proved to be violent and bloodthirsty. So then the only way to face them by yourself is to sink to their level and also become violent and bloodthirsty.
Something we all have to realize, though, is that while God will always answer, His answer isn't always the answer we want. While we want judgment, God wants retribution. We can be pounding our fists bloody on that door, begging for God to smite the bandits with a thunderbolt, but He's not going to do it. Although you may not see it in the moment, His way is so much better.

Now before I continue our story, I want to bring something cool to your attention.
Remember that passage I brought up at the beginning of the post? Yes, I know I'm long winded and it was awhile ago, but I trust your memory.
Literally the day after my brother brought up that piece of Scripture, my daily bible-prayer time brought me to Matthew 7 where the passage resides. Now we could call this sweet irony or coincidence, but I like to believe it was God. Or better yet, maybe one of God's favorite ways to work are sweet irony and seeming coincidence?
Food for thought.

I tried the knob, but it wouldn't budge. Locked.
Frantically, I knocked on the door, glancing over my shoulder constantly. I looked away for only the briefest of moments when I heard a shout. I looked back to see one of the thugs standing at the edge of the cloud of fog, pointing at me and waving his buddies over. My heart sank.
"I can't do this." I whispered to myself in defeat, tears filling my eyes.
I rest my forehead against the door and my rapid pounding slowed to a rhythmic thunk, thunk, thunk. At every third pounding of my fist, I would lift my head from the door and let my forehead thud into it. With each thud, I repeated a silent, simple prayer.
Please, save me. Please, save me. Please, save me.
The third time I brought my head back to the door it didn't connect with solid wood, but something with a give to it. Something like flesh.
I pulled back and opened my eyes to find the chest of a man only inches from my face. I looked up to meet a face and eyes so kind and loving that time seemed to slow for a moment.
"Welcome home, child." He said to me, his voice as deep and gentle as the ocean on a calm day. "I've been waiting for you."

Windows To the Soul - Why I Write (Part 2)

In part 1 (The Obedience of Sinful Man) I shared with you part of my story, as well as an example of how God used a man's simply obedience to touch my life.
I mentioned having made these connections during the Re:Write Conference that I recently returned from. Well, there was another connection I just made this morning, that I felt I should share.
Originally, this was all going to be one post, but I got on such a roll on the topic of obedience, that I had no choice but to split them up.

During the conference, I got the blessing of getting to have not one, but multiple conversations with the writer I mentioned in part 1. It was totally surreal. Not because he's sold millions of books, or even because of the huge impact his words have made on me, but because despite all that he was still human. In fact, he's just like me. He has doubts and struggles and highs and lows like the rest of us. But that's not surprising. In fact, I already knew that.
So what made the experience so surreal?
I got to meet someone who was really desperately trying to live the way Jesus commanded us all to. It was refreshing.

Earlier this week, I was on the phone with my fellow writer Elaine Mingus, sharing with her one of my favorite experiences of the whole conference. Specifically we were talking about this man and his unabashed way of sharing the truths God has been teaching him, even when he doesn't fully understand them yet as well as how understanding and accepting he is of people.
Elaine put it well when she said, "He's just so Jesus-y!"
And I realized that was the perfect way to describe it.
Don't get me wrong, he's no saint. I've heard much of his personal story. I've read of his selfishness and pride that brought him away from God in the past, of his hurts and how he's had to struggle to redefine God outside of the pain of his past. But he's let God change him to be more like His Son, and it shows!

Before I can tell you what happened, I must share with you a little something I found in my morning bible-prayer time.
I was reading Jesus's famous Sermon On the Mount, and I came across a intriguing little nugget buried in the middle. The sermon is a lengthy one, stretching over three chapters (Matthew 5-7) and covering a variety of topics, including murder, divorce, oaths, giving to the needy, prayer, and fasting.

In a section entitled "Treasures in Heaven," sandwiched between verses talking about keeping your focus on heavenly things, rather than earthly possessions and one talking about how you can't serve both God and money is the rarest little verse:
"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness, If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Matt. 6:22-23)

I have read this sermon many times, as you probably have as well. Like me, you've probably looked over that verse as, "If I focus on what is good and holy (God), then I will be good. But if I give into my sinful nature, I will be full of darkness."
This is fine. It may even have been one of the intended meanings of what Jesus said. But the cool thing about Jesus is that his words transcend time. Meaning, even as you read them countless times, you can get something new and fresh out of it. I never had gotten anything new or fresh from this set of verses. Until today.

What if it could be taken backwards? Think about it.
It is said that the eyes are the window to the soul. So, if your eyes are good, and your body is "full of light," then wouldn't the reverse be true? If one's soul is full of light, meaning you are living like Jesus the best you can, then wouldn't you be able to see that in their eyes? They being the windows to the soul?
If A=B, then B=A. Right?
Simple comparison, but it makes my point.

Now, my question for you is, have you ever seen this? Have you ever seen someone who was so full of the peace and joy of the Holy Spirit, that you could see it in their eyes?
You see, I wouldn't have been sure if I could answer this question a week and a half ago. In fact, I wouldn't have even made the connection between the verse and eyes being the windows to the soul before the conference. The only reason I did, is because I spoke with someone who demonstrated this. He wasn't trying. He wasn't putting on a show. He wasn't making himself seem good or holy or "more in tune with the Holy Spirit" than anyone else.
What he was was honest.
He was simply living his life and loving people the way he has learned to over years walking with Christ. And it showed! It definitely showed!

There was moment early on the first day where I went up to him to get the series I mentioned in part 1 signed. During which time, I felt compelled to tell him a little bit about where I was in my faith right then. I shared with him that though I have a solid foundation built right now, I have been struggling to connect with God on an emotional level due to the emotional disconnect I struggle with that I mentioned before. I told him how I miss the connection. To which he replied with, "My talk tonight is for you."

During his talk that night, he talked much about how everything we do flows out of who we think we are, how our experiences are largely influenced by our perception. He spoke of how we need to let go of out intellect, the part that puts God in a nice neat little box, before we can ever begin to see who he really is. He shared how only recently has he begun to really, truly believe that he is a child of the King. With dramatic gestures, he clutched his head, explaining that for years it was something he knew "up here," but only recently had begun to know it "down here," he said with his palms pressed into his chest.
He spoke of this and so much more. But what happened after I remember so much more clearly than what he spoke of.
I waited for the crowds of touched attendees and gawking fans to disperse, and I managed to approach him one-on-one (a rare thing indeed).
"You were right, I did need to hear that." I began.
He said gently, "I told you. I told you." His voice through the entire exchange remains how it generally does: gentle and understanding, like a father calmly guiding a child.
I told him that I needed to hear this as much tonight as I did a year ago (for this wasn't the first time he had spoken on a topic similar to this). Mimicking his gestures from before, I told him that I understand what he spoke on "up here," but I can't quite connect it "down here" yet.
Flustered, I was about to continue, when I finally met his gaze. While he had been holding eye contact the entire time, I let mine wander.

It's a funny thing, eye contact. Rarely do we hold it for any period of time. I believe there's a reason we don't. Like earlier mentioned, the eyes are the windows to the soul. Obviously sharing some part of you that's that deep can be scary. There have only been a few people I've known to hold long eye contact with me. While each time it's happened, the topic of discussion has been different, there was always one thing the same in each experience: they all wanted to connect and be open.

I've been telling people he "stopped" me before I could continue, which gives the idea that he said or did something to cause me to stop my rant before it had even begun. But that is not the case. All he did was look at me, with an expression that said, "Don't get flustered. I understand."
He took advantage of my momentary speechlessness to pull me into a big hug. "Shh," he calmed. "Don't think about it. It will come."
In that moment, I knew he was right. Of course, it's just what he said before. I need to let go of my intellect that tries to tell me how it should be, and be like a child again before God.

Quickly, before he could leave, I asked if he could pray over me. His prayer was simple. With hands on my shoulders and his eyes locked on mine, he just reminded me who I was and who God was. I can't remember his words, except how he ended it with, "Be healed, be healed." As if there wasn't anything simpler than that. Which I guess there isn't.
His words aren't what impacted me though. It was his eyes. For the first time, I held his gaze. It's amazing how much of a person's spirit you can see in their eyes. His were excited, almost like a child's, and so full of love and peace and joy. I could see the Spirit alive in him.
Before this I had never actually noticed anything like that that in someone's eyes before. Sure, I could see by the way they talk or act certain aspects of the Spirit in them, but I'd never seen it.
Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.
Maybe I wasn't looking close enough.
Whatever the case, I shall have to pay closer attention next time. And hold better eye contact, of course!

If you're interested in knowing more about what God's been teaching him and sharing with the world through his gift, click here.

The Obedience of Sinful Man - Why I Write (Part 1)

I recently returned from the 2015 Re:Write Conference, where I forged many new friendships and many great experiences. Most of all, I learned a lot about myself and my God. I learned how Yeshua can use the simple obedience of a sinful man to touch the lives and hearts of those he may or may not even know.

I could give many examples, for over the weekend I heard numerous analogies and personal stories. But today I will only share the story of only one man, who by following God's guidance, touched my life.

However, before I tell his story, I must share an analogy.

During the final talk on the last day, a pastor named Mark Bartterson (you probably know him as the author of The Circle Maker) told us about mustard seeds.

I'm sure we've all heard  the parable of the mustard seed. It's one of Jesus' shorter parables, found in Matthew 13-31-32, but it has a lot to it.

Mark told us that if we have been called to write, to not write is disobedience. But if you've ever done any writing, you know how hard it can be. It has been compared to bleeding on a page, and really no better comparison can be made. In writing, you put a part of yourself that even you barely understand out there for the world to trample. It's scary, but oh is it exhilarating! Too many of us, however, get stuck on the fear that we wont be able to write well, and that fear keeps us from writing.

This goes for anything God has called us to do. We let fear that we wont be "good enough" debilitate us.

Mark went on to tell us how our writing is like a mustard seed.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

"Why does a farmer plant a mustard seed?" Batterson asked. "Is it so it will grow branches and be able to bless other living creatures? No, chances are, the farm plants a mustard seed, because he wants mustard for his hot dogs!" In the same way our writing can be. We write because it allows us to express ourselves in the special and unique way God as gifted us to. We may also write because we want to inspire or touch others. Or maybe because we want to be a best seller someday! Whatever our reasons, God can make our simple obedience touch lives we never thought it could. All we have to do is plant the seed.

Now, about two decades ago, a man decided to obey God's calling to write. Like the farmer, he could not have imagined who he would touch with his simple obedience.

Two decades ago, I was a newborn. I hadn't learned to talk yet, let alone how to comprehend the wonders of our infinite Creator, yet He, in His great wisdom, called a man I didn't even know existed to begin telling about Him in the form of story.

 Ten years later, that man was inspired to tell about God in the form of an allegory that spanned over 1500 pages in the form of several books. Obedient, he wrote the story. As a ten-year-old, I still didn't know who this man was, let alone that God would later use his obedience to change my view of Him.

Flash forward to sophomore year of high school. This was a dark year for me. I had put my worth in the opinions of a friend, rather than in my loving heavenly Father. When this friend stabbed me in the back, my self-worth shattered. Feeling betrayed, I shut my emotions down. Without my ability to connect to other's emotionally, I grew very cynical.  My cynicism brought up countless questions on who I am and who God is. My view on him began to crumble and I soon descended into a pit of depression. What little faith I had was gone. I hated myself and wanted nothing to do with this so called "loving Creator" if He couldn't even make my life work. I began to view the bible as little more than fairy tales, for that's what they felt like to me.
Just before my sixteenth birthday, I followed my mom to a Christian bookstore where the cover of a book grabbed my attention. It's dark, abstract cover appealed to the taste for dark forms of art I had begun to discover. Oddly enough, I have never since seen the book with that specific cover. The cover I always see now is of the surface of an emerald green lake. If this was the cover I had seen on the shelf, I would not have looked at it. But that is not the case. God put something before me that would grab my limited attention and coax me to look farther.Turning the book over and reading the back, I was intrigued. I didn't, however, buy the book. Not then at least. I went to the library and found it there, where it had the familiar bright green cover I've come to know.

At first, I didn't see it for the allegory is was. It wasn't until halfway through the second book did I see it. God spoke to me through the images and stories and lives of these characters. He showed me it's connections to the gospel I had grown up hearing, and recently dismissed. He made it feel real again.If this man could be so influenced by God to write something this impacting, then God must be real!

This is not to say that I hold this man or his novels on the same or similar level that I hold Jesus and his gospel, but his obedience did make an impact on me. That impact lit my desire to search for God and who he is again, because for once I did feel loved.
Even though in that moment, I had not put all of this into a straight thought as I do here, I did realize the awesomeness of a God who can use something as small as a man's imperfect story to change the life of someone that man has never met.

This is but one story of obedience. It is I, now, who take up that same calling. Whether my books get published and impact others or not is not in my hands.

 It's in His.

All I must do is write.