"sensible"

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.

Titus 2:11-12

This passage was brought to my attention this morning in Sunday School, and it rather startled me, because the word "sensible" isn't necessarily one that is commonly connected with New Testament ideas. In the New Testament, we find radical actions, such as selling everything you have to give to the church, or giving up your career, family, and social standing to minister nomadically to churches around the world. "Sensible" doesn't really seem to fit into the picture. In fact, "sensible" seems to kill the excitement of it all.  Now, for myself, I am not a particularly sensible person, so I always liked the idea of christians being a bunch of crazies that no one can understand, because I wouldn't have to explain why I just blew a hundred bucks for someone's birthday. "Oh, she's a christian, you know how they are. Money means nothing to them! They should all be homeless by now!" Is there some validity to this kind of "christian foolishness"? Of course! Nothing we have is really ours, as I'm sure you've heard. We are supposed to surrender everything we have and everything we are to the cause of Christ. But I know for myself at least, I don't do it for the cause of Christ all the time. I do it for good reasons, like because I love someone and I want them to know that, or such, and I'm not saying it's wrong to do that. In fact, I'm one of the biggest advocates for that kind of love that you will ever meet, but I realized that I don't do it for Christ alot of the time. I do it because it makes me happy. And, it hasn't really occurred to me, until today, that God might actually have a better purpose for my resources and time than I do. What I'm saying is, living recklessly FOR CHRIST isn't an excuse for me to be the natural idiot that I am. He can use that stupidity for His glory, but it is my duty to discern whether I'm doing something that God really wants me to be doing, or something that I just feel like doing. *Sigh* I don't know whether I'm preaching to the choir and I'm the only idiot who has this issue, or whether this is actually a relevant topic, but I just wanted to share my new knowledge. Again, I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't live radically for Christ - I'm just saying we should do it for a purpose, and not confuse our own ideas with God's. God is sensible, and we should be, too, in whatever way that applies to us. For me, obviously it's money, but it may be something else for you, or maybe it doesn't even apply to you. I don't know. I'm rambling. I'm going to stop now.  :P 

Sweetly Broken

I know this isn't one of my long shpiels, but this song best describes how my spiritual state is right now, and I hope it brings you back to the cross as it did for me.

a photo of my heart

Come, let us return to the Lord.For He has torn us, but He will heal us;
He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days;
He will raise us up on the third day,
That we may live before Him. So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.
  Hosea 6:1-3 

 I cannot count the times that I've referred to this passage... I've always known it was a special passage for me. But, I am now clinging to the hope that is so evident in it in a way that I never have before. In the past, it was a faint remembrance of what He had done for me before. But now, it is a promise that I am holding on to desperately. You see, I have been going through a time of much conviction and growth and... it hurts. It is encouraging because I know I must be more teachable and seeking after the Lord more fully, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been painful. I constantly finding myself asking my Father, "Can we be done yet? At least for now? I can't go on like this, Dad!" There are so many times when I've wished myself away from... myself.  But this passage has been keeping me going, this and other passages, songs, friends, and the many other blessings that God has been sending my way. He will heal me. He will bandage me. He will revive me. He will rain on me, on my thirsty, cracked soul. Life is not supposed to be easy or simple. It's not supposed  to be soft and comfortable and warm. Not here, anyway. The pain isn't going to go away until we are perfected, in a perfected kingdom. But He is faithful... oh, so faithful. 

Encouragement

This post isn't going to be terribly deep, I'm afraid. However, it's something that's been on my heart for a while, and I think it's something that we could all improve on in some way or another. You each know from personal experience what a good dose of encouragement has done for you. When you were feeling really unuseful and someone came up to you and candidly told you something that they really appreciate about you that they've been noticing. Or a time when you've felt really immature and someone let you know that they've seen you grow in a certain area. Or when you thought you did an awful job in some important duty and someone told you how wonderful you were and something that they got out of it. Didn't that just lift your spirits tremendously? Didn't the sun just beam into your heart at that moment? And your next thought was, "Hey, I'll bet he needs encouragement just as much as I do. Let me go tell him about this one thing that I really appreciate him for!" right? Nope! I've found that some of the people who are the most faithful encouragers get forgotten all too often. I remember once I told one of those kinds of people how much I appreciated a little habit of theirs and they almost fell over with shock because no one had ever told them that before. Another similar type of people that get forgotten are the really well-liked people. Everyone just assumes that they get encouraged alot because they are always surrounded by people, but if everyone assumes that, who's encouraging them? No one! The fact is, well-liked people, at least in the church, are well-liked because of what they do for other people. They are always giving of their time and their heart and their resources and have learned to never expect anything in return. They need kind and uplifting words as much as the next person! They need to know that someone else does care, not just because of how they can benefit them. For myself, I noticed that I forget my family alot. My parents are older and wiser than me and so of course they don't need MY encouragement. I mean, what good would praise from a foolish little kid do  THEM??? Well... alot more than the foolish little kid might think. And then there's my brother. I'm sure everyone has at least one sibling you think so annoying that you don't want to give them any encouragement. It's hard for me to remember that regardless of how much you think someone doesn't DESERVE any good words, they need them nonetheless, and real love will be able to say something uplifting to them with honesty and without reluctance. So, my point in this is, how much encouragement have you been giving? Is it sincere? And who in your life have you been neglecting in this area? Is it because you just don't think they need any encouragement, or because you are hesitant to give it to them? We are the church. We are to build one another up in love, and that won't happen if we don't do it ourselves. Don't wait until you suddenly find a brother or sister who is completely torn up because they feel unloved and useless. No member of the bride of Christ should ever have to reach that point. Let them know the truth before Satan has a chance to lie to them.

Blessed is the Match

Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.

Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.

Blessed is the heart with strength to stop beating for honor's sake.

Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.

~ Hannah Senesh

The author of this poem was 22-year-old Hannah Senesh. Born an upper-class Hungarian Jew in the 1920's, she had grown up in a life of comfort. However, by the age of 17, she abruptly informed her mother of her plan to move to Palestine to join the Zionist movement growing there. She was so dedicated and determined to the cause of her people when she finally achieved passage to Palestine, she attended an agricultural school for girls, seeing agricultural labor as the area of greatest need, despite her own advanced education and intellectual tendencies. Meanwhile, the holocaust had begun in Europe and its waves were rolling towards Hungary, where her mother still lived. Hannah became worried, not only for her own mother, but for the other Jews trapped in Europe, and began contemplating a penetration into Europe and Hungary to defend her mother and her people. She then heard of a band of Jews in Palestine who were forming a resistance of their own to go back into Europe and fight the Nazis and support the Allies. Hannah immediately joined and after much training, parachuted into Greece and made her way into Hungary with 4 men under her command. She arrived in Budapest at the same time as Hitler's forces did, an unfortunate coincidence that led to her capture. She was interrogated and beaten severely in an effort to extract codes and other information out of her, but she would not surrender anything. Her mother was brought in and ordered to persuade Hannah to talk, but her mother said that she knew that if her daughter was keeping something from them, it was for good reason, and she would not persuade her. Hannah was kept imprisoned for months, before being tried and convicted of treason against Hungary, and executed, days before Russia took Budapest for the Allies. When the war ended, her body was reclaimed by the Palestinian Jews, who had claimed her as their heroine, a symbol of perseverance and hope for the Zionist movement, and a monument was made in her honor. 

      This was all in a documentary that I watched last night, and as I watched, I was stunned, not only by her, but by her cause. Here was a young woman, with a cause, a good one, but only a temporary one, and who accomplished incredible things without even the Holy Spirit to work through her. Indeed, she was not even sure there was a God.  How can a young woman have such an impact at such a young age for a cause infinitesimally smaller than the cause of our Lord Jesus, and we, with, not a match to kindle a flame, but an atomic bomb (by comparison) to kindle our flame, have no such stories to tell of our own lives? Then I reasoned, "Anne Marie, that was a time of war. War molds incredible people who do incredible things. There were many more tales of heroism written during that time." Oh really? Are we not in a greater war than World War II? Ephesians 6:12 came to mind: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Our cause is greater than anything in this world. Our resources to fight for our cause are greater than anything in this world! If a young woman without such a cause or such a means as we have can accomplish such amazing things, we can certainly accomplish far more through Christ. 

Play-dough with a Soul

This way,

That way,

Every which way,

Pushed

Pulled

Stretched

Squished

The more i live,

The more i realize that

i am clay.

Many desire to form me

To trim off my unwanted edges

With their cookie cutters.

To be play-dough with a soul is the most perplexing position possible.

There are the 4 year olds

Stuffing me in their mouths

Trying to eat me when the teacher isn’t looking.

There are the students

Striving to attain perfection through me,

To prove their skill in manipulating me.

But they all try to fight against the one Artist.

They try to rip pieces of me out of His hands,

Confident of their superior plan for me.

But as play-dough with a soul,

i must choose.

i must choose to yield only to the  Artist’s fingers,

To harden myself to the persistence of the amateurs.

As play-dough with a soul, i choose You, the Artist,

To soften my clay to Your will,

Bend me to make Your beauty,

Strengthen me to be Your work alone.

Fear

God has been teaching me alot about fear lately, through my friends, through His Word, even through Veggie Tales. He's showing me just what a hold fear has had on me and how imperative it is that I allow Him to purge it out of me. So... I just thought I'd share a little of what He has been showing me. I think I first really started noticing the overwhelming bondage of fear in my life a couple months ago, when my friends started pointing it out and tried to help me work through it. But I didn't really think I needed any help. I figured I was fine, because fear is normal and they were just overreacting (sorry, guys!). But because they were persistent in voicing their concern, and God was faithful to point out my fear in different situations, I realized I had a huge problem on my hands. I was afraid of practically everything. I was afraid to tell my friends when they hurt me. I was afraid of telling my parents when I had issues that I knew they could help me with. I was afraid of completing any task or duty for fear that I might do it wrong. I was afraid to raise my hand in class if there was a question I needed answered. I realized that these are situations that happen every single day, and that my fear was crippling me from being able to even perform normal, daily functions properly.  It got to the point that I would not even do what I knew was right because I was too terrified of the possible consequences. You have probably heard that the Bible says 365 times "Do not fear". So obviously, fear is in direct opposition to God. But why? To let fear reign over you is to say that God is not bigger than whatever it is that you fear. It is saying that God can't possibly protect you in whatever circumstance you're facing, that God can't possibly heal you from whatever hurt is impending, that God can't possibly fix whatever issue you're dealing with. Fear says that you do not trust God, the omnipotent Creator of the universe, who proved His power over sin and death, the only other 2 things that we should have feared besides Him. And to not trust Him implies that you do not truly know Him. Because if you did, you would know implicitly His unshakable power. Even after I had meditated on all this for a long time, I still would not let go of my fear. I had let it become too deeply engrained in me, and I knew it would hurt to have it removed. God had to let things get really bad in my life to the point where holding onto my fear had become far more painful than having it removed. And the tipping point was when He had to use a Veggie Tales video to convict me, just a couple days ago. Never ONCE when I was little, did I actually learn anything from Veggie Tales. We were watching the story of Esther in our day care and I was so convicted by it. Esther went through some of the same fears I did (at least in the cartoon), and she made the right choice, yet I had previously reached the point where I was almost completely ok with making the wrong choice because I succumbed to my fear. Well, I was quite embarrassed that God had to use Veggie Tales on me to help me see things straight, and so I decided that I was going to start letting Him work on my fear. It's been a slow process because I still react in fear alot, but now I am willing to bring it before Him and trust Him that when I act in boldness, He will strengthen me to do so. Last night, I was reading through my Bible and I came across Psalm 27:1-3

 "The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?The Lord is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear; Though war arise against me, in spite of this I shall be confident."

This is going to sound really stupid and obvious, but it's something I hadn't really ever thought about before. I never really considered the implications of the Lord being my "light". It was just something I'd always heard. But last night, I realized just how wonderful and encouraging it is that He is our light. Light dispels darkness and reveals the unknown. All the things that I fear are revealed in His light to be small and unimportant. His light takes away my fear. That thought is incredibly freeing to me, and I hope it is to you too. Anyway, I wrote this 1) because it's been a while since I posted something, 2) because I thought it would be nice to update you on my spiritual walk, 3) because I hope that this post will encourage and build you up, and 4) so that when you see fear poking its horrid little head out in my life, that you will slap it and put it back in its nonexistent place. :)