Stunted Shrubs & Thriving Trees

Last week, I was reading in Jeremiah when I came across a passage (17:5-8) that grabbed my attention. God is speaking through Jeremiah and He describes two types of people. The first "are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future" while the second "are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water...not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit." I don't know about you, but it sure doesn't take me a whole lot of thought to figure out which one of those people I want to be like. I mean, it's not like there's much to choose between. Stunted shrub or thriving tree? If you ask me, it's pretty obvious.

What really gets me though isn't just the stark difference between these two types of people, but more so what causes them to be different in the first place. The first group God describes are "those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord." The second group are "those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence." In other words, just one factor - whether we trust God or not - makes a difference between being stunted or growing, between being thirsty or well-fed, between being wilted or green, between being fruitless or fruitful, between dying and living. Sounds like trust is a pretty important factor!

So often we (Christians) put a lot of effort into our relationship with Jesus (and rightly so!), but after reading this verse, I question how much of that effort turns out to be missing a key ingredient. Are we reading the Bible without applying what it says to our lives? Are we pleading with God to move mountains in our lives but ignoring the conviction of the Holy Spirit? Are we going to church week after week but staying at arm's distance so others can't call out the junk in our lives?

Trust is not something we possess, but rather something we do. In other words, trust and obedience go hand-in-hand. If we truly trust God, we will give Him more than enough room to speak in our lives. We will not seek Him out of obligation but instead out of a sincere desire to know and understand Him. We will immerse ourselves in godly community out of a desire to live life God's way. Why does this matter? Because trusting God truly is the difference between death and life. The ares of our lives that are stunted, wilted, fruitless, and dying are very likely the areas in which we don't trust God.

So what do we do? Personally, I'm taking time this week  to examine my life for areas that are stunted and lifeless so that I can submit these areas to God and listen for His wisdom and direction. I challenge you to do the same. I believe that as we obey Him, these areas will start to bloom with life again. Let's not settle for some death in our lives when God provides abundant life in every area of our lives.

Bread, Culture, and Jesus

Bread. Something so simple, so common, yet so essential to life. Here in the country I'm visiting, bread is looked at much differently than in the West. There's a bakery across the street from my apartment where I can buy a 1/2 kilo of fresh pita bread for about 0.75USD. Earlier today, I stopped at a tiny supermarket and bought a pack of 6 hamburger buns and a pack of 6 sub rolls for about 1.80USD. Obviously, bread costs much less here than in the States (because it is subsidized by the government). However, bread is also highly respected culturally. Even at such a low price, bread is always viewed as a blessing - to the point that it is taboo to throw it away. Even if the bread has gone bad or is stale, it cannot be thrown away. Rather, the bread is set outside near the trash or placed in a bag that is tied to a tree or another high place. 

Every time I see bread like this on the street, I am reminded of John 6 where Jesus says, "...The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world...I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again..." Jesus is even more easily accessible and valuable than bread in Jordan (even though sadly many are unaware of this). Physical bread may be a fleeting blessing but Jesus is an eternal blessing. He is so much more satisfying and worthy of respect than a physical piece of bread. Will you join me in praying that all people groups would see Jesus as "the bread of life," not only a necessity, but also easily accessible and a great blessing?

Unprepared

In 6 days, I will be boarding a plane to begin a trip I have been preparing for for several months yet feel entirely unprepared for. In all honesty, I've spent a lot of time "figuring things out" but haven't really figured a single thing out. With this on my mind, as I was spending time with Jesus today, He led me to Matthew 15. The last part of the chapter (vs 29 - 39) is the account of Jesus feeding over 4,000 people with only a few loaves of bread and some fish.

To sum it up, basically Jesus walks up a hill by the Sea of Galilee and just sits down. A bunch of people come to Him, He heals them, and they praise Him. Then Jesus notices that its been a long time and the people have a long walk home. He tells His disciples that the people need to eat, and the disciples start freaking out about where they're going to get all that food. Jesus just asks for the little they already have, and they give it to Him. Jesus then tells the people to sit. He gives the food back to the disciples, and they start to pass it out to the people. After everyone's eaten, the disciples go back and pick up leftovers. Then, Jesus sends everyone home and goes somewhere else.

I've read this story a million times and understand the significance of the outcome, but for the first time, I paid specific attention to who did what. Jesus, the people, and the disciples all had very distinct roles:
Jesus showed up, healed people, revealed a need of the people to the disciples, gave instructions to the people & the disciples, provided more than enough, and declared a clear finish to the event.
The disciples went with Jesus, gave what they already had to Jesus, received from Jesus, gave to the people, and collected leftover from the people.
The people simply came to Jesus, praised Jesus, and obeyed Jesus.

As I was reading this and noticing these roles, Jesus spoke to me about our roles as His followers. In some situations, we function like the disciples did in this passage. At other times, we are like the people, but we are never to take the role of Jesus. Practically, this means that it is never our responsibility to be present in the exact right spot, heal people, figure out what people's needs are, take control of a situation by instructing others, provide for a need, or declare something finished. Instead, we can trust Jesus to do these things and know that our responsibility is to be with Jesus, praise Jesus, and obey Jesus whether this means giving Him the little we have so He can use it to meet others' needs or simply sitting and waiting for Him to meet our needs.

So in all the chaos and bustle of preparing to leave for another country, my goal this week is to focus on only three things: being with Jesus, praising Jesus, and obeying Jesus. If it's not one of those things, I'm better off leaving it in His hands because He knows what's coming and can prepare me much better than I can prepare myself.

Real Dependence

I was introduced to this song earlier this week and I have to say, it's definitely one of my favorites right now! 

This week, God has been challenging my idea of what it means to depend on Him. Without really realizing it, I had this idea that depending on God meant that I should work so hard to throw my best in and expect Him to make up the difference. What I failed to recognize, though, was that I tend to take on challenges that I believe my best is good enough for. Rather than truly depending on God, I've been relying on my own ability. As I've been talking to Jesus about this, I believe He's given me a new way of looking at dependence. When I truly depend on God in a situation, I am so needy of Him that I would fall flat on my face if He didn't show up. This means that dependence and risk go hand-in-hand. The more dependent I am on God, the more willing I am to take risks for His sake. And the greater the risk, the more dependent I have to be on Him. So as the school year is wrapping up and I'm preparing to travel this summer, I'm choosing to take risk by making decisions that require God to show up. Will you join me?


Update on my trip:
So far $3200 of the $4500 I need to travel this summer has been committed. Please pray with me that the last $1300 will come in during the next 20 days!
If you'd like to know more about my trip, please e-mail me.
Thank you to everyone who has already contributed. I am truly thankful to have such generous friends. 

Obedience: Risk, Motivation, & Satisfaction

“If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” - Jesus

Following Jesus can be risky. It’s definitely not always easy. And it most certainly always requires exorbitant amounts of trust on my part. There are times when I think I’d much rather throw in the towel and forget about this whole “I’ll go wherever you go” thing. There are days when I question my ability to hear God’s voice. Sometimes I think I’m just making all this crazy stuff up in my head with no understanding of who God really is or what He’s really doing. Sometimes, I even wonder if it’s worth it, all the effort and work that has to be put into some of the things He asks me to do.

“Life would be so much simpler if I just got a job and worked full time this summer. I could save up for my future. I could live in the same city as my boyfriend for almost 4 months. While we’re at it, I could forget this whole living in a dorm thing and move into a nice apartment next year. Actually, I could just forget this whole school thing and go get a grown-up job – or at the very least study something more enjoyable.” 

Sometimes these things are tempting. It’s easy to let my mind wander into considering my other options, into thinking about what could be. And on the surface, these things all sound appealing. But deep down, I know they’ll leave me feeling empty. I can make whatever decisions I want, but as soon as I move my eyes to myself and prioritize my own desires, life becomes empty, boring, and frustrating. I can take the easy way out - but that’s not the way I want to live. To be completely honest, I don’t say this because I am so dedicated to God I can perfectly trust Him in all situations and matters. It’s not even that I am so sold out to Him I’ll unquestioningly obey His every direction immediately. Oh, how I wish that was the case! How I long for that kind of dedication!

In reality, the truth is that I like living a risky life; I like not-boring. I like giving God the chance to do something crazy with a situation that seems so counter-intuitive. Maybe I think this way because I've seen it over and over again. Here’s my science-brain speaking: He asks me to do something, I do it, crazy cool stuff happens; So the next time He asks me to do something, I’m going to do it! I don’t know what I would do if crazy-cool stuff stopped happening when I obeyed. I hope that’s never the case. But if it is, I hope I would continue to obey. To be honest though, right now, my motivation for obedience – even when it gets tough – is out of a desire to see Him do something with me. I am not okay with living a boring life that amounts to nothing. I resolve that I will obey so that people will know Jesus, people will be filled with the Spirit, my life will be better, and my relationships will be richer. I say this because I have learned that ultimately, my fulfillment is in Christ; I am most satisfied when He is made known through me.

Update on my trip:

So far I've raised $2,040 of the $4,500 that I need to travel this summer. My next target is $3,000 by March 28th. However, my immediate goal is to raise $210 ASAP in order to reach 50% of my budget. Doing so will allow me to finalize my itinerary & purchase a plane ticket. 

Thank you to everyone who has already contributed! I am truly thankful to have such generous friends!!! If you'd like to know more about my trip, please e-mail me. 

what I'm learning : Kingdom-culture

Last June I wrote a post titled Grace Beyond Forgiveness about God inviting us to be citizens of His Kingdom. In the last several months, He's woven this very concept throughout everything He's taught me. Being a citizen of God's Kingdom isn't some side thing that happens when we decide to believe in Jesus. Rather, it is every believer's new identity. From the moment we choose to believe in Jesus, we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. Because of this citizenship, we have certain responsibilities as well as rights & privileges. Not only that, but as citizens of God's Kingdom, we also have a new culture to learn.

It's no surprise that God doesn't think like we do (Isaiah 55:8-9) so why would His Kingdom operate like any that humans create? Or why would we impose our broken system onto His perfect one? On the same token, why would we continue to live by the norms of an earthly culture rather than the norms of the Kingdom we were created for? 

It's easy to look at popular American culture and point out things that don't line up with our ideas of Biblical living. But that's not what I'm talking about here. Yes, Kingdom-culture involves "putting to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you" (Colossians 3:5-9), but there's so much more to it than that. If we want to learn Kingdom-culture, we must stop comparing America to the church and start comparing our lives to the Bible. Just as Jesus cautioned the disciples not to let the deception of the Pharisees and Sadducees (religious leaders) spread among them (Matthew 16:5-12), we must be careful to not let the culture of the church spread among us. It's so easy to huddle-up with the believers around us and put effort solely into making ourselves better. But that's not Kingdom-culture. In fact, that's the very thing Jesus condemned the religious leaders for doing.
When we choose to live by the culture of the Kingdom, we refuse to stay huddled-up. Instead, we live as ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:18-20); in other words, bringing people into right relationship with Jesus becomes more important to us than the comfort of our own community. In Kingdom-culture, we live outside of the walls of the church so that others may come to know Jesus. We recognize that serving isn't something we do just for the benefit of other believers (Mark 10:42-45). We choose to love sacrificially for the sake of people who do not yet know Jesus (John 15:9-17, John 13:34-35). 

We can easily get caught up in the way we're used to living life, but Jesus condemned religious leaders for valuing tradition over the Word of God (Matthew 15:1-9). If we choose church-culture over Kingdom-culture, aren't we just like the people Jesus warned His disciples not to be like (Matthew 23:1-3)?

Update on my trip:
So far I've raised $946 of the $4,500 I need to travel this summer. I need another $554 by Saturday (the 28th) to reach my $1500 deadline.
If you'd like to know more about my trip, please e-mail me.
Thank you to everyone who has already contributed! I am truly thankful to have such generous friends. 

Quick thoughts of a task-oriented people-person

- my attitude: hurry

-I'm a task oriented person who has been transformed into a people-focused person by the grace of God

- the two war within me. 

- my flesh freaks out about things not done while my heart and spirit long to just enjoy the presence of other people

- to everything there is a balance and I have yet to find it in this area and season of my life. 

- I must choose to submit my lifestyle  to the place and processes and people God has called me to right now instead of trying to make it easier on myself by dropping the hard parts

- I choose to take advantage of the down moments to invest in my relationships rather than hurriedly complete another task

- I seek to do everything in its proper timing and order so the moment may be truly spent how God intended it rather than my mind half there and half planning the next moment 

- while I don't understand the purpose of these seemingly lifeless tasks, I know that God has a bigger plan than my eyes can see and the position I'm currently in requires me to obediently complete them with a joyful heart