Here is the Christian life:

When a man applies himself with joy and love to the works of that freest servitude in which he serves others voluntarily and for nought, himself abundantly satisfied in the fullness and riches of his own faith.

Martin Luther

Which means, in my faith in Christ I could not be more satisfied. There is nothing in this world that brings more joy, more peace, more life that possessing and being possessed by Jesus Christ. Nothing compares to the greatness. No successs. No romance. No sense of being needed or accepted or worthwhile comes anywhere close to what we have in Him through faith alone, through his work alone. Therefore, we are free to give everything of ourselves, or our lives. All that we have in service to others because there is nothing that could add to our satisfaction-it is full in Christ. 

Psalm 1

Psalm 1

I love that the psalm gives three “nots”-blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, who stands not in the way of sinners, who sits not in the seat of scoffers. The one that speaks the most to me is sitting in the seat of scoffers. Lord, I am so often in that seat. I love to think of myself as not a scoffer but I am. I scoff at ministry, at people, sometimes even at you God. I am so sorry.

What is precious about this is that it does not leave us with “nots.” Blessed is the one who delights in the law of the lord, who meditates on his word day and night. Jesus, I know that you fulfilled the law, so to meditate on the law is to meditate on you and Lord, I am not doing this. It is not my delight, and I do not meditate on it day and night. I give a sliver of my time to the word. Sometimes, god, I even want to “save” meditating on the word for another time, like when I go home. Lord, I need your help because I don’t know how to meditate on it and still do all these other things as well. Can you guide me in that Father?

The promise made is precious…She is like a tree planted by streams of water. Yes lord, like a tree that yields its fruit in season. As I lean into you, you will yield fruit in me. The fruit of the spirit lord. The fruit of Christ. Let it pour out of me. I love you lord, I want to be planted deeply in Ligon, in State, in the here and now. Loving you, pursing you, running hard after thee lord. I want to want thee. I thirst to be more thirsty still. The wicked will not stand to the judgment because they stood in the way of sinners. Sinners will not be in the congregation of the righteous-if you o lord would mark iniquities, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness. There is plentiful redemption. That is who you are. You know the way of the righteous. Know my way lord, lead me in the way of righteousness because without you I know it not. What did I learn, meditate on Him day and night. Let him plant me and bring about fruit, but I must draw near to the stream for the planting. Know that I will stand among the righteous because Christ was declared guilty.  Trust and love and want more of the Holy One. 

Sin and Temptation by Dr. Russell Moore

These are my notes from the theological development seminar Vintage 21 had with Dr. Russell Moore from Southeast Seminary. It was wonderful. 

Satan is subtle in temptation. He knows human nature and he knows us individually. He does it slowly, making it seem as if everything is normally until we are done away with. 

We all have different things that we are tempted toward, we need to know what they are and the things they are rooted in-ALL temptation is rooted in 3 things. 

1. The pull toward self provision

 "Turn these stones into bread"-is how Satan tempted in Jesus with the temptation of self provision. 

Satan is asking "Who are you?" "IF you are the Son of God," he starts off. Essentially, the temptation toward self provision and turning from God is because of a lie we believe-Your Father isn't taking care of you...

 so turn to another father. 

What is he keeping from you?, Satan asked Eve in the garden. Satan makes God out to be a liar, makes us ask ourselves

Am I really the child of God?

Is he really pleased with me?

(The temptation of Jesus comes right after the baptism where the Spirit descends and God says This is my Beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.

His next question for us-

What do you want?

By saying, Turn these stones into bread, he takes Jesus's God given desire for food and twists it to pull him toward destruction. God gave us drives to get us to do the things that are best for us. We are biologically driven toward eating and toward sexuality. No one comes to either of these by reason-it is a wild pull in humans and God Himself embedded these desires because they point us back to Him. 

We are tempted to under and over estimate our desires-giving them reign in our life or pretending that they don't exist or don't affect us. 

In order to battle with temptation, and it IS the DAILY battle of any every christian, we must know our points of vulnerability and what leads us into temptation that leads us into sin that leads us into death. 

Furthermore, Satan is seeking to destroy our appetites and desires, not to fulfill them. He cannot, only God can fulfill appetites. When a desire (any desire) is met by demonic means, met by means outside of God's will and design, the appetite or desire is stripped away and destroyed. (He talked extensively about the destructive effects of porn on marriages)

Temptation is when we hear Satan say, Is God getting you what you want? If not, I can give it to you. This was the first temptation for Jesus, this is a huge temptation for all of us. 

We battle temptation the way Christ did-Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. 

This is not simply to apply the right verses to the right situations (like some bibles have verses for anxiety, anger, sadness, joy etc.-proof texts) but to know the NARRATIVE of God. 

Knowing that God is for us no matter what. 

God prepared Jesus. He shaped him. He disciplined him. He allowed him to suffer to the point of death, even death on a cross. Satan wanted Jesus to believe that God was against him but jesus knew that God was for him. He wanted Jesus and he wants us to believe that

God does not know what we need and he is keeping it from us.

God has something BETTER than what we would have even chose for ourselves and He knows how to prepare us to be like Him so that we can steward and not crush what he gives us-whether that is a spouse or kids or money or anything-he has to shape us to be equipped for these things before giving them to us and he is GRACIOUS in doing so. Every longing will be met. Every desire will be met. None will be forgotten. That is the promise. How do we know. Jesus Christ. We are prepared to be ultimately, eternally blessed beyond anything we could ever conceive or imagine. We know that is our future. We know it because of the resurrection of Christ.

more to come on the 2nd and 3rd temptation! 

Ligon Middle

Not writing so much any more but things are great, God is really great. Wrote a prayer about Ligon. We just started Wyldlife at this middle school. Its really captured my heart. Would love your prayer for it, for the students, the staff, the parents, the community around it...that Christ is glorified, his love proclaimed.

Lord, I lift up to you Ligon Middle School. You love them. You love those 1500ish 6^th-8^th graders. Raise up your sons and daughters to invest in them and be a conduit of your grace. Pour your spirit out God. Thank you for the doors that you have opened. To be in the lunch room. To know some of the staff. To be friends with some of the students. To know their names and where they are from and what they want to be when they grow up. I know you are faithful to your promises. I know that you are worthy of glory and praise. We offer ourselves as living sacrifices. Committed to you. Committed to prayer for this particular school in this particular city where you will change lives and capture hearts. I pray that they get to see you this year, that they get to meet you. If it is us, we praise you. If it is elsewhere, we praise you. We will just keep loving on them, keep showing up, keep praying. Bring more people lord. More Christians. God, we need parent support. We need parents to know who we are and our intentions and our hearts. We don’t know how to know parents but you do lord and you know the ones who already know you and want their kids to know you and have been praying for people like us in the lives of their kids-show us those moms and dads. Lord, there are teachers who are Christian and we don’t know who they are but show us lord. God, don’t just change the hearts of students, change parents. Change teachers. Bring life out of death. Light out of darkness. Bring the weight of glory to Ligon Middle School. Bring kids together who never interact-break the stereotypes, the cliques, the judgments. God we beg you for favor. We may seem weird to them, but change their hearts to see us as friends. People who are for them. People who value them. But most of all, God, let them see you. Let them see the light of the glory of your Son. Let them see that life is in him, life to the full. Let us see it too God. We so easily forget. I love you, God. 

Your Steadfast Love is Better than Life

Because your love, O Lord, is better than life. 
I sit in Global Village, with a third of a latte left.
Once scalding, now luke warm.
I've been here for almost an hour already,
frustrated. hardened. self condemning.
Just now my soul is beginning to quiet down.
To take in the presence of the Divine.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
It takes some of us a long time to quiet our souls.
I am one of those.
Anxious. Turbulent. Questioning. Whether this is in fact where I should be.
Where else would I be?
I think back to the deep things whispered into me
early, early this morning from the Word itself.
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. 

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence for my hope is from him. 

Hm. Is this meant to convict? I think of that incessant drive I so often write of, that plagued me even today. As I long to fill my time, instead of being led by the spirit. I know where life is found. In Christ alone. But I don't know. I'm such a wrestler inside. And I am terrified that this Love I proclaim verbally my heart is still against. And I know its true. I know it by the things that make me happy, how I pursue full days and let my love for the lord depend on what people he brings into my life, what purpose he gives me or I give myself because purpose is the idol I bow to. Its selfish at the core, not a pure motive.

He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. 

My rock, my fortress, my salvation-its myself and what I am able to do. Therefore, its constantly torn out from under me, leaving me worn out and hurt and unworthy by own proclamation of worth. If the day is full, O lord, you are my rock and my salvation-The rock there is a filled day, a meaningful life...not Jesus Christ.

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you. 
the next psalm reads.
What I do I earnestly seek?
My righteousness based on my works.
Not Christ.
Where is my righteousness?
Christ.
He himself is my righteousness.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I

I soak in the psalms this sweet Sunday morning, overcast outside and resting in the fact that I have little to do and few places to be today, I think of how deeply they praise the Lord. I think of how true psalms are. I think of my weakness. My desire to have “more to do” than this. Just because I want to know I am worthy. But I am worthy because of Christ, not because of how my day plays out. On the 7^th day, God rested.

God rested.

God, limitless in every way, chose to rest. Why? For us. For me to rest because I depend on him not myself. The basics of Christianity, yet I keep discovering that it is the most basic things that my soul utterly rejects. Yes, God rested but I still need to have filled day. Because maybe I am just a little bit against this idea of complete dependence on God. Or entirely against it, even though I proclaim I am for it.

This I know that God is for me.

Psalm 56 says.

What do we make of that? How often do I think of that. How often to I dwell in it, taste it, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. This worship the psalms pour out…I am a worshipper but so rarely is my worship directed to Jesus Christ.

What I found today in these psalms (55-61):

He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage.

He will never permit his righteous to be moved

You HAVE delivered my soul from death, my feet from falling, that I may walk before you in the light of life.

God fulfills his purpose for me.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I (Jesus Christ.)

Let me dwell in your tent forever.

I want to be with you forever God. I want to be with you more than I want to be out doing things for you. Make this true, I beg you lord. You know my brokenness flips the two to keep me apart from you. Bring me into your tent.

Bound

Thankful for a rich little 24 hours with a very incredible community. When asked to write the mission of my life in 3 to 5 words I simply wrote "Bondservant. Bound to Christ." Later, we were reminded by our gentle and helpful leaders that those of us who are very religious have to be careful about using religious language that has very different connotations to different people, even if its normal to us. As I listened, I started to sense that turning inward as I felt that they were talking about me. Now, there are many people in the group who are open and bold about their faith. But that didn't change my sense that I was there, frankly proud of myself for sharing and clearly speaking of how much I love Jesus without even considering how it was being received and what it may have meant to the other people who came from completely different home environments and belief systems. As my dear friend Lydia and I sat on a bench and talked and talked it struck me how easily I could share my faith with people and how hard it was for me to labor in prayer for people. I started to realize that there is something in me a little ashamed of the gospel and I try to overcome and overpower that by talking about whenever I can. I saw that I was so bound to christ in how I write and speak but what about my heart? Why this discrepancy between who I am in public and who I am in private? And I remembered a pastor getting up and asking who respects you the most? Who thinks most highly of you? Those who know you the best, most intimately, or those who don't really know you at all? And as we talked and as I asked myself WHY I felt the need to always bring up God I couldn't help but see how at the deepest level I had taken God out of the picture even in my proclamation because I wasn't even bound to him in seeing when to speak and when to be silent, I wasn't laboring over specific words for specific people, I wasn't asking who I was called to love on following the retreat...I was just doing what I thought worked best without even considering how he may lead me in a way and to say something I would never anticipate. And Lydia and I realized that IF we were internally bound to christ, if I was deeply bound to him in ALL my thoughts and ALL my actions that this question of being externally bound would no longer exist because the external flows out of the internal. There would be no mistake. There would be no question of the One I served, the One I loved. I realized that I love proclaiming being externally bound to Christ because it is so much easier than dealing with the nastiness of sin in me and the idols hiding, those pretty little idols that look like Christian things til I start to worship them more than God.
Oh Lord, I am sorry when my witness does not point to you. I am sorry when I love to proclaim light and hide the darkness in me, not letting that light I love so fiercely enter into the places where it would conquer the darkness I cling to. I am sorry when I take you out of mission and when I use conversations and relationships to prove my worth to myself and to you, as if I have somehow gained something when I am just using people to give me identity and meaningful that you already gave me in your Son. Wretched creatures we are Lord. Sheep. In need of a Shepherd. How much more you love the people I spent the weekend with than I could ever hope to. How sovereign you are, how able to proclaim. God help me to resistant the temptation to blanket the internal with the external, like how Adam and Eve pointed to their nakedness instead of their rebellion. But you are good. And you work through me, despite of me. I love you lord. Show me how to love. Show me how to submit to the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, who ALONE can save. How often I forget God. You came to save sinners, of which I am foremost. God, I admit that I don't really believe that statement, make to see how true it really is. I love you, my kinsmen redeemer. I need you. Bind me to you. I can't do it on my own.

poetry

Written today in Mr. Francis's 7th grade poetry class at Ligon Middle School

What happens when you love your ROUTINE
so much because it keeps you safe
and lines are solid and you think
you know
who you are
but am I asking
and why did I stop writing
because its not worth these minutes
I count so precious
that are slowly, suddenly running out
Take me from safety
to this dangerous place where
rawness is good
and routine stomps creativity
and I look at this messy handwriting
that I haven't really SEEN for
a while
because I haven't been looking
at my very own letters
and I haven't been looking
at my very own soul
Because I pamper and protect
my pretend lines that
keep me safe and I forget
how lovely this is is
to tackle a blank page
with a pen and a hand and a heart
and let go of the lines that
were never even real
and be me.

Babies

Its been a while. And there is always much to say. But today, I say blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. Blessed are YOU God. We share abundantly with you. In suffering and comfort. And we share abundantly with other believers. And I am rendered speechless by those you bring into my life. By a community group that is really filled with the Word. Just the Word. Not our words. Filled with the Spirit. Doing really beautiful things, reaching people in radical ways because of the Spirit not because of our selves. By a friend who will sit on the floor and whisper prayers over me and not be ashamed or surprised by the depth of my sin, who will plead with the Father KNOWING that Christ is pleading on our behalf.
And by babies. I spent two hours with 8 babies under 1. I learned so much about God. So much about myself. Oh, how unfiltered these little ones are. How they cry when they have a need. How I hide my cry. How I yearn to satisfy my own needs. How ridiculous it would be if a 5 month year old stifled her cry of hunger and attempted to satisfy herself by gnawing on her toys. Yet this is me. I have my Father. How much more am I his child than these little ones are children of other humans? The distinction between a baby and an adult is minuscule, negligible in comparison with the gap between us and God, the One who laid the foundation of the earth, who shut the sea with doors and made clouds its garment and commands the morning and causes the dawn to know its place. I think to how quiet they are when they are being fed, being held, being looked on. How their soft, unspoken contentment speaks volumes and clearly portrays the one who is caring for them. How I tend to run around, relying on myself, trying to speak of the goodness of the Lord, instead of letting my life speak of belonging to Him, delighting in the ways he meets every one of my needs, being quieted and calmed on His shoulder.
I know how to care for these children. Its written into my making. No one ever told me, "when they are crying you pick them up." I knew. No one ever said, "Hold them close, not at arms length." I knew. I show no distinction though they look different-their shapes and facial structures and hair-I would never only love on the "cutest" one. It wouldn't make sense. These babies aren't even my children, and yet I delight in caring for them.

How much more does our Heavenly Father delight in caring for us?

I am the most selfish creature I know. Perhaps because I know myself, my thoughts, my heart, more than I know anyone else's. It doesn't really matter either way. What matters is, I am unbelievably, indescribably sinful, and yet I know and love caring for babies. I will do anything for their peace, joy, comfort. I delight in them. How much greater is God? Who is without sin? Whose love is deeper and wider and longer than mine, infinitely so. He loves us. He is our Comforter.

Lord, make me that child that is not ashamed of how much I need you. Who is willing to be comforted. Willing to be needy. Willing to be broken and dependent and quieted. Let that speak deeper than any words I could give.

moore square

DC. Or Jerome. Although at first he told us he didn’t have a name. Who doesn’t believe in God because of the suffering of the world. Who wants to serve homeless people. Who is a cook at North Hills Mall. Who thinks I nice eyes. Who noticed the scar on my leg. Who thinks Christians are dumb. Who once was a deacon.

Norman. Who was quiet. A listener. A ponderer. Who told me he listens more than he speaks. Who Anthony said was a good friend. DC said he had known him forever. Loyal. 

“Do The Math” or Anthony. Who is a poet. Whose favorite book is the bible. Who wants to know every person in Moore Square. Who was once an athlete and once had asthma. Who wrote this poem about the ocean:

Ocean, Large Vast And 

Free-Spirit Water or

Our Earth

Ocean the part of us that 

Is Dominate-H2O

To Be-To Be.

May the Laws of REality 

Bend the Water to our

great Asset-

May the Power of the 

Ocean encourage us

In the Greenhouse Effect

Ocean, strong, wet, true

Ocean that we all know

Ocean- that we

all want 

to 

know

3 Men. Michael and I met them in Moore Square today. The word that comes to mind is thirsty. They are thirsty the way I am thirsty. For something more than this world has to offer. Thirsty for living water. From my lens. Three men who are Beloved. Loved by God. Known by Him. Made to glorify Him.

Michael and I walked circles around that little square of brokenness and humanity in the middle of downtown Raleigh, asking ourselves and each other what Christ would be doing if he were here and how being here without speaking of Him only led people to look at us and not Him and how we want Him to be glorified there. It was rich time.

In Him we live and move and have our being.

In Him we see people as they are.

In Him we know what love is-Christ crucified. Not that we hang out with the homeless. That He died for our sins and theirs. That they are no different then us. No less in need of his grace. No more in need of his grace.

God glorify yourself in Moore Square year. Were begging you for conversion. For sinners to become sons and daughters of the most high God. For the making of disciples. The baptism in your Name. 

The worship of your Son. 

a prayer

God, I don't know if there is anything that you have for me to say right now. I don't know who will read this. I don't know how you will use it to glorify yourself. I don't know how you will use it to speak into the life of someone, if you will do that. I only ask that your Spirit indwells even my fingertips as they touch the keys that you may show forth, that your gospel may show forth through these letters and words that will be visible for people to see.

A Prayer

I put my trust in You, O LORD, my Lord.
I know that the Word you have given us is precious.
I write it on my heart God.
I know that your written Word brings me to your living Word.
Whom you have freely given us.
I know that you do not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.
That you require no burnt offering.
That a broken and contrite heart you will not despise, you will not turn away.
I know that you have made me the Beloved.
The most loved one of God.
Let these things that swirl around me-
these lies that assail me again and again
You are what you do.
You are what people say and think about you.
You are what you have.
Let them be silenced.
Just as powerfully as when your Son silenced the storm with two words:
Be still.
I will not deny my sinfulness before you Lord.
My sin is ever before me.
I will not presume on my abilities. On my faith. On my love.
How fickle I am without you.
How quickly I turn to another gospel. (Not that there is another gospel
but there are some who want to distort the gospel of Christ)
YOU set me apart before I was born.
You called me by your grace.
You revealed your Son to me.
In order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.
God, give me the wisdom to know the Gentiles surrounding me.
Open my eyes to see as you see.
Open my heart God.
You are pleased to use me.
You are pleased to crucify me with Christ.
This Son of God loved me. Gave himself for me.
This son of yours became a curse for us.
Redeeming us from the curse of the law
So that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
You are good God.
I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you.
God of my salvation, open my lips and my moth will declare your praise.
From now forevermore.

(Inspired by (basically taken from) Galatians 1-3 and Psalm 51)

Last Night in Europe

Well this is the last night. But even as I write that I think to myself, last night of what? This is the beauty of Christianity-there are no lasts. There is leaving behind, there is letting go, but it is always for the infinite joy of what is ahead-the far better thing-Christ himself. I press on to know the lord, Paul says. Not that I have already attained this but I press forward to make Him my own because He has made me His own. I read in Job this morning that God gives and takes away. Who are we to receive good from him and not evil? But actually God gives us Himself. He has made us his own. We fully possess him and he fully possesses us through Christ who had the right to divine sonship. Now we are sons and daughters. So God giving and taking away is completely abolished. God gave. Everything. He gave everything in Christ once and for all. And though he gives and takes from us everything else, we now are one with the One from whom all blessings flow. So what do I have to say at the final evening of such a rich and full journey? All I can do is point to the Crucified One. He is far better than any other thing. Upon him was laid my iniquity. My iniquity EVEN in this trip of serving-my sin is ever before me. It is clear that all good from this is His. But he is never just the indifferent or pitying bearer of our transgressions-he loves us. He really, really loves us. What I have learned is so how deep and fierce his love is for me. How full it is. How passionate it is. For the fullness of who I am-all my pride, all my quirks, all my joy, all my mannerisms, all my ugliness and all my beauty. All my thoughts and all my actions. In Tonia’s words, He is not ashamed to call me His own. Perhaps that’s the message of the trip-

He is not ashamed to call me His own. 

To discuss something as small as my role in the lives of people in Eastern Europe is my natural inclination but I know that the far more miraculous thing, the ONLY thing I can boast in is Jesus Christ and Him crucified and resurrected. 

Love Powerfully Simplifies

I sit on a wooden swing alone, surveying a glassy lake surrounded by tall green trees and matching the grey-blue cloud filled sky above in color and calmness, though as always the water is not fully still. An expanding ripple seems to constantly be in motion in the water nearest to me, and as I look further out I can see the methodical movement with the imperceptible breeze, that though I can feel I can hear it whisper through the leaves. And as I sit I am reminded of God. Always Him. The one who brought me here. The one who owns my life. The one who knows me in a way that no one else ever has or ever will. The one closer than the breeze that blows the little wisps of hair and far greater and grander than all the things that I have seen on this incredible journey-all this is is only a millimeter of His handiwork. There is much to be said. About camp. About the drive from Montenegro to Finland. About the work that has been done in my heart and the hearts of those around me, about things that have been learned, joyfully and painfully...but to speak of anything other than Him-it would be irrational. Like asking someone to look at a little pebble at the Grand Canyon. My experience here has been more than I could have hoped or imagined, but it (and I) am only a pointer to the Great One, to the Alpha and Omega. He really, really loves us. God really loves people. All of them. Every last one. From the most spectacular to the most detestable. And if anyone saw my soul, they would know that I am among the detestable. I was written to by someone very, very wise who said that they were praying that I would find as much contentment in the day to day life given the dramatic and rich experiences I have had-knowing my temptation and my sinfulness so well. It would be just like me to go home and be unsatisfied with "normal" life, to forget that the JEsus that I follow and give my life to here is the same Jesus I will follow and give my life to every single day in the states or wherever I am. Life is made of the hum drum. Disciples are made in the hum drum. Death to self occurs in the valleys where there is little emotion and little excitement and little "spiritual high." Christianity is all about death and resurrected life. It is what Christ did for us-and the weight of that we must dwell on more, lean into more, seek to understand more and more. How tempted I am to let it become old when it is new everyday-his putting on of my sins, paying my punishment, and giving me his robes of righteousness. Its also about participating in BOTH the death and resurrection ourselves. We die with him-dying to our needs, our desires, our searching for the spectacular, our endless seeking of affirmation and compliments and value from people, our selfishness, our pride-dying over and over again to these-while setting our hopes on the Risen One, who will raise us with Him, seat us in the heavenly places. "When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." How do we do this? How do we, little worms of humans that we all are, seek the things that are above, where Christ is? Daily, we put to death everything that is earthly in us-put all of it off-and put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other. Above all, we put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Ah and here is the part I must preach daily to my anxious and turbulent soul-let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Listening to Elisabeth Elliott as we drove through country after country, I remember one of the many wise things she said-
"Love powerfully simplifies"
She is right. It does powerfully simplify things. And as Christians we are invited into simple lives. Lives that are filled to the brim with just a few things that we count as infinitely valuable-most of which was in the passage I wrote in above from Colossians 3. I have learned more about the life God invites me to in this trip. Far more prayer. Communal and solitary conversations with, intercession before, childlike praise to the Father. Knowing that praying is one the best things I can do because only what He does (nothing, really nothing at all, that I do) will last (psalm 127-unless the lord builds the house the builders labor in vain, unless the lord watches over the city the watchmen stay awake in vain). The Word. Being in the written word as much as possible for the Word (Jesus Christ) to be formed in us, reading the truth so that we may know Jesus who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life-knowing that our bibles are worth more than all the treasures of the world as the word of the lord endures forever, and will teach us and work in us (as Colossians said-let the word of christ dwell in you richly). With these two, we are able to carry out the greatest commandments-loving God and loving one another. We are able to carry out the great commission-going, making disciples of ALL nations, teaching them to OBEY all that Christ has commanded and baptizing them in the SPIRIT. We are able to live lives of worship that glorify God because the world sees how we treasure Him. And these things can be done ANYWHERE. They are in no way bound to foreign cultures and mission trips and times of year and any of the other things that I always think are part of the recipe for life being this rich, this full, this stunningly beautiful.

I arise on the wings of the morning to sing to you, my King. I arise to sit in your presence and know the Love that I have longed for all the days of my life. I arise today, your daughter. My identity is in you. I have seen You. I see you in the stillness. I see you in the glitter of the water on the lake. I hear you as the rustle through the leaves. As the sun dapples the forest on the path ahead, I know that you are so present. I feel you as I dive into the deliciously cold water of the lake and say who is my Father that he would make this for me? I know you as I walk with a new friend and testify to your utter goodness in my life. As I tell her of the ways that my heart has left you time and time again in search of another lover, and you have come after me again and again, never leaving, never forsaking me. I know you as I come back from an hour spent with you and immediately a girl I have been hoping to talk to asks me to walk so that we can talk about life and sadness and pressure and following you. Yes, God. Your presence is what I long for. Yes, Lord, my life is all for you. I smile at your humor, your delight, as I walk with the 3 men from the church, hearing about their testimonies and having them ask about mine. I smile as I think of the barriers-cultural, linguistic, all of them that you overcome as you go before me and behind me and by my side. The only response that makes sense is to praise You, Lord. Why would do anything else? I am seeing freedom that comes when it is all about you and not about me at all. Secretly, my human desire always wants it to be about me. I want to be the one who helped. To be the one who was used. To be the one that is significant. What chains I bind myself in when I live for my significance and my glory-pursuing the kingdom of me instead of the kingdom of God. Oh, how sinful my nature is. I know that it is true that there is nothing good in me. That apart from you I can do nothing except chain myself and fall down before idols that steal and kill and destroy. Oh wretched one that I am. Thanks be to God that he delivers me from this bondage. For the law of the spirit of life has SET ME FREE from the law of sin and death. The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace because the mind on the flesh is hostile toward God. When my mind is set on me, it is hostile to God. However, I am not in the flesh but in the spirit. Not because I chose this path, but because the spirit of God dwells in me. Christ is in me. My body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. He who raised Christ gives LIFE, true, real, deep, poignant, spiritual life to my mortal body that was so far beyond hope. The greatest miracle I have ever witnessed-Christ's spirit in me.

The more that I do mission work or pursue kids for the Lord or share the gospel, the more in love with Him I fall, as I see his utter, deep, abiding goodness. I see that He truly, truly saved me against all odds. And I just love Him. I think again of his last interaction with Peter, one of my favorite things recorded about Christ. How Peter betrayed him and probably thought that it was the last time that he would see Jesus, that in the end, after years of their closeness and bond, Peter chose himself over Christ in the most crucial moment. I can't imagine how crushed he was. Then to see him again. I imagine that maybe Peter wasn't sure how it would be..how Christ would act. And you read into the intimacy as Jesus looks at him and asks "do you love me?" redeeming peter, not casting him off. Not reminding me of his lack of love or faithfulness to Christ. Laying it aside. Showing him that he died for Peters sin, just as he died for my sin 2000 years later. And not only that but sets him on mission, "Then feed my sheep, peter." I wonder if Peter was shocked that he would be counted worthy to serve Christ. I wonder why I am not more often shocked that I have been.

Lord Jesus, I love you. Take more from me that I may be more yours. Set my heart upon your love, so that nothing else compares. If you are for me, who can be against me? Because you intercede from me, nothing will ever separate me from your love. Thank you.

Wesley's Covenant Prayer

I am no longer my own, but yours.

Put me to what you will, rank me with who you will; 

put me to doing, put me to suffering; 

let me be employed for you or laid aside for you;

exalted for you or brought low for you;

let me be full, let me be empty;

let me have all things, let me have nothing;

I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

Sweet Lord, 

My throat catches on "let me be laid aside for you." I'm not there yet, Lord. Yielding all things to your pleasure and disposal. I think that you don't love me as much when you lay me aside for you as when you employ me for you. I know its not true. The hurt of being laid aside is a good kind of hurt. The tugging of the attachment to being employed for you. You have something much better than employment for me. I get You, forever. I settle and seek the lesser love, missing the far greater thing, the chance to offer all of myself to you. To be not my own but yours. If I am yours, you use me or don't as you wish. Take all in me that is not yoet yours, all that holds onto the let me be employed for you and is saddened by being laid aside for you. The far better thing is that it is for you. You are enough. You are enough even when you lay me aside. Detach me from my self and my identity, attach me to you. Detach me from people that I seek to prove my significance and worthiness and usefulness, attach me to Christ. Let there be no more me to cling to because I am so fully yours so deeply one with you that it makes no difference to me whether I am employed or laid aside, full or empty, doing or suffering. I love you. Amen

joy inexpressible

Today was the kind of day that you remember for the rest of your life. We had great breakfast with the team, drove and walked around downtown where I had a wonderful conversation with one of the team members named Becca who shared her calling and passions, waded in a cool, sparkling river-deep and rushing and got to delight in the Creator of this spot. Then we drove past the Roma camp, a slum, and my heart just ignited for slum ministry and Gods heart for them. I heard the words of Isaiah "I have appointed you to bring good news to the poor, to set the captives free." The scripture that Jesus read then sat down and simply said, today this scripture is fulfilled. And knowing that I am one with him and God calls me to bring them their Savior just as he called Christ. I began to get clarity and learn and see my own heart, my unique gifting, foretastes of the Lords plan for my life. We got to go to the "Niagara FAlls" of Montenegro (seriously thats what the sign calls it and everything. They have a hawaii here too.) which was basically this stunning gorge that had deep, aqua blue water down at the very bottom and me and one of the team members were able to do a little climbing around the gorge which just brought me such delight (I love rock climbing and NEVER would have dreamed of doing some in Montenegro in one of the most beautiful spots I have ever been), went back to Vladimir and Marianna's house for a fantastic lunch of stuffed peppers and really sweet hour of rest in which I dwelt deeply in Psalm 119 then headed to the church. At the church we had an hour of worship that was indescribable and filled with the spirit in really incredible ways-being able to really pray over the city and the country, worshipping really freely, being able to pray over and with Caroline, just glorifying God. Burning white hot with a passion for Him and his glory in the midst of a city where he is almost entirely unknown and not worshipped. Not wanting that time to end and realizing that ultimately it will not end. that followers of Christ will spend forever worshipping him. After that we were able to meet the small community that makes up a large portion of the Montenegrin church-about 12-15 people. And they are incredible-such a reminder of the first churches in the new testament. A little group that loves the Lord and has surrendered their life to him. Women praying for their sons and daughters to know God. People being missional in their workplaces. A 15 year old girl named Sara who I have already come to adore sharing her fear about persecution in her high school (as she is probably the only christian in the entire school) God really pouring his favor on Caroline and I as we spoke scripture to her, prayed for her, and grew to love her the way God does. Seeing the humility and the boldness and the excitement of this church. Realizing that the chance to meet new christians is extremely rare because there are so few in the country. Humbled by the fact that these women listened so well to us and were so thankful to have us. Then finishing the evening with a wonderful dinner in a lovely downtown restaurant, having gelato, seeing the city nightlight, having another heart to heart with Caroline on the porch and seeing what a small view I had of the depth of friendship and christian community by our closeness and true oneness in this. And now writing to a group of people I love dearly. What a day. Filled with the Word, with passionate prayer, with an evident Spirit dwelling in me. Seeing the bride of Christ, the church, of Montenegro. Letting him delight me with my favorite things-culture, food, nature, climbing, water...Giving Him everything. Inexpressible joy. All my love. Set your hope on the only One worthy of it. You were made for this. You were made for Him.

Oh, praise Him.

Today was a day of praise. A day to praise the greatest artist of all time by loving his artwork and delighting in it. Montenegro just may be the most beautiful country in the entire world. Today we were able to drive along the coast from the capital across the border to Croatia to pick up the mission team we will be serving and working with for the next week and a half-one high schooler, 4 UGA students, and their leader who is head of an incredible ministry in the southeast called SWAT that does weekend retreats for youth. I must admit I was wary and apprehensive about getting back into the car for 8 hours of driving and the lord made it one of my favorite days of the whole trip. We drove along a farm filled valley along the mountains then down to the Adriatic sea which is lined with beautiful villages filled with Mediterranean homes, looking so much like Greece where I have always dreamed of going. We had a half hour in one of these towns while our pastor met with a woman and headed down one of those sloping, winding narrow roads, delighted with surprises at every turn-unique homes and unexpected cafes and mini farmers markets and a fantastic central square down at the bottom. We had pizza with the team overlooking the water, enjoying a soft breeze reminding me of the power of the gusts that I now hear and feel as I write on my favorite back porch. But it was not just a day of seeing beauty and soaking in a little paradise. It was deep. The day was rich and it was missional. It was a day to speak to Mike about the future and allow him to speak to us from the Spirit. As I asked question after question about the people that he worked with in ministry and on the mission field and learned about these incredible lives fully surrendered for Christ-people who have literally gave up everything, moved to a foreign land and commit everything they have to serving the lord and making disciples he said to me “It seems like maybe that is the life that you are drawn to and called to.” And with a fluttering heart that was scared of the weightiness of that observation I knew that I had nothing to say but yes. He reminded me of the words sent to Ananias about Paul from Christ-“I will show him how much he must suffer for my name” and again, my spirit knew that it would be true for my life. Oh how much you give to live a life of missions. The question we return to is this “Does the cross draw you or repel you?” Because unlike most things, missions is not about a satisfying and fulfilling life. Its about dying to yourself. In a million ways a million times. Its about letting go. And when I am honest, I am terrified to let go of the comfort and the relationships and the independence and control I have living in the states. At times I say, Lord, maybe I cannot or should not go…and yet the pull is deep. The reasons for staying away from missions are always about me and my comfort and the pull is always the lord and what he is doing. Amidst the breathtaking beauty of the cities we also know that there is not a church in most of the cities. Not a church. Most likely not a Christian. Not a single one. Sobering to say the least. And convicting. To remember that nothing here will last-that I have one life to live and it is His now…and he will show me how much I must suffer for the name. I have never been so drawn and so repelled by one thing. And I know that right now is a season of preparation. A season of prayer and discernment and equipping as I spend my next two years in college. And yet I know that one day, there will be a call to go. I don’t know where. But I know the call. Come with me, Christ says. Follow me. There were some that Christ told to stay in their hometown. And there were some he said to come with him. To leave everything. And when they looked at him, the realized that having everything and not him was nothing compared to having Him and following Him and living for Him. And I know that is the heart he has given me. A heart that loves people with a love that is HIS not mine. A heart for churches where they are persecuted. A heart for the cities where no one knows their Lover and Savior and Lord. I saw a little girl in the car while on the bus and somehow we connected-smiling, hiding, laughing-fast friends across the windows of two cars in a foreign country with another language and utterly different lives. And then so soon her dad turned and I waved and just as the car went out of sight I saw a little hand wave back. And I think of this girl and it hits me now that she will never hear about her the One she was made for who loves her more than anything else in the city she lives in. And the Spirit is flooding this trip with moments like these and showing me all these kids and families who God loves. Some of whom he has chosen since before the beginning of time. But how can they believe if they do not hear? And how do they hear if no one speaks? And how can one speak unless they are sent? And there I am with a love so deep for a people not my own and a love so deep for the One who brought me out of the pit, who cleansed me and adored me and has seated me on high already to reign with him forever and I cannot fathom living for anything else. Why would I do anything other than what will last eternally? And what will last eternally except people? And a world of opportunities and of people who are following hard of Christ is here and there is a place for me here if the lord leads me to it and its scary and crazy and good. And who knows. Perhaps in 2 weeks or 2 months or 2 years everything will have changed again and the lord will lead me somewhere completely unexpected-His will not mine. Thy kingdom come, Father. Thy will be done. For THINE is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. 

From Montenegro...

As I write, I am sitting on the little deck of the apartment we are
staying at near downtown Podgorica in Montenegro listening to the
gusts of mighty rushing wind come pounding through-singing and
whistling and rustling. Where to begin? After spending the night in
Poland, we woke up, had a wonderful european breakfast, and begun to
drive and drive. We drove through Poland, then Slovakia, then Hungary
and spent the night at "Hotel Sunshine." We woke up early in order to
go into Budapest, perhaps the most beautiful city I have ever seen.
What a gift it was to walk around a central square then drive up and
see the Citadella which overlooks the whole city and the Danube river
which goes right through the city. After the sunrise in Budapest we
hit the road again made it through Hungary into Serbia and finally
into Montenegro. We drove through an incredibly diverse landscape from
plains to rolling hills of farmland to absolutely gorgeous mountains
in Serbia and Montenegro and got to see a major culture shift as the
homes went from farm homes to stucco houses with orange terra cotta
roofs that looked far more like what you would imagine in Italy-it was
an incredible progression from the Baltics to the Balkans. We did
manage to make it all the way to Podgorica to the home of Vladimir and
Marianna-the couple who leads a small Brethren church here that we
have already grown to love. They have taken great care of us and are
full of wisdom and godliness. We also met Violetta, our hostess, in
whose apartment we are now staying. We stayed the night with her and 3
girls from Denmark, all of whom left this afternoon to lead a camp for
Roma youth. We were able to see them off, and I immediately fell in
love with the Roma (or Gypsy) community. They are a beautiful and
fascinating people, but a very hard, hard group to love or do ministry
with because of the centuries of distrust of other cultures and the
lifestyle that is based on stealing and deception. Their community
reminded me of the tent cities in Haiti. Its hard to describe the
feeling when I go into an impoverished community-an outcast people
living basically in slums-but I know that I am never ready to leave-I
long to stay with them and know them and listen to them and respect
them and introduce them to Christ. But for today, just to meet them,
two absolutely gorgeous little girls in particular, two laugh with
them and bridge the language barrier together and listen to them say
my name-that was enough for today. Today was day of learning to
embrace the hardship of being in a culture that is not your own-not
just today but the entirety of the trip thus far. There are timeless
lessons that I'm in the process of relearning-die to yourself, live to
Christ. Not my will but His. He is made perfect in our weakness. Its
not about me. Its not about feeling useful or important. Its about
being His. Always and only and fully His. Its about the joy of the
lord is my strength when I am sitting in the car for 14 hours. Its
about serving the locals even if its not what or how I expect. Its
always about the relationships. Always, always. Tomorrow the team from
Georgia arrives. We head to Croatia to pick them up. Pray for clarity,
discernment and joy. Pray for the youth and the church members we will
get to serve this week and next. Pray for Vladimir and Marianna as
they lead the church here. Pray for the country of Montenegro that has
less than a hundred believers. IN THE COUNTRY. Pray for me, that I may
know the love of Christ more, that I may be poured out as an offering,
that my focus and my heart may be on Christ alone. Thank you and I
love you. Thank you for your wonderful responses-what an encouragement
to me. And know, as I am learning, that the Lord has always called us
to EXACTLY where we are. He shows no favoritism with people or with
places. He loves the people that you are with today and tomorrow and
this week deeply. Enough to die for them. And wants you to die to
yourself on their behalf, ushering them into the Kingdom with the
fragrance of Christ and the light that allows you to shine like stars.
He has given us each so, so much purpose. And we can do the most right
in our hometowns and home cultures with the people we know and are in
deep rela

what I hear from the lord

This is not a dramatic revelation, its just me using the Word, that is so sweet and so good, to speak the gospel and His Truth to myself when I am struggling. Perhaps, wherever you are, the lord whispers these words to you as well. I pray that He draws you nearer to Himself and you are able to see and taste and know His delight in you, deeper and brighter and better than anything the world can give. 

You are here for me. I need you to know that you are here for me and me alone. Not for the church, not for the youth, not for the team not for the country. You are here for me. As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall I rejoice over you. Today. I know that I have taken your comfort. I know that I am not allowing you to live the way you want to live, frustrating your expectations and humbling you. Everything that I do to you, I do for you. Do you know your name? It is not Forsaken. I see you darling. I see your bitterness and frustration and hurt because you think that I have Forsaken you, or you think that because of your own fault you are forsaken. No little one. Your name is My Delight Is In Her. That is your name. Because I love you with an everlasting love. And you have turned to other things. Such as this trip being the way want it.

Lord, why did you bring me here?

Oh little one, do you know how many before have asked the same? Do you not remember Moses? How often the Israelites asked why I brought them into the wilderness? Remember little one, I let many of them die there. Why? Because I am lord. I am YAHWEH. I was enough for them. There is no “God and.” Its just me. Not me and a satisfying life. Me and an impressive mission. Me and a safe and healthy family. Just me darling. I am not your accomplice. If I were, I failed you. But I am your Lord. I have freed you, dear. Freed you from pleasures that make promises they cannot keep. Freed you from self-obsession and self-exultation. You of all know the bondage of the world. You have seen its tinseled promises. You have seen the darkness and brokenness of life apart from me. Come to me. Just come sit with me. I will rock you. It will be more than enough for you. Trust me. I am more than enough for you. Better is one day in my courts than thousands elsewhere. I will prune you so that you can bear more fruit. Don’t be surprised by the pruning. I promised it was coming. It is here. Know that even as I prune you, I love you. I pour my love upon you. I hold you when you are sad, even if you are sad about losing your idols and your lovers. I love you through that. Because I have lobed you while you were still a sinner. My son died while you were turned away from me. 

first day in Europe

In a tiny little hotel room in Poland-first night in Europe. Such an incredible day. Got on a flight in Chicago yesterday, arrived in Helsinki Finland this morning, flew over to Tallinn Estonia and started the three day drive to Montenegro. Today we went through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and are now in Poland. Some of the most beautiful and mysterious countryside I have ever seen-filled with forests, and unique little houses and deep conversations. Got to see the most vibrant rainbow of my life and conquer a fear of being inactive/sedentary for long periods of time by being on planes and in cars from 8 am thursday morning until past midnight tonight. Learning flexibility. Mostly-falling in love with the lord again. Letting him show me his creation, his work of art. Countries are his canvases. Seeing the beauty of Christian community-one of the most marvelous and miraculous things of all time. Spending the first half of a birthday just with God and seeing the sweetness of knowing that he goes before me and with me and after me-surrounding me and keeping me under the shadow of his wings. Reading the words of John Piper on missions and having a whole new lens on the supremacy of God in all things and the fact that the most missional we are is when we are most delighted in God-because He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Being reminded that for the Christian life is war. In all seriousness. What is at stake is huge-far more than earthly life but eternal life. Souls at stake. Seeing this drive as a time for prayer-a time for preparation to die to self. Knowing that God in His goodness will delight me this trip. He loves to delight me because I am his daughter. But this is not about my delight. It is about his glory. And the war that is being waged and the forces that are trying to stifle that glory in me and in others. Learning to embrace the call to suffer. The privilege it is to suffer for His Name. Learning that the crucial thing-in these next weeks but in all the days of my life is abiding. Jesus said, Abide in me. Apart from me you can do nothing .Oh, how true it is here. There is nothing I can do unless God chooses to do it and would like to use me. He is the vine, we are the branches. And we will be pruned. Always to bear more fruit. And he has more in store for EACH of us than we can ever imagine. I always have the sense of excitement with foreign callings, always feel the pang of jealousy or wistfulness as I hear of the adventures and mission trips and travels of people-and yet these things in themselves are utterly empty. If it is not the Lords it will not last. This means that the opposite is equally true. If it is the Lords, nothing can stop it. If I am the lords and not my own, my life will be meaningful. Wherever that is.
To live is Christ, to die is gain.

Hope

I am overwhelmed by you God. So overwhelmed. You are my king and my redeemer. You are too good to me. Really God, I don’t deserve you, and you give me your whole self. And when I surrender my need to be used by you, you use me in ways that are better than I ever would have dreamed of. I don’t know how you love me the way you do, but right now, in this moment I am sure of your love the way am sure of the sun. Lord, I know that I have come to you and you have covered me with your garment. I don’t have any words for you God. I know that the spirit intercedes for me right now, as I am only able to sit and say thank you. Thank you for making me your own. I strive to make you my own, to know Christ and him crucified. There is nothing else for me, God. I know that you are worthy of every ounce and every second of my life.

Thank you for opening my eyes to who I am. A sinner. An idolater. A rebel that rejected you. Thank you for showing me that I have been bought by the blood of your son. That no other price would do. That there is nothing left for me to pay. That my goodness, my ministry doesn’t cut it. You do. You pay the price.

I trust you God. Because you are better than I can ask or imagine. And as I let myself be stripped of all but you, I fall for you again. Again, I want to be the beloved. Not just be named the beloved, labeled the beloved, intellectually beloved. But live Belovedness. Live being a daughter of God. Live the preparation for my wedding day. How can I be the bride of Christ? How can that really be true? It is too good God. Far too good. And not just me. The church. All the people I know who are yours one bride. All the people I know hurting. All those I know in despair. Some of the girls I lead in young life. These urban kids who have never known love, the girls who have never been called beautiful-some of them will be with me. We will be the bride together. The daughters of yours who I have been with this weekend, struggling together. Talking about the sin that enslaves us. We will be perfect, your bride together. The one I am thinking of, who has been in more pain than I know, who I have not served and entered into the brokenness as I have meant to-she will be made perfect with me. She is your beloved. When I say in my heart there is no hope, you say to me 

Look at my Son on the cross and don’t say that there is no hope. There is the blazing center of all the hope that has been ever been-hope was lost and hope was found and hope is all wrapped in the One who paid for your sin and paid for the sin you see and paid for the sin that in slaves. Hope abounds. Hope abounds in the tent city that has a piece of your heart. Hope abounds in the little one you have not forgotten that God has called you to since you met her on a too hot, too good to be real day in Port au Prince. Hope abounds for that little class of Gods children struggling to read and struggling to learn in that school that God loves so much in Raleigh. Hope abounds despite the materialism you are afraid will choke the ones you love. Hope is Christ. That is all it has ever been and all it will ever be.

I have put hope in myself and what I can do for people. I have put hope in people and what they can do for me. But without the Savior there is no hope in either of those-I will crush and be crushed because I am sinner and so is every one else. But in Christ, in hope in Him, there is hope in the body, there is hope people because we no longer live-he lives in us. In him we live and move and have our being. So we become instruments of hope because we become Christ. That is the mystery of the gospel and this mystery is profound. 

There is something in me that still desires glory…that still says, how big will my life be for you God? And I know that in that question is a desire for my glory. I’m sorry God, for putting my glory and my needs and my desire to be appreciated and well used before you. When I am for you and for you alone, my glory will cease to be a thought. Begin to make me like that now so that I can be a servant for you. I know that every struggle you give me allows me to minister.


The shackles don’t have to be binding. I choose to place them on, because you broken the bonds. You have set the captives free. And I am a captive. And you will work your gloriousness into the brokenness-not only redeeming me fully but going above and beyond as you have done with the brokenness of my family or the brokenness of my growing up years by giving me compassion and a heart for girls. 


I know that in so many ways my heart is like yours. I thank you for what you have revealed to me and what you have done in me to give me a heart that looks like yours in so many lovely ways. I know that my walk with you and my passion for you and drawing people to you is a gift that I did not earn or did not deserve as I once walked in darkness, hating others and living for myself. I know that you have chosen me since the foundation of the world and that is why I follow you. Not because of my goodness but because of yours. And I know you have lots more to do with me. And I thank you for all that you have to do with me. Even though its going to be a process and a journey. You love the process. It’s a process we do together. And one day, this won’t be such a struggle. I pray you help me to let go of people and to hold tight to you, knowing that people are not mine, they are yours. All yours, only yours. 

Ephesians 1:1-10

I am a saint to Christ.
I am faithful in Christ.
Scripture tells me my true identity.
Blessed be God. Not blessed be me. Not blessed be any person. Blessed be God. The Father of Christ and the Father of me and you. This blessed one blesses us (all His own doing) with every spiritual blessing. We are in the Spirit not in the flesh. The flesh fears, the Spirit has faith.
He chose me. He chose you.
We are chosen by god to be holy and blameless. 
We are not chosen to be sinful and broken and condemned. We are chosen to be nothing less than holy and blameless.
I am-in every sense-one with Christ. He chose me. Which is why HE carries the good work (us) to completion. I am where I am, a follower and a lover of Christ, because (and only because) He chose me. If he chose me, he also paid for me. IF the choosing is His I cannot lose it. There is only gain. There is no loss for the one God has chosen in. There is no point in questioning God's goodness. He was beyond good to choose me. He chose me before the foundation of the world. My choseness has nothing to do with the life I have lived and everything to do with the life Christ lived.
I did some contemplative prayer before digging into the Word. I heard only lies. I cannot be the mediator between me and God. I distort everything in my pain and bitterness. Scripture is the mediator. Christ is the mediator. Christ is the ultimate true, whole Word of God. All Scripture reveals Him to me. Through Scripture He reveals himself to me. 
In love, he predestined you and I both for adoption as daughters and sons through Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of HIS glorious grace with which he has blessed us individually in the Beloved. God makes himself known to us in Christ. WE ARE ADOPTED.
In Him, we have redemption through his blood. Not in ministry, the amount of people we bring to him, or anything we do. In Him we have the forgiveness of trespasses ("Your sins have been forgiven" he said to the paralytic who was lowered to him through the roof by his friends. He did not start with rise up and walk. Sins are the bigger thing-more significant. If my sins have been forgiven, if I truly possess the love of God then healthy or sick, single or married, dead or alive, walking or paralyzed-it doesn't really matter. I have the love of God for whose sake I have lost all things-for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ and him crucified.) We have this forgiveness according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. He made known to us his will (the mystery of his will) which was set forth in Christ to unite all things in him.

Corrie ten Boom wrote

(My) Fathers whole life was focused on Jesus, and Jesus made him a mirror of His love and His glory. A mirror doesn't have much to do. To do its job it just must hang or stand in the right direction. You and I don;t have to do a great deal either. We need only to look to the Lord Jesus and He will make us like mirrors and He does it so well! We don't need to strive and try to be a blessing but just look in the right direction. When you get to heaven, people may say to you, You invited me here. Then you will ask, "when did I tell you about heaven?"  You will discover that Jesus used you when you were really looking to him. 


God,

I love that you are a solid rock. I love that you are my father and that you are deeply secure. I love that you are true. I love that you don’t come to me with anger and with pain and demand that I make you better. Because you are for me. And I am hurt by you when you don’t need me, but you are not supposed need me. I need you. You satisfy me. I don’t satisfy you, you are already satisfied. 

I just trust you and I love you and I thank you for being secure. And being consistent. And being present. And showing up in my life. I’m here and you aren’t obligated to show up but you did and I love that you reveal yourself in a deep way to me and that we are close. And I love the way jesus and his disciples are. You told them, and you tell us, you are not my servants, I have made you my friends. I have revealed to you all that Father has shared with me. Therefore, abide in my love. 

To you (and me), from Christ.

Sweet child,

 I love seeing you training for godliness. Do you have any idea how much you are growing? It delights me little one. I love seeing you in my word. I am so delighted with you. You are such a wonderful daughter. I love meeting your needs. My love for you is more than you know. It endures forever.  I love when you want to be like me. I love to be intimate with you. Don’t run around. Don’t have shame. You have life in me. Life to the full. You cannot fail me because I am the secure one. You are weak but I am strong. You are imperfect but I am perfect. My grace is sufficient for you. 

Come to me, thirsty one, and drink deeply of living water. You will not be thirsty again. I know your thirst and I know the secret and blatant things that you satisfy your thirst with. I know the things that you love that are not me. You are free from them. Your chains are gone. Anchor yourself in hope. Trust in the Word, which is pure and sweet and searching. Let me search you and know you. I promise I will not find you wanting. I will not turn you away. I will redeem you with my own blood. Let me compell you daily to die to yourself and live to me. My way is the way. My truth is the Truth. My life is Life. Trust me. 

From a letter I wrote to a great friend..

"The beautiful news in all this is that Christ is a healer. And God is my Father. The other good news is that he loves me when I am doing nothing for him, as the past few weeks have been-of course I am not doing "nothing" but not being in school, not having "ministry," not working or making money, just being home. 

I think my fear right now is that I am just getting started, just beginning to peel the initial layers of healing and that I won't have the strength to carry through and I will fall back into the same struggles, the same behaviors, the same idols that I have not been freed from for as long as I can remember. I am afraid that I will go back to school and again fill my schedule and pour out and out and out and do more and more ministry and flee from healing, feeling, intimacy-all these things that I am just starting to look into. I know that this is the beginning of a long journey that I have started before and abandoned quickly. I am reminded of Christ's words-"the way is narrow and few take it."

Stillness, prayer, contemplation, accountability-they are so hard. So rarely practiced by anyone, even Christians. It is much more instant gratification to cover my struggles with serving and always, always focus on someone else. But I also think back to my first semester of college, where I spent so much time with the Lord. I had a lot of deep genuine joy that semester-the most I have ever had. I don't have to be discouraged because I know Jesus Christ and all that I cannot do he has already done and the work that HE has begun in me HE will carry to completion. So, my discouragement is rooted in truth because I CANT do it. I cant heal myself. I can't muster the courage to feel normally, or to rewire my brain so that the feelings that arise can travel safely to the logical side of my brain instead of being immediately dismissed or buried or avoided. But He can! He made my brain. Of course he can heal it. He made my soul, and he can heal it. 

He has already done the impossible with me-taken a sinner who hated and rejected him and chose myself and my independence over Him and given me a HUGE passion and love for him and a deep, intimate relationship with Him that so few have. He has already worked the greatest miracle-bringing me from spiritual death to life, revealing my sinfulness, making me a new creation-one where I no longer live but He lives in me. 

Its so crazy how even in the process of writing this letter he has given me hope when I started to walk down a path of despair about my brokenness."

Know that the lord has every intention to heal all the brokenness in you and in your life. It is God who has established us in Christ and has anointed us and who put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. 

It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in says the Lord

 I am home.

And old wounds are raw and exposed.

And I am child again, in this house, and my pride and my egotism is injured by the thought.

And I am scared that the things that I am learning are going to fade away because they aren’t new to me, I have known them a long time now.

This I know. I got on my knees today and said “Be still and know that I am God.”

Over and over again.

So I could remember that I am not alone, that I belong to one who is with me.

Who has promised to never leave me nor forsake me.

Who humbles me.

I lift my hands up.

Which may not be a lot, but it is something.

Prayer does something, as deep cries out to deep.

And peace that does indeed pass all understanding, stills the anguish that I had gotten to you, the turbulence of the soul that can be ignored.

I found Him in an unexpectedly deep way in a moment that I was extra crushed by imperfect-ness.

God makes a covenant with David. David, in his love, comes to God and says “I will build a house for you to dwell in.”

A mighty task. Admirable. Self sacrificing. Something that people would look and say, see how much David loves the lord. See how much he serves him.

But God comes to Nathan and tells him to tell David,

It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in. For I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up Israel but I have gone from tent to tent and from dwelling to dwelling. In all the places where I have moved with all Israel, did I speak a word to whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying Why have you not built me a house of cedar. Now therefore, thus shall you say to my servant David, I took you from the pasture from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel and I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.

So humbling and so loving. David, it almost seems that he says, I love your passion for me. I love your desire to serve me. I love how you want to show the world my greatness. But remember, David, it is I who saved you. I will show my greatness by the work that I do in your life. And greater than this, it is I who will establish the throne of one our your offspring and will confirm him in my house forever.

It is God who has pursued me. And loved me. And saved me, through his son.

I’m sitting in my kitchen. I’m going to go to the Y with my mom today. I’m going to go to campaigners tonight, where I am not a leader, I am just a participant. Hopefully I can help making dinner and unloading the dishwasher. I’m really praying my little brother will come to campaigners.

That’s today. Its not magnificent. Its not daring. Its not Haiti or inner city. Its not saving lives or saving souls-but I am saved. I am saved by a God who is humbling me the way that he humbled Jacob, who would not stop running from him. He is humbling me the way he humbled David, as I so often come to him and say, I’m going to preach to those who have never heard lord. I’m going to be a counselor for you lord. I am going serve all day every day for you Lord.

But he says, Krystal. It was I who brought you up in a country and in a family where you got to go to a church and begin to learn the scriptures. It was I who was faithful to you and watching over you in middle school and high school when you pursued everything but me. It was I who revealed myself to you and changed you forever that starry night at Rockbridge. It was I who took you to Chrysalis so you could see my love lavished upon you. It is I who chose to allow brokenness in your life because I am healing you and I am using you to be present in that same brokenness in the lives of others. It was I who sent you to Nicaragua so that you could fall for a life on mission for me. It was I who sent you to be a leader of 8 middle school girls so that you could see that the only thing worth living for are girls falling in love with Jesus and being sealed for eternity with us. It was I who sent you to NC State, stripped you of all that kept you comfortable so that we could grow closer than ever before. It was I who chose you for inner city ministry in Raleigh, and I who have sustained and equipped you. I am the God of the girls that you so dearly love and I am with them when you are not. You do not need to fix them, but to point them to me because I am their Savior and their Redeemer and you are neither. It was I who sent you to Haiti, I who chose the kids that would set your heart on fire for orphans, who again stripped you of so much so that you could see me, know me, love me and worship me. And it is I who brought you to Chesapeake, where I knew you would be humbled beyond what you dreamed that you could bear, and made you a child again, because darling you are my child. Do not be so resistant to being a child. I know that you think that you are better than being anyone’s child. I see how deeply you want to be a mother and how much you despise being a child. I’m going to redeem that darling. Jesus Christ is my Son. I am to him a gather and he is to me a son. Therefore, you are to me a daughter. 

to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

Christ is faithful to us, even when we are not faithful to him because he cannot disown himself.
This morning is one where I simply, humbly come before the Father with Christ. Knowing that I have nothing to offer my Father that would make me righteous in his sight. I come on a day where I know that I am not content with what he has given me, and I am sinning against Him in my constant discontent with the Giver who gives me what I need, not what I want. I came bitter and irritated. Uninterested in his gorgeous words that he has carefully chosen for me in order that I may know him. I am frustrated because I wanted something other than a morning with my Father and my family. As I write it, I'm ashamed. Who am I to want anything else? Surely, there is nothing better than this. My love for God gets so tangled up in my need to be useful, meaningful and needed, day after day, week after week. My need to be smart and strong and affirmed. And when God is separated from those other things, my affection for him changes. Not because he is not good, but because I am not good. And in my sinfulness, I forget that he is not here to meet my need, that I am here to glorify him. That he loved ME first. Sent his son first. Brought me to himself. Chose me when there was no logical reason to choose me to save me. Its all about Him.

I'm sure I've posted this quote many times before but it continues to be one that God uses to speak into my life time after time...

All that is not the love of God has no meaning for me. I can truthfully say that I have no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my word and witness. If he wants it to, my life will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is his concern, not mine. It would be indecent of me to worry about that. 

I don't know why this is extra precious to me this morning but I love what Peter says to Jesus. 

But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God. 

Are you going, he asks? Do you see the cost? I know that this is hard. Harder than you imagined. I know that you're tired. I know that I ask for everything. Your entire life. All that you have, all that you are. I know that I bid you come and die. 

And we get to look at him and say, Jesus, to whom shall we go? You, and you alone have the words of eternal life. Where am I going to go Jesus? Yes, its harder than I thought. Far more humbling. For more sin in me than I cared to see, than I imagined. We are far more broken and far loved than we can comprehend. And ultimately its the question that he asks. Who do you say that I am? and Do you want to go away as well? 

We get to look at him and say, To whom shall we go? 

No matter how hard it is, how enticing another life is, how good it is-all the time we get to look at him and say, to whom shall we go? When God did not spare his own Son for us, and he is for us, who can be against us? 

work and rest

How do you heal? Well, the beautiful thing is that Jesus heals. We don’t heal. We cannot heal ourselves and no person can heal us and no method can heal us and no behavioral therapy or psychology or medicine heals just jesus. Which is why I will not be a very good social worker because I don’t believe in the philosophy that underlies social work. Which is fine with me. God called me to be a disciple, not a social worker. And I will study social work for the glory of God because he calls us to care for the poor and social workers care for the poor, the broken, the captives. So we know how to heal. We get as close to Jesus as we can. Through the word. The word is beyond precious. It transforms hearts. And we pray. And we write. And we be with people we love, and we go deep with people who love him. And we serve people who are growing, walk with them. This is all part of healing. And healing involves lots of resting which is my least favorite thing because I am afraid of healing because I believe lies. God promised me both work and rest. As Bonheoffer said,

“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and to the community…But the reverse is also true: let him who is not in community beware of being alone.”

And I would venture to say that this is equally true for rest and work. Work, of course, is never secular because nothing secular for the Christian. All is spiritual. All is an opportunity to obey and worship God, or to obey and worship self or other idols. And all work is ministry and missional, because we are with people. Likewise, all rest is spiritual and either obeys and glorifies God (who commands us to rest, I always remind myself). When I reject rest, I reject God. Who designed rest, in His infinite wisdom. He could have made us to not need rest. Or sleep. Or food. But He did. And as he says over and over again in Scripture, He does what He does to bring glory to himself. My rest glorifies God because it allows me and my life to say, He is God and I am not. He is powerful and I am weak. He deserves all the glory. He has done all the work. I am His. He chose me. He saved me. He is redeeming me. For his own glory.

So, let him who cannot rest beware of work. And let him who will not work beware of rest.