Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! It is December 25th and Christ is born! What a wonderful day and wonderful season. I had the pleasure of spending 10 days in Uganda this holiday season at a transitional rehab home called Dwelling Places. It was 88 degrees most days and did not feel like Christmas. Christmas isn't as commercialized there as it is here and so I didn't hear the songs playing every 5 minutes nor did I see decorations hanging everywhere. It didn't feel like Christmas when we were walking down our dirt roads or hanging out together. It only felt like Christmas when the team started to bond and become closer or when the kids eyes lit up everytime they saw us. It did feel like Christmas when little Reagan, asked me to read from his picture bible only 4 or 5 years old. When Irene made me a Christmas card. Those children made it feel like Christmas. And what a Christmas it was for them! We were able to bring sheets, clothes, toys, toothbrushes, toothpaste, bags, dolls, cars, balls and many more things for these precious children. The place we volunteered at has on average over 300 children to stay throughout the year. But during the holidays, they try to send them home to their families or relatives if they have any. Those who have to stay at Dwelling Places are usually the forgotten, the lost..the orphans. So we were able to come in and love them like Jesus. And give them some Christmas presents....they wouldn't have any presents otherwise. These 40 children were able to have some kind of Christmas because of people who donated and because we went. And in return, they made me feel at home and made me remember the reason for the season. It doesn't matter what the temperature is or where I am at, Christmas is to be celebrated for 1 reason only. I hate that its turned into 'who can buy the better gift' for some but I hope that every Christmas I can be humbled like I was for those 10 days. And I hope we all remember that Jesus came for each and everyone of us. He came from His Throne in Heaven to this measly little earth for me. So I could look God in the face and worship Him for who He is. What a priceless gift and one worth celebrating.

My Ebenezer or (my encouragement)

Not sure why I am going through the things I'm going through. But God has a plan and He has revealed some of it to me tonight. I was reading in my journal from a year ago and can't believe how far I have come. The prayers that I wrote a year ago today have been answered. So the things I'm praying for today, I can trust that they will too come true. He is here with me everyday. In prayer, he brought me to a song by David Crowder. It is his rendition of the classic hymn, "Come Thou Fount." The words have always been special to me but they had new meaning tonight. I actually looked deeper into the meanings of the word. (if you count dictionary.com as looking into them deeper) Here is my new version of the popular hymn.

Source of everything good in my life,
put me in line with you;
The way your blessings fall down on me
calls for me to praise you while everyone can see.
So why don't you teach me how to sing
To sing like the angels above
Praise you Father; the One who upholds me
Because of your redeeming love!

Here I raise my 'stone' of help
I have come to this place only by your Help.
And one day, by your doing,
I will arrive in Heaven, my ultimate Home.
Jesus pursued me when I refused to look to Him.
leaving the God that saves
He wanted to rescue me from darkness
The only intervention was by His dying on the cross for me.

Now I am forever in debt
Everyday in fact I am in debt to my King.
I want your goodness to shackle me to You.
bind my wandering heart to You.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

Wow, thank you Lord. You couldn't be more near to me right now. I confess that even after knowing this, I will still wander. Sorry.
But I know that just like a year ago, you didn't let me stay in that place. You called me up higher and brought me to a new level. And now you are calling me higher and want me to grow even more. So hither, I will come. I present my Ebenezer to You and for all to see. My journal is proof of your faithfulness and gives me encouragement for the road ahead.

Silence from Above

John 11:6

From Oswald Chambers, "My upmost for His Highest"

Has God trusted you with His silence—a silence that has great meaning? God's silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible—with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure; because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him—He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply matter of God's sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, "I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead" (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the "bread of life" (John 6:35).

A wonderful thing about God's silence is that His stillness is contagious—it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, "I know that God has heard me." His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, he will do it but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, that He will give you the first sign of His intimacy—silence.







And I will sit in His silence...

Our days are but fleeting...

If you could love me as a wife...
And for my wedding get your life...
Should that be all I'll ever need
or is there more I'm looking for

And I should I read between the lines
and look for blessings in disguise
to make me handsome, rich and wise
Is that really what you want?

I am a whore I do confess...
I put you on just like a wedding dress
run down the isle, run down the isle...

Well, I am a prodigal with no way home
Put you on just like a ring of gold
and run down the isle, run down the isle...
to You....

Could you love this bastard child
No, I don't trust you to provide
with one hand in a pot of gold
and the other in Your side...

Because I am so easily satisfied
by the call of a lover so less wild
that I would take a little cash
Over Your very flesh and blood

Cause I am a whore I do confess
I put you on just like a wedding dress
and run down the isle, run down the isle...

I'm a prodigal with no way home
Put you on just like a ring of gold
and run down the isle, run down the isle
to You...

because money can not buy
a husbands jealous eye
when you have knowingly deceived his wife.

-DEREK WEBB "WEDDING DRESS"

This is a song by Derek Webb...describing what I think is the plight of humanity. It's about dealing with sin...but worse than that is how we return to sin again and again even after coming into the presence of our Savior, the man who saved us from our sin. And the worse thing is that we have to face Him over and over again after sinning, repenting, sinning, repenting. How awful is our human condition. But more awful than that is the fact that Our Lord has to put up with it. I find myself relating to the adultress that is Gomer found in Hosea. Gomer was a whore. Takes money in return for sexual favors. Hosea, under the direction of God married her anyway. The Lord wanted to prove a single point in this story...that He will return to the fornicating land of Israel time and time again. Hosea 3:1 says "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes."

As I walk down the journey of life, I have come face to face with my faults, my shortcoming, my weaknesses, my sin. I see my adulteress spirit and see it wandering far from God and back to Him again. I can't do it on my own I find. So what do I do? I ask for forgivienss and immediately slip back on the wedding band, and the dress that God clothed me in as He called me His own. When it pleases me, I just slip off the band and dress, and the risk involved with following an unseen God. I revert to my old ways. I get unhappy and then decide to put back on the cloak of hope that is Jesus Christ. Just like song says, I act as a whore, a modern-day Gomer to my Lord, my bridgegroom, my Savior.

Oh, but He is there to recieve me at the end of the isle time and time again. I feel sorry for the Spirit that has to grieve everytime I depart from Him. I am the prodigal son who goes and squanders his money on wild living only to be received with open arms by His good, loving, faithful Father. I don't like being in the position of the prodigal son. Although, it is nice to know that I do have a Savior it sucks to realize that this is how it will be until we get to Heaven. Our only hope is in heaven and we must wait for the Ultimate wedding between Jesus and His Church. How I long to be reconciled to Him now. To drink of the living water...to not be satisfied by eathly things...I can be so easily tempted by things of the World but have found only true satisfaction, fulfillment and joy in putting to death the misdeeds of the Flesh, of the World, and living by the Spirit who testifies to God's will in my life. If I find fulfillment in living a life Holy and pleasing to God, then why do I still choose to daily live a life that may not be Holy, but full of colors like scarlet, crimson and anything that is white and pure? Like Derek says, I am easily satisfied by a lover far less wild...I would rather take a little cash for His very flesh and blood. It doesn't have to be cash; it could be some superficial comfort, clothes, food, alcohol, holding onto bitterness, ect in return for getting what you think you want. Derek leaves the song only talking about how things are left here on earth...with us whoring around. But what if we could finish it? It may sound like this...

So much to do, so much to prepare
to walk back down the isle, if I dare
I must find my way back to You
Whatever it takes, my works will do

What happened My Lord, my groom? My works won't do!
I still find myself using You,
I am broken to pieces, realizing that I am nothing
I can do absolutely nothing for my King.

However, there is a Hope that outlasts me
It shines past my sin and lets me be
I can carry on with this Hope from day to day
no matter what I ever do, think, or say.

Where can you find this Hope after the fall?
It is not seen because Hope seen is no Hope at all
Instead it lies in our patience and faith
being built upon by the Keeper of the Gates

"Don't grow weary! For at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we don't give up! "
-Galations 6:9

Don't give up on yourself.....God will gladly marry us 77 times 7 times and I assure you He will make a brand new beautiful wedding dress each and every time with a new beautiful sparkling wedding band. It's not about how much we decide to come back to Him and how good we are for repenting and seeking to live a better life for God. No, afraid not...it has nothing to do with us. You see, God will let us see our sin again and again and again and will let us walk back down the isle to Him again and again and again to show US how much HE loves us. We can try all we want to be justified by our works and by our actions here on the earth. But no matter how good they make us feel about ourselves, that doesn't defeat the Truth...the fact that Jesus had to come to earth to die for us. Don't you think before Jesus came to earth that there were good people? People who did the right thing, went to church every Sunday, tithed 10%, and fed the poor? Jesus had to come anyway because we can't save ourselves. Rather He came to save us FROM ourselves. Here I am Lord...running back down the isle to You....

God doesn't just have 20/20 vision...He has Jesus vision!

I have wanted to write about some new developments in my walk with the Lord for a while now. I have been hesitant. I feel overwhelmed with things I need to get done and the sin I need to overcome though before I can accept His blessing. But this is so wrong! I've already been giving this gift...It was given to me over 2000 years ago. All I have to do is accept it. Whatever joy that I have on this earth is just second rate. No marriage, no career, no amount of money could compare with the riches found in Christ Jesus. Nothing. And lucky me...I've found it! I find it everynight when I am laying in bed thinking about how I could have done things differently that day. How I could have reached someone better if only I had chosen different words...or how I should have kept my mouth shut in that instance, or how I should have said no to the extra desert and how I should be able to practice self-control. Blah blah blah...I screw up everyday!!! What a relief to know that God working in my life doesn't depend on my faithfulness. Isn't it refreshing that Him speaking to me through His Word doesn't have anything to do with how I treated others that day....that not going to church every sunday (or any Sunday) has nothing to do with how much He cares about me....that Him moving in my life doesn't depend on how much I can love others. You see, He views me with a different set of glasses....we see with human vision but He sees with Jesus vision. We are put through a filter where all He sees when He sees me is His perfectness(Is that a word? No...okay well, it should be.) Because in His sight, I am perfect. I screw up EVERYDAY and don't read my bible and don't go to church, and have a bad attitude, and say cuss words, and think bad thoughts about people and then do bad things to people...yet I am perfect when He is wearing His Jesus glasses. You see, when He sees me, He sees Jesus. Who was perfect. A perfect Son. A Son that God let go to come and cover me up. So that when He looked at me in all my filth and earth and dirt, He would see my perfectness. And why would He withhold His love, faithfulness, grace, blessings, ect from someone as perfect as His Son? He wouldn't. How much He longs to give good gifts to those He loves! All it takes is me realizing, accepting it, and living in that each day!! And that's all it takes for you too!!

No...about the new developments in my walk...that will come later. It's just awesome to know that God can be moving in my life, in my heart, in my mind without depending on me to have all the answers. How crazy it seems to trust your life to this crazy untame God! But how marvelous at the same time!!

Are You still there?

Sometimes, when needed, I have to demand in prayerful persistence for God to prove Himself to me. For Him to come back to me after spiritual dryness. I pray for His presence to overwhelm me again. He has been faithful time and time again! No matter how long the season of dryness is. During my back troubles, it seemed to last forever. Several months. He came back into a visible tangible presence in more and better ways that I could ever imagine. Well, in times of growth and maturity, He leaves for a time. He never leaves my side but His visible presence is not to be felt for a while. I grow to miss Him and to miss His leading. After tons of time together with Him while I was in New Zealand, I came back to the states totally dry and void. I was almost numb upon arriving home. I prayed for the "fine china to dine off of" instead of the paper plates I was getting. (Shane and Shane) He came back into my life physically bigger than ever!!

I made a prayer journal for the summer for myself. I neglected to write in it a lot however. So, I decided to start using it now to write down facts and information about the nations. I decided to do a different country each week and to pray for that country. I wanted to do it to educate me on the rest of the world as well as praying for real needs. I decided to do all countries in Africa. I randomly put my finger on the big continent and it landed on Libya. However, like so many other projects that I want to start, this one didn't seem to lift off the ground. After forgetting about this idea for a while, God brought it back to my heart in a powerful way. I had some free time and was sitting in front of the tv. I pulled out my computer and when I opened up my Internet explorer to my country of the day(my home page delivers a new country to my eyes everyday to pray for), guess what it was? Libya!! I immediately remembered and God said, turn off the tv, get on your knees and start praying for this country! I looked up fact after fact and my heart began to break for this country that I hadn't thought twice of before. I found myself crying before my computer screen. In a country of 6 over million, there are only 100,000 Christians. It is an Arab country and 97% are Sunni Muslim. I was crying for this dark place! I have been praying for this country all week as God continues to give me a heart of compassion for them! That night, I began to sense His presence once more and He began to quench my thirst with His living water. Now all I want to do is take the water to Libya and feed them!! Lord, are you calling me to Libya? Are you calling me an Arab nation in the 10/40 window?

Only time will tell...as long as my heart continues to seek after Him! And the spiritual dryness must come routinely so that my heart WILL continue to seek Him! Not just seek, but seek HARD after Him! We don't exist just in the highs but also in the lows. If there were no lows, we wouldn't know how high the highs can get!

Beautiful New Zealand...

I have to keep asking myself, "Am I really here?" It is so hard to believe that I have the opportunity and privledge to be in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. And not by my idea...it was totally God that sent me here! How cool! I only have 3 more nights here and I am still figuring out exactly why I am here. Part of why I can't write out...yet...I think. Sometimes, the Lord can be so extreme and so unbelievable that it is hard to believe that I am living in His will. I think, "I'm living an absolute dream." When I was first walking with the Lord, I used to really look forward to living the dream that God was painting in my heart. So now, that I am walking firm with Him and actually living a life created for me, it is almost overwhelms me. I think these pictures sum up the beauty of New Zealand...and I have nothing more to say as I can't compete with the pictures... :)