Follow the Leader.

Little disclaimer: Most of these thoughts come from a video by Frances Chan.

God and His Son give a clear example of how disciples of Christ are to live.
Jesus says, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me." -Matthew 8:34
When you were a kid, and you played follow the leader, you DID what the leader did. If the leader flapped his arms, you flapped your arms. You certainly did not say, "I will just sit here and flap my arms in my heart. Really, I promise, I'm flapping my arms on the inside." 
Imagine if your father asked you to clean your room. How impressed would he be if you came back to say, "Dad, I memorized what you said. I thought about cleaning my room, and I memorized exactly what you told me. Later today, me and some friends are going to have a study about what cleaning my room might look like." 
Of course he would NOT be impressed! 
We do the same thing with Jesus. He tells us to walk as He walks, and we simply sit and memorize, or we study, or we think. Jesus did not command us to think about what He said, He calls us to DO IT!

"I can never escape from Your Spirit!

I can never get away from Your presence!

If I go up to heaven, You are there. 

If I go down to the grave, You are there. 

If I ride the wings of the morning, 

if I dwell by the farthest oceans,

even there Your hand will guide me,

and Your strength will support me.

I could ask the darkness to hide me

and the light around me to become night - 

but even in darkness I cannot hide form You.

To You, the night shines as bright as day.

Darkness and light are the same to You."

-Ps. 139:7-12

This is probably the most comforting thing I know of.. that even if I try, I can't escape God.

I seem to be prone to taking on too much.  I try to please everyone, take care of everyone, and I try to convince myself that failure, on my part, is unacceptable. 

But God's Spirit is with me... always.  I don't have to be everywhere.  I don't have to do everything.  God's Spirit is taking care of me.  And when I am afraid, when I'm overwhelmed, when I'm alone, when I'm anxious, God is here.  And He is not frightened by my dark.  In fact, my dark, deep brokenness shine  bright... because, like I said, God is there.  In my brokenness, in my weakness, in my attempts and failures to fix the world, God is there. 

Growing Pains.

NEWSFLASH: You are older now than you were when you first clicked on this page, and time is slipping away all the time. I don't mean to be negative, but lately I've been experiencing some serious growing pains.
I don't think I'm mentally or emotionally ready to be a responsible grown-up. But I don't really have a choice, do I?  Things are constantly changing, people are hurting, and life demands responsibility at some times.  So whether I would like to or not, I am growing up.  And it's painful.
I have lived in this naive bubble for my whole life - one that tells me that everyone is kind.  No one wants to hurt me, and the people in my life are angels who never mess up.  Don't get me wrong, people have told me constantly that humans are flawed and that the world can be dangerous, but I never chose to believe it.
The more I experience of the world, however, the more I discover how much we humans have screwed up God's plan.
PLUS, the more life I live, the more I discover how short it is.  I have one life, and it's already almost 1/4 of the way over.  Woah, when did that happen? I'm just now starting to understand what my life is about.
If you are like me, the knowledge of how short life is and how corrupt the world is only instills in me one emotion - urgency. There are so many pointless tasks that so easily occupy our minds, hearts, strengths, and energies. 

This is why I was placed on the earth:
"God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us."
- 2 Cor. 5:18-20
I believe that this "message of reconciliation" is also why God placed You here. Will you accept the challenge? Although God may wait for your reply, time will not.