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.

From top to bottom:

Caren from Prestoncrest Girls House making a card for Tommy

Emmanuel flying a kite

My class for Spiritual Emphasis week with their banner

Me and Emmanuel

Some kids on the way to the beach

Linary girls outside their house

Margaret and Monica, some sweet boarder girls from my class

The kids at Spiritual Emphasis!

I'm not sure I can write about everything from Ghana yet. 

I'll be back. :)

Ghana 2010.

I am about to be extremely open and vulnerable with you.  Christianity has become largely about appearing "good" or "holy" rather than true community or vulnerability, and I am about to share with you some not-so-good or holy inner thoughts.  I ask that you not take that vulnerability for granted.

Tomorrow, I will be leaving for the Village of Hope in Ghana for the duration of three weeks.
I'm traveling with a team of college students from Oklahoma Christian and the campus minister from Memorial Road Church of Christ, and we will basically be getting to know the kids, helping with construction, putting on a week-long VBS, and doing anything the Village of Hope needs us to.

Last year I traveled to Malawi, which is located on the other side of the continent from Ghana, and I can safely say that I was fearless even as I boarded the 3-day-long series of flights (minus one minor breakdown). This year, however, I am having flashbacks of Moses' encounter with God at the burning bush. "I don't speak well, God. Please, send someone else."
That is how I feel. "God, please, send someone else. I'm not right for this job." I don't feel ready, I don't feel prepared, I don't feel called. But, at the same time, I know that God has called me to Ghana. I know that God has called me into relationship with people all over the world, because I simply love people. When I think about it, really think about it, I know in my heart that Africa is where I want to be. But I'm entering the trip with a lot of expectations carried over from Malawi that I need to lay down. Plus, I'm downright humbled at the thought of a 3-week period without communication to the people I talk to every day. Most ashamedly, I am lazy. I just got home from my first year at college, I had to drive 11 hours by myself, we were displaced from our house because of flooding and I didn't even get to stay in my own bed, and all I want to do in this moment is settle down in my living room and rest.
I know... poor me, right? WRONG. Not poor me. My life is not about me or my comfort level. It is about God and the fact that He has called me. It is about the fact that God is teaching me to lean on Him in every situation. It is about the feeling that I will have once I'm in Ghana - the peace and the assurance that I am right where I need to be. My life, plain and simply, is about learning to lay down me.
Jesus, please help me.
I ask for your bold and faithful prayers on behalf of our team, on behalf of the children of VOH, and on behalf of my stubborn attitude. God has a lot of work to do on this trip. Good thing He's God.

Much love. Stay safe and stay at peace.

"Though an army besiege me, 

my heart will not fear;

though war break out against me,

even then will I be confident.

One thing I ask of the Lord,

this is what I seek,

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord

and to see Him in His temple."

-Psalm 27:3-4

The Main Event.

"Blessed are those who trust in the Lord 

and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.

They are like trees planted along a riverbank,

with roots that reach deep into the water.

Such trees are not bothered by the heat

or worried by long months of drought.

Their leaves stay green,

and they never stop producing fruit."

-Jeremiah 17:7-8

Yesterday, I took a bike ride around Edmond.
I was so so excited just to be outside - to feel the wind and see the birds and feel attached to nature. After a while though, I saw an awesome looking tree, and I decided to go and sit by it (of course, it helped that my legs needed a break, too... I'm a little out of shape). I wish I could accurately explain to you this tree... The sun winked at me through the leaves, and the leaves danced with the wind as it surged through the air. Just laying under that tree, watching the leaves and the clouds pirouette, I could not bring myself to leave.
For me, the most natural response to moments like that is praise. So I prayed and I praised, and God's presence was there. Who knows how long I spent there. All I know is that I was content without rush, without worry, without time, and with God.
As I was riding back, it struck me that this was not just a bike ride. I left my dorm, excited about a form of exercise, but God had planned for us to sit under a tree together. I still hadn't caught on when I decided to take a break, because I had only planned to rest for five or ten minutes.
But that's just it. Even when we aren't looking for Him, God pursues us. And He is a God who refuses to stand on the sidelines. He will not take second place to a bike ride, or a shopping spree, or a house, or a boyfriend.
Our God is the Main Event.
And rightfully so.

Sweet Surrender.

Being a disciple of Christ is hard. 
Just look at the shoes we have to fill! It can be so overwhelming sometimes, that it's tempting to throw up our hands and say, "Jesus, I will never look like you, so why should I try?" Jesus raised the dead, after all. People. There was a dead man... rotting, stinky, decomposed... dead man. And after Jesus was through with him, he was as good as new (maybe even better). How are we supposed to model a life like that? I can't even make it through a day without physically hurting myself or someone else... much less healing someone - multiple people.


I have been thinking about this a lot lately - how incredibly overwhelming it is to look at the life of Jesus Christ and have any motivation to model it, knowing how weak and simple I am.
Some of us are quick to say that we are not called to be just like Jesus, because after all, Jesus was perfect, and we are human. But let me point you to a couple verses that don't leave any room for that kind of thinking.
Matt. 5:48 "But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." These are the words of Jesus.
John 14:12 "I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father." These are also the words of Jesus. 
Jesus is calling us to be perfect. How do we handle that?


There is some incredible joy that comes with this. That joy goes by the name of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit takes over for us, when we surrender to Him/Her, and our task does not have to be difficult, burdensome, or stressful. Jesus says, "For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light." - Matt. 11:30.  Seems a little contradictory, eh? How is being perfect an easy burden to bear? Because of the Spirit. When we empty ourselves, surrendering to the Spirit's Power, He/She does the work for us. There is so much freedom in that!! I hope you hear this truth the way I heard it the other day. We do not have to fit a mold, succumb to the pressure of society, or strain or struggle. All we have to do is empty ourselves, and the work is done! After surrendering, all we must do is live presently in each moment, listening and doing. That is so easy... and SO freeing. Of course we will mess up. The point is that we stand back up, let the Father dust us off and point us a new direction, and surrender again. And again. And again and again and again. 




(A lot of these ideas came from a sermon I heard at Traders Point Community Church in Zionsville, IN).