Preparation

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, 'This person began to build and wasn't able to finish.'

-- Luke 14:28-31

Well... so much for that February series idea. I did think of this each weekend but.. just didn't follow through. I wracked my brain as to why I was almost hiding from writing and I realized I had, in this regard, as in many others in my life, over-committed. 

The verse above was a focal point of a recent Bible study I was in. I was immediately surprised by this verse; I thought to myself, "where is that written?"

I am not one who is very good at estimating costs. I do no plan ahead well. I am very easily blown by the winds of the night. I really don't make long-term decisions but ones that seeM wise in the moment. As you can imagine... this leads to a few problems... oh, like career plans, life goals, life-long decisions, hopes, dreams, ambitions.. just to name a few. Regarding this verse, which is usually framed  in its context of a Christian being willing to follow through  in his/her decision to follow Christ, I thought of it in its context and realized... I really didn't think out my decision to become a Christian either. I did not count all it would cost and prepare for the pain and losses it would bring. This is the most important decision I've made, but I didn't think long-term. I realized if I could not even think long-term in this, how was I supposed to make any other decision "estimating the costs"?

I knew that lack of preparation in my life was a bit of a problem, but had never realized how much it would come to hinder me. Jesus says, "I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10), but we cannot have life abundant without taking a moment to consider what our life is and what we consider God wants it to be.

This is not to say I think everyone needs to have a five year plan, or her life planned from today until they're 80. I don't think everyone needs to know her "calling," or even know what tomorrow will look like; however, there is some long-term planning I think we can all do that will found us in Christ, so that when each challenge or option comes our way, we can know whether it's from Christ or a distraction, whether its true to our core self or against it.

As week after week passed and I had written nothing to this theme I was really looking forward to (the promises of God), I realized I could not just up and write this. With life obligations, work, friendships, and all the other twists and turns, I should have realized I was not going to do an intensive study on the promises of God and write about it each week right after studying it. This was just an unreasonable goal. One of many I make. I can study the promises of God this month and then sift, and reflect, and months from now write on it, but it's not happening all at once - life just doesn't work that way. 

Life takes preparation. This looks different for everyone; for some it's a to-do list, for some it's themes and overarching life goals, for some, it's a detailed calendar, for others just a general idea of their direction; but however you see life (big picture or fine detail), we have to plan according to our character. Nothing just happens, but faithful life abundant is the reason for Christ's existence and is at our fingertips with some cost estimation and long term planning. 

Enough

I am tired.  

Physically, I am drained from busy weekdays and filled weekends. This past weekend I went to New York City. It was a blast. There was food, walking, paintings, coffee, more food and a band of wonderful conversations with amazing friends. I've been to New York City enough now to have seen all the trendy attractions that occupy half the country's population. Tourist season is always in season. As with New York, though, it comes with much physical excursion and, well...exhaustion. At the end of both days my feet were begging for a spa treatment. Still, you can't beat the city. 

Along with the fun-filled weekend my body has also been dealing with many changes and unusual circumstances. One of those was with what I believe was an allergic reaction to an oyster. No, not oysters...oyster. One oyster. I tried it for the first time and lets just say my body told me I didn't like it, not my taste buds. After one oyster I had several days of itchiness and tingling all over, a doctor's visit, and steroid pills. Yes, I'm tired.

Emotionally things have been a little up-and-down. With a new year comes new hope - the feeling of change and a fresh start. For me it also comes with a little anxiety. I get anxious knowing that I need to start again and do it right. With that comes that fear I've talked about before - perfection. I get a month in and I'm saying to myself, "Okay, it's fine that you went the first 30 days just getting back in the groove...you still have the rest of the year." Then February has to kick in and out in what seems like a week. I start wondering when I'll get started on all those amazing plans I said I wanted to do. Worry starts to creep in and taunt me. 

So now I feel like I'm hitting that stage of stress where I have to keep my mind in control of all the crazy thoughts racing through it. I don't want to worry or stress, or even feel defeated already. We aren't even 60 days into the year and I've already felt like a failure. No...this isn't from God. I know it isn't...and I know better than to let my thoughts get that far.

Spiritually. Now I'm getting into the spiritual part of me and the overwhelming feeling that I'm not enough. Not doing enough, not seeking Christ enough, not truly pursuing Him enough. From my thoughts to my prayers all I can do is think about how I'm not measuring up. Then I realize something: with whose measuring cup am I using? Mine...or His?

Christ tells us to pursue Him daily for He is our daily bread. He doesn't give us stipulations or rules to do it - He just wants to communicate with us. If we don't talk to Him how will we know Him? I know my mother (her character, traits, personality, etc...) because I have spent time with her, talked to her, and listened to her. Christ wants to spend time with us, talk to us, and have us listen to His voice. It's not about being enough. It's about being present. 

I am reminded of Philippians 4:13 Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

Sometimes I think we trick ourselves into thinking that we have to spend two hours a day in the Word and in prayer. We feel so overwhelmed that we end up not spending any time with our Heavenly Father. He's not asking for the entire day; He simply wants us. 

I once heard a pastor's wife speak at a women's event. She was talking of this very thing and said if we would just start by spending five minutes in the Word and in prayer that was wonderful. Do that for a few days and then you will start to see a difference in your life. Soon you will think to wake up a few more minutes and bump the time up from five to ten minutes with God. Soon after that you are spending 15 minutes. Eventually you will be waking up an hour early because you love getting up and want to have plenty of time to spend with Him. The more we communicate and talk with Him the more we will want to do it. 

Enough is enough. 

The Promises of God

"I will never leave you nor forsake you"
- Joshua 1:5b

For a while now I've been wanting to journal on the promises of God. So often - particularly recently, I've found - one hears pastors or worship leaders say "the promises of God," or, more often, "God has made you certain promises." I was hearing this a lot at my church recently when I thought - "what has God promised me?" I think so often we (especially women) feel promised a husband and/or children, a legacy. For some though it's a career in a certain field, for some a certain position in the world or amongst their peers. I personally found this a very dangerous interpretation of God's promises. I thought to myself that I can't say with any surety that God has promised me a husband or kids, he has not promised me a throne as he did David or even the modern day equivalent; I felt I had very few "promises" of God that reflected future hopes, dreams or endeavours - what my life will look like in five, ten, fifteen, even twenty years. To this day, I feel God has promised me no certain future. But I thought in response to this - I do know God has promised many things in the Bible. He has made us promises, but not such specific promises as "You will have the 3 kids and minivan you've always dreamed of." Instead he promises us something truer, more reliable, and more important; he makes promises to his character - what we can expect from Him, know of Him, believe of Him, what we can depend  to see from and through him.

My goal for the next month is, in my personal quiet time to write down all the promises of God I find as I read through different scriptures. I will have a "promise" journal and each time I come across a promise, I will write it down and I will make nothing more complex than a laundry list of the promises of God I come across. I will not be able to cover them all in this blog, but I will cover the highlights I find. I do this because I want to understand what God really has promised us. In the future, when people say "the Promises of God," I want to have a list in my head to pin this idea to; I want a list of truths that I can point to and say "yes, God has promised me this because he promised it to all whom He loves and who follow Him."

I have trouble with what I will call "minivan promises" -- promises of very specific and material things in this life. I believe this can be quite dangerous thought and hope patterns to believe God has promised a car or a husband, a certain life, or a certain future. I don't know what makes me so wary of these, but I think it's largely that it leads me too close to a "gumball machine" God - I put it in my time and good works and in return I get the life and future I want. Some people don't struggle with this conception of God, but I carry quite a legalistic background and I think I can too easily fall into thinking this story is about my good if I just please God and do good enough. I have to remind myself, this whole universe is about God and his unfolding love, grace, and redemption - there's no way any part is about this one little life, very least my materialistic hopes, dreams and desires.

I don't say this to say one shouldn't have hopes dreams and desires for the future. And I think many times God plants hopes in us. But I personally have to be careful of thinking any thing is promised to me in this life outside of the goodness of God.

I start this series with the verse from Joshua 1, verse 5. Joshua is about to lead Moses's people to the Promised Land [to be addressed later] after Moses's death. God tells Joshua, "Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses," in verse 3. Verse 5 ends "I will not leave you or forsake you." God does not tell Joshua what his foot will land on, he does not say "You will have 5 acres of rolling hills and 400 acres of flatland and a rushing river through the middle"; He does not promise Joshua things, but he promises he has already given the land ahead to Joshua - He has already made Joshua victorious of the battles ahead of him.

So often, I want God to give me some "spoiler alert" into my life. I think part of me pleads (I know part of me has in the past) "If you could just tell me how this ends [if you could just tell me how this relationship ends; if you could just tell me how this course ends; if you could just tell me why I got this degree; if you could just tell me why I have to go through this painful situation; if you could just tell me why I have to live here so long; and on it goes]," but God did not even tell Joshua why or what, he told him "I have given it to you." In His presence, we have victory. God is not our SparkNotes  or Magic 8 ball. He is not our gumball machine or fairy Godmother, but he promises Joshua [a man taking up the leadership God has bestowed on him and stewarding the task he's been given] " have given [every place your foot treads] to you" and "I will not leave you or forsake you."

There's a song by Janis Joplin that says, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz. My friends all have porsches, I must make amends." This is of course sung in a sardonic fashion, but I think too often, as Christians we can get in this mindset without fully realizing we have. Very few Christians would say something so bold as "God has promised me great wealth" or even more caricatured, "God has promised me a Mercedes Benz," but I think we can find ourselves thinking, "God has promised me what will make me happy," and really, how are these statements so different? And the scariest part of this is not even that we think God is some sort of giving tree in this scenario, the scarier part is in this scenario, we are serving God for something outside of God. If we serve God hoping we'll get the latest minivan with individual tvs for each kid, state of the art navigation, and Sirius Radio, are we really serving God or are we serving that minivan? Any time our end goal is outside of God's glory - can we really say we are serving God or are we serving our own purposes and trying to use God to achieve them.

Likewise, I think we sometimes serve our own happiness above God. I think - at least I know for me - I so often make a decision based on my happiness far more than God's glory. I do not do this altogether consciously, but I largely guage things based on their effect on my will, happiness, and well-being. God did not promise our "happiness" any more than he did a Mercedes Benz. But there is something so much more deeply satisfying than human-imagined "happiness" in the promise above. God promises his very self, his presence, his protection, his guidance. Often times, I think I miss that this is the ultimate. God promising his very self to fleeting mortal men is the ultimate promise ever made -- and so much better than any minivan we could ever imagine.

Finding Motivation

A Word of Encouragement

Over the past year I have found it hard to find motivation...for anything in my life. I have prayed for it, tried various ideas - testing some and putting others to the side. Time and time again I've found myself agitated asking the question, "Why?" Why is it so hard to find motivation? Why can't I be encouraged to move forward? Am I really that lazy?

I'm not talking about one area of my life - I'm talking about many areas. The motivation to move forward, deeper, higher, and be focused and clear-minded; I struggle with it all. 

My mother is one of the purest, most innocent women I know. She maintains her gentle, southern nature from when she was a young Texas-raised girl to the godly, Bible-speaking woman she is now. I love her enthusiasm for Jesus and His words. The Bible is in her like the air she breathes. It is quite an honor to call her my mother. She has always been the encouraging type. The kind of mom that saw beauty when I saw the ugly, the character when I saw the surface, and the potential when I only saw what was in front of me. Still, just as her precious nature was present, so was (and still is) her boldness. She has never been afraid to tell it like it is. When I would talk negative about myself she was always the first to put me in my place. "That's not what Jesus says about you...You know better than that, you are fearfully and wonderfully made...stop saying it is hard, it is easier than you think...you have to make the decision."

Once of the things I remember her telling me growing up, and even today, is that I have always been a determined woman. When I set my mind on something I am determined to see it through. She has had the confidence for me at times, when I didn't have it for myself. What a wonderful woman. 

I have to admit: I haven't believed it very much. 

Sure, there have been occasions I believe it, and put it to the test. But while my mom has always seen it as a character trait in me, I have seen it as a playing card I have used from time to time. I've never owned it - as a part of me - as something He has placed in me. 

Finding motivation is hard for me. The idea to my left or idea to my right has never motivated me enough to sink in to my lifestyle. The older I get, the harder I am on myself. It's as if I get anxious - like I am running out of time. Running out of time. That's a thought. 

Just recently I started listening to Steffany Gretzinger's album The Undoing. I've come to tears many times. The words of her songs can grab your attention and bring you to your knees before Jesus. If worship music does one thing to me it is this: it moves me...motivates me. I didn't realize it until recently, but it does. I am getting there and I'll take whatever God will use to get my mind,  my heart, and my spirit in the right place. 

I may not be fully there yet, but I believe it is just a matter of time. Maybe it will take listening to music like Steffany Gretzinger more often. The important thing is that I lay aside those feelings of anxiousness and fear. 

Remember to allow Christ to fill you up in those moments - those moments of fear and worry. Allow Him to figure out the timing. The details. It isn't our job to figure those things out. He just wants us. He is jealous for us. In His perfect time I will have more than enough motivation to move forward. I will do my part and let Him do the rest.

That I am simply learning to trust in Him and give Him my time and heart is just that: moving forward.