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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Word of God Speak

"Our Great Physician,
Your Word is like alcohol. 
When poured on infected wounds,
it burns and stings.,
but only then can it kill the germs.
If it doesn't burn, then it doesn't do any good."
- Prayer from the mountain people of Haiti

These words ring so clear and true to me. The Word of the Lord should challenge us, as he molds us into who we are to be. Yet, all too often we don't treat the scripture with enough reverence and respect. We don't come to it to cleanse us, heal us, feed us. We come to fulfill our daily quota, to be perceived as a good person. Who are we kidding? God knows our heart.

So may you come to the scriptures search and seeking for God to speak. Pray through the scripture. Let them reveal the darkness in your soul. Let God break you open and pour his cleansing words into you, and let them take over you. To make you into the image of Christ. 

Freeing the Oppressed

I began reading Dayton's Discovering an Evangelical Heritage and a comment which he made in the preface struck me:

(In reference to the 1960s)
"While other students responded to calls for civil rights workers or took to the street to protest against Vietnam, we [referring to students at the Evangelical college he attended] fought our administration over whether the yearbook could picture male swimmers without T-shirts, struggled for the right to watch TV in the lounge on Sundays, and wondered if Christians should attend the theater (legitimate or cinema), or read twentieth-century literature."

At first, I found myself becoming appalled at the students at his school, but the more I dwelt on this paragraph I began to see the reality of his statement even in Christian schools today. In our attempts to become "separated from the world" we have become apathetic towards what is happening around us. We become so caught up in what we believe to be personal injustices that we forget that there are bigger injustices happening outside the walls of our institution. And this apathy doesn't begin and end at the walls of Christian academia, no, it has roots in the Church. Churches with members who argue more about the color of the carpet and the price of repairs then they pray for one another or read scripture. Churches who's idea of missions is sending money to missionaries, but then having no idea what is going on in the countries they support.

To me this seems so antithetical to the gospel. We are not meeting the needs of those around us because we are choosing to not even know what their needs are. We trade in our ability to touch the world with the love of Christ for the protective Bubble to shield us. I shutter to think how God cries at our self-centeredness and desire for "protection".

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Worship

Why are we even here? I mean why of all the things you could be doing on a Sunday night did you choose to come here, to a gathering of people, the Church. Furthermore, why do we do the things we do and call it worship? What’s the point?
For most people the reason is simple, they’ve always came to church because it’s “the right thing to do” and they participate in the monotanity of worship without asking any questions, because “it’s always been that way”. But at Soul Café, we could never be content with gathering without a purpose, and just having mindless participation.
We are here to CELEBRATE GOD. Here’s the thing, we all worship something, even if we don’t realize it. We all pledge our alligence or swear by some form of worship to give their life meaning, even if its swearing that there is nothing worthy of worship. That’s still a choice, a decision to form life by. But when we gather together in worship we say that there IS someone worthy of Worship, worthy to align our lives by, and that someone is God.
We worship to proclaim that the person we value the most in our lives is God, and that no one else will ever compare to him. In fact, we value our relationship with him so much that we desire to follow him, to be like him, to commune with him. That’s a pretty powerful statement that we make by attending a worship service.
But here’s the thing. A worship service isn’t the definition of worship, its not the be all, end all. In fact, it’s only a tiny piece of it. We worship God when we put him first in our lives. We should worship God every day, but sadly most people can’t even put him first when they come to a gathering like this. I guess it all comes down to where your heart is at. Do you come here because you feel you should, in order to save face, but loathe every minute of it, because that’s not putting God first. Or do you come here as a gesture, feeling that you want to celebrate in God’s glory with others. Yes, there are going to be times that you don’t want to be at worship, but is your heart at least searching for God?
See it’s only when we put God first that we can really transform. That’s why so many people get absolutely nothing out of a once a week service. We need to be seeking him daily. In John it is written “The time will come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, and that time is here already. You see, the Father too is actively seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24) We need to choose to put him first ALWAYS, but some people can’t even put him first for an hour. I’m not going to stand here and lie to you by saying that it’s going to be easy to put God first. I have friends who have intimately loved God for years who are just now realizing the struggle that comes with displacing ourselves and our wants for what God wants for us. But they also know that putting God first, that following him, is what’s best for us, and anything less would be settling.
Let’s get back to this idea of celebrating. I think this or rather a lack of celebration is what Jesus meant when he said “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my father in Heaven. On that day many will say to me “Lord we cast out deamons in your name and do many deeds of power.” Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you. Go away from me.” (Matthew 7:21-22) We should have joy in God, and quite frankly those who can truly see the hand of God in their lives WANT to celebrate him. Because those who truly intimately have sought God and know him, can’t help but celebrate in him for he is so good! For years and years I never got this. But suddenly one day when I was zoning out at a conference I was attending, it all came together. God DELIGHTS in me. He DELIGHTS in you! And I DELIGHT in Him. Woah. Hold up. God actually LIKES me. He LIKES you. I don’t think I can even convey the joy that I find in the truth of that realization. It makes me giddy each time I think about it. And that makes my worship such a joyful expression, I can celebrate God when I’m alone and he is just speaking to me and pouring his love over me. I can celebrate God when I am having a terrible day and I’m lamenting to him. I can be overwhelemed with God when I walk with a friend through nature or down a city street. And I can celebrate God here with all of you. And what is so amazing about group worship, like this, to me is that we can share our journies with one another. We can celebrate God in the midst of grieving hearts and burdensome loads and regrets along with the amazing moments. We exist as a body to just reach out to one another. Another realization I’ve had recently, is yes, crap happens, but in order for it to turn out for good we need to share it with one another, because what’s went on in my life has probably went on in someone elses life here and they need a word of encouragement, that I can give them because I’ve been there. Do you see, God created public worship because we NEED each other. We are not meant to be alone, and that Goes the whole way back to God creating Adam and Eve to be helpmates for one another.
Maybe you agree with me up to this point, but you are still caught up in the weekly way that worship is done. Maybe you’re thinking ‘ What’s up with that?’ Litergy is ten dollar word that we throw around that means, the way the church does things during a service. I grew up in a very formal church. We do all sorts of things from singing the “Gloria chorus” as a praise to God to lighting candles to signify the presence of the holy spirit, to singing rich hymns, and reading a psalm together. We do a lot of stuff in unison to say that we are a body, many but one.
Here at Soul Café our liturgy is a little different. We spice things up with different ways to pray or read the scripture each week. We encourage movement and expressing your worship through all of your senses. But that doesn’t make our way any better or worse then the formal church. No matter what type of celebration you gather to engage in there will be three common elements: the reading of scripture, prayer, and the offering.
We gather to read the scripture corporately because the Bible was not meant to be read alone. Travel with me in your minds back to the days when Christ was alive. There was one, one scripture for the entire town, so everyone had to gather together to hear the word. Fast forward a bit to when the rest of the Bible is being composed. There still wasn’t a printing press so their assumption would have been that the word would be read and studied together. The Bible is meant to be avtiley discussed amongst people, even today. This doesn’t negate the benefit of personal study, but you need both to get the whole picture.
We prayer together so we can lift up the body together. We pray because honestly that is the most powerful, amazing tool that we have as Christians. We get to communicate with the Holy Most High King. Wow. And I don’t know about your personal prayer life, but sometimes mine isn’t that strong. But then I get to gather with others and see the faith that they have in prayer, the zeal, and I desire to communicate with God more passionately. And I also am assured that when I am so distressed that I can’t pray that someone is lifting me up before God. We pray corporately because we all have different concerns. We prayer together because there is strength in numbers. God wants us to pray big prayers. We seriously have such weak prayers today, praying for what we already know we are going to get or praying as a last ditch effort. But prayers can move mountains, and I find that my faith in God and in prayer is so much stronger and is renewed when we gather for this time of worship.
And we take an offering. Yes, I know, I know, the money factor. Isn’t the church just being greedy by bringing this up? No. God desires an offering. And not just of money. God wants us to give at least ten percent to him. Ten percent of what? Ten percent of the harvest. Yes, for most of us this means money because we work to earn a living. I have an amazing friend who really opened up my eyes to tithing. I sometimes struggled to give my ten percent to God because I was worried that I wasn’t going to have enough. But he showed me such faith by saying that he matches whatever the government takes out of his paycheck as his tithe. If the government takes out that much for taxes, surely God deserves at least that much. The ten percent that we give back to God should be the first ten percent, the best. That means before we even have time to worry about how to meet the needs, that check is written. And God will provide.
So yes, there is the money factor, but what if we took offering a step further. What if we intentionally gave God ten percent of our time in a day? That means at least 2.4 hours to do nothing but spend time with God, focus on him, find joy in him. What if we gave ten percent of our food away to the hungry? A portion of our gifts we gave back to the church to further God’s kingdom? We are called to offer all of ourselves and our resources, not just our money.
In conclusion I want you to think about an illustration that most people use for worship. I hear people say all the time that they “come to worship to be filled just so they can get through the week.” Hear me out, worship is not a gas station. You do not come here primarly for you. If you worship God, you will be filled because he rejoices in the praise of his people. He wants to fill you. He wants you to depend on him. And he wants you to be in his presence. But this is all secondary to the fact that we are to worship God for who he is. The Psalmist writes “Say to God ‘ Your works are amazing! Because your power is great, your enemies fall before you. All the earth worships you and sings praises to you! They sing praises to his name.” (Psalm 66:3-4) Is that why we are here? To lay our entire selves before God and just tell him how awesome he is? To encourage one another with the good works that God is doing in our lives? Because anything less then that is just empty self-centered noise to God’s ears.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

27 Dresses

  While watching the movie 27 Dresses, I was struck by the main character. Basic synopsis this woman does everything to please other people and doesn't really stand up for herself, even when it matters most. She is your prototypical people pleaser. And in describing why she did it, the reasoning boiled down to she wanted people to be there for her someday, so she can't say no to them.
   I totally saw myself embodied in this character. And if we took a moment to be honest, I think each of us could find a bit of ourselves in her. It's like we're wired to want to please people. Or rather, that is the misinterpretation of what we crave. What we really crave is intimacy (see the book Soul Cravings), but we feel that we have to earn intimacy by being nice to people. Even if its only nice on the outside. We spend so much time trying to please others that we lose the core of who we are.
   Another movie moment that this is comparable to is Julia Robert's character in Runaway Bride. This woman changed the style of eggs she likes among other things, to please whatever man she is with. It's like who she is with dictates who we are.
  How dishonoring to God! Do I believe that we should be nice to one another? Most certainly! But I also relate this to what Dr. Walters once said during a spiritual disciplines class. (paraphrased) 'We shouldn't have to ask What Would Jesus Do, because our decisions flow from Christ like character, which cannot be cultivated through a question' Our kindness shouldn't flow from what is expected of us, it should flow from our truly transformed character. This means that we need to stop trying to please other people all the time, and see why God finds pleasure in us. We need to sit down and have a conversation with him and see why he created us, for what purpose, and why he delights in us. Because when we try to please others, its like we are trying to satisfy our craving for intimacy, a craving God gave us to lead us to Him, with worth prescribed to us by others. Do not find your worth, dear children of God, in others, find it in the one who loves you the most. The one who finds you precious! 

Monday, May 12, 2008

Fear

   There is an Erwin McManis quote from his short films, Soul Cravings, that has really rocked my world recently. I'm not going to quote it correctly, but the gist of it is this: if your vision and dream for ministry doesn't scare the crap out of you, it isn't from God. 
   What McManis is trying to say here is that we limit God by our own fear. We shy away from those things which we find intimidating, thus settling on smaller dreams that we find doable. But really little plans also flow from unbelief, our unbelief that God can do things beyond our capabilities It's like we've made Philippians 4:13 our motto, but don't believe in it. I also like this to our unbelief in the power of prayer. I recently finished Beth Moore's Believing God. In it Beth had this quote about her prayer life (it is God's response to her prayers): "I sensed God saying 'My child, you believe Me for so little. Don't be so safe in the things you pray. Who are you trying to keep from looking foolish, Me or you?'" I hope that quote stings a little. We really do care more about saving our own face then believing God. I think this is why Christ says if we have the faith of a mustard seed we can move mountains, because so few of us actually have the faith of a mustard seed. We'd rather play it safe - in dreams, in goals, in prayer, in life. 
    Up until recently my dream for ministry was to plant a church in State College, PA to reach out to the marginalized in the church. I figured this was just a dream and that it probably wouldn't happen, especially since I saw time after time the struggle of someone close to me try to plant a church. Fast forward to yesterday, when a team of three of us which I am on launched Soul Cafe, an emergent church plant in State College for those searching for something but feel marginalized and hurt by the traditional church. 
    I am so excited for this plant. But that isn't the point of this post. The plant, combined with McManis' quote just showed me how little I dared to dream. How small of a box I put God in. I'm 21, not even in seminary yet, and my largest dream for my entire length of time in ministry has been realized. This is a problem. And as I've repented of how safe I played it with God and have been asking him to give me His vision for my life, a whole new, scary, HUGE, picture is emerging. It has a message that isn't going to be embraced by the traditional church easily. It is finding healing for those inside the walls of the church as well as inviting brokenness from the outside. It involves what I said I would never do. And it gets bigger everyday. And I fear its size, grandeur, and requirements.
    Let's pause and look back on the last 21 years. People are always envious of what I've done, where I've been. And that's hard for me. Because people hardly ever realize, that what they see as loftiness, is actually calculated. I have calculated the fear out of life. I have made plans A - Z. I am the type of person that not only has a rain plan but 5 more back ups to the rain plan. I think through every detail and every possible flaw and success. And may you be dealt with accordingly if you stand in my way. Do you see the problem in this? Every time I felt fear, it was something that needed to be squashed, or I took it to be God telling me to stop. So I just avoided anything that I couldn't plan for, like relationships, and took the fear that accompanied them to be a sign to avoid them. I took fear to be a warning sign and not a big green light.
    And this is not to say that fear is always a green light. It's really a yellow light. A "please pause and discern this with God" moment. Its your reminder that you need to submit everything, including fear, to God instead of assuming what it means.
    I even took the fear out of God. I reduced him to a "pocket size friend" instead of being in awe of his power and vastness and incomprehendiability. The church does this all the time. I was discussing with my friend Chris the other day why I hate the idea that "Jesus is my homeboy" because the Almighty whom we should fear healthily. We either only fear God's wrath or don't fear him at all. 
    Fast forward to the last couple of months. Sheer craziness. And in a great and profound way. I've been seeing the beauty of fear, the need to not plan, and the co-existence of fear and perfect peace. This is what healthy fear is, this unimaginable co-existence of peace with fear. When I was praying with a good friend of mine back in January we paused in the middle of our time together because something was bothering me. I asked her if it was possible to have perfect peace and have it be from Satan to deceive you instead of from God. Her answer shook me, it was no. Satan is not the giver of peace. And perfect peace cannot come from ourselves. It only comes from the Holy One. And she scripturally backed this all up. 
     I don't know if you have ever experienced perfect peace but it's profound. It's like this all consuming hug showing you that you don't have to worry. And right now that type of peace is co-existing in my life with fear. And it is glorious! I'm seeing for the first time the wonder of breaking out of molds and having complete freedom. Freedom from formulaic prayer. Freedom from plans (side note: this was something that was essential for me to realize before becoming a pastor), and freedom from expectations from others or their chastising that I am living in my own crazy dream. It's not my dream. This isn't what I would have chosen. It's FAR too grand. It's from God. And I will run after that fear one day at a time, living in the freedom of how big God is, glorifying him and singing Hallelujah each day! 

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Flowers

God, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that we destroy ourselves
I destroyed the Flower that I am.
I am a tulip,
but I complained that I wasn't a rose.
Wasn't a daisy.
Wasn't what I deemed to be beautiful.
I complained about coming up from the dirt and not being in a high tree or bush.
Who are we to determine Beauty, when you created it.
And you created the beauty in each of us to reflect you!
We destroy ourselves with comparison. 

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that we are impatient.
Squeezing the bulb
and plucking off petals
So that we can bloom faster.
But our pushing causes us not to bloom at all.
All we are left with is a pile of petals.
A twisted torn.
A broken stem.
We have destroyed ourselves with our own best intentions. 

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that we cannot see ourselves the way you see us.
Each individual flower full of beauty, truth, and purpose. 
You call us to be patient and excited with anticipation.
To enjoy the process of growing, blooming, stretching towards Heaven's Son.
Maybe we didn't get it right this time around
But in your mercy and grace, flowers bloom again each Spring.
May you allow us to grow again
and have the patience and wisdom to allow for your perfect timing
Perfect design.
We cannot force your hand.
Without destroying the beauty of the bulb.

Monday, May 5, 2008

For Sheri

The beauty that God creates I would not even be able to imagine.

Today I felt like I was caught between Fall and Spring, my two favorite seasons. The tress were bright colors intertwined with green, like they are in the Fall in PA. And the tulips were popping up in multiple colors all around. 

Have you eve paused to thank God for the colors he made in beauty. He truly was the first artist!

Saturday, May 3, 2008

1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11

If you came here looking for a simple sermon, you are going to be disappointed. What I have to say tonight is not easy, by any means, but if you can grasp the message your relationship with God and consequently your entire life will be revolutionized.
This message is equally hard for me to give, because it is extremely personal. In fact it would be appropriate to say that this is my life story from the last couple of months. If you just hang tight with me for a while, I promise there will be a tie into the scriptures.
As I was doing my personal devotions a few weeks ago I was reading Phillip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew. As a whole the book was okay, but the part that impacted me the most wasn’t the main theme. In fact it was part of a small one page story where Yancey was speaking about complaining about a situation in his life, to which the older woman who had overheard his complaints turned to him and asked if he was letting God love him. Six simple words strung together to make a faith changing statement. It’s like God was crying out to me, “Michelle, are you letting me love you?” Brothers and sisters, I now ask you the same question this evening, are you letting God love you?
I think if most Christians were asked this question they would answer “But of course, God loves me” and nostalgically think back to their childhood memories of singing ‘Jesus Loves Me’. But friends, notice that the question posed was not DOES God love you but are you LETTING God love you. And that is not something most of us do willingly on a daily basis.
We all have roadblocks set up to letting God love us. One huge roadblock is expectation. Yes, it is good and right to rely on God because of our faith. But the majority of the time this isn’t in fact what we do. We throw faith aside because of our own pre-concieved notions of how God should work for our good in any situation, especially the challenging ones. We do this in our human relationships all the time. Some of you may have heard me speaking about the five love languages before. We each have a love language that speaks to us the most – for example mine is quality time spent, and we each have a love language that we express best to others, for me this is also quality time. In other words I’m good at giving what I deem to be important in my own life. But there’s a problem. There are four other love languages out there. I have a friend who I care about very much and we love one another, as uncomfortable as it is for some people to understand love inside of friendship. But often we would have mis-understandings and feel neglected because we expected the other person in our relationship to always give us love the way we wanted to receive it, the way we noticed it the most, and were blind to all the love that the other person was expressing to us, because we were expecting something else. How often is our relationship like that with God? We expect that things should go a certin way, that his love for us should look a specific way, and we blindly ignore the love he is pouring into us.
Like any human relationship we have expectations of how he should love us, mostly reflected in how he reveals himself to us, by what he can do for us. We come to him with this list of expectations, things that we desire, and some rightly so out of compassion or because we know he's God. But really, if we only expect God to give us things, we are missing the most intimate part of his love for us. The part that can rock our world. The love that comes when we just sit in his presence instead of seeking his hand. Someone very dear to me once summed this up by saying “we must seek God’s face and not his hand.” This is not to say that we shouldn’t tell God what’s on our heart and look to him to bless us and answer our prayers. But I liken this to my relationship with my parents. Mom and Dad appreciate the occasions when I come to them when I need something big that is outside of my capacity or I’m stuck. It is a sign of intimacy and trust and an ackowledgement of my high reguard for them in my life. But if I only ever asked for things instead of spending time with them, then we’d have a very poor relationship where they would feel unappreciated and neglected. So what are you seeking today? God’s ultimate presence, or his hand?
Another common road block is our own self gets in the way. We can't notice God calling our name, beckoning us to him because we are caught up in the noise inside of our head. As the noise grows louder, internally and externally, we feel like God isn't listening, like he's abandoned us.
So what do these road blocks look like in my life? When I was studying abroad in Australia I had many high notes, but there was a dark period for about a month and a half when I could not pray. When I try to explain this to people it tends to be misunderstood. It is not that I was too lazy to pray, or that I avoided praying. No, I felt as if my connection to God had been snapped. During this time I also went through some personal issues, times when I would have panic attacks from being around people. All I wanted was healing and God seemed so distant. I wondered if I wasn't worthy enough to talk to him and he was cutting me off, making it impossible for me to pray.
When I got home in December things seemed to look up for about two weeks and then I crashed. I was diagnosied with generalized anxiety and depression. I so desperately wanted God’s healing and he just seemed to have abanonded me.
But really in the midst of all of this mess, I wasn’t looking for God’s healing, because honestly, it was there, in his perfect timing. I was looking for my definition of healing, a maricle. I wanted it all to go away. But God doesn’t promise maricles. and his idea of healing isn't the same as mine. I wanted to feel self-sufficient emotionally, like I could function. But he wanted to use that time to draw me close to his face so he could whisper that he loved me in my ear. And those times I couldn't pray weren't punishment, but a time of my silence so that he could speak. I wasn't letting God love me the way he wanted to. I let my free will get in the way.I was too busy being distracted with my list of wants, as good intentioned as they were, to listen to him telling me he loved me. Really loved me. More than anyone else ever will.
When I started to get clued in on the bigger picture, and submitted my free will to him, my entire routine changed. When I just allowed God to love me as he desired, I realized that he delights in me. And I delight in him. I don’t know how many of you have ever constantly felt that God delights in you, but it’s beyond powerful. It’s like discovering intimacy for the first time. Before God and I were close, but nothing like this. And it wasn't like before I just knew about him, I knew him personally, but it's like the difference between knowing your friend and your best friend. Or between knowing the guy you work with and your husband.
I started to talk to God, as in just chat with God about my day. And about me. I asked him what he liked about me, and what he was calling me to change. And he answered. God loves me enough to answer me on some of the most intimate parts of our relationships. He delights in me enough to answer the questions that only he can fully answer because he made me. There is peace, and true wholeness, and true healing when we let God love us on his terms. It's like he takes the whole definition of what love should look like in my mind and just stands it on its head. And I am so much fuller because of that. It's amazing to hear him, like be so connected that he answers these crazy questions I throw out there like what he likes and doesn't like about me. Flooring. Because there really is an answer. Like he really does like something about me. We've lived in this place in the church where we've talked about sin and salvation exclusively for so long that we no longer know that God finds joy in us.
So what does letting God love you have to do with today’s scripture passage. Look closely at 1 Peter 4:12 – 13. Beloved, do not be surprised at the firey ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange is happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you are sharing in Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revelaed
Some where along the way we have let our expectations of who we want God to be, over shadow who he actually is. No where, I repeat no where, in the Bible does it say that Christians will not suffer. I can tell you countless personal and secondhand experiences of where Christians go through tragic, heart-wrenching times. But we’ve let fluff Christianity become our dream. We’ve essentially reduced God to our sugar daddy, instead of our Abba. God is bigger then any situation and can redeem anything. And yes, sometimes that means redemptive suffering. This doesn’t mean he’s punishing us, and it doesn’t mean that he has abandoned us. But sometimes the greatest love towards us are expressed in moments when we suffer. Times when God cries for us to come to him, but we turn away into our superficial defintion of love. We are not seeing his love for all that it is. We are not letting him love us on his terms!
Indulge me just a bit further. Once you understand letting God love you, and seek the ability to just sit in his presence blessings overflow. It’s like you see God through a whole new set of eyes. God is all powerful, he is the electricity that runs through us. And if we are apart from him, or not letting him love us on his terms, we are only running on brief little sparks. And when we actually let him love us, we don't have to worry about all of the requests in the praise songs. "Jesus be the center" - if you let him love you, he is. In fact, he's all you want to talk about. You just want to share this realization that Christ wants us to LET him love us with everyone. And you don't want to be apart from this love that is at your center of being. He is at the center, because nothing is apart from this love. I have told something to my friends that may not be sermon appropriate but is honest none the less. I feel like 75% of praise music would be obsolete if we said the truth. God wants to LOVE you with his presence. Shut up and let him. Get out of the way and stop being selfish and Let God LOVE you
I need to let go of my power and be filled with God’s power alone. A friend of mine shared something with me that’s profound. Independent people have such a hard time letting other people do things, including God. We tend to go to him as a last resort, or only a half hearted like "yeah, I know you should probably be on board here God" type of thing. Can I just tell you that there is so much freedom in letting go of that independence, both from other people and from God. Seriously, he's in control. And I don't need to try to fix things on my own. In fact, any attempt I make to do my own thing, if its outside his will, is only the second best and he doesn't want the second best for me, because he delights in me. And him guiding me by his holy loving presence is an act of love, and my act of love is to be submissive and attentive to his love. See how all of this fits together in this crazy crazy way?
Look at verses 6 – 8 of chapter 5 of 1 Peter. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxities upon him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert.
Letting God love you might require effort at first. It might require setting yourself aside. Opening your mind to how big and powerful God is. It’s going to require discipline. But once you see how much he loves you, discipline will be replaced by second nature.
Do not deceive yourselves brothers and sisters. Satan wants nothing more then for us to be complacint in our relationships with God. To only seek him when times are trying. To think that he has abandoned us. Satan prays on us when we have separated ourselves from God’s loving presence being the center of our lives. When we have placed ourselves at the center of the world with no ability to see love outside of our narrow definitions and demands we have elimated all humility. Do not let Satan spell out your defintion of love.
I want to share just one more of the many things that have been revealed to me along this journey the past couple of months. God’s grace is so much bigger then I ever imagined. If you want to do something absolutely mortifying, think about your relationship with God in human terms. I have a friend named Shane and I am going to use our relationship to draw an illustration to my relationship with God. there are times when one of us just talks a lot. Like Shane can go 30 minutes straight if he's on the right topic without taking a breathe. I can do the same thing when I’m excited. And I can sit there, and just think, wow, there are so many things I want to say about what you just said, but before you can get a word in he's on to the next topic. And that is what I'm like with God. I just talk. And talk. And talk. Not breathing. Not listening. How is that communication? How is that a relationship that's healthy? God has to have so much grace towards me for treating him so poorly for so long. If I was in a relationship with anyone else who treated me like I treat God, I would not be a happy camper.
I think the spiritual writer Dag Hammarskjold might have summarized the message of what I’ve been trying to say tonight the best when he said “God may love us – yes – but our response is voluntary.” Brothers and sisters, what is your response to God’s love tonight? Are you letting God love you?

Friday, May 2, 2008

Pearl

I am a Pearl.
Tested and tried.
Formed through suffering, pain, and joy.
Crafted by God's hand.
For His Delight.

I am a Pearl.
I have gone through some things that no one has ever went through.
And things that everyone has went through.
Broken hearts, scrapped knees, emotional wounds.
But I am for His Delight.

I am a Pearl.
I hold a unique color like no other Pearl.
I started out as something small, a piece of sand.
But I have grown so much, and now shine
For His Delight.

I am a Pearl.
God did not orchestrate my suffering.
But he has redeemed it.
I am beautiful and become even more so each day.
Because I am for His Delight.