What's in a Name?

I actually love how our names define us. I love how when you meet someone, the first thing you learn about them is their name and then those letters sort of become them.

God thinks names are important too. Why else do you think he has so many of them? Jehovah, Yahweh, The Great I am, Jesus, Christ, Messiah, Savior, Lord and God. God also thinks that our names have value. He made it so that our names define us. Jacob, from the Bible, was a guy who lived up to his name. Jacob means trickster (or something along that line), and he literally tricked his brother out of his inheritance and his uncle out of his own fortune! But then God decided that he wanted to use Jacob. So the first thing that God did was to rename Jacob. Jacob couldn't be following God while still trying to live up to his old name. So he had to be renamed Israel. Simple as that.

And while we don't really do this, to that extent, in our culture we do it too. When a girl gets married she changes her last name. Her identity is not quite the same because she has chosen to be defined along with someone else, as part of who she is. Another example is how in hip hop or music culture in general how people get names for what they do (ex. Tight Eyez or Lights.. sort of....).  God wants to rename us too, to an extent. Our names define us, and God doesn't want us to be defined by our old ways. When we become Christians, he calls us by a new name. He calls us his. He calls us his sons and daughters.

Rev. 2:17 says "To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it."

While this was originally written to the church in Pergamum, I believe that this is a promise for us too. God knows the power in a name and he wants to bless us with names that show the power we have in Christ.

A sort of, kinda, not really, example of this would be my name.

Victoria Grace.

Before I was even born God had picked out my name for me. God had shown my mom this verse.

"My grace is sufficient towards you, and my power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Cor 12:9

From the word sufficient my mom was somehow lead to the word victorious. My name is me, as well as who I want to be. I can be victorious in all things because of Christ in me and I want to show the world that grace that God has given it. I also love how although my name is Victoria, how I get to be Tori as well.

Not to be bragging or anything, but I feel like my name describes me perfectly.

Weakness and Strength

Matthew 10:27
What I tell you in the dark, speak in daylight; what is whispered in your ear proclaim from the roofs

I like how this verse is my story. What Jesus tells me as I sit on my bed in the dark and what he whispers in my ears during my weakest moments is what I'm supposed to shout out and proclaim! I love how God uses weak people at their weakest points. He doesn't say become strong and certain first. He says come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest for your souls and I will use you. It shows how strong he is. God is strong enough to use us, the weak ones. Strength is shown when it is strong enough to work through the weak ones. God your strength astounds me and makes me feel safe.

Break Every Chain

The most important part if a battle is when the captives are set free. When the bedraggled, worn out, broken down prisoners are let out of their cells and the chains fall down. Those who have been captive and then set free are the most dangerous. They are dangerous because they realize the value of freedom. They know how to stand up for others freedoms. They will struggle to remove their own chains but the freedom they possess is explosive.

What comes to mind is a part from Captain America (I think most of my really deep thoughts come from superhero movies). It's when Captain America has saved a whole bunch of guys that had been captured and they return to the camp. The picture of worn down, tired and almost beaten but not quite yet, people returning to the camp where everyone else thought them dead is an inspiring picture.

I want my life to be a little like that. I may have had chains on my hands and feet, but Jesus has set me free. Through his love I can help set others free. It's not that I am perfect or that I have an A-B-to problem solved plan. It's because I know what it's like to feel like something is holding me back I can help set people free because I have been set free. Jesus has set me free so that I can help others realize the value of freedom.

Freedom brings joy. Joy that lasts despite the messes that our lives can be. It gives joy because joy grows when our future is secure in Christ. When we are free in Jesus our souls know the peace that Jesus brings.

"There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain, to break every chain, to break every chain."
Break every chain by Jesus culture

Red in the Ledger

This is a scene from the Avenger's, which is basically the best superhero movie I have ever seen. :)


Loki: What is it you want?

 Natasha Romanoff: It's really not that complicated. I've got red in my ledger, I'd like to wipe it out.

 Loki: Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Drakov's daughter, Tugenov, the hospital fire? Yes, Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer... PATHETIC! You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!


This scene from the Avenger's makes me think every time I watch it. Natasha Romanoff wants to fix what she did in her past as a master assassin, and Loki yells some lies and a little bit of truth at her. He yells that she can't get rid of her sin, that she is unforgivable. This is a big fat lie. God can totally forgive us and heal our pasts. The truth that Loki says is that Natasha cannot fix her mistakes on her own. He tells her that she pretends to be above all the others in order to justify her past. Saving someone else to cancel out the wrong things doesn't wipe the slate clean either. We can't save ourselves, justify our actions, or even accomplish the task of saving someone else. 


On our own we are hopeless.


The thing that can save us from despair is that we know someone who can wipe our ledger clean. Someone who can redeem our past and make us whole. While I couldn't hope to save someone in order to cancel out my sin, a perfect God solved that problem for me. He sent his perfect son to die for little ol' messed up me. Jesus can clean up my life, he can help me deal with my past, and he can help me get right with God.I am so thankful that God stepped in to clean up my mess, to accomplish what I could never do on my own.

Without Jesus I'd truly be hopeless.

A Proposition

“It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it. ”   -Jacob Bronowski

I think I agree with this quote. I don't want to be taught things that aren't true and live my life believing something that is false. I also have and interesting and possibly scandalous proposition for you.

What do you think would happen if we approached God like a barefoot ragamuffin? What if we questioned everything that we know about God? What if we started striving for a different sort of relationship with God? That we would gather our doubts, our fears, and all the things we just don't get about God and approached him with it?

Sometimes we think that we have to clean up our act before we can go to God. That we have to answer our own questions before we go to ask them. We subconsciously do this, it's like deep down we still think that God doesn't think we are good enough. We think this even though we know  that itself is preposterous and we know that God loves us despite our faults. We don't really think that if we went to God with our possibly irrelevant or even  irreverent questions that he would shun us or say "That's it you're hopeless, I am done with you."

 God  is a personal god because he is big enough to handle our incessant questioning. He doesn't  want us to worship him at a distance. He wants a deep, meaningful, intimate relationship with us. And part of intimacy is getting close enough so that we can ask God anything and everything. Sometimes when I'm in bed starting to fall asleep God just shows up and I won't be able to stop myself from laughing and grinning like a fool, and though it may be a little weird it's me and God and there's nothing greater than that.

 God wants to know us with our quirks, our messes and everything. I'm a mess; I am falling apart constantly. And when I worship it God it kinda presents itself. And that's okay. It is perfectly fine to go to church and cry through the whole thing because that's how you figure stuff out with God. It's okay to dance like crazy for God and then be sore for days afterwords because of how into worshiping God you got. It's okay to feel like you need to be super still to hear God or to need to  do something as an act of worship that everyone may look at you strangely for. 

He is before  all things, and in him all things hold together. -Colossians 1:17

God is big enough, he's strong enough, smart enough, and  confident enough to handle us and all of our burdens, worries, fears, and problems we have. Trust him to catch you. I promise you that it will be worth it.

Inexpressible Desires

"Before you came into my life I missed you so bad, I missed you so bad, I missed you so so bad."
                                                                 - Call Me Maybe, Carly Rae Jepson

I actually can't stand this song but I heard it while I was at work tonight and it got me thinking... The truth in this lyric surprises me. It still amazes me at how we as humans long for things that we have never known. Like those stories of people who have never even heard of Jesus and with one tiny encounter they fall in love so hard and so fast with Jesus. Just because he is what they always longed for. My inexpressible longings can only be fulfilled  by the inexpressible itself.

"If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."        -C.S. Lewis

I am so glad that Jesus filled the gap between God and I so that I could have my inexpressible needs met. Without God I would probably go crazy. There are so many things that I need that I cannot get from anyone else but God. I try to get my emotional needs met by other people and no matter how these people make me feel like I belong and am cared about, they still fall short. I fall short of meeting my needs, you fall short, we all fall short of meeting our needs. Everyone except for Jesus. Jesus knows how to satisfy me. He rescues me and then fulfills my wildest dreams. He gives me something that I can get nowhere else in this universe. That something is himself. Jesus is the answer to all my inexpressible desires.

A love letter to God, Or is it the other way around?

"Let me take, take the weights off your feet,
And cast them out into the deep,
I came to set you free.
Let me be, be the reason that you need,
To find the hope to believe in love.
You gotta believe in love."  -Chariot, Abandon Kansas

This is you God.  You loved me and you set me free. Because love is freeing. Thank you God for being my everything. Thank you for loving me as I am. Thank you for being my hero, my daddy, my best friend, my relentless lover. For always chasing after me when I get scared and run from your love, when I try to live on my own. Thank you for being my protector, when life comes crashing down you are my shield. Thank you for being God, my God. Thank you for making your love the way it is. Without you I would be nothing. I would not be able to call this peace my own. Thank you for reminding me all this. Thank you for reminding me that everything is gonna be okay.

                                                                      I love you God.

Jonah and Grace

Jonah 2:7-9 Jonah's Prayer in the whale.
"When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD."

I love Jonah's cry out to God. My favorite part is where he says, "Those who cling to worthless idols  forfeit the grace that could be theirs." In one way this verse is heartbreaking but this verse can sometimes be me as well. Sometimes I try to push God's grace away in order to attempt to solve a problem on my own. My worthless idol could be my desire to be self-sufficient. Sometimes I try too hard to try and fix things myself. I try to go about with my plans without consulting God first. I push away the grace that God wants to give me for the chance to try to do things by myself. And in doing so I  lose out on grace.


Grace is not a one time deal. If God will give me grace over and over and over again, I will always take it. I want to receive and store up as much grace as possible! Not to say that I should mess-up as often as possible in order to get more grace. I think that God can give us grace not only when we do wrong but when we do right as well. We sometimes mix up mercy and grace. Mercy is not getting what the punishment that we rightfully deserve. Likewise grace is also not getting what we deserve, coupled with the act of God giving us more than we ever had the right to dream for when we lived under sin. 


Romans 6:1-2
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

Walls

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."
                                                                  C.S. Lewis


Now isn't that true? The only way to never be emotionally hurt is to never be in any kind of relationship. To never care for anyone more than yourself. This promises us something that we as broken people desperately want. To never be hurt again.

We build up walls to keep us safe. Or so we think. Our walls may keep the "bad guys" out but it also pushes all who care about us enough to see us healed away as well. We may be able to become unbreakable but at what cost? We forfeit our redemption for the chance to become impenetrable. We push God away as well. God wants to redeem us and heal us but only if we ask him to. When we try to do it on our own; when we try to heal ourselves all we become is even more hurt.


It is impossible to live without your heart being wounded at least a couple of times. But what if, despite this er could still live as though we've never been hurt before? To love and love despite love's risks? This may not be a particularly safe or comfortable way to live but I promise you that it would be worth it. 

Authority

I think that as Christians we have the authority to speak things into other people's lives. I also think that each of these things that we can pray into others' lives has to be authorized into us first so that we can give it away.

Let me explain... In order to prophesy we have to fist be given the gift of prophesy right? Well I think that it's this way with prayer a little bit too. I can speak blessing into someone else's life because God has spoken blessing into mine, I feel like I can speak to people about some hard topics because I have earned the right to speak out on it because I have gone through hard things too. Likewise I don't usually feel like I have the right to authoritive-ly  (If that's a word) pray into someone else's  life about something that I have never had touch my life in the way that it's touching theirs. I can still pray, it's just not the same type of prayer in my mind. It's like I can pray for the situation with power still but I'm asking rather than commanding.

Please don't misunderstand me here either. I'm not saying that we need a fancy anointing for each type of prayer or anything. I'm just saying that God has given me the power to fight for certain things in a way that's just right for me.

And that's just it. We are all warrior. God has given us power! Power to speak hope into other people's lives! We can't feebly beg God for something, only half-expecting. We can come to God with our requests boldly because we are children of the Most High God! We have been given the authority to give the gifts that God has given us to a hurting world.

Innocent

I feel like the world has undermined innocence.

I feel like it isn't always seen as a good thing. Like innocence is really just a code-word for oblivious. I feel like sometimes our culture tries to say that we are supposed to be guilty and that's what we should grow up to become. Personally I want to be innocent. I believe that we can't pretend that everything's all okay but I don't want to be called guilty.

How can I change that? How can I affect and change the norm? I think that the world needs a little more innocence. Innocence that can take the place of our shame and skepticism. Innocence doesn't mean being perfect and undamaged. I believe that I am innocent; and boy am I broken... I sometimes feel like I have reason to be skeptical or bitter. But I don't want those things! I want to be innocent and unbroken. To be innocent means to be willing to forgive, to be willing to trust, and try again. To be willing to possibly make a fool of yourself but for all the right reasons. It is my wish to be innocent.

I don't think that innocence means being ignorant or oblivious to the world's problems. I think innocence is found in being unjaded. (Yeah I made the word up =D ).

Jesus was truly innocent. He never sinned, and he had the other kind of innocence too. He didn't ignore the world's problems, he embraced them. He lived the the mess-ups. He hung out with the poor, the sick,the people that no one liked or wanted to be.  He was unjaded enough to put faith in these people. He gave responsibility to Peter the loud-mouth. He didn't hide from the world, he came to love it and to heal it. In order to nurse someone back to life you have to get close to the wound. Jesus came into our broken, hurting lives in order to heal us.

Jesus came to give us back our innocence. He came to take our guilt, our shame, and our skepticism. He died so that we could have new hearts that could take head to what God is whispering (and sometimes shouting) to us. He came so that I could find reasons to trust in others when I had already been let down. He came to teach me that while the world is certainly not perfect, he is. Jesus is the person that I can lean on and never ever be disappointed.

                                                                                                                     From April  2nd 2012
 

Worth It

I feel like I'm being forced to accept the real world. A world that is lost, sick, and horribly messed up. I feel like my normal is what the world see and thinks, "Nice thoughts kid. You are so sheltered". Which is reality? Is my somewhat safe, mostly regular world reality, or is the world really a place there everything is up for grabs and everything has been abused? I feel like I'm blind to all of the world's awful things and that one day the world is going to shock me into a shell and I won't be able to help it.

I'm not oblivious to the world's mess-up-ed-ness though. I get that it's all not okay. I've been hurt. I know pain. And the world does too. Every single person on earth has or will be hurt sometime during their lives. But I have Hope. Sure the world is hurting, but I know a healer. Yes the world can be perverted, but I have someone who loved the world as if it was worth dying for. Jesus did not die for us so that our world could continue being broken in sin. Jesus died for us so that we could help heal our world.

After all we are called to create culture; not to follow it (quote Connie Jakab, =) http://culturerebel.com/). I have been given such big tools to help my world with. My story proves it. In everything I have gone through God has been there. In every single step of the way Jesus was there. God loves me even when I don't love me. God has carried me every step of the way to get to where I am and he's going to carry me to where he wants me to be.

And you know whats part of that getting to where God wants us to be? I believe that God wants to get us to the place where we are HEALED.

God wants us to be able to live in the place where we are confident, secure, courageous, loved and most of all, healed.

"Love can forbear, and Love can forgive...but Love can never be reconciled to an unlovely object...He can never therefore be reconciled to your sin, because sin itself is incapable of being altered; but He may be reconciled to your person, because that may be restored."
-Traherne. Centuries of Meditation, II, 30. (I read it in C.S. Lewis' Problem of Pain).

That is what I am trying to say! God wants us to be healed and restored. He loves us so much that to leave us in our present state would be to break his heart. God wants the best for us. And this is where I find a shred of beauty in mankind's mess. God is loving on us and chasing after us so fervrently. He is going to the farthest possible extent that he can in order to bless us. He thinks that despite the mess WE ARE WORTH IT. And if God thinks that way about me, I'm willing to treat everyone else I see like they are worth it too.

Not that we loved God, But that He loved us.

"If the world exists not chiefly that we may love God but that God may love us, yet that very fact, on a deeper level, is so for our sakes. If he who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed."
                                                     C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

This really astounds me. I love how it's giving me greater insight into just how much God loves us. He loves us enough to give us our freedon so that he can woo us and call us to him. He choose to need us because the only way we could really even call needing God was for him to choose to need us so that he may be in reach. It's like the verse, "This is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us" (1 John 4:10). The only way we could possibly dare to love God was if he came down and showed us how to love him. We all need God like the very air we breathe but we never knew how to need God unless he demonstrated it first.

God choose to want us and then he placed this infathomable need for God into us. There must be a reason why we all know that our earth is not how it should be. There is a reason as to why we know that something is wrong in our societies, in our pain, in our suffering. Our souls know the perfection that God orignally made for us. We have never seen it, but we know it. God has told our souls what we really want because it's his desire for us as well. God made it so that he would want us and by doing that, we were able to grasp what our wildest dreams couldn't contain. That we could dare to want God and that his perfection would want us back.

Battlecries Part One

I think I'm a warrior. In my mind when I have a problem I set out to conquer it, not just solve it. When I am in search for a word to explain something in relation to God and I; I tend to lean towards the more aggressive ones. God fights for me. When I ask God for something I often "demand" it ( not demand as in "I have a right to this!" manner but certainly not the "Please sir may I have some more?"-expecting to be pushed down or knocked aside manner either). When facing hard times I run to God and then I cling to Him. And when I find a verse that particularly inspires me it becomes my battle cry.

Sometimes I think that we forget that as Christians we are tying up the battle that Jesus won. He won it by saving us but now it's our time to make the enemy lay down it's arms. Everyday is time in the battle; sometimes we have to help the wounded, sometimes we are the wounded, sometimes the problems we face need to be conquered.

By us.

And God of course, he is the one who is teaching us how to fight in the midst of our battles.

The Bible says that words can be weapons. That can be in a good and a bad way. Now the bad way words wound is not unknown to us. Words can also be used to shout out as our battle cries.

I'm not sure what my specific battle cry might be right now.  It could be "You are my strength and my song". Or my Forgiveness Poem.. (I choose to forgive, I choose to let go, To remove all doubt, And let hope grow) It may be my song The Light That Heals Me. I'm thinking it's the latter right now. Wanna know why?

It's my battle cry right now because when I sing it, it helps make me okay. It gives me the chance to say "Okay God, You can heal me." This song makes me okay with the world. It sets me free. The same way I think John Newton felt set free when he wrote Amazing Grace. I think that was his battle cry. I think it made him okay with the world. I'm not saying that my song is anything like his. I'm just saying that I think it accomplished the same things for us.


*I'll try to make a video of my song this week to go along with this.. :)

Leadership

                The qualities needed to make a good leader are not the most difficult qualities to find but the qualities that a leader needs in order to benefit their people can be a rare combination.

                A good leader needs to be able to understand people and have the charisma to gain followers. Having the appearance of a leader is useful, as well as the ability to not be intimidated easily. Being a good communicator and being able to make decisions decisively is pivotal as well. These qualities only add up to a person who can gain followers easily; not necessarily be a good leader. People like Jim Jones, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin were all very charismatic and gained a huge following but they were not the ideal leader. They weren’t the ideal leader because in the end they did not help their own people who they were meant to serve.

                An ideal leader is a little harder to find than someone who can gain a following. Having those qualities is important but a helpful leader needs more than that. In 1st Samuel 10:25 it says that “Samuel explained to the people the regulations for kingship. He wrote them down on a scroll and deposited it before the LORD.” The book never continues to say just what those regulations for commendable leadership were. My belief is this; an exemplary leader must put their people above their own lives and desires. A leader worthy of imitation must rule justly and teach their people to act justly as well.  Although these traits can be hard to find, a leader with these qualities will naturally stand out.

                Sometimes the best way to cultivate these qualities in oneself is to imitate a worthy leader. A worthy leader will help you become more of who you are. They will encourage others to become exemplary leaders as well.

The only question left is; What are you?

(yeah this is an English assignment :P)

Worshippers out of wonderers...

*Before I start.. My train of thought is a little confusing here.. I'm slightly confused my self, not that that's unusual :0

"God makes worshippers out of wonderers."
                                                              Matt Redman. From the book Indescribable.

This makes total sense to me yet leaves me feeling confused. It's not the words that confused me; they were perfectly clear. What confuses me is myself.

I know that I am a worshipper. I'm addicted to it. I would rather 3 hours of worship to talk and praise God through over a sermon almost any day (not to say I don't like those too :) ) I'm just not sure of how much my need to know gets in the way of my need to wonder. Are wanting to know and wondering the same thing? Possibly; I'm still not sure, but maybe...

I find comfort in knowing that I can't know everything. I know it's a little odd. I think it's supposed to be that fact that we can't know everything that freaks us out. It's okay to not have all the answers because it's unattainable for me anyways. But I have the one with all the answers and that causes my heart to sing. The one person who knows absolutely everything knows me. He can teach me so much about it all! I will always have something new to learn and will always have something to worship Jesus for.

Inheritance, Dreams and Destiny

LORD you assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.

                                Psalm 16:5-6

In our world it's so easy to forget the things that God wants to give us. We forget his promises, count them as lost or say that God's gifts ate things that didn't actually come from him.

 

This verse is mine. I think I've said this before. :) It's mine because it reminds me of the inheritance that God has for me. He has good gifts for me. Gifts like my supportive friends and family. Gifts of the right words to say. God gives us all messages to proclaim. Truths that we discover are really battle cries that we should proclaim into each others lives. This is one of mine.

 

God has not forgotten our dreams; even in our darkest moments. He knows what our hearts desire even before we do.

 

Lately I've been finding myself saying things like "I want to go somewhere old one day." And then my Mom will reply "You're going to Europe that place is old!" or I'll say "I'd like to take a trip on a train one day." And again my Mom will reply. "Aren't you taking a train from Barcelona to Paris?"

My dreams are being fulfilled as I'm realising them! God has also fulfilled desires that I had completely forgotten about.

 

When I was in grade 5 I prayed and asked God that I could see a time when people would shout Jesus just like fans shout the name of their sports teams during games. That was in grade 5. In grade 8 I went to the Chris Tomlin concert where people did just that. I had forgotten completely about this prayer! While I forgot God didn't and he made it happen just for me. :)

 

And these are just the little dreams. God knows the big dreams that I have and he's working on fulfilling them. Dreams don't always get fulfilled instantly. Sometimes they take a while. Caleb waited 45 years to get his land in Israel. (Joshua 14:8-15). 45 years. That is honestly longer than I can imagine waiting for. With that long of a setback I'd wonder if God knew what he was doing. Which brings me to my 3rd point; destiny.

 

At one point I thought destiny was a flawed idea. But this is my take on destiny now. Destiny is not a road map. I can't bring myself to believe that God would plan horrible things to get between us and our dreams. God doesn't want bad stuff to happen to us. Bad stuff happens but it is not God's fault. destiny is not A to B to C and so on. Destiny is a promise. A promise that God will never leave us and that he does keep his promises. Our destiny is the delightful inheritance that God has for us. Destiny is me and God together. No drought, no storm, no circumstance could ever ruin that.

 

So your inheritance, dreams and destiny are there.

 

Will you claim it?

Healing

I just found this on my computer. I wrote it a while ago but it's still something that I need to shout out.

Healing                                                                                       September 14^th 2011

I learnt something about myself today in chapel that I never admitted to myself before. I realized that I have not allowed God to heal me. I’ve let him teach me things about my pain and stuff like that but I’ve never said, “Okay God. I’m broken, come heal me. I give you permission to heal me.” I let myself become broken down and I let myself believe that it was fair for me to be hurt. That does not line up with being a child of God! I forgot my verse.

LORD you assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.

                                Psalm 16:5-6

God has GOOD things in store for me! God’s plans are good and perfect even in the midst of my circumstances.  God I give you my hurt and my pain. I give you free reign to come and heal me. I give you complete control over the dead things in my life. God I give you complete control over the dead things in my life as well.

I want to be on fire for you God. I want to love you so much that I am obsessed with moving where you want me to move. I want my biggest problem to be how I am getting closer to you God. When I’m with you everything makes sense. You give me peace when my soul is distraught. You love me with a love that no one could compete with. Because of your love and grace I can change my world. Your love and grace put an end to the war inside of me so I can go and fight for the world. As your child I can change the world’s pains. You healed me and now you are going to help me (and, well, do most of it) heal my broken world.

THANK YOU GOD FOR YOUR LOVE!!!!!

The Lost Are Found

There are 2 types of the lost becoming found.

The first way is that we are a light that points to God and in that way the lost get found. For me that is explained amazingly through Britt Nicole's The Lost Get Found 

The second is that we wait upon God to work to get the lost back. For me this one is shown through Hillsong's The Lost are Found

To me the first is a mandate. It's my goal. I want to live life pointing to God and saying "Jesus is how you will be found!" To do this we must live radically. John 12:46 becomes what we want to be like. We shine like how Jesus shines and his light in us gets the lost found.

John 12:46
"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness."

The second is something I feel that I have been working at We can't make these people find themselves and we cannot do it for them. We just have to wait on God to bring them back.  Personally this is way harder. We pray for the lost. We fight for them through prayer.

2 Corinthians 10:3-4
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

We fight for the lost even when the earthly lookout doesn't change. God is ALWAYS moving. He is always restoring that which was broken.

2 Corinthians 12:9
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
GOD IS WORKING! He is working in me, in my brokenness. MY PERFECT GOD MOVES IN MY OBVIOUSLY MESSED UP WORLD! He can save and restore and I will help him in our quest to see the lost get found.

How much do I want Jesus?

John 6: 67-68 (You should read the rest too in my opinion. The heading is called Many Disciples Desert Jesus).

       "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.
       Simon Peter answered him "Lord to whom shall we go?"


I don't think this was a happy "Are you ready to go now?" type-question. I think that Jesus felt betrayed. Many of his followers left him. Many of his friends left him. They wrote him off as a nut-job and left him. So when he asked the Twelve this I imagine that either he asked it sarcastically or he point blank yelled it at them.

It was a serious question. He was really asking his disciples. "Do you believe what I'm saying? Do you believe that I am who I say I am? Are you willing to stick with me and my mission?"

I love Peter's response, "Lord to whom shall we go?" Where else could we go? The disciples knew the truth about Jesus and they were willing to stick to him. They wanted him more than they wanted to avoid trouble. They were willing to go through what Jesus was going through just then.

How much do I want to avoid trouble?
How much do I want Jesus?
Am I willing to lose what he lost? His friends deserted him; am I willing to risk that? He faced opposition everyday. Do I want Jesus enough to be willing to go through all that?

I know that I want Jesus more. I would follow Jesus to the end of the earth in exchange for merely a glance in my direction. At least I think I would. But Jesus promises so much more than that! He has promised me life to the full (John 10:10). And to me life to the full is life with him as my Saviour, as my God and as my best friend.

What I have learnt from Superhero's

In the title it says Superhero's. As in plural heros. Well I only really have one thing I've learned here but you don't really want to hear me rave about how Spiderman is too imperfect while Superman is too perfect to be believable...  :)

This is what I have learnt from the Green Lantern. I actually wrote this part last summer if you really want to know.

I got to go and see the movie the Green Lantern today. It was really good. The part of the story that griped me was the war between fear and willpower. The hero was not fearless, in fact he was the type that pretends that they aren't scared in order to hide their fear problems. He nearly gave up but then he was reminded that although he wasn't fearless he was courageous.

That got me thinking. Fearless and courageous are not synonyms. You do not have to be fearless in order to be courageous. Being courageous means facing your fears and conquering them.

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery to fear, not absence of fear."
                                                                          Mark Twain.

Being courageous is not pretending that you are not afraid of something. It is not shown through stupid reckless feats. Courage is standing up against the things that hold you back from God and the dreams that were meant for you to fulfil.

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Love is what drives out fear. Love is what gives us courage. Jesus loved us enough to have stakes driven into his hands and feet. Yes he was God but he was also human. Do you think that he was scared to death? You betcha. But he loved us enough to do it anyways. And even though he probably didn't know how it was going to work out he trusted God enough to do that. His love for us not only conquered his fears but our fears as well.

Scared

             not fearless

Terrified

              but courageous all the same

Going out to defeat the crowd

Challenging the said norm

Knowing that

                     you'll never come back the same

Facing the fear

             Finding the light

Gathering the bravery

To admit I'm not okay

And going to face my fears anyways

Don't be afraid to stand out, That's how the lost get found.

*Last line from Britt Nicole's "The Lost Get Found"

Me and God's blog.

I'd like to have a blog.

It would be a way to stick my journal out there. A way to put how I feel out there. I'm not really sure if I would care if anyone read it or not. I probably care, I just don't think I do... yet. Anyways there's kind of a catch; God's catch.

I can't just write the things God teaches me on the good days, I'd also have to write what he teaches me on the bad days. Allowing myself to be vulnerable to more than a piece of paper. But God is giving me a promise. If I do this and I do it faithfully he will use it. He will use it and the outcome whether I see it or not will be great.

It's gonna be great.