The Divine Hiding in Your Ordinary

 

This is how just about every nativity scene looks.  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the stable, sometimes surrounded by a myriad of animals, shepherds, and wise men (and occasionally, a little drummer boy.)  And always with the star shining brightly for all to see.  This picture of the nativity is pretty true to the original story, except for the the wise men, who actually came about two years later.  But this is the simplest way to show the part the wise men play in the story.  This, I thought, was the only mistake, until this Christmas season.  This year, God brought to mind the star.  It is always shown as bigger and brighter than all the other stars in the sky.  But what if it wasn't?  The Bible story never specifically says what the star looked like.  It just says that the wise men followed it.  What if the star looked like an average star?

What if it only meant something to those who could see it for more than it appeared to be?

Isn't that how the entire Christmas story was?  On the surface, there was nothing extraordinary about a young couple being forced to stay in a barn and the woman having a baby.  Mary and Joseph themselves were nothing out of the ordinary.  They were from a poor town; they weren't royalty.  To those simply passing by, the first Christmas probably seemed like just another day.  Except to the shepherds and wise men.  They saw what was happening as more than it appeared to be.  The shepherds heard a message from the Lord and believed something extraordinary about a small baby born in a stable.  The wise men traveled many miles to worship a child.

If the star was brighter than any other, I think it would've attracted more attention.  If there was a huge star in the sky pointing at a barn, I think I would go check it out.  But the only people to follow it were the wise men.  Why?

They saw the divine behind the ordinary.

What, on the surface, seemed to be just another star among billions, the wise men saw as a herald of the coming King.  And this is not a new concept for God.  He loves to hide extraordinary behind everyday, magnificent behind mundane, royalty behind regular.  1 Corinthians 1:28 says this, "And God also deliberately chose what in the world is lowborn and insignificant and branded and treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing, that He might depose and bring to nothing the things that are." (AMP)  God deliberately chooses the insignificant, for it is those very ones whom the world deems unimportant that God gains the most glory through!

The things you do that seem so small and inconsequential to you, are more than they seem.  The dad who goes to work everyday at a job he hates so he can support his family.  The stay-at-home mom giving herself to raising her kids.  The pastor who invests so much in his/her church and community.  The high school student striving to stay pure, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  The person taking in children who don't have a stable home.  The person in a desert season reaching for joy.  The person who has been hurt reaching out again in love.  The one who forgives without waiting for an apology.  And so many others.  These are the divine hiding in the daily.

Know that these things you give yourself to, that no one acknowledges, do not escape God.  God is just like the wise men.  He sees the divine in the ordinary- because He put it there!  Everyday you are on this earth, God has a purpose for you.  He is like Jason Bourne, He never does anything by accident. (Sorry, if you haven't seen the Bourne trilogy, you probably won't get that movie reference. But you get the point).  

It is not an accident you are here on this earth.  If you are reading this, then you are alive and God has a purpose for you!  Even if you have made some choices you are not proud of (and trust me, we have all done that), God still has a purpose for your life!  We always talk about God's plan like it is some thing way off in the future and all our choices are leading up to this one, huge event that God has planned for us.  The truth is, God's plan is here and now.  I often find myself thinking, when I graduate, then I will be able to start doing what God wants me to do, or when I get a college degree and start making money, then I'll be able to give the way God wants me to, or when I get married, then God's plan for me will really kick in.  The thing is, God's plan doesn't start the day you graduate, get a job, pay off your bills, get married, have kids, retire, or any other specific time we tack it on to.  God's plan for you starts today, this hour, this minute.  

The reason we so often project God's plan on the big events in life is because we miss the divine in the ordinary.  We can't see the magnificent in the mundane.  This Christmas season, let's take a lesson from the wise men.  Let's look at our lives differently.  

"Every day is another chance to live the life God has dreamed for you." -Stephen Furtick.

God has dreams for all of us, and they start today, in this moment.  So the next time you feel like you are not making an impact, think about the star, and the divine hiding in your ordinary.    

The Lens Called "Me"

The sky amazes me.  It always has.  I am constantly in awe of the hugeness of it.  It makes me feel so small.  Sunsets, sunrises, clear blue skies, white fluffy clouds, starry nights, all of these amaze me.  People probably get tired of hearing my sky commentary.  I’ve always said that if God gives out jobs in heaven, I want to be the sky decorator.

So last night, there I was again, staring up into the night sky.  If you didn’t get a chance to see it, you seriously missed out.  It was so clear that I could even see the tiny stars along with the big ones.  There didn’t seem to be an inch of sky not filled with stars.  I was lying on a chair on my pool deck; weird, I know, since normal people use their pool decks during the daylight hours; when I decided I wanted a picture.  I whipped out my phone and pointed the camera at the sky.  And this is what I got.

Disappointing, right?  I thought maybe my camera was broken.  But it wasn’t.  I peeked around my phone and it was still there, the sky filled with stars.  Then, it was like God tapped me on the shoulder and said, This is how you so often view your life.

This is how I view my life?  The question rolled around in my mind for a while before the truth of it hit me.  God is all around me.  He is in smiles and laughter, in friends and family, in a friendly word or gesture, in the breeze rustling through the trees, in the starry nights and beautiful sunrises, but so often, I don’t even see Him. So often, I’m way too busy looking through the camera lens of my issues, my problems, my feelings, my wants, my needs, my fears. 

Basically, I’m too busy looking through a tiny camera lens called “ME”.

So often, I refuse to lower the camera and see the world around me.  It’s amazing how that one little camera could not only block my vision of the sky, but make it look completely different.  Isn’t is also odd how one thing can go wrong in my life and then completely block out all the good things around it.  I think, that wasn’t fair to me, I didn’t deserve that, God why did You let that happen to me?  See the trend?  When everything is going great, it is easy for me to see God working around me.  Yet it seems that when the slightest bit of trouble arises, I raise my camera to my face and effectively block out everything else but myself.  Through the lens of "me" all I see is darkness.  Because we are not told to look to ourselves to finish this race, but to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

The most amazing part is that though Jesus has every reason to be put out by me, He meets me right where I am.  He does not tell me my pain isn't real or that my problems are insignificant to Him.  Christ never wants us to bury our problems and pretend everything is okay.  It is important to acknowledge our pain and let Christ walk us through it.  Instead of telling us to get over it or treating our hurt as insignificant, Christ hurts with us, just like He wept with Mary and Martha when Lazarus died.  Then, slowly, tenderly, He reaches up and moves the camera out of the way.  He opens our eyes to see the whole picture.  Because in light of His greatness, our problems shrink in comparison.  Suddenly, what seemed so overwhelming looks miniscule compared with the God of the Universe.  This is what Jesus does.  He widens our gaze.  He calls us to let the camera fall and stop looking at our lives through the lens of our own understanding and instead to look at our lives in light of WHO HE IS!  

Take encouragement!  Because no matter what you are going through, God is there with you, right where you are.  He sees your pain and cries with you.  But He also calls your gaze higher, to the place where He sits enthroned above the earth.  To the place of certainty, where He reigns over all.  Let our gaze always, always be on Him.

Exceedingly Great Reward

"By faith, Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away.  For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him."

Hebrews 11:5-6

 

This faith hero is different from the others in the fact that he only has 4 verses, besides these in Hebrews, devoted to him.  Most of the other examples of faith have at least one, if not many chapters detailing their lives.  Why so little about Enoch?  Why include a man barely mentioned in Scripture in the hall of faith alongside major Bible characters?  This is the account of Enoch in Genesis 5:21-24.
"When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah.  And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.  Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years.  Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away."

At first glance, this seemed pretty self explanatory to me.  Enoch never died because he walked with God.  It is a precursor to Jesus and the Gospel.  And that is true.  Everything in scripture points to Jesus.  He is the center of the Bible, the center of the whole universe.  But I prayed that God would reveal to me something else about Enoch.  Then, I read the next verse after Hebrews 11:5.  God is a pretty effective writer, so I have to think that He ordered the Bible specifically and put these two verses together for a reason.  Hebrews 11:6 could've easily fit in at the beginning of the chapter I think.  Up there with the definition of faith.  So why put it here?

It says that Enoch pleased God.  So, by definition of the next verse, Enoch must have believed that God exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.  The only problem is, we don't have any information past that.  No background on how God rewarded Enoch (other than the fact that he never died).  When I read that God rewards us, I often think of things that I want for my life on this earth.  And that's not wrong.  God wants to give us blessings while we're here on earth.  But I believe the reason we don't hear about that stuff in Enoch's life is because that's not the ultimate reward to be had.

Maybe, the reason the only information we have about Enoch was that he walked with God is because walking with God is the reward.

Not a better home or job.  Not a life without homework.  Not a life free from trials and tragedy.  Although these things would be nice, they are not the ultimate reward.  Relationship with God is.  Maybe that's what God was trying to show us through Enoch.  That the rest of the rewards in his life didn't compare with the fact that he walked with God and then got to spend eternity with Him.

The Lord said this to Abram in Genesis 15, just as Abram was entering the promised land.
"After these things, the Word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, 'Do not be afraid, Abram.  I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward."
Abram followed God to a place he had never been, to a place where nothing was certain.  In the midst of Abram's confusion and fear, God speaks to him the most solid thing we can ever hear.  That no matter what happens, He is with us.  Life is so uncertain.  One day can completely change the course of your life as you know it.  We have no idea what kind of blessings God is going to give us in this world or what trials we're going to go through.  But we can be sure of one thing.  If we seek Him, we will get our exceedingly great reward. 
We get to walk side-by-side with the God of the Universe.

Faith To Believe God Loves You

"By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead."

Hebrews 11:4

The story of Cain and Abel is found in Genesis 4.  They were the sons of Adam and Eve, the first humans God created.  Cain worked the ground and Abel took care of the flocks.  Both boys brought God offerings, as well they should.  But in Genesis, and in Hebrews, it says that Abel's offering was better than Cain's.  Why?  Both of them brought offerings to the Lord, and God does not play favorites.  Why does He say that Abel's was better?  These are the words written in Genesis 4:3-5.

"In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering He did not look with favor."

It says Cain brought some of his fruits to the Lord, but Abel brought fat portions from the firstborn of his flock.  It doesn't say Cain brought bad fruit to God.  It doesn't say that he kept the best for himself, only giving God the leftovers.  So why, then, was Abel's better?  I think the answer is deeper that simply what each man brought the Lord.  I think the answer lies in the condition of their hearts.  

Think about buying presents for Christmas.  A man sets aside an equal amount of money for each person he is buying for.  He is buying a present for his wife, and then he is buying a present for his aunt that he hasn't seen in 10 years.  He goes to the store and begins shopping.  He picks out a matching set of earrings and necklace for his aunt that he's hoping she doesn't hate but he isn't really worried about it because he barely knows her and after Christmas, she will leave and he probably won't see her again for another 10 years.  Now, he goes to get the gift for his wife.  He has special ordered a necklace for her that has her favorite scripture on the back.  It took him a long time to find the right necklace that his wife pointed out to him in a magazine a few months ago.  He remembered how her eyes lit up talking about how amazing it would be to wear that with her favorite scripture on it everyday.  He purchases both gifts and heads home.

Both gifts cost the same.  Both were jewelry.  What was the difference?  

The love he put into them.

The gift for his aunt was last minute, and didn't take much thought.  He got it because he had to.  On the other hand, the gift for his wife was long thought out and lovingly planned.  He wanted to make sure she knew how much he cared.  

The same is true with Cain and Abel.  The wording of the verses reveals this.  It says Cain brought some of his fruits to the Lord.  The word "some" in that passage makes me think that it wasn't something he thought a lot about.  He just did it because he was supposed to.  Abel, however, brought God fat portions from the firstborn of his flock.  He took time to find the best for God.  The reason Abel's sacrifice was better than Cain's was because Abel's came from a place of love and relationship with his Creator.  Cain's came from a place of obligation to Someone he didn't know or love.  

Abel had faith to know and love God and to know that his sacrifices were more than rituals.  His offerings were his way of showing love to the God who loved him.  Cain must have lost faith that God loved him somewhere along the way.  

Gifts of love are only born out of being loved by the One you're giving them to. 

Unless you know that God loves you, there is no way your offerings to Him will be anything more than ritualistic "have to's", instead of the loving "want to's" that come from knowing God and having faith in His love for you.  He loves us!  Believe it, receive it, act extravagantly on it!

Lord, I pray you would help us to have faith to believe that You love us, no matter what is happening around us.  No matter what trials come into our lives, I pray that we would never lose faith in Your love.  Because to lose faith in Your love, means the death of our relationship with You and us slipping into religious complacency.  May that never be, Lord!  Continually reveal Your love to us in new ways.  Let us never lose sight of Your blessings in our life.  We love You!  But only because You first loved us!  

In Jesus' Mighty Name

Amen        

How Much More?

There is a story in Acts 16:16-19 about Paul and Silas casting a demon out of a girl.  This demon gave the girl the power to tell the future, and the Bible says this talent made her owners a lot of money.  One day, the girl begins shouting at Paul and Silas.  This goes on for days when Paul gets annoyed and commands the demon to come out of her in the name of Jesus.  The demon leaves and the girl can no longer tell the future.  The girl's owners become angry with Paul and Silas because their way of making money is now gone, and have the men of God thrown in prison.  Once in prison, Paul and Silas begin praising God, all the prisoners chains fall off, the jailer becomes a believer, and they go free. 

Most of the time, when I read that story, I see myself in the place of Paul and Silas.  Being persecuted for who they are in Christ, praising Him anyway, and seeing major things happen because of it.  And when I read the part about the slave girl's owners getting mad about not making money anymore I think, I can't believe how selfish they're being!  God just cast a demon out of this girl and all they're worried about is the money they're losing.  When I heard this story read this past Wednesday, God revealed a truth to me that cut me to my core.  The owners were mad because their source of income was gone because God did a great work.  They're upset because they are now inconvenienced.  And often,

I'm just like them.

I get upset because something God is doing inconveniences me, my life, and my plans.  When God asks me to minister to someone, I get upset because now I will have to give up some of the things I want to do.  He brings along an amazing opportunity for my boyfriend's family to foster children, and my first thought is, how is that going to effect how much I get to see him?  I get sick when I think about my reaction to these things.  How retched and selfish I am!  I am worried about how the spread of God's Kingdom is going to inconvenience me; I should be worried about how my schedule could hinder the spread of His Kingdom! 

I wonder how much more God could do through me if I was more willing to sacrifice?  If I was willing to lay down my schedule, my desires, my wants, and let Him replace them with His schedule, His desires, His wants?  If I allowed His will to become my own?  If I opened my eyes enough to see past myself and see the mighty works God is doing in this world?  How much more joyful would I be?  How much more content?  How much more effective?  If I was more like Paul and Silas (doing God's work), and less like the owners (so selfish they can't see the miracle in front of them). 

God is doing great things in this world, in my life, and in the lives of those around me.  And I don't want to miss out on all that He has for me because I was too busy worrying about myself.  How much more could He use me if I laid it all down?  If my life was less about me and more about Him?  If His Kingdom was my first priority?  How much more?

Lord, transform me by the renewing of my mind.  Wipe away the selfishness in my heart and make me Kingdom minded.  Give me Your heart for the lost and dying world.  Save me from myself.  Make me more like Your Son.  You become greater and I become less.  Help me die daily to my selfish wants and desires.  Let my eyes be fixed on You.  Let Your desires become my desires.  Let Your will become my will.  I praise You that You love me in spite of my selfishness!  And I praise You that You won't leave me here.  That You will continue to work on my heart, and teach me to live every second for You and in You.  I love You, Lord.

 

Amen

Joyful Yes

As I am about to enter into my senior year of high school, I find myself being bombarded with questions such as these.  Do you know what you want to major in?  Where are you going to college?  Have you started thinking about what kind of career you want once you graduate college?  Where are you going to apply to?  What scholarships are you going to go for?  And others of that nature.  I don't blame the people who ask me these questions.  They are natural questions to ask an upcoming senior classman.  The only reason they seem to bother me is because I can't answer them with certainty.  My answer is usually along the lines of, "Well, right now, my number one college choice is here," and, "I think I want to major in this."  And, me being the over-thinker that I am, these questions raise even different ones in my own head (that again, I don't have answers for).  What is my calling in life?  Where am I going to be in 5 years from now?  And then I begin entertaining the things I believe to be the "worst case scenarios."  What if God asks me to move to the city?  What if I hate my job?  What if I mess everything up? 

Only then, after I have allowed myself to worry myself into a frenzy, do I seem to remember what God says about my future.  He says, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself." (Matthew 6:34) 

Then, here is the wisdom I usually respond with.  "I could stop worrying, if I could just know the answers to all my questions!"  I know, true wisdom right?.......NOT!!!  If the peace in my heart depended on knowing all the answers, then why would I even need God?  If I had all the answers, I wouldn't need God.  Because I would be God.  Humans haven't changed much, have we?   Being like God, isn't that why Adam and Eve ate that apple in the garden?  Because they wanted to be like God?  And here I am, thousands of years later, doing the exact same thing. 

By demanding all the answers, I am telling God, "I don't need You; I can do this on my own if I just knew the answers.'  I am trying to become like God.  But here's the secret, I'm not Him!  I never will be!  Oh, that I would learn to trust Him like Ester did when she went to see the king, not knowing if she would live through the encounter.  That I would learn to trust Him like Mary, Jesus' mother, who said yes even when she had no idea what would happen to her.  She could've been stoned to death, or lived out her days as an unmarried mother, shunned by her community.  But these amazing women trusted God enough to go forward, without the answers.

So how do we respond?  How do we live without the answers?  We tell Him yes.  Yes to anything and everything He might ask of us because we know His plans are for our good, to prosper us and not to harm us (Jeremiah 29:11).  If we trust that His plan is best, we don't need the answers.  We don't need to know everything God will ask us to do.  Because we already know our answer.  Yes.  A trusting, joyful yes!

Lens of Love

 

Have you ever looked at a professional photographer’s pictures?  They are amazing!  The colors are so crisp, the lighting so perfect.  It just looks so good, like it could jump off the page at you.  Now compare that to the pictures you take with your smart phone.  Not quite so impressive.  The light is probably a little harsh or dark.  It might be a little blurry.  It’s a decent picture, but not as good as the professional one.  Now think about a picture taken with your very first camera.  My very first camera was a long, thin thing that had film in it and printed the picture out of the camera as soon as you took it.  Seemingly pretty awesome, until you take into account that the pictures it took were about 1 inch by 2 inches!  You could barely tell who anyone in the picture was!  What makes the difference between the pictures?  What makes the difference between the clear, crisp professional pictures and the mini, blurry pictures taken with my first camera?

It’s the lens.

The right lens makes all the difference.  The lens determines the amount of light that is let in.  Without the proper lens, your picture will be dark and you won’t be able to see it clearly.  If you have smudges on the lens; your picture will be blurry.  Not because there’s something wrong with the subject of the picture, but because there’s something wrong with the lens.  The lens makes all the difference in a photo.  The question I ask myself is this.

What kind of lens am I looking at people through?

I am often very critical of myself.  I judge myself very harshly, making sure that I’m not going to mess things up.  This stems from insecurities that I have dealt with since I was a child.  I’ve always felt that I’m never going to be good enough.  So, I judge myself a lot.  The enemy is constantly whispering to me that I am not good enough.  And, often, that’s the way I see others too.  When I look at others, instead of looking at them through the lens of God’s love, I look at them through the lens of my own insecurities.  I sit there and nitpick their lives to pieces, overanalyzing things, because that’s what I do to myself.  Instead of loving them where they are, I see them as not good enough.  The enemy uses my own insecurities to keep me from loving others.  He whispers the same lies into my head about them that he does about me.  I have smudges on my lens that keep me from seeing the subjects in my life as they truly are.  My lens doesn’t let in enough light so that I can see people clearly, the way God sees them. 

God sees them, and me, through the lens of love, Jesus’ love.  Because of what He did on the cross, the minute we say yes to Him, we are covered with His blood.  Our sins are paid for.  God now sees us through the lens of the blood of Jesus.  How amazing is that?!?  That doesn’t mean we are perfect, or that God doesn’t know when we sin.  It means that, through Him, we are good enough.  Not on our own, never on our own, but through Jesus, we are more than conquerors!  It means that grace is extended to us when we deserve judgment.  How can I see others through any other lens?  How can I look at them and judge them when I am only a sinner in need of forgiveness every day of my life?  I’m not saying that we should condone sin, in our lives or in others’ lives.  Grace does not give us a license to sin.  What I am saying is that we have to see people through the right lens.  Your smudge may be different than mine is.  I don’t know how you see yourself or others.  This is just something that God has revealed to me that I have been doing, often to the people closest to me, my Christian brothers and sisters.  I’m being critical when I need to be encouraging.  Because I see them through the lens of my insecurities instead of the lens of God’s crazy amazing love.  People don’t need me to judge them; that’s not my job.  They need me to love them.  Jesus Himself said that the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself.  And I can only love them if I see them through the lens of God’s love.

How do we fix it?  How do we see people through God’s lens?

We let Him clean the lens.

We allow Him to wipe the smudges off so we can see clearly.  Sometimes, we let Him completely replace the lens because it was cracked or didn’t work right.  We ask Him to give us His lens instead of ours.  So that we can see people the way He does.  Seeing their sin, their faults, and loving them all the time.  Sometimes, lovingly correcting, sometimes lovingly encouraging.  But always loving.  Because that’s what God is.  God is love. 

Lord, I pray for You to help us see people the way You see them.  Let us not look at their faults and judge them for their faults.  Let us look at them and see what You see.  Fallen people, being made whole by a loving God.  If we need to correct someone, hold someone accountable, I pray we do it in love.  Otherwise it will drive people away.  It’s not our job to judge.  Lord, help us to see the difference between discernment and judgment.  Help us love people the way You love them.  Help us see the world through Your lens of love.

Don't Miss Them

We all have moments when God wrecks our hearts.  I bet you can name at least one if not more. 

The first time God wrecked my heart was at church camp in Alabama the summer before my 7^th grade year.  I do not remember the message that was spoken that night, but I do remember what God did in my heart.  He showed me what a mess my life truly was, what kind of person I really was.  And it wasn’t a pretty picture.  But it was only in that revelation and God’s wrecking of my heart that I came to repentance and a relationship with Him. 

Another time I remember having my heart wrecked by God was once when I was sitting in my room.  I was having my prayer time and I just remember weeping and weeping for the kids out there that are deprived of family.  My heart was broken over the precious children that didn’t have an amazing family that loved them like mine loves me.  My family, both my blood relatives and my Christian family, has shaped my entire life.  I wouldn’t be who I am without them.  I can’t imagine growing up without my big family.  It was that night that I truly knew that my calling in life was to give those kids the family that they deserve.  That I couldn’t keep this amazing family all to myself when there are children out there starving for love.  I am called to adopt.  I do not know exactly how this will be accomplished, whether I will adopt out of the country, in the US, or foster/adopt, but God will reveal the details in His timing.  (I might just want to get out of high school and get married before adopting kids!  Lol)  I only know that I am called to give to others what God has blessed me with.

We all have these moments.  Where God wrecks our hearts and we are changed forever because of it.  Well, God has been whispering something to me for some time now, but I (being my stubborn self) haven’t really been listening all that much.  Tonight, it finally hit me.  Square in the face.  I had been reading on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, posts that my friends had shared about the Super Bowl being the largest human trafficking event of the year.  I read the posts, and just kind of moved on from there, not giving it much more thought.  I kept myself busy pretty much all day today, being with my family and friends, reading my book, watching TV.  Not really thinking about it.  I got home from a Super Bowl party that my youth group had and I watched TV until around 12:45 at night.  Getting to sleep before 1 on Sunday nights is a problem for me because I do not want to acknowledge that the weekend is over and I have to go to school the next day.  But, I finally shut the TV off and start to head to bed.  As is my custom every night, I talk to God as I am preparing for bed.  As I am praying, a thought dawns on me,

I am dreading school tomorrow, when at this very moment, there are girls being sold to men who use them.  They are laying there, dreading the next knock at the door because it means another part of them has been sold to the highest bidder.  And there is nothing they can do about it.

My biggest dread is school on a Monday morning, but there are girls out there who dread getting up every morning because it means another day, another man, one more piece of who they are, their purity, their hearts, their self-worth, will be taken away.  And I’m complaining about school?!?  I am sickened at how selfish I am!  And God finally gets what He has been trying to tell me through my thick skull.

I cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering around me.

It is so easy to do.  Especially where I live.  I love living in rural Indiana, where most everyone goes to church, where you know so many people that you can’t drive down your road half the time without stopping in the middle of the road to talk to someone in the car going past you. (This happens often and effectively blocks the whole road)  But living where I do, it is so easy to ignore things like human trafficking.  Because it doesn’t affect my everyday life.  Just like starvation, threat of death by proclaiming to be Christian, or being afraid to go outside for fear of gang violence doesn’t normally have a front seat in my mind.  Because it doesn’t affect my everyday decisions and concerns.  It is so easy to shove these things aside.  And not only big things like this, but it is so easy for me to forget those suffering right around me.   How many times have I not offered comfort to someone because I am too consumed with my own life and my own “problems” (which likely don’t even compare to theirs) to see them?  I walk right past the girl who is heartbroken because her brother has just died.  I stroll on by the boy who hasn’t slept in 2 days because he spends his nights crying over the stress of having his dad in the hospital while being strong for his family the rest of the time.  I ignore the girl who is reaching out for someone to talk to because she feels so alone.  All because I am too preoccupied with my own concerns to see them. 

One of my favorite movies is called To Save a Life.  It is the story of a high school boy, Jake, who is the most popular guy in school.  Star of the basketball team, dating the most beautiful girl, more friends than he knows what to do with, parties every weekend.  He believes he has it made.  Until an old friend of his commits suicide.  He doesn’t know what to do.  He blew this friend off 3 years ago for the popular crowd, and stood by all the times this boy was being picked on.  Jake wonders if there was something he could have done, some way he could have prevented it.  His friends tell him to stop worrying about it and he tries to, but he just can’t seem to.  Then he meets this youth pastor named Chris.  Christ gives Jake a ride home one night, and Jake begins to tell him about how guilty he feels about not standing up for his friend.  Chris then confesses that Jake’s friend, Roger, had come to his youth group the Sunday before he took his life, as a last ditch effort as it would seem.  Chris begins to talk to Roger, but becomes distracted by something else, and says he will be right back.  Roger then walks out of the church, feeling like an outcast again.  Then Chris says a line that has stuck in my head since the first time I watched the movie.  Chris looks at Jake and says, “I missed him.” 

I do not want to miss someone!  Granted, suicide is the worst case scenario, but other things happen when I miss someone.  I miss a chance to show God’s love and offer hope.  I miss a chance for a great friendship to form.  I miss a chance to love someone.  I miss a chance to let God use me to make a difference.  I miss the chance to show people who Jesus really is.  To show people who Jesus is and how He feels about them, I have to truly care about them.  People can tell if I just see them as a project or if I am just talking to them because I feel sorry for them.  I have to genuinely care about people.  And only the Holy Spirit can enable me to do that.  

This is what I am praying for, not only for me, but for every Christian out there.  That we would all look past ourselves to see the hurting and lost people around us.  That we would be a loudspeaker for God's love.  That we wouldn't miss anyone. 

God, open my eyes!!!  Help me to look past me and my so called problems to see a dying and wounded world!  Let me see that my life is to be lived in the service of others, showing them Your undying love for them.  Forgive me for turning a blind eye to those who need You.  Forgive me for being so selfish.  Help me to take a stand for injustice, to just listen and love people, and to see people, truly see them.  Give me the grace to truly love people like You do, and to genuinely care about them and their lives.  Show me how to love like you.  Help me take the blinders off.  Help me to not miss anyone ever again.

Transparent

I don’t know how many times I have had someone say this to me, “If I had had a faith like you do at your age…”  Insert a phrase about how much closer to God that person would be or how much stronger in their faith they would be at this point.  So many times I hear this said to me and I think “Is this compliment really warranted?”  Do I really deserve a compliment like that?  I’m not some Kim Walker or Misty Edwards.  I’m not a Tim Tebow or a Derek Prince.  I’m just a 17 year-old girl from a little town no one has heard of where your teachers had your parents in school and you can’t go into the local grocery store without stopping to talk to at least 5 people that you know.  I have no public stage to proclaim the gospel from (I actually HATE speaking in front of people).  Yet, people look at me and they say that I’m this amazing person.  (I know in my heart that God has put me where He has for a reason and that He is using me right where I am.  But this is just how I feel sometimes.  God is working on my insecurity in this area.  And I promise, this is not just a "poor me" thing.  Keep reading)  And sometimes, that’s a hard thing to live up to.  Don’t get me wrong, I love getting encouragement from people who love me.  It lifts my spirit to hear that these people that I look up to think that I am worthy of the compliments that they give me.  When someone says something like what is written in the first line of this blog to me, it reminds me that I truly am following the Lord and that I am good enough for Him.  He uses these people's encouraging words to draw me closer to His heart.  But because I am a committed Christian, especially in high school, I set a very high standard for myself.  I don't want anyone to think that I'm not who I say that I am, so I am constantly trying to reach this standard that I have set for myself. You, see, I am so scared that one day I’m going to wake up and find that I have screwed my life up completely and there will be no one to blame but me.  I’m terrified that I’m not what everyone thinks that I am.  That I’m going to mess up majorly and then everyone will look at me and wonder what they were ever thinking telling me the stuff that they did.  So often I wonder what everyone would say if they saw all of my weaknesses.  And, honestly, I am so scared to find that out.  Because what if my worst fears come true, and when everyone sees my weakness they wonder why on earth they thought I was such a great Christian.  And so begins my pattern.  Striving.  Constantly putting up the perfect front.  Never letting anyone see the weaknesses that lie behind the outer strength.  Keeping the weak points carefully hidden so that no one will ever see them.  Worrying that one day the weaknesses will find their way through the maze and emerge in my life and nothing will ever be the same again.  Wondering if I will be good enough, if I will measure up. 

But I decided tonight that I can’t do it anymore.  I can’t keep this front up.  I can’t pretend that I’ve got it all together all the time anymore.  Because it’s killing me from the inside out.   

I am not perfect.  I can’t remember how many times I have told people that.  And yet, I act like I am.  What comes out of my mouth and how I act are not lining up here.  I say that I struggle and that I’m not perfect, but do I ever let anyone see it?   No.  All they see is the front.  The good, Christian girl who doesn’t get into trouble and has unwavering faith.  They don’t know that I doubt, that I sometimes want my dreams over God’s, that I worry almost constantly, that I am not as strong as I sometimes seem to be. 

That I struggle just like they do.

You see, God has shown me something that I never thought about before.  That putting up my perfect front, trying to be the perfect Christian so that I measure up, is hindering my witness.  Because who wants to open up to a perfect person?  Who on earth would think that because a perfect person can do it I can too?  When all people see is my strong front, they will never see that what I have they can have for themselves. 

Because all they will be seeing is me.

Me, my strength, my deeds, my acts, and never God’s.  But, if I let the walls fall, if I let my guard down and let people see the real me, they will be able to see God.  Because if they see the real me, the one who struggles and fails just like they do, they will know that it is not my own power that has done this thing, but God’s power.  2 Corinthians 12:10 says this, “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  When I am weak, when there is no possible way that I can do it on my own, then HIS strength is able to shine through me.  Don’t take this the wrong way, I am not telling you to go out and sin so that people can relate to you.  That is definitely not okay!  Romans 6:1-2 says this, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”

What I am saying is this.  What would happen if we allowed people to see who we truly are?  What if we opened up and became real with people, letting them see that we truly are not perfect?  What if we allowed our weaknesses to show so that God’s power might shine brighter than ever before? 

Revelation 12:11 says this, “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

Jesus’ blood makes our lives with Him possible.  Without it, we have nothing at all.  We overcome everything by the blood of the Lamb.  But we also overcome with the word of our testimony.  Why?  Because when our testimony is shared, when we let our struggles and failings become exposed, God’s power behind our lives is revealed.  When we allow people to see our shortcomings, they realize that we couldn’t have possibly done this on our own.  We couldn’t have gotten here on our own strength, we needed Someone greater.  We are leaning on Someone else for our strength because we couldn't possibly muster this strength on our own.  And maybe they will realize that the One who did it for us can do it for them too.  In the verse, it says that they did not love their lives so much as to shrink back from death.  We need to be willing to lay down our reputations and fears so that the lost might be reached.  We need to see that our lives here are fleeting and that we’re living for eternity.   I need to die to myself and my fears so that Christ might shine in my weakness.  I need to let my guard down so that others can see that God is the one who did this in my life, not me.

So, be real.  Be open.  Be the person God has made you to be.  Be unguarded.  Be the true you.

Be transparent.