"Your thoughts are not just wrong- they're unbiblical"

So after processing through on the last post, I was processing even more with an extremely dear (and intelligent) friend of mine. I was coming to the realization that I was struggling with the fact that I didn't want to take advantage of the power of God and I felt like I needed to "work" to build my desire to constantly rely on the Lord, something that I really don't like doing and struggle with daily. I really thought that I didn't want to just ask the Lord to just give me that desire because I thought that that would almost be like cheating. This dear friend, who knows that she has to talk straight with me to really get it looks straight at me and says just that I'm wrong and that's completely unbiblical. (Sounds harsh, but that's what I needed :) )

Seriously- what was I thinking? What part of true christianity is work related and where does it ever even imply that we shouldn't take advantage of the Lord's power? I WAS BELIEVING LIES STRAIGHT FROM THE MOUTH OF THE DEVIL!!! Seriously, that's nuts. I have the power of the Holy Spirit living in me and why wouldn't I want to tap into that and use the same power that raised Christ from the dead in my life to fall deeper in love with my savior and follow him daily? I know that that sounds kinda preachy but I don't apologize because it is the truth.

So often if we read the bible we think that that's really cool awesome stories about the amazing awesome disciples and the insanely powerful people that God chose to be with. I often put them up on a huge pedestal and wish I could have been in their shoes... well guess what- sometimes they sucked. Sometimes they didn't trust Jesus when he was standing right in front of them telling them that He was the SON OF GOD! After Jesus was crucified- they didn't even expect to see him again and they were hiding and the women went to go finish preparing his body in the tomb. Don't even get me started with the miracles after Jesus ascended into heaven and the Holy Spirit came on them. The miracles and things that were done was freaking amazing... oh wait...

THAT IS WHO WE ARE.... Even in this present time, it is after Jesus has ascended into Heaven and the Holy Spirit has come upon US... and I'm afraid of asking him to give me a desire to fall head over heals in love with the Lord. I feel like I'm just only BEGINNING to grasp the concept of how completely off our thinking is.

Then I ran across a sermon jam (Click HERE to see it) that someone posted on facebook of a sermon that Matt Chandler did. (Don't you love how God uses facebook to talk to us sometimes... I strongly believe that God uses people's facebooks- it just depends on who will let hit borrow it!) Anyways, so I came across these two verses:

Isaiah 62:6-7:On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; All day and all night they will never keep silent, You who remind the LORD, take no rest for yourselves; And give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

James 4:2: You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.

So lets digest shall we... Isaiah 62:6-7 the Lord is speaking and he says that those that are praying to the Lord that they should never keep silent and should be constantly praying to the Lord and not allowing the Lord to rest untill he hears their cries. He WANTS us to ask him for the things that we earnestly desire so much that it bothers him. Matt Chandler put that in a whole new context for me... he WANTS that from us... that blows my mind in such a way that I can't even put it into words. And James 4 suggests to us that if we do ask, that we will get it. I am completely blown away by these.

Man, if only we could realize the power that is inside of us and that we would whole heartedly pursue the Lord and constantly bring our requests to him... I can't even fathom.

And just think I didn't want to "take advantage" of the Lord's power... what a joke.

I don't even know

I often fell inspired to write something inspirational or uplifting- something that God has taught me that I want to share with the world- or those 4 people "following" me... but recently it's been different and sometimes just writing it out helps me process. Don't know if any of this will make sense or where it's going, but here it goes.

Life has been awesome. In the last month life has moved so fast and for the most part I've had nothing to complain about. I've genuinely been happy for the longest amount of time that I can imagine. (The life lesson just hit me. Right now.) I've been happy and loving life and everything was going IMMENSELY well. I got engaged to the most amazing man who loves the Lord. We found a house the first day that we went looking, we have a pastor to marry us, I have a dress that I am in love with that I found at the first store of dress shopping. I was loving living the engaged life with planning and lists and websites and everything that comes with the fun of being newly engaged. School was good- stressful, but good. I was honestly enjoying life for one of the longest periods that I could think of. However (and this is what just hit me) I was living life all by myself. Sure I was surrounded by people- friends were coming out of the woodwork and facebook friends are at one of their all time highs- and I still was attending biblestudy, CRU, overflow, Freshman Council, having a regular "quiet time" and all of my other "Christian Activities" but where was I really spending time with the Lord?- (Please note that my "quiet times" were often spent distracted or just lost in a trance with my "to-do" list spinning in my head).

Last week I got some news that completely made part of "my world" as I knew it come crashing down around me. Respecting those involved, I will not go into any detail about it, but in my head I knew that God had a purpose and a plan for what was happening, but I did not want to accept it. I didn't want to know that it was all going to be ok. I was so angry and I stayed that way for about 2 1/2 days and still I am dealing and coping with what is happening. During this process I am slowly beginning to realize that I am back to trying to live my life the way that I want to and becoming selfish again (Shocker I know). It's this continuing cycle that I wish that I could jump off of and start going in another direction, but I just keep continuing on.

Do you ever wish that God would just give you this crazy passion to rely on Him? Yep, it's a often one for me. I sometimes try to blame God for not giving me a desire to give everything up to him. How freakishly selfish is that. I want to reap the benefits of fully chasing after the Lord, I just don't want the work of actually doing it. I want the prize without having to run the race. I want to want to run the race- and not only that- I want to want to do the training and all of the hard work before the race. I want to be able to KNOW that I will run the race well.

I know that this will only come with the power and self discipline that the Lord has fully equipped me with. I just need to take hold of it and actually apply what the Lord has given me to my life. If only I fully grasped how simple that was.

"For God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self discipline." 2 Timothy 1:7

I LOVE MY JOB!

Sitting at work today- looking at the truckin' thursday blog- and about to post a link to it on facebook- I typed four real simple words.

I love my job.

To some that is just 4 words forming a sentence. Others use it as a motivation repeated multiple times in the most sarcastic ways as possible just to get through a hard day. For me it is neither just a sentence and it is in absolutely no way sarcastic, but one of the most serious and genuine things that I can say.

It started out as the Sky Ranch Summer Staff theme of 2010 and a motivation to keep going somedays that being at the ranch was the hardest thing in the world to do- but in no way was it sarcastic. We used it to remember that we're working to finish strong and to know that we're going to have rough times, but we ultimately love our jobs and are working towards the end goal and the impact that the Lord makes in the kids lives at camp. As I wrote those words I realized that I no longer had a job at Sky and I would most likely never have a job at sky again and I thought about deleting the words from the page... then it hit me- my job at the ranch is not the job that I love.

The love that I have for Sky Ranch is because I love the job that the Lord has given to me and placed on my heart- the job of loving people and telling them about the Lord. Sky Ranch is the tool for which I was able to use for the duration of three of my summers- and I love the place of Sky Ranch, but my love for my job does not rest in the ranch. My job extends way past the ranch.

My job is to take the relationships and contacts that the Lord has given to me (with a lot of them being through Sky Ranch) and taking and nourishing and strengthening them while pointing them towards the Lord. I love my job.

I had an awesome conversation this morning with one of my co-counselors and those conversations are something that I can't even begin to describe how precious they are to me. I love the intimacy and honesty that we are able to have with one another and the encouragement that is able to come from that. Just another aspect of my job that I love- being able to work with people that want to love the Lord as well and work along side you. I love my job.

Facebook is amazing. I love that I can still know what is going on in many of my campers lives. Whenever one of them pops up on my news feed, I love being able to share in their joys and sorrows and encourage them or point them back in the direction of Christ when I need to. I hope that I am able to live in a way that is encouraging to them and they know that sometimes its hard, but that it's totally worth living for Jesus Christ and pursuing Him with your life. I love answering questions! I hope any camper I had in a cabin has heard me say that at least 3 times each- because I love them- it challenges me in becoming firm in what I believe and I hope that I can try to explain what I believe in a way that helps others become more firm in what they believe. Man, I love my job.

I am not working at Sky- but I have had the awesome opportunity to be able to work somewhere where I will still have the opportunity to be around kids and teach them about God and the awesome things that He has done for them and how much He loves them- no matter what. I can work around staff that will be so much fun and I love. I am off for an adventure and I'm ready for it. I love my job, and although it's at a new place, with different people, and a different company, and everything is very different- it's still a part of my job.


I love my job. I love my job. I love my job.