Time to brag on God… my personal wake up call.

“But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.” Psalm 73:28

Ok, time to brag on God a bit here. Seriously, God is AWESOME!!!! Have you ever just sat back and thought about all the stuff God is doing in and around you and felt like your head was going to explode because it wouldn’t all fit in there? Welcome to my last few months. In the last month and a half God has especially shown just how glorious He can be. I’ve attempted countless times to put it into words, and in every instance I fall short. It’s a new sense of purpose. A new urgency, and it’s exciting!

To give you the full picture I’ve actually got to go back to July, the 25th to be exact. I was sitting on the floor of Sugar Creek Baptist church, crying, miserable, confused, and angry. I was talking to God in a room where the Holy Spirit was in every crevasse, people were being saved, and kids were on their faces. The topic of our conversation in a nutshell: “God, what is wrong with me?” I told God I didn’t understand my lack of urgency. I didn’t understand how a few weeks before I could be in Ethiopia, on fire, in the word, sensitive to the Spirit, caring about people dying and going to hell and now I was in America, and I didn’t care. I wanted to care. I wanted to have the same passion, to love, to minister. But I didn’t know how, I didn’t feel it. All I knew how to do in America was want-to-want God and long for Ethiopia. So I got on my face. I wept. I talked honestly with him. I asked Him to fix me, and He answered. He told me I didn’t have to feel it. I had to do one thing that would lead to the rest happening… surrender. One easy word… so incredibly hard to actually do. The process began. Incredibly slow at times, insanely accelerated at others.

Fast forward to today and I am overwhelmed what God has brought me into and through and is preparing to do. In the last few months he has brought me incredible new, strong friendships, based solely on Christ and making him known to the world. He has strengthened old friendships the same way. He has brought intense accountability that is so hard, but so rewarding and freeing. He has brought a fresh passion and experience of His Holy Spirit, the almost lost person of the trinity in my life. He has brought random strangers in the midst of their suffering, and allowed me the chance to tell about a God who loves them. Just in the last few days he has brought a prayed for and long desired mentor for even more intense learning and accountability. And one of the most overwhelming things He has brought is a boldness to speak truth, actually to speak at all. He is giving me a voice and I’m attempting to practice using it, seeking his wisdom in every word. He is giving us a vision of a new Pentecost. A time that we can say the message God speaks through us is cutting to the heart and new believers are being added daily to our numbers. (Acts 2:37-47)

The challenge for us as believers is this: It’s time to WAKE UP! God had to wake me up in a crazy in your face way. It’s time to be more passionate, humble, sold-out, bold, real, and on our faces than ever before. God is working, and trust me you don’t want to miss out on this. It’s exciting! It makes you feel like singing, dancing, staying up all night praying, fasting, shouting, weeping, praising God, and falling on your face all at the same time, and it’s the best feeling in the world. Get on board. You’ll never be the same and you’ll never regret it. Praying for you all, that God would wreck your world the way he has been wrecking mine lately. Love you.

Day 1– እግዜር ይስጥልኝ

As previously stated I am attempting to be better this year about sharing all that the Lord did in Ethiopia this year. Having said that I can honestly say that I am more anxious to share than I have ever been. Usually at this time I am dealing with reverse culture shock, which is often much more intense than it’s counterpart. This year I find myself struggling not to write out my entire journal and post it in this moment. Rather than hastily blurting it all out at once I will refrain a bit. I do want to take you through the entire journey. I will be quoting in many instances directly from my journal in an attempt to be as raw and unedited as possible, this with the hope that you could see honestly from my heart. I want to you to see all that the Lord has done and is doing, both in the country of Ethiopia and very personally with me. That second one sort of sounds completely frightening to me, but I’m learning that when God wants you to be real it’s better to stop being an idiot and obey Him. I don’t know why He wants me to share, but I can’t shake it. So rather than fighting I’m attempting surrender. If it’s anything like the last two weeks of my life have been He will prove true and overwhelmingly glorious, and I can’t wait to watch it play out. So welcome to my adventure, His adventure in me. Where better to start than day 1…

Ethiopia 6/28/2010: “And so it begins, day one in country. Currently sitting in a bus in the rain in Addis. Sitting here on this bus I may have just learned my favorite Amharic phrase: Xabier yeesteline.”

When we go on these trips we expect God to speak to us, to challenge us, change us. However, of all the things God could use I never anticipated He would speak directly to my soul in a language that was not even my own. On this, the first day in country the Lord bent down and spoke directly to me through the language of the people I was here to love. Even more so He taught me in a phrase that was coined for beggars. I was intrigued by this phrase so I did a little research with my Ethiopian friends. Xabier yeesteline is a phrase people say specifically to beggars, when one has nothing to give to them. It literally means, “May God provide on my behalf.” As I mulled this phrase and idea over in my mind I was overwhelmed. This still holds true as I sit at my computer screen back in Texas. We serve a God who is provider. Often when we go to countries like Ethiopia, and in all honesty even here in America we are overwhelmed by needs. We become paralyzed by where to start, thinking that one person can’t make a difference in all this mess, so we often do nothing. But, God calls us to action not just conversation, not just comfortable fellowship. In this phrase my heart was shaken. It was a good wake up call for day 1 in Ethiopia, and it’s a good wake up call as I sit here back in America. At times in our lives we may be left with nothing left to give but an ‘Xabier yeesteline’ but in other moments we are called to be the answer to the many ‘xabier yeestelines’ the broken people that surround us have been given their entire lives.

“What a powerful image of Christ. Even when we have nothing left to give these people, He comes and provides for them on our behalf. May we be for some of these the answer to the many ‘xabier yeesteline’ they have received in their lives.”

The Call

Ethiopia. Amazing as always. I always struggle with putting these experiences to words. I often find myself in the hours following my return, with the silly answer of, “Yeah, it was a great trip.” On this trip however God struck me with the importance of sharing my stories, of using my voice. A little time for digestion is always necessary, but I intend on speaking and sharing as often as I can about what the LORD has accomplished over these last two weeks. Mostly because what He did was something only He could accomplish, and nothing I had any power to do. He deserves all the glory, and lots of it. So here is an attempt at a first taste. It’s a bit raw, unedited, and written in a bus, on a dirt road in Africa, but I pray it serves as a window to my heart. God told me to share, so I trust He has a reason. Enjoy…

The call is clear. It holds no stipulations and has no contingency plans. It just is: GO! The eyes of children, affected by hunger and poverty and suffering of every kind and yet still so full of joy, beckon. The women, who work harder than anyone could imagine and yet are often left uneducated and unvoiced, call out. The men, who work relentlessly to provide and are often left in poverty praying their families survive, cry out from the depths of their souls. Come. Help. In their eyes the call is clearer than ever. Go! The call, which is echoed out, to the expanse of eternity from the aching depths of desperate souls now needs an answer. A plea for someone, anyone to answer back. I’m coming… In that answer joy is found. Hope is promised. Hearts are bound. Love is poured out without limitations or regrets. Sufferings, trials, and tears may not be banished forever by this answer, but momentarily they are overwhelmed by something greater. Hope. It is this hope mixed with love and truth, which changes the world. It is this blend that is set to shake the foundations and change lives forever. So as the journey moves forward under this banner of truth and love that call continues ringing out to the farthest corners of creation. Until finally it comes, the thing longed for since the beginning. Here I am… Comfort has no place here. Only obedience. In this answer lives, necessities, and love are redefined. In this moment everything has more meaning. Now nothing matters but the call, the people, the answer, and the actions it produces. With those three words, so easy yet so complex, nothing will ever be the same. Adventure, love, suffering, and joy wait. And I would never choose anything else. Here I am…

jumping in the lap of God– and resting there a while

I have been scolded many times lately for my lack of sharing of my writing so here is a taste of some of my latest thoughts.

I love my 3 year olds. Every single Sunday morning I get to spend a glorious hour and a half with them and every time I walk away with another beautiful glimpse of how glorious our Father God is. This Sunday was no exception. Hope this encourages you the way it did me when I wrote it…

It is amazing what picking up and rocking a weeping child will do. When I have kids who come in and are completely inconsolable all I have to do is scoop them up in my arms and instinctively their head falls into the crook of my neck. As their last few tears run down their face and fall gently on my back they are overwhelmed by this sense that they will be okay. Their labored heavy breathing becomes lighter, their loud wailings are calmed to a gentle whimper, until all of it fades to a calm silence.

Sunday, after just one more occurrence of this happening in my classroom, God spoke in that still small voice. The gentle whisper serving as a reminder that this is exactly what God does with us. In the moments where we are completely broken, God bends down on His knee and scoops us up. He rocks us like a child who is gently weeping until we are finally so quieted and at peace that we know things will be just fine, because our loving Abba, God has us in His everlasting, unfailing arms.

Lately it seems, as though there have been plenty of moments where I have been reminded of my broken state as a human. I love that the Lord looks down at us in our brokenness and rather than being completely disgusted by what He sees and turning away, He opens up His arms waiting for me to open mine and jump into His lap.

In the times over the last few months where obstacles have seemed insurmountable, pain has been an inescapable part of reality, and uncertainty seems like status quo; God has reached down multiple times and in that quiet, yet beautiful whisper of a voice called me as a child to himself. I must say there is nothing in the world quite like being held by our heavenly Father. While His arms may not be physical arms, resting there is the most peaceful place I have found in my lifetime.

I suppose my goal here is just to remind you of that, and to share with you a brief sliver of what God has been showing me. In the moments where pain seems more real than anything else, where tears seem like a daily practice, and where the right words never seem to come, know that Your Father is there. His arms are outstretched. He is bending down, and calling to you by name. Your Daddy wants to rock you gently, as your last tears roll down His back, and you are overwhelmed by His peace. Love you all.

“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.”
—2 Thessalonians 3:16

who’s in the pew next to you?

So this week in church I sat between two people, two people very different from one another in the eyes of this world. One was an older woman who has been a member of Sagemont for years. She was wearing a nice dress, had her hair done, and was sitting in the pew with her Bible waiting for the service to start. The other person was a younger man probably in his mid 30s who was basically temporarily homeless. This man sat in the pew waiting for the service to start in jeans and a t-shirt with no shoes drinking from a gallon jug of water.

The three of us began to talk. This is when I found out that the woman had been a member for several years. The man told us that this was his first time at Sagemont. He told us that he usually went to services somewhere else but felt lead to the church this morning. As he told us more of his story he explained that he used to work on boats as a fisherman, a shrimp man, and a crabber. He said that somewhere in this time he became a Christian and he saw the incredible need that many of the men on the boats had for the Lord. He said that for the last 7 years he has been restoring a boat and is almost finished. As soon as he completes his boat he is going to travel from dock to dock telling the people there about Christ, about His love and grace, and about how it has changed his life. He also told us that the people he had been staying with were not able to have him stay there anymore so he was pretty much homeless but is going to live on his boat until it can be completed. The service then began to start. During the service I could not help but see how much love this man had for the Lord. He would get excited and clap his hands and praise the Lord. It was so refreshing! It was really kind of beautiful.

The part that makes me a little sad is that I have been to churches in my past where I don’t think I would have gotten a chance to talk to this man because he would have been judged before he sat down in the pew. People would have asked him to leave his water outside the sanctuary or would have said something about him not having shoes on. And even if they didn’t say it to his face there would be people in a corner saying hey did you see that guy coming in here with no shoes and trying to bring a drink into the sanctuary.

I guess the point of sharing was just that, to share something I thought was cool. Sitting in a church worshipping God without judgment. Maybe if we were more like this all the time more people would not be afraid to step foot in a church building? Maybe we shouldn’t be so afraid to step out of the pew for them… but hey that’s another blog. That’s all I have on that, take from it what you want…