Peace Among the Chaos

*Before I start, just a warning, I'm feeling a lil bit cheesy right now. So if you choose to read this post, you have been warned.

     Now that I got the disclaimer out of the way... Let's see, where do I even begin. Well I guess I'll start by addressing the purpose writing this post in the first place. These past two days I have felt completely overwhelmed. When I say that I don't mean that I am doubting God, but rather that I am having to completely and totally rely on Him because my own strength just won't do it these days (which isn't a bad thing). But it's exhausting. When circumstances bring you to your knees and you find yourself in the midst of total surrender, it's never an easy thing. Its a constant minute-by-minute second-by-second decision to give these things up to God instead of trying to control them myself. But don't get me wrong, I never regret that decision to place my problems in the hands of my Almighty and totally capable God. In life there's a Plan A and Plan B, but the beauty of surrender is that it takes the Plan B out of the equation.

    Although being in a state of surrender is something that I know is absolutely essential for the Lord to work, it's difficult. Surrender is a battle term which has to do when an opposing army lays down their arms and gives up all rights to the conqueror, allowing them to take control from then on. Surrendering to God works the same way. In order to experience the fullness of the plans He has for our lives, we must surrender to Him by setting aside our own plans. Just like no army wants to be "conquered", nobody wants to lay down their defenses. It's in our nature to want to look out for ourselves and to do our own protecting. We live in a world that sends this message to "trust no one",  so to lay our arms at the feet of God sounds absolutely ludicrous. How can we be safe if we have nothing to protect ourselves with? The Bible tells us that "God is a refuge, a stronghold, a very present help in trouble." (Psalm 46:1) "In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me." (Psalm 120:1.)

    The past few days of "laying down my arms" have been some of the most difficult. I feel extremely vulnerable. But at this very moment, the verse that keeps coming to mind is Philippians 4:7. It says "And the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." In the beginning of this post, I described how I was feeling overwhelming by my circumstances... now let me tell you how I am overwhelmed by Christ's peace.

    Lately I've been into painting so let me describe to you this cool image that I guess you could say in my mind goes with this verse. Here's an image that unfortunately many of us with be familiar with. Imagine the destruction in Oklahoma from the tornados of the past week. There's flattened houses, splintered wood, and shards of glass from chinaware... Now imagine a pre-K classroom with about 15 children. Some are crying, while others are running about, while still others are banging toys against tables. Now I want you to imagine any restaurant of your choice (preferably a very popular one.) Its loud inside. About 10 different conversations are taking place in your vicinity and on top of all that, the waiter just dropped a tray of plates, which causes the patrons to collectively yell, "Opa!" All of these images together create a symphony of chaos (it stresses me out just thinking of it.) But amid this collage of chaos is a person simply standing. Just standing. And here's where the verse comes in. All of these events are taking place around them, natural disasters, yelling, screaming, but in the midst of all of that, there is this unexplainable peace. This peace that, given the situations, shouldn't be there and makes absolutely no sense, but it's there and it's real. I wish I could do a better job of explaining it but that's just what it is. A peace that is so unexplainable that it could only be from God.

    So I could ramble on for a few more paragraphs, or I could just leave off with this. This peace is real and God offers it to you. It doesn't matter how far you've run or how damaged you think you might be. This might be the truest thing I've ever heard in my life: "God accepts you the way you are, but refuses to leave you that way." So don't just take my word for it, go see for yourself. Take it all to the feet of Jesus and exchange your efforts for His peace.

The Only Difference Between "Christians" and "non-Christians" is the Cross

Making Mud Pies

Lord, I am so unworthy.

     Just the other night I was talking about expectations. About how I have them and you exceed them time and time again. And it's funny to think how I'm so content with such small things. C.S. Lewis puts it in this way: “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” -C.S. Lewis

     I feel like I relate so well to that child making mud pies in the slum. I think that that's as good as it gets and I cannot even fathom a better life apart from it, because it's all that my human mind knows. But once God reveals to me the smallest taste of His goodness, I go mad! I just need to have more. It's like when you give a child a small sample of ice cream. They just keep asking for more. They’ve tasted this wonderful creation that we call ice cream, and they want more of where that came from!

     So where I'm going with this is that I was feeling pretty content the other night. I had experienced a great night with my roommate and I was very thankful that God had allowed that to happen. But there I was, just making my mud pies and not even realizing it. Yes, it was a phenomenal night and something to definitely praise God for, but it didn't mean I should only be okay with that. It didn’t mean that I had experienced all of the goodness that God had to offer.

     The reason that I am going to go into specific details about my day on Thursday is because I am just so amazed at how God perfectly orchestrates our lives in order to make His plans prevail. And that’s exactly what happened with my day on Thursday. God had rearranged my plans so that His could work together for my good.

     On Thursdays before Cru, I usually volunteer from 6-8 at Miracle Sports. But for a number of reasons, I decided it would be best not to go this week. Instead, my friend Jody called and asked if I would help with the Cru set up this week. I agreed and was excited to be of use. After I got out of my last class at 4:50, I grabbed something to eat really quick and received a call from Jody. “Christina, can I ask you for another huge favor?!” If you know Jody, there’s a sense of urgency in everything she does, so although she sounded somewhat stressed, I wasn’t too worried. “Can you print the chord chards for the worship this week?” I was passing by Stroz anyway on the way to setup, so I had no problem helping her out. I printed everything out and got to the auditorium at 5 to help finish set up. By the time all of that was done, it was about 6:30 and I headed back to my room to shower.

      I had also agreed to help greet that night (another reason why I had wanted to skip Miracle Sports) so the plan was to leave my room by 7:45 the latest so that way I’d be there in time to open the doors. Well… that didn’t happen. I left my room at 7:55 and the meeting starts at 8. To be honest, I’m usually much later than that, but since I had told someone I would help them with something, I felt bad being late and I began my “power walk” to Moore. About half way there, I ran into my roommate. She was coming back from a meeting and asked me where I was heading to. Not even thinking twice, I said “Cru, wanna come?” Without even pausing to think about it, she agreed and before I knew it, the two of us were both power walking to the Cru main meeting.

The whole way over there, I was playing it cool meanwhile my thoughts went something like this: Did that really just happen?! God are you serious?? No way. No way. This isn’t happening. No way.

     I was in complete shock.

     When we got there Ramey helped me greet everyone and I couldn’t contain my excitement when friends of mine came up to her and greeted her with big hugs. (Ramey hates to be touched). We picked a row somewhere in the middle and while we waited for it to start, I assured Ramey that if she was uncomfortable, she could leave whenever she wanted and that I wouldn’t be offended.  

 Then the meeting started. This was it, no turning back. God’s work would be done.

     The band began to play and the people began to worship. I stood and so did Ramey. I took the first song to thank God for Ramey and letting me live with her and be her friend. What used to feel like a forced living situation now felt like a blessing and something that I couldn’t thank God enough for. I thanked God for his perfect timing and for hearing my prayers. I thanked Him for His faithfulness and bringing Ramey to a Cru meeting, which is something that I had been asking for since last semester. The first song finished and the next song started playing.

     I began to sing the words to God. As I listened to the words, I felt like they matched the desires of my heart but I wondered if they were what was on Ramey’s heart too.

     I feel like prayer is so essential in order for God to work in our lives. It’s like the “okay” button if you will, the confirmation that lets him know that we are on board with Him changing our plans and invading our lives. But without prayer, without us talking to God and letting Him know that we are okay with His intervention, I believe that it severely limits His work in our lives. So when I was singing those words and allowing God to do all of those things in my life, allowing Him to draw me closer to Him and experience His love, I thought that I should do the same for Ramey. Putting aside all of my own desires to know God, it became about Ramey knowing God. I remember standing there next to her, and with everything just crying those words out to God. 

“Your love has ravished her heart and taken her over, taken her over.

And all I want is for her to be, with you forever, with you forever.

So pull her a little closer

Take her a little deeper
She wants to know your heart
She wants to know your heart
‘Cause your love is so much sweeter than anything she’s tasted
She wants to know your heart

Whoa, Whoa, how GREAT your love is for HER,

Whoa, Whoa, how great is your love”

     God, please reveal your love to Ramey! God please show her how much you love her!

      After how perfectly he had planned for her to come to Cru that night, there was no doubt that God was thinking about her.That God cares for her and is pursuing her. That God wants His daughter to come home and to be with him.

     The rest of the night was an emotional experience to say the least. Drew’s talk completely touched me and assured me that God has purpose in my suffering. That everything I’ve gone through and am going through is not unreachable for His understanding and is useable for His Kingdom’s glory. Not only was the meeting one of the best I have ever been to, but I left feeling overwhelmed by how God hears my prayers and loves me personally and completely.

     I am completely confident that God loves Ramey and that He is radically changing and invading her life. If He wasn’t, she wouldn’t have come that night. But there’s something in all of us that wants to know this almighty God… We were made for it. There’s no denying that when we are standing in the midst of a beautiful sunset, something just takes our breath away and in that moment, we realize that we are incredibly small. This deep longing is in all of us and is what makes us feel at times that we aren’t made for this world, because we’re not. We are made for a person and a place. That person is God ,our Father, and that home that we feel so homesick for while here on earth is heaven.

4/16/13

As my Sophomore year is quickly ending I can't help but look back and be anything less than amazed -amazed that my expectations were far exceeded and that His plans really are so much better than my own.

Throughout this year, God has really been teaching me a lot about "expectations." About how my expectations seem good to me when in reality I really have no idea what is good for my soul. I have this vision problem... You see, I'm only able to look at what is right in front of me instead of being able to look into eternity. I tend to come up with these elaborate plans thinking that I've got my needs all figured out when I'm really just feeding into this huge lie. But God is so gracious and He knows that I'm so prone to falling into this trap called sin. So in His mercy, he foils my plans time and time again to give me what I need -more of Him. And to be honest, a lot of the time it's painful to let go and surrender to Him. It's hard to say "God I really want the chocolate dipped strawberries but if you're saying I should eat broccoli right now, I'll eat the broccoli." Do you get what I'm saying? And this is exactly what I feel like God has been teaching me this year. Yes Christina, you're telling me you want this, but I'M telling you you need this.

At the end of last year, I planned where I would be living in the fall. (yes, there's the first of my mistakes. I planned.) I had talked it over with some friends and I decided that I would move into an off-campus apartment with them. The idea sounded great to me and these were the ways I believed God called me to it aka I justified it:
-I could have some great Christian community
-I would know my roommates
-I could build better relationships with some of the girls
-It would be fun (and God wanted me to have fun)
-It would be cheap
-I thought it was a good idea

And here was my list for staying on campus:
-

Exactly. There was no reason. Campus was dumb. But the more I pushed to move off campus, the more I realized that it wasn't working. God was making it impossible for me to have my way, so He got His and I was living on campus for the fall.

I finally found out my room assignment and I saw that I would be living with a girl named Ramey. I facebook stalked her and quickly realized that she was not the perfect roommate that I thought God would provide for me for my obedience. She's not the type of roommate I could picture myself having dinner dates with or riding down Tennessee Street with the top down singing Barbie Girl at the top of my lungs. I cried at the thought of next year.

I closed out the remainder of that year with a bitterness towards God and towards the friends who were excited to move off campus in the fall. I couldn't understand this arrangement that I had somehow gotten stuck with.

During that summer, I wouldn't say my attitude toward the situation changed, but my approach to it did. I knew that no matter what, I would be returning to school in the fall and I would be moving into my dorm and not an apartment. But I began to pray. I started to pray for Ramey and that something would come from what seemed to me like a hopeless situation. At first, it was whenever I would remember. Then it was daily. Just asking God to soften her heart and mine for our living situation.

***

The first few weeks were rough. I remember feeling very alone on campus and questioning why I was placed there. I didn't see any "results" from my prayer and Ramey was intimidating to say the least. I felt uncomfortable in my room and around my friends who were quickly becoming close to each other while I was being left out. The only word I can think of to describe what I was feeling at the time was abandoned. Abandoned by God and by my friends who were too caught up in the excitement of their new homes to notice how I was feeling. It was a long first semester, but God didn't give up on me. Slowly (very very slowly) but surely, Ramey and I started to break the ice and things were going better between us. She even attended a weekly Bible study I led once or twice. The friend situation eventually worked itself out and although I couldn't be over there with them, I met a group of freshman girls who were fun and helped me feel welcome on campus. But what was God's purpose in all of this?

Fast forward to April 16 of Spring semester. It's been a year since I initially wrestled with the idea of God "wrecking" my plans. It's a funny thing though... reading the beginning of this post you would think my life was over but a year later I can honestly tell you that God's plans are SO much greater. Every single time. A year ago if someone had told me everything that would've come had I just lived on campus I never would've believed it and it only makes it so much sweeter that I had no choice but to trust God blindly.

 So what if I told you that about a month or two ago I was faced with the same dilemma? Do I accept an RA job on campus for next year or live with my friends? After reading this, the answer would seem quite obvious. But to be completely honest, I had the same doubts. And my lists for both options looked the same as they had before. But this time around God revealed something to me that was on my off-campus list.
-Selfishness.

All of the reasons I had for wanting to live off-campus really just boiled down to my own desires and not wanting to trust God. Although making the decision the second time around was no easier than the first, God used this year to show me that no matter what my reasons are, His are better.

So what if I told you that tonight I just got back from going out to dinner with my roommate Ramey, driving down Tennessee with the windows down, singing Barbie girl?....

The Holy Heart

The Holy Heart

The Holy Heart was broken,

Sent from the Father’s side.

The Son of God forsaken,

the holy sacrifice.

Chorus:

For me He was forsaken, for me He died alone.

My sin forever taken, that I might be His own.

The Holy Heart was stricken,

Abandoned and alone.

He bore the world’s affliction;

He bore it as His own.

And when my heart is broken,

Torn by my sin and pride.

The Son of God now risen

Will draw me to His side.

~Barbour/Skidmore

 

 

Thank you Jesus for your love for me.

A limitless God!

Why do we limit God when He is capable of accomplishing more than we can ever think or imagine? This is a God who created the universe, everything we see, everything that is known and unknown to us in just 7 days! The God who is able to perfectly design the human body so that every organ serves a specific purpose and functions so perfectly in sync with the others that if you or I tried to do it ourselves, we would fail miserably. This is a God, who in a planet of over 7 billion people, did not create any two people exactly alike! Even identical twins have their own unique features! He took the time not only to create the big things about us, but also to design the intricate patterns on our retinas and the loops and swirls of our fingerprints... this is a God who has thought about YOU and cares deeply about you, a God who didn't just throw us all together like mass quantities of a product made in a factory, but carefully planned and thought about each one of us. It absolutely blows my mind that anyone could be capable of this, but when I think of who I am talking about, when I remind myself that this is GOD, I know that the things I am amazed by are only such a small glimpse of what such an awesome God is capable of.

Something that I've been tested with lately, though, is do I actually believe that this awesome and mighty God is able to meet my needs? After everything that I just said about him, I would hope so. How could the very God who created me not be able to supply me with everything I need? But time and time again, I doubt His promises and provision for my life.

The Bible says in Philippians 4:19 "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." Not only does this promise that my needs will be met, but it says according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus! The provider of my needs is God and God alone, and the creator of my needs is the best and only one that is able to satisfy them. When I read that Christ's riches are the ones that will satisfy me, I think of how Christ is eternal! I will be eternally satisfied if He is who I choose to be satisfied by. I will have eternal satisfaction in Christ. Not only will he just quench my needs for the time being, he will go above and beyond and supply my needs not with things of this world that will just satisfy temporarily or rot and rust, but with HIS glorious riches that can satisfy and will last for an eternity! How blessed I am to stand as a victor with my Lord who has conquered all things and who can supply all things!

When I doubt if God will provide for me, I need to look at the cross where God made the ultimate provision for my sins. If God would provide a means to redeem my sinful soul, how could He not provide all else? If God would put my penalty, the penalty of an unrighteous person on His own Son, how will He not also meet me for the small things? The answer to these questions is that He will and He has! We have been paid for by the blood of Christ and God has met us where we're at so that we can bask in the promise of an eternity with Him! When you're doubting God's goodness or provision, take comfort in Jesus Christ, God's ultimate provision to meet all of our needs.

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
Galatians 2:20

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
Hebrews 12:2

Holocene

        We are always told that God is actively pursuing us. Every second. Every hour. Every moment of every day and into eternity. But what does our pursuit of God look like? For some, it's a few seconds of prayer here and there, for others it's flipping through a Bible or devotional, and for some, we have no idea how to even begin to pursue God.

         As I was listening to some music a few moments ago, this crazy idea of us pursuing God finally clicked for me. In the particular music video I was watching (bear with me on this one), this little boy sees a bird and scrambles to climb to the top of a mountain just so he can be a little bit closer to this bird, who is so much higher than him. The boy dropping everything and hastily climbing excited me because I could see how, in that moment, nothing but the bird mattered. It didn't matter that the bird was completely out of his reach and it didn't matter that the mountain he had to climb was extremely tall. His sole ambition was to be close to it.

        What if this is how we pursued God? When, just catching a glimpse of His glory, we couldn't help but drop everything to chase after Him! What if our Christian walk was not just a slow aimless walk or the dragging of our feet, but instead was defined by chasing and pursuing! What if our sole ambition was to be close to Him?

        This idea of us chasing after God excites me because He is definitely someone to be chased after. When you experience God, when you experience just a small amount of His glory, it should be enough to make you go into an all out sprint to experience more. After encountering our God, how could you still be complacent with the same slow-paced walk you've been doing your whole life? And if you are, the issue could be that you really don't fully understand his breath-taking, life-changing, majesty, or that your eyes are fixed on something else (something other than God) that doesn't make you feel like changing your pace.

         As I examine my heart after seeing this incredible example of pursuit, I think of how many "mountains" have stopped me from actively pursuing something so glorious. When we are faced with obstacles, it is not for discouragement, but so that we would rely on the Lord for His strength! The Bible makes it so clear that our own strength will constantly fail us, but that the strength of the Lord is forever.

"Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty" (Zechariah 4:6).

       I pray that we would be child-like in our pursuit of the Lord, not fearing the unknown but instead trusting, and I mean really trusting, the promises that we DO know.


Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWcyIpul8OE