Glory pt. 2

The glory of God is not a halfway thing.  It is full.  It is rich.  It is all-consuming.

So often, we live life halfway.  We trick ourselves into thinking that we are living life in all its fullness, when in reality we are living in just that--reality.

Why live in reality when you could live in spirituality?  When you could defy the odds of life and the world and everything that is plastered into our brains that life is all about when we could live with Jesus.  Here on earth.  Living with Jesus and by Jesus and for Jesus.  In every single part of our lives.

This summer I learned a lot about putting Christ at the center of my life.  Not the "number 1" thing in my life, but at the absolute center of everything.  Our lives are so categorized into different segments and parts and here is my friend life, my school life, my sports life, my relationship life, my church life, my job life, my relaxation life, my Facebook life, even.  Life becomes so segmented and while God is so very near and dear to us, He becomes near and dear to us only at our convenience, only at the parts we let Him in.  We pick and choose where and when we want Jesus to be the main parts of our lives.  Jesus does not pick and choose when He loves us. At all.

Jesus does not love us halfway.  He loves us fully and completely and unconditionally and all the time and when we do not deserve it and when we feel Him the least and when we love Him back.  He does not choose to love what we do at school but not really care about what we do at home or at work or even at church because at church, you know, He can turn a blind eye since we are at church so we must be doing good, we must be living life fully.  No, no He does not love us halfway, He does not assume we are fully displaying His glory.  He makes sure of it.  He searches the depths of our hearts and our intentions and our failures and dreams and desires and shortcomings and plans.  He is jealous for us and attacks and wrecks every single wall that is in the middle of us and Him because He loves us that much.  He uses things that are painful to us because He knows better than us.  He sees these little areas of our hearts that we keep from Him and He goes after them relentlessly, because He wants all of us, and not half of us.

How much does it sadden Jesus to see us only receiving half of His love?  He gives freely to us and we do not take it.  His love came at His own price, a price we have to stop to consider, a price that brings us weak to our knees and causes our eyes to be lifted to Him and Him only and yet He does not make us pay for the phenomenally expensive love.  He gives it all to us freely.  And we only take half of it.

Jesus did not just die on the cross.  He did not just do half of the job and leave us to sulk and mourn and be sad because our Savior, though He died for our very sins, making us halfway joyful and halfway appreciative, just died and left us to wonder what we do next, oh no.  Instead He rose too, making this selfless act of love complete, giving us the Holy Spirit through the power that overcame death and the grave and no one could do that with only half the effort.  He loved us so much that He died and rose.  Not just one or the other.  Not just half of it.  He completed it.

And yet we see this love and we stifle it, we smother it with ourselves and our own desires because as long as we have enough Jesus to make us feel justified and give us that little tingling feeling inside then we are doing exactly what God wants us to do.  No.  We were not designed to live life halfway; we were not designed to only let Jesus into parts of us because that is not how He created us!  He is not a halfway God and His glory is not made to be halfway displayed through us because it is just that--GLORY.  It is full and rich and all-consuming.  It cannot be cut up and divided into pieces and appointed to certain parts of our lives.  It does not have a roll-over effect where if you display the glory of God in one part of your life more than another, it equals out and covers up the shortcoming.  No.

So now we see that even the things that make us the happiest leave us the least satisfied when Jesus is not in the center of it all.  Our lives are not shelves.  There is no structure or categorization or segments.  We cannot pencil God out of our schedule, even just for the day, because our time is different than His because I am pretty sure He is the Creator of time itself, therefore it is all His.  There is God and there is His glory and unless we submit to it in every part of our lives we will not know the fullness of God.  We will not be satisfied.  Because we are not living in the way that He created us.

We were created to display His glory.  That is why were were made.  So when we hinder that in the slightest sense, it becomes magnified and eats away our skin like acid until we finally stop the burning and say, "You can have this part of me!"  These parts that we keep to ourselves all add up and we see, then, that when we do not let Him have even the smallest one, the one that hides behind the bigger ones in the back and act all innocent and quiet, it begins to charge its way to the forefront of our lives and consume the bigger and more apparent holes that we have until they all mesh together and we are so far gone that we have no idea how we got to this place and we are miserable.  Because we were not created for this.  We were not created to hold back.

Every day is a new opportunity to let the glory of God consume new and hidden parts of our lives and these shelves that we have set up in our very souls come crashing down into one big mound of life that we get to stand on the top of with God in triumph and say "Hallelujah!  You have won the victory!"

The victory of the grave, the victory of our souls, the victory of our very lives, yes, He has won it.  And so we learn that even the faintest hint of segmentation is fatal.  It kills us.  It eats away at us.  And though it may be masked, though it may look pretty and lovely and good for us, even if we come across it every day and it is all smiles with this thing, we will never be satisfied.  Because we were created for God and when He is not there, we are not being fed with the very bread of life that was made solely and exactly for us.  We will continuously feel empty because we were created to display the glory of God in its fullness.  So displaying only half of it may look appealing to others, it may be good enough for a pat on the back or for some affirmation from yourself or a justification for that lie you keep telling yourself, since you look good.  You look good in this area!  But that is not life.  Life is not about you looking good.  It is not about you looking anything.  It is about how God looks.

May we stop living this life halfway.  May we not be comfortable with giving God only parts of our lives.  May we be holy and pleasing living sacrifices to the Lord our Father in Heaven.  May we, as a body of believers, give Christ our bodies.  Not just our limbs or our eyes or our ears or nose or fingers.  May we give Him our bodies, church, to together create the ultimate body that is the Body of Christ.  May we display the fullness of His glory together. Amen.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 10:31

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalm 16:11

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Romans 12:1

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Epehsians 3:17-19

LMB

Glory pt. 1

I have learned so much this semester.  And lucky for me, I am now home for about a month with little to no standing obligations but to relax and enjoy the stillness of life.  So, that means I will have much more time to try to sort out all that God has done for me this semester.  This is an impossible feat, but the beauty of life is that we get to live trying.  That's why it's life and not eternity.  That is life, to constantly search for the beauty and the glory of God.  And in eternity we will see it in all its fullness.  That is eternity.

And that is one thing God has been teaching me this semester-- His beauty and his glory and all that He is.  Oh my, I cannot bear to look at the world, at earthly things and fleeting things and just things.  They become vain to me and right before my eyes everything turns to nothing compared to this new glory that has been revealed to me.  I see it everywhere.  And I want to forever live in the search for more of this glory.

The world is such a juxtaposed place.  If you know me, you know that juxtaposition is one of my favorite literary terms ever and I cannot believe I just wrote this sentence.  But it is true.  Juxtaposition means the act of placing close together or side by side, especially for contrast.  Think about it.  Think about the stark contrast.

This is about to blow your mind.

God, the ultimate artist, carves this earth with His hand, this beautiful earth with clouds stretched across the sky and canyons that swallow even the largest person whole and trees that are skillfully placed on the perfect hill so that the dynamics of vertical to horizontal effectively display the beauty of its Creator even in just one passing glance.  He spoke it.  He spoke grass so green that it compels us to run over it, to grab it, smell it, pull it, lie in it and look at the skies. Skies that burst into colors that we could never dream of recreating, no matter how many paints we squirt and mix together, the kind of colors that make your heart melt on the drive home from a long day at work.  Mountains that lay plastered against the sky only to enhance the effects of their boldness and solidity.  Their heights scream at us.  The ocean, with waters that engulf us, depth that deepens our very souls and even our heaviest burdens in those moments seem to look like the smallest little issue compared to the vastness of it all.  We get lost in it and its stillness with simultaneous perseverance represented through the aggressiveness of the waves and that is what we see.  These creations were made to bring about these reactions in us.  They were not just made to look at.  All this took some thought.  This world contains intricate detail that is strategically developed to reveal to us the Creator's glory in the best and clearest possible way.  And we miss it every day.

And then we see us.  These broken and fragile beings, so small that even words are too long to describe our state.  We know nothing and yet we think we know everything and even that makes us smaller and smaller.  It all adds up onto us.  We consistently reject and deny our Savior time after time and we blatantly disobey the very one who made us and saved us.  We look at this Artist's creations and spit at them, toss them aside.  We long for other things, we throw ourselves at people, items that we were not created for.  We have no strength in us and no fight in us and no power in us and the only way we are even living and breathing is because of someone else, some other power.  We have done nothing on our own and yet we try to do everything on our own.  We are wicked.  We are vile.  We are stained.  We are hypocrites, skeptics, cynics.  We are sinners.  We are at the mercy of God above.  And what a mercy it is.

So God placed us, these barbaric creatures described above, on this wonderfully made earth.  It makes us seem even smaller and even more like just dust and ashes when we zoom out and see these little black dots on this absolutely breathtaking canvas.  How did we get here?  Dirty and small and broken people.  Spotless and massive and beautiful earth.  He placed us here to greater display His glory.  How juxtaposed we are.

Praise be to the Lord Almighty!

But then there is this other viewpoint.  This paradoxical explanation that also persists to display the glory of God.  Because God is really good at making things that seem to make no sense make sense.

Here we are.  Redeemed and made complete and alive in Christ.  Our sins washed away and he grabs our hands at the well and gently helps us up and tells us that He knows all the things that we have done but we are made new.  He makes us in His image.  He cleanses us of every impurity, even the ones hidden deep within ourselves, the ones that our closest friends and relatives either don't know about us, or see and despise in us.  And He sees those things in us and loves us anyway.  He wrecks the walls of pride and guilt and shame and all the ugly, ugly things about us and rebuilds us in splendor and glory and purity.  He makes us, the vilest of all the creatures, into beautiful things.  He uses us, totally undeserving, to display His mercy and His love.  He washes away our sin with the blood of Jesus Christ.  He constantly resurrects us and shakes off our dust and makes us beautiful.  He makes us beautiful.  He pushes our brokenness aside and makes us whole again.  And He does this day after day after day.

And he sends us out.  Into this world.  This world full of sin and materialism and idolatry and greed.  This world full of war and suffering and pain and so much distortion that even the prettiest things of this world are hidden deceits of the devil himself.  No one is safe.  Mass chaos and destruction fill the earth.  Hate is more real than love and even the true love that does exists stands firm under conditions and reciprocation and selfishness.  Fear overshadows us and the ghosts of timidity haunt us and now on this earth we are told to live and love through tolerance and acceptance which are really synonymous for passivity and idleness.  Everything is messed up.  Everything is masked or skewed or taken out of context.  People resent people.  People resent God.  People resent people resenting God, so they keep Him to themselves.  The Spirit is stifled, smothered and even worship is questioned for its haughtiness or non-traditionalism.  Genuineness and sincerity are ambiguous.  Brothers and sisters become our cynics and skeptics.  Everything is wrong.  We can't escape it.

New people.  Bright with His light, shining in the splendor of His majestic presence in our very souls.  This earth.  Loud with its vanity, taunting us with the trickery of deceit ingrained in its very core.  There must be a reason we were here.  He placed us here to display His glory.  How juxtaposed we are.

We are aliens here.  Just look at the contrast.

In both of these views, this thing I call the "Double Juxtaposition" or "The Juxtaposition Paradox" or "The Juxtaparadox" (actually, I just made all of those terms up)...anyway.  In each of these views, we are not perfect.  We are dirty sinners, but we are made beautiful in Christ.  We were created to be that way.  We are created to do those things, to submit ourselves to the Creator, and in each different perspective, that is how His glory will be maximized.

No matter which way you look at it, His glory is to be revealed through us.  That is why we live.  Think about that.

But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.... Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.  I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made." Isaiah 43:1-3, 5-7

LMB

Oh, longing

I am a little behind.  Actually, I am a lot behind.  But then again, what is behind anyway?  What time restraints do I have?  As long as time is not wasted, time is of little importance.

It has been a while since I have written on here.  Longer than I would like, but at the same time, this just means that God has been using my time for other things.  Computers get opened less and texts get answered hours later if at all.  My journal, though, has been working overtime and the old school pen and paper have become more and more a favorite part of my day.  Simplicity is winning, or at least fighting.  God is winning, but He always wins.

There are so many things that have been blowing my mind lately.  As much as I can try, this post will abstain from so many uses of "overwhelming" and "words can't describe," but I cannot promise you that it is that easy.  If you know Christ and His beauty and overwhelming (oops) majesty, then you know that it is not easy.  But, who likes easy things, anyway?

This feeling has been etched into my heart this semester.  I have literally been thinking about it for months which may be the longest time I have gone without writing it all down in one place.  Different parts of it are scattered throughout my journal pages and throughout the files of my mind and finally I will try to make sense of it all or at least sort it out because it is too good to not share.  This one is a bit...abstract. But that just makes God cooler.

I am in Psychology of Emotion right now and we have talked about how there are all these different emotion words but there are also some emotions that don't have words in the English language.  Makes sense, right?  How many times have you had this feeling and just not known what to call it or how to classify it?  Maybe that is just me, but I feel like it happens a lot.

There is this grief.  Grief may not be the right word, but that is the closest I can get.  Now this grief is simultaneous with intense joy, but do not lose me here.  There is this feeling that I get from the deep sadness that comes with having to encounter everything of this world moment by moment that pours into my life these things that make me so happy and yet leave me so empty.  This grief that gets me as I lie down to go to sleep and think over my day and all the people I am so blessed to know and fellowship with and all the good books I can read and good coffee I can drink and the A's I can make on tests.  I think about the conversations I can have or the meals that I can share and the girls I get to pour into and hug and live life with and there are all these smiles going around and people you pass by everyday on the way to class that make your face light up in that three second time span you see them.  And I think about how there is this new CD out that I can listen to whenever I please and the cool shoes I can buy and the letters from friends that make me smirk when I read them at anytime I want and the phone calls with my family that always leave me laughing.  And now the air is so nice and the leaves have peaked and they flutter and fall around me as I walk across campus and yes, I think of all these things.  I love all of these things.

Yet, there is grief in these things.

I go to bed with a longing almost every night.  I think about these things and about how happy they make me and yet I am left with this uneasy, saddening feeling that they are not why I was created.  They are not why I live on this earth.

My God, how beautiful is He.  How someone can give me all these things and others and still leave me searching for more and more of Him.  Restlessly longing for more of Him, knowing that the things of this world are pleasant yet fleeting, but that God is sweet and that the only thing this sweetness leaves is me coming back for more, running back for more.  I have this feeling that I don't belong here with these things because I don't.  I don't belong with things.  I belong with my Maker.

So this grief may be confusing to explain because it comes with this unending joy that comes from being able to seek for more and more of that which I have tasted and seen is good.  My old friend C.S. Lewis says this:

It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from.
 
When I was thinking of this feeling, a memory from playing softball in high school came to my head.  It was my senior year, first game, first at bat.  We were away and I was lead-off batter so I had the very first swings of the season opener.  I was never a power hitter and everyone knew it, so while the rest of my team was slugging home runs left and right, I was always getting seeing-eye singles and the occasional double.  So I get up to bat and swing.  I hit the ball to right field and this is the first at bat of my senior year so I am excited to even make contact.  I look up slightly on my way to first, yet it wasn't really about what I saw, but what I heard.  A clanking sound.  But I just kept running and running all the way to third which never really happens because I am not too quick, but the adrenaline was helping me and the wind probably was too.  I slid into third safely and I stood up, brushed myself off, and realized--I just hit the top of the fence.  Then within the span of about five seconds, my mind went into full-blown warfare over whether I should be happy or upset.  Happy, that yes, I just got a triple on my first at-bat of my senior year, or upset that I was probably an inch away from hitting a homerun, something I had never done before and had convinced myself (and rightly so) that I could never do.

That closeness.  Inches away from the ultimatum, the goal you long for and dream of and work toward.  The joy that comes from getting so close and yet always being left with more.  And you're left with this grief of knowing that you are so close and this joyful feeling that the closeness itself brings, but you realize there is something more, something greater and unexplored.  You hit the top of the fence.  Should you be happy?  Should you want more?  Both.

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. -Hebrews 11:16


LMB

That one place

Appropriately, I have managed to find some extra time on this extra, laborious day off to write.  It has been a while, and this is much needed.  My fingers are itching and my heart is burning.

I have noticed that this year, my sophomore year, is so completely different in lots of ways, but the one most prominent is the fact that it has forced me to realize how much God changed me as a freshman in college last year.  It's not a bad kind of force.  It's the kind of force that makes you realize you want to do it willingly anyway, you just aren't sure as to how to get started.  It's kind of like being pushed out of an airplane while skydiving. You know you want to jump, but you aren't completely sure until you are pushed.  Then you realize while free-falling that you definitely wanted to be in that exact state.  It took the push to get you there.

Maybe I am the only one who analyzes thoughts, but I find myself having to when I think about anything at all spiritual.  Thoughts of God are so big.  And everything that stems from those thoughts about God, like His plans, His character, His love, His blessings, His comfort, His...everything, is equally large and in the same way bigger than my brain will ever be.  Even writing about how big these thoughts about God are is blowing my mind.

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. -Isaiah 55:9

So, I am to that place.  Here I am.  Left pondering the greatest mystery of all mysteries.  Wondering.  How One thing could so captivate me and how I even got to this point in the first place.  When did this awestruck wonder originate?  How did I change so much?

With that gentle force I am realizing how completely transformed I have become by God.  And with that realization I am discovering how completely undeserving and helpless I really am.  And with that realization I am finding that I am completely and literally throwing myself at the feet of this Power that is strong enough to clean even the dirtiest of souls.  And with that realization I am acknowledging the comfort and rest I feel from kneeling on the floor of the source of life itself--the kind of kneeling position you can only get to by crawling on the filth of the ground, one hand in front of the other, pulling yourself to the position of reverence, no matter the cost or expenditure.  And then you kneel.  You kneel and rest.

And it's with that realization that I feel completely renewed and refreshed by His energy and ready to take on the world with God and climb those mountains I always seem to talk about and admire but never really know.  I don't know each and every crevice, rock bed, hill.  I don't even know the height of the peak.  And I don't really know how I got there.

Then I'm left realizing how completely transformed by God I am.  And the whole process continues again except with different types of mountains and plateaus and woods and paths.  It's resurrection all over again.  It's Easter every day.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. -Colossians 3:1

It's like this continual state of awe that never wears off.  Think about this.  We can set our hearts on the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  He is so high up, but we can still set our hearts on Him!  How does that work?  Do we have to throw them up and blindly hope they set themselves perfectly?  God, the Creator of the Universe is so high above the earth and yet He raises us up and reaches down to us with outstretched arms, allowing for us the opportunity and privilege to set our hearts on Him.  He bridged the gap.  He bridges the gap each second.  He bridges the gap every single time we have a thought.

I am at that one place.  That indescribable place.  The mystery revealed yet still a mystery.  That one place, where our bodies are light and his glory is heavy, heavy on our hearts, controlling our every thought and action.  The shining glory that hurts our eyes even when we're staring at the rain and not the sun.  His glory.  His all-surpassing glory.  We cannot box it in.  We cannot fit it in our minds.  It is too great.

And now I am at that place.  That place where nothing else matters.  That place that cannot be explained.  That place where unending joy is somehow simultaneous with a broken heart for all the lost who may never know this place.

I don't know how to explain this place.  I don't even know how I got here.

LMB

To seek and find

Life has been crazy, what with being back at school and all.  I managed to sit back the other day just to slow life down and ponder a bit and it dawned on me that my life changed dramatically within a few hours time.  One week I am at home, surrounded by one group of people--learning from them, sharing with them, loving and being loved by them... and the next I am in a completely different place with completely different people.  New opportunities.  New hearts.  New surroundings.  Same God.

It strikes me as a bit bittersweet knowing that I have had to leave behind the youth I helped with this summer, yet that is only the selfish part of me that just wants to hug them and love them forever.  It hit me like one of those solid punches from a brother (and trust me, I've had plenty of them) that there are completely new faces I will see here--all of those which God has placed directly in my line of vision.  They are beautiful faces, indeed.

I would dare to say that I am excited to take this challenge, take everything I have learned from this summer and apply it here, in this new environment.  I would also dare to say that this is not going to be easy.  The war has kicked into full force, already.

It is absolutely mind-blowing to think that everything I have been praying toward--a new school year, new people in which to invest, new problems, new praises, new learning experiences, newness galore-- it is all here.  It is all placed right before my eyes and now I am forced to no longer "just" pray.  Now I have to add in the activeness, the receptivity of the Holy Spirit--leading me, guiding me step by step, the intentionality, the humility, the everything that seems so complex but that all stems from the simplicity that is the gospel.

I know, this is really jumbled.

It is here, it is now.  I have been sent as a disciple of Christ to make disciples and that involves that difficult yet important balance of letting them truly see Jesus for themselves, just slightly nudging them along the way, the kind of nudge that implies force and desire and passion for them to reach toward and grasp something, while still retaining that gentleness and love and brokenness that says, "I cannot do this for you.  Because I love you, I cannot do this for you."

I have never been good with transitions and this year is a little different because while I am still struggling, I am  simultaneously recognizing my desire to still have Him as my center and focus for each and every second of each and every day and when I fail to keep my eyes on Him, rather than give up like in the past, I can hear His voice whispering, "Keep seeking me."

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. -Psalm 63:1

God is so clearly revealing to me so far this school year that I am undeniably desperate for Him.  I want Him and when I do not want Him I want to want Him.  I am absolutely nothing without Him; I have nothing even when I think I have everything. When my thoughts are not completely consumed by Him, when I wake in the morning and the first thing I think about is not Him, I want Him.  I want more of Him and it's in this beautiful and supernatural and ancient moment, my wants and needs collide.  That is what the love of Christ does.

The irony of all this is that on Friday night, I was privileged to take part in a very intense worship experience with a group called Hillsong United.  I got to see the youth group I helped with this summer, and I was overcome and-- right now just writing about it makes my knees almost beg me to collapse all my weight upon them--overwhelmed at some of the things they literally ran up to me and told me that God was doing in their lives and when I say ran I mean the literal and physical act of running.  The kind of running that is compelled by excitement, the kind of excitement that is compelled by the Holy Spirit. One of the youth didn't even give me a "Hey, how are you?"  It was more like a "Oh my gosh Lou I have to much to tell you!"  All their eyes shined and glistened the presence and pure joy of God and at the risk of sounding very creepy, I loved staring at them as they spoke.

Getting back to the irony part, this whole week I have been struggling to just "find" God and really fix my eyes upon Him instead of upon every action that is for Him.  That verse above, Psalm 63:1, has been my main meditation this week and it's one of those things you think about and pray for and earnestly desire for God to take control of, yet it still has that kind of dry yearning feeling that makes you plead, that good kind of confusion that makes you wonder where God is and why you are looking for Him in the first place.  It's that kind of uncomfortableness that calls for a Comforter.  That kind of brokenness that calls for desperate dependency on the one true God.

Really, getting back to the irony part, at this concert, the worship was so powerful and the focus was so God centered (as all worship should be) that it was almost impossible to think about anything else but the Creator of thoughts themselves.  I caught myself having to pray at the beginning for focus and while doing so I realized that I was desperate for Him, I was seeking Him.  My body longed for Him and my soul was thirsty for Him like a dry and weary land where there is no water and by the end of the worship service, though His living water was rushing through me, I realized that my throat was even drier than before I had come in.

I had basically been screaming.  There is this one song called "With Everything" and every time I sing it I end up doing the whole "complete body worship experience" (which kind of sounds like a work-out plan).  You know, the whole face turning red, standing on your tip-toes as if to get your voice a little louder, using every ounce of energy within you just to worship and proclaim the name of the One who provides you with that very energy in the first place.  

I have a rather sensitive voice.  My throat was shot.  And the funny thing is, my praise didn't even scratch (no pun intended) the surface of how worthy He really is.

Look how cool (that's the only word I could fit here) this scripture ties in:

I seek Him, long for Him, thirst for Him--Psalm 63:1.

..............................................................

My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. -Psalm 63:5

I seek Him and find Him, so therefore I praise Him--Psalm 63:5.

With everything, with everything,

We will shout for your glory.

With everything, with everything,

We will shout forth your praise.

LMB

Summing Up Summer

I am back at school and all moved in and I would venture to say that I am excited and ready to see what God has in store for me this year.  I usually like to close things off when they are over, which really makes little to no sense.  By that, I mean that since summer is over I would usually write a whole lot about how wonderful it was and how it is over and things of the like and kind of close it up and move on.  But, I learned so much this summer, that it would be foolish of me to put all that God has taught me in a box and hide it under my bed.  Plus, I don't have room in my dorm for that.

So, this post is going to sum up the most prevalent things that God has taught me this summer, without shoving this season of my life into a journal and throwing it on a shelf and forgetting about it.


When seasons move from one to the next, trees don't all of a sudden go away, they just change the way they look...


God has changed the way I look.  Well, my heart, really.  I am going to share with you some major things that God has done to me and taught me this summer and I am going to do it in list form to aid with organization and clarity.  And because maybe I don't want you to fall asleep while reading this.  They are not listed in order of importance or bigness or anything.  God doesn't do anything not big.

1.  Reject Passivity and Be Active
         This summer, God really opened up my eyes to see that I was living a passive life.  I was letting things, opportunities, even potential relationships with people pass me by with the hopes that they would come to me.  I was not pursuing others like heaven and hell was real and I was content with the lazy attitude that someone else would come along.  Now I know that the life of a Christ-follower is not a passive life.  We must be active.

2.  Wake Up and Live
          I talked about this the entire last post, but it really is something that God has drilled into me this summer.  He woke me up and made me realize that as long and He is alive, I am to be alive in and through Him.  Sometimes I would live like our God was dead, but oh, He is surely alive.  Revival is coming, I can feel it.

3.  Be Intentional
         This summer was the first time I have ever been blatantly intentional in my relationships with others.  I know that sounds bad, but I am not ashamed to admit it because then I can tell you how awesome my Redeemer is for changing my heart in that aspect.  I have learned that breakfast dates, genuine concern, and even just an open ear to others can open up so many doors.  We can be intentional with small things like our smiles.  Sometimes I think God does that to me.

4.  The War Is Constant Yet Conquerable
          I experienced so much spiritual warfare this summer, more than ever before, but I can confidently say that I learned to let God drag me to victory if He had to.  Having Him hold me and be my Commander and Comforter at the same time formed a bond between us that I could never ask against.  If I get closer to my Heavenly Father because of the war, then I am more than willing to endure the war.  It's kind of like jumping through hoops of fire...

5.  Focus on Him at All Times
          This summer I was so focused on doing everything that I was supposed to be doing for God and the kingdom that sometimes I lost focus of Him in His actual essence.  He taught me how detrimental it is to get caught up in focusing on doing or roles in religious organizations or even the intentional relationships themselves instead of being focused on the Father Himself.  We lose so much intimacy when we do not spend time with the Creator of it.

6.  Receptivity of the Holy Spirit at the Present Time
          I am at the age right now where the whole "What am I going to do with my life?" thing is so obnoxiously present that I realized I would sometimes dwell on that question before I would consider "What does the Holy Spirit want me to do right now?"  Francis Chan even says in Forgotten God that how we let the Holy Spirit work in us at the current time usually affects where the rest of our lives are headed anyway.

7.  God's Plans are So Intricate and Infinite
        This one is funny today because this morning in my quiet time, God actually revealed to me how something that happened two months ago is being used right now.  And without going into an extensive explanation, this whole summer was pretty much bootcamp preparation for this school year--and that is so mercifully obvious. And I love it and love Him for being so perfect.

8.  Embrace Vulnerability and Brokeness
        God has shown me time and time again that it is okay to be vulnerable with Him.  Hiding things from Him will never help.  With spilling out the very depths of our hearts to Him comes the massive realization of how broken we really are.  These cracks in our souls can only be filled with the bonding power of Christ.  His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

9.  Go On Adventures With God
        This life poses so many opportunities, so many open areas, so many lost people.  There are cliffs to dive off and glowing bays in which to jump.  There are unexpected friends to be made and surprising places to be explored.  There are mountains to be hiked and battlegrounds to be triumphed.  And there is a God with whom to do it all.

This is what God has taught me this summer.  Not all of it; I am sure that this list will be randomly added to as He jogs my memory and makes me smile in the most random places with His unexpected revelations.  As I start my sophomore year at college, these goals are coming with me.  Without dwelling on all that happened this summer and all the people I miss and how much I wish there was a rewind button so that I could experience it all over again, I am going to carry these lessons with me.  I am going to move on to where I have been called and embrace these gracious gifts and use them the way that God wants me to use them.  I may be moving seasons, but my God has not moved yet.

LMB

Diving Deep

The summer is almost over.  Today starts my last official week in Shelby.  How crazy.  Words cannot describe all that God has done this summer, but as usual, I am going to try anyway.

This post is going to attempt to put down into words what I talked about last night.  If you were there, you know what I am talking about (if you paid attention), but if you were not, you are now in an awkward situation where you are wondering what I am referring to and why you were not at the best youth service ever.

I have had the privilege to spend my summer with a beautiful group of young people.  We've hiked mountains, ate random lunches together, hammocked more times than I can even keep up with, went cliff-jumping, and I would even say that some of my favorite moments with them have been those little God-given conversations that pop up at the most unexpected times in the most unexpected places, like Dairy Queen or in a parking lot.  Moments like that make my heart smile.

Last night was the service where the youth share about all of their experiences and what they have learned this summer and how they have grown and all of that great, great stuff that makes me melt when I even think about it.  The theme for the summer was "Diving Deep," and I don't know about them, but this summer I may have dove deeper with God than I ever have before.  And I am not even a good swimmer.

It was a night full of youth-led worship, testimonies that included life-changing circumstances and many calls to ministry and missions, slideshows that make you want to cry and laugh at the same time, and so much Holy Spirit in the air that you feel like your heart is going to explode... and you are okay with it.  My twin brother and I got the privilege to speak together at the end, and a week ago when I started to really pray about what I was going to share and how God has really worked in my life this summer, God made it almost scarily clear as to what He wanted me to say.

Now I am no public speaker, so God got pounded with my prayers for comfort and lack of nervousness and humility and emptiness and that light, almost out of body, feeling where words you could never come up with start flowing from your mouth and you realize it has to be the Holy Spirit because there is no way you could ever be that eloquent.  Especially us hurr in tha south.

When I first got home for summer, I had a really sour attitude (there is even blog proof of it). I was constantly crying out to God as to why I was stuck in Shelby, not that I do not love Shelby, but what exactly was here for me?  I murmured and sulked and grieved over the fact that I had yet to find any reason for my summer at home.  I knew, though, that I was supposed to be here for some reason, because I had prayed a lot about it and God's voice was very clear to me that Shelby was where He wanted me.  So, there I was and here I have been.

On May 19, I was studying my bible and you know when scripture just jumps out at you.  This one leaped at me and pounced on top of me and I might have been trying to study the scriptures, but this scripture was studying me.

"Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." -Ephesians 5:14

God was really on me about this. Wake up, Lou!  Look around; look at what I have provided for you here!  Rise from the dead!  Live like I am alive, because I am.  And I want to shine on you.  It was like He was dramatically pouring cold water over me to wake me up and it woke me up alright.  And God's sense of humor is so hilarious, because I have now converted to a morning person.  Literally, out of no where I have started waking up much, much earlier than usual and loving it--cherishing that extra intimate time with Him that is so new and fresh to me and appreciating the beauty and quietness and stillness of the morning.  Not to mention, many coffee and breakfast dates with the youth.  God, You are so funny.

The phrase God has been drilling in my head this summer is: Refuse to be passive.  Refuse to sit idly by and wait and watch everything that you could be doing for the kingdom pass by because you are sitting and waiting for someone else or something else and sulking over where you could be or what you could be doing and wake up and look around you!  Wake up!  This is what has been provided for you, Lou.  These youth are why you are here!  Stop sitting on the sidelines.  Refuse to be passive!  Rise from the dead and I promise you I will shine on you.

And He did.

Being "intentional" is something I would hear a lot about and pray a lot about but never really have the boldness or spiritual energy to do.  Now that God has shaken me from my slumber, He has pushed me, and I mean really pushed me to be intentional with my relationships.  It's mind-blowing to think about how much He has escalated this.  It started out with a few simple conversations with the youth that turned into random lunch dates that turned into really intense conversations that turned into jumping off of cliffs with people I had just met.  You can use that last one metaphorically or literally.

One of the best things about being spiritually awake is that my eyes have become wider and I am seeing things that I have never seen before.  These youth have taught me so much about passion and about authenticity and simplicity and love.  They have brought the congregation to tears on Sunday mornings when they stand up during songs and raise their hands and worship.  One Sunday, the youth stood up during a song and the entire congregation started standing up after them.  Talk about symbolic.  They have taught me so much about my age:  I will only be a college student once, so I must to embrace it!  I will only be old enough for them to look up to but young enough for them to feel comfortable confiding in for a certain period of time, so I must refuse to let that go to waste.

This summer was different because I have just finished my first year in college and I have grown so much in ways that I could never have even fathomed.  I look back at all of those special people who have poured into me and who keep pouring into me and this summer God really showed me that it is my turn.  I have tried to pour out my heart to those youth and share with them the love of Christ that has been so lavished on me and the best part about all of this is having youth come up to me saying, "Lou, me and this [younger] person got really close at camp and..." and "Yeah, this person doesn't really have anyone her age in the youth group so I really tried to pour into her and love her at camp, which is something I have never really done before."  TRUE STATEMENTS, my friends.  Oh, I could write so much more about it!  Christ pouring into all of us, then one person pours into someone, who pours into someone else, who pours into someone me, who pours into someone else, WHO POURS INTO SOMEONE ELSE and it could go on and on forever and I pray with all my heart that it does.

This makes me excited if you can't tell.

God has really redeemed me this summer and I have caught myself using that word a lot here lately but that is because it is so true.  He has carried me, drug me across the floor even sometimes, but He has never let go of me.  My heart has been turned upside down and my eyes have not only been opened, they have been refocused.  What was I looking for?  A way out?  Things to do to help me feel like I was "doing" something?  What was I really seeking?

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. -Matthew 6:33

I feel like I could substitute "all these things" with "Elizabeth Baptist youth" or "relationships I cannot even fathom" or "conversations I would have never dreamed of having."

Or, "new brothers and sisters."

Refuse to dive in the shallow end.

Refuse to dive alone.

Refuse to refuse the dive.

LMB

A bowl of fruit

Friends.  I have been so slack on writing this thing after I promised more Puerto Rico updates.  In my defense, I have been working more than usual, plus God is still doing so much that it keeps my mind fluttering.  However, He has done an excellent job of hearing my prayers to slow life as well as my mind down a bit.  I know that I owe you a post about the power of a story and worshiping as a universal body, but I feel like the details to those two topics will continue to grow and become polished, because they are still popping up everywhere... So, why rush it?!

To be honest, I really have no idea where this post is headed, if it will have a "theme," or even a main topic.  I just know that it is time to write again and I pray that my own words will be few.  May He speak through me and guide my fingers.

I have been in an intense mood lately.

I figure that I should get some of this seriousness out in a post before I move on to the sappy stuff about going back to school and leaving behind beautiful brothers and sisters who I have been privileged to see grow all summer and how much I will miss them and how much they have taught me and how much I love them and all those happy tears.

When I sit here and meditate and rack my brain over what the Holy Spirit really is making prevalent in my life and heart right now it is kind of hard because He is showing me a novel filled with whole pages and entire chapters and I can only view one word at a time.  It's like I'm having to read my thoughts.  And He is a pretty good writer.

Since Puerto Rico, I have been experiencing some spiritual warfare, which is normal and tough and I would even venture to say appreciated.  It has been quite the battle, but I have gotten to experience some deep intimacy with my Commander through it.  Constantly crying out to God for help is one of the most two-sided feelings ever... because as hard as it is to keep my thoughts focused on Christ--to keep my hope in Him, going against the flesh while dodging bullets left and right--it is so immediately worth it because I get to feel God's compassion and strength and love and why would I ever trade earthly comfort for heavenly intimacy?

I have a question, and answers really would be nice--however you want to reach me.  I am curious.  This questions addresses something that I have just now began experiencing for probably the past 4 or 5 months, and at first I wasn't sure if it was just my mind playing tricks on me or if it was just another example of God's unexpected grace through His presence.

...............................

Am I the only one who feels some type of physical reaction from the effect of God working?  Sometimes I can feel my heart being shaped. Or, even, I can feel my heart being twisted. Which, may be really cool considering one of the Hebrew words for "hope" is qawah, meaning "to bind together by twisting."  Maybe that is just His way of twisting our hearts around His to create in us an intimate and unbreakable hope.  Maybe that is what hope feels like.  I hope so.

^Unexpected pun in a serious post.

Seriously, I can legitimately feel my heart being pressed and moved.  Not only an emotional-type feel, a physical-type feel, ya feel?  The only answer I have for it is that God must be in the process of shaping me.  Whether it be preparing me for something to come, ridding me of sinful ways, or planting new fruits in me, I can feel it.  Afterwards, sometimes minutes, sometimes weeks, sometimes months, I know there is something different about me. Something about me that is no longer me.

I like visual stuff.  I like visualizing.  So humor me here, and try this.

Picture your heart.  Not someone else's, yours.  I know, I know, you probably have no idea what your heart actually looks like.  That is why this is a creative exercise.  Or it is just my peculiarity showing.  Anyway, picture your heart and picture a set of hands.  God's hands, of course.  Now apply this:

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel.  But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.  Jeremiah 18:1-4

Isn't that a lovely image?  Your heart, plopped down on a wheel, completely exposed, completely pliable, completely marred.  In need of shaping.  In need of newness.

Oh, we could not trust a better pair of hands.

Picture this.  The molding, the shaping.  Now add feeling to it, like your heart is still attached to your nerves and vessels and all that biological stuff and you can feel it inside of you changing and you wonder what it is going to look like when it is finally finished but you can never know because it will only be finished when His hands stop moving.  And they never stop.

The Father, sitting at the wheel, molding our hearts, pressing them in different directions, shaving off the undesirable parts and carefully carving out the most intricate and beautiful designs.  With a keen eye and perfect precision...

And then, it is "best to Him."

Not "best to us."  Best to Him.

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. -John 15:2

May we put our hearts on the wheel and let Him do the spinning.

LMB

Days off when God is not off

Warning: this is the longest post in the history of long posts.  BUT please read it!  I promise it is worth it.  If you have to break it up into two sittings or three or seventeen--READ IT!  God did some really cool things that you do not want to miss reading about!

As promised, I am going to attempt to try to explain everything God taught me through the adventures of our free day, Saturday, in Puerto Rico.  Again, this is difficult because these are things that are hard to put into words because they are just that good.  Or maybe I am just making an excuse in case it makes no sense.  Either way.

If you read the previous post, it will help you understand my state of being for this day.  After I found THE rock, we headed off to a Puerto Rican rain forest about an hour or so away.  All I knew was that we were going to a waterfall area where we could jump off of large rocks into the water.  So, I was excited.

We hiked a little ways down a slippery hill and once we got there, oh man.  This is where words do not do any justice whatsoever.  It was absolutely breathtaking and beautiful and other words that do not come close to describing the awesome beauty of our God.

Another cool thing to note is that I had that little heart-shaped rock with me, small enough to hold in my hand, while I was standing on rocks that can only fit in God's hand.

I think just the fact that I was in a Puerto Rican rain forest was enough to push me over the edge.  No pun intended.  I mean, we were going cliff jumping.

The coolest thing ever was jumping off of the rocks into the water.  The rock was about 40 feet high, so it was high enough to be invigorating, but low enough to not freak people out too bad when they get to the top. Call me cliche, but I couldn't help recognizing some symbolism.  I mean, climbing a rock (with God), reaching the top (with God), nearing the edge (with God), taking the jump (with God), free-falling (with God), hitting the water (with God), making a splash (with God), submerging into water (with God), emerging from water (with God), returning to shore (with God), smiling (with God).  Repeat.  Forever.

Pray for adventures with God.

Why yes, that is me in mid-air. (With God)

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" -Romans 10:15

The feet in the above picture belong to 3 of my best and oldest friends.. and one pair is mine. Getting to go on this trip with them was one of the biggest blessings I could have ever asked for. They are a true portrayal of what it means to have brothers and sisters in Christ and they do nothing but build me up and teach me and encourage me and love me. They are real representatives of Christ and just to know them is a privilege and a gift. And to worship with them and see them learn and grow and interact with believers and non-believers alike...phenomenal. They are kingdom people and I am honored to call them my friends. Everyone needs friends like these people.

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.  -1 Thessalonians 5:11
 
It was a pure joy to see the youth jump off of that rock into the water.  Especially watching them with that symbolic connection that God had planted in my head lingering in my thoughts--that was really powerful.  Each of those youth are going to make a huge splash every time they take a jump with God.  They are special.

After the rainforest, we went to get some lunch.  Three other friends and I decided that we did not want the usual fast food.  I mean, come on, it was Puerto Rico!  Everyone else dispersed and we decided to go to K-mart to get some chips and salsa (classic), then look for random food items on the street.  Sound a bit questionable? It was.

After we retreived the chips and salsa, we walked outside of K-mart and noticed that there was a lady selling barbeque-chicken-ish kabobs for like 2 bucks.  Needless to say, we were sold.

And so, the four of us sat on a small patch of grass in the K-mart parking lot eating kabobs from the street with chips and salsa.  We might have gotten strange looks from people who passed by, but it was worth it.  And it tasted good.  I remember sitting there and saying to my fellow parking lot sitters, "I am so glad that I have people in my life who will do this kind of thing with me and love it."

If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God... -2 Corinthians 5:13

We then retreated back to camp to relax for the afternoon.  Me and one of my friends walked down the beach and put our hammocks up in a secret spot.  Right on the beach.  Talk about living the good life.

After I read and relaxed a bit, God reminded me that I had to finish a conversation with one of the girls in the youth group that I had started the night before.  Without going into heavy detail, this conversation was one of the best that the Holy Spirit has ever orchestrated in my entire life...ever.  Just thinking about it makes me want to cry.  We ended up talking until it was time to eat.  That night we were going to a bay that glows.  I am serious.  We were told that we could swim in it if we wanted to, but at this point I was so exhausted that I was not concerned with such physical activity.  This is very important to note.

We drove to the bay which was about an hour and a half away and had some...interesting conversations on the way which consisted of the plan to make a jello pool and weird pet peeves and the like.  I then knew I loved those people.

When we got there we had about an hour to look around a market-type area to shop and explore before our boat ride.  We danced with small Puerto Rican children, bought things that have already broken, and tried not to look like tourists.

We finally got on the boat to explore La Parguera, the famous phosphorescent bay.  In short, the bay has tiny microorganisms in it that glow in the dark and it is so cool.  Unfortunately, the flash from the camera would disturb the organisms, so you will just have to trust me.  I really like this part because there is even more symbolic correlation in this "ordinary" activity.  Well, it wasn't your usual lap around the pool, but it wasn't a structured "religious" type event.  So many times we think we have to be in church or on a trip or partaking in some type of routine to feel the Holy Spirit's presence--not true.  It was just proof that God is indeed in every second of every day.  No itinerary necessary.

We went out to the part of the bay where it was dark and quiet and the young lady with whom I had shared that wonderful conversation earlier had been pestering me the entire boat ride to jump in the bay.  Both of us had on regular clothes and both of us knew that we had an hour and a half ride back to camp, which we did not desire to spend in wet jeans.  Everyone knows that that is one of the most uncomfortable things ever.

When we got to the point where we could jump in, the guides told us to ready ourselves because we only had five minutes and my friend was pressuring me harder than ever and I was so set on not jumping in.  I was not budging.

Of course, my friend did not let up and my thoughts began to break because I am a sucker for spontaneity plus I did not want to let this girl down and maybe it is bad that I was giving into peer pressure, but it was a glowing bay in Puerto Rico!  I cracked.

So me, my pressuring friend, and another girl all jumped in with our clothes on.  I did indeed jump on my own motivation, but my friend apparently thought I was going to bail, so she pretty much drug me in.  When I emerged from the water I remember saying, "Did I really just do that?!"  I was so set on not jumping in until the very moment my feet left the boat.  We swam around in amazement at the glowing microorganisms on our bodies for all of about three minutes. And then it was over.

Worth it?  Definitely.

I see a spiritual connection in the fact that my younger friend challenged me.  Having that conversation with her earlier challenged me.  Why do I not be more intentional with people?  Why do I not take more jumps with people, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be?  Thanks so much, friend.  I bet you did not know that.

The ride back to camp with soaking wet clothes and blasting air conditioning and a sleeping van was quite humorous, yet quite freezing.  I couldn't help but be joyful in the fact that God's ways are so funny, and that even though it was our "day off," God was not off.

He is never off.

But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” -John 5:17

His love is solid

Upon finally gathering my thoughts and at least attempting to put the main points of Puerto Rico into words, I can finally move on with the more specific, in-depth lessons that the Father graciously engraved into my mind and heart.  I hope you all faithful readers have been sitting in the same position as when I last left you, constantly refreshing the page in hopes of a promised update.

Yeah, right........

Oh, this post might blow your mind.  Because what I am about to explain blew my mind.  But hey, that's how God works.  Just a warning.

I talked a little about the spiritual warfare that I experienced in Puerto Rico throughout the week and how, by Saturday, I could clearly see that God was triumphant and that He fought on my behalf to demolish any seeds of doubt that the devil tried to plant in my mind.  Why did God fight for me?  He loves me.

No, really.  He loves you, too.  And I have proof.  Well, I always have proof and so do you, but this is really humorous and funny and just down right awesome proof.  And it's proof of how cool God is.  Let me just explain.

Our camp was stationed right on the beach.  We could literally walk about 30 seconds down to the beach, which made for great hammocking and relaxation and even greater quiet times with God.

On Saturday, after a long week of work and war, I went out to spend some time writing in my journal and reading my bible and just praying and listening and other still and reverent things that were hard to do throughout the week (and are hard to do in the busyness of life, if you want to draw a correlation) before we headed off to the Puerto Rican rain forest.  I really needed this time, I mean, I really needed it.  My mind had been so chaotic and the week had been so busy yet wonderful, but it was so refreshing to sit out by the beach and just pour out my heart to God.  And so I did just that.

As I look back and read what I had written that morning, a lot of it is screaming things like, "I want more!" and "My heart yearns for You!" and "Do not stop!" and the like.  I remember feeling so overwhelmed at the strength that God had provided me that week and everything that He had done and the conversations He led me to have with people that I was dumbfounded at the fact that I could even sit in that place and look at the beautiful waves and have a one-on-one, intimate conversation with the Creator of all things and just to be given that--Wow, talk about undeserving.  He had given me enough already!

I was pounded with the realization of blessings in that one instant and it overwhelmed me.  Sometimes I feel like I use the word overwhelmed too much, but then I realize that "overwhelmed" usually means to the point beyond words so that explains that.

Wow, my stream of consciousness is in high gear today!  I am overwhelmed...

Getting to the point, I finished up my quiet time with a refreshed heart and eager emotions to go jump off of cliffs with God (literally), to go on adventures with Him, and to continue throughout the day what God had started in me that morning.  I decided I probably needed to wind down before I hit the public scene and started conversing with others because I was still a bit filled at that point and would have probably been a blubbering mess if I would have went straight to human interaction.  Well, that was unavoidable.

I started to take a stroll down the beach to attempt to gather myself and at least tone down the goofy grin on my face and, I KID YOU NOT, the first thing I saw was this rock.  Oh, but it was not just any rock.  This rock is shaped EXACTLY like a heart--no dispute.

Immediately, I picked that rock up and I honestly and sincerely and obliviously looked around--up, down, left, right--because I was certain that God had to be somewhere around there.  He had to be.  And He was.

Needless to say, I was a mess.

My emotions are not word-worthy.  I was overwhelmed.  I couldn't use words and I couldn't stop smiling and I couldn't stop thinking about how much God loved me.  And I still can't.

I showed that rock off that day--I showed off God's love!  Isn't that what we are supposed to do?  And how can we not, with all that He has given us?

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  -1 John 3:1

I know what you're thinking, I definitely look like a child in that picture.

I take that rock with me everywhere.  I mean, it is straight from the Lord.  There were a ton of rocks on that beach; it is no coincidence that I stumbled upon that one.  He gave it to me, he carved it out in that shape with His own two hands.  Why?  Because He loves me.  All the time, when I fail, when I mess up, when I don't love Him back, when I am disobedient, when I feel near to Him, when I heed His call, when I bear fruit, when I ignore Him, when I deserve it least.  His love is solid.

I didn't even get to the cliff diving part, or the K-mart part, or the glowing bay part.  Oh well.  God pretty much redirected this post.  But He has rights to do so.

1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; 

let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 

2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving

  and extol him with music and song. 

3 For the LORD is the great God,  

 the great King above all gods. 

4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,  

 and the mountain peaks belong to him. 

5 The sea is his, for he made it,  

 and his hands formed the dry land. 

6 Come, let us bow down in worship,  

 let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; 

7 for he is our God  and we are the people 

of his pasture, the flock under his care.

-Psalm 95:1-7

Post-Puerto Rico

Well, I have been trying to write about my trip to Puerto Rico for about a week.  But, I am telling you, this is tough stuff.  There is so much that I want to say, and my thoughts are still rather mushy and haven't completely slowed down yet.  I know, it has been a week and a half.  Either I have issues or it is the Holy Spirit. Or a combination of both...

I have been writing in my journal all sorts of words from the Lord and letters to the Lord and lessons and diagrams (?) and the like that all stem from my experiences in Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico.  But when I sit down and try to write a Tear Down the Walls post on everything that happened, I always fall into this whirlwind of questions:  What if I forget something?  Should I be more surfacey or more deep?  What do I emphasize, what do I leave out, should I mention people's names, should I add pictures, is writing about what kind of madness comes to my head when thinking about what to write really relevant...

????????????????

Finally I just had to pull an old hand-slap-to-the-forehead and say, "Lou, just let God write and go with it."

Don't act like you all don't talk to yourselves!

Anyway, after numerous prayers for simplicity and stillness of mind, alas.  Here goes everything...

I think my favorite part about what God did in Puerto Rico is that it's not over.  It is still going on.  I have established relationships with people that I never could have imagined or planned or anything.  The youth group I went with consists of a bunch of beautiful young people hungry for more of the word and it is so noticeable and so incredible.  They have challenged me and encouraged me and even just the sole ability to witness God at work in their lives throughout Puerto Rico (and currently) is a privilege that I cannot bring myself to take lightly.  Thanks be to Him!  All glory be to Him!

As far as tangibility goes (I don't know if that word fits here, but I really wanted to use it), I was placed on a work crew with one other man from Elizabeth Baptist (the church I went with), three other adults, and eight college students.  My crew members came from all over the southeast, except for one girl who acted as our translator.  The local church in Puerto Rico is partnered with World Changers, so its youth come every week, are assigned a crew just like the rest of us, go to worship with us, and even stay at the same camp as us.  The Puerto Rican church--El Mesias--were surely a blessing in that they knew their way around the city, helped guide us in how to handle the incredibly crazy driving on the incredibly small roads, and translated for us so that we could still converse with the locals.

My crew was assigned the task of building a modest house.  I liked the extremeness.  You know, just building a house in Puerto Rico.  No big deal.  The house already had a concrete foundation, but the wooden frame had become irreversibly worn and its days were over.

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. -Psalm 127:1


And so, the work week began...

BEFORE

AFTER

Another crew came in the week after to put the roof on.   However, I was pretty impressed with ourselves.  We had one hard-working crew, yet we were still able to crack jokes and have fun.  We even had some rather deep conversations, the concepts of which will indefinitely show up in a future post. So, stay tuned.As I had mentioned in my last post before I left for Puerto Rico, I was filled with a hope that was unlike any hope that I had ever experienced before. And, my brothers and sisters, this hope was not hasty. This hope was solid, its purpose was fulfilled in Puerto Rico, and it is still present....but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. -Isaiah 40:31Oh, how I needed that strength.  If there is one huge thing that God taught me (which really there are like 2378329734), it's that with shields of hope comes major arrows of doubt .  I am not sure if I have ever experienced spiritual warfare like that before.  My goodness, it was so intense.  The devil was surely using everything possible to try to shake the hope that God had instilled in me.  My God is a rock.  He fought for me, and He fought hard.  Towards the end of the week I was so awestruck at the fact that God had completely demolished the devil's attempts at making me doubt and while I did stumble throughout the week, toward the end I remember feeling so completely victorious and overwhelmed at the triumph over Satan that my God had accomplished.  It was humbling and encouraging to experience God's strength in such a noticeable way.That topic could serve as it's own post, and it will.On the last day, we got to venture into a Puerto Rico rain forest and jump off of cliffs.  Into water.  Talk about insane.  I am going to save our free day for another post.  Because even though it was an off day, God was not off.  I learned so much that day that I think my fingers are getting tingly at the thought of getting to write about it.

Worship will get its own post, too.  And so will The Power of a Story (yes, I have already thought of the title), which is pretty much the umbrella of everything I learned in Puerto Rico...  You can stand under it, too!

I feel a song coming on...

But really, that is the main surfacy gist with a little bit of deepness about what went down in Puerto Rico.  More specific posts are to come.  To avoid the risk of making this post any longer, I will stop here with hopes that you are sitting on the edge of your seat bursting with anticipation and suspense about what is to come.

^I am pretty sure this post has an unexpected, correlating metaphor toward the end...  I love hope.

LMB