Grace and Humility

I never really thought about grace and humility in relation to each other. An interesting quote from Andrew Murray in his book Humility reads, "It needs to be made clear that it is not sin that humbles but grace."

I've been thinking about humility a lot lately. I don't think I really understand it yet....I guess it's the focus that makes the difference. If my focus is on my sin, that leads to self-condemnation and a horrible view of who I am (aka false humility). If my focus is on God's grace, that leads to me getting all amazed at his amazingness (aka humility). With grace, it's all about God. With sin, it's all about me. Hmm...I wonder which one I should focus on if I want to experience great JOY?!?!?!

Gideon's Growth, God's Attentiveness

I was talking to Kylee, a friend from NMSI and she told me that her pastor had preached on Gideon last Sunday. I always thought that story was about how much Gideon doubted God and didn't have a lot of faith, but Kylee (who is one of my favorite things about Florida) said that it's about Gideon being afraid, but still stepping out in faith. Moreover, it's about God's character and how He is so patient and continues to reassure us.

Kylee challenged me to read the story for myself. And guess what!?!?!? I found FIFTEEN ways that God encouraged and reassured Gideon! How encouraging is THAT!?!??!

1. Gideon is hiding and God calls him a mighty warrior (God is empowering/encouraging)

2. God says, "Go in the strength you have...Am I not sending you?" (Judges 6:14, God is encouraging/confirms Gideon's call)

3. When Gideon is whining about being the weakest member of the weakest clan, God says, "I will be with you" (Judges 6:16, God is assuring, God is constant and will not leave)

4. Gideon asks God not to leave while he goes to get some supplies for an offering and God says, "I will wait until you return" (Judges 6:18, God is patient)

5. An angel appeared to Gideon and made fire flare from a rock where the sacrifice was (Judges 6:22, God showed his power to Gideon)

6. God said, "Peace! Do not be afraid! You are not going to die." (Judges 6:23, God confirmed the value of Gideon's life, God is gentle)

7. Gideon's Dad stuck up for him when the rest of the men in town wanted to kill him (Judges 6:31, God protected Gideon)

8. The Spirit of God came on Gideon (Judges 6:34, God is affirming and empowering)

9. Gideon asks God to put dew only on the fleece and not the ground around it---God does (Judges 6:37, God is faithful and patient)

10. Gideon asks God to put dew on the ground and not on the fleece---God does (Judges 6:40, God is faithful and patient)

11. God says Gideon has too many warriors and needs to get rid of some of them so it's obvious it's God's power at work and not the army size/strength (Judges 7:2, God protects Gideon and the army from pride, God provides for Gideon, God asks Gideon to take steps based upon Gods trustworthiness)

12. God tells Gideon to let the men in the army who are afraid go home (Judges 7:3, God guides Gideon on how to whittle down the army)

13. God tells Gideon to separate the men by how they drink water at the stream (Judges 7:5, God guides Gideon as he seeks to obey Him)

14. God knew Gideon was still afraid and told him to go down to the enemy's camp (Judges 7:10, God recognizes Gideon's fear and doesn't condemn him for it, God is patient, good, reassuring and still requires Gideon to "get the job done")

15. God gave an enemy soldier a dream about Gideon's army defeating the enemies and let Gideon overhear this enemy soldier retelling his dream (Judges 7:13, God's timing is perfect, He provides, He is good, He is STILL reassuring Gideon, even after He already has done so FOURTEEN other times!!!!)

THEN Gideon worshipped God (Judges 7:15). God showed up FIFTEEN times before Gideon worshiped Him! That makes me wonder how many incredible things God is doing before I take the time to worship and praise Him for His patience, timing, reassurance, control, goodness, love, etc.

Not only that, the Bible does not say that God spoke directly to Gideon during the upcoming battle as enemies fled. God didn't speak while people from other cities condemned and criticized Gideon. God didn't speak while people from other cities doubted why Gideon would continue to chase after two more enemy kings who had escaped and not just "quit while he was ahead." God didn't speak while Gideon's brothers and sons were killed. That whole time Gideon had to rely on the confidence he had in God and his mission based upon Gideon's past experiences with God and the ways God had met him and reassured him before the great battle. God took such care and went to such great lengths to prepare Gideon for victory and success!

Furthermore, God showed up FIFTEEN times just to bolster the faith of one man to do one job. That's a pretty personal God! That's a lot of effort! That's an incredible amount of patience on God's part in our growth process! WOW!

How Was COAT? An Analogy...

The more time I have away from COAT training, the more I think I'll be able to actually process what happened there. When people ask me how it was, I don't know what to say. It was intense. It was hard. It was good. Those three words don't really do it justice. They don't really communicate the magnitude of what happened this summer.

Perhaps a quote from one of the books we read this summer will help you understand. The author found a snapping turtle... "it was grossly deformed due to a plastic bottle top, a ring about an inch-and-a-half in diameter that it had accidentally acquired as a hatchling when it, too, was about an inch-and-a-half in diameter. The ring had fit around its midsection like a belt back then, but now, nearly a foot long weighing about nine pounds, the animal was corseted by the ring so that it looked like a figure eight.

My friends realized that if they left the turtle in itse current stae it would die. The deformity was survivable at nine pounds, but a full-grown snapper can weight 30. At that size the constriction would not be survivable.

So they snipped the ring. And nothing happened. Nothing. Except for one thing: at that moment the turtle had a future. It was rescued. It was saved. it would take years for the animal to gow into more normal proprotions, maybe decades. Perhaps even in old age it would be somewhat guitar-shaped, but it would survive." -Generous Orthodoxy

This summer confirmed over and over again how convinced I am that the bottle top is still on. That I'm un-free. But when Jesus saved me, he cut that bottle top off!!! I don't have to live a restricted, guitar-shaped life! I'm free!!! New thoughts, new actions, new, new new!!!Furthermore, why do I keep trying to put the bottle top back on? How am I allowing things to restrict my growth as a Christian that God has already freed me from? How am I trying to convince God, other people, and myself that I'm still stuck in the bottle top? How can I grasp the magnitude of how God's changed me and freed me when I'm still a funny guitar-shape? Will I ever be able to comprhend just how deadly it would have been if God hadn't snipped off the bottle top? What if He never had freed me, what would me life look like then?

This summer one of my friend said, "I hope I never stop healing." This was a surprising and frustrating statement to me at first because I keep wishing for a time when BOOM! I'm healed and whole and totally free (I think that's called heaven). But the reality is that we're always healing and growing into a less guitar-shaped turtle (aka becoming more like Christ). The story of the turtle reminds me that God not only saves us initially, he continues to save us as we learn to walk in the freedom that He's already given us. That He IS transforming and changing me, even when I don't see it and that process takes time.

I don't think I've fully processed what happened during COAT training this summer or just how freeing it was...but thankfully, "he who began a good work in you [and me] will carry it on until the day of Christ Jesus" -Phillipians 1:4-6.

The Center of Our Lives

Christ, be the center of our lives
be the place we fix our eyes
be the center of our lives

These are the lyrics to a song that we sang in the closing session of COAT training, when we took communion. Each snippet of these lyrics has become more real to me over the last week (each italicized section of this post is part of that same song, "Center").

The snippet above especially hit home with me during a few of the last days at COAT, when I kept hurting people's feelings unintentionally. I really hate it when I see people hurt each other's feelings (I have a strong desire to protect people I care about) and I hate it even more when I am the one that has hurt people. I hate that I have the capacity to do that. I hate that my sin affects others....cause that's what it is. When I hurt other people, it pretty much means that I'm not fixing my eyes on Christ and instead am focused on self-preservation, insecurity, pride, etc. I don't want to be that kind of girl. Pray that I'd fix my eyes on Christ! Always!

We lift our eyes to heaven
We wrap our lives around Your life
We lift our eyes to heaven
To You

This snippet makes me think of our final session/the communion service at the end of COAT. In essence, COAT was an intense and continual challenge to wrap our lives around Jesus, so that we were no longer at the center of everything and He was. That is really, really hard to do. That's submission and faith in God's provision, goodness, power... That's exactly why I am going to move back to Florida and work in the NMSI office before deploying to a foreign country. I want to spend some time figuring out how to wrap my life around God and have him be the center of everything, all the time.

You hold everything together
You hold everything together

This snippet (I think I really like the word "snippet"...I don't usually use it!) reminds me of my first Sunday back in St. Louis. A friend's car broke down on the way to church and me and two other guys stuck around after church to help him out. I was amazed at how God provided for each need and how perfect his timing was. He literally held everything together that afternoon. (And no, I don't have mad car mechanic skills if you were wondering, but I did have a car that was working to transport people where they needed to go.)

Ways God Made Himself Evident:
1. The car broke down less than 3 miles from church.
2. The guy whose car broke down got to church in the "in between time" between 9 and 10:30 services, meaning some people who went to each service were able to help/know about the problem.
3. I had taken a different car to church than the people I am living with, so the husband of that couple was free to stay and help instead of needing to leave with his wife and infant.
4. AAA tows for free within 3 miles. One of us had an AAA card with us.
5. We had jumper cables in the car and didn't end up needing AAA.
6. The guys could look at the car and knew which part was broken.
7. The guys knew where an AutoZone was nearby, so we could get the alternator tested.
8. We had one broken car, one motorcycle, and one working car, so we could all pack in the working car and had a way to travel together to AutoZone.
9. AutoZone let us borrow tools to take out the alternator.
10. Ripley's had an alternator that cost less than AutoZone.
11. One of the guys had taken out an alternator in his car before and knew what he was doing.
12. In the midst of all this, a couple from church was babysitting the kids of the guy whose car broke down.

That's TWELVE ways I saw God working in a few short hours! That's a good reminder that I can trust God's timing and provision in support raising (I'm a little nervous)! That's a great example of the body of Christ---dropping everything to help someone in need! Wow!

Honey, I'm Home!

I arrived in St. Louis on Sat. July 19th. I'd love to meet with you, your small group, or the missions board at your church to tell you more about what God has done in my life over the last few months! Currently I'm in the process of establishing a prayer and provision team. If you're interested in praying for me or contributing financially to my ministry (there is no salary from NMSI---all donations that I raise), please e-mail me!

How Great is Our God!

I just finished watching Louie Giglio's talk (on video) called "How Great Is Our God," accompanying Chris Tomlin's song of the same name in concert. He spent some time talking in scientific terms about how big various stars are compared to earth and how HUGE God is.

Giglio went on to talk about how God holds us together in the midst of crazy life circumstances and quoted parts of one of my favorite chapters of the Bible, Isaiah 40. You can visit http://www.biblegateway.com/ to read the whole thing, but here is one of my favorite parts:

"To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. 27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God"? 28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. 29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31 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."


What really hit me the most about Giglio's talk was what he ended with--laminin--which I and probably most of you (except maybe my sister Amy, the bio grad) have never heard of. Apparently it's what holds our cells together. Webster's Medical Dictionary defines it as, "a glycoprotein that is a component of connective tissue basement membrane and that promotes cell adhesion." It literally holds us together.


Not excited about laminin yet? Well the cool part was when Giglio showed a picture of what the protein laminin looks like. It looks like a cross! The thing that holds each of our cells together looks like a cross! We have all kinds of little crosses holding our bodies together! What an awesome reminder of how intricately concerned with details God is, of how carefully He fashioned us! Of how He's given us His spirit to live within us to guide us and direct us an even our very cells are crying out, "believe in me! I am what will get you through! I will never leave you! You'd literally fall apart without me!" WHOA!!!



This is the molecular structure of laminin: