95.3%

If you follow my blog, you know that over the last months, I have been embarking on a journey that I have never been able to complete successfully in the past. I am reading through the bible in a year. Well, with about a week left in the year - I am happy to report that I am 95.3% complete (right on track according to my reading plan in YouVersion.) 

I can tell you that the ONLY reason I have bee able to complete this task (which at times was daunting) was that I had a accountability partner. Someone who was not only on this journey with me, but got an email once a week telling her how I did. Together we are finishing this race and together we will do it again next year. So, here is my challenge - if any of you want to get in on it with us, make a comment of send me a message via Facebook or email and I will put you on a list and send out instructions. It's gonna be great!

Today, my reading took me to 2 Timothy. A letter from Paul to Timothy that was written while Paul was in prison in Asia for preaching the gospel. Timothy was a young man and Paul continually encouraged and taught him in the faith of Jesus Christ. A true "mentor-mentee" relationship. In many ways that mentor legacy still lives on, many centuries after his death, as I learn and grow from reading his words in the bible. Here is what I learned from Paul today.

In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. 2 Timothy 2:20-21

When I read these verses I thought I knew what they meant, but just to make sure - I looked them up in some commentaries.  Here is the gist of them: In the church there are some people who are set apart to so special things, have special impact and special purposes (gold & silver). They are set apart from the crowd of people who call themselves Christians but have little to no impact for Christ in the world around them (wood & clay.) In my mind, I picture all those who look one way at church and totally different at work or at a restaurant or at home or where ever, the rest of the week. This passage says they are common.

I guess I always knew this principle, but it is the last past that really stuck out to me - "Those who cleanse themselves from the latter (being common, being like everyone else in their day to day lives) will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master (Christ) and prepared to do any good work."

I am not sure why this struck me so powerfully today. I think maybe it is because I am becoming more aware of the people around me that are quite possibly in the wood & clay category. It makes me so sad to see and yet it makes me examine myself all the more to make sure there are no places in my life that would put me into that category. I want to totally cleanse myself of those things so that when I am looked at by God, he sees me as gold & silver, set apart for a special purpose, made holy and useful to Him.

I hope that you too want to be gold & silver in the house of the Lord. I know that each and everyone of us has things in our lives that are wood & clay. Things that hold us back from being useful for Him.

My prayer is that as we close out 2010, enter 2011 and take that backward look at our lives, as we so often do this time of year - that God would show us all those things we need to "cleanse ourselves" of to be wholly useful to Him as we go forward in our faith. I pray that He would reveal to us the special purposes He has set us apart to do and that we would jump in with both feet, no matter how daunting the challenge. 

Refuse to be normal and common in 2011. If we are joining the likes of Paul and Timothy, being different is not all that bad!

I love you! (now be condemned to hell)

Thought that title might get your attention. God has really been messing with me the last 36 hours about this topic. Here's the short back story...

I have a good friend, whom I love dearly, who invited me to take a look at a conversation that had been taking place via Facebook feed arguing religion. This friend takes more of a Universalist approach to god and spirituality - kind of "as long as a person is sincerely searching for some form of Deity, a loving god would let them spend eternity together" type thinking. 

After several posts back and forth, I felt like I was not getting anywhere, so I wrote, "I think you are in a place where you have your heals dug in and no matter what is said, you will just argue your point. You know what I believe and I think I get what you believe and the two are not the same. At some point, we will know we were either right or wrong. I do hope that you know that just because someone doesn't believe the same as I do, doesn't mean I don't love them. I love you!" End of discussion, right?

Well God woke me up at about 2:30 the next morning and really convicted me that really what I was saying with that statement is "I love you - but I am not willing to keep arguing the truth with you until you are no longer destined for hell." Harsh,  right?  No - SPOT ON!

I do not want my friend to spend eternity outside the presence of God. How many other people that I love fall in to this category. We agree to disagree and just don't discuss it. How selfish of me! Do I really LOVE these people or just give it lip service, because I am pretty sure that a love that would allow a friend to spend eternity in hell because it is to hard to keep talking about differences in  belief is not the kind of love I am called to have as a follower of Jesus Christ. 

In my Bible reading I just began the book of Lamentations. The children of Israel had been exiled to Babylon and after so many years hearing the voice of God through the prophets (and taking that for granted), He fell silent. It broke my heart this morning to read the pleas to hear God again. They felt abandoned and lost and alone. They cried out in anguish and got no response. 

I can't even imagine that in my worst night mares. Being separated from God - well my mind can't wrap around that. But that is what people are destined for in hell. The absence of God. Totally gone. No evidence of Him at all. Does anyone deserve that?

The Bible calls me to lay down my life for my friends, that's a pretty tall order, but if it means that my friends won't have to spend eternity in a vacuum of Godlessness - that I am willing to fight for! Lord give me the courage and the words...

Who do you need to start (or finish) a conversation with today?

Holy Discontent wk. 1

It seems that people, other than me, are eager to hear the heart of God for their lives. Go figure! He has brought together what I think will prove to be a great mix of women for the study of Bill Hybel's book Holy Discontent. For the next 7 weeks, we will pour over it, underline, highlight and discuss. I would like to bring some of that here to those who can't be in the group physically. Feel free to buy the book and get in on the discussion via comments or just read what is written here. Either way - I hope that God reveals something to you about your Holy Discontent. Let's get started...

To start, Bill asks this question, "Why do people do what they do?" For most people when you speak of their job, the answer is to get a paycheck. However, there are some who are passionate about what they do, so much so that they do it for very little money - teachers, social workers, pastors, the list could go on. Not that only people who don't make much money can be passionate about their jobs. But people do other things besides working with their time. They volunteer, they give money to causes. One woman in our group, "V",  supports 2 women in countries where women have little to no human rights. She stated (paraphrasing) that she does this because it tugs at her heart and is wrong, so she does what she can to help.

So, why do you do what you do? To go one step further - what are you passionate about? What get the "firestorm of frustration" (as Bill calls it) going in your gut? What is your underlying motivation?

In the opening chapter of the book we look at Moses. A Hebrew man raised by the Egyptian Pharaoh's daughter, He did not taste of the slavery his people did. But one day he was taking a walk and came across an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. He grew so angry that he killed the Egyptian. The next day he was out walking and came across 2 Hebrews fighting with each other. His eyes were opened to the plight of his people and the firestorm was ignited. The story is much longer than I will go into here, you can read it in Genesis. but he basically was so heart broken to see his people self destructing that he couldn't stand it any more and decided he had to do something about it. After a life changing discussion with a burning bush (GOD), he found that he would not be on his own in his fight for the Hebrew people, God's heart was breaking for them as well and they would fight together. This was Moses' holy discontent. 

Hybel's goes on to say that "still today, what wrecks the heart of someone who loves God is often the very thing that God wants to use to fire them up to do something that, under normal circumstances, they would never attempt to do." So it begins with you determining what it is that you just can't stand. Hybel's also pointed out the very important fact that God is in the business of restoration. If we only look at the world through the lens of what is broken and forget that God desires to restore it, it will only result in anger and frustration.

When we realize that the anger and frustration we feel for the things that break our hearts in this world also break the heart of God, we have usually identified our holy discontent. 

One of my favorite lines says this, "The most inspired, motivated, and driven people I know are the ones who live their lives from the energy of their holy discontent. Most important, they suit up and jump in to the game when God says, "If you'll hook up with me, I'll involve you in effecting some much needed change around here!""

Oh, that I would live my life from that place. Actually taking action instead of just complaining. The bible is filled with stories of common, ordinary men and women who have partnered with God to do things they could never do on their own. I want to be one of those!

So take stock. What fuels your firestorm of frustration? What breaks you heart and makes you want to help change the world? If you can't answer that quite yet, stick with us on our journey. I pray that our faithful God will speak clearly to each of us and that we will be courageous enough to jump in the deep end with both feet!

Chapter 2 next Wednesday, May 26. 7-8:30 pm in High Connections at the church. Join us there or online.

Controversy on Easter Sunday

As most of you know, I am the Programming Director for my church - McKinney Fellowship. I love my job! I am tasked with designing services where people can commune with the living God. One of the best parts about working for my church is that we are a church who is not afraid to take risks to reach others for Christ. Having said that, with this job comes great joy but also great responsibility. What if I am not hearing from the Lord enough when I am designing the services week after week? What if I "miss it" or get "it" wrong when I think I am following promptings from Him? It is a bit challenging to say the least, but a challenge I gladly except.

This Easter was no exception. Easter has it's own special challenges every year and the extra pressure of knowing that we will have people come in the door who would never come to church on a "normal" Sunday. It is those people my heart is burdened most for. So, as many churches were already toiling away on their Easter plans many weeks out, I was still struggling with what God would have us do. Long story short, what came out of that toil and struggle was something that no one expected. A drama/music/video combination that left many speechless after it ended but wound up the topic of conversation for many hours after the service ended. If you would like to watch it you can find it here.

As expected, we got some less than stellar comments on the heavy nature with which we tackled these issues on Easter Sunday - which I will admit caused me to second guess if I heard the Lord correctly on this one. After all, Easter is supposed to be a celebration of the risen Savior. Had we possibly gone to far? But I am reminded that it is only a celebration for the ones who know Him, and as the stories of life change slowly begin to emerge, my spirit soars! Like the man does not know Christ and yet was so moved that we would "do that in church" that he not only was talking about it days after, but called his sister who lives some distance away to tell her about it so they can watch it again. The son who rarely attends church and is far from the Lord but came with a friend and talked about it all day with his precious mother. (He will surely never listen to Evanescence again and not remember this day!) And the stories of many who have issues that mirror those in the drama (including cutting and suicidal thoughts) who came forward to get help for their lives they feared were long dead and unsalvageable. I am certain there are many more that I may never have the privilege of hearing.

So today, as I think back on the weekend's events, I no longer fear the ones who would question if we (I) made the right call to do this controversial piece. I rest in the fact that Jesus was not afraid to offend and be radical to save the lost ones no one else could reach. It is His footsteps I choose to follow in and will continue to push the limits to reach the unreachable whose lives are broken and desperate for a touch from the Healer who makes dead things come alive again!

All glory to the Risen One!

Make a Statement

So over the weekend, my daughter Jenna (an aspiring makeup artist and photographer) decided to turn my almost 12 year old, Kira, into a couture super model. She made her up in amazing face made up and, looking much older than she is, she was off to the photo shoot. After coming home and "working her magic" on some of the photos - I found this one. The caption is very fitting - don't you think? (and no - her hair was not that color, it is computer magic)

Today in my Chronological reading of the bible, I finished the book of Joshua. YAY! One of the verses in chapter 22 stuck out to me and seemed to be very fitting it says, And when they came to the region of the Jordan that is in the land of Canaan, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh built there an altar by the Jordan, an altar of imposing size. Joshua 22:10. I know, you're thinking what in the world does that have to do with your baby getting made up like an emo child and getting her picture taken... The verse says " made an alter of imposing size." Based on the other things I have read about the journey of the children of Israel, this must have been some alter - cause they didn't do anything small.

In a nut shell the story goes like this: The children of Israel (12 tribes) were told God would give them the land of Canaan. 2 1/2 tribes decided they liked the land on the desert side of the Jordan river and asked for permission to have that land. God said "Yes, on one condition, all your men have to go to the other side and help fight for Canaan. Then you can return to your side." So that happened. they fought many battles and won and were finally allowed to return to their inheritance. So on their way home, on the Canaan side of the Jordan, they decided to build this "alter of imposing size". The other 9 1/2 tribes got freaked out when they saw it and thought the 2 1/2 tribes were turning to idols worship so they called them out. In actuality, the 2 1/2 tribes had built the alter to serve as a reminder to all their descendants and the descendants of the 9 1/2 tribes that they worship the same God and they should never forget that.

Not back to the picture of Kira. The caption says, "Don't be afraid to stand out." In this case, they went for broke. Funky makeup, flaming red hair, the whole thing! I am sure people took and will take notice when they see this picture. (I am already fielding comments of how I could let my 12 year old look like that, and would it bother me if she decided to dress like that every day.) The point I am trying to make here is that if we are going to take a stand for the Lord, GO BIG! Don't be afraid to look different than those around you. Make enough of a statement bout who you are in Christ that when they see you, they see and alter to the Lord of "imposing size", one that can not be shaken or toppled easily.

I hope that's what people see in my life when they look at me and I hope that for my children as well, makeup and fiery red hair and all! (and in case you're wondering - I LOVE the picture!)