Change, Change, Change

It's so funny how life can change so quickly. God's timing is so perfect.

Ecc. 3:11 - He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

I've been in a season of "waiting" for almost two years now, that is, waiting for God to show me what my "calling" in life is. Abba, what will I be when I grow up?

I still don't know =)

After I graduated from college, I was completely led to be an ESL teacher for almost a year and a half. At the end of my ESL teaching days, I had 2 visible paths that I could walk down as I prepared to go to grad school: getting my teaching certificate or getting my MBA. Two months of unemployment transitioned me into substitute teaching, letting me know real quick that teaching as a profession was not for me.

But getting my MBA? C'mon... I'm an idealist. I hate business and money.

But I'm a Teacher-Idealist... I've got that entrepreneurial spirit in me =)

BUT in the midst of that, this past month has lead me to establish my own business. In watching my parents struggle with buisness ownership all of my life, I never, ever, ever thought that this would be something that I would be doing as well.

Doors just keep on flying opening. This is what God put together for me:

1. Finding a consistent source of work through 2 great friends from college
2. 2 mentors who have been established in the field and want to help me out
3. 3 people who will do design work for me
4. 4 websites to build my portfolio
5. Getting my 2nd paid job!
6. Discovering an AWESOME consultant!
7. Hooking up with 2 organizations to do album art
8. Being blessed in borrowing a 19 inch monitor to hopefully help with my headaches

I'm scared! As used to change as I am, it's still unpleasant. Who woulda thought?!?

I belong

Today, I've been seeking only the Lord for a lot of answers. One of the answers that He has given me, one of the many, started before I even knew I had the question. As Tim spoke on Joy this Sunday, and as the Lord confirmed over and over to me this past two weeks that He delights in me, the answer that God finished giving to me today is that: I belong.


I belong: to the Lord, and not to myself.

I belong: to the man set aside to be my husband.

I belong: to my family, to my father Andy, to my mother Anita, and to my sister Roxy.

I belong: to my shepherds, to my mother in the Lord Lori Wetmore, to my father in the Lord Jim Lee, to my grandfather in the Lord Jeff Adams, and to our high school pastor Kent Liles.

I belong: to the women I do battle with: to Amber, and to Rachael, and to Ariel.

I belong: to my disciples, to Laura and to Brooke.

I belong: to the young women in my home group, to Lauren, and Alex, and Bailey, and Elaine, and Kelsey, and Makenzey, and Shelby, and Paige, and Yanira.

I belong: to my crew: to Jamie, and Jacinda, and Lisa, and Toy, and Leo, and Victor, and Damiyahn, and Joel.

I belong: to the people of my church, to Kelly Lee, and Mary Roberts, and Robin Long, and Idalia, and the Sidebottoms, and Diego, and Mina, and Myika, and Alana, and Melenia, and Tylena, and Ché, and Talon, and Emilie, and Arianna, and Travis, and Amy, and Kristie, and Kylie, and Stacy, and Monica, and Janet...

I belong: to two very special children: to Robyn and to my godson.

I belong: to the two women who brought me through college: to Kt and to Tara.


Rom 14:7-8 - For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

It is a great, great, great blessing from the LORD to belong to so many people.

Greatest Fear

In going through Captivating with a friend, I was forced to ask myself what my greatest fear is. The book explains that for women, the greatest fear is abandonment. I really don't fear that as my "greatest fear." I then have been asking since yesterday what my greatest fear is. I had an idea, and I asked God to continue to give me confirmation that this was true. In less than 48 hours, He's confirmed it in 3 different ways. I've found out that my greatest fear is to be wrong. Wow - and just now typing it out knowing the cyber world can access it was really tough.

Praise God for answered prayer. Praise God as He continues to show me that only He is the protection for my heart. Please God, show me how to overcome my greatest fear.

1John 4:18 - There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

I love You Papa.

I've found my Prince!

I've found my Prince! I have a someone. My heart kept singing and my Prince found me. My Prince brought a love song back to me. He knew me, once upon a dream. He pursued me. So this - this is love. My life is divine, and the key to all of heaven is mine. My heart has wings. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise. --Psalm 57:7

As we are going through the guided journal of Captivating, we're supposed to watch some of the movies we loved as a child over again.




I wonder
I wonder
I wonder why each little bird
Has a someone
To sing to
Sweet things to
A gay little lark melody?
I wonder
I wonder
If my heart keeps singing
Will my song go winging
To someone
Who'll find me
And bring back a love song to me?



So this is love
So this is love
So this is what makes life divine
I'm all aglow
And now I know
The key to all heaven is mine
My heart has wings
And I can fly
I'll touch ev'ry star in the sky
So this is the miracle that I've been dreaming of
So this is love

Acts 5:31 - Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.

Mercy

But as for me,
I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy:
and in thy fear will I worship toward the holy temple.
--Psalm 5:7

At the beginning of last week in the span of two days, I started and finished a book called The Heavenly Man. It is an autobiography on Liu Zhenying, or more commonly known as "Brother Yun," one of the leaders of the house church networks in China. It's a book that I have to read again so I can study it more in depth, but here is an excerpt from the book from one of the times when Brother Yun was in prison for the Gospel:

------------------------------

The next morning the guards opened the cell door and took us out into the yard. There was a thick layer of snow on the ground. They released the handcuffs from my four brothers. They told them, "You must clear all the snow in the yard. But this crazy 'heavenly man' will not have his handcuffs removed. Last night he created an uproar and kept us awake with his singing and drumming."

The chief guard waved his electric baton in front of my face and said, "Now is the time for you to wake up!" He ordered me to kneel down before him. I loudly protested, "I will not kneel down before you. I will only kneel down before my God!"

He arrogantly stated, "I am your Lord! I am your God! If you kneel down before me I can release you immediately."

I spoke angrily to him, "In the name of Jesus, you are not my God! You are just an earthly officer. My Lord is in heaven. I am a heavenly man."

He turned on the power switch on his baton and snarled, "If you are a heavenly man then you won't be afraid of this electric baton. Come! Use your hand and take hold of it!"

Several guards grabbed my arms and forced me to stretch out my hand. In an instant I was stung with hundreds of volts of electric current, like the sting of a scorpion or as if a thousand arrows had pierced my heart. Feeling I was about to pass out, I cried out, "Lord, have mercy on me!"

Immediately the electric baton malfunctioned! They couldn't get it to work!

I opened my eyes and stared at the guard who'd dared to call himself "God." He was terrified. Despite the temperature, he was sweating! He turned and ran away as fast as he could!"

------------------------------

Knowing that "mercy" is not getting what we deserve from God, I was wondering why Brother Yun would say something like "Lord, have mercy on me!" while he was suffering for his faith. It doesn't seem to make sense, because it's not like Brother Yun deserved any of the anguish that the prison guard was inflicting upon him. Why would Brother Yun ask for mercy for something that he obviously did not deserve? Why not just ask from help from the Lord? Why mercy?

Later in the book, Brother Yun quotes Matthew 10:28:

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

I know that the eternal part of me, my soul, cannot be destroyed in hell. I know that the worst that anyone can do to me is to the parts of me that are temporal, like my body, like my pride. Then why Brother Yun asked for mercy and not for help began to make sense. I know that I deserve hell for the ways that I have sinned and will continue to sin against the Most High God. That even if something were to begin to destroy my body here on earth, I would deserve it as much as I would deserve it in hell. God's mercy is every bit as applicable from saving me from suffering on earth as it already has saved me from suffering in hell.

Wow...

And this is life eternal,
that they might know thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ,
whom thou has sent.
-- John 17:3

Eternal life began for me the day that I got saved in my dorm room at Hong Kong Baptist University. The day my eternal life began is the day that I became dead to sin. To renounce my life, even to the extent of the physicality of it, should have happened the day that I gained life in Christ. Slowly, yet surely, God continues to give me the grace and mercy to trust Him, and in turn to truly not fear what man can do unto me.

Therefore Will He Be Exalted...

And therefore will the LORD wait,
that he may be gracious unto you,
and therefore will he be exalted,
that he may have mercy upon you:
for the LORD is a God of judgement:
blessed are all they that wait for him.
Isaiah 30:18

Recently I fell into my circumstances and asked God if He would let me leave the field that He placed me in. I asked Amber to help me pray for a billboard and I got two. The first day was in Isaiah 20 and the second day was in Isaiah 30. It's so easy to fall into walking in the flesh, but God is faithful.

In the moment
of my weakness
You give me grace
to do Your will...
-- None but Jesus (Brooke Fraiser)

I never really understood until I went through this all of last week that God gets EXALTED when He gives us mercy and gives us grace. God is EXALTED when we, as probably one of the most difficult things to do, wait for Him.

Prayer

Three things that I will start to pray for every morning when I wake up:

1. LORD, that You will have Your way in me today
2. LORD, that others will be blessed by me today
3. LORD, that I would receive the wisdom You've instructed me to ask for today (James 1:15)

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)

I'm also trusting God to stir up people in my life dedicated to regularly praying for the lost, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY the stirring up of my own heart. There are only two things on earth that will last into eternity, God's Word and the souls that He's created. Let God stir in our hearts that the harvest that is plentiful is a field that will only exist on earth.

Flesh

NOTE TO SELF:
Two natures beat within my breast.
One is foul, the other blest.
The one I love – the one I hate
The one I feed will dominate.
- Author Unknown


FLESH= EVERYTHING ABOUT ME MINUS GOD.
Results of working in the Flesh = Frustration, Fatigue, Failure


And I get it now... I really get it now... I am free.


A real Christian is an odd number anyway.
He feels supreme love
for One whom he has never seen,
talks familiarly every day to
Someone he cannot see,
expects to go to heaven
on the virtue of Another,
empties himself
in order to be full,
admits he is wrong
so he can be declared right,
goes down
in order to get up,
is strongest
when he is weakest,
richest
when he is poorest,
and happiest
when he feels worst.
He dies so he can live,
forsakes in order to have,
gives away so he can keep,
sees the invisible,
hears the inaudible,
and knows that which passes knowledge.”
- A.W. Tozer

Oh, Camp 2008 =)

Man, it is so hard to keep up with this blog!

I love high school camp =) 2006 was amazing because I learned that week what unabandoned praise means; it was my first glimpse into why worshiping God for the rest of eternity is the best thing I can ever experience. 2007 was amazing because I learned that our God is a consuming fire and not to be mocked. I learned truly what salvation is and why it is that I can call God my Lord.

2008?

Well, seeing how awesome '06 and '07 were, and seeing how I am in 90 days of blessing since the Prayer Conference and Midtown, and seeing what God told me to expect in 2008, well I was expecting Ephesians 3:20 BIG things. I was expecting to go beyond my expectations, so that means BIG things... right?


What I learned #1: GOD IS IN THE SMALL THINGS
When wanting to see God in His big, show-out, glory filled, milestone moments, I knew that I was missing something the first two days when I didn't see God working. From the beginning I knew that it was me. There was something wrong with my perception because I know that God HAD to be working. Then on Wednesday, I read in My Utmost for His Highest a devotional entitled "The Secret of the LORD." Chambers says "The things that make GOd dear to us are not so much His great big blessings as the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us; He knows every detail of our individual lives." How can I study the forces of nature that I cannot see for four years in college and not see that God is so big that He is in the small? I mean, pick up a science book and see the glory of creation for yourself. He's so big He knows the smallest possible things; Ephesians 3:20 truly exists even in how the universe is built on the thing that consists it all together, that is, Jesus Christ.

... there is no searching of his understanding. - Isaiah 40:28

What I learned #2: GOD IS ABLE
The thing I've struggled with since I began my Christian walk in 1999 is not to ask too specifically because I don't want my expectations in prayer to come at the expense of my faith. I've also been very cautious of not praying amiss (James 4:3). This becomes a problem when we are told to pray specifically, huh? In struggling with this throughout the entire week at camp, one very, very, very important thing that I realized is that GOD IS ABLE. No matter what the answer to the prayer is, because God is a God that answers all prayer, GOD IS ABLE. If He never answered another prayer of mine in the affirmative, GOD IS ABLE. In all that I ask for according to His will, HE CAN DO IT. It's just a matter of when I'm asking right and He is saying "no", it's because He has something better, better blessing, better timing, better way to get His glory out of me. And you know what? I'm 1000% okay with that =)


What I learned #3: EVERY CHOICE CHOOSES GOD OR THE DEVIL
So in learning about Elijah and his dealings with Ahab and the prophets of Baal, every choice that anyone makes, big or small, has either me choosing God, or me choosing the devil. I've come to realize over the years that it's not the exceedingly sinful things in life that are my biggest snares, it's those things that are good, close enough to the best, but still not the best. I know my Heavenly Father has His best for me. Settling for second best is just what that is... settling. This lesson has come at a very good time in my life as I am learning to feed God's sheep. Everything is lawful for me since I am no longer under the law, but not everything is expedient nor edifying. (1 Cor. 10:23) It's a matter of living life not asking "What's wrong with it?" and living life asking "What's RIGHT with it?"


1 Peter 2:9 - I am a peculiar person =)

Ignatus, Polycarp, David the King, Paul the Apostle, John the Beloved Disciple

Now I begin to be a disciple.

I care for nothing,

of visible or invisible things,

so that I may but win Christ.

Let fire and the cross,

let the companies of wild beasts,

let breaking of bones and tearing of limbs,

let the grinding of the whole body,

and all the malice of the devil,

come upon me;

be it so,

only may I win Christ Jesus!

-- Ignatus

...years have I served him,

and he never once wronged me;

how then shall I blaspheme my King,

Who hath saved me?

-- Polycarp

[Thy daughter] shall joy

in thy strength, O LORD;

and in thy salvation

how greatly shall [she] rejoice!

Thou hast given [her]

[her] heart's desire,

and hast not withholden

the request of [her] lips. Selah.

For thou preventest [her]

with the blessings of goodness:

thou settest a crown

of pure gold on [her] head.

[She] asked life of thee,

and thou gavest it [her],

even length of days

for ever and ever.

[Her] glory is great

in thy salvation:

honour and majesty

hast thou laid upon [her].

For thou hast made [her]

most blessed for ever:

thou hast made [her]

exceeding glad with thy countenance.

For [thy daughter]

trusteth in the LORD,

and through the mercy of the most High

[she] shall not be moved.

[Rendition]

-- David the King

If we suffer,

we shall also reign with him:

if we deny him,

he also will deny us:
If we believe not,

yet he abideth faithful:

he cannot deny himself...
Yea,

and all that will live godly

in Christ Jesus

shall suffer persecution.

-- Paul the Apostle

He which testifieth these things saith,

Surely I come quickly.

Amen.

Even so,

come,

Lord Jesus.

-- John the Beloved Disciple

God answers all prayers. God hast not withholden the requests of my lips. He hast given me my heart's desire.

Reckless Abandon

You know those times when God teaches a lesson, then confirms it over and over and over again? Before I knew it, 2008 is almost a third over, and God is confirming over and over again what it means to live by reckless abandon.

To be completely honest, I had forgotten what "reckless abandon" meant, even though it is the first of three things that I am expecting from God in 2008. Bad, huh? Oswald Chambers reminded me today of what it means in My Utmost for His Highest, flooding back the memory of Jeff Adam's sermon that sparked the inspiration earlier this year:

Are you prepared to abandon entirely and let go? The test of abandonment is in refusing to say - "Well what about this?" Beware of supposition. Immediately you allow - What about this? - it means you have not abandoned, you do not really trust God. Immediately you do abandon, you think no more of what God is going to do. Abandon means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions... When you do get through to abandonment to God, you will be the most surprised and delighted creature on earth; God has got you absolutely and has given you your life. If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience or a refusal to be simple enough.

There is something that I have to abandon to God. I might finally have some direction in life and it's got a lot of potential, but I must not worry about the steps. To worry is to not trust.

God's teaching me the simple. So here am I, going back to basics.

Staying in Kansas City

So if you know me at all, you know I love to travel -- specifically outside of the States. Well, within a month I have turned down two opportunities to leave Kansas City for a year to teach English abroad.

God has me here in Kansas City.

This has been a difficult thing for me to swallow, especially with the circumstances surrounding me that make it even more tempting to leave.

But today, I saw the flowers blooming on the one tree outside of our house. It was so beautiful. So even though there is a whole world out there, God told me that there is a whole world in here where He's kept me.

Praise God.

3 Lessons...

My students this session are the five kids who have the highest English skill in our school. At the beginning of the session, I told them that I have three goals for our class. They are:

1. Learn English at a challenging pace
2. Talk with Tk
3. Be a good role model

The first goal is obvious. The second goal has to do with me wanting to know about their days and hear their stories, so that they know that someone cares for them and wants to listen to them while they are so far away from their homes and their families during a huge period of growth and development mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually in their lives.

As part of being a good role model, I've been trying to teach them two things: being grateful and appreciating other people. I'm teaching them gratefulness by having them say things like "thank you" when I give them candy (candy, btw, is a great initiator of good behavior!) I will be teaching them how to appreciate people by having them write out thank you cards to people here that have helped them in one way or another (also giving me a writing assignment for them!)

The funny thing is though, it always seems like the teacher learns more than the students. Yes... the teacher became the student. This is what God did. He took:

Talk time with Tk and told me that I need to learn to talk to Him. My prayer life needs to be seamless, needs to be continuous, needs to be fulfilling.

Being grateful. I need to offer God more sacrifices of thanksgiving, because that is His will for me, because that is how my heart is ruled by the peace of God, because that is half of the whole of faith.

Appreciating people. I need to edify more of the people in my life, because we are to love one another, teach one another, admonish one another in songs and hymns.

The Lord is gracious and
Slow to anger
He is
Rich in love
He is
Good to all
Great is the Lord...
So worthy of praise
Great is the Lord...

I love life...

For the past two or three weeks, I've experienced intimacy with God like never before. It's ONLY by His grace... and by those prayers that He led me to pray.

And incidently, I've spent more time, and quality time at that, with my parents during this past two or three weeks than I have in almost a decade.

Only goes to show me how interconnected those two things are.

Praise God.

The Second Part of Calvary

I had a conversation with a friend the other day and I told him I'm not even to the point where I walk with God. In reality, I'm just crawling.

The real soul behind this idea that I shared with my friend is wrong, not because I'm really walking with God, but because I'm coming at this with the wrong premise.

Everything that I'm reading out of The Green Letters has been so challenging to me, and it deals mainly with the second part of Calvary. While the Reformation brought about what true salvation is, it fell short in emphasizing what real sanctification is.

Can't blame it all on teaching though. Stanford, the author of this book, says that "understanding and appropriating the facts of the Cross proves to be one of the most difficult and trying of all phases for the growing believer. Our Lord holds his most vital and best things in store for those who mean business, for those who hunger and thirst for His very best as it is in our Lord Jesus Christ. The believer's understanding of the two aspects of Calvary gives the key to both spiritual growth, and life-giving service."

Standford also quotes Adolph Saphir, who said:

The narrow path,

commencing with the cross -

'Ye have died with Christ' -

ending with the glory of the Lord Jesus,

is the path on which

the Lord draws near and

walks with His disciples...

if we gladly take hold

of the great fact of redemtion -

'I have been crucified with Christ'-

then Christ by His Spirit

takes up the exercise of

the function of life within us,

and leads us as His bond-slaves (disciples),

in the train

of His triumph.

Target?

I'm selling out to The Man... as circumstances would have it. I didn't want to try for this job at Target for a lot of reasons... but things in life have come up and now I have an interview on Wednesday. How's that? When this girl goes, this girl tends to go overboard... lol. I also applied for a teaching positions in Seoul, Madrid, and Hong Kong. Seoul got back to me this weekend... crazy huh?

So I've been in my "Quarter Life Crisis" for the past year now... and I'm getting sick and tired of everyone asking me" "So what do you want to do with your life?" The answer always is "I don't know =( =( =(" Then I realized yesterday that this answer, in fact, is a lie because I do know what I want to do, BUT:

There is a current and constant war between what I want and what I want.

1. I want to take in the world. I want to learn. I want to teach. I want to meet awesome, awesome people. I want to experience life to the fulliest (of what my pocketbook can afford at the time... lol). I want to be a part in the construction of God's Kingdome.
2. I want to be in the will of God.

And until #1 corresponds with and is in submission to #2, I'm not going to get either.

A huge part of me wants God to deny me the job at Target and really struggle to make ends meet... because my awareness of the necessity of God comes with being aware of my needs. But then I remember the words of Jeff Adams in Amsterdam... that it's okay to make mistakes.... it all goes into God's plan. I have to fail to succeed.

The Green Letters is awesome, by the way. I haven't picked up the book in a week, but I'm only 50 pages into it and it's already a meal-full to digest. Praise the Lord for the two-part redemption found in the Cross.

The key to happiness?

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace
- "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" (Lilias Trotter)


I read this on a poster in high school once:
Happiness is not having what you want. It is wanting what you have.

This week has been a bit looney for me; good, but looney. This week I came to the knowledge that every one of the "men" in my past is happily (?) with someone else, AND all of my best girlfriends (with the exception of one) are sitting happy with their man. I mean, I know that I don't date, but it is the winter and I get S.A.D. every winter since I'd moved to the Midwest. It hasn't been as bad this year though.

Then this morning I was having breakfast and we were talking about a friend who is dating someone that she really shouldn't be. I hadn't gotten so S.A.D. that I would just give up all the way in order to fulfill my need to "be with someone," but at the same time, who am I to talk to her about being satisfied in Christ when the observation that I made about my friends and the past "men" in my life?

Bottom line is this: not only do I have to know, but I have to REMEMBER that I have Christ. I don't have to not only know that I have Him, I have to WANT Him. It's so hard to choose Christ and the ONE best that He wants for me, when I live in a world that belongs to the devil who offers me the TEN good-enoughs to conterfeit God's best.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose" - Jim Elliot

Psalm 27:8

When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek.

Target Practice

Falling on my knees in worship
Giving all I am to seek Your face
Lord all I am is Yours...
My whole life I place in Your hands
God of mercy
Humbled I bow down
At Your presece
At Your throne...
- "Came to my Rescue" (Hillsongs)


God always teaches me things, and I feel that a lot of times I don't learn them because I forget them. Being the "N" that I am (living more in my imagination than in the real world), it's easy for me to get up in ideas and concepts and less on the inaction of those concepts in real life, being the "S" that I am not (living less in the observable, tangible world). So remembering that the entire reason for this blog was to help me remember what God is doing, here we go:


Target #1: Attitude is everything

Now this is something that God has brought to my attention this week, and I am running into plenty of opportunity to practice this "newly" found concept. See, and attitude the way I look at it is not just the way that I feel about the world, but the actual way I choose to see the world. This world is either the world we see, or it is as the Bible says, a world that is ruled by principalties and powers unseen by the human eye. The way my attitude is a huge factor to the enviornment around me, whether it be in my classroom, in my social life, in my church, and in my "ministry." Oswald Chambers said that the things that most define the state of our spirituality are the small things in life. To me, the small things in life has been defined as the multitude of choices in attitude that I make every single length of day. I face so much in a day that can take my attitude away from the way God sees the world and the way that God sees me. Suddenly, the "small" things in life that define my spiritual state, taken cummitively, are not so "small" anymore, are they?


Target #2: I am responsible for my actions first

Now yes, I know that I am responsible for the spiritual welfare of those in my body, but at the same time, I can not expect someone that I'm having issues with change, nor can I truthfully ask for a change in someone when I cannot keep up my end of the bargain. If all I see happening is eye for an eye, well then we will all be blind. I know that I have to lay my own pride aside. I know I have to put the veil of patience and mercy. If I'm not acting right, then I can't expect that other person to act right either. Ha, and I just recalled the personal mantra that I have: that ANY negative feeling on my part is indicitive to a default in MYSELF. I don't need to get angry, God is my Defender. I don't need to get prideful, God is my Good in me. I don't need to get righteous, God is my Law who will act accordingly, for or against me.


Target #3: The best way to teach is to ask questions

And this is an off-target thing more than anything, but I know that God wants me to be able to communicate in a way that is effective. I know that my tongue must be seasoned with salt, and yet I know that the tongue of the virtuous woman is the law of kindness. No one likes to be told something, but everyone remembers a lesson learned on their own than by someone telling them, as if they have walked a mile in their mocassins.


And yes, I realize that I can continue to calculate and formulate theorums and postulates until I'm black and blue, but in the end, this sanctification of this body comes only from God and not by my own flesh. Lord help me see the lines of where my responsability ends and where Your ability begins.

Galatians 3:3

Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

Lord all I am is Yours...

A heart change...

Sometimes it's so hard for me to remember that the rough times in life are the best times in life. It gets me out of me, and that is never and can't ever be wrong. It is so easy for me to trick myself and continue to think that there is good in me.

I am full of earth and dirt.... and You.....
- "Wholly Yours" (David Crowder)

Bienvenidos a 2008

2007 Reflection / 2008 Expectation

So as the first month of 2008 is quickly coming to a close, I have two things.

First, I completely failed everything I did in 2007 - everything that counts anyways. I have a list of more than 15 things that I've failed. Then I have only 3 things that were good that came out of '07: my amazing friendship with Amber Turner, my new knowledge of the definition of salvation from high school camp, and my life spared in my car wreck, leading me to the knowledge that everything must be done "from the inside out," as Hillsongs would put it. The only good things that happened to me in 2007 were things that I had no hand in, things that God gifted me with even though I didn't deserve it.

Second, here is what I'm expecting from God in 2008:

1. Reckless abandon
2. Seamless prayer
3. Witnessed glory

My Daddy, the Missionary

Right now, I'm at a three-pronged fork in the road in my life. I need God to direct me as to where I should be employed, where I work now, in retail, or in a bank. I want the retail job and that's where my parents are advising me to pursue (not pressuring me by any means though... I absolutely LOVE my parents)

You know, the funny thing is that God began directing me about four months ago to pray for my parents to become missionaries. This is pretty "radical" so to speak, because my parents are both pushing into their sixties, have been working the restaurant business since before I was born, and are not really too involved in the church because of the restaurant. For many reasons, I want to take the retail job to make enough money to support them for the many ways that they have given and given and given and given and given to me. When I came to the realization that I have to let God take care of my parents instead of me taking it into my own hands, I was forced to back off. But tonight, I learn that my dad wants to go to seminary in America... to study in a foreign country in a foreign language, when he has not even taken a college class before and when the man is turning 60 this year.

And I want to help my dad in this, but first he has to be free financially. I want to set my father financially free.

God, please make this possible for my father. Make the vision of my dad come true... to teach at a university... make his life matter in building Your kingdom.... please Lord.... please.

Attitude is EVERYTHING

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes." - Chuck Swindoll

You Said Ask

My blog url comes from the song "You Said" by Hillsongs... about us asking God for the nations. I was reminded of a Scripture today that perhaps inspired the song, or by "accident" expounds the song:

Psalm 2:8
Ask of me,
and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.