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Befriending your Man

I’ve had a few conversations lately with women where we’ve had to acknowledge how hard it is to sometimes be a friend to our men.

Whether it’s your boyfriend, your fiance, your husband, or just the guy you’re currently interested in… we sometimes forget how to simply be their friend. All of a sudden things are more complicated and expectations are placed on them that, oftentimes, they can’t meet or, worse yet, don’t even know their ‘supposed’ to meet. 
Somehow, our (sometimes) former friendship fades into oblivion and we forget how to laugh at their jokes without wishing they would filter themselves, we forget how to enjoy hanging out at their house without noticing the mess around us, we forget how to go on a fun date with them without thinking it’s the perfect time to bring up some unresolved argument. We nag, we blame, we find fault even in their attempts for good… and we make sure they know about it. 
Lately I’ve been aware that my friendships with all other males are a lot less complicated. But, the moment friendship turns into something more romantic…something changes. I remember just liking guys when I was single and having our friendship move from the plane of friendship to something…. different. Eye contact suddenly meant something special to me, I was always going through a list of pros and cons in my heads of if they were a good guy for me to truly set my sights on. I inevitably began to treat them a bit differently. 
And now, in a relationship, I’m aware of my struggle to simply be his friend sometimes. To enjoy him, to appreciate him, to do things with him, to not expect so much out of him. I feel like I’ve lost the ability to let him be himself…because I still have these expectations and ideals for what a man in a relationship is ‘supposed’ to be. 
It’s a crock… and it isn’t fair. 
I don’t know if you can relate to this at all, but I’d encourage women everywhere to reevaluate your friendships with your men. Reevaluate whether or not you are being a good friend to him… or, are you being a selfish, nagging, blaming woman? Are you willing to do things with him that he enjoys, even if you have no interest in them? Are you willing to lay aside your expectations of what your perfect man is ‘supposed’ to be and let him be who he is? Might you ever believe that who is he could actually be better than who you want him to be? Better for you, even? 
They want to be our friend…they want to have fun with us and laugh with us and just enjoy being with us. They want to pursue us and to love us and to care for us. They just don’t want to be told how to do to it. I don’t blame them.. 
So, enjoy your man (or the guy you want to be your man) today. 
Be his friend. 
Do something with him that he likes, and don’t complain or whine about it the whole time. Don’t rub it in his face later when he doesn’t do something with you that you enjoy. The point isn’t to get something out of him for your sake… the point is to put his needs above yours. 
I think that when we’re willing to set our impossible expectations to the side and just enjoy the simplicity that can come with true, deep friendship… we might just be much more content in our relationships (or friendships) than we ever thought we could be. 
Try it. 
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Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine…

The comment: 

I recently saw pictures of two of my friends at their engagement party.  And realized that I wasn’t invited.  And all of a sudden, all of the thoughts in my mind turned into thoughts of why wasn’t I invited, and maybe if I had invested more here I would be more valued.  And the Lord gently reminded me that it wasn’t about me.  My first instinct was, “duh, it’s about them.”  And He said, “no, it’s about Me.”  Why is it so hard for me to remember that?  Why do I constantly want to worship myself instead of Him?

When I initially read this, I laughed. I laughed because I closely identified with your feelings. Just yesterday I was thinking about what life will look like when I leave my job in the fall and how I want to be remembered and missed. I began thinking of the ways that I need to intentionally seek out my co-workers and friends more so they will actually miss me instead of just being another person to come and go in our constantly changing environment. Pathetic, right? 


Instead of caring abundantly more that camp is left in good hands and is doing good things to further the Kingdom, I was more concerned with my own emotions, my own heart… myself. 


Unfortunately, I think it’s natural. 
It’s natural for us to want to be included, to want to be invited, to know that we’re worth it and that we matter to other people. 


I guess, at this point, I think that life is going to be a series of these humbling moments where we aren’t included, when we don’t get invited, when we don’t feel worth it or that we matter to other people. It’s in these times that I feel like the Lord really gets to speak to our hearts… and we go through exactly what you described. 


We realize it’s not about us…and it suddenly hits us that it’s about those people, or about camp, or about whatever else. And then the Lord prods further and reminds us that it’s actually about Him and Him receiving all the glory. Oh…  yeah… that. 


I think it’s okay.
I think this shows that the Lord is going to bring us to these places that we aren’t even capable of getting to ourselves. He takes us deeper into a place beyond us realizing what it’s really about… a place we don’t typically go on our own accord. 


Instead of beating yourself up about how you fail over and over again about not remembering that He’s the one who receives the glory, or that you worship yourself instead of Him… simply let Him take you to that place with Him. 


‘Cause the moment you start beating yourself up over how you didn’t remember and how you constantly want to worship you…guess who you just put the focus on again? 


Let those ‘Oh yeah’ moments take you further into a place of worshipping Him, into a place of thanking Him, into a place of just being with Him and all of His glory. 


Clearly, I need to do this, too. 


It’s not about us. It’s not even about them. It’s about Him. 


For Christ’s sake, right? 

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For Christ’s Sake

I’m overly cynical lately.

I’m overly cynical because I’m weary of Christianity. I dislike so much of what it’s become. And, if I (a Christian in full-time ministry) don’t like what it looks like… why would anyone else? The more aggravating part of not necessarily liking how things look, is recognizing how I’ve fallen prey to the Christian culture.

I’m just as guilty of spewing out commentary that I don’t actually mean, of wanting to tie everything into a pretty package with a bow on a top, of acting like I have it all together, of using Christian lingo without really understanding what it all means…

I heard an incredible sermon a few weeks ago about all of this. One of the things the pastor said that’s stuck with me is the need to ‘let God be who He is, not who we want Him to be’.

I think that’s where my frustration stems from. That everywhere I look God has become so much of who we want Him to be. Whether it’s verses that get posted on Facebook out of context, or the ways that we try to cope with each day–Christianity has become so much about us… It seems we tend to serve God for our sake, more than His sake.

It seems like we care more about God working everything out for our good.
We care more that we are given eternal life.
We care that He gives us everything we ask for.
We strive to be good people because we like the way it makes us feel, or we think it’s the way that we are supposed to live in order to do things ‘right’.

Check it out:

‘But whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ…’ 

In context, Paul is basically saying that no amount of righteousness attained through the law (legalism) means anything. Even his good deeds, even his perfection as a Jew… none of it matters next to knowing Christ. Because of Christ, He has lost everything… not because of himself, not because of what he could attain… but for Christ’s sake!

I honestly wonder how many of us have given our lives to Jesus for our sake and not His sake… because of who we want God to be vs. who He actually is.

Yes, God is good, He is love, He is gentle, and sovereign… but He is also jealous, and righteous, and holy, holy, holy… and filled with wrath. He is a God who demands His glory. And honestly, when I lay out all of His attributes, I don’t necessarily like all of them. I don’t like them because I don’t understand them… and I have to choose to still love Him even when I don’t understand Him, I have to choose to still trust Him.

Can our faith be transformed into a journey that is for His sake and not our sake?

I’m tired of making life about me.
I’m tired of making God into who I want Him to be.

He is.
I have to worship Him in the fullness of who He is, not just the parts of Him that I want. I have to get to a point where I know who He is, so I’m not making Him into something that He’s not.

Let us toss aside everything…so that we may truly know Christ.
Let it be for His sake that we lose it all…

May we die, so we might truly live for Him.

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Sensitive Sally Must Die.

I’m kind of a baby.

I’m a baby because I get my feelings hurt pretty easily. You don’t even have to say something mean about me, but if it’s anything negative about something that I had any part in, I feel pretty lousy. It’s kind of ridiculous.

It’s just a lot easier to hear the nice things… even if I’m not super great at receiving those, either.

But, here’s the thing…
I can’t ever grow, I can’t ever get better, I can’t ever be challenged if I’m not willing to hear that there are areas in my life that need some refining. Unfortunately, instead of humbly taking constructive criticism, I often find myself quickly defensive. I have a justifiable reason for everything I do, and by golly, it’s okay that in this one circumstance I gossiped, or lashed out, or withdrew, or put my needs above yours. Isn’t it….?

I don’t think I’m alone in my sensitivity issues, either.
I wonder how many of you respond to someone calling out the negative things in your life?

When Jesus calls out the Pharisees in Matthew 23, he says to them, ‘You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel’. It’s always one of those verses I gloss over quickly… but, think about it.

How often are we in this mode of trying to refine the smallest things in ourselves? We always have something that we need to work on, something that we need to get better in. We tear ourselves apart because we aren’t perfect and so we keep straining to weed out every blemish on/in us. Meanwhile, we’ve swallowed a camel… and a lot of times we don’t even know it.

We’re prancing around, focused on making sure we’ve got all those little things taken care of, but everyone around us sees this giant mass inside of us that we’re absolutely blind to. Everyone else sees that we’re prideful, or selfish, or mean, or lazy, or joyless.

A few years ago we filled out anonymous peer evaluations at work. When the results were in, we sat down and were able to review our strongest things and our weakest things. Apparently the majority of the people I worked closely with thought I was a real bummer to be around, although none of them had ever wanted to actually talk to me about it. I literally had no idea that’s how I was viewed, I had no idea that’s the impression I was giving off. They didn’t want to hurt my feelings and make it even more miserable to be around me. I get it.

I don’t know about you guys, but instead of being Sensitive Sally about everything, I want to be a person who invites others to critique, to challenge, to hold me to a higher standard. I want people to feel like they have the freedom to call me out on the things that I may be blind to. I need people to tell when I’m walking around with a giant camel in me because I got so honed in on keeping out the gnat.

Lately, I’ve found that the best thing I can do is practice being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to be come angry. When I listen to what someone has to say, I can better absorb what it is and try to view things from their perspective. When I listen, I must not be listening for the way I’m going to attack their point of view. After they’ve spoken, I need to be super slow to respond. I’m far too quick with my words and if they’ve just called out something negative in me, my immediate reaction is to retaliate. Sometimes this may mean that you need to pause the conversation and come back to it when you’ve had time to really process through what they’ve said. If I start to get defensive and angry about what they’re saying, it helps if I follow the first two things. It helps if I recognize that they aren’t out to get me, but they’re helping me.

Extracting a camel from one’s self is no easy task, but it’s necessary.
Be willing to ask others in your life if there’s anything they see in you that you’ve been blind to. Be willing to listen to their words and evaluate from their point of view. Invite people you love and trust in to challenge you.

Let your own Sensitive Sally die.
People might have things to say to you that you won’t want to hear… things that might hurt your feelings.
But wouldn’t you rather know it and learn from it than live your life with a giant camel in you and everyone around you being too afraid of hurting your feelings to tell you?

Get rid of the camel.
Let others help.
You’ll thank them for it later. I promise.

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Quest for Worth

In desperately wanting to know what it means to truly find my identity in Christ, I think that today I must surrender. I don’t think I will fully know what it means on this side of eternity… not truly, anyway. 
I think we’re really good at throwing around Scripture, at even praying through Scripture, at longing for a wholeness and pursuing it wholeheartedly. I think our hearts our often pure in this quest for finding our worth in something greater and deeper than our outward beauty…in the quest to know that we matter, that we are worth it, that we have what it takes. 
I wonder, though, if we’re setting ourselves up for further heartache. 
Because there are always those moments (if you can’t tell by now, I have a thing for the ‘moments’) where we get it. The moments where we get a taste of the wholeness, we get a taste of what it means to rest in Him–we believe fully that we are His and nothing can take us away. 
But the moments pass… 
And suddenly we feel inadequate again. We feel unwanted. We feel ugly and fat. We feel too this or too that.
Confusion sets in. 
‘But God, didn’t I just have this incredible encounter with You? Didn’t I just fully believe that You were enough for me? Why do I not feel that way now?’

The result to these questions play out in a few different ways: 
  • We think our faith isn’t strong enough, and we beat ourselves up for failing at keeping our focus. We beat ourselves up for doubting, for believing lies. 
  • We get angry with satan, and throw out accusations at the father of lies. 
  • We give up.
  • We hide our disappointment behind a fake smile and a overly cheery grunt that ‘God is still good and sovereign and I’m so in love with Him’
Maybe your response is different, but I think ultimately we all feel a little defeated in some capacity when the moment passes us by. I have yet to meet a woman who is 100% satisfied with her appearance, 100% confident and secure in who she is, 100% able to find her identity in Christ all the time. 
It makes me wonder if we’re missing the mark…. again… and again… and again. That maybe the solution isn’t in the attempts to feel like we’re worth it, that we matter, that we are sons and daughters of a King. Maybe those are the promises of what’s to come, and the moments simply provide tastes of eternity with Him. Maybe the solution isn’t to set out to rebuke the lies of the enemy in this aspect of life… maybe because this battle has already been won. 
I guess this is how I see it: 
Reality? My life is always going to be a roller coaster of feeling like I know what it means to find myself in Christ, and then, quite oppositely, feeling like I don’t know where to begin in finding myself at all. I think the truth of the matter is that this world is not our home. We are still sinners saved by grace… we are still surrounded by sinners, by imperfection, by brokenness, by illness, by poverty. 
This was never the original plan…but as long as we are here on this earth, it doesn’t seem that we can get back to where it was…not until Jesus comes again. I don’t see why we expect to get there in our identity when we know that the hope we have is for something that awaits us in the future. 
In all of our efforts to rebuke the enemy and fend off the lies about our image, our identity, our worth…I wonder what it might be like if we directed all of our efforts toward rebuking the lies of another’s image, another’s identity, another’s worth. ‘Cause as much as we don’t want to admit it, I wonder if the quest for our identity is just a ploy of the enemy to keep us from being focused on the real battle: making disciples of all the nations.

I wonder if we are trying to fight a battle where victory has been claimed. The verses in Scripture we cling to are typically ones of truth… ‘you are this’. It seems once we know Christ, this cannot be stripped from us. While feelings come and go, the truth remains the same. While my view of who I am in Christ might seem different from time to time, it doesn’t change that I am His. Nothing can separate us- not even my fleeting, irrational emotions. 

I wonder if we might be able to be women who can readily accept that some days I might not feel so beautiful, I might not feel so wanted, I might not feel so worthy… but that I can still be a woman who continues living out my calling, regardless of whether or not I feel so loved and cherished by God. Some days, in this fallen world, it’s going to happen… for the rest of my life. It doesn’t negate what is. 
Instead of getting so caught up in me…
Could I be a woman who will laugh at the days to come? Who will laugh thinking about days of no more tears, no more death, no more questioning how loved I am, no more doubting that His inheritance is really also mine? 
There doesn’t need to be defeat in this as we press on toward the goal. It seems as though it can simply be a reality of our sinful world… a reality that we can mourn, but where we can also cling to the hope of what is to come. 
There only needs to be perseverance, diligence, standing firm… and not losing sight of the biggest calling on each of our lives. 
Don’t be destroyed by attacks on yourself. Move onto something greater, something bigger. Reach out to someone else. Be willing to forget about you. Trust that the good moments you experience about who you are in Christ are a taste of what is to come… and fight for the souls of others in how you pray, live, think. 
That, I think, is a quest that is worth it. 

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Bubble Girl

I stumbled upon a South Carolinian Pastor’s blog yesterday and found myself reading an apology to his readers, town, congregation. He had sent out a mass invitation to the community welcoming them to their Easter church service. Here’s the card:

Apparently it was a bad move for the guy. After I read his apology, I couldn’t help but want to read the 80 comments below.

As I perused, I was genuinely shocked by the wide variety of stances people took on the card. The comments represented non-believers, to Christians, to members of the congregation, to people in the community…. and no response was really predictable.

The biggest thing to me wasn’t whether or not I agreed with any of the comments, but the sudden realization that I live in a bubble… and I think I always have.  The more comments I read, the more aware I was that I don’t have a very good grasp on what non-believers actually think of believers, what they think of Christianity. I hear things from time to time, but I don’t actually know, I don’t actually encounter it often…

Instead, I’ve been safe inside my little bubble– tucked away and untouchable, believing all the fairy-tale things I want about God, Jesus, and the Bible. Not only does my bubble consist of my own wonderful thoughts, but it also contains a lot of people who uphold these same thoughts and beliefs. It’s place of ignorance…perhaps even a place of fear.

Honestly, my head swirled into a bit of a frenzy… unsure of what to do with these realizations. I started wondering if we were just raising up more and more ignorant people in the church who are unwilling to  look beyond themselves and their own beliefs…or if it was just me. I began thinking that our world is really no different from the one Jesus lived in– full of religious leaders who are convinced they are the only ones doing things right (even when Jesus came to show them differently), full of people who hate Jesus and everything He stands for, full of people who are just living however they please, full of people who are broken and need of being saved….

I don’t think it’s good for me to be Bubble Girl. I don’t think it’s helpful for me to be ignorant to what’s going on in the world and to not truly know what others think about Christianity. How can I ever seek to love someone outside of the church if I haven’t the slightest idea of where they are coming from? How can I ever think about holding anyone else to the standard Scripture calls us to when they mock it and disregard a God who would allow His son to be brutally tortured and killed all for His glory? There can be no judgment… only love.

Unfortunately I’m a pro at judging and not so hot at loving…

Jesus wasn’t a Bubble Man. He didn’t confine Himself to the religious, and I think He knew all to well what everyone thought of Him. He dwelled among common men…rough, hard-hearted, broken, lost men. And I know we say this all the time… but how often do we actually do it?

How often do we actually get outside of our comfort zones and live life with those that not only don’t believe in Jesus… but those who hate, who scorn, who reject Him?

I confess that I’m scared.
But I know, especially after reading what’s out there, that it is necessary for us to go into the world. Not to let our piety hover over them, not to judge and condemn them… but to know them, to love them even when we know them, and to share our changed lives/hearts/stories with them.

Soon and very soon, this bubble I dwell in will be popped… and into the world I will go.

Even if there’s mocking, even if stones fly…  will I hold my tongue, as Jesus did – like a sheep before her shearers is silent- or will I argue, will I protest, will I defend?

*sigh*
We have so much to learn.
And for all the harm we seem to do in the world, I can only beg that He works in spite of us. Oh, how thankful I am when He does…. all the time.

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Unbelieving Belief

The comment:

Where is the line between the natural doubts and then those doubts which lead to sin? How shall I handle these doubts? I feel like a battle is going on in my heart, over all I believe…

If there’s one thing I’ve struggled with my entire life, it’s doubt.
I doubt everything.

The earliest trace of doubt I can remember was as a little girl, age 6. My parents would have me say my prayers every night and in addition to praying that no robbers, fire or Indians would come my way (…long story), I’d pray consistently that Jesus would come into my heart. I remember being fearful that He hadn’t heard me the night before and so I needed to be extra sure each night.

Ironically enough, my first serious boyfriend dubbed me ‘Faith’ and the emails we exchanged back and forth (at the age of 15, mind you) were always headed with this affectionate nickname. It may have been given in attempts to spur me on toward faith and never let me forget to have it… honestly, I don’t remember. But, I know that faith is not a defining thing about me (ask anyone who knows me well).

My sophomore year of college was especially challenging. While I had always had questions and doubts regarding faith, that spring semester led me down a dangerous road. I didn’t get why Jesus dying for the world was such a big deal. It seemed to me that many people would be willing to die so that the entire world might be able to live… in fact, similar things had already been done. My mindset was almost a, ‘so what’s the big deal, anyway?’

I began to trail down the path of what it might be like if I walked away from my faith. What would it look like if I abandoned Christianity, if I denounced God and lived life any way I wanted to?

I thought about it a lot, and lived out the hypothetical life in my dreams. As much as I could see myself taking this road, I kept coming to this block. No matter how much I tried to convince myself that there was no God, and certainly not one I could give my life to, I still couldn’t imagine my life without Him. Even in my lowest moments, I knew that He was the one, true constant in my life that I couldn’t deny. It hit me that Jesus would have still gone to that cross, even if it had been just for me.

But I still doubted.
I weaseled my way into another summer as a camp counselor and that’s when transformation really started to happen. Transformation because I met a godly man who challenged me that doubt could be good. He pointed me in the direction of Scripture and encouraged me to look at the people, the faithful followers of Christ. Turns out they weren’t always so faithful…but it seemed to be in their moments of doubt that God was able to still work, He was able to reveal His glory, His power, His might.

I still doubt. All the time.
I think, to some degree, it’s okay. I think it’s what you do with the doubt that matters.
Do you let the doubt move you into a place of searching for answers, into a place of begging that the Lord would increase your faith?
OR, does the doubt cause you to halt, does it put you in a place of being unwilling to want to have faith?

I think this is the answer to your question. We’re all going to doubt… but when your doubt leads to despair, when it leads you into resisting God and constantly desiring to turn from Him–that’s when you need to be wary.

Ultimately, I firmly believe that He doesn’t let His children wander forever. I often encourage people to explore their doubts, to seek answers to their questions… to try and imagine what life without God is like. God wouldn’t be God if He couldn’t handle this. I’d rather you go exploring and finding God for yourself than try to convince you with my words that He is the living God. I believe you will find Him, if you seek Him with all of your heart.

I think your doubt becomes sin when you sit in it, when you dwell there, when you settle for it because you think there’s no hope of getting out. I’ve been here, too– not so very long ago.

Press on to know Him, even when you doubt.
Press on to know His word–get familiar with those in Scripture who doubted, get familiar with how the Lord drew them out of those places.

Acknowledge your doubt before the Lord.
Guess what?
He’s not surprised by it.

I think it’s so valuable for us to be honest with Him, to not try to hide things from Him. When we allow ourselves to be honest with Him about our doubts, I think He can more easily meet us where we’re at because we’re openly letting Him in instead of resisting or denying.

And may our prayer always ultimately be:
Father, I do believe. Help my unbelief! 


‘Cause we believe… and we don’t… 
And we need Him to change our hearts, because… try as I may… I just can’t make myself believe. 
I am sure of what I hope for, though. 
Are you? 
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SinnED… or SinnING?

True confession is hard. 

It’s much easier for us to talk about things in the past tense than it is for us to admit when we’re currently struggling with things. It’s safer… we feel less judged…we feel stronger. Only… a lot of times we’re just liars. 
Think about it…
How often do you talk to people when you’re in the midst of sin vs. either waiting until time has passed in order to present it as a past struggle, or actually just lying about the time frame of things?
I’ve had people avoid me for long bouts of time because they didn’t want me to ask them about the stuff going on their lives. It was much easier for them to wait… and wait…and finally come out of something before they were able to tell me what had been going on. Ever done that? 
I have. 
Just the other day I was talking to a girl about the importance of confession and accountability and how it only works if you want it to. I was talking to her about being specific with her confession and being willing to admit that her struggles were a present thing and not a thing of the past. As soon as we were done talking, I felt conviction as my hypocritical self had been hiding a few current struggles from my closest friends. Immediately I went and confessed. 
I hate this. 
I hate that we talk a lot about freedom in Christ, and we talk a lot about how grace covers us, and we talk a lot about how we love people no matter what… but we don’t always believe these things. 
We don’t always believe that freedom actually exists… we don’t always believe that His grace is sufficient… we don’t always think people mean it when they say they love us, especially if they find out our deepest sources of shame. We choose to believe the lie.  
I think another thing might even be that we don’t want to confess sin in the midst of sin because we don’t actually want to change. We like our sin (and we simultaneously hate it), so as long as we can present our sin as past sin, we don’t have people always checking in, always asking us about it. We’re free to continue living in it until we feel conviction heavily and need to confess again.
I really do believe that freedom can come in confession. I believe it comes when we are truly honest about our sin, when we are truly honest about how much we’re struggling with something… when we’re willing to even be specific about our sin. It’s one thing to tell a friend that you struggle with lust… but it’s another thing to tell them that you’re fantasizing about a specific someone and longing to be with them constantly. If I know the latter, I know more of how to specifically pray for you and I know the questions to ask you. 
We have to want it, though. 
As I’ve thought a lot lately about what it really changes people, I’ve come to the conclusion that people have to want to change themselves. At that point they’re then willing to do whatever it takes to make the changes– whether that means full surrender, begging the Lord, asking others for help, seeking counseling, putting boundaries/restrictions on their life… whatever it takes. 
But, I can’t make you want to change. 
Do you want to? 
Are you ready to? 
Does it matter enough to you? 
If so, I urge you to start with confession. With the Lord and with close friends (of the same gender) that you can trust. Be willing to tell them the things that you are struggling with, not just the things that you’ve struggled with. Be willing to get specific. 
Walk in the freedom it brings and do whatever it takes to keep walking in that. 
Walk in the fullness of the things you say you believe. 
And be willing to love others and walk with them through their current struggles, too. 
Go confess whatever it is you know you need to. 
No more delaying. 
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More than This

Easter is kind of this weird holiday for me.

While it’s one of the 2 times during the year that many people attend church, it seems a bit underrated. Aside from church attendance and a plethora of Scriptures all over people’s Facebook statuses, I wonder how well we celebrate this holiday.

Dying eggs, egg hunts, our Sunday best, a substantial meal with family and friends, a sunrise service, Easter baskets, chocolate bunnies, peeps… a mixture of pagan rituals tied into the sacred. Interesting.

In all honesty, I think I usually have higher expectations for Christmas and Easter. I want them to mean more…or, rather, I want to focus more on the meaning of them than the traditions behind them. In the Christian faith, this day is a big day. It’s the reason we can live with any amount of hope… and we reference it all the time. I just want to do Easter justice… and I’m not sure I know how.

This summer we had an experience with 400+ students each week on the top of a hill with a giant altar. Every week I’d walk a little sheepy up to the top beforehand and I thought/prayed through what I was about to say to these students. Every week I felt inadequate to speak, every week I feared getting something wrong, every week… as I led this sheep…I’d think about Jesus being led to the cross and what that must have been like.

I got the opportunity to tell these students about Old Testament sacrifice. I told them about what the law required for unintentional sin, I described what the altar in the tabernacle must have been like. I brought out the little sheepy and unsheathed my knife, giving them a real visual of what it would be like to not only watch innocent blood spill for the sake of my sins, but to be the one who shed it. I subtly turned my knife over, so the blunt side faced up…and quickly slid it under the sheep’s throat. Silence. Then gasps. Then words of accusation. Then realization that the sheep was okay.

But, I think we quickly forget…

…without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. 

The law requires blood to be shed.

I don’t think we are very great at grasping the fact that we are sinners. I don’t think I always believe that I deserve hell. Quite oppositely, I find myself believing that I deserve good things…and am upset when I don’t get them.

Can I grasp that I truly am a sinner?
Can I grasp that I need Jesus’ blood to atone for my sins?
Can I grasp that when He said It is finished that He meant it?
Can I grasp that I can’t save myself?

I want Easter to be a day where we truly lay down our lives as we claim victory in Christ. A day where we really believe that the battle has been won. A day where we fall on our faces in worship because innocent blood has been shed so we might live.

And I don’t want this to just be one day, but an extension of our entire lives.

Maybe I’m just an idealist…. and as a result, I live life in disappointment a lot.

I guess I’m wondering…
Will you let today be about more than the candy, the food, the company, the church service, the list of 5,000 other things you need to do before Monday? Will you simply be still and dwell in the fact that you are sinner, saved by grace, and then walk forth in the victory that brings?
And then, will you do the same thing tomorrow?
And the next day?
And the day after that?

Will you let yourself be revived?
Will you let the things that hold eternal value be the things that matter more than the things that will fade away?

He has risen.
Can we at least want to allow that to change us?

Clinging to a hope for more…
for more than glimmers of what could be… but, instead, a life of true radical change.

I need it.
I need Him.

Do you?

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At War With Yourself?

While watching Tangled with one of my groups the other night, the following scene stuck out to me: 

It’s quite the perfect picture of a woman’s emotional instability. Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration at times, but, I fear we reveal much more of our ‘crazy’ more often than we realize.

This dialogue seems to happen at the cusp of big decisions. We’re always weighing the pros and cons, we’re always second-guessing ourselves, we’re always thinking and re-thinking … thus, appearing a bit internally conflicted. Or, as Flinn puts it… at war with ourselves. Let’s be honest, though. I get this way about where I want to eat, what I want to eat once I get there, and how much tip is a good amount to leave.

It would seem that indecisiveness plagues us at times. We become people who are unable to make decisions because we’re so scared of making the wrong decision. What if I choose to get my degree in psychology, but I end up wanting to do elementary education? What if I choose to marry this guy and a few years later I meet someone else I’d rather be with? What if I choose to move to this new place and I never meet anyone I can be friends with? What if I choose Mexican food and it doesn’t hit the spot (okay, so it’s a bit ridiculous, but a lot of you can identify with it)? Our fear is the root of the problem.

We become crazy.
Genuinely excited about seizing new opportunities and adventures in life, but terrified of the ramifications of our decisions. Terrified of what the unknown actually means and the things that await us out there. So we talk ourselves out of it…. and back into it… and then out of it… and back into it… and there’s really no telling which way we will go….especially to anyone watching us from the outside as we sift through the turmoil in our brains.

I like think about existing in a world where we don’t live our lives out of fear. A world where we walk boldly into the unknown, into new settings… and we trust that it will all be okay. A world where we could just decide something without having to second-guess anything, without having to worry about missing out on something better…because we are so confident in the decision we have made.

There’s always going to be room for our crazy inner dialogue as long as we make it a priority…
but, I’m just not convinced that’s any way to live life. We don’t have to suffer through our bipolar episodes to make good decisions for ourselves. We just need to walk confidently into our decisions… excited about what new doors we can walk through, the new people to meet, the new things to see, the new purpose to behold.

Get out of whatever tower you’re currently complacent in.
Break free of the mold you feel stuck in.
Seize new opportunities, embrace the unknown… be willing to try something different.

Fear isn’t from the Lord.
Be willing to go somewhere new, somewhere different… be willing to think new/different things, be willing to be someone new/different… and trust that the new and the different might be better than anything you’ve ever known. To trust that the Lord, your God, is bringing you into a good land.

Go.
No inner dialogue, no war with yourself, no second-guessing.

Go.
Enjoy.
Love.
Share.

Drink deeply today, sweet friends.

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