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In an empty apartment tonight, and this is what I decided to do....

Thu, 02 May 2013 21:37:00 -0400

In an empty apartment tonight, and this is what I decided to do. I already packed my guitar, so a cappella was the only option.

I’m not the best singer and this is pitchy, I know, but it’s from the heart nonetheless.

“Falling in love with yourself is as beautiful as any experience of love is. It’s learning to laugh...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 16:12:23 -0400

“Falling in love with yourself is as beautiful as any experience of love is. It’s learning to laugh at your awkward tendencies and smile at all your quirky habits. It’s learning to be grateful for the many sides you have – confident, crazy, shy, sexy, nerdy, angry, weird, and all the rest of them. It is realizing that you’re one of a kind and that you deserve to give the world the best person you can be. Falling in love with yourself is being happy in your life and knowing that in this one moment in time, you’re beautiful simply because you are you.”

— Kovie Biakolo

Photo

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:05:47 -0400

Josh Garrels speaking on Love. This doesn’t even need an...

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:01:19 -0400

Josh Garrels speaking on Love.

This doesn’t even need an explanation.

The Perfect Wisdom of our God

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 10:14:32 -0400

I read this same story last year, and I think about it so often.

“Many years ago there was a monk who needed olive oil, so he planted an olive tree sapling. After he finished planting it, he prayed, ‘Lord, my tree needs rain so its tender roots may drink and grow. Send gentle showers.’ And the Lord sent gentle showers. Then the monk prayed, ‘Lord, my tree needs sun. Please send it sun.’ And the sun shown, gilding the once-dripping clouds. ‘Now send frost, dear Lord, to strengthen its branches,’ cried the monk. And soon the little tree was covered in sparkling frost, but by evening it had died.

Then the monk sought out a brother monk in his cell and told him of his strange experience. After hearing the story, the other monk said, ‘I also have planted a little tree. See how it is thriving! But I entrust my tree to its God. He who made it knows better than a man like me what it needs. I gave God no constraints or conditions, except to pray, ‘Lord, send what it needs— whether that be a storm or sunshine, wind, rain, or frost. You made it, and you know best what it needs.’”

Streams in the Desert Devotion for March 29.

Everyone always says “God’s grace is an ocean, and we’re all sinking.” And I...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:57:00 -0400

Everyone always says “God’s grace is an ocean, and we’re all sinking.”

And I completely agree with that.

But think for a second about how terrifying sinking in an ocean would actually be. If you were alone in the middle of the massive sea, I can bet that your first reaction would not be to float there in great happiness and rest. You would most likely be screaming, trying to frantically think of a way to get out of the situation, and probably weeping in great distress.

Once we realize the safeness that is God’s grace, it becomes beautiful and freeing. But imagine the process of letting go, the actual sinking and release of control that allows us to slip into the scariness of that trust by which we receive grace. It’s not all fun and games.

It’s a huge statement that I think, as Christians, we’re so used to just throwing around.

But really take a while to think about what it means to sink into a body of water that mankind knows less than 10% about. I don’t know what that thought feels like to you, personally, but really take a second to just feel the emotion that it brings. And then talk to your Creator about that emotion.

“Running in Circles” by Will Reagan and the United...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 18:11:00 -0400

“Running in Circles” by Will Reagan and the United Pursuit

“The Lord gives strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace.”

// Psalm 29:11

"I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in the..."

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:06:00 -0400

“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in the hands of God, that I still possess.”

- Martin Luther

"Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and..."

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 21:19:00 -0400

““Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason. A life of knowing Him who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world.””

- Oswald Chambers

The Simple Joy of Being Able to Trust and Obey

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:25:00 -0400

“They asked, ‘How did you get your sight?’

He answered, ‘The man named Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. Then He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”

-John 9:10-11

Imagine this story if the blind man had become upset with Jesus for putting mud on his eyes, or if he had become confused and simply wiped away the mess instead of traveling to wash it as Jesus commanded. Imagine how this story would end without the obedience of the blind man.

I have to say that his obedience is so encouraging, yet so convicting.

If I were this man, I would have preferred a healing without the mud, without the traveling to wash, and honestly, with simplicity and ease. But Christ commanded otherwise. He put mud on his eyes, even when it may have seemed to human minds that the mess was unnecessary.

I guess my point is that we’re not going to understand why God does what He does. We don’t understand why He brings mud, mess, and difficulty before healing sometimes. We don’t understand why His good so often doesn’t seem to align with what we perceive as good.

All that really matters is that we trust and obey. He does what He does for reasons we may never understand, but as that old hymn says, “there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey”.

He knows what He is doing, and He only works for the good of His children, whether or not there seems to be some unnecessary mud in the way. Just trust, and just obey. That is joy.

I’ve been thinking about the fact that I’m a human a lot lately. Just a little, tiny,...

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:37:00 -0500

I’ve been thinking about the fact that I’m a human a lot lately.

Just a little, tiny, human girl with feelings and passions, fears and mistakes. A tiny human with a painful past and an unknown future.

I’ve been thinking about how similar we all are, us humans; how we can know a hundred people who are exactly like us while knowing absolutely nothing about them.

It’s so easy to go through life knowing less than a fraction of who the people around you actually are, what they’re actually going through. We so often fail to really experience people.

I don’t know if I’ve noticed it more because I’m in the South, the buckle of the Bible belt, where literally everyone seems to be a Christian in some way or another, and it’s actually more prevalent, or if I’m just becoming more aware of what has always surrounded me, but it seems like everyone wants to hide who they are for fear that their past somehow lessens their value. Everyone wants to hide their mistakes, their failures.

Sure, we talk about our struggles if they involve workload or sickness, but I guess I’m the kind of person who wants to fully know a person. It’s great to pray for someone’s stress with schoolwork, and that’s needed, but everyone deals with that. I want to be able to know someone’s past mistakes, where they’ve screwed up, what they’re carrying shame and guilt for, where they actually come from, and all of the difficult things that are refining them into Christ’s image. That’s where healing comes from. True and raw community. I don’t know if it’s just that the South is full of well-sheltered Christians who have never made significant mistakes, but I feel pretty alone in my failures. And I’m going to get pretty open here: I feel completely discouraged from sharing the intimate parts of who I am with people because, in all honesty, no one seems to expect me to. People expect everyone around them to put up a fake facade, so they don’t dig and push for more.

I don’t mean to be critiquing the way people interact, I’m just sort of stating my observations and how I’ve been reacting to a belated realization of culture shock in moving from California to Tennessee. The South operates differently, and I think I’m just beginning to be able to put my finger on that specific difference. In my community in California, rawness was desired and pursued, and here it seems to by shied away from.

And I guess it’s just strange to think about what a huge influence our society and our culture have on us tiny, little humans. These macro-level forces that we forget about, like the structure of society, are subtly shaping our micro-level interactions on a day to day basis. The community we bring ourselves into, in some ways, molds and changes who we are. It’s inevitable. And it’s intriguing, in my opinion. It makes me realize how tiny, fleeting, and ultimately powerless we all are.

This morning in Chilhowee, TN. Woke up early, got hot chocolate,...

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 10:50:00 -0500

This morning in Chilhowee, TN.

Woke up early, got hot chocolate, watched the sunrise, and explored my Father’s creation in light snowfall.

Beauty.

"I wish I could say that everything I do is for the glory of God, but I can’t. And neither can you...."

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 22:53:00 -0500

“I wish I could say that everything I do is for the glory of God, but I can’t. And neither can you. What I can say is the blood of Jesus covers all my efforts to glorify myself.”

So Here's a Problem:

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:50:00 -0500

This might not be a well-liked post, and it might not even be relevant to many people, but I feel convicted to just put this out there. (Just so you know, at times it might seem like this is directed only to women of the church, but that’s simply because I’m speaking from my own point-of-view).

Okay. So everyone has been talking about the super bowl this past week, and of course, they’re all talking about Beyonce’s half-time performance. I just don’t understand how, as Christians, we’re endorsing such provocative and un-Christlike behavior.

Now I’m not going to say that Beyonce isn’t talented, and I’m definitely not saying that we should condemn her or hate her in any way, shape, or form. All I’m saying is that when my Christian friends post all over the internet about how Beyonce is an idol and a goddess simply because she danced around in lingerie, it concerns me. If the Holy Spirit is living inside of us, we’re called to deny the flesh. We’re called to live in a way that Christ would. We’re called to purity. I don’t want to imply in any way that Christ wouldn’t love this woman. I just think it needs to be made clear that He would not be supporting her actions. He wouldn’t want to see performances like the super bowl half-time show. I believe that it would break His heart, and that He would desire repentance. So why should we want anything different?

To break it down, this whole situation concerns me on three levels:

1. What kind of a witness is it to be okay with sin? How are people who have yet to experience the freedom of Christ going to see that very freedom in us when we’re still praising things that are of this world? It’s not something we should take lightly. Christ clearly didn’t take it lightly when He suffered on the cross to save us from our selfish and lustful ways. As Christians, what kind of example are we setting when we act like it’s perfectly okay to present ourselves in the way that Beyonce did on Sunday? Would you be comfortable dancing in that way in that kind of outfit, knowing that you’re causing insecure thoughts in millions of women and lustful thoughts in millions of men? I wouldn’t expect most Christ-following women to willingly flaunt their bodies in that way, so why are we praising someone who is doing something that we know to cause so much pain?

2. This shouldn’t be the standard that any girl holds herself to, and honestly, it breaks my heart that even a Christian community is not only accepting, but encouraging scandalous behavior for its women. It’s what we’ve been rescued from, ladies. If we’ve been set free from this kind of bondage, why are we perfectly fine when we see other women in it? We’ve been saved from the worldly idea that a woman is only as good as her body. We have so much more than ourselves to live for, and so does she. Why are we perfectly content with this adulterated degradation? I’m not going to deny that Beyonce is beautiful, but do we realize that by talking about her and by glorifying her so much that we’re consequently hurting the women of the church? We’re causing women who are completely different from any of those dancers to believe that they have to work toward that, and that distracts them from working toward God Himself. Even if it doesn’t personally affect us, we need to be aware of how it affects others. Why should becoming another person be anyone’s goal? Do we even realize that that’s what we’re telling women when we praise one specific person so heavily? All it does is create insecurities and hurt for women. This idolization of one type of person isn’t healthy, guys. It’s just not.

3. Think of the men of the church. Think about how much of a struggle lust is for them. We, as women, have so much power over what gets into their minds, and the things we say, do, wear, and endorse have a much stronger affect on men than we can possibly understand. How can we expect them to respect us when we’re completely okay with other women exploiting their bodies? Why are we okay with women in lingerie becoming a norm? Why are we okay with the men who are going to lead Christian households and churches becoming socialized to such perverted earthly norms? As a church, we’re called to purity. We can’t suppose that a performance like Beyonce’s doesn’t create unhealthy, difficult, and hurtful expectations in a man’s mind. And because of that, we shouldn’t be joking about it. Satan uses those small things, those simple comments and conversations, to plant seeds of torment and guilt into them. Over time, this can completely change a person. As women of the church, we’re supposed to lift our brothers up, not tear them down. Making the sin of lust even more difficult for them is the last thing we should be doing. Why would we cause them to believe that one type of woman is the best type of woman? That causes them to objectify us. It causes them to lose focus on their Father and to put the focus on the desires of the world. I know that we obviously can’t change the fact that so many men saw this, but we can change the way we speak about it. We can be light and encouragement in our actions and words by not condoning this behavior, but by being the kind of Psalm 31 women that men should actually strive after. We can treat this as a wake up call to how cautious we should be about our words and actions around our brothers in Christ.

I know it might seem like I’m making a huge deal about something trivial, but I think that this one instance exemplifies many issues in the church as a whole, and I can’t exactly sit here and be quiet while I’m seeing my brothers and sisters getting mixed up in idolization and pain. We have to take all of these little things seriously, because we don’t realize how big the little things actually are. We can’t just brush these issues off and expect them not to affect the people of God.

"Since, by His mercy, He gives us yet a little time, let us begin in earnest. Let us repair the lost..."

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:32:31 -0500

“Since, by His mercy, He gives us yet a little time, let us begin in earnest. Let us repair the lost time. Let us return with full assurance to that Father of mercies, who is always ready to receive us affectionately. Let us generously renounce, for the love of Him, all that is not Himself. He deserves infinitely more. Let us think of Him perpetually. Let us put all our trust in Him.”

- Brother Lawrence

Thoughts

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 23:27:00 -0500

This, my friends, is a random post about some things I’ve learned since the start of this month. It will most likely be very long and very confusing to you. You may not be able to follow, and even if you do, it might not make much sense. I’m not very good at formulating thoughts. They sort of just fall out of my head and land in a messy pile on the ground. It’s wonderful for me, but often ridiculous to others. For lack of a better term, this is going to be word vomit.

Brief Summary: Very rarely do we ever actually understand anything for what it truly is. We’re all just confused. And I don’t know about you, but I’m so remarkably selfish, even when I’m trying not to be.

Let me explain. First, the world isn’t what we think it is. Try to think about that, but then think about the fact that you can’t even really think about it simply because it isn’t what we think it is. Confusing, right? But true. Lately I’ve been thinking about socialization in specific cultures, specific contexts. Especially in my own life. I’d obviously realized for most of my 19 years on this planet that no one person thinks identically to another. This sounds elementary, but we’re all just so different. When you soak that in, it’s fascinating. Think about it for a while. We’re socialized into life. We’re learning from the moment our brains can take in information, and we never stop. We build our reality based on what we’ve learned, the way people have treated us, the kinds of situations we’ve been in. We’ve experienced seasons of life, and we’ve learned. What we were taught during that time shaped the way we thought about the next season of life. It’s literally impossible to step outside of these constructs of our minds. Even more, these ways of perceiving reality are formed unconsciously. We form certain seemingly unshakable views about nearly everything that we don’t even realize. Everyone has them, and no one person can every truly and fully understand exactly where another is coming from. Even if two people went through a similar experience at a similar time in life, they most likely perceived these two events in different ways because of their pasts. Maybe their thinking wasn’t polar opposite, but it couldn’t be identical because they’ve built their lives and their ways of seeing reality through different constructs. I guess I’d say it’s kind of like a ladder. You start at the bottom, and each experience creates a rung that is a construct of your mind, a lens through which you see things. You move up, keeping every other way you’ve learned to understand the world in front of your eyes. The world for someone else isn’t what you think it is. We can’t understand things outside of our own reality. Just realizing that is so intriguing.

I could be wrong, but I feel like one of the most crucial parts of my college experience is going to be learning how to step down from the ladder my past life has me standing at the top of, to peel back the lenses in front of my eyes that have been building up for so long. The most fruitful part of this season of life is going to be simply starting from zero with the Lord, figuring out what He wants my perceptions of reality to be, and learning how to live through His own lens instead of the lens my entire life has created for me. It’s going to be striving to understand that I will never understand others, and being okay with that, but trying my best to know their hearts as well as I can anyway, and hoping to help them tear down the ladders of past pains or prides that have shaped their own skewed version of reality. Because when it comes down to it, we’re fallen. We all have a skewed perception of the world around us. There’s no way around that. And realizing that isn’t a bad thing. It’s full of hope, possibility, and beauty because we have a God who uses broken lives. It’s amazing to realize our brokenness simply because that’s when we truly understand that we can’t fix ourselves, and we don’t have to. All we have to do is understand that God wants to, WHY He wants to (in other words, accepting that every single person is broken and sinful and fallen, and realizing that that is not what He wants for us), and to just give Him ourselves so that He can mold us into who He is.

I hope that made some kind of sense. It probably didn’t, though. Just to confuse you even more, I’ll keep going (trust me, I never run out of thoughts).

I think that because I’ve come to this point where I’m seeing the ways in which my perception of reality is so skewed because of experiences in my past, I’ve been seeing the selfishness in me that I never understood before. I’d obviously known that I do selfish things, that I fall short of Christ’s model, and I repent for those things and pray for the Spirit to abide in me, to live through me so that those things will no longer be a part of my life. But what He’s been showing me lately is that I’ve been doing this for myself. I’ve been trying to be like Christ simply so that I can be like Christ. Is that a bad thing? I mean, it’s never bad to be like Christ. The end result of my hope isn’t bad by any means, but my intentions were selfish. I wanted to be like Christ for myself, so that I could feel cleansed, so that I could feel close to Him, so that I could have rest and peace. I don’t know if this will resonate with anyone else, but I guess I’ve just been realizing that the Spirit is already living in me. This sounds silly, but I forget that sometimes. I feel like I need more. But truth is that I already have all I could ever possibly need for anything at all. The Holy Spirit isn’t going anywhere. He’s here to stay. And it’s not like He’ll be sitting idly in me. He’s constantly working. I’ve already been cleansed and purified and redeemed and adopted, and I’m already more loved than I could ever understand, and those things are true every single morning. My focus, at this point, should be on loving Christ more fully and deeply for, first and foremost, His glorification, and second, so that others can be cleansed, be like Him, be close to Him, and have peace. How can we be one with Him when we’re constantly focused on bettering ourselves? Glorifying the Lord is trying to be like Christ, and Christ was centered on others. It was His selfless and pure (and obviously perfect) heart that kept Him close to the Father. That kind of a heart isn’t selfish. That should be our goal. It’s not about having more of those great feelings for myself. It’s about having those truths come to life in the hearts of others. I was striving for a great end, but with impure and selfish intentions. It’s interesting how that can happen, isn’t it? I wanted it all for me. All I can do at this point is praise the Lord for refining my heart and thank Him for being so willing to constantly guide me.

What a great God, am I right?

I’ll end this with two quotes that sort of sum up my thoughts much more elegantly and concisely than I could.

“He will never cease from striking the strings of your heart until your humbled and disciplined soul blends with all the pure and eternal harmonies of His own being.”

-Streams in the Desert Devotional

“All I do ought to be founded on a perfect oneness with Him, not on a self-willed determination to be godly.”

-My Utmost for His Highest Devotional

The City Harmonic leading my school, Lee University, in worship...

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:37:09 -0500

The City Harmonic leading my school, Lee University, in worship last night.

There are basically two songs in this video. The first is their original, “Love”. The second begins at 2 minutes and 47 seconds and is a cover of the song “I Love You Lord”.

The crowd sounds like a choir in the second half of this. I love it so much.

“Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ.” -2...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:18:00 -0500

“Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ.” -2 Corinthians 2:14

“God wins His greatest victories through apparent defeats. Very often the enemy seems to triumph for a season, and God allows it. But then He comes in and upsets the work of the enemy, overthrows the apparent victory, and as the Bible says, ‘frustrates the ways of the wicked’ (Psalm 146:9). Consequently, He gives us a much greater victory than we would have known had He not allowed the enemy seemingly to triumph in the first place.

The story of the three Hebrew young men who were thrown into the fiery furnace is a familiar one. There was an apparent victory for the enemy. It looked as if the servants of the living God were going to suffer a terrible defeat. We have all been in situations where it seemed as though we were defeated, and the enemy rejoiced. We can only imagine what a complete defeat this appeared to be for Daniel’s friends. They were thrown into the terrible flames while their enemies watched to see them burn. Yet the enemy was greatly astonished to see them walking around in the fire, enjoying themselves. Then King Nebuchadnezzar told them to come out of the fire. The enemy ‘crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them…for no other god can save in this way’ (Daniel 3:27, 29).

This apparent defeat resulted in a miraculous victory.

Suppose these three men had lost their faith and courage and had complained, saying, ‘Why didn’t God keep us out of the furnace!’ They would have been burned, and God would not have been glorified. If there is a great trial in your life today, do not acknowledge it as a defeat. Instead, continue by faith to claim the victory through Him who is able to make you ‘more than conquerors’ (Romans 8:37), and a glorious victory will soon be apparent.

May we learn that in all the difficult places God takes us, He is giving us opportunities to exercise our faith in Him that will bring about blessed results and greatly glorify His name.“

-Streams in the Desert Devotional

Striving for Heaven on Earth

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:00:34 -0500

I really wish that Christians would take sin more seriously. People just brush off so many important things. I’ve seen a countless amount of Christ-followers, including myself, justify their sin by simply saying it’s “expressing true human emotion” or it’s a “part of who they are” or it’s “normal”.

Bottom line: Christ taught us to pray for Heaven on earth. He taught us to ask God to make His kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven”. If we were living this out, we would strive for purity in every single way. We wouldn’t tolerate cussing or the lustful ways of our culture. We wouldn’t allow ourselves to be rude or quick-tempered with anyone. We wouldn’t let our pride dictate our actions. We would be disgusted by violence and even little white lies. Those things aren’t in heaven, so as Christians, why do we justify allowing them to take place on earth?

Sure, it seems extreme to ask every single person that professes to be a Christian to ACTUALLY act like Christ, but isn’t that what we’re called to do? Wasn’t Christ an extremist, and shouldn’t our goal be to mirror Him? If we’re desiring to see through His eyes, to feel through His heart, then we wouldn’t be okay with what most modern Christians see as acceptable. Christ lived by love, and so many of the things we try to make room for in our lives have absolutely nothing to do with love.

Not being okay with certain lifestyles doesn’t mean hating them or putting them down in any way. It simply means that we’re called to lovingly show others how Christ would act by the way in which we live. We can’t expect perfection from ourselves or anyone else, by any means. That’s why the Lord gives us His undeserved grace. Desiring a life free from our human justification of sin doesn’t earn us salvation. But I think that every Christian should expect repentance and growth simply because that’s what a walk with God entails. Once we surrender, He gives us the strength to become new. It’s a lengthy process and a lifelong journey, but it all starts with recognizing sin, taking it seriously, repenting and surrendering, and being molded and refined into the image of our Savior because of the grace the Father drowns us in.

It’s hard to find that true repentance and growth while we’re so focused on past sin. I think another thing we all need to learn how to do is to simply forget. God forgot, so why can’t we? When we’re so focused on ways we’ve screwed up in the past, it’s nearly impossible to move forward. When our eyes are on previous sin that we’ve desired to surrender, we haven’t actually given anything up. It’s so much easier to fall back into everything we hate when we’re seeing it as a part of who we are. But that mindset fails to recognize who Christ is and what He’s done in us. He’s changed us.

God took our sin seriously, but once Christ’s victory took place and we repented, He forgot all about it. Strive to do the same, friends.

My prayer is that Christians will truly learn to mirror Christ, to show selfless love in everything, and to completely and fully die to our fleshly desires by the Lord’s strength instead of justifying, remembering, and living in them. My prayer is that when we talk about the sin we used to live in, it would feel like a story about someone else’s life.

"Don’t pray that God would teach you how to love like He loves; pray that He would fill you with..."

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 00:34:38 -0500

“Don’t pray that God would teach you how to love like He loves; pray that He would fill you with Himself and that He would love in and through you. Don’t pray that He would teach you to have joy; pray that the living God full of joy would enter into you. Don’t pray that He would teach you how to be peaceful; ask for the God of peace, the Prince of peace to infill you. Because if you try to imitate in your own strength, you will be a miserable replica. But if you allow the impartation of Jesus Christ to overtake you, suddenly it all works because it is Him imitating Himself, and He is very good at being God.”