My mind won't stop!!

So I'm back from ministry conference and I have these thoughts that are flying around in my brain. They don't stop they just move and wonder and annoy (in a good way). I know that life has to be different now, it can't go back to being the same, but what does that look like? What does it feel like? And am I okay with that?

I know distinctly that the prayer and the cry of my heart was and continues to be "Break me and remake me!!" I am coming to find that breaking is not as fun as it sounds (and it doesn't sound that fun), yet I find joy abounding in my life through this. I feel like I am on a spiritual roller coaster, up one minute and down the next. As God confronts me on issues, I am down and want to avoid as usual... but as I confront these and converse with God I am lifted up to amazing heights. So this is how my days are going, little high... little low... and so on. Not a bad ride all together.

I was thinking this morning that I began working on a book a few years ago, but got frustrated as it seemed to end as it was getting started. I believe that I am finally allowing God to work in my life in a way that will add the next set of chapters to my book. This excites me, that God is stirring something inside of me (may the flames continue to be fanned)!!

I think back to my soccer days and know that the coaches that I appreciate are the one who rode me the hardest, pushed me the most, and never accepted anything but my best. They were tools that drove my worship of soccer. Today I have men in my life who ride me, push me, and never accept anything but my best in my spiritual life, and I am grateful for them. I do not seek "yes" men, I seek those who would tell me the truth no matter the pain. I remind my self that if i would endure "torture" for soccers' sake, how much more will I endure for my living redeemer!!!

May He BREAK ME and all my sinfulness and may He REMAKE ME into who He wants me to be. May I walk on in courage and faith, not wavering to the left or the right. May I run with endurance teh race set out for me and may I never forget where my power and strength come from... AMEN!!!!

Worship?!?!

So what is worship and why do we get so hung up on it? Just last week I heard a couple ladies that were discussing how horrible it is that their church was singing so many "chorus'". I find this interesting since the young people ask me why it is that we sing so many "old" hymns. So which is it that is best???

I believe that the correct answer, is a very easy one. Worship has nothing to music and everything to do with words, and spirit!!

In the context of a sunday morning the important question is: who is it about? Are we singing something that someone of the street could join in with? When we sing old hymns, it never fails that I have 1 or 2 people who will come and ask me "what does the word ___ mean?". If people must ask what the words mean, how are they to enter into worship?

I believe that most people who want hymns, are not, often, people who are really excited and willing to reach the lost. They don't mind people coming to God as long as they look, talk, act, and think like them.

So where are you in this? Where am I? More importantly where is God????

Hungry

Hungry I come to You, for I know You satisfy... We know the words, we've said them before. How often do we actually mean them?

I was reminded that this is something that, though the church seems to lack at times the world often does not!

The world is in a constant process of seeking God, how is it that we are taking advantage of these oppotunities? The apostle Paul studied the culture of those who he desired to minister to and used their culture to bring about God.

We stink at this!! I stink at this!! I must engage a culture that is seeking God in a relavant way! We must find a way to go to them, we rather most often sit back and hope that they come to us.

A new way, a new look, and an old method is required if we are to reach the lost in this world who seek a reason to live!

The invisible wounded

We all know who they are, don't we... The people in our lives that are hurting whether they show it or not. But then again, maybe we don't know who they are. There are those who seem to be okay, but the more we get to know them we find that there are some deep hurts and/or habits that they deal with daily.

Seems that we live in a culture, both church and secular that promotes the whole "just push through it" mentality. We seem so content to leave relationships at surface level and not get into the messiness of really living our lives together. I have to admit that it is easier to live a surface level life, but not near as rewarding. I meet seemingly normal people all the time, as we build friendship and vulnerability I find that the only thing "normal" about them is that we all hurt at some level in some way.

When was it that we started believing that Christians need to have it all together? When was it that it was a bad thing for churches to be filled with hypocrites, liars, sexaholics, alcoholics, workaholics, smokers, cussers, messed up people? A wise man once said that he came for the sick, not the healthy. So why doesn't the church embrace the sick? Why are we looking for people that are well to come and be among us? ...?????? Maybe because we are not a hospital anymore, we are a day spa. Come in , let us pamper you and massage your ego, then send you on out. Nothing changed, except you feel a bit better about yourself than you did. That will last a few days and then you need to go back in.

Not only are we not being a hospital for the sick, we are not helping the people in the day spa. Why do they need to come back every 3 days to have the same treatment??? Because they have an issue that they just want to have relived, not cured. Curing takes more pain, more effort, and more vulnerability; and we just don't "need" that.

I find that our student ministry is filled with hurting kids. We don't have a special formula, we have adults who are ok with kids not being ok. We don't get weird on them if they tell us they are cutting, drinking, doing drugs, having sex, lying, stealing, ... We want to walk through it with them. I believe that makes all the difference, being willing to work through the junk of life with them. It's not always fun, and there are definitely days i wonder why... but then i find out that a student who hated male contact is getting married and is happy and i love with a great guy, it's worth it. And when a student that struggled the whole time they were in the ministry calls me 2 years out out and says "I knew I could call you... what should I do?" it's worth it; and then there are a few that I am waiting on. To me there is no greater compliment than the 2am call when they say "I knew I could call you" or "I didn't know who else to call".

Students may be in and out of the ministry, as long as they always feel safe to come back, I am content to let the Lord work in their life. The tries to hard to fix people. We have this amazing pressure to get them saved and get them "perfect". I would much rather live my life with imperfect believers who are real about their daily struggles and their pains. I have little patience for the "perfect" "I don't have any problems" people.

God give us REAL people in REAL churches in REAL relationships, REALLY!!!! No more pretending, no more laws to live under, no more "church appropriate behavior"!!

Bring me your sick, lonely, depressed, hurting, forgotten and I will love them. God help me!!

And then, we carry on...

Sorry it's been a while since I last posted, life has been a bit crazy. A few weeks ago we found out that my mother has cancer, my sister in-law had an emergency appendectomy, and I have had another couple big personal issues come up. It has seemed that this it too big for me. I mean, why is all of this happening now, at the same time.

As I was driving to my mom's surgery I was a bit stressed out about that and another personal issue, both were weighing heavy on my heart. I turned the radio on, and met with God. It was one of those time you hope will happen everyday. In my broken and desperate state God met with me, right there in my car. Each song that came over the radio for that hour long drive seemed to speak right to my condition. I cried, I vented, I communed with God. When I arrived at the hospital the procedure was taking place at I was much more at peace and knew that whether God's plan matched mine or not He was still God.

God's peace is a wonderful thing, but I screw it up all too often. I have it, then I doubt it, then I don't. I seem to be perpetually falling into a pattern of worrying that God's plan will not match mine, as if I have a good plan...

In my mind I know that God's plan is perfect and that He has the best in mind... in my human heart I wonder if God is going to allow my mother to pass away as He did my grandparents. I lost all my grandparents to cancer by age 13, I do not wish for my kids to go through life with no grandparents. I trust God, but at the same time I find myself worried that His plan and mine will not match and that I am going to have to deal with much more than I want to.

I guess I'm tired of the standard church answers. They are true, but they often remove the struggle from the equation. We tell people struggling to just trust God and to preserver, that God has it under control. All true, but does that remove their valid mourning? Does it make people feel guilty if they question God, are mad at God...?

I recently had a student who wanted to meet with me (they have been having quite a few issues recovering from a surgery). When we met, she told me that she had just met with the doc and he told her that she will never be able to play basketball again (her sport). In fact there are only two sports she would be able to play, needless to say she was devastated. As I sat there I heard her saying all the right things "God has this under control, I trust Him" "He must have something better in store for me" . I asked, "so how are you really doing?" she broke down. We speak truth, but we leave out the struggle of the Christian life. We speak in roses and leave out the fertilizer.

I found myself needing to be an encourager of real emotions as I met with this girl. she didn't need me to fill her with flowery sayings, she needed a place she could be mad at God, scared about her future, frustrate that she can't do what she loves, and scared to tell her dad because she felt like she was letting him down. So there we sat, we cried together, I listened as she struggled through it and at the end we agreed that it was gong to be tough, but at the foundation of it all was God so it would be good.

I don't want to live in denial of my struggles and doubts, my anger and frustration. I believe that that is what builds us into who we are to be. I don't want to be okay with the fact that my mom has cancer, I'm not. God and I talk about that daily. It doesn't change the fact that I totally and completely trust him though. I trust a lot of people that i get frustrated with or mad at. God's is big enough to handle the emotions that He gave me. It will be through His power that I will make it through this and will be a newer, more complete person because of it.

So I guess my bottom line is that life happens, God reigns, and I don't have to like what happens. I'm learning it's ok to not be ok with what is going on. Life happens and then, we carry on...