You’re probably just spiritually fat

Hm, it’s been a while. I can’t remember the last time I’ve sat down to write something that was more than a term paper or over 140 characters. I started to fear that God had taken away my ability to articulate thoughts into writing, but that didn’t last long before God told me to shut up and reminded me that it was never about me or my abilities anyway.

I can say with absolute certainty that the point of life I am in currently is unlike any other point of life in which I have ever found myself. It’s uncomfortable, it’s new, it’s transitional, it’s nerve-wrecking and anxiety inducing. While I find myself having to make continually pressing, independent choices; my dependence on the father is heightened as consequence. It’s been a truly disgusting time. I’ve never been more aware of my ever-growing depravity than I have been in this stage of life. I find myself so consumed in the future me, that I’m missing the person God has called me to be right now.

One of the biggest lies we believe as Christ followers that I hear is that we lack the abilities and gifts to serve God adequately.

“Once this test is over, once the semester is out of the way, once my baby is delivered, graduates high school, once I’m retired–then and only then can I use my fully developed gifts to serve the Kingdom. And until that time, I will feast on scripture memory, podcasts, and Tim Keller books to become knowledgeable of God’s word so when I can serve God I do it just enough to spare my retirement fund.”

They are no longer fed with milk, but have been made ready for solid food, yet the more they feast without practice leaves them spiritually fat (James 1:2). To know and not do is sin. So quit eating and starting exercising.

Church, God did not call you to live comfortably. How many opportunities to be the hands and feet of God have you missed out on because of the luxuries you have chosen in this life over his gospel? If all we have can be accounted as God’s blessings, how can we begin claim any of it as our own? What if our brothers and sisters who are serving God are faithfully waiting on his provision while God is waiting for you to realize that you are the means of that provision? We are God’s Plan A to spread his word to the ends of the earth and that includes sacrifices of our resources–including our financial resources. Nothing that we have do we deserve, because in all actuality the only thing we all deserve is death. This is not for the non-believer, for they cannot be held up at the same standard. In fact, God would rather you be a raging atheist than to claim him and not live it (Revelation 3:15). I am talking to the followers who keep God’s commandments in a satin-lined jewelry box that is only allowed out on holidays. You are missing out on the riches and inheritance from the father because of your lack of obedience to dive in and experience God’s glory here on earth. Why are you depriving yourself of that?

Maybe I’m preaching to the choir (or just Eli who may still read these to proofread), but I have found myself physically ill over the thought that I misuse God’s mercy as a pass to fulfill my will over his. I’ve sat and shared these revelations only to have them written off as naivety, but I pray that I never lose that childlike faith driven towards obedience in exchange for a larger TV or a Netflix subscription. As I find myself transitioning into the next phase of my life, I plead with God to make me holy–set apart, a vessel for him–but I repent for the areas where I have done less when I have known better. I pray he keep me close to his will–to go, and make disciples–not just his will is for my life. I want my life’s will to look like love, humility, sacrifice, and endurance. To ask for anything less is an excuse to rob God of his glory.

Romans 6

1 Corinthians 9

James–all of it.

When life hands you lemons

Yikes. A lot has occurred since my last update. I’ll keep it short.

Life is weird. This is technically my last night of the spring semester of my senior year of college. There are nights you have in college and you go to bed wishing every night with friends could be like that, and then there’s nights like these past few where all you do is study and people leave and new people come and you learn what it looks like to embrace change or you fight it and end up worn out and at a loss. All I ever do is run away from situations like these and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t rationalized living in my car and throwing away my cell phone during this upcoming period in my life. I’m stepping into a lot of unknown with a lot of uncontrollable  variables and I wish God would just tell me what he’s got planned because if his plans fall through, I’ve got a few pretty good ones I could suggest. It’s weird saying goodbye to people you’ll never see again when it isn’t death that’s separating you. But things change, they have to change, because if things aren’t moving forward they’re drawing back and I am not of those who shrink back but of those with faith and will be saved.

I’ve fought God’s grip and wrestled over his will–not just for me, but his will for all believers–so much these past few months and he has been so patient with me. I’m scared. I’m worried. I don’t know what the future has in store and I have absolutely no control over it.

I was in the library yesterday studying for my finals and I found an “encouraging note” by the computer. “You’ve survived worse.” Wow, what a great reminder. Over a year ago I was headed to a foreign country with six months worth of pills and an expiration date on my forehead and this year I’m staying in the same city, in the same house, working with an organization I’ve been passionate about for the last four years. I have no idea what this upcoming season is going to look like or what it will lead to and I am absolutely terrified. But that’s OK, sometimes you’re scared.

Overflowing vessel empty of itself

More than anything else, your life will be effected by and oriented around the way you understand and who you believe God to be.

If the sole purpose of my life is to glorify God and proclaim his name, then everything I do should be driven by that one reason.

I’ve been in this transition from Post-Peru to seeking the Lord’s future plans and—there’s nothing I can say to summarize what this time has looked like for me. The reality that I am anything but a vessel is something that God has really been engraving in me this year. The less of me there is admits God to fill up those barren spaces. The more I explore God’s grace, the more I crave authenticity and the more I crave authenticity, the more I find myself being vulnerable and welcoming refinement. If God doesn’t ask me to clean myself up for him, why would I put on a show for anyone else? Whatever happens in the dark will be brought to the light, the truth sets us free, so wasting time being anything but real is hindering growth—for outsiders, fellow brothers and sisters, as well as ourselves. God uses us far more in our brokenness than our togetherness anyways, and the more time I spend with God, the more I desire his refinement.

A candle cannot offer up a sweet aroma without first being set aflame. A candle cannot produce that sweet smelling scent without first melting away. I think that’s how it is with God. We cannot produce praise to the Lord unless we’re first willing to be refined by his fire.

I’ve been doing this thing lately where I confess sin with zero context. Just saying, “I called Emily a cotton headed ninny muggins,” and leaving out that she used my straightener to curl The Cat’s hair. (Dramatization, but not something I would put past Emily). I surrender my right by simply admitting that what I did wrong even though justification may give a better understanding, it still wouldn’t dismiss my behavior. I’m learning that it’s not about avoiding convictions, but steering clear of any temptations and always checking my motives. That means drawing the line 4 steps back, that means reminding myself that the only good found in me in Jesus alone; that just because I’ve made it this far doesn’t mean I will be spared of all other impurities. I’m not immune to sin, I’m bloodstained because it.

Oh, but how sweet Jesus is to remind me of that gift of his blood. That any time I doubt God’s love, I can look back at the cross and remember the ultimate sign that he cares for me. Past, present, future; it is finished. That what God invites us in to know doesn’t tell us he is some arrogant, ego-maniac, but that he is a loving, merciful father. When I encounter the One True God, I am compelled to not only live in relationship with him, but acknowledge and serve him daily. As a vessel, I want nothing more than my life to be an overflowing out pour of Jesus, I want God to be infectious in every area of my life, and if that were to be true, there would be no conversation I would be able to have that his name wouldn’t be brought up. We should talk about God the same way old people talk about their grandkids—not even that much, but you’re getting the picture.

As I pray about my plans for next year,  I realize how absolutely limitless they are. Too often I get distracted by asking God what he wills for my life that I quit asking how my life fits into his will. It’s not about me. I don’t know what I’ll be doing this time next year, but I’m not waiting for another rainstorm to make that clear. I’m weighing out what the best investment of my time would be to maximize the Lord’s glory.

So I’ve been thinking about marriage.

If you’re interested on hearing the thoughts through revelation on marriage from a single girl in her early twenties with absolutely no personal experience of marriage, please, read on.

For those of you who know me know that marriage has been one of the most unappealing and nauseating ideas that God could present to me. There’s nothing in my personal life that would make me feel that way; I grew up witnessing wonderful marriages, but the thing I always struggled with is how people could just love each other. I viewed love as a feeling and feelings fade. I viewed marriage as a scam to escape loneliness that people were coaxed into because of their need to feel needed. Girls always talked about how they wanted to be somebody’s everything, but for me, I didn’t really want the expectation of being anyone’s anything put on me.

My view came from what the world paints of marriage. What our society tells us marriage is all about, just a routine that once we graduate college, that’s the next step to to becoming a grownup. Well, I wasn’t buying it. It took God a long time to convince me that one way of submitting to God could look like being bound together in one flesh to a partner for the sake of knowing him better and winning more souls over for his glory. Marriage is a season in life that some Christians are called to because the best way they can maximize the glory they have to offer God is alongside another harvester.

I know God is real and working in my life because the thought of marriage is nothing I could accept on my own.

Marriage is meant to mimic our relationship with God. It is intended to show outsiders the promise of God’s unrelenting love for the church and how we as the church are meant to respond to that love. God is love, so the only way we can truly know love is through knowing God. Living in a world, even hearing it in Christian community, that pushes relationships and marriage, sometimes I find myself wondering why aren’t I on the 5 year fast track plan of marriage. Maybe the worlds right and there is something wrong with me (my table manners are great as long as you put the silverware out for me), but my goal isn’t marriage. My goal is to maximize the glory I have to offer to my lord and maybe I’m still single because God isn’t done using me in this way. That doesn’t mean I have a checklist out of the God errands I have to run, counting down the ministry opportunities I have to do so God will bring me a partner, he’s already left me with a helper in his Holy Spirit. Yeah, marriage sounds cool, but my true longing is to be close to my father and if marriage is a way God chooses to teach me how to do that, then yes.

I am a daughter of the most high king who is compelled by love to lay down my life and be obedient to the creator of the universe, who desires to have a relationship with me so I actively pursue to weed out my sin so I may know the riches of his glorious mercy. I long to become united in one flesh with one man for the rest of my earthly life in order to maximize the glory I have to offer to my unrelenting father and learn more deeply about how he loves me, and until that time comes, I will maximize that glory in my singleness, not because of the infectious lies from the enemy but because I am convicted and I welcome that conviction with open arms because I want to limit as much as I can between me and my father.

We are compelled by love. I am compelled by love.

The Desire to be Known

Living in a foreign country speaking a foreign language to foreign people has taught me lots of things. Patience is a fruit of the spirit, miscommunication leads to assumptions, and we all just desire to be known. This language barrier can lead to confusion that leads to complacency.

My Spanish vocabulary is limited. I get stuck when trying to get to know people and it’s really awkward when they’re pouring their heart out to me and I have to say, “wait, control your emotions and say that a little slower next time; with more adjectives, thanks.” We just want to be known. We, as humans, we long to be intimately and intricately understood. But God.

Psalm 139 tells me that he has searched me and knows me. I can’t escape his presence. He thinks about me. The king of the universe has precious thoughts of me. Psalm 139:17 tells us the sum of those thoughts are boundless.

Oh, how I desire to be known. How we desire to be known, but no one can know us like that but God alone. For we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Psalm 139:23&24 is a prayer of inviting God in. For God to search and know my heart. I am fearfully made because there are things in there I don’t want to be found; but I want to be refined. I want to be further known, so I can more deeply know him.

These last few months, God’s shown me the importance of words. Guys, everyone in Peru thinks I’m so nice. At first I thought it was because I don’t know how to express all of my mean feelings and as that may very well be true, I’ve learned it has much more to do with the form of communication I have left to speak.

God’s been teaching me how to love, which sometimes is really annoying to my flesh, but it’s good stuff, let me tell you. 1 Corinthians 13 is great. I know people think of marriage and stuff, but when Paul talks about this love, he’s talking to us after mentioning spiritual gifts. To love is an obligation for us as Christians. It’s a command. When I read verses 4 through 7 I replace my name as the subject and see in what way can I make that statement more true: Alyssa is patient, Alyssa is kind; she does not envy or boast; she’s not arrogant or rude. Alyssa does not insist on her own way; she is not irritable or resentful; Alyssa does not rejoice at wrong doing, but rejoices in the truth. Alyssa bears all things, believes all things, endures all things.

The Lord has convicted my heart of depending on my words to share who he is, when most of the time, words aren’t even needed to display the character of Christ. I love telling people what I like to do on the weekends, what American dish I miss most, but I’m about done explaining what hammocking is. Displaying the love of God should be shown in my actions. I want to be known by these people, but it’s not me who lives, but Christ who lives in me. Therefore I have no other option but to display the character of Christ, because outside of him, there’s not much of me left worth knowing.

Monopoly.

Sometimes things just suck.

I was talking to a friend today about our current circumstances and how things aren’t easy. We’ve all got that one friend who will remind us of that time when their life sucked more. There’s no justification for sucky situations, they already suck.

Anyway. I was talking to a friend the other day and they asked how school had been going, my actual semester doesn’t start until March 23 and they then asked what I was doing here already. God said January. Today I’ve felt like God said, “Hey, meet you in Peru,” and I’m sitting at the fountain waiting for him to show up, maybe he’s not ready yet and I’ll get a text in a few saying his whereabouts and or that I’ve been waiting for him in the wrong location, but until then there’s wisdom in waiting. Until then, I question my intentions, my emotions. Psalm 56:3&4 says, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?”

Like the writer of this psalm, I too know there is nothing I shall fear, yet I find times when I do. I just want to hear from God, I beg for his direction and I know I am never forsaken or forgotten but as I walk this part of my journey under an old bridge of the known highway above, I’m led only by the light of a single candlestick. My light held close to the ground which holds my next step, I grip the wall of wet cobblestone on my side, pressing for safety in an area that’s never been more foreign.

I recall those times in the past when God spoke to me. I think about the rain, Stephanie Davis’ words 2 years ago, that night in 2008. I think about the small picture of the next step he always chooses to show me because he knows I’d chicken out if he revealed any more at one time.

When you play monopoly, you get to see the whole board.You pick your little shoe, top hot, scottie dog, thimble–what have you–and set that piece at the starting point. You roll the dice and move your little scottie dog five spaces, collect $200 when you pass go and gather money when people land in your property. You know where five spaces is going to take your little scottie dog, but your scottie dog has no idea. It trusts in the hand that delivers it to that next space. It doesn’t take care of finances or know how many houses it owns. It doesn’t know it ended up in jail or what jail even means. It just knows it’s in a waiting period until that giant hand comes back to take it on its next expenditure. It submits to where that hand in the sky is going to take it because it don’t have another option. That little scottie dog is completely dependent on that giant hand in the sky. “For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.”

God’s goodness is there. Sometimes my reminders come few and far between, but my joy from the Lord doesn’t look like a permanent smile painted on my face, I learned that in the days I didn’t know if my next heart beat was coming when needed. Joy from the Lord is the constant pursuit of being with him. My joy comes from the promise that has occurred and is yet to come. There is wisdom in waiting. i will pursue his will until his words are necessary.

Worthiness and Willingness

Today we leave Pacasmayo for Trujillo. The orphanage has been a blast to be apart of. There’s lots of sweet new faces here I’ve been able to know and love. With that, a lot old faces that are no longer here. Five of the children were sent back to their families, and some of those family dynamics that sent them here haven’t changed upon their return. It’s been hard to understand God’s plans with all this, but I’m confident that he knows.
A lot of stuff has changed here and it’s been hard. When we were here this summer, God told us to serve a desolate area in big ways. As we come back just 7 short months later some of those people are gone and some things that we provided were claimed by those it didn’t belong to. It sucks. I feel like my sweet offering to God was robbed. I sat there and wondered why God would have us do something that he knew would end like this.
“I didn’t ask if he was worthy, I asked if you were willing.”
I’m confident we heard from God, then and now, and as we prepare to spend the next 2 weeks in Trujillo doing what only God knows next, I know Isaiah 30:21 will be some of the only truth I need to cling to.
Faulty wifi and God are all I have here and even now when things are getting rough, I’ve been given no other choice but to choose God. I have no other choice because when the King of the Universe finds you in the hole of your own muck and sits down there with you to get you out, you’d be foolish to look for saving elsewhere. No thing compares and I wouldn’t expect it to.

Courtney and I head to Trujillo to be with Eryn and her kids, doing whatever it is she needs us to do. I’m confident God called us to serve her there and I know that most of that will be the small, unimportant details but God spoke. I know he will continue to be speaking, so I ask that during this time where God doesn’t seem as close, I’m drawn in to him. God’s provided enough, I just want to know what he wants of us now.

God doesn’t want to fix me.

I’m so wretched. I’m so broken. I’m so unbelievably thankful that God doesn’t want to fix me.

I’m so excited to see what God has going on here, but at the same time I’m sad to be missing out on all the things God continues to do back home. I love all that God has planned for Peru, but I miss my ministry in Springfield. I praise God for this unique time in my life; I’m 21 and single and I’ll probably never be this free of responsibilities again. I know my ministry will change as I age, but I know that it won’t make it any less important. I think of single mothers, school teachers, business owners, and all of those “normal people” who are engaging in full-time ministry while maintaining a full-time job. Those people are serving the Kingdom no less than what me just because I’m in a different country. I know that whether I am laboring in Lima, Peru or Springfield, Missouri I am laboring. No geographical area is going to impress God more. A speaker I heard this past December made that clear. God will be pleased, but we can’t impress the King of the Universe. When he said that, I let out a deep sigh of relief. Since I can’t impress God that also means I can’t earn any more of his love for me. His love for me is overflowing and there’s nothing more I can do to earn that, I’ve been bought and he cares for me more than I could ever imagine.

Grace is a cool thing that way. There’s nothing God has not and will not forgive me of; there’s no brownie point system. I don’t avoid sin because I want God to love me more, I avoid sin because it separates me from God and I want to be as close to him as humanly possible. God doesn’t want to fix me, he wants to lather me in his grace, rinse me in his redemption and repeat.

God’s grace is infinite. Infinitity – 3,375,085,640,725,034.8* will forever equal infinity. That is had nothing to do with who I am but everything with who God is. It doesn’t matter what my past is, what mistakes I’ll surely make tomorrow, what matters is who God is. I think too much of us worry about what we do, we don’t focus on what He’s done.

I struggled with that for a long time. I felt like the brokenness in my past was something that I couldn’t talk about. I believed in God, I had accepted Jesus as my savior, but I didn’t believe that ugliness could ever truly be made beautiful. I lived a bigger portion of my walk sitting in shackles not knowing they had been broken a long time ago. God doesn’t want to fix me, he wants to redeem me. I love my brokenness, because it points to the fact I need a savior all the more. I follow Jesus because I long to be set free. I searched for that freedom in every other place before I found Jesus and the freedom I found in him succeeded anything else I found. I follow Jesus because nothing in this life will give purpose like the the One True Way.

So I will boast all the more gladly of my brokenness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. I am no longer a sinner saved by Jesus, I am the righteousness of God. Y’all need to read Romans 4.

Tomorrow, on Monday, we leave for Pacasmayo to be back at the orphanage and I am so stinkin’ excited to see those little faces again. Pray my heart is ready to serve in whatever way the Lord sees fit in that moment. Pray that I’m prepared for the changes at Casa de Paz and the relationships that blossomed can be picked up right where they were left. Pray that our footsteps are in sync to His heartbeat.

*the .8 represents that time in 2003 I accidentally stole those stickers from Big Lots but didn’t feel convicted enough to return them.

Here to Hear

I am so refreshed by the Great God that I serve.

Here I am, sitting here with hours left in the states for the next 6 months. I’ve been preparing for this trip for the past 6 months with little to no idea what I am called to do there. In June of 2014, God said go to Peru in January. I prayed. I sought guidance from the feet who have walked before me and I asked God to prove to me how much he wanted me there. Over and over again it was confirmed that I belonged in Lima, but that’s all I really knew. I’m a control freak and it got extremely unsettling for me to not know the “why” of God’s plan for me, but I had given him my submission and I knew he would be faithful, but only as long as I was. Here it is, less than 24 hours before I leave and God is just now showing me some things I’ll be doing next week. When I felt called to go to Peru in January, I decided to study abroad, but the semester doesn’t start until March. I had been asking God to show me the plans he had for me in January. Then I heard about our friend Eryn Haile’s adoption, which was supposed to happen in December. Due to some paperwork and Latin American timing, things got pushed back to January, when her kids would be back in school, sending her to Peru alone. Immediately when I heard that, God made it so clear that my time before school started was intended to serve her. The dates still looked fuzzy and the adoption process was going  s l o w e r  than anyone had expected. There were doubts for sure, but God was in control of it all. I knew that he would bring her to Peru in January. I just knew it. Well, here it is, the night before I leave and I get a text from Eryn informing me that our Valentine’s Day will indeed be spent together. She flies out February 1 (not quite January, but I’ll take it).

So here I am, asking God what he wants me to do next. Looking back at all the things he has put in my hands to get to this point and realizing how faithful he’s been every step of the way. Faithful. I’m awestruck by who God is and who I’m able to be because of him. Never in a million years would I have thought that faithful would’ve been an adjective to describe me, but God.

I asked some of my friends what they wanted me to see in them when I come back in 6 months. I told them I’d be their Easter/Christmas relative and let them know how much they’ve grown since the last time I saw them. I asked them what way could I be fervently praying for them in becoming a step closer to whom God has created them to be. I’ve been thinking of that question myself and the one thing I want people to see in me is humility–and maybe that’s ironic.

I’ve been praying the Litany of Humility over myself and some of those sentences are painful for me to say. I’ve always had to fight pride, but this whole road to humility has called me to struggle with insecurity. Pride is easy to ignore, but insecurity screams to be tended to. As God changes the desires of my heart, I’m realizing that this next season of my life will call for some unbelievable and shameless humility. Oh, how I want all that junk in the way to be striped away. I want the dirt of His feet be left on my lips from kissing the ground to wherever it is He takes me.

The next 6 months can be everything more than anything we could ask or think, for me and for you. But first, we must be wiling and then, we must be listening.