God has been so faithful and so awesome to bless His church here with some awesome musicians. Our worship team started off with two brothers, and as we anxiously wondered what we would do when one of them has to go back to school, we ask for more musicians, and by God’s grace He gives them to us.
Last Sunday, a Sunday amongst many where our team rocked, I managed to sneak a recording of our team as they play our exit song: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (Instrumental)
He has shown me in the last few weeks the types of idolatry I had in my heart, which can be so hard to discern, because it can be so neatly interwoven with your day to day ministry. A lot of my desires and intentions started off pure and somehow got corrupted along the way. Obviously, at the time, they were not as plain to see as they are now. I didn’t necessarily think these things, but ultimately my actions revealed to me otherwise.
Markers
Here are some of the ones I struggled with:-
I treated made my calling and ministry an idol: I loved my calling more than I loved the one who called me to it and made my ministry and calling more important than God.
Well of course, when you put all your hope and joy in anything other than God it doesn’t end well. God will either give you it and allow you to discover how disapointing it is, or He’ll not let you have it so you can’t worship it.
I believed that my failure or delay to get married was due to my own failure to do or personal sin. I remember points in my walk where I was desperately asking mentors and peers to call me out on sin they saw in my life. For some reason, I thought I was single because I wasn’t worthy yet, because I still have major areas of sin in my life. I hoped that confronting and eradicating those areas myself would hasten the hope of alleviating the burden of being single. In the end I started struggling trying to take control of my sin, whatever I was doing wasn’t working so I would work harder and harder try and make myself worthy of someone – until burn out.
However, I neglected the knowledge that God is lavishly gracious. God didn’t save me because He saw potential in me. God already chose me before the foundation of the world. God chose me in spite of the foresight of knowing how much of a fool I can be. God didn’t save me because He thought I’d make a good model Christian. He saved me because He is gracious, and it has nothing to do with what I do or fail to do that will bring to completion what He has started in me. He didn’t save me because He thought I would make a good deacon, ministry leader or wife.
If God were to give me a ministry or a husband or kids, it’s not because I’ve earned it or because you’re finally worthy of someone. Same for the opposite, just because you’ve had a dirty and horrific past, doesn’t mean you don’t “deserve” a husband. In fact, if marriage was based being worthy and deserving of it – no-one but Jesus would be allowed to get married.
Besides, it’s God that sanctifies you, not about self improvement for God. Left to ourselves we rely on behavioral modification, God works on the heart.
Don’t get me wrong, this also doesn’t mean we sit back and do nothing, but in response to God’s work, out of love for what He has done we ought to love him with all our body, mind, strength and soul.
Somehow my genuine desire for God’s glory to shine through me distorted and corrupted along the way, and I wanted to take home all that glory for myself. Somehow, my genuine desire for people to see how amazing God was to work in me turned in to a desire for people to see how amazing I am. I wanted people to think well of me, how well I lead, how well I serve, how hard I worked, how holy I am.
Of course, life isn’t about you, and the moment you think so, you ultimately in your heart will view people differently; the same happened to me. As soon as people fail to give me glory and bask in my amazingness, the inner turmoil erupts and I become a basket case for attention and pity parties.
And of course when people I worked alongside failed, I frustration turned to how others were a hindrance to my success. When people failed to give me acknowledgement, the fame I deserved, and the pat on the back, I was sour. I was bitter thinking how hard I worked and how lazy other people were. I became self-righteous. It can be really hard to see it coming, because you start with pure and godly intentions, but Satan is sneaky, and if you give him a foothold to your heart he will invade it.
I’ve been overwhelmed lately with my need for God’s grace; and I’m amazed that God is faithful in His graciousness
By His grace, He’s given me gifts and talents, and by His loving discipline, He will also take them away. To my own shame, I have held confidence in what God has given me, and not to Who has given me. And through that I have been convicted again of my pride, and confidence in my God given ability and not in the God that has given them to me. Again, I’m convicted that that I’m fighting God for His glory, causing my soul to thrash around with me as I refuse to lay down my crown.
I can see how ministry can be an idol for me, how wanting to find affirmation in man’s praise. He’s taught me a lot, but the more I know, the greater the awareness I have of how much more I need to learn.
By God’s grace, he has given me responsibility within His church, and in love he would just as easily take that responsibility away from me. I feel like the more responsibility you have, the larger the liability you are and the greater your need for God’s grace. I feel like I am a 2.4 liter engine as opposed to a 1 liter engine I used to be, my need for God’s gas is ever greater, and if I don’t draw my strength from God as I ought to, I will try and draw from other people.
I wouldn’t say I have had huge conflict and disagreements, but there have been a few more than lately. And I guess that’s to be expected, but I fear them less now.
But again, wow – God has really used them to show me and teach me how much He makes a difference. Friendships do get strained when working on mission with people, ultimately because we’re all sinful and fallen and we do things so imperfectly. I realise how I my sin has manifested in relationships within my church family, again to my shame. But again, am so thankful that my God’s grace and wisdom, we’ve been able to hash things out together.
Conflicts suck, but I’ve found that by working things out, confessing your faults and forgiving each other has helped me understand the heart of the other person, and has compelled me to be more compassionate, more gracious than ever.
I looked around me last Sunday, and saw all the new people God’s bringing to our church plant. It’s amazing how many new faces I see, and at the same time I’m overwhelmed knowing how much love and how much of God’s grace we need. I see in our midst those who need God’s restoration and healing, who need God’s hope and the Gospel. I’m becoming more aware of how inadequate I am to help others, and realizing it’s not about me helping them, but God restoring and healing through the members of the church body.
I see how inadequate I am, and was so clearly reminded of my sin and was revolted by it along with my failures and my pride. Even writing this now, I question how much my nonchalant and lukewarm attitude is frustrating God. I do not want to be a hinderance to His kingdom, yet I am so aware of how I can be.
At the same time, realizing that I am inadequate on my own, but capable of doing anything through Him who gives me strength. I cannot do life alone and by myself. I need my church, I need the Gospel, I need community, I need Jesus, His grace and his strength.
I had tea with a friend today, about biblical counseling. And as we talked about a friend she said the more she read God’s word, the less she wanted to give her own advice and the more she wanted to point others back to God’s word. She thought it wise, and I would agree. Less of me, and more of Him – that’s Jesus!
I am frequently tempted by desires of being the “it” girl, and the functional savior, helper of all. Yet these things will only be to my destruction, I am reminded that my “job” is to point others back to Jesus. I ought not to give my own advise, but give God’s wisdom, and point others back to Him.
So with a couple of months of absence from online updates and what not, I suppose I felt compelled to jot down a few sentences in reflection over my mission, my heart, and more importantly my relationship with Jesus.
Today is the longest day of 2011, school is ending for most kids, and for our church, things are also heading in to summer mode. As families are planning all their summer vacations, our church is taking a break from our weekly small groups and will be having bi-weekly BIG groups where are whole church gathers. And in between those BIG groups, we’ll be doing a lot of hanging out.
God has been so faithful to meet with me even though I have not been seeking Him out as I should. He has been so gracious as to use me and work through me in spite of me… The firery passion I had when I came to Canada has died down, still perhaps some glowing ambers or a pilot light, but that honeymoon go-get-it can-do attitude has fizzled. I know it’s normal, but it’s disatisfying. I want to be satisfied completely by Him again. I desire to walk in the Spirit, to hear His voice daily, every moment, every minute.
We watched this video of Soma in Tacoma at one of our BIG groups as a part of our vision casting night. And in the last past weeks, in spite of myself, God has been showing me and teaching me more about what the church is; that church isn’t somewhere I go on a Sunday morning, but that the church is the body of believers. And as a body we gather together in our Sunday gatherings, our small groups, our big groups, when we hang out, and we also scatter like broken break in to our work places, our neighbourhood and communities.
I suppose I’ve been praying and asking God about my desires, asking him to reveal his desire for me and what the desire of my heart is. He has really shown me that I have a heart for the church. I love the church, I love my church, I love its people. I love walking with people, being on mission with them, walking and praying with people, talking about Jesus with them. I love being able to serve the church and I am so incredibly blessed in those times where the church has served me.
Even thinking about it now, I can almost see the love Christ must have had for the church that He so willingly died for her. Within the church there is a beautiful redemption story, of changed, transformed and restored lives, it’s constant, and it’s all because of Jesus’ work on the cross. The church is santified by the blood of Christ, the Church, the Bride, will wear white, for Christ makes her clean, holy and beautiful.
And even thinking about it now, I wonder whether my mind needs to repent, for I identify more with the sins I’ve been forgiven of rather than the redeemed and restored Bride of Christ. Yes, I know my ulitmate identity is in Christ. But rather, perhaps I do identify more with the sin that I have been saved from as opposed sanctified bride-to-be.
Anyway… I do love the Body, the Church, Jesus’ Bride.
So… a couple of months ago, we found out that one of the founding families of our church were leaving us. God has been calling them to serve somewhere else – about a 22 hour drive away in a remote town almost pretty much in the middle of nowhere. And in what felt like a week’s turn around they have put their home, possessions and business on sale.
This family has been such a pillar to our church plant: they’ve started, hosted and lead out our Youth program, hosted and lead a community group, took care of our church finances, and so much more. They’re going to be well and thoroughly missed. And in their future absence there will be a need of people to come along side and take ownership and responsibilities for the areas they have to leave behind. In their absence, others will have to step up.
I think I can speak for both my cousin and I when I say we feel the burden to carry on to grow and facilitate our youth program. Our youth are the future men and women of today, and we want to pour out and invest ourselves in them.
So watch this space and see what happens. Our town is in such dire need of a good Youth program, and needs young men and women to step up to build up our young people.
Wow, what an epic weekend; God blessed us with safety and some awesome weather!
The Movement was an awesome weekend. We all gathered to our meeting spot and left town around the mid afternoon. We took a 15 person mini bus and a trailer packed with all our sleeping bags, skis, boards, and equipment, bundled in the van and set off.
Here are the quick figures:-
Onward bound to sunny skies and snow
We arrived late. The concert started at 7pm and I think we just about made it for 9:30pm. We missed the first band and registration, but it all got figured out. We stood by the side of the mosh pit and got called out by one of the speakers for not snuggling in with the rest of the crowd. I guess we were pretty beat.
The roads were pretty gnarly there and back. We saw a pile up of about a dozen vehicles on the highway on the way up. Apparently an avalanche came down and hit the road, or at least that was the impression I was under. Unfortunately for one of the other groups on the way got hit on their way.
Sadly, later on that night we found out that a couple of people broke in to one of the vans and stole a bunch of laptops, skis and boards from the Whistler crew. We prayed for the Whistler bunch and the salvation of the thieves that stole all the gear from the Whistler kids.
A church in Kamloops kindly offered their building to sleep about 30 + people. The boys occupied two rooms and all the girls got bundled in to the nursery room. It was slightly unfortunate that the girls we were sharing with had a couple of borderline inappropriate conversations that my girl youth ended up being exposed to. On the other hand, I’m really proud of my girl. They were having a conversation about the concert and speaker where one of the girls ended up confessing that she was “technically a Christian” by virtue that her grandmother “went to church and stuff” and that she was a really bad Christian because she didn’t really follow the faith. My girl challenged her that she cannot “technically” be a Christian. After all, even demons believe in Jesus.
The Sunday school nursery room we slept in
I suppose it was then appropriate that the message of this year’s Movement was pretty straight to the point.
Matthew 10:3838 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (ESV)
The speakers over the weekend talked a lot about what it means to take up your cross and what it really means to follow Jesus. I wasn’t expecting it, but the messages really ministered to me and I am thankful for it. I think God’s been speaking to me a lot about this in the last couple of weeks. I’m not saved by the virtue of what I do, but what God does. My salvation does not come from my works, but from my faith, and my faith is proven by my works. It’s something I’m struggling to work out practically.
Matthew 6:22-2322 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (ESV)
The sermon talked about fixing your eyes on Jesus. The eye (similar to the heart in Jewish literature) is the lamp that reveals the quality of a person’s life. A healthy, or singular, eye with clear vision will determine the “light” in my body, the rest of my being. If my eyes are unhealthy, focused on all other things, full of darkness, how much darker would my body be.
Matthew 14:22-2322 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, (ESV)
He expounded with the example of how Peter left the comfort zone of his boat and, when his mind and eyes were fixed on Jesus, he could do the impossible – walk on water. As soon as he started looking at the wind and the waves he started sinking. His eyes wandered off from Jesus, his eyes became focused on the the world, filled with doubt his light darkened and he began to sink. This was the emphasis of his message, that to follow Jesus your eyes and your mind must be singular. It must be focused on Him. The wind and the waves of this world, the anxieties, fears and even good things can be the things that distract us from our prize and cause doubt and disbelief.
So the weather forecasters predicted a cloudy day, but God made the sun come up anyway. The weather was outstandingly beautiful, clear skies with unlimited visability. The alpine areas were so unlike the wetter and cloudier conditions I’m used to. Trees were beautifully iced with wind blown snow creating the most amazing sculptural forms all long the open wide alpine.
Slopes of Sun Peak
We had great fun enjoying God’s creation. The boys spent most of their morning in the park, and we joined most of them on the mountain lodge for lunch. The sun stayed around for the afternoon until everyone was wiped out and we bundled back in the van back to base camp.
We had a good nap at base camp whilst the boys made a gong show out of the local swimming pool. We stuffed ourselves with lasange and ice cream cake and made it back for the evening concert and worship.
Fraser Campbell
The boys decided that they needed to redeem themselves after the previous night and made a full charge in to the front of the stage during the Fraser Campbell’s first set and started up a good ol mosh. We had a lot of fun. It’s been about 7 years since my punk/emo days, and diving in with them was awesome. Thankfully, with most of them still being in their teens, it was pretty low risk with injuries.
John Reuben whipped up a frenzy with the kids. We had a lot of fun being all ghetto.
John Reuben
Joel Parker gave an awesome message about what it means to take up your cross, or in other words, dying to yourself. I was surprised, but stoked to see who, out of our group, responded to the message. I was so thankful that our group was covered in prayer, and that there was a genuine love that I observed in our youth group where we would band around together in support of one another. I guess it’s my prayer that whatever we all took from the conference, that it would be more than a temporary emotion. I’m praying that some of the kids that went would begin to understand what it means to be in an eternal relationship with the God of the universe. Am praying for changed hearts and transformed lives.
So… In a couple of hours I’m gonna cram in to a mini bus with some of my favourite kids from our Youth Group. We’re gonna head over to this year’s The Movement at the Sun Peaks resort and kick off the weekend with some worships, awesome speakers, some riding with some pro ski and snowboarders, and then more worship. Am praying that all of us will be impacted, that we’ll all leave Kamloops saved and psyched for Jesus!
Please pray for our safety, for the Holy Spirit to work in the hearts of the youth, and for the sanity and joy of the youth leaders. Also pray that there will be some cool, Spirit lead conversations with the youth and for safety on the hills!
Check out The Movement for more info I suppose.
It has been an answer to prayer for me that finally I’ve got my act together and have made a more consorted effort to pursue a Permanent Resident status in Canada. The last couple of weeks prior I have been thinking, more than praying, about covenanting with my church for an indefinite period, to partner with them in the work and the ministry Jesus has called us to the town of which I’ve had the pleasure of church planting in. I remember my call to be involved in a church plant, and I remember the freshness and the newness of all the excitement. The greenness of it all has matured somewhat and I feel like its leaves have darkened to the sun. Still, I feel the pull to continue and persevere, to toil in the sun until harvest is ready.
My town is a strange place. My town is a a sea where the people are like driftwood getting tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Where I work, and play, I do life amongst transients, neither settling or going anywhere.
My church family, whom I have the deepest affection, commitment and love, although more rooted near a stream, will occasionally get replanted somewhere else. The first time in a long time, it dawned on me that a foreign parasite in me has secreted its first toxic thought. It wanted me to emotionally detach from members of my church family whom I knew would be replanted somewhere else. There was a temptation to not want to spiritually, emotionally, nor lovingly commit or invest in the specific or certain lives of a few, and to have my heart broken when they leave or move on.
Honestly speaking, I am so fearful of having my heart broken, or am so fearful of rejection, often at times, I push people away. Relationships of the more romantic nature are worse for me, I suppose it’s because it involves so much intimacy and so much vulnerability. Yet I have to let myself be hurt by others.
I have a selfish desire to avoid suffering like this, to want to cut my losses now, than to later suffer a greater hurt. I wanted to protect the sanctum of the cosey and comfortable bubble of safe and dependable relationships.
Then, the familiar stench of it woke me up to tears like a smelling salt in my nostrils; I have already felt it before in the summer where I crashed and burned. All friendships, relationships that you embark and invest in have that potentiality for hurt. People fail each other all time, and there will never be a relationship between any two people in the world where one has not hurt or sinned against another.
When I think of all the lives that God so lovingly pours Himself out on, that in His meekness would come as a man to be vulnerable and to be hurt, in order that a few lives may be saved. Day and night, my God holds His hands out, He stoops down to a world of obstinate people, in his patience and mercy extends His love and grace to all who would accept. Day after day, maybe millions of relationships that God has extended His hand to are spat back at His face. Millions by the day are perishing in their sin, and God suffers the hurt of all who are too hardened to return back to Him. Yet, He does not relent. He pursues us fearlessly and fearless of hurt, he pursues us sacrificially and selflessly. He does so knowingly that many will reject Him and a chance at relationship will be lost for eternity, that some of whom He has knitted from womb must suffer the eternal and conscious torment of His wrath. His heart must break unlike any heartbreak I can imagine.
Who am I to encase His love and buttress all the stops that would otherwise pour in to the lives of others. Should I not imitate Him who is an unceasing fountain ready to water all? Who am I to cower within the self molly coddling walls I have forged?
Jesus, my God and Savior lead a life that not only risked a broken heart, but an earthly life that ended in complete vulnerability, suffering and heartbreak that my relationship might be reconciled back to my Heavenly Father and Creator.
It’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to hang out at a cafe and just spend some time journalling and in the Word. Worth it.
Anyway… as a part of my life journalling, my reading today included this passage.
34 “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” (ESV)
It made me aware of how the things in life can weigh my heart down and distract me from the calling the Lord has for me. That I shouldn’t be weighed down with the fear of hurt and broken ties. Rather that I should hold fast to the Lord, my Rock who does not waiver, who is fairthful and does not relent. That I should seek His kingdom first and his righteousness, and everything else that I don’t need to be freaking out about will be taken care of, (loose paraphrase).
Job kinda summed up in to one verse how I’ve been feeling; my plans and desires of my heart seem to be a mere memory.
12 They make night into day:
‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’
13 If I hope for Sheol as my house,
if I make my bed in darkness,
14 if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
15 where then is my hope?
Who will see my hope? (ESV)
Somehow in the course of this week it occurred to me that waiting for a feeling or a drive to do what I am called to do. I suppose one step of obedience will lead on to something else. Sometimes it’s not about how you’re feeling, but pushing through and persevering.
In all of Job’s lament he tells us how his following the poor advise of his friends would be for him to make his “bed in the darkness”, to accept the pestilence and turmoil as normal and give up hope in God.
I don’t think any of my friends have given me poor advise, but I would say that it is easy to become normalised to the deafening apathy you’ve succumbed to: I am almost leprous with an inability to feel. I wouldn’t say I’ve given up hope of God, but I’ve become vacant and disbelieving that I should be allowed to feel anything better. It’s almost as if I’m losing my appetite, or I am losing my sense of thirst.
I am becoming anxious about my apathy. Every step I take towards disobedience, I harden my heart unknowingly, or sometimes knowingly. Hunger and thirst are God given physical desires that keep us alive. We only feel hunger and thirst when we’re healthy.
Anorexics are known to fight against their natural feelings of appetite, some until death, or until they are too sick to feel hungry. Similarly, Christians can do the same… or similar… I don’t think I’m fighting against my appetite, but I am weak to respond to it.
A little place down my road... Salmon come and spawn here around about now in the Fall
42:1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival. (ESV)
A number of preachers I admire talk about this Psalm as the kind of thirst where you are parched, dying-of-thirst-in-a-hot-baking-desert kind of thirsty for God. It’s the longing of God, for His presence and fullness.
6 and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life. (ESV)
They talk about how David looks back and remembers the times where He was full in the Lord, overflowing He longs for the Lord and comforts Himself with the Truth, knowing that he will worship the Lord like he once did.
I suppose I must remember how real it was for me when the Lord first called me and saved me. I must remember how true and miraculous it was when He affirmed me and put His desire in me. I remember His promises and His covenant with me.
I remember times in my life when I could spring out of bed and the first thing I wanted to do was to spend time in His Word every morning. I would have such a passion and desire to read His Word. I was full of energy and enthusiasm to do His work, time was on my side and His work seemed burden-less.
I’m force feeding myself. I, sometimes grudgingly, sit myself down and try to put aside some time to read, meditate. It is a half hearted labour… sometime that will keep me alive… but only for short term survival. Eventually this will wear me out.
Is it breakthrough that I should be asking for? I blame myself a lot and wonder what I am failing to do.
Only my God can change my heart and renew my mind and heart. Only He can restore my heart and desire for him. Faith and deeds need to be matched. There can’t be faith without deeds, nor deeds without faith. I know that from every little ounce of faith I have must be acted out by deeds.
Called in to the saving faith at the age of 21, born and raised in England, sent to live in BC, Canada. This is my journey so far as a young single female Christian and mostly what Jesus is doing in my life so far.
I hope to testify to the reality of Jesus in my life, and to see Him bring to completion what He has already started in me.
Here I hope to document and share my walk and like with much vulnerability, honesty and truth to reveal the glory of God in my life.
Keep up to date, connect, follow... blah!
Frozen trees
To-To-Tofino Trip Journal
Fearing Rejection: Why Jesus is the safest and best person to love
Christmas card shopping!! :)
Fig leaves and bad fruit: another reminder of why I need to hear the Gospel everyday
The Blessings of Being a Single Female Christian Missionary
Frankie and the Fish
Wear the Pants: A Secular Fight for Manhood
Frosted Fleece: How Jesus confirmed by calling
Build up
Cravings, Joys and Hurts: Walking in the Fullness of Christ
Struggles of Being a Single Female Christian Missionary
How Dare You: Cowardly men who abuse, neglect and dishonor women
Burn Out: I’ve hit it hard and fast
A Despondent Season: my confession of a burn out
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