in the garden.

I desire to be back in the garden. Literally, I love gardening (yes, especially weeding), but also figuratively speaking: the Garden of Eden where all things flourished and there was no sin. 

Although I have the hope of Christ that allows me to see a future where all things will flourish, I am not naive to the reality that this world sucks sometimes. Broken promises. Food deserts. Inequalities. Weeds. Natural disasters. Fatherless homes. Death. Suicides. Hatred. Selfishness. Economic gap spreads. Caste systems. Sex slavery.

I could go on, but I'll spare you. I pray the Lord quickens His coming, but I trust that He knows what is best for His kingdom.  He alone waters the soil; he alone prepares the soil; he alone causes the earth to spring forth life. We are simply called to spread the message (or the  seed). 

"Be fruitful and multiply. Subdue the earth." This is one of the first commands the Lord tells man. Literally meaning: "Make babies and take care of the earth that I created." However, I also love thinking of it in terms of "kingdom growth." 

God has put specific people in our lives at very specific times. It is up to us to make the most of that time to spread His good news of great joy. As we spread His truth, some of it falls on "hardened soil," some falls on the "rocky soil," some lands in the "thistles and weeds," and some falls on the "rich soil." It the Lord who prepares their soil (aka their hearts); it is the Lord who waters the seed and makes it grow into fruit. However, that does not remove our responsibility to make sure that we spread the seeds where the Lord has placed us. 

As far as subduing the earth: we are called to take care of the earth. Literally, we need to be good stewards of the earth through supporting local farmers and organic farming and thinking about the environment as the Lord's. Figuratively, we need to take care of the people in the area of the world that the Lord has placed us to tend to their soil and make sure their is plenty nutrient-rich soil for them to grow fruit. 

He is the Vine and we are His branches. May we bare good fruit.

Love you all!

Cancer is a B, but my God is Bigger.

Cancer.

It has become one of the most daunting words to hear. 

Ten year ago, I started what was supposed to be the best year of my high school career. Senior year. However, by October, it became one of the most challenging years of high school. October. The month we found out one of my best friends since 6th grade had Hodgkins Lymphoma. It was the first time someone close to me had been diagnosed with something so serious. 

Our friends banded together to surround her with love and encouragement and (most importantly) laughter. By our Senior summer trip, she had beat it. (Take that Cancer!) 

Now, ten years later, I have been forced to face the fact: Cancer is still a bitch. 

This past June my mom went in to see the doctor for some stomach pain she had been having. After a month and a half of testing and doctor's appointments and operations, we were finally given some clear news. It was malignant cancer in her lymph nodes. 

The moment on hearing the news (much like that of ten years prior) I couldn't breathe. If it had not been for my friends and family and all their prayers for me and my family, I'm not sure we would have made it through the last 3 months. 

I now know what "peace that passes all understanding" is. I should not have been able to handle it. Truthfully, I wasn't. (I'm still not.) However, I know that my family and I serve a good God. A God who promises to prosper us not to harm us. So I am resting in the belief and the knowledge that this disease has not won. 

The battle is the Lord's now and forevermore. Of this I am certain.  Not to say that I don't have bad days (especially on those days that it hits me I cannot be with my family as much as I would like to), but I have peace knowing God is the same God who loved me enough to send His son.  This painful season will not last forever and it will not be in vain. My God is good and His mercies are new every morning.  

Sorry for the cursing, but to be frank, cancer sucks but my God is good even still.

Thankful for you all.

Love you all.

There is freedom in the name of JESUS.

Today I decided to write a blog about what God has been teaching me over the past few weeks. This might seem elementary to all you Bible scholars, but it is blowing my mind as of late. A few simple words, but it is changing my world.

"it is finished."

Yep. I've heard this phrase all of my life and thought I understood it until the Holy Spirit knocked me out with this phrase. For most of my life I have been a believer in the God-man, Jesus Christ and been completely in love with Him. Most people who know me, know this about me. However, I have never fully understood how profound these simple words are. Because of what He did on the cross, I no longer have to do anything, no longer have to be anyone other than who He created us to be: image bearers of Himself. Any actions, words or thoughts that we have outside of what He says about us is a lie from the Enemy. 

You see, all we have to do is believe EVERYTHING He says about Himself and about us and it will forever change us. 

What does He say about Himself?

He will never leave you nor forsake you. He is the LORD. He is sovereign. He is working all things to the good of those who love Him. He is compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in mercy. He is just. He is love. He cares for the widows, orphans and the oppressed. He was, is and always will be our Savior forever. He will remain. His words are perfect and trustworthy. He is the standard. He is good. He is powerful. He loves all of what He created. He created all things good. He hates sin. He loves sinners. He fights for us. He seeks after us. He pursues us. He is constant. He will never fail. He will never change.

What does He say about us?

We are clothed in His righteousness. We are redeemed. We are worthy to receive good gifts from Him not because of anything we did or didn't do, but because of what He has done. We are saints. We are the church. We are loved. We are satisfied. We are not lacking anything. We are given every desire of our heart. We are His children. We are the sheep of His pasture. He delights in giving His children good gifts. He delights in us. He sings over us. He sees us as Holy, even on our worst days, so start acting like it. 

 Believe it. Trust it. Be free in it.

Love you guys.

o my soul, faint not

Day and night I cry out to you. In the morning, I praise you for Your new mercies You bring. By evening, I am cursing, crying out in anguish asking, "Why God, why?!" You quickly remind me to go to Your word. LORD, You alone are sovereign. You alone are worthy to be praised. If I were not here calling out Your name, You could just speak and the earth would tremble in holy reverence and fear of Your glory.

 

When we come to the LORD with an honest and earnest heart, desiring to be more like Him, the LORD does not punish us. Instead, He kindly and tenderly calls us back to His truth. 

LORD, I come to you begging and pleading for an answer. Why do some people turn from You and others turn to You? Why are some people in addiction restored, while others are left to rot? LORD, open my eyes to your truth.

The truth is that You are Sovereign even still and love each person that is on earth (the ones who despise You and the ones who love You deeply). Your love is more powerful and more effective than any of my love for them. Your tears overflow for the weeping widow, the orphaned child, the oppressed. Your compassion for Your children is far deeper than anything I could possibly feel with my human heart. Your justice will not be forgotten or overlooked. Your heart beats for Your beloved church. You are coming back for it. You will not leave us or forsake us. You pursue us with Your kindness and gentleness. Your jealousy for us burns like a raging fire. You want nothing less than all of us. Heart. Soul. Mind. Body. 

 

LORD, may we remain faithful to living out in word and in deed Your love, Your compassion, Your justice. Give us wisdom and discernment as to what role we play in Your creation and making all things right. You do not need us to make all things right. You are all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-being, but LORD, thank You that You allow us to take part in Your perfect plan. Thank You that You have proved Yourself faithful and powerful in all things. Your Son's birth, life, death and resurrection. You have conquered all sin and death. We are no longer a slave to our past. In our weaknesses, Your glory shines all the more brighter. 

 

LORD, Give us hearts that break when Yours breaks. Eyes to see supernaturally what only You can see: our hearts. Remind us of Your love and faithfulness when we lose sight of Your Son. 

 

Let us not grow weary and tired, but rather, let our souls find rest in the LORD.

David says, in Psalm 41:1-3

Blessed are those who have regard for the weak;
   the LORD delivers them in times of trouble.
The LORD protects and preserves them—
   they are counted among the blessed in the land—
   he does not give them over to the desire of their foes.
The LORD sustains them on their sickbed
   and restores them from their bed of illness.

 

Jesus says, in Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 

The LORD has definitely been teaching me and reteaching me that He blesses those who are faithful to be obedient with His peace, His love, and His joy.  Let us cling to Him, the One who has conquered death itself, when we feel like loving people is too hard or too complicated. Praise the LORD, it is not up to our human love to reach the lost. It is through the love of the one true GOD that we are able to love deeply, compassionately, and unconditionally.

 

This song speaks to my hearts cry for the church by Jenny and Tyler called "Faint Not": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G3tQKA2GSI

 

the problem’s not a gun, not a color, not a hundred dollar bill
we think the struggle can be won with simple thoughts like 'come together be good willed'
the gap between the rich and poor is spreading out all the more or so they say
we ignore the claims
o my soul, faint not, no
faint not | o my soul, keep up, up
in love
it’s not that we don’t know or we’re not shown the proof of poverty
it’s not that we don’t have the tools to go to break this yoke of slavery
we quit because it’s not an easy fix and then forget that they are even there
we forget to care
o my soul, faint not, no
faint not | o my soul, keep up, up
in love
where there is hatred, let me sow love
where there is injury, let me pardon
where there is darkness, let the Light come, come
o my soul, faint not, no
faint not | o my soul, keep up, up
in love...

broken for brokenness

Brokenness is everywhere. The question isn't why is there brokenness anymore (a.k.a. the fall of man); the question is why am I not broken for it? However, as of late, I feel the Lord breaking my heart over so many things that are breaking His heart. Most recently over the darkness of addiction. Working at The Next Door for the past few months I have seen many women come and go through those doors. However, as I am beginning to invest in these women, feel for these women, and love these women as restored artwork of the Lord, I feel the weight of the pain, the shame, the stress, the yearning to live a life like Christ that they are bearing. I thank the Lord that He has already bore the burden of their addictions on the cross, but I cannot help but constantly pray for them and continued restoration for them.

Lord, help me to release these women to you. Help me to recognize the power of your love in their life and the depth of your love for their life. Lord, I pray that my emotions would not dictate my theology right now because, frankly, I don't see a lot of hope. Thank you for not calling me to save people, but to love people. You do not promise that success will look like we plan. In fact, You promise the exact opposite. You promise us that we will face persecution, we will be rejected, we will not be understood by the world. 

The Lord says to "seek the SHALOM of the city in which [He] have sent [us] into exile" (Jeremiah 29:7). Shalom is often translated as "peace," but Nicholas Wolterstorff defines it as being "the state of flourishing in all dimensions of one's existence: in one's relation to God, in one's relation to one's fellow human being, in one's relation to nature, in one's relation to one's self."  To the best of my understanding this means that the Lord wants me to see to it that I and the people around me (in the city in which He has placed me) flourish in our relationships with the Lord, each other, nature and ourselves. He doesn't just call us to seek the peace of the people in the city with whom we agree, but the city as a whole.

The public school system. The homeless population. The immigrant (both documented and undocumented). The families on food stamps and welfare. The businessmen and women. The young professionals. The ministries.  The local business owners. The farmers. The construction workers. All of which embody the city in which I live. If any of them are not flourishing, we should be praying and seeking earnestly that God will make a way for us to help it flourish or provide someone or some way for them to thrive in peace.

What are some things keeping us from seeing shalom of our cities being a reality? 

Schools spend more money on sports than on books for classes or other extra-curricular activities, such as the arts. Our government is tearing down housing projects to provide a safer environment but they are not providing alternatives for people that were there before. This is pushing people out of their communities they have already established, and into other people’s communities (this is causing turf wars in some areas and the suburbs now have more pockets of poverty and crime than ever before).  The current immigration laws that are in place make it near impossible for many immigrants to gain citizenship and often keep their families in lower economic statuses. 

The root of each of these issues is, of course, sin.

Gary Haugen said, “questions about suffering in the world are not so much questions about God’s character but as questions about the obedience and faith of God’s people.” If sin is disobedience to God and His law, then this proves that sin is what leads to injustice.  Which means to start seeking justice is to repent of our apathy and to begin to care. Once we repent, God can remove the scales from our eyes and we can begin to see people and the city in which we live with different lens. Unable to step back into our old way of thinking, believing, seeing.

However, I must confess I have not done much to seek the shalom of Nashville. What has kept me from living a life actively pursuing justice? Fear. Not of the people I serve. No. I have no trouble making friends with people of different social status or race than me. What I do fear is letting the ones I am serving fully into my life. I keep them at a distance, because secretly (or not so secretly) I do not feel like we were on the same page. I do not want to look into how they got there, because then I might be asked to DO something about it without actually seeing a change for YEARS. This is something that is very frustrating for me. When I shared dinner with my houseless friends, I made sure I could call them by name, but did not dare to ask them how they got there or why they are still there? I am afraid of offending them, making them feel like I see them as different than me, but most of all I fear God calling me to actually get down and dirty with them to get to the root of the problem and sit with them and work with them to fix it. Ouch!

Lord, I want to be made new. Selfishly I want to continue to respond to injustice by “paving over it” or making friends with people different than me because I know I can see results and I do not have to think about what happens after I leave. I know You are constantly changing my world-view to look more like Yours and I pray for a desire to go beyond recognizing the need and the root of the need, and on to being strategic in how You can use me to uproot the dead trees in order to plant new oaks of righteousness.

where does my hope come from?

My heart is troubled by so many things this week.


One being the hundred thousands of people that are left without homes because public housing is now being considered unfit. 


I mean, what did you expect? You put thousands of low income families in one block of each other and do not provide them with efficient resources (i.e. little to no public transit, few places to work, schools lacking proficient resources to educate the youth, few churches near the low income areas that are willing to reach out). Great idea. No follow through. 


So what do we do? O yea, tear down the housing to build up mixed income housing that houses less than half the population that was originally there. Cause that solves the problem. I mean, if you can't see it anymore, then it must no longer is exist, right?? Why is this not bothering people in government? Isn't the local/state/federal government supposed to represent the people's wants and desires? Ok. So, at least the government has an excuse, not all of the members of Congress know the one true God. 


What about the church? The members of the body of Christ? You know, the hands, the feet, the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the heart of Christ. Where are they? Where am I? 
Lord, teach me to be Your hands, Your feet. Open up my heart to feel the pain, the love, the compassion You feel for your people. Let my heart break for the fall of Your creation. Give me insight as to where and how I can be Your hands and feet to those You have placed in my life.


Another thing that struck while I was in Chicago (last week) and even this week when I was hosting, was the overwhelming sense of urgency to reach young people. Every time I work with young people, God reminds me of my purpose: to love, to encourage and to watch the Lord move in there life. No words seem to be required. 


One night, during Urban Intensive, we had the amazing opportunity to sit and chat with two former gang members in Chicago. It was amazing how quickly they began to open up to us about their life and how they became gang members and why they got out. One of the CSM apprentices asked them, what would it take for people like us that come from a background so different from yours to reach you and show you that there is another way of life other than gangs? 


His answer has haunted me all week long. He said, "THIS. Just sittin' around, eatin' pizza and askin' personal questions. Questions that show that you care. Because in a gang, they care about you when you are out on the street, but when it comes to feeling. They want nothing to do with that. So I would say providing a safe place to be open about your feelings, both the good and the bad."


Wow. Who knew it could be that easy? That gets me excited to know that I can potentially make a lasting impact just through pizza. I don't even like pizza that much, but I think it could grow on me if it meant getting to see young people become young adults by sharing life with them and breaking bread with them. These children (I say that, because the boys we talked to were 16 and 17), wanted nothing more that a place to feel accepted and loved. Of all places to turn to for acceptance, shouldn't they be turning to the church? Where is the church? Where would Christ be? Where am I?


Lord, please open up opportunities in the next several months for me to reach out to my community in East Nashville. Specially working with the youth here in East Nashville.


I get overwhelmed with the weight of the needs around me. I forget that the Lord offers to carry the burden with and for me. I am not alone, and the devil does not win.


“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” - John 16:33

alien or neighbor?

After reading Christians at the Borders and talking with Sarah and Carlos (a married couple living in America, she happens to be a natural-born American citizen and he is in the process of attaining American citizenship) about the process of immigration currently, I cannot help but ask myself, "What am I doing about it?"   The answer: Nothing.   For years, I sat in classrooms filled with immigrant children and befriended them, but kept our friendship at a distance. I never once invited them over to eat dinner. I probably made up excuses like, "Their parents probably wouldn't let them come any way." or "They might not like the food." I never once invited them to church with me for fear of my church offending them or maybe it was to keep my church comfortably white. Either way, I am disgusted with my past apathy to others around me from different cultures.   One thing is for certain, I cannot go back to it. The apathy. The passing by. The elitist mindset. I will not.   How could our country built on beautiful, Christian foundational freedoms be the very thing keeping our neighbors from having the freedom to dwell among us. Should everyone be able to come to America? No. However, I do believe it is our responsibility as believers to be the ones who are hospitable to the outsiders. God can reach past language barriers. I've seen it overseas and in Chicago. I need to stop being comfortable in my white community. Still appreciating my culture for what it is: Caucasian Southern American, but stepping out and embracing ALL of those around me. Through talking with Sarah and Carlos and reading the information they have given me, I feel God's hand at work in my life to further push me out of my comfort zone by sharing my desire to see a multi-ethnic church body with my friends who come from a sheltered lifestyle, much like my own.  Some things that I learned thus far: the immigration process makes it virtually impossible for migrants to American to gain citizenship or even a green card or visa. The easiest route to take would be marrying or being child of a U.S. Citizen. Even still, it can take several years and thousands of dollars to complete the whole process. Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't make sense charge someone who can barely afford their house payments and bills thousands of dollars to APPLY to become citizens or even for legal residency. Oh, and did I mention that you have to make a certain amount in order to even qualify, but you don't find out you are disqualified until you apply (which cost money that they probably didn't have). Does this make sense to anyone else? If so, please explain to me. Anyway, enough ranting. What I would love to see happen is our churches step up to the plate and love the foreigners in our land as God commands. "When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God" (Lev. 19:33-34). If you are against reading the old testament, lets look at how Jesus sees them and wants us to treat them (Luke 10:29-37):  But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”    Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” Hmmm...just a thought, but wouldn't this include people living among us that are from other countries? If so, why are we as a church body (I am including myself in this question, don't you worry) not reaching out to help people of different  nationalities in our own country, perhaps in our own neighborhoods? Are we scared of saying the wrong thing? Are we scared of the awkwardness? Are we apathetic to the whole situation? Do we not want to believe that this kind of prejudice and inequality exist here in our country? Do we feel like they should fully assimilate to our culture in order for us to accept them? Do we even care whether or not they feel loved unless they are in their home country? These are just a few questions I am wrestling with God about in my own heart, and I hope you will join me in doing so too! Praise the Lord! My God is a "God to whom nothing human is alien" ("Space for God" by Don Postema p.159) I am going to leave you with this video http://www.youtube.com/invisiblesfilms. We must ask ourselves what is just and how are we going to allow God to use us to bring justice to His people? The ones He created. You. Me. The foreigners in our land.

Blessings!