Your hearts will rejoice

Through a season of struggling, of emotional ups and downs, of disappointments, and of striving to cling to the promises of God even in darkness, God is bringing me into a place of rejoicing.  I want nothing more than to shout his name.  His merciful design to bring us joy and hope and freedom through Christ, which, as he does this, brings him so much glory as we praise him and declare his name, is incredible and awe-inspiring.  Praise God for his faithfulness! 

“So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” John 16:22

Our joy cannot be shaken because it resides in one who is eternal and immovable, and because of the way he conquered death, we are also now eternal.  Because he lived, we also live (John 14:19)…and we live to rejoice in Jesus and declare his holy name to all nations! 

Worship is taking on a whole new meaning for me right now.  This is a song/artist I can’t get enough of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXQkX5kVJvE

Remember the days of your youth

Last week on campus one of my friends who’s not a believer asked me if I have any vices.  Coming from a guy who struggles with alcoholism and has some dysfunctional relationships with women, I know he looks at my life and thinks I have no vices and that it’s easy for me to profess God’s love…because why wouldn’t God love me? …And how could God ever love him?

It saddens me the way this man carries his shame, and because of it, the way he rejects God.  When I read Ezekiel 16, I’m struck by how far we all are from God.  When I look at my life and the general direction that our world is going, I cannot pretend that we don’t all have our “vices,” and worse than that, that we aren’t all active participants in this whoring nation that is against God. 

I’m going to be harsh right now, but I think that’s what’s necessary for us to “remember the days of [our] youth, when [we] were naked and bare, wallowing in [our] blood” (Ezekiel 16:22).  We were at one time slaves to sin and death, but God in his mercy has redeemed us and drawn us into a relationship with himself.  Yet we act as though that is not enough.  Like the Israelites who whored themselves to different nations, seeking the power and wealth of Egyptians, Assyrians, Philistines, and many others, we set our eyes on the things of this world.  We seek stability, comfort, wealth, and success, and while none of these are bad things to desire, we have to question where we are seeking these things.  I fear that we (and I  know that I am often guilty of this) look to the world and to the world’s standards to define these things and are left unsatisfied.  And rather than respond to this dissatisfaction by seeking the Lord, the only place where we will truly be satisfied and find peace and comfort, we look to something else we think will accomplish that. 

“Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband!” Ezekiel 16:32

We act as prostitutes, giving our hearts, our time, our minds, to one who is not our Lord.  We set up idols for the purpose of pleasuring ourselves, and unless we recognize the severity of our sin and repent, we will bear the penalty of our abominations  just as the Israelites did. 

Fortunately for us, the story does not end there! 

“…Yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant…I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you all that you have done, declares the Lord God.” Ezekiel 16:60, 62-63

Even though our sins are great and we are like whores, God is faithful to remember his covenant with us.  He promises that he will atone for (cover over, stand as an equivalent, a propitiation or compensation) our sins.  And he has done this by sending his son Jesus Christ!  The one who is the very glory and essence of the Creator God came down to earth to stand as an equivalent for you and me, the prostitutes and whores of the world.  Praise God!

So I encourage all of you, and I remind myself, to “remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bared, wallowing in your blood,” remember the mercy of the Lord who brought you out of that nakedness, and seek hard after him!  He is the only one who can satisfy and redeem you and me from our lowly position…and not only does he redeem us, but he also exalts us to be made co-heirs with Christ! I pray that we would not take this lightly, but in our joy and gratitude, we would fix our eyes intently on the Lord and never turn away!

Praying Specifically

I’ve been learning a lot about prayer recently (it seems like I say that every week, but there is so much to learn!).  God has been challenging me to pray specifically for the things that are on my heart…it’s not like he doesn’t already know these desires, but sometimes it can feel selfish to pray for things I want or to ask within a certain time frame.  I think we like to be vague in our prayers and just say “your will be done” over and over again because we don’t want to be disappointed or we don’t want to seem selfish. 

But here are my thoughts on that:

I am a daughter of God.  I have the Holy Spirit inside me working on my heart to change it from the selfish, sinful heart that it once was into one that is set fully on the Lord.  Because I am his and because I am seeking him, I am able to know his will and I can pray with confidence that what I’m praying is his will. 

As his children, we come “with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18).  We have seen the glory of the Lord in the person of Jesus Christ, and we hear his voice both through the word spoken to us in the Bible and the words he graciously speaks to us daily. And because we know him intimately, because we see  his glory and hear his voice, we are able to pray and share our hearts with him and know that our hearts are aligned to his. 

Further, God wants us to pray specifically so that when we see those specific prayers answered, we can know that it was all him and we can praise him even more!  He delights in showing us his power and his love for us- power that he is in control of all things and love in that he wants to bless us with give us the desires of our heart.  As we are “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2), we can pray specifically and confidently because our desires are aligned with God’s desires and the things we want to see are the things God wants to accomplish (but we must constantly be gazing on Jesus).  And as we pray for them specifically, God gets to show us even more of his greatness and his goodness by fulfilling those things. 

* * *

Some things I’m praying for:

That 150 students would come to the outreach we have this week

That God would raise up a man to lead a bible study in the Food Engineering Department (Frank)

For a leader for a bible study in the Psychology Department

To see Elias, Julio, Fatima, Bryant, and Geovanny begin to walk with the Lord before we leave

To see 40 students come on our mission trip in April, all of them raising the $150 needed to go

To see job stuff for after STINT worked out before I get home in June

I will praise him.

This week was not what I expected (this seems to be the common theme of my year on STINT…struggling with unmet expectations).  We went to the Dominican Republic for our midyear retreat with staff from the states and STINT teams from the DR and Venezuela.  The goal of midyear, and what I had hoped for, is to be able to rest, learn how to love God and your team more, and go home with renewed excitement and vision for ministry.  These seem like great things, right?

Well, that wasn’t exactly my experience.  At all.  A teammate and I both got sick the first day of the retreat.  The rest of the week was spent sleeping, not eating, and making frequent trips to the bathroom.  And every time someone asked me how I was doing or how the trip was going for me, I was at a loss.  I wasn’t on my feet for more than 20 minutes at a time…how good can it be going? 

I was confused, frustrated, exhausted, and most of all hungry.  And as we left for the airport this morning, all I could do was plead with God that I would make it home without being sick all over the plane/airport/teammates. 

As I sat in the airport trying to process through all my unmet expectations for the week and not getting any clear answer, I realized I can focus on my confusion and hurt, asking God “Why?,” and maybe never getting a satisfactory answer, or I can focus on what I know to be true.  I can fight the schemes of the devil with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God.  So I opened up to Exodus 15 and started to praise God. 

“The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”

Regardless of my circumstances or my feelings, I believe in a God who is greater than my understanding.  I don’t need to understand all his reasoning because I know that he is good.  God is glorious in power, great in his majesty, and his right hand shatters the enemy (Exodus 15:6-7). 

“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like  you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?”

I have seen countless examples in the Bible and in my own life of God working out his good and bringing glory to himself.  And not only does he bring praise to his own name, he promises for all those who love him that he will work all things together  for good (Romans 8:28). 

“You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.”

His story and his plan for redemption is so much bigger than mine.  He has plans for my life that go so far beyond a week of rest, plans that use weeks like this to refine me, to root me in the truth of his goodness, and to give me the ability to rejoice even more in him.  Knowing that truth makes weeks like this seem so insignificant in light of the promises of future glory in his presence that I know is to come!

“You will bring them in and plant then on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.  The Lord will reign forever and ever.”

Perseverance

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything…even now, I don’t really want to write anything.  My time in El Salvador thus far has been one filled with ups and downs.  There are so many sweet things that I’ve seen so far and so many reasons to be praising God, but honesty, it has also been incredibly difficult for me.  These past 6 months have been filled with struggle and with learning what it means to persevere. 

I’m learning what it means to cling to God’s promises and to maintain a firm hope in him even when my emotions and when circumstances tell me otherwise.  I am also seeing even more of the beauty and the glory of God and how worthy he is to be hoped in. 

There is still so much to be done in this country and my heart hurts for the people here, and although my body is weak and my flesh wants a break, I have been called to persevere.  I have been called to lay aside the weights of this world and run hard after the Lord.

God spoke to me this morning through this:

“But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” Jude 20-21

I have seen so much of God’s love in the past 6 months that we’ve been here (and I hope to do a better job of recounting some of the incredible things we have seen/will see in the weeks to come), and I know that I can rest secure in him.  This is how we persevere.  We build ourselves up in our faith in God, our knowledge of who he is and the promises he has for us.  We pray in the Holy Spirit to give us faith and the strength to persevere.  We keep ourselves in the love of God.  We remind ourselves daily of his goodness (the good things he has done for us) and his greatness (his character, his glory, his majesty).  We take our eyes off of ourselves and instead look to him.  We wait patiently and hopefully for the fullness of his mercy and salvation to come when Jesus returns and we are sanctified completely and get to experience the joy of eternal life in the presence of our Creator and Savior. 

Finally, a verse I’ve been holding onto recently:

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Just some light reading over breakfast

This morning I was reading Isaiah 58, and God is very much convicting me of this passage right now.  Isaiah 58 is all about the kind of fasting that the Lord has chosen.  The true fasting that the Lord desires is this:

“to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke…to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house,” to cover the naked and not to turn away from your family…”to pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desires of the afflicted”…and to follow God’s path and do not seek your own pleasure.

Being here in El Salvador, a place that is known to be predominately Christian/Catholic but where approximately 10 people are killed per day and where more than half the population lives on less than $2 per day, the Lord’s words (“You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high”) are so much more real. 

As I was reading this morning, my heart was burdened for El Salvador, for the States, and for Christians around the world.  We are not truly fasting.  We are not pouring ourselves out for other people…so how can we expect the Lord to hear us?  This is not me saying that our works will determine the Lord’s response…God is not a gumball machine.  But God wants to see our hearts set on him.  He wants us to have hearts like his, hearts that long for him and that hurt for the injustice in the world.  He wants us to take steps of faith, to be willing to humbly give ourselves to others, and to believe that he will show up. 

I’m not sure that I can say that we truly know the Lord and have seen and experienced the fullness of God’s grace in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for us if we are unwilling to follow that example.  Jesus is our example of true fasting…he poured out his entire life for us.  And how can I respond to that with anything less? 

This world is dark and the people here are broken.  Often it’s easy to forget that when we’re living in suburban California, but even there, people are hurting.  They are lost in darkness.  And God is calling us to bring light to these places.  He has promised us that

When we call, he will answer,

His righteousness will go before us and his glory will be our rear guard,

He will guide us and satisfy our needs,

He will use us to repair and restore broken cities filled with broken people,

And we will find our delight in the Lord. 

But first we must fast.  We must humble ourselves, acknowledge that we are selfish and at times it is difficult to even desire to help other people or be burdened by injustice in the world.  And then we must cry out.  We must ask the Lord to work, first in our hearts so that we would have that desire to give of ourselves and then in the world.  And then we take a step of faith.  One at a time.  Knowing that God goes before us and that he will use us to loose the bonds of wickedness and bring his light and healing to a dark and broken world. 

Read this.

This book is rocking my world right now.  Read it.

“The work of the Spirit can be compared to mining. The Spirit’s work is to blast to pieces the sinner’s hard­ness of heart and his frivolous opposition to God. The period of the awakening can be likened to the time when the blasts are fired. The time between the awakenings corresponds, on the other hand, to the time when the deep holes are being bored with great effort into the hard rock.

To bore these holes is hard and difficult and a task which tries one’s patience. To light the fuse and fire the shot is not only easy but also very interesting work. One sees “results” from such work. It creates interest, too; shots resound, and pieces fly in every direction!

It takes trained workmen to do the boring. Anybody can light a fuse.

This fact sheds a great deal of light upon the history of revivals, a history which is often strange and incompre­hensible.

There are many people who would like to light the fuse. Many would like to be evangelistic preachers. And some preachers are even so zealous that they light a fuse before the hole has been bored and explosive matter put in place. The resulting revival becomes, therefore, noth­ing but a little display of fireworks!

During a revival our zeal for souls is so great that we are all active. Some are so active that they are almost dangerous during an after-meeting. When, on the other hand, the awakening has subsided, and everyday con­ditions, perhaps even dry seasons, return, then most of us lose our zeal and cease our activity.

But that is just when the Spirit calls us to do the quiet, difficult, trying work of boring holy explosive material into the souls of the unconverted by daily and unceasing prayer. This is the real preparatory work for the next awakening. The reason why such a long period of time elapses between awakenings is simply that the Spirit can­not find believers who are willing to do the heavy part of the mining work.”

Let us join together in the hard work of unceasing prayer so that when revival comes, it will come with an explosion in the hearts of all men that brings the whole world to its knees in awe of our Lord and Savior!

A Celebration Like No Other

El Salvador celebrated its independence day September 15th…while we had a staff meeting.  For the most part, the city shuts down on this day.  Roads are blocked off, kids have a holiday from school, and families swarm the streets to watch parades and celebrate their country. 

One of the big spots to celebrate and watch fireworks is right next to a large statue called “Salvador del Mundo” (Savior of the world):

As I think about this huge celebration, my heart yearns for these people.  I long that they would worship at the feet of the true Savior with such passion and excitement.  I pray that when Christ comes, the people of El Salvador can rejoice and celebrate.  I pray that they would not be afraid of death, that they would not be crying out “Lord, Lord” only to hear “I never knew you.”  

And I pray that even now they would see and know God and would desire more of him.  I pray that they would be proclaiming, both in their words and in their actions,  

“Who knows all that the fullness of God might mean in my life? But I have tasted of the glory of God in the face of Christ, and I know I want all that he has to give.  I want to see more of God, to love more of God, to reflect more of God.  I want the Holy Spirit to be poured out in my life in ways that I have never known.” –John Piper

I pray that this would be so true for myself, for the people of El Salvador, and for all the nations.  I pray that we would long for more of Jesus- to see him more, to love him more, to reflect him more, and to give all of ourselves to him in praise and adoration.  And I pray that as we are filled up with his love and his power and his grace, we would pour that out onto every person we meet…so that all the world would praise the name of the Savior in the greatest celebration of all eternity. 

Living fearfully

“The Lord bids me ‘fear not’—and at the same time he says, ‘Happy is the man who fears always.’ How to fear and not to fear at the same time is, I believe, one branch of that secret of the Lord which none can understand but by the teaching of his Spirit. When I think of my heart, of the world, of the powers of darkness—what cause of continual fear! I am on an enemy’s ground, and cannot move a step but some snare is spread for my feet. But when I think of the person, grace, power, care, and faithfulness of my Savior, why may I not say—I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord Almighty is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge. I wish to be delivered from anxious and unbelieving fear, which weakens the hands and disquiets the heart. I wish to increase in a humble jealousy and distrust of myself and of everything about me.” –John Newton

How my heart yearns for this to be true of myself and the world!  I pray for hearts that are emboldened because they rest in the knowledge of who Jesus Christ is and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in them but at the same time are humbled and brought to a place of reverent fear as they recognize how great, glorious, and majestic is our God.

Read this: http://www.gracegems.org/24/vital_godliness13.htm

And remember this: “In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and his children shall have a place of refuge.” Proverbs 14:26

It’s just a phase…right?

Right now I’m in a dry place…well not exactly a dry place.  I’m not exactly sure how I would describe it.  I guess it’s more of a “struggling to put my sin to death and fully live in the power of God’s truth” kind of phase…you know, just a phase.  It will pass (like when we go to heaven and Jesus restores the whole world).

I study the Bible and I get really excited about what I’m learning.  I can see God’s truths so clearly and how they apply to my life and to other people’s lives.  I’m encouraged and challenged, and I’m able to encourage and challenge others by what I’m learning. 

But then I walk onto campus and I freeze.  My heart is filled with fear and doubt, and I become overwhelmed by…everything. 

So what does it take to transfer the head knowledge, the things we have learned and know to be true, into heart knowledge, the things that are rooted deeply in us and create lasting change?

The answer is Jesus Christ! It’s always Christ!

In our team bible study this week, we studied Colossians 2:6-23 and the thing that really stood out to me was how often the phrases “in Christ” or “with Christ” or “by Christ” were used.  Paul is reminding the Colossians, who were relying on their head knowledge of the law (and thus falling into legalism), that their hope and freedom, their joy and redemption, and that which will actually enable them to change and put sin to death is Jesus Christ! It is in him and by him and with him that we are able to have any heart change.  And for those of us who have already received him, we can rest assured knowing that we “have been given fullness in Christ” (v. 9), we are alive with Christ and completely forgiven (v. 13).  Our sin has been nailed to the cross…and not only that, it has been made a public spectacle, shamed, and triumphed over (v. 14-15)!

Even now, in this time of feeling “dry,” or not seeing God’s truth victorious over my sin in the way I would like to see it, I can still rest assured that it is being done by Christ.  In this time of waiting, God is teaching me patience and humility, and he is teaching me to trust his promises even when I don’t think I see them being manifested the way I imagine they should be.  I admit this is a process…and right now I’m in the middle of the struggle rather than at the end declaring God’s victory.  But at the same time, regardless of how I’m “feeling,” the reality is that Christ has been victorious over all my sin.  He has declared, “It is finished.” 

And I am still praising him that even though I feel weak and faithless, He is always faithful.  Praise God that my salvation is not dependent on me! Praise God that it is dependent on a faithful, merciful, gracious God who has known the worst of my sin and still took it to the cross!  Praise God that even though it might be most like will be a constant battle to put my sin to death, Christ has already been victorious and he is the one who will fight this battle for me.