Faith of a mustard seed

Yesterday I was reading a friends blog and she stated the following:

“I feel like I’ve been bombarded with the message that victory is ours for the taking, if we just reach out in faith and grab it. God will provide whatever you need, if you can just “faith” your way to receiving it.”

She went on to relay what she felt victory as a Christian really means.  We have all struggled with this thought at some point in our lives.  A problem jumps up and you hear that little whisper “well if you just had enough faith it would all go away”.  But what if faith is more than that? 

There are many theologians out there who can argue for the faith movement and against it, and I am not one of them.  However, time and time again I have seen the truth of it in my life.  Bad things have happened to me, around me and even to those I do not know.  Yet, I have seen little evidence that willing yourself to faith has very little impact on the outcome.

Now let me explain before you get all riled up!  When my parents first divorced I still had faith in God and believed He could bring them back together.  But I watched as their choices took them away from each other, causing my trust in God to disappear, but my faith was still intact .  “Now Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” Hebrews 11:1.  As I walked the next 15 years, I had faith that God was real.  However, I choose to not trust Him and ended up doing things that harmed myself and others around me.  Even people who had faith in a big God and trusted His goodness were harmed by my actions.  I have many examples of this, but they really don’t matter.  The point I am trying to make is how does faith in God and His promises get reconciled in a fallen world?  For me, my definition of God and faith both need to change. 

In the bible there are multiple examples of bad things happening to good people and God never explains why.  Job was credited as a man of great faith, yet God let him be destroyed.  Abraham as well, but God let him impregnate his servant.  Why?  Maybe because our faith isn’t about us or what God can give us, but more about His glory and who He is.

I am writing this as I face getting on a plane to India by myself.  I am terrified, want to bury my head in the sand, cry for hours, not get on that plane, run away and end up in the belly of a whale.  But none of this changes my “faith” in who God is.

He is a big God and I believe and trust that He IS GOOD, regardless of the outcome.  There are many scary things that could happen (Daniel had to walk into a den of lions, 3 men had to walk into a fiery furnace, Esther had to walk into the court of the king), but I choose to trust God’s path for my life.  Regardless of where it may take me.

Over and over people tell me that I am brave for doing this and I cringe.  I am not brave, my journey is no different than yours, and my faith is no greater than yours.  It is all about choices, we all make them every day.  Some that matter in the big scheme of things and some that really don’t.  But it is always a choice…trust that God is good, regardless of what is on the other side of that scary black fog He is telling you to walk into, and trust that His goodness does not change.  EVER.

I choose to TRUST.

Silent no more

I am currently in the process of reading a book titled “Lioness Arising” by Lisa Bevere and it has really given me some stuff to ‘chew’ on.  This morning she was talking about women’s role in the church and how in America the Christian body has diminished the value of women leaders.  She went on to tell a story about a Face book post she made that started a very controversial discussion about whether women can be leaders or not.  Of course this brought a broad out people on both sides who spoke very vehemently on the subject.  Then she quoted a comment from a man which struck home to me.  “Why are you women arguing against yourselves?  We need your contribution, but you are stopping each other!”

It then struck me that the majority of the previous comments she listed had been women angrily forcing their sisters into silent submission.  But we are not called to be silent.  God did not create us as merely baby makers.  We are charged with raising children, the most noble and difficult job on the planet. Yet how can we do this if we do not use our voice to stand strong for what we believe and hold our husbands to account for their behavior or lack of leadership.  A perfect example of this silent submission is Abraham’s wife Sarah.  How many times did she allow Abraham to pass her off as his sister due to his fear.  I wonder what glory would have been shown to God is she only would have put her foot down and said I” will not let you disrespect me that way, and God is bigger than this problem!” 

I wonder…

Eowyn

I had the pleasure of three days off this weekend and on a whim decided to have a Lord of the Rings marathon.  On Saturday a friend of mine was telling me how she and her husband often discuss which character they are more like.  While I have often seen myself in different aspects of the different characters, I have never thought I was like one, or ever could be.  As I was watching the first film I decided to ask her who she thought I was and she said Eowyn. 

Eowyn, really?  Isn’t she the one who falls for Aragorn and gets her heart broken?  Oh ok, that sounds like me…So with an open mind I watched the remaining three films and slowly the inner strength and courage of Eowyn began to emerge.  She is a somewhat silent character, who speaks more by her actions than by her words.  She has an inner strength and often finds herself in places where she must lead those around her.  At one point she rides into battle as a man to fight along side those she loves, because she can’t do otherwise.  She was created to fight injustice, to stand strong against evil and defeat the evil that no ‘man’ could. 

As I neared the end of the movie, my respect for this character had grown.  While, I see aspects of her that are similar to me, I do not feel I measure up to her in anyway.  She is however who I aspire to be, a woman of strong character.  A woman whose identity is defined more by my actions than merely by words.  A woman who is courageous in battle and willing to forego my own life for those I love.

Daily I battle against the fear that lurks in my heart.  The road that God has me on seems scary most directions I look at it.  But in reality what is there to fear when death means eternity with Christ.  So what really scares me about the path I am on?  At this point I am not sure.  It could be the fear of the unknown, or even a fear that I am not as strong as others seem to think.  But mostly I fear that my actions will not speak the truth of Christ or that I will not have the courage to speed headlong into battle when I am called to go.  Most importantly I fear the persecution I may face.  That I will not be able to stand up for my Lord when called to do so.

These are my fears…

The chains of fear

Sunday morning I snapped under the weight of my fear.  I broke down at the foot of the cross and admitted to God what He already ken.  My fear, the wound harbored in my soul, is the fear of being unprotected. 

When I was young I didn’t know what protection was, I didn’t understand what I was walking away from when I walked away from God.  All this time I have looked towards men around me hoping they would protect me.  Time and time again that arrow would pierce my heart at the humanness of men.  Tonight I stood before God with the arrow of fear at my throat.  I looked into His eyes and saw everything I ever longed for.  He beckoned me to step out of the chains in into His protection.  I leapt, refusing to be bound by these chains any more, by the mind games that lie to me about what I need. 

I expected to feel the arrow pierce my soul, but instead it snapped!  I landed in His arms and felt the full embrace of my true Strong Tower.

Where does it stop?

Several weeks ago I read an article where a former victim of sex trafficking personally asked the NFL and the Super Bowl Host committee to join forces with Traffick911 and their “I’m Not Buying It” campaign.  They never responded.  I haven’t been able to let it go.  I have continually asked God what I should do about it.  Should I not watch the Super bowl in protest?  Or just voice my concerns and bring to light the irony of this.

Every year millions of people watch the super bowl.  Thousands of people are lucky enough to watch it in person.  Thousands have invaded the Dallas Ft. Worth area this week just for the experience of the Super Bowl.  And with that comes the thousand of pimps dragging their sex slaves to make them millions.

I wish I could go back in time and find the moment where our country stopped being the land of the Free and became the land of “well as long as they aren’t hurting me I guess it is ok”.

I am disgusted by the lack of responsibility that the NFL and the Host Committee have voice in their decision to remain silent.  Often all it takes is one voice to start an uproar and one voice to silence it.  As someone somewhere said, “For evil to prosper all it needs is for good people to do nothing”. 

As you watch the Super Bowl today, please take the time, to pray for those who have lost their freedoms.  The ones who can’t say no, or stop the atrocities that happen to them every day.  And pray that we as Christians would begin to hold the world accountable for their actions.

What 35 means to me!

Tomorrow I turn 35!  I am more excited about this birthday than any so far!  It is hard to explain but there is a sense of freedom in my 35th year.  Freedom from goals of the heart, that I really had no control over.

My 25th birthday was the worst birthday of my life.  I had just become a police officer, broken up with my boyfriend and decided to drink my self senseless.  Honestly I don’t even remember the night, just that I was miserable and I wanted it all to go away.  I was devastated that a quarter of my life was gone, I was divorced and hated myself.  That year I started seeing a counselor and realized that I was partly depressed because I had always dreamed I would be married at least by 25.  So she told me to set a more realistic goal. 

So I decided (once again there is that phrase), that in a perfect world I would be married at 30 and have children by 35.  So this summer as the days passed, I began to grow more and more despondent and I didn’t know why.  Then this dawned on me that once again I had not reached my goal.

Here is where the story changes and God shows me what a new creation I am in Him!  I turned to Him in my agony and cried out why am I still alone!?!?  With a smile on his face that stretched from ear to ear, He simply said “isn’t it great!”  I was heartbroken, and whispered, “Lord I thought you loved me?”  With more compassion than my statement deserved, He wrapped me in His arms and whispered, “from here on out, all this is left is My will, yours is no longer in the way”. 

I cried into His arms for a while.  As that comment sank into my heart, the most amazing feeling of freedom and love rushed into the agonies place.  I no longer have to worry about trying to achieve my goals!  The only thing left for me to focus on is His will for my life! 

I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT HE DOES!!

The beauty of Death

Today I was enjoying the beauty of the fall color here in the Northwest and was struck by how beautiful death is through the eyes of our creator.  The leaves in reality are dying therefore they are changing colors.  However, the display of their beauty as they die is somewhat surreal.  We see the same thing in the reality of a butterfly, a sunset or even a storm.  Something must die for life to continue.  For a tree to keep growing, each season it must die.  If it dies in the fall then goes dormant for winter, so that it grows in the spring, then flourishes in the summer.  But it must allow fall to enter its life if it ever wants to see spring again.  The same with a caterpillar, it must allow itself to become nothing to be reborn as a butterfly.  Or the sunset, must happen in order for the sun to rise the next day.  I could go on and on.  Then something else happened…

I listened to  a sermon today about the ‘meantime”, and what it is we are to do in the meantime. http://www.lifechurch.tv/watch/planted 

Stay with me here, the two stories tie together!  His point was that in the Christian life we have a tendency to focus on where we are going or where we have come from.  But what do we do in the meantime, that time in between while we wait for God to work.  The pastor referenced Matthew 8, using the story where Jesus calms the storm and how the disciples in the boat knew that they had been called by the Messiah.  They knew where they were coming from (the shore) and they knew where they were going(the other side).  However, they were in the ‘meantime’ stuck in a boat in the midst of a storm feeling as if death was imminent.  But they forgot who Christ was and that His will, WILL be done.  Not might be done.  God is God and His will, WILL be done.  Often we forget this, and in the midst of the storm, instead of clinging to what we KNOW to be true, we turn and want to head back to where we came from.  But as the pastor put it, Christ often wants us to learn to stay in the boat.  We must be willing to step out of the boat for sure and even walk on water when He calls.  But what happened to Peter when He forgot who Christ was, He began to sink. 

Now how does the ‘meantime’ tie in with fall colors and the sunset.  Often during our dying periods, or when we are walking through the darkness, we forget who we are.  Or at least I do.  I forget that I am a new creation in Christ, indwelled with the power of the Spirit.  That I speak with the power of the Spirit and can call on Him whenever!  Yet I so often return to who I was.  Not acting the way I did, but living in fear of that person.  That girl who was enslaved by things of the world instead of in voluntary servitude to Christ.  Also, while in this phase, we forget where God has called us to, the path He sends us on takes more of a pleasure tour of the lake, then a direct shot across.  That is what I see now.  A few months ago, I felt God light a passion in my heart that is smoldering still today.  Yet, when i tried to go without Him I fell flat on my face.  Yet He is shifting my path in a different direction than I thought it would go.  So now the doubts set in.  Am I hearing Him right, did I misunderstand that call on my heart, what was Him, what was me…I could go on for hours.  But the truth remains that I do not have the answers to these questions.  And all I can do, is crawl back to the foot of the cross, spend time in His presence and wait for Him to move.

Oh the beauty of dying to yourself, to be fully reborn as a child of the King of Kings (a Princess, dressed in heavenly robes). :)